Life & Wisdom Quote by Charles de Lint

De Lint’s question isn’t a cheap shot at faith so much as a seductive reframe of where the sacred is allowed to live. By picturing churchgoers “locking themselves away in the dark,” he casts institutional worship as a kind of self-imposed blindness, a ritual of enclosure that trades sensory abundance for safety, certainty, and permission. The line works because it stages a vivid contrast: inside is dim, barred, and controlled; outside is “real glory,” a phrase that smuggles in an argument about authenticity. “Real” implies something unmediated and unscripted, a holiness you don’t need a priest or a pew to validate.

The subtext is classic de Lint: a fantasy writer’s suspicion that modern life has been anesthetized by structures that promise meaning but also narrow it. In his work, wonder is often street-level and ecological - magic in neighborhoods, in weather, in the overlooked margins. This question reads like a manifesto for immanent spirituality: the world itself is the cathedral, and the cost of retreating indoors is missing the transcendent hiding in plain sight.

There’s also a quieter critique of fear. Churches can be refuge, but “locking” suggests anxiety about contamination - by nature, by complexity, by difference. De Lint pokes at the bargain: you get community and doctrine, but you risk turning “glory” into a managed experience. The provocation lands because it doesn’t argue; it invites you to step outside and test, with your own eyes, what you’ve been told to seek elsewhere.