It’s easy to be inspired in a cathedral. The soaring heights. The beautiful stained glass. The detailed wall-hangings. The memorials to the leaders of past generations. The awareness of long-ago planning and design and construction and craftsmanship and decades of perseverance — the sheer human accomplishment will rock you, if you pause and take it all in.

But cathedrals aren’t part of my daily life. Yes, the Hagia Sophia is on my bucket list, but I don’t expect to get there anytime soon, with the economy the way it is. Visiting cathedrals is something that takes special effort, to get there, and to remember to go. There are so many tourist attractions with larger advertising budgets to grab your attention when you’re planning a vacation.

Travelling to or from a Disney vacation a few years ago, I noticed a small gift shop for the Kennedy Space Center in the Orlando airport. It planted the seed that once, just once, we should go there. See where the shuttles are launched. See the exhibits. See the “home” of that space station we’ve seen overhead so many times. Finally, on this last vacation, we made it.

Kennedy Space Center was inspiring. The height of the rockets. The huge, beautiful images from the Hubble telescope. All of the engineering details that went into the buildings and the launch pads and the shuttle and the space station. The memorials to the astronauts lost in the effort to explore our beautiful universe. The sense of human accomplishment brought tears to my eyes, and goosebumps to my arms.

Inspiration makes an impression. It can be covered by the day-to-day, but it lies beneath the surface, ready to carry you beyond the mundane. Remember, my friends, to take the time to visit what inspires you.