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Published: April 16th 2009
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Kate and I were in Florence, staying at the Pensione Bretagna, where Kate had lived for a year back in the day, when she was a twenty- something year old student in Gonzaga's Junior Year Abroad Program.
Ah, Firenze.
The Pensione Bretagna was a few steps away from the Arno River. From our window, if we leaned out and looked to the left, you might spy the most beautiful small bridge in the world, the Ponte Santa Trinita, which I stared at for endless moments whenever I could. There is something about the curve of it, and the way it suggests massive strength and durability, while still presenting a gentle airborn arc from riverbank to riverbank. It was designed by Michelangelo, blown up by the Nazi's in WWll, rebuilt by the Florentines. It lead us to the long uphill road to the precious 11th century basillica, San Miniato al Monte, "St. Minias on the Mountain".
It's an exhausting but fabulous walk from the pensione to the basilica. We passed Galileo's house on the way, ("Stlll, it moves..." he whispered to himself as the Church Fathers bullied him into recanting his discovery that planets weren't angels fixed in a celestial firmament). We
passed some 500 year old battlements designed by... yes, Michelangelo. We were on a mission. We needed to light a candle in the chapel of San Miniato for Father Tony Lehman, a former Carthusian monk who had become a Jesuit, and shortly after that was subjected to wildly adventurous contritional task of overseeing Kate's group: this was a match for life.
Father Lehman, or "Padre", as his kids (now grown, now lawyers and pilots, teachers, a titan of industry, a gas czar, a duke, a Princness Princess) lovingly called him.
Padre was the real thing: a man of the cloth with a heart that embraced anything within it's ever-widening compass. I think it would be impossible to be around him for very long without learning a brand new sense of love. He was dying, and we had promised to light a candle for him, atop one of the highest spots in Florence.
Saint Miniato had been a Prince, became a hermit, was condemned by the Romans, and beheaded just outside the gates of Florence, maybe just down the street from our Pensione. The legend is that after he was beheaded, he picked up his head and walked up to the
top of the hill where his basilica now stands. Some say, "Well, he didn't get ALL the way up the hill,"; and others argue, "Well, even if he didn't get ALL the way to the top, that's pretty good, carrying your head in your arm. I mean, YOU try it.." and others (and I include myself here) appreciate a good yarn and an active imagination, and take our miracles with a grain of salt (salt itself being being a miracle of sorts, although its presence on earth, I believe, required no supernatural intervention ).
The chapel was very dark inside. Kate lit a candle. I watched. More than thirty years, she had been here as a student, almost a child. In a foreign land, in a fabled city, she had met a man who had lit something in her heart that, along with her natural talent for compassion, would lead her to a career of working with children and adults for whom the darkness in this chapel would have posed no problem. The surprise lesson that she (and I, in this same field) would learn is that so very many of the people she worked with, who were experiencing the
Pointe Santa Trinita
The most beautiful short bridge in the world. world without vision, had a bright flame in their being that matched the boldest star.
I admire bravery and courage. If you think walking up a hill without your head is tough, try this: try crossing a busy city street without vision, using only a cane or a guide dog. That, to me is real courage. That, to me, is a miracle.
Last week at a conference Deborah Kendrick and I ran into each other in an elevator. Literally. I had my head down, made some wisecrack to the assembled crowd in the elevator (I have never been able to resist the urge to entertain a captive audience), and looked up just as the woman with guide dog across from me recognized my voice.
It was Deborah! We literally ran into each other after we realized here we were in the same elevator, and hadn't been together for years! Deborah is brilliant (she is currently writing a book about Braille pioneer Abe Nemeth); beautiful, funny (my stomach always hurts after 10 minutes together), and courageous.
There's some leaps here, from the chapel in San Miniato to an elevator in the LAX Marriott, but it's OK.
Some of you follow the blog for the next raffle question. Here it is.
Once, in our wide ranging conversations, Deborah and I were talking about a Trappist monk who lived and wrote in the 1960s. He had a little shack in Kentucky where he wrote his poems and his books, many of which were quite sympathetic (rare for that time) to eastern forms of spirituality. He died in a freak accident in Thailand, electrocuted by a faulty fan.
Who was he?
And: hello, Deborah!
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Amanda Lueck
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Enjoy your journey, Michael and Kate. Just checking in to see where your travels and insights have taken you. BTW, was the monk Thomas Merton? Love, Amanda