You shall call His name

My grandmother told me that since she was widowed mealtime has been difficult for her. It’s not unusual for her to ask for someone to run errands with her at a time that happens to end close to lunch, which she loves to buy for her driver.

I think I can sympathize a little, since I know I have a hard time fixing meals for just myself. I don’t often plan ahead, and by the time I’m hungry, I want something that I don’t have to wait for, and end up snacking until the hunger is gone. I’m sure cheese plays a disproportionate part in my diet. It just doesn’t seem worth getting a lot of dishes messy to sit at a table alone. When I was younger I avoided eating even in fast food restaurants alone, conscious of being the only person without conversation to salt the fries. I was sure everyone was staring at me, and I was ashamed.

A few months ago I read a play in which one character says to another, “There are a million things in marriage, but companionship is at the bottom of it all. . . Do you know what companionship means?”

The other responds, “How do you mean? Literally?”

“The derivation of it in the dictionary. It means the art of having meals with a person.”

Of course I hadn’t thought of that before, for all my having studied Latin. Cum, with, and panis, bread. A companion, someone you share your bread with, maybe sitting around a fire at the end of a long day’s travel.

Lord, I said. I think I have learned by now that you do not withhold what I need; that I must not complain, because I know that you are good, and you love me, and you do what is best. And yet I can’t help feeling a longing for bread-sharing.

And He responded, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” And, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

And I knew that was love, that He would not only share bread with me, but become bread for me. Be my bread and true companion. With Christmas fast approaching, that prayer has changed to wonder at the name Emmanuel—God with us.

I went to a Ladies’ Christmas Tea on Saturday. I was exhausted and hungry after being out all morning, and didn’t really feel like going, but I’d already bought the train ticket, so I went. The theme of the tea was “The Names of God,” and each table had a name written on a miniature chalkboard stuck in a poinsettia. I looked at the name on my table. Immanuel. I knew some of the organizers were American, and was amused that while all the other names were in Italian, this one had accidentally been written in English.

My friend Margie brought the main speaker, Sue, over to our table. She didn’t speak any Italian, and I was the only other one who spoke English, so I had to overcome my usual timidity-around-important-people and converse with her. Sue was gracious, kind and beautiful, a woman clearly ready to love others. When she got up to speak, she told us she was nervous, and that her testimony wasn’t a traditional Christmas message, but about God’s message in her life. She went on to relate a story most of us didn’t expect from this elegant woman in her upper 50s—a childhood with parents divorcing, attempted suicide, drugs, a violent boyfriend who got her pregnant, an abortion, a foolish marriage, divorce, and finally finding the love of Christ.

When she sat back down, the women nearby smiled shyly and murmered “Grazie.” One woman said she wished she could speak English to talk to her. So I ended up translating for her, and then another with a story to tell. I found myself speaking about husbands who had been unfaithful, negligent, and abusive, about angry children, about having no parents or family to turn to. Mostly about feeling all alone, as if there was no one who saw, or understood, or loved. In the other direction I was hearing words go through me about persevering in faith and prayer.

God-with-us, be with us.

I’d stayed long enough to miss the train, so Margie let me come home with her, Sue, and her single friend, and loaned me pajamas and slippers. We drank tea and ate chicken salad. “I passed out the mugs randomly,” the other single woman said to me. “That’s why you got the one with ‘Mom’ on it.” “Well, I have a Mom…” I laughed, and thought that I was glad that didn’t hurt like it might have once. More are the children of the desolate, for unto us a child is born.

Born of a virgin. God is with us.

I need to spend more time thinking up creative titles

I went for a walk last week. I was annoyed, and tried praying, but couldn’t quite. My annoyance spiraled itself tighter around me until it grew into a mild anger. It seemed best to get out of the house, so I walked.

Walking past a playground, I heard, “Ciao!” and looked around. It must have been the young girl on the zipline. I returned her greeting. “What’s your name?” she asked, and I told her. “Are you a girl?” “Well…” I said, not sure how to answer that one. Terms are so relative.

I told Greta that I was 26, and she told me she was 9, and this was her little sister Melissa, who was 4. I wished them fun and left, finding a bench to sit on. I looked at a tree. It is hard to look at a tree long and try to tell the God who made green that you have a right to be angry because someone hurt your feelings. I’ve tried; it is much simpler to stop demanding rights.

