Infirmity & Tribulation

…and bear infirmity and tribulation.

Blessed be those who live in peace,

for by You, Most High, they shall be crowned.

The angel descended, wings flowing like reeds in water, and touched his hands.  In her hands she held two crimson sashes, and with utmost tenderness, she took these and tied them over his palms.  Wounds appeared, and as they pierced his hands, a suffering which he had not known before (and he had known great suffering) overtook him.  

Another angel came, dressed in white, dancing from the skies with the grace of child.  She carried two more blood red sashes, and with great care she tied them to his feet, and his feet were pierced.  At last another seraph came to him, golden hair twirling about her in an unseen wind, and pinned her red sash to his side, and kissing it gently.  

He sat in silence, wounded in his hands which had built so much, wounded in his feet, which had taken him places he’d never dreamed he would go, wounded in his heart, which had loved so greatly.  But in this suffering, this sweet and beautiful and tender suffering, a Love which he had never known before (and he had known great love) overwhelmed him.  Music from another world drifted through and time and space and settled in the air all around him.

“My God, and my All!”

I looked on in silence from the darkness around him, enraptured by the scene, snapping pictures on my digital camera.

I was nearing the end of my Franciscan pilgrimage.  I had come at last, by train and by chance and by the kindness of strangers, to Mount La Verna.  

The road had been long.  I’d stayed at a house at the bottom of the mountain the night before.  My ankle was still on the mend, but well enough to walk, so that morning I began the hike up the great hill, taking in a beautiful and ever-changing view of the Casentino valley surrounding La Verna. 

Finally, after one last ride from a kind Italian and one last, aching hike for the last 3 kilometres to the top, I arrived at the Sanctuary of La Verna.  (Or, ‘La Santuaria Della Verna’.  Things sound so much better in Italian.)  Here there was a relatively small church and pilgrim’s hostel.  The view from the lookout area by the church was incredible, and that evening I stood in the setting sun as it blessed the land and said goodnight.  

Soon after, I was sitting in the darkened church, surrounded by men and women in varying vocational attire.  There were women in blue habits, men in familiar brown habits, and still other men and women in uniformed shorts.  This last set of men and women were with the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.  The boys and girls of a local troupe were putting on a very special play tonight about the life of Saint Francis.

I didn’t understand much of the dialogue, but as scenes and songs of the life of Francis played out before me, I was enraptured.  For here were two of my favourite things in the world: the life of Francis, and kids putting on a play.  There is perhaps nothing more engaging to me than watching children perform.  I’m charmed by the earnest simplicity and at the same time I’m crossing my fingers, praying they remember their lines.  Perhaps it’s partly because I remember both the thrill of charming an audience and the terror of forgetting my lines.  I was the comic relief king in Parkdale Baptist’s Church’s production of Three Wee Kings.  I killed.  My best line was when one of the other kings talked about going to Jericho:  “Geritol?  I’ve got some right here!”  But over-confidence from my triumph in Three Wee Kings led to under-rehearsing my lines for a production the following year.  I stood frozen on the stage, begging for my line from the director, trying to decipher her loud whisperings.  I learned my lesson well.  This production also had its comic relief with the portly little fellow portraying Brother Leo.  He never missed a beat, and he knew how to work a crowd.

The location was, of course, an apt place to produce a play about Francis.  The church we were in had been here since shortly after the time of Francis, and was built just a hundred yards or so from the actual place where Francis received the stigmata, the wounds of Christ.  

Of all the stories of Francis, some of which are history, some of which are whimsical legends, the story of the stigmata may be the most difficult to truly understand.  But there it is, passionately affirmed as history by his closest friends, confounding the modern mind.  Ultimately, however, it is the story which best defines him, and without it, we are left with a Francis devoid of his power and his longed-for reward.

Francis’s life had been a constant struggle to live out as closely as possible the poverty of Christ, to incarnate in his own flesh, inasmuch as a sinful human can, the life of Jesus.  (Some stories even affirm that this journey began for him from birth, with Francis being born in a stable below his family’s home.)  Sometimes this led him to extremes which he’d later repent of, but, mistakes and all, these choices led him into the very heart of Jesus.  He tried with every ounce of his strength, to embody Christ’s incarnational love, and denied to himself any comfort which Christ himself had been denied.  And like Jesus, he sought to alleviate the suffering of others by embracing their suffering himself.  

