James River Crossing

As we watched news coverage of Notre Dame in flames April 15, one of my friends lamented that this fire received so much more attention than the Grenfell Tower tragedy in London two summers ago, where 72 people died. Thankfully, not one life was lost as the cathedral burned. It’s not that those 72 lives don’t matter. Every single life is important. But in the grand scheme of things, a human lifespan is very brief. As humans, we find comfort in the things we expect to outlast us. These are the things we cherish and protect – things we hope to be able to hand down to our great-grandchildren and that they’ll want to hand down to theirs. Notre Dame and the treasures it houses represent centuries of work by devoted, faithful artists and craftsmen. I think all of us – whether we’re French or not, whether we’re Christian or not, and even if we’ll never visit Paris – hope it still stands long after we’re gone.