Life is too crazy and sporadic to write anything that will be remotely cohesive, so I'm just going to shoot some random thoughts out onto the page and hope they form some semblance of a complete thought. Just some things I learned and experienced over the past month of so...
Well, life is good. Busy, fun, challenging, adventurous, scary, joyfilled, stressful, and all around blessed. Living here in Rome is absolutely amazing, but it doesn't come without its ups and downs, just like anywhere else in the world.
I've had some tough times the past few weeks, mostly dealing with various interior struggles. Some times things are good and life just seems peachy keen, and other times things are just hard, even though outside circumstances don't really change. It's been a bit of the latter recently. But you know what, that's totally ok, because even though it seems like a drag when you go through times like this, it's really these times that help you to grow and shape you as a person. I read a book recently that said something to the effect of, "What we choose when we feel like we're on top of the world is based mostly on emotions, which are temporarily in the drivers' seat. But what we choose when we feel like the world is on top of us is based upon our sheer will power, and this is what remains in the drivers' seat when the emotions fade." And I think there's a lot of truth to that. When we're just naturally joyful and happy and in a really good mood, it's not hard to be good, because our good emotions help to free our will to be able to choose the good more easily. But when things are bad and everything is cloudy and dark, our emotions, which we often have no control over, try to make is run away from the good, to be angry or judgmental or bitter. But the good news is that we still have our will power, and we can still choose to be good and joyful and loving through it all. This is true freedom, to be run not by our passing feelings, but to be able to choose the person we will be, regardless of how we feel. A new mother may be woken up in the middle of the night by her screaming baby, who then proceeds to throw up and pee all over her. Obviously her she's gonna feel pretty rotten, and probably pretty annoyed, but she's going to overcome these feelings and choose to love and care for her baby anyway. I've realized that I need to do this in my own life, choose to love God and love others, when things aren't perfect. It's in these times when our love means the most. In the words of Pope John Paul II in a play that he wrote when he was 20, "When the feelings of love are gone, what remains is what is important."
When I get free time, which is extremely rare here, I always want to fill it with a million different things: going to see something new in Rome, catching up on emails/facebook, taking some time to read, going for a run, updating my blog (which somehow usually gets pushed to the bottom of the list) etc etc. I'm so crazy about planning my free time that I fill each spare second with something, just to make us of it. But I never feel good about it after. There's always more I'll need to get done, it's never-ending. A few weeks ago, we had a very rare free morning. I found myself with 2 glorious hours, and immediately began wracking my brain for a dozen different things I could do to make us of this time. But this time, I decided I was going to plan nothing. I'm sick of doing so much random, insignificant stuff and forgetting to just BE. So I went into our living area and just sat. I was the only one there. I was determined not to plan anything. After a few minutes, one or two people came in. We had some breakfast together and talked for a long time. They left, and a few others came in. More hanging out and talking. I sat there the whole 2 hours, talking to friends and taking in the beautiful sunlight streaming in. At the end of this time, I felt so happy, so refreshed, so good. I couldn't help but reflect on this experience and see something true about my life - I get so distracted by such little things, that I often miss the big picture. I need to LIVE my life, not just FILL my life. I need to forget all the small stuff - that can wait - and focus more on relationships. Now I'm not saying that we should all go and neglect all our responsibilities or anything, just that we put them in perspective. One 10 minute conversation with a friend about any random topic can often times be more beneficial than hours of free time wasted on trivialities.
We got the chance to go on what's called the "Scavi tour" a few weeks ago. This tour takes you underneath the Vatican, down to the ancient graveyard that it was built upon. The place where St. Peter's Basilica now sits used to be directly beside a Roman circus. This is the circus where St. Peter was killed sometime around year 65AD, and the early Christians buried his body in the graveyard adjacent to the circus. A small shrine was built over his grave. Later, Emperor Constantine built the first St. Peter's Basilica directly over this spot in the early 300's, and over 1,000 years later, the current Basilica replaced it. We went down to see this ancient cemetery and the tomb of St. Peter. The tomb is literally just a hole in a wall that contains a box with some bone fragments in it. It struck me so much how this beautiful, grand basilica is built over a simple little box, so small and humble, and how our Church is built upon simple, humble men who went out to preach what was given to them by Jesus. God always uses the weak and lowly to become strong and mighty.
One night on the way back from mass at the Centro San Lorenzo (the youth center that Pope John Paul II founded in Rome), we saw a bunch of police in the streets and a little barrier set up along the side, so we decided to go see what it was all about. We asked one of the guards, and they said the Pope would be arriving any minute. So we waited excitedly. From a distance we could see a car coming, and knew that the Pope was inside. The car drove right passed, and we were able to see our Papa sitting there in the backseat. He was smiling and waving at us, as we totally lost our cool, screaming and jumping around. It was such a huge and random blessing! Even if we had the opportunity to be in the very front row at a mass with him we wouldn't be that close. I doubt I'll ever be that close to him again.