For truly, what more could Love do?

Is love ever seen more clearly than when it embraces the tribulations of another?  Is love ever felt more deeply than when it chooses to bear the sickness of the beloved?  It was for this Love that Jesus died, and for this Love that Francis lived.  It was not a fanatical sense of duty that made him live as he lived, nor a somber sense of self-denial.  It was Love.  For Francis, it was an honour and a joy, a privilege in fact, to feel with the living Christ the broken heart with which Christ loves the world.  

I sat in silence one day at his tomb in Assisi, and read a prayer he’d written in the last years of his life:

O my Lord Jesus Christ, I beg from you two graces before I die:

the first, that during my life I may feel in my body and soul, so far as it is possible, the pain that you suffered in the hour of your most bitter passion;

the second,

that I may feel in my heart, in so far as it is possible, that overbrimming love with which You, Son of God, were enflamed so as to bear willingly for us sinners such suffering.

It was on the mountain that this prayer was answered most dramatically, but Francis had lived a life that was itself an answer to this prayer.  Each day he made a choice to embrace poverty, to embrace the suffering of others, to embrace his own suffering.  In these choices, in this one great embrace, he was enflamed with Love.  He lived in peace not by avoiding suffering and violence, but by absorbing it, transforming it, and creating something beautiful where there was previously only discord, darkness, doubt, and injury.

His embrace of suffering and violence was not just spiritual, however.  It was embodied in him physically.  

It had been a year since he received the wounds of Christ in his body.  A disease of the eye had taken his sight from him, and his eyes burned with pain at the slightest brightness.  His body was racked with pain and weakness, and the stigmata persisted.  It would be this suffering that gave birth to his most beautiful song.  As he lay on a sickbed in a small garden in San Damiano, the place where he had first heard that joyous invitation so long before, he wrote his greatest hymn of praise to the God he so loved.  Nearly blind, and perhaps too weak to lift pen to page even if he could see, he sang his song while his close friend, the ever-faithful Brother Leo, took down the words:

All-highest, almighty Good Lord,

to you be praise, glory and honour and every blessing;

to you alone are they due, and no man is worthy to speak your Name.

Be praised, my Lord, in all your creatures, especially for sire Brother Sun, who makes daytime,

and through him you give us light,

and he is beautiful, radiant with great splendour,

and he is a sign that tells, All-Highest, of you.

Be praised, my Lord, for Sister Moon and the stars;

you formed them in the sky, bright and precious and beautiful.

Be praised, my Lord, for Brother Wind, and for the air and the clouds,

and for fair, and every kind of weather,

by which you give your creatures food.

Be praised, my Lord, for Sister Water, 

who is most beautiful and humble and lovely and chaste.

Be praised, my Lord, for Brother Fire, 

through whom you light up the night for us;

and he is beautiful and jolly, boisterous and strong.

Be praised, my Lord, for our sister Mother Earth,

who keeps us, and feeds us, and brings forth fruits of many kinds,

with coloured flowers and plants as well.

Be praised, my Lord, for those who grant pardon for love of thee,

and bear infirmity and tribulation.

Blessed be those who live in peace, for by you, Most High, they shall be crowned.

Bless and praise my Lord, thank Him, 

and serve Him in all humility.

Francis sang, and as he did, Brother Sun came and stood behind him, lifting his hands to heaven.  Sister Moon danced in the sky above him, dressed in white, her golden face shining with light.  Brother Wind and Brother Fire, Sister Water and sister Mother Earth, danced around him, caught up in his chorus of creation.  The heavens opened, and angels joined the song.

