Notre Dame: sometimes the light burns…
By: Meredith Mcgee Gunderson
Tags: Love Yourself, Light, Spiritual Growth, Notre Dame, Christianity

I, like many, was gob-smacked looking at the much beloved Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris engulfed in flames. Terrifying…almost medieval…which, of course, it is.

Notre Dame is old by Western standards and carries that specific atmosphere of places with centuries of prayers. As one of those “must sees” in Paris, visited by fourteen million people per year, the vibe outside is pretty selfie-stickie, yet inside, it is steeped in a deep desire to worship and connect, a desire for the divine or something larger and clever-er than us, in our lives. This is a timeless human desire and in the West has a close relationship with the Christian faith — and like most relationships, it’s complicated and it encompasses a full spectrum of emotion from pure love and joy to inexpressible pain and confusion.

And right now, even prior to these shocking and emotive images, most would agree — the Church is having a moment. A moment of bringing things to light. A moment of much reinvention & reinterpretation as some congregations rent out giant halls, put out a record label and pull in thousands upon thousands to while other parishes struggle to keep afloat, relevant and inspired. Meanwhile roles for women in the Church are on a steady increase, discussions and practices around same sex unions move on and we drag a very old institution into it’s future. And to add to the mix, the Pope is publicly addressing serious and shameful scandals and their accompanying pain.

The process, the change gets uncomfortable as things are brought to light, talked about, but how else can we move through it or move through anything?

I write this as someone who spent two years at a Cambridge Church of England theological college and is married to a Church of England priest…I have church on the brain way more than I would like…but this has also led me to take a deeper dive into my spirituality over the last seven years or so as well as been privy to some pretty exceptional thinkers in the subject…

And I know this…

The simple combination of love and light has profound, life changing effects, allows our lives to feel more sacred and is pretty much the only way to truly get rid of the toxic illusions & habits that make us feel trapped and miserable.

Humans have been exploring and struggling with practicing both love and light for ever while also marveling at their power. How to choose love over fear, how to bring things to light, how to let light in, how to really deeply bravely see things through a lens of love, for all to be bared amid an active love. These are ancient concerns and central themes to any metaphysical pursuit including the teachings of Jesus and the Christian faith.

The kicker is sometimes light burns…like really, freakin burns…but lucky for us, we have love and it’s the best salve…ever, when we have the courage to use it.

So as I take in these scenes of Notre Dame engulfed in flames, a place I love in flames, a place I prayed ablaze…there are some complicated emotions flowing through me because as I love the cathedral, there are parts of the church I detest. As I want teachings of love to burn brightly, I also want to burn other parts of the church to the ground ~ the elements of hierarchy that does not serve with love but rather worships station, the abhorrent patriarchy that boxes in both men & women and has for so long perpetuated an imbalance, the intolerances, crimes, alienating fussiness…all of these very human mistakes that stem from fear and ironically, but unsurprisingly, show up within a faith about love. Unsurprising because we ARE human and we DO make mistakes, but we don’t really like shedding light on them, do we?

A layer gets pulled back, or many layers and we don’t like what we see. That light burns and there’s a very real call for love in that vulnerability. Lucky for us love is an inexhaustible resource that we carry within us at all times.

We may not like what we see in ourselves, our world, other people, or even the impermanence or vulnerability of a sacred monument…however bringing things to light with the intention to practice love is the only way to begin to heal & grow in our lives and as a collective, even if — at first, it burns.

The truth, the love, the light, the power, the courage — it’s not in the buildings, it’s not in the institutions…it’s in us.