Sunday it was easy to be joyful. The world was new and beautiful. After church, one of the elders asked me if I would consider marrying an Italian man. It’s always a bit awkward answering that question when the person asking it is an Italian man. “Remember, I married an Englishwoman,” he said. “She said she wouldn’t have married the ‘classic Italian,’ but I’m not a ‘classic Italian.’” “Good,” I said. “I mean…” “No, no,” he said. “That type, with the Mamma…” he shook his head.

I bought a hand-held fan on the way back from church. After serious deliberation, I went with a red one, with flowers painted on it (then on my way home, saw white, green, pink and blue that I liked). Only later did I notice that it says, “Espana” –it was probably made in China, too.

I had my first chance to use it while standing in line at the grocery store, then again when I wandered through the side door into the Catholic church on the corner and found myself at a concert of baroque chamber music. Others peeked in the door, including one with an OU shirt. Unfortunately I didn’t think it would be polite to whistle Boomer Sooner in the middle of a concert.

On Monday I went with Brea to get her ID card. “Keep this envelope,” the lady said. “It has pin numbers which will be able to be used in the future to activate different uses.” “What different uses?” I asked. She almost chuckled guiltily. “No one knows.”

On Tuesday I went with Troy and Penny to sign the contract with the owner of their apartment. While there, the real estate agent discovered that the man didn’t have the right to sign it—it needed to be signed by his daughter, since the property was in her name (there are laws giving tax breaks to women who own property to encourage women in business). So he was going to sign her name until I protested. Her name is on the document now, but we didn’t see who put it there. Then we needed a signature from the old woman who used to live there to be able to switch the utilities to their name, who is now 91 and in a nursing home. The woman at the water board suggested that I sign her name. The woman at the agency signed it, after asking me if I was any good at forgery. But they also require a copy of her ID card, and the only one the agency had was expired, because—the old woman is unable to sign for a new one. When Troy went to find the water reading before going to the agency, he realized that the number didn’t match any of the meters. So we told the agency lady (she told me, “By now you’re at home here”), who called the son, who called back the next day to say he’d gone to the water agency to close the water. So now we just needed to open it. When we went to do that, I asked if they would shut off the water in between, and they said, “Oh, you need to do a sub-entry” (what we’d tried to do before when they said we needed the old lady’s signature) and typed some things in the computer and said it was done. No forgeries involved.

the grace of no a/c

“I think air conditioning is a little like…” I said to someone the other day. “You know how they say when someone takes drugs at first it gives them a high, then they have to take it to feel normal? I think we’ve gotten so accustomed to air conditioning that we have to have it to feel normal…” Not that I would compare air conditioning with drugs. Except that I just did. (And yes, I know that in some places, it is much more “necessary” than here.)

I do have an air conditioning unit in my apartment, and it is nice to know it is there in case the heat becomes unbearable. It’s just that I’ve found I can bear so much more than I think I can. I haven’t turned the A/C on, because now I forget that it’s there, and I’m afraid that if I remember it will be hard to turn it off again.

Brea and I went out for a pizza the other night, and asked if there was air conditioning in the indoor part of the restaurant. “Sure,” the waiter said. “It’s ‘conditioned’ by the oven.” We sat outside.

I went for a walk a couple of evenings ago, and watched the reflections of the lights shimmer in the river, then the shadow of a person moving between the lamp and the dark water. I smelled the moisture of the grass under a sprinkler. A cool breath of breeze lifted off the water; a merciful respite. No—the breeze hadn’t stopped the heat—it was still there—so it couldn’t be mercy. It was a thing-in-itself; a grace.

There are other graces that I wouldn’t be aware of without the pressure of the heat: coldicygelato sliding down my throat, water, ice cubes, electric fans, the movement of air when I ride my bike, thrilling cold showers (how spoiled must I be to want them warm in the summer?). Life isn’t air-conditioning, and summer isn’t punishment. Life isn’t the pain in my leg, it is the grace of having one, two of them—what superfluity!

I was reading two books where the characters were overwhelmed with awareness, and hence gratitude; but in one, “god” was everything, and so nothing, in the other the man was grateful because he realized that life came from outside of himself.

