In the spring of 2008, Jon Sweeney set out to discover firsthand two of the finest examples of medieval faith, the Abbey of Mont St. Michel, on the Normandy coast, and the soaring Chartres Cathedral, in the fields of the Loire Valley one hour south of Paris. Stepping beyond the purely intellectual, armchair journey, he uncovers what once drove men to construct enormous abbeys and cathedrals, with gargoyles, rounded arches, rose windows, dark recesses, and flying buttresses. In the modern imagination, these structures are believed to tell a series of fictions about the meaning of life; but this anachronism would have made no sense to their actual, medieval creators. Instead, Sweeney offers a series of reflections on seven words of Gothic spirituality - using the two magnificent constructions of Mont St. Michel and Chartres. Space, sanctuary, stone, light, darkness, gargoyles, and flight are all shown to be essential ways of being Christian today.