April 22, 2026 “Nothing brings people together like a good demolition.” Those were the wise words of my son, Jake, as we discussed the ongoing demolition of a prominent building in Malone. Both of us had seen images of a community gathering on the first day of demolition, and both of us had been at least occasionally watching a livestream – live camera footage – of the demolition process, a livestream that regularly had several hundred viewers. I think it’s fair to say most of the community was happy about the demolition. People had been advocating for its demolition since before I was a baby reporter in Malone in 2002. I was also glad to see it torn down, but it felt weird celebrating its demolition. While I’m glad the dangerous, ugly building will finally be gone, it feels kind of wrong to celebrate destruction and loss even when it’s needed destruction and loss, destruction and loss that will bring better things. Maybe it’s cultural, or maybe it’s just me, but when I think about celebrating change, I think far more about the joys of creating beautiful and good things than I do about getting rid of bad things. Being with bad things just feels ugly. Also, it’s sometimes easy to think, “they should’ve torn down that building years ago” and diminish the celebration. I find it easy to do the exact same thing in my spiritual life. God has worked hard in me, and I have worked hard with God to overcome (at least for now) some significant bad habits and sins. But instead of celebrating that progress and being grateful for those graces, I sometimes fall for the lies of the evil one, and I fall into feeling guilt and shame for sins long forgiven and bad decisions I haven’t made in a long time. I forget that progress sometimes looks like demolition, and sometimes God is leading the wrecking crew. It can be messy and ugly. It can be painful. But it makes room for that creation and beauty that I prefer to celebrate. I recently had the opportunity to take a couple days to celebrate the destruction of the bad habits and sins in my life. It was two days of spending time doing activities that add happiness to my life and spending time with Jesus, friends and loved ones. I came out of those days feeling joyful, energized and connected to Jesus and the people I love. Because nothing brings people together like a good demolition. |
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