Although someone had tipped me off, I found myself spellbound as I walked the streets of Trnava at the number of cathedral spires skewering the cloudy sky. Their contours--barbed, bulbous, bold--rose above the roofs of shops and houses and concrete vestiges of communism. I sensed their theatrical appeal, urging me to soar with them, beyond the concerns of the present and the offenses of the past--to penetrate eternity. These points had a point: to point to God.
I knew that I stood on foreign ground.
Other changes had struck me: confusion of tongues and the physical twilight zone of a different longitude. But the first worldlessly visible distinction between my homeland and Trnava was this: the inescapable hegemony of religion (hated, outdated, celebrated--depict it as you please) over the skyline.
The casual observer, chancing upon one of our modest white steeples gently needling the heavens, can easily miss its message, and has no trouble ignoring it. In Trnava, they leave nothing to chance. The traveler must see, must react in some way.
America hints, nudges, whispers. It respects the sensibilities of its audience at the cost of being ignored.
Europe provokes, propels, cries out. Unaccustomed to such audacity, I balk. But I heed the message, regardless.
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