Recently, I visited Rome. It was, to say the least, remarkable. I was overwhelmed by the history, the culture, the food, and the sheer amount of information being blasted privately through my headset by our pilgrimage guide.
One particular site that struck me was the Pantheon. A pagan temple become a Christian Church. Its central feature is the most magnificent dome, entirely self- supported. And this whole structure has stood for almost 2,000 years. It’s survived the rise and fall of many kingdoms and empires, and still stands, even amidst the onslaught of eager tourists with busy camera shutters.
Almost as if to read my mind, while we were marveling at its beauty, our tour guide began to explain the sheer insanity of its construction.
As I took it all in, I thought ”why is it that we don’t build things like this now”.
Again, as if to reinforce the mind-reading, my tour guide said “you might be wondering how they built the dome...”
Yes, Sylvia. That’s all I can think about!
“The truth is...” She said, “we don’t really know.”
What?!
The thing is: we don’t have concrete that good. We can build the dome, but the concrete we have today would have collapsed a long time ago.
In the same way the same Roman roads stand, but the asphalt street next to my house has already eroded (after being redone last year), our current understanding of concrete isn’t good enough.
Funny, isn’t it, how for all our innovation and progress, we have forgotten how to build something as foundational as concrete.
The very stuff most of us stand on... And we cannot figure out how our ancestors did it so well.
All because we’ve forgotten the recipe.
Now, we shuttle thousands of curious eyes through the relics of our past, wondering how they could possibly have been so good at making concrete.
It’s an apt image for our time. So quick to do what is progressive. So fast to throw away what we no longer deem useful. So eager to adapt, that we’ve lost sight of how to maintain the very foundations of the world that was given to us.
And so often we claim to be smarter than these great men of the past. We know better now. Do we?
Will we think so when our own concrete crumbles around us?
Our tomb, our Pompeii, will be an enclosure of our own making: one of poorly built concrete and false assumptions about our own sophistication, and our lack of respect for our Fathers who came before us (who built everything around us).
And yet, the original Pompeii was destroyed by a Volcano (perhaps because they failed to respect the world around them). But we found it, and we excavated it. You can visit it today, and see it almost as if it was only abandoned yesterday.
All because they remembered how to make concrete.
