This Very Life

New article published today!

Excuse the bulky parenthetical footnotes but the formatting doesn’t transfer too well…

Unveiling the paradox of Christ’s love

“The birth of Jesus Christ in that stable in Bethlehem is where all my questions begin to be answered”.  The late Cardinal Basil Hume, Archbishop of Westminster, wrote these words when nearing the end of his life. “If I want to look on the face of utter love, if I want to see what the lover will do for the beloved, I have to take myself with faith to the crib and look at the image of the Child lying in the manger”, he added (1).

Looking at the scene of Christ’s birth – this is exactly what Benedict XVI invited the faithful to do when he blessed the Bambinelli that children had brought to the Angelus Reflection in St Peter’s Square on Sunday, 13 December.  He asked the “little ones” and their families to open their eyes to the mystery of this familiar scene of the Child Jesus and his Holy Family in the stable. In Italy the presepe, or nativity scene, remains the focus of Christmas decorations, with elaborate displays adorning piazzas and churches throughout the country.

As the Pope recalled, the tradition of the nativity scene began when St Francis of Assisi organized a re-enactment of the night of Christ’s birth in a mountainside cave in the small Italian village of Greccio:

“I want to do something that will recall the memory of that Child who was born in Bethlehem, to see with bodily eyes the inconveniences of his infancy”, St Francis explained during preparation for that first live nativity scene in 1223, as Thomas of Celano recorded in his biography of the Saint.

In that time, Thomas writes, “in the hearts of many the Child Jesus really had been forgotten, but, by his grace and through his servant Francis, he had been brought back to life”. What Francis most wanted to show the people, the Holy Father said on Sunday,  was that because of his love for us the Son of God emptied himself completely and came down to earth as a tiny baby.

The Nativity Scene at Greccio - a pretty, if not terribly accurate, depiction

The depth and nature of this love is a mystery that – while remaining hidden to many, past and present – has been revealed to the “little ones”.  Understanding the profound importance of this mystery and realizing what kind of person might begin to grasp it are both topics on which the Pope has consistently reflected, especially since the beginning of the new Liturgical Year.

“He concealed the great mystery of the Son… from the wise and the learned, from those who did not recognize him. Instead he revealed it to the children”, the Holy Father said. In order for our eyes to be opened, we need the grace to become small, he said. This is not to say, however, that the “becoming little” that is necessary for a deeper understanding of the faith means an abandonment of reason or a reversion to ignorance (2).

Instead, this process of becoming small involves the acknowledgement and consequent renouncement of the kind of foolishness that often leads to blind pride. All too often, people tend to think they “know everything” and see their own methods as “above God”.  In order to look at the Christ Child and truly see what lies there before him a man must open himself in humility, recognizing how little he is in comparison to the greatness of God. It is “precisely by accepting his own smallness… that he arrives at the truth” (3).

So we are to look to children for inspiration, the Pope says. A large part of what makes them worthy role models seems to be their ceaseless wonder at the world. “God speaks very gently to children, often without words…. Creation provides the vocabulary – leaves, clouds, flowing water, a shaft of light. It is a secret language, not to be found in books” (4).

Indeed, seeing God in nature is often how mankind has come to experience this same mystery whose truth is revealed in Christ.  In every age the beauty of Creation has brought Christians and non-Christians to catch a glimpse of that mystery.  One might begin with St Francis, so well known for his exuberant praise of God’s handiwork, as expressed in his Canticle of the Sun. But someone like Albert Einstein, for example, found transcendent meaning in Creation as well. His religion consisted in “a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind”, he said. And he also had an appreciation for the importance of being like children: “People do not grow old no matter how long we live. We never cease to stand like curious children before the great Mystery into which we were born”.