Today, after a month of holding its breath the sky let it out with a cool breezy laugh, and walking was almost floating, or dancing. I can see the stars from my balcony; they are an unexpected boon. I remember to water my basil, and the night smells green with grace.

Here and Now

I had to go to Carpi the other day to run an errand, and couldn’t catch the morning train because of an appointment here, but I would still make it in time if I got the afternoon one. So I got to the train station 15 minutes early, because I still needed to buy my ticket and I like having lots of time. I would have, too, if the self-service machines had been working, but they weren’t, so the line for the real-people ticket counter was long when I joined it. Everyone was a little tense, since we’d all had the same plan. A large group of soldiers (out of uniform; they looked so young I thought they were a soccer team until I read the duffel bags) were all trying to figure out how to get their tickets, yelling at their buddies farther up in the line to get them one too. A man cut in front of me where the line turned the corner (corners are hard to protect) and I glared at his back. The dark foreign girl in front of me glanced sideways as he cut her off too, and she and I smiled at each other, listening to all the tension around us. It wasn’t going to make things go any faster. Finally it was my turn and I quickly said what I wanted, paid, grabbed the ticket and started to run without grabbing the return ticket. “Signora,” he started calling me back, and the soldier next in line brought it to me. “Signora, your ticket.” I thanked him and ran, realizing that I must be getting older, since everyone used to call me “Signorina.” I made the train.

Walking through the piazza a veritable Signora stopped me. “Signorina.” (Not Signora, notice.) I paused, my mind running through the possibilities as I looked at her. She probably wasn’t begging, since she was an older Italian lady. Maybe a Jehovah’s Witness—they like to stop me on the street to proselytize (but so do the evangelicals—I once had a very difficult time trying to convince one that I did in fact know Jesus until his friend recognized me). So I stopped and smiled. “Signorina, you’re very pretty.” I laughed, ruefully thinking of how un-pretty I’d been feeling earlier in the day, and realizing how foolish that was to fret over; realizing that sometimes it takes eyes looking for beauty to see it, and wanting to tell her that; wanting to tell her that it is God who creates beauty and who is the beautiful. Some mixed-up version came out of my mouth.

“Don’t you have anyone?” she asked, and I started to shake my head, accustomed to old ladies asking about a boyfriend, but she went on, “A mother or anyone?” “No…” I smiled, “My mother isn’t here…” “Come with me,” she responded. “Oh—I’m sorry—I can’t…” “Why not?” she asked. “Well, I don’t go with strangers…” I said. “I’m not a stranger. I would be like a mother to you,” she urged. I shook my head and smiled a little, wondering how lonely she must be, and what I ought to do if she continued to insist. But she just smiled and started walking away. Ciao, bella.

I rode the train back, in the late evening light which is so helpful for seeing things the way they are, with Aldous Huxley’s Island beside me for company.

‘Here and now, boys,’ shouted a talking bird.

‘Shut up! Will shouted back.

‘Here and now, boys,’ the mynah repeated. ‘Here and now, boys. Here and…’

‘Shut up!’

There was silence.

‘I had to shut him up, Will explained, ‘because of course he’s absolutely right. Here, boys; now, boys. Then and there are absolutely irrelevant. Or aren’t they? What about your husband’s death, for example? Is that irrelevant?’

Susila looked at him for a moment in silence, then slowly nodded her head. ‘In the context of what I have to do now—yes, completely irrelevant! That’s something I had to learn.’

‘Does one learn how to forget?’

‘It isn’t a matter of forgetting. What one has to learn is how to remember and yet be free of the past. How to be there with the dead and yet still be here, on the spot, with the living.’ She gave him a sad little smile and added, ‘It isn’t easy.’

I stood at the open window, and looked, at the sun on the leaves, at the hares darting through the deep furrows in the fields, at the rainbows made by the sprinklers irrigating the corn, at the people sitting on bikes, waiting for the train to pass. I listened to the crickets and the squeal of the brakes and the greetings of friends, and smelled, yes even the manure. They weren’t just blurs outside the window of my life; they were there, and would be even when I wasn’t present to see them. Even when I wasn’t paying attention.

