Look Up, Appreciate, Reflect

Contributed by Eric D. Lussier

It is difficult the morning after the tragic fire at Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris to NOT write about it. Like any noteworthy event in the modern day, news does spread on social media, pardon the pun, like wildfire. In what seemed like only moments, not only did the centuries old world landmark engulf, but so did my social medium of choice, Twitter. 

As my feed was taken over in an instant, it did make me reflect, like many others, about what was occurring before our eyes. While never finding myself a religious person, nor a churchgoer, I did have the opportunity to visit Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris in February of 2017. If you have had the opportunity to visit, you may relate that in just a few moments you were overtaken with awe of a man-made structure. Without modern day technologies, this amazing structure had incredible detail, art and artifacts, both inside and out. If you took the time to walk through this magnificent example of construction, in one-tenth a nanosecond, your breath was taken away. 

I'm not an architecture critic, nor do I pretend to play one on TV. I'm not going into the technical terms nor rehashing words that have already been said or written.  If anything, for at least one fleeting day, more attention will be paid to a structure that was taken for granted by many. Ironically, this coming week is National Architecture Week. And while this celebration is about architecture and the ways architects positively impact our lives, yesterday's events are a reminder that our world's history can be undone in one moment. By one Act of God. By one act of terrorism. By one little accident. Take a moment to look up. To appreciate. To reflect.