In all ranks of life the human heart yearns for the beautiful; and the beautiful things that God makes are God's gift to all alike.
~ by Harriet Beecher Stowe
The divine presence that we sense in sacred places is often reinforced by architecture and decoration that reflect our aspirations toward the heavens.A sacred place requires a clear spiritual focus and separation from its physical surroundings.The word "temple" (and the associated activity of contemplation) -- Latin templum --means a piece of land marked off from ordinary uses and dedicated to the divine.Sacred structures provide expressions of, rather than merely a shell for, numinous experience