New Look

I climbed up toward my “favorite” spot the other evening. (At Trevor and Rhonda’s the other evening she had crackers and cheese out, and I said that was just about one of my favorite things. “Let’s see,” said Rhonda. “I know biscuits and gravy is too…” “I would have thought Nutella was your favorite,” said Penny. I decided I have lots of favorite things.) Pretty much anywhere I can see large amounts of sky and not a lot blocking it is a favorite spot, and this was on the hill overlooking the Roman Theater, so I could see the roofs of the city center across the noise of the river in the fading light.

The theater is having a Shakespeare festival going on, like every summer, and people were starting to arrive. I found a seat on a wall with some other people who had the same idea, where we could look down into the theater from behind. I watched the people hurrying in, some pulling off motorcycle helmets as walked to the entrance. There were bikes chained up to the railing along the river.

Once the show started I couldn’t really hear, so I decided I’d rather be at home reading, and walked out, down the street, past three Japanese boys singing in acapella harmony while the Japanese girls walked laughing behind, past a pizza delivery boy pushing his pizza delivery motorcycle down the piece of street that had been closed, past a dog that nuzzled me and the motorcycle cop enforcing the street being closed, or at least scolding the man still riding his motorcycle from the other direction and telling him not to next time.

A couple of evenings later I went to a “molologo,” not knowing what it was but knowing that it included someone playing the piano and was free. The entrance was through the “courtyard of Juliet,” closed to the public, which was pressing up against the gates asking the girl standing there when it would open again. She told them tomorrow morning, but opened the gate for me when I told her I wanted to go to the show. We happy few were shown into a building opposite, to a dimly lit area back or offstage—I could barely see into a richly-adorned theater through the screen we were watching. And there was a Steinway grand, on which an excellent pianist played Richard Strauss’s op. 38, interchanging with the long-ponytailed, deep-voiced, double-breasted suit man reading “Alfred Tennison’s” Enoch Arden—in Italian prose, which left not much to know that it was Tennyson. The plot was all that was left, and it was very Romantically tragic, but I was a little disappointed, because I don't think of plots when I think of Tennyson. For once I thought Italian lacking in melody. But I had always wondered a little about that style of musicandstory that pre-dated movies, so it was interesting to get a taste of it, and understand the feeling from the music.

Now Troy and Penny are here, and it’s been fun taking them around town and seeing things from a new perspective—especially the pointing-out of things to children who’ve always lived in Mound City, Kansas. “Look, Noah, it’s a Ferrari,” “Look at the lady giving bread to the pigeon,” “Look at the dog going for a ride on the motorcycle.” They’re noticing things too—Rowen sat in her stroller, struck with the sound of the bells striking nine. “Did you hear that?” she whispered to me.

Noah gave me a Fruit Loop from his plastic cup of bounty, and the colors seemed to shine back in the pattern of houses and flowers and that man’s argyle sweater in the jewel tones one notices on days of partly-cloudy clearness when the light breaking through picks out colors with flashes of reality.

The old people here smile at them wherever they go. One lady laughed aloud watching Noah trying to find a way around a piece of wet sidewalk. The woman at the post office who helped us with their permessi oohed over them. “They’re so blond!” So far, though, no one has succeeded in getting them to say “ciao.”

The lady at the post office started out a little huffy (we’d done some things wrong) but eventually became chatty, wanting to know about where in the U.S. we were from, and why Penny’s last name was the same as Troy’s (“So women just lose their name entirely when they get married?”). We talked about differences (us having middle names on documents, but not using them generally—sometimes they have second names, but never on documents, which means that if our middle names are on our passports we have to sign everything that way here, since that’s our name). Troy thanked her when we finished, and she said, “Welcome,” then asked me if that was right, “because you don’t have ‘prego,’ right?” “Yes, it’s ‘You’re welcome,” I said, but she couldn’t every quite get it.

