Warmth of Stone

Tuesday, July 2nd, 2011
Assisi, Italy

This has been a delicate couple of hours, as I experience the creeping sense of loneliness. I’ve returned to the Basilica of St. Francis for a second time, to welcome the sunset and honor another day spent in Assisi.

This sanctuary is surprisingly welcoming, despite its size and droves of visitors. The space is inviting with its plane wooden pews and single aisle flanked by faded pastel frescos. The paintings are playful and childlike, whimsical, Dali-esque.

The center naive is spacious and alive, without the ominous presence of towering statues of saints or grotesque images of Christ. Even the painted images of St. Francis are understated.

Overhead, a sky blue ceiling with golden stars creates a dreamlike canopy. Oxidation has created pools of brilliant turquoise, as if the painter splashed a brighter shade at his leisure.

The floor seems newly renovated. Cream, brown and tan marble tiles are displayed in alternating geometric patterns. Their freshness is uplifting, unlike the smoothed-over stone surfaces inside the Convento San Damiano. There, the depression made on each slab step seem to harbor the weight and woes of millions of feet having trod upon them.

Outside the Basilica, a stone wall separates the cobblestone streets from the surrounding landscape of the Spoletine Valley. I sat alone and peeked through one of the openings in the wall to note the level of the sun – still hung significantly high in the horizon.

Within moments, I reached that point of sadness in which one gives into gravity, as hot tears rolled down my cheeks, stinging the sun burnt skin under my eyes. I felt far from, without and alone.

My heart was suddenly lightened when a priest, or monk, I’m unsure of the difference, walked purposely in front of me. I admired his intentionality and focus, his unwavering direction... and then, suddently, a crack in the stonework caused him to trip forward in an awkward lunge.

He instantly regained his balance, as if tripping was well within his plans. In his unmovable peacefulness, he was not phased and I admired him all the more.

The holy men and women who wander this city are so vibrant and genuine - like the priest from the Chiasa Santa Chiara who I saw in his more humble brown robe and white rope sash. Last night, as I listened to a brass band marching along in hot pink polo shirts, the priest sat on the side steps of the church, utterly attentive to the young woman sitting next to him.

Not overly consiliatory, but listening intently, he hunched over at her same level. The two were unlikely to be on the same walk of faith, yet there was nothing in the priests’ demeanor that spoke of superior spirituality.

I find that Catholicism is renewed here. It is made more human, more versatile, more lasting, more tolerant. This tradition, somehow purified in this new place, is worthy of pause and reflection as a credible means through which one can develop a relationship with the Divine.

There is space for the spiritual here.

The stones are still warm, having absorbed the heat of the Umbrian sun, causing their already luminous rose hue to glow all the more.

The crowds have left for the center of town in search of entertainment and company. The absence of noise has revealed the first evening’s birds and summer insects. Windows are being tied up for the night, store fronts shutting their trinkets away. A distant baby’s cry and her mother’s response can be heard from the entry way to the Basilica below.

Wooden door shut and locked, letting the holy space rest from the intensity of travelers, pilgrims and prayer seekers. How much that must ware on ground that is marked by the spiritual. All it asks is to be, not to be admired or revered.

The sun has hidden behind the elegant belfry, which just moments ago heralded the eight o’clock hour. Heavy resonant gongs echo beyond the hills, as if singing out to sister bells in India, Nepal or Peru.

Call it evening, Buena Sera, or call it the time of peacemaking, when gentle whispers and a quiet togetherness draws the day to an end.