I’ve seen a lot of films about Francis, read a tonne of books, even taken in a professional production of a musical about him while I was in Assisi, but this humble play by a Boy Scout troupe was perhaps the most profound expression of the life of Francis I’ve ever seen.  It captured something about him that the others could only attempt to grasp.  For all of the suffering he faced, all the infirmities of the world that he embraced, Francis had remained passionately simple in his struggle to live out the Gospel of Christ, profoundly unsophisticated in his attempt to walk in the little footsteps of Jesus.  He remained a child, and the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

I smiled with joy at the comic relief kid.  His cheeks were squished into the cardboard face of Brother Sun.  He stood behind a 12-year-old Francis, and as Chubby Brother Sun lifted his hands in song with the rest of Cardboard Creation, tears filled my eyes.  Here was the saint I had come to love, the saint who in many ways had helped to form my character and my approach to Christ himself, full of life in the embrace of his suffering, singing out his song of praise, stigmatic sashes adorning his hands, his pain turned into the glory of God.

I whispered a prayer in the darkness.

“My God, and my All.”

Cigarettes & Opera

I almost walked right past him.  

Providing the standard “Sorry, dude” shrug of a person unwilling or unable to provide a beggar with a little change while not wishing to be unkind, I almost kept walking.  I was, after all, on a budget, and Rome is not a cheap place to be.  But as I tucked my hands into my pockets, I paused.  I did have something to offer.  I turned to him and asked, “You smoke?” along with the universal charades action for smoking.  He nodded.  I pulled my shoulder bag around, fished out a few cigarettes, and handed them to the man and his younger friend.  The small black puppy that sat between them declined.  I asked his name.

“Franco,” he replied.  

He was, I would have guessed, in his early sixties, slim and relatively clean-shaven for someone living on the street, keeping himself as clean as he could, combing back his black hair neatly.  He had thoughtful eyes that seemed to inspect the world from an acquiescent distance.  His friend, Antonio, was much younger, probably in his early 30s.  He had a round Roman face, a brief moustache and goatee, and a serious look accentuated by dark hair.  He spoke no English.

Franco, however, asked where I was from.

“Canada,” I said, “but I usually live in California.”

“Oh,” he said, “I live in San Jose for almost 20 years.  I have family there.”

We chatted a little longer, and I learned that he was from Sicily, and that he had a daughter that he had raised in California who remained there.  Finally I shook his hand.

“It was good to meet you, Franco.  Ciao,” I said, and smiled.

“Ciao,” he said, and I walked on.

—

Jaspar was around the corner.

He lay in front of the little cove in the wall that held a small collection of vending machines which sold everything from bland biscuits to bad espresso.  He thoroughly looked the part of a homeless man.  His pants drooped from his waist.  His dark hair fell messily from the sides of his cap.  And he muttered in Italian something that seemed to have no connection with his outstretched, begging hand.  His eyes scanned the world around him, a world which may have had little to do with the world of the passersby.

I held up a cigarette, and raised my eyebrows in offering.  He smiled and continued his inspection of his world as if to say, “What’s this guy up to?  Yeah, I’ll take a cigarette, you weirdo!”  I gave him two, and offered my hand.

“Uh… Mi nomé ‘Aaron’,” I said in my best accent.

He smiled again in an oh-what-the-hell way and shook my hand.  “Jaspar.”

“ ‘Jaspar’?”

“Jaspar.”

“Mucho…” I almost said, ‘Mucho gusto’, which would have been the wrong latin-based language.  “Nice… Nice to meet you.”

He shook his head and smiled, and I walked on.

—

I came out of my hostel in the morning, and made my way toward what was quickly becoming “my” little coffee shop, for what had become my morning routine: a cafe latté, a Bible, a journal, and a pen.  My coffee shop stood on the bend in the corner, just beyond Jaspar’s Cove, with a lovely view of the Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore that stood across the street.

Jaspar saw me coming, and started smiling and shaking his head.  I gave him two more cigarettes.

—

That night, , along with Antonio and his puppy, I saw Franco again.  He was in one of his two usual spots.  I greeted him with a handshake, and asked him if he and Antonio wanted a coffee.

“Sure, yes,” he said.  He asked Antonio, who looked at me seriously and nodded.

Espressos, with cream and sugar.  I strolled over to my coffee shop and ordered two coffees.  I returned, hot espresso in thin plastic cups, and hunkered down next to Franco.

