18 August, 2019,
back in Rome
The Camaldolese spirit assures a correspondence between the interior
conditions and the most appropriate external environment, and takes in account,
as is right and just, that the total dedication to God in the seriously
contemplative life is the greatest act of charity and the most perfect state in
the Church. (Anselmo Giabbani)
The train trip to
Arezzo last Sunday, just as the trip back down here from Florence yesterday,
through the Tuscan countryside, was as beautiful as always. My strongest memory
of the trip this time was the fields of sunflowers, which I thought I could
actually notice turning toward the sun. (The name in Italian is actually gira-sole–“sun-turn.”)
After leaving Rome
I was expecting to also leave the heat behind, but I was wrong. Arezzo itself
was like a furnace. There is only a bus (instead of a train) from Arezzo to
Bibbiena, where I was to be fetched by someone, so I had to leave the station
and walk about a block, by which time, carrying my backpack and guitar, I was
drenched in sweat. The bathrooms were all closed in the station so since there
was another 40 minutes before our bus was to leave I headed into the centro a
little to find servizi. No luck––ferragostoafter pranzo,
everything was closed. It was going to be an uncomfortable ride. One of the
first things you notice when you drive into Arezzo or walk from the train
station is a little piazza in the middle of a roundabout that welcomes you into
town, in the center of which is a large beautiful statue of our famous monk musician
Guido of Arezzo, who by the way invented the notation for Gregorian chant. I
have a special fondness for him of course, but I gently respectfully scolded my
famous forbear in that moment: “A little help, fratello?”
The trip was made a
little more challenging once I got on the bus. At first I was lucky to have a
seat to myself, with the guitar and backpack on the adjoining seat. But the bus
filled up, and at one point an older man got on and seemed to be struggling, so
I shifted over to allow him to sit. It turned out that he was mentally
disabled, and he wanted to talk. He kept asking me questions, in Italian,
rather loudly, that I didn’t always understand. I answered as best I could. At
one point he asked me where I was from, and he got really excited to find out I
was from California, and started asking me all kinds of questions about
California, and he wanted to say all the English words he knew, which were
mostly “Thank you.” So every time I answered a question he would grab my arm
and say “Thank you!” And sometimes he grabbed my arm for no apparent reason
and, with a big smile, would just say “Thank you!” Trying to blend in in a
foreign country is not always easy anyway, but the scene we were making was
quite a good opportunity for me to practice several virtues at once. I kept
asking myself, “What would St. Francis do?”
The next surprise
awaiting me was that Alessandro, the Prior General himself, came to pick me up
at Bibbiena. We don't stand on ceremony a lot in our congregation (to say the
least) and tend to be informal and not very hierarchical, but I was still quite
touched by the gesture. I think he and I have developed a pretty good rapport
as confreres and colleagues. He took me to a little osteriafor some
dinner where we had a good long chat and caught up on many things, before he
ushered me to my cell at the Sacro Eremo of Camaldoli.
My goodness, how I
love that place! Of all of our houses––and I have been to all of them outside
of Brazil and Africa––I feel like the Eremo of Camaldoli really has the power
soaked into it and gently holds it for all of us. A wonderful understated
vice-prior named Alberto, the very archetype of a Camaldolese monk, kind of
like our Fr. Isaiah, keeps the place in order, and the community is very warm
and welcoming in their quiet way.
Monday is always a
day without Vigils in common, and so I had a good long deep sleep, maybe the
first really good one since getting to Italy. I had all day to myself Monday,
actually the only one that I was going to have to myself. I got in a good walk
down to the monastery, a little more than two miles, about a half an hour. I
then headed up the trail that goes through the woods and ends up at the main
road again. Sometimes I never learn: I made the same mistake that I remember
making in 2005. When I got to the top, I thought I was still below the Eremo on
my left, so I turned in that direction. But I was actually below the Hermitage
on my right, so in turning left I wound up going back down the
hill the long way (there are two roads up the mountain). By the time I realized
my mistake, I was almost all the way down and of course then had to head back
up, which meant by the end I had walked (according to my pedometer app) almost
8 miles. I earned my pasta that day, though I missed Mass.
As much as I wanted to spend some
time at Camaldoli during this visit to Italy, I decided to only spend a few
days because I was afraid I would have to “work” or be “on” in some way.
Tuesday wound up being pretty full. First I had a friendly meeting with Fr.
Joseph Wong, the Chinese monk who used to live with us at Big Sur, down at the
monastery, touching on several things, including his project for a monastic
presence in China. Then I had a meeting that Alessandro had set up for me with
a woman journalist named Enrica Bortolazzi who is writing a book about the
Camaldolese. She also works at our Mausolea.
