Xyresic Flames
(The Universe is in your Hands edit)
Janet Kuypers
3/26/24
Once in France’s history, the Catholic church —
and the Notre Dame — reigned supreme.
Catholicism was the state religion,
and they collected heavy tithes from all people’s
incomes, without the church paying a dime.
During the French Revolution in the 1790s,
revolutionaries looted the Notre Dame —
saying that it wasn’t even a church at all —
and even as they tried to remove the Catholic
church from France, the Notre Dame survived.
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When Adolf Hitler knew defeat was near
by the end of 1944, he gave out the order —
if it looked like the allies would recapture Paris,
then Germany must destroy every religious and
historical monument, including the Notre Dame.
But without the manpower or the munitions,
German military in Paris could not abide
by the telegram telling them to leave all of Paris
“in complete rubble”, so, after falling in love
with the Notre Dame, they defied the Führer.
#
Even in recent years, extremist attacks in
2015, 2016, 2017, show shootings, car bombs,
even slitting the throats of those celebrating
mass in the Notre Dame. The church survived;
but new terrorism based on religion alsos flourished.
#
I’ve always loved fire. Light some candles,
listen to the crack and pop of burning wood
in your fireplace. We discovered fire countless
millennia ago, and use it for light, heat, energy.
We contain this beautiful beast to become ours tool.
We enjoy campfires and roasting marshmallows;
we keep fire alarms charged to protect us.
We find fire fascinating, and we forget to fear
a fire catastrophe that can take down a forest
of dried wood in a single revered cathedral.
Humankind has this love/hate relationship with
fire, with its thousands of chemical reactions
producing a hypnotic flame. We must remember
that it is not the destruction of things that
feeds the flame, but the formation of news bonds
that creates the heat and drives this chain
reaction... as it did with xyresic flames in the
12+-hour fire of the 850-year-old Notre Dame.
It is a love/hate relationship we have with fire,
because of what it gives, and what it takes away.
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