“Grazi,” he said, taking a first tentative sip.

“De…”  And I almost said, ‘De nada.’  “Um… Prego.”

Small cars whirred through the street in front of us.  Open-roofed tour buses drove back and forth, shuttling people with sunglasses, large cameras, and larger hats.  I sat with him there for a while, sipping on espresso and watching the cars and the people.  Business men with a Very Important stride, smoking cigarettes, having Very Important conversations on Very Expensive cell phones.  Teenagers with the same giggles as the ones in North America, smoking cigarettes and being boisterous.  Hip young lovers, joined at the hip.  They were smoking, too.  A few priests (some of these also smoking).  Nuns.  Even a monkly robe or two.  And a lot of chubby middle-aged people in socked sandals, holding tourist maps and having a tendency to pointing.  One or two of those people smoked cigars.  

Some people, usually girls, smiled apologetically toward Franco’s begging cup.  A few, both men and women, stopped and gave change.  One or two even stopped a moment and talked and laughed, as if they knew each other (Of course, I couldn’t understand enough to tell).  A few looked disgusted.  Most, however, walked past at a high speed, somehow aware of everything on the street but the outstretched hand below them.  Their world had little to do with the world at their feet.

Franco and I talked a little.  I learned that he was 70 years old, and had no family here.  

Only his daughter in California.  

—

I spent the day at the Vatican.  I waved hello to the Pope.  I was blessed by a bishop.  I ate the most delicious sandwich in history.  I climbed to the top of St. Peter’s Basilica.  And at the end of that day, I sat down with Franco.  People strolled past, and a man stooped to drop some coins in Franco’s cup.

As the man went on his way, Franco inspected the change.  He took a coin and held it between his fingers.

“Where is this from?” he asked.

I looked at it closely.  “I think that’s from… Australia.”

“Australia?”  And he looked at it with some interest.  He reached behind him for his bag, and pulled out a small plastic container that once held butter.  “I collect these.”  

He opened the plastic lid and handed me the collection.  I smiled as I inspected coins from all over the world.

“Ah, this is from Thailand!” I said, holding up a coin with an image of the beloved king of Siam.  “I think I have some change from Canada,” I told him, “back in my room.  I will bring you some coins next time.”

“Si?  Thank-you.  Grazi.”

And the cars rolled by, and the people walked past.

—

I walked into my coffee shop, and pointed at a pack of cigarettes on the wall behind the counter.

Around the corner, Jaspar sat, back against the wall, legs outstretched and crossed and owning his little piece of the sidewalk.  He saw me coming.  He chucklemuttered under his breath, and shook his head, and smiled.  I handed him a pack of cigarettes.

“boyohboywhoisthiscrazysumbitchAmerican,” he said as we shook hands.  At least, I think that’s the translation.

“Pacé e bené, Jaspar,” I said.  I saluted a casual goodbye, and he smiled and shook his head, and I walked on.

—

I came back later that evening to Franco’s spot by the wall.  I handed him a small collection of Canadian change.  He smiled and inspected the goods with curiosity.  He held up the coin with the stag’s head.

“A quarter,” I said.  “Twenty-five cents.”

He held up a silver coin with a small rodent emblazoned upon it.

“A nickel.  Five cents,” I told him.  “These here are pennies.  One cent.  And this is a dime.  Ten cents.”

He nodded thoughtfully, and placed them in the container with the rest of his collection.  We sat quietly for a while.

“Franco, do you play music?  Do you…?” and I mimed a guitar.

“No, no.”  And he shook his head, and shook his cup for a passerby.

“Do you like music?  You have a….  A favourite music?”

The corners of his mouth went up just a little.  “Opera,” he said as his eyes met mine.  “I love opera.”

“Opera?  Really?  Wow.  Do you have a favourite opera?”

His eyes showed a spark.  “La Traviata.” And he smiled a smile of rapture and memory.  “Placido Domingo.  Teresa Stratas.  Very beautiful.”

