We got there early in the morning before noisy tourists muddled underfoot. Smart move.

That meant that we, with sprain-bent necks, could peer upward long and strong into the Eye – that Oculus. After awhile its 30-foot diameter did us in; but it was worth our pained defeat – for in our losing, we won on the side of aesthetics.

That awesome space (142 feet) looming between our toes and the oculus’ rim was higher than the heights of Rome’s St. Peter’s (139 feet) and the Chartres Cathedral (140 feet).

Emperor Hadrian did a second century good turn when he scooped up the fire-ravished ruins of a first century temple to construct another architectural marvel.

Sun sun sunlight.

That oculus opens its lens naturally daily to emit God’s fiery eye for this Earth’s sphere. Sunshine brightens the wall, then moves its grace in the time and the space. If only we had had the time to park ourselves on site all day long – pondering, gawking, meditating but chiefly spying that light guest slowly making its way from niche to niche.

Beneath our feet was the marbled floor with its circular and cubic pattern. Wrapping us round were walls colored yellowish brown, green, white and reddish-brown. Master strokes all.

Ah, yes, Rome in spring. Complete with pigeons on Pantheon’s ancient roof ledges.

Pantheon: the temple built in honor of “all gods,” for in Latin “pan” equals “all” and “theos” equals god. So there you have it, plain and simple, the edifice constructed to the imagined deities of Rome and Greece.

No matter where one roams – and there is a lot of exceptionally pleasant roaming when wandering the Pantheon – one always is drawn back to the Eye. It is that one opening at the temple dome’s center top.

The Eye is uncovered, welcoming the elements. Rain falls through it onto a slightly concaved floor complete with a drain in its center. In other words, everything’s taken care of – no architectural worry. Let it rain, let it pour, just relax and take in the antiquated splendor.

That temple’s rounded cement top has been hoisted masterfully on top of a rotunda, yielding an interior forming a perfect circle having a diameter and height exactly the same – 43 meters.

Michelangelo exclaimed the structure to be of “angelic and not human design.” When there, we realized that he spoke not in hyperbole.

Can it be believed that this place was once demoted to a soldiers’ fortress? In another era, it was nothing more than a poultry market.

But “as it should be” that molded marvel from artists, dreams finally became a place for worship in the 7th century.

With that, in place of the niched vaporous imaginative carvings of a previous time were sculpted look-a-likes of saints – real people. Henceforth, believers then could be reminded of what it means to be holy-in-the-actual. So it was that the Pantheon became a parish church.

Thankfully, it still is a place for prayer and dedicated service, though on some days one hardly would get that message with ice cream slurping globe-traipsers such as ourselves filling up the perfectly hemisphered space.

It was then that I contemplated: What about the spiritual integrity of my own temple? What are bogus imaginative nothings clogging up the shadowed niches, preventing the lighted actual, real and sanctified eternal?

It is true: there is much that sculptures “religion” which in fact is depressingly empty, stale habit and even selfish. These nuisance-awful trinkets fill up our alcoves, wrapping us around with a certain numbing comfort which finally is repulsive – and damning? – for they are not of God.

Is it time then for spring cleaning the temple? It is time to sweep in the God-actual and shovel out the fraudulent carnival?