Destruction's Day: Reflecting on the Great Fire of Notre Dame

Thoughts on viewing the ashes of Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, France, Holy Week 2019

Nothing is indestructible.  The façade of strength hides a weakness which can trigger destruction. So it is with buildings and human beings.

Nothing lasts forever.  On this earth, a century of work can be destroyed in a day.  Do not put your hope in things which ‘moths and rust’, or fire, can consume.

What makes a monument significant is unseen.  Monuments are cherished because of the dreams they represent.  A spire is a symbol of human aspirations to be with God. Spires fall. Spirits rise.

Destruction has it’s day.  But it is only a day.  Hidden underneath destruction’s ashes lies the spirit’s desire to resurrect that which has been destroyed. Death is the last enemy.

Friday is destruction’s day.

But, Saturday, underneath Friday’s ashes, hidden in tombs, the Spirit stirs, undoing Friday’s day of destruction, recreating.

Sunday dawns, for cathedrals and churches and synagogues. For trees and plants and flowers. For oceans and rivers and lakes.  For you and your loved ones and your God.

Sunday is Saturday’s Hope realized. 

Resurrection has a Day.  On its day the sun does not set. Human beings unite, across continents and oceans, overcoming races and languages and politics, to dream of restoration. Resurrection.

Surprise Endings

I am reading a very long tome called Team of Rivals, about Abraham Lincoln and his compatriots. It is something like 750 pages long. It’s a good book, full of fascinating characters, and a story which holds up a mirror to our current national divisions. So, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy reading it, but as I got to page 150 I was thinking, ‘This story is never going to end!’

We live for the end.  We love good endings.  We love to read the book that is full of mysterious twists and turns and our minds begin to imagine the end.  “How will this end?”, we wonder, and the temptation to turn to the last page can become overwhelming.  How can the author bring together all of these plot lines and solve all of the main character’s dilemmas in the remaining pages? 

Sometimes the story is so good that we don’t want it to end.  We would rather stay lost in the writer’s imagination. We don’t want the story to end, because, well, this is the life we want to live and, even though we cannot live that life, we can imagine it. So, we slow down our reading pace, drinking in each word, like the first sip of morning coffee or the last sip of evening wine. 

Today is the Sabbath before the Sunday on which the crowds adored the main character. They loved His story. The king is coming! They couldn’t wait to see how his story would end.

But wait, is he a king or criminal? Who could have dreamt that this is what the Author had in mind? Their songs become jeers,  their palms become swords. He’s dead. End of story. Or is it?

We live for the end. We love good endings. But we are all writing His story into our own stories. In your life, is Jesus an irrelevant, dead man or a living King?  How do you want the story to end?

This Holy Week  don’t skip to the ending.  Live the whole of the journey. Perhaps you will discover that that the ending is still being written, that, SURPRISE, His story is your story. Keep on writing.

Four 'Final' Lessons

For 19 years Tony Bennett has been striving to return to a Bennett-coached team mountain-top of college basketball: The Final Four, the holy grail of Division I Men’s Basketball. Today Tony enters that rarified air as head coach for the Virginia Cavaliers, following in the footsteps of his father, Dick, who did the same with the Wisconsin Badgers. I learned four lessons from watching these men reach the pinnacle of their respective careers, lessons which apply not just for coaches, but for all of life’s pursuits.

In 2018, Tony was the coach of the first number 1 seeded team to lose to a 16-seed. It was as embarrassing a sports performance as one can endure.  Now, in 2019, Tony and his team have gone to the top.  Lesson #1, a quote Tony uses: ‘If you learn to use it right, the adversity, it will buy you a ticket to a place you couldn't have gone any other way.’

Both Bennett-coached teams can be hard to watch. Why are they so ‘boring’? Because they coach a style of basketball which takes advantage of the talent their teams have rather than trying to copy the styles of teams with better athletes. Lesson #2: Be the best person God made you to be rather than try to be a poor imitation of someone else.

Laurel Bennett, Tony’s wife, captures Tony’s approach to life quoting his mantra: Lesson #3: “This is what I do. I’ll give it my best and I’ll live with it. But the other side of that coin is who I am, which is more important than what I do. And I am a child of God, and my values come from something other than my job.”

Tony, and his father before him, took a long and difficult road to the top of their profession. They won a lot; they lost a lot. They had as many critics as fans. But they believed the goal was worth it. Lesson #4: One day all of your life’s experiences will come together in a way that you dreamed, if you dare to dream God’s dreams for you.

Stay strong. Stay true.  Stay humble. Keep dreaming.

Sources: Jeff Potrykus, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; 4.3.19; David Teel, www.dailypress.com; 4.5.19