Church on Fire
In April of this year, the world was stunned to brief, shocked silence by a fire in Paris' Notre Dame cathedral. All over the city and the globe, people stared in horror as the roof, the statues, the spire were consumed in a seemingly uncontrollable blaze. In the aftermath, the incredible sight of the cathedral's charred interior inspired a flood of donations and provoked dozens of front-page articles about what went wrong and how it could have been avoided.
What does the Notre Dame fire have to do with the environment?, you may ask. Stay with me here, and you'll see.
At its core, Notre Dame is a place of worship, hallowed by centuries of divine pleading and religious ceremony. But it is the cathedral's humanity that has made it eternal: the political struggles, the artistic expressions, the architectural transmutation of stone into something more airy, more ethereal. Its presence in the stories of our literature and films. Its physical record of so many centuries of human existence. For these reasons, Notre Dame's significance surpasses that of an ordinary religious site. It is a foundational touchstone of Western culture. And when that touchstone was threatened, the people of our culture reacted, quickly and generously, to save this place that means so much to us.
But there are other burning churches, though from our cultural vantage point we may not identify them as such. Places that, like the Notre Dame, have transcended the definition of a solely religious site, and have become a central pin around which the stories and identity of their culture rotate. Many cultures all over the world have their own Notre Dames that are slowly, shockingly burning. Representatives from these cultures are sometimes able to make it to the news:
"Please don't climb all over our cathedrals," they ask. "Please don't leave piles of trash."
"Please don't bulldoze our cathedral in the name of progress."
"Please don't defile our cathedral for the sake of economic growth, or endanger it for the pursuit of greed."
These words have come to us more and more often. But where is the shock, the generosity, the swift action? Friends, since that April fire at Notre Dame, there's been a thought kicking around in the back of my mind. A thorny, uncomfortable question, and it's this: why did we care about that church on fire, and not other churches on fire?
The public may not be aware of the destruction of indigenous religious sites, but to Native Americans the attacks are equivalent to the loss of sites like the Vatican, Notre Dame, the Ka’ba, or Temple Mount: “Those are our synagogues. Those are our Eiffel Towers, our pyramids," explains Floris White Bull. - The Guardian; May 15, 2017
Perhaps it is because we simply don't understand the significance of these other sites.
Perhaps it is because we perform a sort of cost-benefit analysis in our heads to justify this destruction: more people benefit from the jobs and energy supplied by an oil pipeline than from the preservation of a religious site.
Perhaps it is because, from our ethnocentric evaluation, these sites are remnants of a nearly extinct culture, and don't deserve to be protected.
For these reasons and many more, we turn our heads away from these churches on fire, and so they burn to the ground. Which brings us back to your question at the top of this page: what does all this have to do with the environment?
My point in bringing all this up is to say one thing: A concern for the environment is about something more than just saving the polar bears, or fighting climate change. It requires more of us than just using biodegradable soap, or driving an electric car.
Concern for the environment requires us to build empathic connections with people and things that we do not immediately understand.
It requires that we care for the interest of others as much as we care for our own interests.
It requires us to let go of our preferences; to develop humility; to stop with all our obfuscating and to just do the simple, difficult things.
In short, and to connect this metaphor for you: concern for the environment is less about knowing that the church is on fire, or even about trying to douse the flames. Concern for the environment is about learning how to recognize the church as "a church" at all.
The first step in becoming more environmentally active is developing an interest in why these places, animals, and landscapes matter, and who they matter to. It is about building a respect for, and an interest in, what you don't understand. It is about learning how to recognize a church when you see one, and approaching it with according deference.
And to learn all this, all you have to do is open your eyes and look.
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