And he began to tell me the story of La Traviata, of the nobleman who fell in love with the woman who strayed.  I don’t know if there is any music that could sing the story better than his eyes.  They were alive with the sadness and the joy of the telling.  He held the story like his first love’s hand, like a child in his arms, and spoke it with abiding affection, with great tenderness.  I felt each moment of love, each moment of heartbreak, like a song; I was present at the lovers’ first kiss, and their last embrace.  When the story came to its end, my own eyes were as misty as the storyteller’s.

And Franco smiled, and the song stayed in his eyes for a while, and he shook his cup of change to the passersby.

The Cross of San Damiano

You have changed me, O God, and all the things I once so longed for, the things I pursued with such ignorant devotion, I see now as meaningless.  Riches, the acclaim of friends, the honour of the elite, all of these are vanity, and I consider them loss.  But where do I go from here?  What do you desire of me?  What would you make of this life?  When I claimed it as my own, I laid claim to it falsely, O Lord.  It is yours, my Jesus.  It always has been.

I desire only to please you, to serve you, to love you.  But there is much darkness in my heart.  There is much inside it that is unknown to me.  There is faith, but it is haunted by doubt.  There is hope, but it is faltering.  There is love, but it bears the flaws of selfishness.

Only the consonants of his whispered prayer could be heard in the vacant church.  A cool breeze blew through its broken stone walls.  Prayers offered here were few now, the pastor who had let him in a shepherd of almost none.  The cross, hanging by rusted chains from the fractured ceiling, swayed slightly in the wind.  The quiet sound of the creaking chains took his eyes to the strange crucifix, and he was reminded of all that so recently had died within him.  

The young soldier, fighting for the honour of his city, had died after a year as a prisoner of war.

The socialite, the life of the party, had died after a year of debilitating illness.

And the crusader, fighting for the glory of God, had died before he even reached the enlistment centre.

What was left was a broken young man whose heart had been awakened to something divine, but whose soul’s compass could find no bearing.  

His knees were sore from kneeling–he had been here for hours–but he wasn’t finished yet.  His eyes were fixed on the cross above him.  It was a crucifix unlike most others that he’d seen.  It was foreign in its iconography, in the style of the churches of the East. Angels and apostles crowded at the Christ’s feet, by his side and at his head.  Francis’s eyes read the figures like a story, and he saw himself in each one.  Betrayer, sinner, repentant friend, and worshiper.  Blood flowed softly from the palms of Christ, and from his side, a small fountain poured forth.  His eyes remained on that little fountain for a long time.  A small centurion was pictured at the side of Christ, and Francis saw in him an image not unlike himself: a small bird, stretching out his neck, desperate to fill his gullet with life.

And now, he looked into the eyes of Jesus.  They were large and steady and gentle and strong.  He looked at the mouth of Jesus.  This Christ’s lips, too, were different from those on any icon he’d yet seen, though he could not at first identify how.  Folded hands to his own lips, he squinted a little longer at the mouth of Jesus.  

Jesus was smiling.  

From the cross, he was smiling.  Perplexed, Francis looked to the Christ’s head, expecting a crown of thorns.  But they were absent.  Only a halo encircled his head.  And then something came dawning on him like sun through a window.  Of course there was no crown of thorns.  Of course he was smiling.  The Christ which rested on this cross was not the Crucified One, but the Risen One.  His arms were outstretched not in crucifixion, but in welcome.  This Christ was alive, and giving life to his beloved.

The glorious, risen, joyful Christ smiled down upon him from his now beautiful cross.  Francis smiled back, and a prayer came flowing from his very soul, rolling like a river from his lips.

“Most High, glorious God, enlighten the darkness of my heart!  Give me right faith, sure hope and perfect charity.  Fill me with understanding and knowledge that I may fulfill your command.”

He stared in silence at the risen Jesus.  He was wordless now, joyously, peacefully wordless.  His anxiety lay on the floor beneath him like a shed garment.  The two figures remained, their eyes locked in the steady gaze of love.  He could not later recount how long he had knelt there, staring at him, when that Jesus’ pleasant lips parted.

“Francis,” he said, “go and rebuild my church, which, as you can see, is falling into ruin.”

A Franciscan Pilgrimage: Single

It’s not an easy thing to be single and thirty-seven.

