“The glory of God is man fully alive.”
These words of St. Irenaeus came to mind as I gazed upon the cathedral in Chartres, France on my recent honeymoon. Chartres is an architectural gem, rising 371 feet tall, with enormous asymmetric towers, and imposing buttresses all around. The solidness of this centuries-old structure expresses a permanence and stability. It points to something unchanging, and stands in stark contrast to the modern mindset of convenience and ephemera.
I much prefer the cathedral in Chartres to Notre Dame in Paris largely because Paris is so swarming with tourists that one can hardly breathe sometimes. The relative emptiness of Chartres allows me the space to be quiet, to contemplate, and to appreciate the beauty of this great work of art. There is room to breathe and room to pray. At present, Chartres is somewhat of a unique look back in time. It’s currently in the midst of a dramatic (and apparently controversial) restoration in which nearly 800 years of grime is being cleaned from the interior and it’s being painted to resemble what it would have looked like in the 13th century. The contrast between the restored and unrestored sections of the cathedral are dramatic. The light, colorful nave is so remarkably altered from the dark, grimy sections.
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| Restored on the left | Unrestored on the right |
Not only is the building itself a marvel, but the amount of artistry inside and outside the cathedral is staggering -- meticulous stone reliefs, enormous stained glass windows, statue upon statue upon statue. Hundreds of artists and craftsmen put forth their efforts to enshrine God’s glory in stone and glass.
And yet, there is no signature on this masterpiece. No one knows the names of the architects or artists of Chartres. They remain anonymous to history, though their work endures.
In the rather strange docudrama “F for Fake,” Orson Welles gives a short monologue about Chartres, touching on this very thing:
“You know, it might be just this one anonymous glory of all things, this rich stone forest, this epic chant, this gaiety, this grand, choiring shout of affirmation, which we choose when all our cities are dust, to stand intact, to mark where we have been, to testify to what we had it in us to accomplish [....] Our works in stone, in paint, in print, are spared, some of them for a few decades or a millennium or two, but everything must finally fall in war or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash. [...] A fact of life. We’re going to die. ‘Be of good heart,’ cry the dead artists out of the living past. Our songs will all be silenced — but what of it? Go on singing. Maybe a man’s name doesn’t matter all that much.”These words echoed in my mind the day after our trip to Chartres when we toured the catacombs under the streets of Paris. The Paris catacombs are an extensive network of tunnels and ossuaries deep underground that contain the bones of more than 6 million people.
Once you get over the initial creepiness of walking through millions of bones, there is a definite sobering effect to the experience. You begin to realize that what you can see on the tour (which seems to go on and on), is really only the tip of the iceberg. As you look on unmarked skull after unmarked skull, you register that each of these belonged to a person, an individual, who had a family and a life and a story and a legacy. Perhaps some of them were great artists, perhaps there were authors, poets, scholars, statesmen. There are no names, only staggering heaps of bones with inscriptions of where they are from and when they were moved. Even King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette are there, laid to rest in a vast pile of bones with everyone else, in anonymity.
One particular monument features a line of poetry from the poet Gilbert, surrounded by two plaques that read “Silence, mortal beings” and “Vain grandeur, silence.”
At the banquet of life, unfortunate guest,
I appeared one day, and I die:
I die, and on my tomb, where slowly I arrive
No one will come to shed tears.
When our tour guide brought us to this spot, he asked us eagerly if anyone knew of the poet “Gilbert.” Met with silence, he revealed, “that’s the joke. No one has heard of Gilbert.”
The message of this particular monument was to say that you will all end up like these people and your name will not be remembered in the end -- a rather dark message, but perhaps with the ring of truth to it. At some point in the future, our names will likely not be remembered. What will be remembered of us?
Our tour guide pointed out several times inscriptions that denoted a romantic view of life and death. In a nutshell: we will all die, so live life passionately--full of emotion and intensity. This is, perhaps, how many people approach the inevitability of death. If it feels good, do it. Make a splash. #yolo
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| Inspirational bracelets for sale in the in-flight catalogue on the way home |
Likely none of us will be tasked with building a great cathedral. But what are we doing with the time given us? What small corner of the world are we quietly and anonymously beautifying? What ground has God given us to till and what will we make of it? In the end, all of our material works will disintegrate. What are we doing to build up God’s kingdom here and now? What are we doing that will bear fruit in eternal life?
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