Keeping up with Beth

(Totally unedited, straight out my head to the keyboard, unfiltered and possibly wrong in every way. So read at your own caution)

I started writing this on the 16th April. It’s now the 21st.

It is absolutely tragic, don’t get me wrong, to lose such a precious and historical building. For such destruction to break out and tear apart a building of such importance to the world, not even just its home city.

But I feel we’re losing sight of a lot. All my social media is telling me how sad it is to lose a 14th century building, such a historical stature. That history is burning. That the history of Parisian culture is being burnt to a crisp!

No.

Notre Dame is a cathedral. CURRENTLY. It is used as a church. A holy place weekly. 500,000 peoples place of worship has just gone up in flames.

A place of God. A holy temple. A significant place of worship for many. Is burnt.

That is what’s heart breaking about it. Across history thousands and thousand, probably millions on millions of people have gone there, not because of its touristic element, not for the instagram and not for the bucket list. But to use it as it was built for. To worship God. To express their faith and to use it for its pure purpose.

I went to Paris about 4 years ago, maybe more on the French exchange. We never went into the building because the queue was so mighty long of tourists. And the family I stayed with I believe attended church, and were going to take me but we never did in the end. So I have never stepped inside. Maybe that’s partly why I’m so unshaken by it. But I remember sitting outside and being awestruck by how incredible massive and beautiful the building was on the outside. It was powerful and strong and an absolute masterpiece. To have seen it in person is an absolute privilege because, it will never be the same that is true. No matter if you rebuild it, it won’t be its authentic 14th century building. That is sad. We are allowed to be sad.

I was scrolling through some comments, to see if everyone was just sending condolences or if anyone else was having thoughts of how potentially ‘unchristian’ it may have been getting.

Someone had left a comment. Something that I felt needs to be more widely shared for us to respond appropriately. It was the verse John 2:19-22.

It reads

“Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.”

‭‭John‬ ‭2:19-22‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.”

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You may not understand. You may think it’s a load of rubbish but Jesus states so clearly that the building clearly meant nothing. We as a society place so much value upon the materials we can get. We want everything and we want it now. No matter the cost let’s have it. And in that we lose our selves. I used to think I could never live a minimalist life. Too much stuff I own meant to much to me. The thought of being able to keep all my possessions in a suitcase seemed ludicrous. But now it makes sense. I own things but if I let them own me I’ll lose myself. I become so owned by these objects that I can’t live without them. What happens when I lose them? When they get destroyed? When they wear away?

The value of the church should be in our hearts. The Notre Dame was a beautiful building, and had so much value. It was significant-still is of course, but this is what happens when we lose ourself in objects.

A few days later. And millionaires have pledged money to the building refurbishment.

We have countries with no water.

No food

No home.

Children without families

Without nourishment

Without care.

In our own societies we have ex forces living homeless.

We have so many problems across our planet.

We have polluted the planet more in the last 100 years then anyone could have imagined.

We live in a world that needs so much care.

We do not need to fix buildings just because it’s a national treasure and a tourist attraction.

So many posts have gone around Facebook in shock of these donations. I am with them.

If people chose to make a difference they can. We prefer ignorance. We realise it’s easier to send money for a building to be replaced to make us look like a better person than to try and find solutions and battle real issues.

You can tell me we can’t just flash the cash to every problem. I agree. We can’t jus5 hand money to everyone and expect it to be fixed. But there are people in this world with real solutions who need funding to make the change. They need that money to preserve what matters-LIFE.

The church can meet anywhere. Paris has many other tourist attractions. We can move on and face the more important problems. The fire has been put out, no one died, and there were minimal if not no casualties. From there let’s move on and turn back to what is important.

Today is Easter Day. 21st April. I attended church this morning as is tradition in the Christian faith in such an incredible significant day.

Whether you believe in the Christian faith or not, Jesus is significant. He is known for some miraculous things. Argue them or agree that isn’t the point right now.

The point Is Jesus loved people. He commanded us as a people, as Christians, as whoever to love others. To forever put others first. To treat PEOPLE right.

So why are the 650+ people who were attacked on Easter morning at church not getting the same publicity as the Notre Dame building being burned.

207 lives at least lost. Brothers. Sisters. Mothers. Fathers. Sons. Daughters. Friends. Family of every kind brutally ATTACKED in a church on such a pinnacle day of their faith. Left behind will be hundreds more family and friends who have lost their loved ones.

A materialistic culture seems to be making us more insensitive to such tragedies. We see attacks and think almost nothing of it. It’s just news. I’m guilty of this. It’s heart breaking but it happens so frequently we see it in social media. Have some conversations and it’s over. The Notre Dame was shared across my Facebook so many times for different reasons. Internationally acknowledged on such a huge scale. It was the breaking news, I saw live feeds of the building burning.

It took til this evening, probably more than 12 hours for me to see any kind of post about such a brutal attack on my Facebook. Shared mainly by People of my church.

I think the reason all of this hit me so hard is that they are both so significant in my faith. A building of current faith, being seen by many as a historical monument but so many on my Facebook whilst 200 plus people dying is hardly acknowledged outside of the Christian circle. The persecuted church gets a blind eye and people prefer ignorance because what can we do right?

We live in a culture where we take so much for granted. We have freedom beyond some peoples imagination. I am free to express my faith! If I stand up and scream from the top of every building I might get some weird looks but that’s okay. Because I am not a criminal for that. Not even just in faith. We can have different political views to any one we want. We can argue about our views, we can sit and do what we want. We are all equals even if we don’t feel like it, the law says that as people, as humans we are equal to each other. But we didn’t just get there. It has taken so many years of people fighting. The suffragettes, The soldiers in wars, the pride movement and many more I can’t think of off the top of my head. We live in a time where we can get picky about what we want.

We live in ignorance of the people who matter.

This is all just me off on a tangent. You can disagree with me. You can think what ever you want. You’re free to do so.

But what ever you do. Think.