History...

Lou has been in England, the lucky bastard (I know, I was just in Italy, but London is one of my favorite cities. Minneapolis and Firenze* round out the current top three...). He had an amazing moment of history smacking him in the face, really. Go read it.



Interesting, huh? It's amazing and awesome (in the true awe sense of the word) to stand and walk where centuries of people have walked and stood before. I had that sense of awe -- I got chills -- in a church in Rome, the one where Christians were first allowed to worship. I don't know why this particular building was the one for me this time.

Maybe the chills were just the fact that I was soaked to the knees, and my flare jeans slapped my calves wetly with pretty much every step.

I mean, I have some real problems with much of organized religion. I am not really good at other people's rules, especially when they seem to be designed simply to control others.

And I often wondered as I looked at the splendors of Christianity in Italy how much of it was done for the glory of God and how much was driven by the lust for power and glory of leaders.

But. In this church, I just marveled. I was amazed at the mosaics, and the light. They had a few lights on, but mostly it was lit just by the natural light coming in the windows. It was a rainy weekend, Easter Weekend, in Rome (in Europe, actually -- it snowed in Belgium). But as we walked in to this church, a ray of sunlight was shining down through a window up in the ceiling, and it was awesome.

*Florence is the English name, Firenze is the Italian name. I got into the habit of using the actual name of places rather than the English version. Something to do with living in an international community and wanting to show respect for the countries I was living in and visiting...