Readers who follow me on Twitter may have noticed that I had very little to say about the news that Notre Dame de Paris was heavily damaged by fire this week. I equally ignored those lamenting the loss of an architectural masterpiece, those using the tragedy as an excuse to pontificate about the many sins of the Catholic Church, those failing to comprehend why there was no anguish when recent and unsophisticated buildings used as churches burned down, and those complaining that the destruction of other medieval architectural gems not located in the exact center of one of the greatest cities of the West was not publicized by Western media. In fact, the only comment I made on it was to tweet that this article in The Onion was the only one I had seen that approximated my feelings on the matter. Though I agree that the building is gorgeous and understand the sense of loss, and I find rejoicing in the destruction of an artwork to be an act of incredibly bad taste, I also understand what many others are choosing to ignore: that no matter what is done to restore the cathedral, it will eventually burn down again or succumb to some other disaster. And the same is true of the Eiffel Tower, the Tower of London, the Empire State Building, the Sydney Opera House, the Taj Mahal, St. Basil’s and every other building in the world. Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, only one is still standing and it, too, will eventually crumble, as will every building in every city on Earth. In Oklahoma, my ranch was situated on the top of what was a mountain a hundred million years ago, and the very shape of the continents has changed dramatically in that time. Similarly, people wring their hands and moan lugubriously about the extinction of animal species, despite the fact that a species is nothing more than a temporary configuration of genes; it is as permanent as a sand dune, albeit on a much longer time scale, and we can no more “save” a species than we could freeze the column of smoke from a burning cathedral into some interesting or beautiful shape. As I remind my readers every November 1st, all things must pass, and although we may lament those which happen to pass in the flickering moment we exist upon the Earth, they are no more or less mortal than those which have already passed before we were here to see them, or those which will pass in the uncountable eons after we ourselves are gone.
Frozen Smoke
April 19, 2019 by Maggie McNeill
Posted in Current Events, History, Philosophy | Tagged animals, Catholicism, Day of the Dead, France, paganism | 8 Comments
8 Responses
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Interesting and detached take. Thanks.
Exactly so. Agree 100%.
An example of why I start every day with Maggie.
Good read
Exactly Dean Clark. I do the same.
“The wise will start each day with the thought…
Fortune gives us nothing which we can really own.
Nothing, whether public or private, is stable; the destines of men, no less than those of cities, are in a whirl.
Whatever structure has been reared by a long sequence of years, at the cost of great toil and through the great kindness of the gods, is scattered and dispersed in a single day. No, he who has said ‘a day’ has granted too long a postponement to swift misfortune; an hour, an instant of time, suffices for the overthrow of empires.
How often have cities in Asia, how often in Achaia, been laid low by a single shock of earthquake? How many towns in Syria, how many in Macedonia, have been swallowed up? How often has this kind of devastation laid Cyprus in ruins?
We live in the middle of things which have all been destined to die.
Mortal have you been born, to mortals have you given birth.
Reckon on everything, expect everything.”
Seneca
“Everything changes, everything ends” is one of the “Five Things We Cannot Change”.*
The bad news is, you will eventually lose everything that is precious to you. The good news is, everything that is hurtful to you will eventually be washed away.
*The other four are:
“Things don’t always go according to plan.”
“Justice is not guaranteed.”
“People are not always loving and loyal.”
“Pain is part of life.”
https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/book-reviews/view/9512/the-five-things-we-cannot-change
But wait there’s more! Or there will be. You can bet that the event will be celebrated(?) every year as people gather on the anniversary of the fire. I’ve never understood that desire to wallow in a tragedy year after year.