Wednesday, August 1, 2012

St. Vitus


Classic, Roman, Renaissance, Baroque,
Rococo, Gothic, and art nouveau;
The gods of style threw up St. Vitus Cathedral
In a  misdemeanor of  minor consequence.
She stands proud high above great Praha
And offers hope to those who like it all.

Notions of graceful proportion,
Be they waist, bust, turret or temple,
Meander by generation,
Not progressing one upon the other
In some orderly manner and purpose
Proof of no intelligent design.

But this is the straw man's quest:
Order must be the means of grace.
Fools of faith are those who argue
upon this slender ground of the atheist.
God is not Pursuer of the Constant
I Am is motion, motive and meaning.

Beyond the other atrocities of history
Another judgement has been made upon
The fascist's, Maoist's, and communist's pogroms:
Their buildings stunk as badly as their soul.
The final argument for all protesting atheists:
Your buildings are awful and ghastly and dull.

There is more threat on the landscape of history:
Ayn Rand is still hero to the  nutty  patrol.
Her virtue of selfishness baldy exalted
Means more than vapid politician;
When the godless get blueprints,
Shallow is erected,  self the better goal.


Note: Imposing on  Prague's skyline, St. Vitus was built over centuries.  The lack of unity shows.  Visiting its imposing presence and expansive adjacent castle, we heard the  stories of communist rule.  The buildings of Hitler and Stalin are largely gone but a few ugly reminders punctuate the cities of Europe.  For reasons that escape the Christian mind, atheist Ayn Rand, and her fictional protagonist, architect John Galt, find resurgent popularity among some crazier parts of the body politic.  A virulent anti-communist herself, Rand's virtue of the Self is, ironically, the mirrored ugliness of the very system she hated.  But like bad buildings, bad ideas, I hope, meet the dozer of God's reign.

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