Remembering the Tabernacle

As I mourn the loss of the Provo Tabernacle, which burned last night, I remember something I wrote a decade ago about the structure:

On a warm Sunday afternoon, I studied the stained-glass windows of the Provo Tabernacle. Columns of blue rise to meet arcs of green that shelter open books. Green and purple frame candles on fields of white and gold. Colors glow from every corner, and the windows' beauty is reflected in the entire structure, as cream-colored stones accent lancet windows and cone-shaped roofs cap corner turrets. Surveying the building that day, I was awed by the feat of its creation.

Completed in 1898, the tabernacle grew, orange brick on orange brick, out of the unpolished childhood of Provo. During the same period, the town's less than 6,000 residents also erected the imposing Brigham Young Academy building; religion and education were important to the early residents of Provo.

As I considered their works, I was humbled at the sacrifice of those who raised grace and elegance in a coarse context. The Provo Tabernacle, like other such buildings, is a monument to the faith of its builders.