Notre Dame

The burning of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris makes my heart heavy.  So much beauty, so much history, so much art expressing human spirituality over centuries, much of it gone in a heartbeat.

And because we live in the era of autocrats (the Trump era), watching the cathedral burn made me think about the fragility of our democratic institutions, too. 

We must be the caretakers of not only beauty, art, history and nature (both so that future generations can enjoy all those things, too, but also to pass that guardianship on when the time comes), but also of democracy.  It is not perfect, but it is so much better than any of the alternatives.  And it's almost on fire not only in the US but in many other countries.