Geneva Grotto
I found it, I mean the Geneva Grotto. Not long ago, I was asked by a high school student while walking toward Starbucks if I knew where to find the Geneva Grotto. I’d not heard of it before, so I couldn’t help him. Curious I checked the internet. I read about a shrine built by a priest in the 1930s. Property now occupied by the Kane Country Government center was once the site of a Catholic High School. The Grotto, now on Forest Preserve land is near to the Fox River.
Finding the Grotto seemed a reasonable, manageable adventure for a 75 year old adult. What could possibly happen? At worse, I’d fail to find it…
The photos reveal what I found along a creek-side, a rock strewn watercourse sublime in natural beauty.
The Grotto of the Sacred Heart was curiously troubling to me.
On the other hand the creek was calming, inviting, as if the earth were to open a palm of welcome, of invitation. I remembered the years of being young, that time when I gave rein to exploration of shaded creeks, interested in the many kinds of life that found a home in those environments. For me eternal youth is defined, is outlined by communion with nature.
The Sacred Heart Grotto, a monument to devotion, impressed me as overdone, grotesquely alien. I suppose someone will take me to task for writing that. I’ve seen similar places in Japan, a place designated, set apart for prayer, and for communion with one’s departed loved ones, the dead. This type of labor, of behavior is a distinctly human characteristic, in the face of loss, death. The exquisite privilege of life is counterbalanced by the inexorable 2nd law of thermodynamics, nothing endures indefinitely. Everything has an expiration and there are no exceptions.
Does it make sense to offer prayers to the dead, as if death is not brute loss, as if some essence still lingers? Do I have any warrant whatsoever to think that reason, another mind, administers everything, and that “it” waits for me to offer up in prayer, a human “hello”? If I beg for something, for anything from the “Lord-of-the-universe” what is likely to happen? Nothing. Or perhaps I’ll feel a bit better. What do you think?
These ruminations are crass. Why should I care about any of this?
Somehow I do.
Photos of the Grotto with side panels in Latin. Jesus said that he is the light of the world and the bringer of fire to the world. Photos of departed family members, a vivid color rendering of Jesus, the creek, a sun illuminated wildflower, and finally a magnificent old chestnut tree. The venerable tree will also die.
3 thoughts on “Geneva Grotto”
Well said Jerry. The grotto is also troubling to me. I also think that it has no place on public land. On the land of a local church is OK. I wonder what would happen if some other religious group wanted to put up a shrine there. Say Muslims, or even devil worshipers. I would think that would create quite an uproar.
I’d support one to the Ferrari mystique though…
Interesting. Since this was built at a time when the site was indeed Catholic in ownership (though it is now public land) I don’t have an issue with its preservation and location. One might think that the ardent atheist would find it objectionable, but I see this more as an art installation with religious overtones. It’s not attempting to convert me nor is it an edifice that covers an acre of ground. Someday, as you noted, the stones will crumble and once again become a part of the earth. But for the time being it sits amidst the trees and offers a place to remember those who have come before.