Our Lady

Any person who appreciates civilization was surely devastated, disoriented, and profoundly confused by the images of Notre Dame being engulfed in flames.  How could this happen?  Was it arson?  Did Hitler come back from the dead? 

The fire appears, at this point, to have been accidental.  Thank God.  The only thing more dangerous than incompetence is malice.  This tragedy appears to have been precipitated by the former.

This building, which I was blessed to visit 3 times, is an exemplar of so many things.  Here is a breakdown of why Notre Dame matters, in no particular order of importance.

1)  It is obviously an iconic symbol of the Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church has come under fire lately, and for good reason.  The rage directed at the Catholic Church for the child rape scandal is not only entirely justified; it is actually far too little and far too late.

But the Catholic Church is 2000 years old.  What else have they done?  Built Western Civilization.  Even if one is not Catholic, none of us can deny that, without the Catholic Church, we would not have the civilization that we do, this incredibly fragile jewel that we have inherited out of either blind luck or active grace.

The oldest universities in our civilization were built by Catholics.  The greatest charitable organizations are run by Catholics.  The best hospitals, specifically those explicitly charged with treating the most vulnerable of us, are funded by Catholics.  Catholics have exponentially increased the childhood cancer survival rate.

 
There are certain things we can all agree on.  Keeping kids alive is one of them.

The Catholic Church is rightly condemned for its many sins, but it is also irrationally deprived of the monumental credit it is due for building, and saving, the civilization which most of us take for granted.

2)  Notre Dame is a symbol of the super-organic nature of humanity.

Again, whether you are religious or not, humans are, at their best, super-organic.  Without getting into theology or metaphysics, we can all agree that humans are super-organic in the sense that, even when their organic existence ends, parts of them survive.

So what about us is super-organic?  What survives this "crude matter", to quote Yoda?  Out words, which can be written down; the ink does not disappear when we die.  Out works:  what we have built, or repaired, or painted, does not disappear when we die.

Here is the super-organic nature of Notre Dame: it took 100 years to build.  The people who started the construction knew, by definition, that they would die long before it was completed.  So why did they do the work if they would never see the result?

But that's the whole point.  The generations of people who built Notre Dame were doing what we all, hopefully, are doing in incremental ways every day; we are on this Earth to make things marginally better, to add something, no matter how small, to honor and advance our ancestors' work, and to set an example for our children.

It's not about seeing the cathedral finished; it's about, inch by inch, ensuring that the cathedral will be finished someday, even if you are long dead when it happens.

That's faith.  That's civilization,  And that's something that must be honored and revered, or else the entire human journey will be reduced to Netflix and chill.