The Mausolea is a beautiful old villa
down the road from Camaldoli that is partly a farm, and a vineyard, and a
factory for all our products, and also a place where monks lived for a time
during the Napoleonic suppression in the late 19th and early
20th century. Now the monks have turned part of it over to an organization
headed up by a famous doctor to use.
His name is Franco Berrino. He is an
epidemiologist who specializes in pathology and tumors, and particularly in
preventative and predictive medicine. He is the author of many scientific
publications, but his most famous book is in English, published by the
International World Cancer Research Fund, is called Food, Nutrition,
Physical Activity and the Prevention of Cancer. Needless to say, he is
convinced of the usefulness of a correct diet and lifestyle to avoid cancer and
illness in general. Toward that end he runs very popular seminars of 3, 5, 10
days at our Mausolea that include diet education, yoga, meditation, music.
This woman, Enrica, is the
co-director of the place, and it is incredible. She has been in charge of the
logistical end of things and has done an amazing job of renovating the old
place. Between medieval paintings of monks and saints, there are decorations
from Asia spread throughout, and big rooms that are empty except for a huge
carpet where they do yoga. There was incense and candles burning all over the
place. I was very, very impressed by the whole feel of the environment, so
lightsome and welcoming. Whenever I experience a space that combines the East
and West like that, especially in Italy, it really touches something deep in
me. It reminded me of the time when Raniero and I stumbled upon the World
Community for Christian Meditation center above San Miniato in Florence in
1999. I like to say that Italy is my spiritual father, but India is my mother.
Anyway I had about
an hour and a half interview with Enrica, all in Italian. It actually went
really well, even talking about some very subtle things––death to self,
integral spirituality, hope for the future, my own history. She asked very
penetrating questions, and then at the end she wanted to talk all about music
too. She also asked me if I had any idea what she could name this book. She was
thinking of “Uomini del Silenzio––Men of Silence,” but I told her that I
thought that might be too obvious. I had quoted Cornell West to her at the end
of my interview, saying that I was not feeling very optimistic about the
future, but that I was a “prisoner of hope.” I thought that might be a cool
title: Prigioneri di Speranza.
I was pretty wiped out after all
that, but the day wasn’t over yet. A young woman gave me a ride back to the
monastery, where I was scheduled to have dinner with the community down there.
I had a nice enough time, especially with the older monks who I know pretty
well, but by that time my Italian was fading out a bit––but there was still one
more thing to do!
There was a poetry
reading that night at the monastery, in the famous Sala Landino, by
one of our nuns who has just published a book of her poetry, and Alessandro had
asked me to sing something at the beginning and the end of the program. By the
time the nuns arrived my Italian started to fail me completely, and I felt like
I was talking like an idiot. And for some reason (John Pennington would
appreciate this) I had decided to sing a new song that I have written, a setting
of another one of Antonio Machado’s poem, which I have never sung in public
before, in Spanish, that is also actually kind of hard to play. Of course:
you’re in a foreign country, so the best thing to do would be to sing a new
song that you have never sung before in public in a third language that you
have to translate first into English and then into Italian. No sweat! I had
been practicing all day, but when it came time to perform my hands seemed to
take on a life of their own and it sounded like I was a total amateur. I was so
nervous I was sweating, which rarely happens. The poetry reading itself went
fine, and luckily the song I sang at the end, “Los Laberintos,” went very well,
in spite of also being in Spanish, and the people really liked it. So I kind of
redeemed myself. But I went back to the Eremo feeling pretty deflated. I asked
permission of the Prior General, who I rode back up the mountain with, to do
Vigils “in private,” and gave myself a good sleep-in.
I woke up the next morning thinking
about the work the Dr. Berrino and Enrica are doing at the Mausolea. I was
really touched by it, and told Alessandro so the next day. I am convinced that
the kind of work that they are doing, along with care for our poor burning
planet-home, is the spiritual, evangelical, missionary work that the world
really needs. It’s also what I wish to God that contemplatives––monks or
otherwise––were living and offering to the world, or hope that they/we are in
some way: a new way to live inspired by our practice, not only
preparing for the body to die and the soul to go to heaven.* Whatever we
have offered and/or are offering––and those gifts are not minimal––I think what
they have added to it will bear much more and better fruit. I’m glad don Alessandro
is supporting this project (though I’m not sure all our monks do), but in
addition we should be learning from them.
*According to none other than N. T. Wright, that is
not the telos of the Christian life according to scripture
anyway, but rather a new heaven and a new earth.
More
later…
