During the around-the-clock news coverage of the historic fire disaster that befell us, I saw actor Mel Gibson interviewed after learning his multi-million-dollar house was now a pile of ash. He shrugged it off like one of his tough guy movie characters, suggesting the house and everything in it were only “things.”
Instead of being gripped with sorrow, he embraced gratitude. His family was safe and he took time to thank the tireless efforts the fire crews, both on the ground and flying overhead, were spending on behalf of others.
I cannot imagine the amount of “things” Mel Gibson lost in this blaze, and I think his sentiment is one we should all embrace, since we take nothing with us when we die except our souls, in whatever condition we have left them. But the more I thought about this, the more I thought about “things.” My things, Mel Gibson’s things, and the things we all have in our home or carry on our person.
Corpus Christi Church in Pacific Palisades was a building. It was a thing. But within those walls people were baptized, second-graders who had their first confessions and first holy communions. Couples were joined in marriage there and bodies were prayed over during funerals there. The sights and sounds within those walls etched a memory into the hearts and minds of the parishioners there, and now those sights and sounds are distant memories, never to be completely replaced, regardless of when the church will be rebuilt. In a tactile way, a piece of the parish’s life has been burned away, never to return.
I have lived in Los Angeles my entire life. I have been through two major earthquakes, the Sylmar quake of ’71 and the Northridge tremblor of ’94. I have seen the Sepulveda Basin fill up with so much water that people had to be plucked out of trees and a raging flood by helicopter, and I have seen the city burn in riots.
A lot of things were lost in those catastrophes and sadly many lives as well. As Santa Ana winds finally recede into the desert to rise again another day, survivors will assess the damage done. And there will be a sense of loss. It does not matter whether you lost a $20 million mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean or a three-bedroom, one-bath bungalow in Altadena overlooking the 210 Freeway. All those affected by this monumental catastrophe have lost more than a house and its contents.
Sitting in the relative safety of the San Fernando Valley flatlands, I took a moment to look around my own house and wonder, what would I take if a police officer or fire department official told me I had five minutes to get out?
I may not have experienced the kind of loss so many fellow Angelenos just did, but I have had my fair share of personal disasters, some due to circumstances beyond my control and others orchestrated expertly via my own brokenness. We lived about as close to the epicenter of the Northridge quake as any sane person would want to be, and we did lose a lot of things. Some of those things could never be replaced.
A statue of the Blessed Mother is just plaster, wood, or stone, but it provides a connection to invisible truth and something deeply emotional and spiritual. When my dad passed away, the statue of St. Joseph and the Christ Child that stood sentinel on his bedroom dresser remained. It could not have been worth more than $5 at any thrift store, but my mother kept it in its place of honor because the life of Joseph was interwoven with the man she loved and the children she raised. How it survived all the earthquakes is a miracle in and of itself.
After my mom died I “inherited” the statue, where it stood guard on the desk in my home office. I have since passed it to my eldest son, and if it were ever to be lost in fire, flood, or earthquake, I would be grieved; not for the five dollars’ worth of plaster, but for what it meant to my mom and what it meant to me.
Just recently, the relic of the crown of thorns was returned to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, another fire victim. It was cause for celebration because a thing was rescued from destruction, not because of its monetary value, as if one could even be ascribed to it, but because of what it means to the faithful.
There will be no international news coverage when Corpus Christi opens her doors again, but there will be a celebration, and there will be “things” inside to create new memories and empower stronger faiths. So, in the end, things do matter.