Troy and Penny wanted to get an estimate on how much it will cost to paint their new apartment, so we went to a store that sells paint, and asked if they could give us a general idea of how much painters charge or paint costs. “How much does it cost to go to the moon?” the old man asked me. “How much does a dress cost? You can’t ask these questions! You must be foreigners! No Italian would ever ask such a thing!” I tried to be polite, and the politer I was the more he kept yelling, so I eventually just left, wondering if all customers get this service or only foreign ones, and if so, how he makes enough to keep going. But I’m not a businessman.

bookstores are nice

I was feeling a little stressed out—like butter scraped over too much bread—and heading home down a street in another part of town. I’d seen the little room fitted with bookshelves, hardly big enough to be called a bookstore, before, and kept walking. In a place that size it’s hard to “curiosare” anonymously. But this time one of the books on the little display table caught my eye—What’s Wrong With the World, by G.K. Chesterton. And next to it—Surprised by Joy, by C.S. Lewis. And there was another Lewis book. I hate to admit it, but I think it was actually seeing the Mark Twain book that toppled me over the edge. I had to go in and have a look.

It was just a tiny room, but with ceiling-high wooden bookshelves out of my reach, classical music playing and a man and woman sitting behind the desk. She hurried forward politely in a navy-and white retro-styled dress, and offered help, but I just wanted to look. There was a shelf full of Chesterton’s works, including ones I’ve never heard of in English, and right under him was the shelf with Tolkien and Lewis. Clearly this was the Right Sort of bookstore—not like the San Paolo one that has chick flicks in the window and glaring yellow light.

The man finished his phone call and asked if I’d been introduced to the order, and quickly made the proper presentations. I expressed my approbation of the authors on the shelves, and asked if they didn’t possibly have any in English? Alas, no. But he sent me a link to a site with all of Chesterton’s works online.

The store was Catholic, and so were they, and they asked if I was, but were still very nice when it was discovered that I wasn’t, and seemed glad to hear that our group was here to teach Scripture. “If you have any good books on the Scriptures, let me know and maybe we can keep them here,” he offered. “As long as they’re good—we’re very selective.” And just to be sure I knew they weren’t prejudiced, he showed me the Bible story book that they have used to teach their own children, put out by an evangelical publishing house.

Before I left they gave me a book as a gift, on—wouldn’t you know it—suffering. I laughed, and then had to explain why. The wife was also extending a calendar toward me, but her husband said, “You know, I don’t think the evangelicals are very much in agreement with the saints,” and she pulled it back apologetically as if it would bite me, laughing a little embarrassedly.

I left feeling like I had friends.

Happenings and happiness

Yesterday I took three contradictions in energy and questions and sinfulness and made-in-the-image-of-Godness to McDonald’s. One of the cheeseburgers came back with mustard, despite our special instructions for only meat, cheese and ketchup, just to prove that some things are the same worldwide. And we talked about what if Adam and Eve hadn’t sinned and could God make himself a woman and also about how at American McDonald’s you don’t have to buy ketchup for your fries separately, and you can get free refills on drinks (the free refills, along with fried chicken, were the marvels of America that my friend Isobel from Peru mentioned when I sat across from her on the train the other day).

I took them back to the language school where their parents were studying, and waited there until said parents should arrive. “Excuse me, are you American?” one of the teachers asked. I affirmed. “Would you mind looking at this translation, just to see if it makes sense?” Which of course I didn’t. “This sentence…isn’t a whole sentence in English.” He sighed. “Well, the original was kind of strange in Italian too.” I noted that “remind” in English has to be transitive (although I couldn’t remember the term), and suggested “remind one of,” or “call to mind.” He wasn’t pleased. Evoke? “Ah, yes, that’s nice,” he said, and wrote e-v-o-c-e. I objected, so he added an h after the c before just letting me write it.

This morning I had to accompany the mother of the contradictions to the doctor. When we walked in at our turn the doctor said, “But I don’t know you.” Evidently here it is customary to be signed up with a particular doctor before being sick. The doctor gave a prescription, and added that my friend should be careful about air conditioning. “We don’t have it,” she said, and the doctor was satisfied.

The waiting room included a flyer for a medical clinic especially for immigrants, and evidently catering to illegal ones, since the tagline (in all the languages I could read, which were not many) was more or less “Here we heal you, not turn you in.” At least that’s what it was supposed to be—the English version said, “Here we do not denunce.” (Speaking of funny English, the store across the street from me is now selling “LEGGINS” for a mere 3.90.)

I went to the pharmacy to fill the prescription, which included “Brufen” (Ibuprofen), and asked the old deaf pharmacist if it was necessary to have a prescription to buy that drug. “It’s better to,” he said. It turned out to be powdered.