The greatest minds – from theologians to philosophers to scientists – have often concluded their life’s work with a sense that  what they know is, in the grand scheme of things, not much at all. St Thomas Aquinas is a prime example. His thought remains to this day an invaluable foundation upon which a considerable part of Catholic Doctrine firmly stands. Having produced a large body of theological and philosophical work, St Thomas reached a point late in his life when he decided to stop writing. This was prompted by a realization, as he described it, that all he had written seemed to him to be mere “straw”.

But the Baby Jesus was not to become a Man who spoke of his utter lack of wisdom. Instead, “slowly he grew to man’s estate, increasing in wisdom and grace before God and man, adding to the fruits of his knowledge by experience… growing conscious of the outward fabric of the universe which his own hands upheld”, writes English Dominican Bede Jarrett (5).

It is only with the realization of Jesus’ true identity, then, that the extent of his humility can even begin to be perceived. And it is this realization that lies at the very core of the mystery of the faith: “that at a given moment in history the Trinitarian God entered our history, as a man like us” (6).

Thus the Holy Father has asserted time and again that Christianity is no myth: “the Gospel is not a legend but the account of a true story…. Jesus of Nazareth is a historical figure” (7). By coming down to earth, God revealed a great deal of the mystery of his love.  But in illuminating this mystery, “he cannot help blinding me even while he enlightens me, not because of his limitations, but of mine…. In other words, just because God is infinite and I am finite, it is to be expected that everything that he tells me of himself, while increasing light, will increase darkness at the same time. In those countries where the sun is brightest, there are the deepest shadows; the very brilliance of the sun adds to the blackness of the shadow that it casts” (8).

An awareness of Jesus’ identity and his humility unveils what seem at first to be contradictions. The paradox of his life emerges – a life begun on a bed of hay and finished on a wooden cross. If Christ is truly King, why would he lower himself to that kind of existence? Why would he choose to place himself in such poor circumstances? A helpless child might be considered the very epitome of vulnerability.  But then, “to love at all is to be vulnerable”, as C.S. Lewis writes (9).

Christ knows the human condition inside out, but instead of exploiting humanity for its frailty, he chose to share in its trials. It was this loving desire that led him to dwell among us: “In becoming Man, the Lord himself wanted to love us with a heart of flesh!”, the Pope explained (10).

The moment in which that heart of flesh started beating, the course of human history was drastically changed.  Christ’s entrance into the world would bring a new intimacy to mankind’s relationship with its Creator, one that did not end when he ascended into Heaven. He is still present today: “God is here, he has not withdrawn from the world” the Pope said, explaining that this phrase constituted “the essential meaning of the word adventus” for Early Christians (11). He described the Advent Season as a chance to “pause in silence to understand a presence. It is an invitation to understand that the individual events of the day are hints that God is giving us”, signs of his love (12).

Yet Advent is also a time of anticipation. “The Lord is at hand!”, we heard during Sunday’s Liturgy in the Letter of St Paul – notably the very same “great scholar” who had become a “little one” and was hence able to perceive “the folly of God as wisdom” (13).This anticipation is expressed, for example, in the way that in Italy traditionally the Infant Jesus is not placed in the manger until Christmas. The tension between this sense of expectation and the divine presence that can be experienced today is in itself symbolic of the Christian journey.

The balance between them was illustrated poignantly in St Peter’s Square on Sunday. There in the centre of the piazza was the large, covered manger scene, soon to be unveiled.  But from the Square filled with the faithful, Baby Jesus figurines in hand, one could see the Virgin holding a newborn Child just to the right of the Basilica. Upon the mosaic, a work commissioned by Pope John Paul II,  are written the words: Totus Tuus – totally yours. Parallel to Mary and Jesus stood the Holy Father at his window, reminding the faithful that “the crib is a school of life, where we can learn the secret of true joy”. This consists “in giving oneself as a gift for others and in loving one another” as God loved humanity – completely.

