I read this guy on twitter occasionally.

[irisblue]

XPosted to GD.
source--https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1117854933120737285.html

As we see the sad pictures of Notre Dame de Paris in flames, I am thinking of all the times people have asked me why I love churches and cathedrals, when I'm not really religious in any way.
Part of it is that they are historic documents, enormous stone texts left to us by not just one society, but an overlay of many, down through the long years. They have grand and humble messages for us from people long ago.


Beyond that, though: these are places that have been special to people, often for an intersection of reasons, for centuries. In Eglise St-Etienne, in Caen, I was in a place that had been important space to people for nearly a thousand years.
That leaves a footprint, carries a weight that you can feel in the place. You don't have to share the beliefs of the people who built the structure, or had moments of their lives there, to be able to feel and identify with the meaning they have laid into it.


Old buildings are achievements of architecture, they are treasures to the historian, they are beautiful, and they are monuments to what we can accomplish, when something is seen to be important. It took around 100 years to build Notre Dame de Paris


People worked on that building knowing they would probably not live to see it finished. We don't often work on projects of that scope, any more, but dedicating ourselves to a task that only people in the future will see the benefit of may be a perspective we badly need, right now
Anyway. These places have facets to them that go beyond any one intended purpose, and anything that is lost is lost forever. I think it will be a long time before anyone builds something to last 800 years again.
I have been profoundly fortunate in all the time I have been able to spend in wonderful spaces like that over the years. I have treasured them all, and it makes me deeply sad any time we lose one for ourselves, and the future.


It's 4 tweets, so I think it fits TOS

[BigmanPigman]

1. Art and History, what's hard to understand about appreciating

those aspects of human existence. I am an atheist and an artist and a teacher and I love visiting and learning about other countries' cultures and sometimes a church is part of that.

[3Hotdogs]

2. I am atheist. There is nothing as beautiful as a winter Matins service in an English cathedral.