Walking home I glanced at the marble sidewalks (everything seems to be marble here in Verona. Even the pavement of my poor apartment is red and pink marble tile—and yes, there have been times when I was tired enough to sleep on it) when I saw a little flower of the type whose name I can’t remember. Alright, a type whose name I can’t remember. Small and colorful and spread easily, even though they’re usually planted on purpose. So I reached over to pick it and the roots came up too—I put it in with my basil bush (I’m basilsitting too, and it hasn’t died after a whole week with me!) so we’ll see how long it lasts.

Some days it’s so easy to remember grace.

Sunday Sundry

I am thankful for: Oreos! They have lost their exclusive expensive only-at-Blockbuster status and are now available in the snack machine at the train station. Yay! Although I do think it’s funny that they are described on the package as “Cocoa-flavored sandwich biscuits.” Ha!

I am thankful for libraries with air conditioning and free wifi.

I am thankful for a great big cone of gelato with whipped cream and Nutella on top at my favorite gelateria in Italy, la Slurp (“Zlooorp”) and catching-up with old friends.

I am thankful that someone turned in my purse to the front desk at the library when I went off and left it (I don’t have a problem with “Oh God, help!” kinds of prayers. They are some of our most sincere.)

I am glad for my foster cat, Pop, who even though he wakes me up earlier than I would like and has tried chewing or clawing my couch, my good dress, my necklace and earrings, my HAIR, and my teddy bear, is nevertheless a good listener and quite comfortable when he stops his clawing tread and curls up.

I am grateful for cooler weather.

I love standing at the open window of a train while it is moving. It is the best way to be involved in the countryside one is flying through.

I am grateful for the village name “Roverbella,” and the row of rainbow-sherbet-painted houses at Mozzecane (even if I don’t like that name).

Train conductors are so funnily official in their uniforms, with their hats pushed back and glasses pushed down. But they’re lacking suspenders. Maybe I should propose them to Trenitalia.

I saw a camp-out in a backyard we flew past—two tents, and a real table surrounded by children eating pizzas with real plates and silverware. Oh Italians, you are so funny and I love you.

I am thankful for storm clouds even higher than the mountains.

De-stressed

I had cookies for breakfast this morning—not even “good-for-you” cookies, just normal breakfast cookies. This is an Italian’s idea of a proper breakfast—coffee or tea and some cookies or fruit. They just about have a heart attack on my behalf when I tell them I eat eggs for breakfast.

These are some of the few cookies I will deign to dunk, since they have the right consistency for it and actually taste better with some other flavors in the undertone.

I’m not a cookie, but I’ve felt a little lately like I’m soaking in tension from all around me (maybe I need to work on my analogies). Not that I’m under particular stress, mind you, it’s just that I keep seeing stressful relationships: on other teams, in churches, between friends; and I feel like I’m soaking this all in and making it my own, and am ready to crumble. Not to mention the dread I feel when I think of the tension almost guaranteed my team in the future.

The library here has pithy sayings written up on the walls over the door. One of them is, “Vivere e’ combattere,” “To live is to fight.” I don’t know if that’s supposed to instill courage. But I’ve been feeling lately that that’s all life is: fight and fight and fight, and then we die (alone). I said this to a friend yesterday, feeling cynical and grown-up.

I should know to beware whenever I feel grown-up. There’s a reason Jesus said we have to be like little children. All of my cynicism is rooted in thinking that I’m in control; I have to carry the weights of the world alone. In acting like I think I’m God.

Most of my problems with stress, like suffering, happen when it’s not even really mine. God gives grace for the real, but not for the weights created by my imagination. He is still in control. He is enough for other people’s problems, and enough for the problems which will come in the future. He has already overcome the world. Each problem that arises is an opportunity to demonstrate His victory.

Yesterday one of the elders in my old church (yes, the one suffering many tensions) read part of Romans 8: “In all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation [in Italian it says, “any other creature”—all of these things have been created], will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

In all of my worry about fighting, I had forgotten what God told Moses: “The Lord will fight for you; you have only to be still.”

Suffer the Little Children

“Where does the sun set again?”

“Well, it doesn’t actually set…” I tried to explain, and did it poorly. He didn’t answer, but I wondered if the six-year-old brain was cogitating that grandest of all wonders: that the truth is bigger than we understand.