For Christians, it is a joy rooted firmly in hope. Christ did not come only to share in the human condition, he came to sanctify it, to lift it to himself:  “Christ’s nativity places ‘in our hands’ the potential of personal participation in God’s sacred life and love in an endless progression” (14).  The sense of anticipation that comes with Advent is in fact reminiscent of humanity’s insatiable longing for union with its Creator, its waiting to return home to him.

This same Creator made himself a humble servant out of love for his creatures. It is the Christ Child, both vulnerable Infant and Almighty God, both ever present and near at hand, who makes possible “the hope of our salvation”. Such is the message that Benedict XVI has continually sought to convey. Thus whoever can look – through the eyes of a “little one” – at the nativity scene, welcoming the Baby within as the centre of their lives, will find both “the source of true joy” and “the heart of the world” (15).

Notes

1)    Cardinal Basil Hume, Mystery of the Incarnation, (London: Dartman, Longman and Todd, 1999), p. 10

2)    Cf. Benedict XVI, Homily During Mass for the Members of the International Theological Commission, 1 December 2009; L’Osservatore Romano English edition [ORE], 9 December, p. 6.

3)    Ibid.

4)    Text of a French catechetical document as cited by Cardinal Hume in his above-referenced work, p. 60.

5)    “Jesus Christ”, Bede Jarrett Anthology, ed. Jordan Aumann, op, (London: Aquin Press, 1961), p. 35.

6)    Benedict XVI, Homily During Mass for Members of the International Theological Commission; ORE, 9 December 2009, p. 6.

7)    Angelus Reflection, 6 December 2009; ORE, 9 December, p. 1.

Note: This latter description can be dangerous when taken alone, however. Many academics have reduced the “great mystery of Jesus, the Son made Man” into a historical Jesus, “a tragic figure; a ghost, not of flesh and blood; a man who stays in the tomb” (Homily, MassforMembers of the International Theological Commission).

8)    Bede Jarrett, op “Faith”, Bede Jarrett Anthology, p. 296.

9)    The Four Loves (London: Harcourt Brace, 1960), p. 111.

10) General Audience Catechesis, 2 December 2009; ORE, 9 December, p. 16.

11) Homily During First Vespers for the Beginning of Advent, 28 November 2009; ORE, 2 December, p. 7.

12)  Cf. ibid.

13) Benedict XVI, Homily During Mass for Members of the International Theological Commission; ORE, 9 December 2009, p. 6.

14) Bartholomew I, Patriarchal Proclamation Upon the Feast of Christmas 2008.

15)  Benedict XVI, Angelus Reflection, 13 December 2009; see p. 3.

© L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 16 December 2009

OK, I’ve been wanting to write about last weekend, when I went to this great event called Music in the Museums at the Capitoline Museums. They are considered a must-see here in Rome, and with the piano music as a sottofondo, it was quite the elegant evening. I saw a whole slew of gorgeous things and learned loads of interesting historical and artistic tidbits.  I also got interviewed by some Italian broadcaster man, though I don’t know for what channel.

But if I get a chance to talk about all that it’ll have to be at another time. Because I have too many thoughts about ‘life, the universe and everything’ swirling round my head at the moment, so this is about to be my outlet.  At this point I should say – “I just want to say something really quick” – simply because it tends to be how all Italians intro a long discourse about, well, life, the universe and everything.  This one is going to be composed mainly of other people’s words, however.

A great little book I have is called Basil in Blunderland, by Cardinal Basil Hume. It’s hard to imagine him as a Cardinal when you read his writing, because he’s so completely down to earth in the way he expresses himself.  He makes everything sound so simple.  The core message is that what it’s all about is raising our hearts and minds to God. And one of the best ways to do that is through prayer, which he discusses at length. But he frames it all in a children’s game of hide and seek. He’s not just down to earth, he’s downright humble, always pointing out his own inadequacies and never ‘preaching’, in the negative sense of the word.  An excerpt from the intro:

“It is not right to cultivate inadequacy, but being inadequate, and recognizing it, can be, oddly enough, quite comforting. I may blunder into the world of God, but at least I enter into it with a modest opinion of myself. This is called ‘humility’. This is a lovely virtue to observe in others, but difficult and painful to acquire for oneself. At least that is my experience. Humility enables us to appear before God in a respectful manner, indeed, on occasions with a healthy (not neurotic) sense of awe and the right kind of fear.

