The Divine Travel Agency

"...Stepping to the Cathedrals’ large Spanish Colonial wooden doors, the architecture’s coexistence with the French neo-Gothic limestone exterior struck me as oddly consistent with The Big Easy’s reputation as a melting pot. All forms of adventurers and early settlers of every race, color, and creed, had descended upon this mosquito ridden and most humid spot in America, not much good for growing anything but sugarcane and rice, to plant family roots. What was it about the place that made many diverse cultures from all over the world gather here? It wasn’t the glamour of the climate, that’s for sure. The driver of the human spirit to relocate here, I guessed, was initially random, as rumored promises of gold in the streets, pearls in the river, and fountains of youth were echoed by sailors and opportunists around the world. 

          Darwin’s mutative laws of natural selection likely had a hand in insuring the survival of the melting pot. Sewing a quilt with a diverse collection of disparate humans required they learn to get along. And with that, came a relaxing of the tribal need to impose the tribe’s will on to others that didn’t look, speak, live, or worship as they did. In New Orleans, in a word, one could be: free. And its citizens came to realize over time that that freedom came with a price. Respect the diversity, adopt The Big Easy’s tolerance in your nature, and you can roam the streets with your booze, be a part of the parades, and sing all night – nobody will bother you. 

           Halfway to the altar, my eyes were drawn to columns on one side supporting the balconies under the tall arches of the nave’s ceiling. Images of buildings from Venice came to mind: another international gathering place where, many seafaring traders, continental crossing adventurers, and explorers like Marco Polo brought the cultures of the known world home to spark a renaissance. Pylons set in alluvial clay, heavy stones of marble and granite resting for centuries in a not too different delta, marked a similarity. Like Venice, many buildings in the Quarter, were built on allied sands and would likely experience a collateral sinking fate, I presumed. The limestone heavy Cathedral, resting on pylons, each sinking at inconsequent rates, suggested my perception of the ever-so-slight tilt in the columns was no illusion.