Here's a thought. Why is it that we no longer build Cathedrals in this modern age? Let me rephrase it in another manner. Howcome we aren't seeing statues going up celebrating our spleandour as mankind, in fact we see quite the opposite occurring with people demanding that statues be taken down or possibly even destroyed due to their past actions that are today deemed unacceptable? Now the modernists would put it down to financial costs or aesthetic taste or merely saying that in this fast set day and age, who has the time to waste on such frivolity?
How was it an expected state of mind for laymen and women from centuries ago to be willing to accept the fact that a building currently under construction during their age would not be complete for them to enjoy the fruits of their labors? How were our predecessors so blindly willing to accept their fate that whatever was slowly going up in front of their eyes would only be completed two or three or possibly even FIVE HUNDRED years down the line?
"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit." - Nelson Henderson.
It seems perhaps, a shift has caused us to loose sight of the bigger picture. We are spending far too much energy on trying to streamline our society, We have quite possibly gone and done the unthinkable, of removing the most vital character that any generation with a deeply seeded conscience could gift to the next generation to come. The gift of hope. Not the hope that tomorrow will be better or that their lives will be easier, that task is for them to decide upon. The hope we should be gifting them is that of a conscience of freedom, of leaving them behind a gift of our love for them.
This gift of ours is imbued with creativity and the willingness to dare to dream beyond ourselves, with the slight chance that perhaps those who come after us would be able to look upon this gift with appreciation and even with the understanding that we too, encourage them from annals of time to pass this gift of hope and love and free thinking on to the generations to come after them.
So how could we build our modern cathedrals you ask? I believe that nature would best provide answers to that question. Forrests and parks could be a good start. Possible gathering together in groups and arranging small group endeavours that have forward thinking motivations.
I encourage you to provide ideas that we could unite together under one encompassing idea and perhaps we, as a group of laymen and women can set out to build something that none of us will have the pleasure of seeing....but our hope will pass on to the generations after us and they will continue with what we have started.