“Entering into the world of God is one way of describing spirituality. Spirituality is the soul of religion, its inner dynamism, from which every other Christian action derives its motivation and energy. Without it religion is empty.

“So often religion is taken as something outside us – rules to be obeyed, an ideology to be realized, social action to be taken, an institution with officials and buildings. (See the extremely irritating blog of Tara Stiles here for a prime example of a twisted, though sadly pretty common, perspective on these aspects).  All of these have a part to play. What matters, however, is that minds and hearts should be involved in the search for God, where the seeking and the finding go hand in hand. It is the process of getting to know God and learning to love Him. It is intimacy with Him that we seek. It is a personal encounter. We try to go beyond every experience of knowledge and love, which we have now, to another experience, which is beyond our grasp but not entirely out of our reach” ( pp. 10-11).

Cardinal Hume later cites a favorite passage of his, that he uses to help him pray: “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:19-20).

The thoughts that follow this reference reminded me too much of yet another Bede Jarrett quote – so much so that I can’t resist the temptation to shamelessly copy and paste more of his words here.  It takes up the same thread, the idea that we can find God in our lives if we care enough to keep our eyes and ears open wide.

“God has a purpose for me and he wants me to carry out that purpose. There can be nothing far-fetched in either of these two notions. God is wise, then he acts for a purpose; God created my soul, then has something for me to do. So far so good. Now since he has a purpose for  me, it is clearly a purpose he wishes me to fulfil. But if he wishes for me to do it, he will make it clear to me. Moreover, since he knows my foolishness and blindness, he will – so to say- go out of his way to make it clear. He knows me through and through, knows how very easily I can mistake his meaning, and because he wants the thing done he will be telling me endlessly what he wants of me! Do I find it difficult to know what his will is? Then I can be sure that the fault does not lie with him. He wants his will carried out – else it would be his will; hence I can be sure that he is making it clear; and if it is not clear, the fault must be mine.

“Have I, then, any way of finding out God’s will? I am sure he must be illuminating me all day long, speaking to me in a thousand voices, yet I miss these hints and expressed desires. How can I learn where to look for them? He makes signs to me; how can I discover these signs? Perhaps it is not very easy to lay down laws about them, because God has a disconcerting way of treating each of us differently, so that drawing up a guide book is not very helpful when you are dealing with One who refuses to be reduced to little, human, tabulated, statistical columns. Still we can get a certain distance in the right direction by saying that these signs are of two sorts, within and without.

“First of all, take the signs within. God started us off in life with a certain bias of temperament. We have certain likes and dislikes, sympathies, antipathies, con-natural, born with us, beyond choice. De gustibus non disputandum. Why cannot you dispute about tastes? Chiefly because they are not a matter of reasoned argument, they are instinctive; you can correct them, modify them, sublimate them, but they remain. Now why have I this particular temperament? Evidently it was given me by God for some purpose. It will fit in perfectly with some design of his. Without it, I shall not be able to do the work he has designed for me. When faced by alternatives as to which is his will, I must first analyse my intuitions and examine my natural preferences. Presumably they are there for a purpose.

“Secondly, there are signs without, which we call circumstances. We are not perfectly free to follow our impulses and preferences. We are hampered by the world in which God has set us, the age, the stage of life. This also is of God, and may not be ignored. So life, then, is made up of two forces that fit in with each other, that check each other, modify, play into each other’s hands and yet against each other. Impulse drives us, but is checked by circumstance; then when we are blocked, comes a fresh impulse, which again is blocked or deflected by circumstance; thus shepherded we are urged along the path which God would have us choose. He drives us by their interplay. He drives well. What is asked of us in this battle of impulse and circumstance? Three things chiefly: a) a sensitiveness to God’s call; b) a cheerful humility that is not rooted in its own will; c) a quiet and patient surrender not to self, but to the work of God”   (Bede Jarrett Anthology, “Why Have We No Home?”, pp. 157-158).

