Everyone should have the opportunity to be made to feel so small as to be hard to see. Everyone should have the opportunity to be reminded how inconsequential we humans are. I have had that feeling twice in life: Once at the Grand Canyon and once in France, standing before Notre Dame Cathedral before it burned.

We see pictures and videos all the time about such historic landmarks, but standing right there, well, it is life changing. I’ll tell you why. First, you get to know how very small you are standing before such grandeur; and you realize that compared to the skill it took to create such a grand example of architecture, you are insignificant. How small we are is especially apparent when we see the Grand Canyon up close. I thought, “I’m really just a very, very tiny biological entity, not so special after all, here and gone so quickly in the grand scheme that I don’t matter at all.” Hmmm.

In our society, and maybe even in all of them, we seem to have the feeling that we are more important than we are. We’re really not the center of the universe and we’re not that special. If you doubt it, do visit Notre Dame Cathedral. Think about the incredible talent and skill of the craftsmen who built Notre Dame Cathedral! That magnificent building, that majestic architectural phenomenon was built in 1163, taking over a century to build. And it stood strong and glorious until it burned in 2019. I cried that day. Still, I get choked up thinking about it. I feared it would be the end of the magic. They rebuilt it, by the way, with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of skilled craftspeople using historic methodology to the extent possible. It was an effort that had to happen. I could not have gone undone.

At the Grand Canyon, not only did I feel invisible compared to the magnificence of the canyon, but I was reminded…in full color…of history. The canyon wasn’t built by craftsmen with genius in muscles and fingertips, but by nature, over immense stretches of time. And there I was, barely a blink in that time continuum. It put things in perspective in a colossal way. In other words, it put me in my place.

If you visit the canyon you will learn that the ocean once covered that space. I don’t remember how many years ago it was, but there were the sea creatures, right there, forever pressed into their historic layer, undeniably revealing the presence of the ocean once upon a time. I was amazed. We hear stories about these things, but we never really, really hear them.

Seeing these two massive and glorious paragons threw me into a state of contemplation I wish I had experienced sooner in my life. I felt incredibly blessed to have seen such grand sites, and was quiet, for a long while, thinking. In the Cathedral, I know others felt that same feeling. In that grand hall, surrounded by a thousand people, there was not a sound, other than soft footfalls. The grandeur commanded respect, and it was freely given.

I realize that my own insignificant body is also a miracle of creation, with billions of cells working together in systems that have to work perfectly in order for me to live. So I do matter and in that way, I am also grand and I am important. But it is about perspective. I am a speck, dust ultimately, and I will pass through life so fast I won’t register on any detector. Nobody will stand near me and marvel in a thousand years. In a couple of generations nobody will remember me at all. Centuries after I am reduced to dust, these two grand sites I speak of will still exist, each a reminder of deep history, each no doubt putting others in mind of perspective.

Welcome back, Notre Dame Cathedral. I have missed you these five years.