We had a retreat awhile back entitled "Gift of Self." I really learned a lot on this weekend about what it means to love. The world tells us that we need to put ourselves first, to look out for #1, to fulfill all our sudden impulses, to be nice to others but not if it gets in the way of our own plans. But the paradox of our lives is that we can't be happy unless we forget ourselves and give ourselves to others. The more we focus on ourselves and fulfilling our desires, the more unhappy we become, the more we get stuck inside our own head and sucked away from reality. But in the proportion that we give of ourselves, we feel fulfilled, at peace. Who do you think lived a happier life, Mother Teresa, a woman who gave every ounce of her being in service of God and others, or someone who seeks to satisfy every craving they have, ending up addicted to drugs, sex, money, food. Who is more free, the one who does whatever they want, or the one who serves without counting the cost? This is because we were created to be a gift of self to others. It seems like such a contradiction, but it's the same thing Jesus said 2,000 years ago - "Whoever loses their life will find it, and whoever finds their life will lose it." Pope John Paul II said that, "Man can only find himself through a sincere gift of himself." We only know who we are and what we were created for when we try to forget ourselves and our own wants and desires and focus on others. We need to make another "Copernican Revolution" in our society. Copernicus was the first to realize that, hey, the earth is actually not in the center of the universe. Contrary to what we all thought, everything does not revolve around us. Let's try to realize this same truth in our own lives by giving of our time and talents to serve others, and in doing so finding our own happiness. Even if it's in small ways - helping out a friend with a problem, saying hello to a homeless person on the street, sending a letter to someone you haven't talked to in awhile. People love that stuff, and they'll be shocked when they see you doing it, for free. Give yourself. It can be scary and exhausting, but totally worth it.
The beach is only a 35 minute train ride from Rome, something I can't even fathom living in Western Pennsylvania - it takes at least 7 hours to catch a glimpse of the Atlantic. So one weekend in early February we packed some lunches and hopped on the train. It was insane to be on the warm sandy beach, while back home I knew that the ground was covered in heaps of snow. The water was absolutely freezing, so we didn't go in, but it was nice just to have some time to relax and hang out. We climbed along some rocks on the coast and caught some crabs. On the way home, we ran into someone we knew from the States, who had just moved to Italy 2 weeks before that. Crazy. That night was the Superbowl, and as the Steeler's were in it I felt obliged to stay up until 3:30 watching the game. Most of the people at our school had never even heard of the Superbowl, and I don't think any of them had ever seen a game of American football. So it was a fun experience trying to explain it to them and seeing their reactions.
One day we had a free morning, so we filled up some thermos's with coffee, bought some cookies, grabbed a good book, and went to a nearby park. We found a nice little bridge over a pond and set up shop, basking in the sun, reading and snacking, while the ducks floated lazily around us. Heavenly.
We may be from 13 different countries around the world, but we all have one thing in common. We love to dance. We had a night where people from each country would teach everyone one of their traditional dances. So we got to learn a few Scottish dances, some Latin American, and some French "rock and roll" dancing (like swing). The school was filled with music and laughter as we tried our best to maneuver these new steps. I just love culture! It's so fascinating to see how universal things like dancing are, but how different they can be!
I've been obsessed with church hunting lately. If we ever have a free day on a weekend, I set out across the city and see as many churches as I can (there are over 350 within the city limits!). They're all so beautiful, and you can bet that in each one, some famous saint or other person has stepped foot. And there are saints buried in pretty much every church. It's funny - in America, if there is a saint buried in a church, you'll see it advertised all over the place. You just can't miss it. But in Italy, they don't really think like that. Maybe it's because they have so many saints here, but often times there won't be a sign at all, nothing indicating that some huge, amazing, history-altering person is right before you. But regardless, it's great to be able to learn about them and then go to pray at the tombs of these people who really understood what life is about, finding the key to happiness and giving of themselves fully.
Living here at the Emmanuel School is definitely a cultural experience. 20 people + 13 countries = craziness. The people from each country organize a "country evening" every few weeks, where they give info about their country, show pictures, cook traditional food, etc etc. In the past month, the 3 French and our 1 Lithuanian presented their respective countries. It's amazing to see how vast and different our world really is. It's amazing to see the complicated history - this dynasty replacing this empire; this war changing these borders, etc. It really goes to show how changing the world is. I've learned so many things that really shocked me, like the fact that Lithuania has only been free of Russian occupation for 20 years! It's amazing to think that things like this were going on in Europe such a short time ago. The world is so complex and interesting! It's so easy to get trapped in our American culture and forget that there are billions of people who live in a completely different way and with a completely different mentally from us.
Valentine's day was our 1/2 point of the whole year. Time really flies...In order to show the girls of the school how much we appreciate them, we organized a surprise dinner where we got all dressed up and presented them with roses and wine. After a great dinner, we had a time of dancing, which is always a crazy and fantastic time. It was really beautiful to see how close we've grown over these past 5 months, how much we've become a family. We're really blessed to have each other. 1/2 way done! Let's see what's left in store!
