“No future without history.” Don’t omit faith in that history.

I remember a guide explaining the Black Forest in Germany to visitors years ago. The Romans called it “black”, he said,  because it was such a forbidding, dark land. Now, of course, it’s one of the loveliest spots in Europe, where visitors enjoy nature and its farms provide some of the best produce on the continent. It’s become a model for environmental planning in northern Europe.

Monks fleeing from dangerous conditions in the towns along the Rhine River were the first settlers here, our guide said.

Were they just fearful escapees, I asked, or did a vision of faith bring them here? Were they inspired by the Book of Genesis to create a new garden here, where they would live close to the earth, their buildings and lifestyle taking on the rhythms of nature, in the Benedictine tradition. Or were they just refugees?

I wondered too if the many small chapels found in the Black Forest today (see above) suggest that the people coming after the monks absorbed that same ideal?

Europe and North America have become increasingly secularized. It’s not just that people aren’t going to church; it’s evident also in a way people today see and understand things– past, present and future– without reference to the spiritual. I notice it in the documentaries, like Ken Burns’ new documentary on Leonardo DaVinci. A spark of wonder with him started it all.

Our guides on our trip along the Rhine some years ago  were polished, informed, personable presenters, but spiritual realities didn’t have much of a place in their explanations.

An example? Our guide in Strasbourg on the way to the cathedral through the maze of shops and colorful streets suggested that the great cathedral with its exquisite spire was a beacon drawing shoppers to the city’s abundant bazaars. A medieval version of MacDonald’s Golden Arches?

Medieval planners of the cathedral would be jolted by a suggestion like that. They built their great churches as places of splendor for relieving  the monotony, squalor and hardships people experienced in their cities. Seeing them, people walking the streets saw beauty pointing to the heavens. Within them people knew themselves as the people of God.

A billboard for Donald’s?  We have no future without history.