I love thinking about it as an interplay, a sort of system of checks and balances like he describes… a struggle but at the same time a balance, and one that’s there for a reason.  Inner and outer, intuition and circumstance.  I may as well end this entry of quotes with yet another, this one perhaps better known:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

–Reinhold Niebuhr

I lied. I wasn’t finished. I’ve apparently spent too much time around Italians. But I did warn you.

All of this business about understanding God’s will if we try, seeing Him in our daily lives, can be tied into the season of Advent that just began.  So I’ll let the boss have the last word. This time I mean it.

“The essential meaning of the word adventus was:  God is here, he has not withdrawn from the world, he has not deserted us. Even if we cannot see and touch him as we can tangible realities, he is here and comes to visit us in many ways.  The meaning of the expression “advent” therefore includes that of visitatio, which simply and specifically means ‘visit’; in this case it is a question of a visit from God:  he enters my life and wishes to speak to me. In our daily lives we all experience having little time for the Lord and also little time for ourselves. We end by being absorbed in ‘doing’.

“Is it not true that activities often absorb us and that society with its multiple interests monopolizes our attention? Is it not true that we devote a lot of time to entertainment and to various kinds of amusement?  At times we get carried away. Advent, this powerful liturgical season that we are beginning, invites us to pause in silence to understand a presence. It is an invitation to understand that the individual events of the day are hints that God is giving us, signs of the attention he has for each one of us. How often does God give us a glimpse of his love! To keep, as it were, an ‘interior journal’ of this love would be a beautiful… task!

“Advent invites and stimulates us to contemplate the Lord present. Should not the certainty of his presence help us see the world with different eyes? Should it not help us to consider the whole of our life as a ‘visit’, as a way in which he can come to us and become close to us in every situation?” (Benedict XVI, First Vespers for the beginning of Advent, L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 2 December, p. 7).

Last weekend was my cousin from Florence’s birthday.  His girlfriend planned a big surprise party for him,  but let him attempt to organize a dinner on his own.  She had already gotten in touch with most of his friends by the time he asked them, so almost all of them turned him down.  A core group said yes so as to make the whole thing more credible.  It was fun to be part of the whole ‘conspiracy’, because the night before, for example, the three of us went out and his girlfriend and I had to play along and keep up the story for the whole evening. You could tell he was disappointed about the whole thing, but we kept our smug mouths shut.

The next day for lunch my aunt made the most delicious, super fresh mazzancolle (like huge shrimp). Out of this world. That night we set out for my cousin’s birthday “dinner”, and one of the aunts had made this huge chocolate cake for him. She gave it to him to bring in this big wicker basket covered in a flower-patterned cloth, Little Red Riding Hood style. My cuz has an Audi TT, though, so in order for the three of us to make it to his dinner, it was a bit of a struggle. The cake had to remain level. The only place that could happen was on the floor where my feet should have gone. I was wearing knee high boots with pretty high heels though, so my lower half and said cake were not about to share the leg room with any kind of success. So I had to take my boots off and make do until we arrived.

My cousin was in shock for the whole night;  by the end of the night it still hadn’t quite sunk in that about 40 of his friends had pulled a fast one on him in the nicest way. The only thing I was sad about was not being able to see his face when he walked in the door. But it was fun to see what he saw, the whole group of them greeting him so loudly and enthusiastically. Of course, two people tried to film his arrival but neither camera worked.