I remember the slow-dawning realization that our world is not the center of the universe, that we are actually spinning around in space. I remember lying in the yard, looking up at the clouds in the deep blue center, dizzy with the thought of hanging in space. I dug my fingers into the grass, in case gravity wasn’t enough to keep me here. Wonder intertwined with fear.

Fear keeps slithering into my heart. I read from so many sources about God’s goodness in suffering, and I wonder what He knows is ahead, why I must be ready to embrace suffering. I brace myself, wondering if I will be strong enough, and wish he would just give it to me and get it over with, because this dread of suffering hurts too much. “Whatever you do, do quickly,” I tell God, with the self-centered inversion of sin.

I lose myself in “what-if,” forgetting what is. Or who is.

I know suffering can be used for God’s glory. I know we must participate in the suffering of Christ if we hope to attain to the resurrection from the dead. But do I really want Him to say, “Well done good and faithful servant?” Or would I settle for a “Well, you’re done; pretty good most of the time.” Getting through life without too much glory, but without too much pain. A tame God.

He’s not tame, though. He’s good.

But Love has pitched her mansion in

The place of excrement;

For nothing can be sole or whole

That has not been rent.

(Yeats)

And here I am grateful for God’s humanity. I am grateful that even Jesus, even knowing, asked for the cup to be removed. I am grateful that he prayed, Nevertheless, in any case, whatever you decide, not my will, but Yours. What shall I pray? Father, glorify your name. And a voice from heaven answered, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it.”

Rend the veil and make me whole.

Happy Independence Day

This morning I woke up not feeling very loudly 4^th-of-Julyish—I have my last language class tonight, so I’m skipping a barbecue with other families, and I’m afraid it’s seemed a lot like a normal day. And I am content with that, since I love my country sometimes loudly, but some days quietly too, keeping it in my heart as a part of me that doesn’t have to set off firecrackers to be there.

I admit, I did shed a tear when my homework for the day included writing a composition on the topic, “What do you miss when you are away from your country?” but it was an indulgence I could not encourage.

I don’t worship my country, as some accuse Americans of doing, but I think it is right to love it, because it is mine. I am thankful for it, as a good gift of God’s. And loving it doesn’t mean not seeing imperfections—sometimes we see more in those we love. But we love anyway, because love is a one-sided affair. It doesn’t have anything to do with the worthiness of the beloved.

Some of my generation eschew patriotism, thinking themselves to be more broad-minded and cosmopolitan. But I’ve found that loving my own place gives me the strength to love others.

C.S. Lewis learned to love more than one place. He writes of a couple of them:

County Down in the holidays and Surrey in the term—it was an excellent contrast. Perhaps, since their beauties were such that not even a fool could force them into competition, this cured me once and for all of the pernicious tendency to compare and to prefer—an operation that does little good even when we are dealing with works of art and endless harm when we are dealing with nature. Total surrender is the first step towards the fruition of either. Shut your mouth; open your eyes and ears. Take in what is there and give no thought to what might have been there or what is somewhere else. That can come later, if it must come at all. (And notice here how the true training for anything whatever that is good always prefigures and, if submitted to, will always help us in, the true training for the Christian life.)

So this afternoon I took his advice, and opened my eyes and ears. I climbed to my favorite spot, a little park on a hill overlooking Verona, still within sound of the river. The river has been brown after all the rain, but today it was green. I sat and listened to the cicadas and the birds I could almost see. I looked at the sunshine on the towers, on the river, on an orange gelato spoon someone had abandoned. And straight across the chasm of baked-earth roofs and cypresses pricking the sky I saw a cross atop the globe. When I am in the right relationship with it, the other follows. I wonder if God had that built and placed in that spot hundreds of years ago because He knew I would need the help now?

I don’t know. But he did place another cross on the earth thousands of years ago because He knew I needed it. Love isn’t about the starting-value of the beloved.

In Which Salad Changes Forms

Or, Why is it so hard to be good on Saturdays?

