Saturday June 4th- 9:30pm
Part 1: Something to Believe In
I've only been to Rome one other time in my life. I ran through some busy street with a giant back pack on just 5 days before my 21st birthday. It was all a blur and I only caught a glimpse of the coliseum from afar. I never felt like I could say I had seen Rome. After today, and only an afternoon of exploring, I feel I can now begin to say - I've seen Rome.
When Mario and I enter a new city on this trip, we've take up the custom to familiarize ourselves briefly with the map, then just start wandering and see where we end up. After The Spanish Steps and several busy side streets we found a church, a large basillica, and everything inside was adorned in gold. There was music. There was a grand dome with evening sunlight peering in. It was grand. It was peaceful. It felt solid. It felt safe.
I am not religious. Spiritual with the frequent inclination to worship mother earth, sunsets over the ocean, butterflies, flowers, ;) but never one to find dark stone structures representative of God. I was called out on my narrow mindedness today. I was called out on my resistance to structure and conformity. I was called out on my fear of rules and guidelines.
It was silent inside, but the masses were outside in the streets of Rome and they needed something to make them feel safe, something to ground them, something to believe in. Today I was just one in the grand mass and today I closed my eyes and listened to the silence. Today I understood a bit of what I so often repelled. So when I turned another corner to see The Pantheon of Rome with it's grand choir singing from inside for evening mass- I was open to it's overwhelming resonance with something much larger than myself. Many have come before and many will come after and we all need something to believe in! If a giant structure of marble & stone can remind us of something that withstands time when our own impermanence is glaringly evident- it becomes not only a monument to the human spirit and it's history on earth, but a place of real worship.
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I like a lot what you wrote. This is exactly how I feel every time I enter a religious building and you express those feeling perfectly!. I specially love Cathedrals!!!!!!
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