Later, I was explaining our cake transportation ordeal to a friend of mine.  But I didn’t know the Italian word for ‘basket’. So I asked mid-story, and (I thought) my friend told me: cesso. So I proceeded to explain how the cake was in this big cesso between my feet, etc, until she stopped me. “Wait… It’s ‘cesto‘, not ‘cesso!’”. “Oh OK, I thought I had heard cesso in some other context – what does that mean then?”. Laughing, she responded: “toilet bowl”. Sweet. We weren’t sure if it was for better or worse, the possibility that someone had overheard just the beginning of the conversation. Not the most appetizing image, but more cake for us! Hehe.

Sunday was the overly abundant (and scrumptious) lunch with the family. A bit of a dining adventure, though. When we walked in, there were small animals rotating on the spit, in their living room fireplace. Apparently my cousin and his friends have just taken up hunting, so there were freshly killed pheasants, rabbits and small birds (I think thrushes, but I hope not, for my own conscience).  The pasta – big thick pappardelle - with rabbit sauce was fantastic. So were the crostini with pheasant liver. Chianti is gorgeous in the fall – I think it was my first time there at that time of year. The countryside alive with all the fiery autumn colors was beautiful, and as we ate lunch in the sun room terrace, I could see out over the rolling hills. Yum.

Same table, different occasion.

The absurdly hot weather we’ve been having is starting to slowly fade. Today it was in the 50s. I stopped for a coffee and one of the men working commented to the other about the freddo allucinante- incredible cold. I almost spit out my coffee and told him to try on Chicago for size and then see what he thought about the ‘cold’ here. Silly spoiled Romans. You know that some of them actually put chains on their car tires when it rains?

Yesterday, to make a long story short (and vague) I was saved at the very last second by the fact that a big, rough, and, according to many, scary man who runs the printing presses ended up being personal friends with a group of cloistered nuns. He recounted to me that the Mother Superior has the same name as his daughter and that the group of them used to give him homemade jam.  Thank God for unlikely associations.

Happy Thanksgiving to all! I can’t say that food-wise my day has been all that different, though, because my mom doesn’t like turkey and therefore used to always make homemade lasagne instead. We never complained!! One year my sister made a turkey that sat in the oven with a beer bottle up its rear.  Looked pretty absurd but tasted great!

If something is an ‘acquired taste’, is that actually just a fancy way of saying it’s objectively pretty gross?

There is now a huge advertisement smack next to St Peter’s Basilica. Yuck. Honestly. It’s perpendicular to the facade and lit up better than the church itself, so at night your eye is drawn to the ad before it is to the cupola. Horrendous!!!

In retrospect, I didn’t begin from the beginning in that last blog. Let me fix that.

My first stop was a somewhat hidden church called Santa Maria dell’Orto.  I went because I wanted to buy a postcard with a favorite painting that’s housed there (Baptism of Christ by Corrado Giaquinto).  But I did not succeed… because the elderly man who was sitting at the little desk with the cards wouldn’t let me pay for it. Instead he asked where I was from and started explaining things about the church to me, offering a special ‘behind the scenes’ tour into the ‘oratorio‘ and courtyard.  The former was absolutely beautiful – very ornately painted… a bright, elegant space – and the latter a bit unkempt, but the cool part was a whale’s rib bone (huuuge!) hung upon the stone wall. Donated by a parishioner, apparently. Back in the day, the church was used by all the different types of farmers and butchers and gardeners in the area – there’s a long list with all the fun names near the sacristy. Fun because of the way their titles were constructed. For example, those who raised chickens (polli) were called pollaroli, those who sold fruit (frutta) fruttaroli and so on. It seems less amusing when I try to describe it in English. But somehow the whale bone seemed an appropriate addition to the church for the people whose work meant getting their hands dirty.

I went back to the ‘Ghetto’ while strolling around with a couple friends, looking for somewhere to sip on something and chat. Eventually we stumbled on what seemed like a new locale, a book cafe’ of sorts. There weren’t many people, but we went in and were greeted and sat down. It smelled vaguely of paint. The two men working there came to the table and explained that the they had just opened, and were still waiting on the license for the place. That meant they weren’t allowed to sell us anything, but they said they’d be happy to offer us a drink (from the broad selection of OJ, ACE and Coke) or a snack anyway.  So free orange juice and peanuts it was!