Granted, there are infinitely more difficult things to be, but it can be a challenge.  I’ve felt confident of my call to remain single for several years now.  I remember the day I “heard” it.  I don’t think it could have been more clear had an audible voice come down, accompanied by a singing dove and a heavenly mariachi band.  Perhaps I exaggerate, but it was very clear.  I felt it in my soul, down deep, on the stone table that rests at the centre of every heart.  It was clear and direct and felt like freedom.  And it was true.  I’ve never doubted it.  Well, at least not for more than a second or two.  

Of course, those second-or-twos can last a very long time.  I see a husband and wife exchange a kiss, or a look, or even a thoughtless touch that represents everything beautiful about love, and there’s a second-or-two.  A dad side-hugs his boy in the coffee shop line-up.  A girl holds her father’s hand in the pew at church.  There’s a second-or-two.  It’s then that those second-or-twos can jump out of time and remain in a state of suspended eternity.  

But it’s a good life, and there are times when I am reminded that this is just the life for me.  Like when I’m standing alone on a mountain in a foreign land.  Or when I’m praying with a weeping drunk at midnight.  When I’m sitting on the street next to a homeless friend and a passerby gives us both some spare change.  These are good moments for me.  I am at peace with who I am in those moments.  I am at peace with my calling.

But there are other moments, and these are neither about doubting my calling or being confident of it.  They are the moments when I simply wish my inward call had an outward sign.  These are moments when I very badly want something to cling to: a stamp, a symbol, a seal.  A kind of spiritual wedding ring to show people, when they say things like, “Now when are you getting married?” or, “Oh, you think you’re a bachelor, but when the right one comes along…!” or my personal favourite, “Wow, you must have been really burned!”  In those moments, an outward sign could make things a little easier.  “Oh no,” I could say, “See my collar?  I’m a priest.  ”  Or, “Oh, no.  See my awesome habit?  I’m a Franciscan Brother.”  People don’t generally approach a Roman Collar or a man in an imposing brown robe and say, “Well I think you just haven’t met the right girl yet!”

Of course, priesthood or brother-hood may yet be in my future, but I don’t know for certain.  (And if you thought this story of chasing Francis to Assisi was going to be about me finding out, you’re wrong.)  It’s not for lack of prayers or desire or even trying.  Ironically, it’s a bit like finding a girl.  There has to be some stirring in the heart, some romance, and some sense of knowing.  But I still want the sign, the vows, and it’s a little weird when you want to give all of who you are to God’s service by the promise of a sacred vow, and he seems to be the one saying, “It’s just a piece of paper, baby!”

This all becomes very tricky when discerning the next phase of one’s vocation.  What if I only want to be a priest so that I can have a quick label with which to identify myself?  Do I want to take Franciscan vows for a more palpable sense of identity?  (After all, that friar’s robe is pretty impressive.)

Why do I want to take these vows?  Have I not committed myself to them already?  I live below the poverty line; I try to be generous and unconcerned with money.  I am prudent and chaste and committed to celibacy.  I want to follow and do the will of God, to be obedient to whatever and wherever he calls me to be.  Are these personal commitments to poverty, chastity and obedience not enough?  If they are not, who is it they are not enough for?  My ego?  My sense of identity?  But is there not something pure and beautiful in this desire for vows as well?  These questions walked close behind me through the streets of Assisi, they walked beside me on its mountain paths, they knelt down next to me in its holy places.

And so, Lord, I am tossed by the wind from peace to anxiety.  To be secure, to be anchored, I must descend to the depths and understand a little more about the mysteries that motivate me.  I’ve descended down into the depths of my heart before, and it’s dark there, and all I have to light my way is the moonlight trailing in from above.  But I want to do your will, God; I want to please you; I want to serve you.  So I pray as Brother Francis did eight centuries before me:  Most High and Glorious God, illuminate the darkness of my heart.

...And the Stars.

“We walk back now to San Damiano.  There is special service tonight for Francesco.  Would you like to go with us?”  Armando spoke english well, but that Italian song still rang out in words like ‘San Damiano’ and ‘Francesco’.  “It is not far,” he added.

