1 May 2019
We mourn
differently for buildings than for people. Architecture that takes 200 years to
build can be destroyed in less than a day. The late war — now seventy-five
years gone — ruined monuments and brought down cities; it’s now 100 years since
the war to end all wars. In many cases, plans and records allowed structures to
arise again, where the will to restore recognised the value of the spirit that
was in them.
Yet many millions died, and each
soul must be mourned: one by one. Evil is one thing that always rises again.
The determination never to repeat the like has been forgotten; the methods set
in place to prevent it are abandoned. Also, consider what happens inside
buildings, where crimes and innocents collide: Orlando, Beslan, Christchurch, Easter
in Sri Lanka. Generations are short. Greed and domination are eternal.
Metaphors proliferate, comparing one
catastrophe with another, denying each its individuality. Individual, yet
collective: terrorism, colonialism, revolutions, wars and civil wars,
exploitation and expropriation, not to mention natural disasters and accidents
of fate.
May was the month of Mary, hence of
mothers: attentiveness, tenderness, concern of mothers, mirroring the feminine
care of God. Mourning, rebuilding, rising again.
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