Fire, Notre Dame, and Me

Fire. I grew up in fear of it.

My uncle was a volunteer fire-fighter in Camden.

Ferdinand called us to the site of many fires in Camden, most of which were devastating.

Our house burned during a remodel. My grandmother’s house burned from a lightning strike. Camden burned on Christmas Eve. My insides become Jello, even now.

Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth is a saga about generations of builders and those who built a cathedral. The plot is far deeper and much thicker than that. The cathedral would burn. They would rebuild again and again. Straw roofs, straw-filled bricks, timber…it burns. What remains?

The devastating fire at Notre Dame in Paris this week has deeply affected me, though I’ve seen the cathedral only through the trip diaries of friends, photographs, and one special history teacher.

Dr. Jewel Vincent at Henderson, back in the day.

She and her husband had traveled the world, so, when she became a renowned professor of world history, she brought with her stories that fascinated and brought “world civ” to life for me.

In the day of big hair, she had it. A poof of coiffed black hair and a wardrobe befitting a grand lady, in high-heels that had everything to do with style, she commanded my attention in her classroom in Evans Hall.

Though this class was a survey class, she poured her soul into her lectures and I breathed in every word. I learned history that I use in trying to understand our world story. In studying chronological Bible texts that contain sidebars of history and culture, I dig deep into my archives filled with history I witnessed because of her. Dr. Vincent was a jewel, pun intended.

I saw Notre Dame cathedral’s flying buttresses, rose windows, spire, towers, interior grandeur through Dr. Vincent’s description, slides, stories; her own sense of awe became mine.

Reading the editorials and news stories about rebuilding the cathedral, “from the ashes,” the determination of a combined will gives renewed hope to the western world. Notre Dame stands as a testament to Christianity and civilization; it will become a tribute to a triumphant spirit.

Notre Dame cathedral survived centuries of war, the battering of nature, and was almost totally lost to fire while in the process of a much-needed renovation. Those far wiser than I will figure out what to do to save our grand lady.

Man looks at the outside; God looks at the heart. The cathedral, like an ancient tree, required hundreds of years to build but has been ravaged by fire in one day. The redwood forest of the great American Northwest suffers fire to bring about a new strength.

 Our Lady, treasure of the western world, will be rebuilt as a testimony to resilience and faith in God and the collaborative ability of mankind.

Fire can become a living, breathing monster, devouring whatever is in its path. Men and women can shrink in fear or rise and show the world an indomitable spirit, not lost in ashes.