The evening had been spent at the ‘Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli’ (which is a fun and lovely phrase to say in Italian).  This basilica was built overtop the small chapel that Francis and the brothers called “the Little Portion”, or “Porziuncola” (It took me a while to get the correct “tune” for that word.  It’s something like, “PortsYOONco-lah!”).  When I say that it was built overtop the old chapel, I don’t mean that it was built on its ruined foundations.  I mean that inside the basilica still stands the little chapel.  It was by this chapel in the clearing of a small forest in the Spoleto Valley that the first brothers lived in a grouping of simple huts, like pups clustered around their mother.  It was here that Francis and his friends lived and prayed and served the poor together and found in this humble church their source of life and communion.

Today was his “transitus”, the anniversary of Saint Francis’s death.  Each year the modern town of Assisi, which lays at the foot of the old, hilltop town, celebrates the saint with festivities unlike anything one would ever see in North America.  There is fire involved.  Lots of fire. Men running around on fire.  But that’s another story.

Armando wasn’t lying when he said it wasn’t far from here to San Damiano, he just had a different definition of “not far” than I did.  I had walked from San Damiano to the Basilica earlier that day, so I had a pretty good idea of just how far it was.  Before I ran into them tonight, I had planned on catching the bus back to the old town.  I considered his offer for a moment, and remembered my first rule of the road:  “Always say yes.”

“Sure,” I said.

“We know a better way.  No cars.”

“Sounds good.”

Forty minutes later, we were walking in the moonlight along a darkened path to the old church on the hill.  As usual, Giovanni was fifty paces ahead of us, with a dog named Grizzo in tow.  Grizzo belonged to Flavia, a student friend of the group, who often left him in the care of Giovanni.  He was a perfect dog.  Like the family taking care of him, he was of a smaller frame, but a true dog’s dog through and through.  A beautiful mutt, he was regularly showered with hugs and kisses from Giovanni.

Leaning on my cane as I walked (it had become a part of me that week), I looked to the left, and saw what used to be the Big Dipper.  Margherita had given me the proper Italian name.

“Il Grande Carro,” she’d said.  “Like, ah, the car.  But from before, with the horse.  Carro.”

Indeed, it only lacked a horse.  Now that I’d seen it that way, it looked much more like a cart than some boxy celestial spoon.  I looked from the Spoleto stars to the old city of Assisi ahead of us, and I was a little confounded by what I saw.  It was glimmering mysteriously, as if the tops of its walls had somehow been enchanted.  The glow was not electric.  It was too fluid for that, too beautiful.  It shimmered and flickered, and the old city shone like some kind of earthbound constellation, a descending New Jerusalem.

“Armando, what is…,” and I pointed, “this.  Is that…?”

“Is, ah, foculo.  Fire.”

“Fire?  Really?”

“Si.  Fire.”

There is a funny story about Francis and Claire.  One night, Claire came down from San Damiano (she and her new order of sisters had moved into the church some time after Francis had rebuilt it).  Francis and a few of the brothers had prepared a picnic meal of all the food that was available: bread and water.  But Claire received it with joy, and the few brothers and sisters went into the woods for an evening meal.  Soon, what began as a simple blessing over their bread and water became an old fashioned praise and worship jamboree.  They prayed and sang together under Umbrian moon to the God they so dearly loved.

Unbeknownst to them, a strange, orange glow rose up from them, many times greater than their small campfire.  The light of it was so bright that the townspeople thought the forest around the hermitage was ablaze, and threatening to destroy the beloved Little Portion.  They scooped up buckets of water and rushed to the source of the strange light, only to find Francis and Claire and a tiny group of brothers and sisters praying and singing together, filling the night sky with their praises.

 I wondered if this story had something to do with the presumably safely burning city I now saw above me, glowing in a strange communion with the stars and the satisfied moon.  Like the stars, the city on the hill seemed to speak of some mystery, something unknown but beautiful nonetheless.  Walking these paths was a mystery, too.  But my companions knew where they were headed, and the guide up ahead, staff in hand and dog at his side, knew the path well.  The moon and stars would be light enough.