An Oak Forest & Notre Dame Cathedral

                                                 

                                                    The Notre Dame roof "Forest" before the 2019 fire 

So Abram moved his tent, and came and settled by the oaks[ of Mamre, 

which are at Hebron; and there he built an altar to the Lord.

                                        Genesis 13:18

Yesterday marked the second anniversary of the terrible fire which came close to destroying Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The 800-year-old landmark was saved but billions of euros are being spent to restore it, not without controversy over the enormous cost. President Macron visited the church and while there was a renewed pledge that Notre Dame will be at least be open for prayer and a return to some form of worship in time for the 2024 Summer Olympics it isn't likely that the restoration will be completed.

There is another controversy around this work, and it is an environmental one. The plan is to fell 1,000 oak trees across France to reconstruct the roof trusses of the cathedral. Some have already been taken down and most of the rest have been chosen for this work. The vast latticework of the roof was known as "the Forest" and the oaks harvested at the time of the initial construction would have been three to four hundred years old. There are no trees of this age or size in France today, but some are two hundred years old. 

                                     Oak tree felled for Notre Dame Cathedral restoration

Those ancient timbers contributed to the intensity of the fire and there has been a movement to save the present-day trees and use other, safer materials for the reconstruction. To do so would not detract from the aesthetics of the restoration but this would save the equivalent of a forest used to reconstruct the Forest. I signed a petition to find an alternative even though I had no delusions that this would change the outcome.

The irony is that the work being done on Notre Dame which started the fire was addressing deficiencies which developed with age. So why not use steel or some other material rather than insist that  magnificent living beings be destroyed to mimic the original roof supports? 

In the ancient world oaks were often considered sacred and even worshipped. While this was discouraged in Judaism there was a reverence for oaks and Abram or Abraham settled by the oaks of Mamre. I have my own sense of reverence and awe for oaks, including one near where we lived in the town of Bowmanville with a nearly 100-metre spread. 

I'll go out on a limb here (sorry) and say that God the Creator is not amused by what these Groundlings are doing to these venerable French oaks. But it's hard to imagine that God isn't constantly baffled by our choices as humans. 

                                                         Notre Dame fire, April 15, 2019