The Jewish Ghetto, photo by Giorgio Clementi, Trekearth

I end with a favorite Bede Jarrett quote:

“Life is more or less what we make it, what we bring to it. If you find life dull, it is because you are dull. It is your dullness that swamps you. If you are always waiting to be enlivened by others, you will be oppressed by your own dead weight. And if life is adventurous for you, it is because you are adventurous, because you are always looking for some adventure beyond the dreary curtains of life. If life is full of laughter for you, it is the echo of your own laughter. If all men smile on you, it is because first you have smiled. Love is but the echo of your own voice. Do not wait to be amused…. Bring love if you would find it. It is but the echo of the cry of your own heart.”

Today I tilted the balance back towards some kind of equilibrium.

Living in Rome means living in a city overflowing with culture, history, beauty, intrigue… and the list goes on. Rome is… well, Rome, for goodness’ sake!  I recently read in a a novel about Turkey that when people visit an ancient city – instead of caring much what new progress might be taking place there in modern times – what they want is to be able to imagine what it was once like, to be transported back in time. And to feel that connection to the people who lived so long ago,  to the history-changing events that were part of what brought us to where we are now. It’s true.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a strong believer in experiencing a foreign culture in its current form – its people, how they think and communicate, what they value, what they eat (!!), etc.  But it’s also true  that when you go to a place so rich in history, the contemporary things don’t seem all that important. And in Rome, at least, it’s probably better that way. Because when it comes to practical, day-to-day life in the city,  it leaves quite a lot to be desired. As a Roman girl once said when I was commenting on the patience it takes to live here, “Eh, certo – Roma non funziona” (Well, of course – Rome doesn’t work).  Work in the same sense as a vacuum or blender would work, that is. And she’s right. I realized a long time ago that in order to feel healthy here, I have to keep a balanced perspective about the place. To appreciate it for all it’s amazing historical and cultural aspects, so as to give me more patience in dealing with the less ‘beautiful’ and more frustrating ones.

So today, after having felt pretty fed up with things that fit into the latter category, I filled my day with activities that fit into the former. I wandered around the Ghetto (not what you might picture – it just means the Jewish area of Rome) and through the Portico d’Ottavia. Really amazing. One part of it looks like a smaller version of the Colosseum, and other parts date back to about 150 B.C!

The neighborhood itself has lots of classy little restaurants, many of them kosher, and pastry shops. One was Austrian, but as I approached it, I saw that a brownie cost 2 euro! (Speaking of which, I made brownies recently for the Italians to try – no one knows what they are usually. They were a hit! And a nice taste of home).

Then I walked over to the bar that boasts Rome’s most famous coffee, called Sant’Eustachio. It’s wood-roasted, this coffee. Their emblem has stag antlers, just like the steeple of the church in the piazza where it’s located. Apparently St Eustace saw a vision of Jesus between a stag’s antlers while hunting, and converted on the spot.  Now, however, Sant’Eustachio has become a church where no Italians ever get married, because for them, horns are too strongly representative of, well… cuckolding, as it used to be called.

Then it was through the piazza of the Pantheon, past one of my favorite churches, Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, and onto the bus towards the Basilica I’ve been wanting to visit for a long time, called Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri. It is humongous! Was worth the visit, though I can’t say I’d recommend it to someone who might be visiting Rome for only a week or so. One interesting aspect was the sundial running along the floor. Some of the statues of angels were gorgeous, as were the depictions of ‘prayer’ and ‘meditation’ as immensely large, seated, female statues. Then I crossed the street to the Museo Nazionale di Roma and toured it’s 4 floors of statues, mosaics and artifacts. My favorite work was a sculpture from about the first-second century B.C. of a boxer after a fight. It was in a room with another large sculpture of a Hellenistic prince, from the same period.  Completely captivating, both of them.

