Posted 649 days ago
Adventures with God in Italy
by Andrew McLeod
Greetings and blessings from Italy. I’m mostly recording my experiences on my other blog, but I have a couple of adventures that feel like they are better meant for this audience.
On my second morning in Trentino I was once again up early (my jet lag mitigation plan apparently hadn’t fully worked). I was also fighting off one of the various colds that have been brought here from all over the world, but even so I got restless and decided to get up and walk around at dawn before my conference got underway. I wound up tackling the mountain that looms over town. One of the first things I noticed when I arrived was some sort of white church building on the rocky cliffs, lit up with floodlights, and hanging in the night sky like some miraculous apparition. This seemed to be too high a climb for the time I had, but it had been calling to me since I first arrived in town.
At first it seemed that the path was blocked by a landslide (judging from the taped-off path and multiple serious-looking signs) so I stopped and watched the town of Riva del Garda start its day. At 7am, it was time to get up, as two church bells starting ringing at once, both for a good shake that would be hard to sleep through. A couple of minutes later, a third church chimed in. I couldn’t help but notice that the interval was approximately as long as it might have taken a sleepy priest to be jolted awake by the competition and stagger to his own post.
It was a fabulous moment that captured the blend of magical and mundane that I see here. On the one hand, I had a great view of town. On the other, there was an electrical tower directly in front of me. On the one hand there were church bells and birds chirping. On the other hand, there were garbage trucks banging dumpsters around. It is sometimes tempting for me to romanticize the world’s co-op hotbeds or how present God is in this land, but this reminded me that it is just a bunch of buildings and people and their garbage. It is just like everywhere else, and so anything that is done here can be done elsewhere.
As the light improved, I eventually noticed another path and decided to keep climbing. And I made it all the way up to Cappella (chapel) di Santa Barbara, which was at least 2000 feet above town, and probably closer to 3000. The signs mostly pointed to Capanna (cabin) di Santa Barbara, and I was getting a big kick out of thinking that I was heading to God’s cabin. This made a ton of sense, since a church is often called God’s house, and so what else would you call God’s little open-air house way up the side of a mountain. Shack, maybe, but somehow that doesn’t seem very dignified. Cabin works.
Alas, the capanna actually was a cabin, built by an outdoor society. Even though it crushed my little joke, it was still pretty cool, with picnic tables and firewood and an absurd view. This was one of many other structures on a piece of mountain that would be a national park in the US; a map showed several other chapels and even an alpine cemetery. Other additions included a bunch of huge concrete walls that apparently are intended to impede landslides before they get to town (very good idea), a power line, and a pipeline and tunnel project from the 1920s that had a genuine fascist insignia carved in stone next to the entrance. For those who don’t know, that’s a fascio, or hand axe with a bunch of sticks bundled around the handle.
And speaking of fascists, that is who built the chapel, which was apparently intended to bring God’s favor upon the State and its great engineering project of moving water through and down a great mountain to run a great powerhouse. I have to say I was a bit disappointed that the final steps up to the chapel were flanked by several large artillery shells, about two-footers. Totally not my style, but I have to admit that oughta keep the devil away, just in case the butt-whuppin’ hike weren’t enough. I figure that il diavolo would be smart enough to know that there are only hardy souls up there, and probably in no mood for temptation, too busy catching our breath. Much better to just hang out in town and prowl for low-hanging fruit.
Indeed, the climb had been a religious experience for me. Here I was in Italy, knowing that I was following in the footsteps of countless pilgrims over decades (even though I was first up on that morning) and seeking a holy spot high on a mountain. As I climbed, I chanted the refrain to one of my favorite church songs: “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” I often do this when I walk in the woods, hoping to run into God, but this time was different. It is a pretty intense thing to chant for an hour, while gasping for breath from the pre-breakfast workout. I had high hopes that Moses or maybe at least Nehemiah would be waiting for me at the top. Heck, I even arrived right at sunrise.
Alas, the military accoutrements were a huge buzzkill. On the hike down, and for a while afterward I was somewhat discouraged. I thought that I really must have some faith issues if I can get to that sort of place and not feel God’s presence in every cell. However, as I reflect on the experience, I realize that it ties into a pattern that God has been working on with me: I am preoccupied by the hopes for a Religious Experience that will provide me with perfect clarity, and meanwhile miss God’s actual everyday presence. I had already had my religious experience and didn’t need a burning bush.
Ultimately, I find God in the climb, not on the mountaintop.
Parte due:
This morning I went to a full-blown Catholic mass at Cattedrale di Duomo, across the plaza from my hotel. It was extremely Catholic. My friend and guide Sara pointed out that it was more village Catholic than the more rigid Roman Catholic, and I did notice that they had an altar girl and female voices in the service, including several girls reading something near the end of the service. They also had a strange beach ball globe sitting on the altar, which was such a spectacular work of art that the beach ball didn’t register because it was so out of place. The whole church was stunning and majestic and dark and spooky and very very very very very old.
It is fascinating to compare this style of service with, for example, a few services that I’ve attended that featured dancing, speaking in tongues, and people “slain by the Spirit” and sprawled out on the floor. The latter is more like what we find described among the first followers of the Way (1 Cor 14, for example). The basilica model that I saw today is ultimately an adaptation of a Roman model that blended government and pagan ritual. But that’s another story.
It also reminds me of something I read lately, about how the Celtic Christians view the Holy Spirit as a wild goose; this is a lot different than the more common image of a nice, cute little dove. God can be found in the woods, in a rented storefront, or in a frankly stunning cathedral like this where people have gathered for Mass every day for centuries.
I really wanted to take communion, but held back out of respect since I’m not a baptized Catholic. I am frankly torn about taking Catholic communion because of its history as an instrument of power and punishment (i.e. withholding of communion for those deemed deviant). I have a lot of questions about the way that this intensely hierarchical church–the world’s largest owner of property–has paradoxically supported and nurtured many of the world’s greatest expressions of cooperative economics, which is essentially based in equality and sharing of resources. This is probably more than I can learn in one visit, but I hope to at least discern the outlines of this dance between coercion and cooperation.
Andrew McLeod is the author of the forthcoming book Holy Cooperation
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