Word of Wisdom: Restore
“Great effort is required to arrest decay and restore vigor.” Horace
Recently, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris reopened to the public five years after a devastating fire. Begun in 1163 and largely completed in 1260, it had come to be a symbol of the city, and a national icon—particularly since Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame increased its global fame. The April 2019 destruction was a grief and sorrow to many, throughout France and around the world.
Yet the on time and to budget restoration brought wonder and celebration, and world leaders and celebrities gathered for the reopening. While your humble correspondent was not among the luminaries gathered along the Seine, I did happen to be in Paris some months prior as restoration efforts were still continuing apace—and the process itself was an awe-inspiring spectacle.
From the evident speed of the progress, to the exhibit attributing celebrity-like status to the many stonemasons, sculptors, engineers and electricians involved, to the almost reverent serenity of the worksite (there were few machine noises as craftsmen and artisans labored with hand-forged axes, chisels, and brushes to respect the original touches and techniques), the restoration was more than simply a worksite—it was its own artistic masterpiece.
And when the masterpiece was completed, one of the remarkable results was not simply a structure returned to the status quo ante, but a new, luminous quality that might have existed eight hundred years ago after restoration teams removed centuries of grime from the cathedral’s stone pillars and vaults. It led to the French president praising the many workers for their years of effort, proclaiming that they had “transformed ashes into art”.
The same is true when we experience restoration in our own lives.
By the time we find ourselves in midlife leadership, most of us have endured many destructive fires—large and small—that have left ashes in their wake. Childhood traumas and adolescent anxieties alone may have left heaps, while the decades later often experience relational disappointments, financial reversals, and professional problems that we didn’t expect, all while physical issues may be catching up to us—or have been recently diagnosed.
The result can be an inner sorrow when we thought we would have achieved satisfaction; a sense of destruction instead of deserved accolades and acceptance. The magnificent cathedrals of expectations we construct throughout our lives are often engulfed in flames as people and things walk through them like streams of tourists passing through.
Like a Job, with a midlife full of loss and lament, or a David, chased out of his own palace by his own son in his own kingdom, it is common to find ourselves in a valley of shadow, wondering why in the world we left the previous pasture when the present is now full of fears and foreboding. We often end up bleating like so many disconsolate sheep, “restore to me the joy of your salvation!” Sometimes it is a humble cry for deliverance—at other times it is simply kvetching and a pouting pity party of one.
But why do we cry out to be “restored”? Let’s look to the word itself.
The word restore came into English around 1300 (interestingly, not long after Notre Dame was completed) and meant “to give back”. Often in our lives, it is that meaning we attach to our desires and demands for restoration: a getting back of exactly what we lost. In midlife, that can mean the sense of freedom of our younger years, when (real or imagined) we could more easily dream or escape when needed; hence, the proclivity of this life stage to yearn for the fast cars and fast flings that seemed real (or at least possible) before the duties and realities of our current state. “Give that back to me!” cries out our troubled mind—even if the “that” was an illusion.
To restore evolved, however, and it also came to mean “to repair, to rebuild”. A repair is sometimes what we think we want; a simple holding onto what we’ve had but in repaired state, perhaps even with just a bit of duct tape and a dab of paint to keep together and make presentable that possession, that position…that personna that we’re clinging to. In a world of scarcity, with time and hope diminishing by the day, this option is a very human one.
But digging deeper, we discovery the divine one.
Our word restore ultimately comes from the Latin restaurare, and while in usage it meant “to renew, to rebuild”, it was formed from re-, meaning “again”, and staurare, meaning “to set up, to establish”. To restore, we find, is to “again establish”, to once more put into a position and place that makes one able to stand, to be firm and steady, and to be esteemed.
Not merely an exercise of bringing in loud, impersonal machines to clean up a mess and slap some artificial support and decoration on the ruins, to restore is to again establish one as unique, beloved, worthy, and luminous in a reflection of the Divine image that had been obscured by grime even before the flames did their work.
That is what we experience when we live in the freedom and restfulness of sonship.
When we live like a son, not a contractual servant or hired hand, we place ourselves in the compassionate care and covering of a Father who restores—who does not merely mop up our messes, but transforms us further into his image, using the refining of the flames to uncover opportunities for beauty and increase. One who does not merely sweep up the evidence of the inferno behind us, but gathers the remnant and turns our ashes into art.
In this position, we don’t simply receive again the things that went up in smoke—we receive an entirely new robe, new sandals, an even better ring that again establishes us as a beloved son, worthy of a place at the Father’s table now and in his purposes in the future. And when we forget that truth—when daily the smoldering fires seek to once more destroy that peace and position—He comes out to us in our labors and invites us to rest, to come in and celebrate because another son needs our presence…not our performance.
That is artistry. And we are invited to participate in the masterpiece of the process.