The detail of the boxer, though, with his leather, ornate gloves and the injuries on his face, was just fantastic. And to think of just how long ago someone sculpted those details!

Alla fine, Rome non funziona, è proprio (e purtroppo) vero. Ma è anche vero che è una città che ti lascia senza fiato, per la sua immensa e profonda bellezza.

Found this great little restaurant in my neighborhood, very ‘authentically Roman’. I went there with my mom when she was here, and we had a blast. We were joking around with the waiters by the end and felt right at home. Then the other night I went with one of my girlfriends. The owner hadn’t recognized me until after I’d finished my dessert (delicious profiteroles – they aren’t very common here).  Upon his revelation, he offered me some limoncello on the house and made a swift hand gesture. Seemingly from heaven, a basket of homemade cookies descended, to rest on the table in front of me! It was a huge wicker basket, complete with checkered cloth to line it and hold the donut shaped biscotti. It was amazing.  If I had known back in middle school science that a pulley could be put to such good use I would have enjoyed my class much more, I think!

Last night, one of my girlfriends surprised me by calling and saying she was right near my place. Could she stop by? I invited her over, and she showed up with a nice little styrofoam tub of gelato from my favorite gelateria down the street. I do love my friends sometimes. So I got out the bowls and spoons and we ate and chatted away. Upon finishing, she held up her empty bowl and said, “This – this is so… America”. I was confused for a moment, and then she explained that only an American would ever get out a bowl to eat ice cream. Maybe a small dish or a cup, but a bowl?? It hadn’t even entered my mind to get anything smaller, especially with the size of the tub she brought over. But she hadn’t meant for us to finish it, and she proceeded to laugh about the sitcoms and movies where you see Americans eating straight out of the carton. Ha.

Was very happy today to come across a YouTube recording of my favorite female Italian singer singing a classic Roman song. In some ways, it reminds me of Luck Be a Lady, though it hardly resembles it. The song, “Roma Nun Fa La Stupida Stasera”, has the singer asking the city of Rome to pull out all the bells and whistles to make the night a romantic one, instead of being ’stupid’ and messing things up. He or she asks for the best twinkly stars the city has up its sleeve,  for a perfect springtime atmosphere, etc.  And it’s sung in a heavy Roman accent, of course. I suppose it reminds me of Luck because it’s a plea for a good night to a personification of something that wouldn’t normally be depicted in that way…  The same sort of – “Be good now, please, and let things work out for me!”

Speaking of classic Roman songs, the other night, I was with the same friend, and we heard the sound of a big brass band echoing down my street. We went to see what was going on and there was the band, its members dressed in uniforms that included hats with big black feathers, playing away on the church steps as part of the celebration of St Francis’ feast day. The day’s procession and celebration was nearing its end, and a large crowd was gathered round the musicians, lit by only a few dim piazza lights. They were clapping and singing along wholeheartedly to what is, apparently, one of the most well-known and best-loved classic Italian songs.  It sounded familiar to me but not enough for me to be able to join in. Perhaps that should have been my cue, though, to pull out my friend’s phrase…”This – now this is Italy”.

Next time I’ll have to come up with something nicer to represent the States than eating ice cream from a bowl, though, I feel like it’s an unfair parallel. Not that I’m in the most ‘three cheers for America!’ kind of mood. I just got off the tram, where a group of obnoxious American college students were speaking loudly about messing up their ‘ree zah toe’ recipes and how blasted they were going to get tonight. Seemed like they had already made a start towards that goal, too. I noticed that a few Italian twenty-somethings were watching in amusement as I utterly failed to hide my annoyance with them. I think it was David Sedaris who said that there is no one who finds obnoxious American tourists more annoying than the Americans who live in whatever country they’re visiting. I think he’s on to something…