The Unclad Soul

The burning of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France this week captured the attention of the world. Immediately afterward, billionaires came forward to donate millions of dollars to restore the historic church. Stunned crowds formed near the Cathedral for days. People wept. They looked on in alarm, broken-hearted by the scene. What was it about that event that created so much emotional sorrow and distress? Some have criticized the news coverage, the horror of people, and even the billionaire donors, saying it was after all just a building. And a building in disrepair, vulnerable to just such a tragedy. No one’s faith was destroyed in the fire. No one, thankfully, was injured. Most of the historic pieces of art were saved. The basic structure remains. Why then were so many so upset? For me, it was the desecration of beauty. Though the fire seems to have been accidental, it still destroyed significant parts of a masterpiece of architecture, genius, and skill.

Beyond the expanding urban cities, and past the secluded rural towns, awaits the wilderness. That is where I want to go; what naturalist and environmental philosopher John Muir called, “the great fresh, unblighted, unredeemed” places. They are Thoreau’s, Walden Pond. They are conservationist Ansel Adams,’ Kings Canyon where the giant General Grant tree grows, or the Sierra Nevada, where groves of the massive sequoia rise into the sky, the tallest trees in the world. Those great places also exist in poet Mary Oliver’s nature settings, who said of flowers, “There is nothing in the world that can be said against them.” Wouldn’t it be nice for a change, to be there? A place where nothing could be said against anyone. I want to follow an overgrown trail that leads into a deep green forest and hear and feel the sounds of the earth. I’m looking for wildness, for untouched beauty, for scenes of nature’s glory abandoned and left alone in the quiet. I seek the mountain, the riv