I woke up Saturday morning with a list of Things to Be Accomplished. They didn’t get done. That’s all. Which means:

On Friday I had been grocery shopping and bought lots of fruits and vegetables, even though I will be going out of town on Tuesday, because they looked so good, and I thought I would have the whole weekend to eat them. But I had forgotten that weekends are allergic to fruits and vegetables. Which means:

It was, oddly enough, a perfect morning for baking, and I had a hankerin’. So I tried what I now call Salad Dressing Muffins and entirely approve. I may as well enjoy having Italian ingredients cheaply available while I do. For anyone interested, I used this recipe, with a few excep-shuns:

1. I reduced the amount of sugar from 1 cup to about ¾ of a cup (and actually used agave syrup for the about ¼ cup, since someone had given me some).

2. I added a small sprinkling of cinnamon, nutmeg, and rosemary (no thyme. I never have thyme)—not sure how much. Just the right amount.

3. I replaced about half the lemon juice with Balsamic Vinegar.

4. I didn’t frost them (since they’re becoming muffins instead of cupcakes, after all), but sprinkled them with rosemary and stuck an almond in the top.

5. Yum! I recommend the frozen batter too.

And then instead of doing any of my reading or writing about Important Things, I finished re-reading Once On a Time, the only imperfection of which is that it ends (but it was complete, so I guess that can’t be an imperfection either). It was satisfying, and so I was sad with the wanting of the satisfaction that won’t end.

The End

suffering produces...hope?

It seems as though I’ve been hearing a lot about suffering lately.

I just finished re-reading (by my own choice, I grant you) Two-Part Invention, the last of the Crosswicks Journals by Madeleine L’Engle, written while her husband was dying of cancer. A friend wrote about her experience with a brain tumor. Last week was the anniversary of the death of my older brother. I received an email from another friend today whose son has been going through chemotherapy, who just had surgery herself, and whose husband is now in the ER. Other friends’ twenty-year old cousin was just diagnosed with cancer. And I listened to yet another sermon on the death of Lazarus.

While I rejoice in seeing the faith displayed in each of these situations, and the strength God has granted to those experiencing them, and even the beauty sharpened into focus by the pain, I can’t help self-centeredly hoping it doesn’t relate to me. What if, I ask. What if God is trying to prepare me to face some great suffering? What if we all have to go through that sometime, and my suffering is lurking in the future, ready to jump out at me…

I don’t want to suffer. I don’t like it. But of course I know I’m a bad Christian if I’m not willing to accept whatever God brings, if I’m not trusting Him.

This sermon helped me to see a little of how God can redeem suffering; that we have hope that not only will God help us to survive it, but that He will use it to glorify Himself.

I don't have to be afraid. Even when I don't see what He's doing, God can use even bad circumstances to empty me of myself, which is to become more like Christ, which is to bring glory to Him. Which is a happy ending.

Death is swallowed up in victory.

Five-minute delay

Trains slide screeching down the track;

Never turn around,

But they all come back.

Let Us Find Our Rest in Thee

Stumbled onto this, from Edmund Spenser’s “Mutabilitie” (doesn’t that spelling make you love it already?)—and yes, I skipped to the end:

Then gin I thinke on that which Nature sayd,

Of that same time when no more Change shall be,

But stedfast rest of all things firmely stayd

Upon the pillours of Eternity,

That is contrayr to Mutabilitie:

For, all that moveth, doth in Change delight:

But thence-forth all shall rest eternally

With Him that is the God of Sabbaoth hight:

O that great Sabbaoth God, graunt me that Sabaoths sight.

The note on the last line says that Spenser confuses (perhaps intentionally) the Hebrew words for rest and armies, hosts.

How nice to know that our rest is in the Lord of Hosts. “The Lord will fight for you; you have only to be still.”

The name of the canto says, “unperfite:” imperfect, unfinished. Which is why, I suppose, we do “in change delight.” We are so far from perfection that we can’t imagine Eternity. But when perfection comes…

The Lord is my Shepherd

The weather finally made up its mind to act like summer, and we have begun to—not bake, because that requires dry heat—but steam, in the sultry humidity that’s only possible in a city on a river on a peninsula. But I enjoy the icy stabs of reality that come with summer when we’ve all melted off some of our superficiality. In the winter we cover up and try to move as quickly as possible from one building to another, lost in individuality, but in summer we unite in our quest to escape.

With every change of season I’m hit with a new wave of homesickness. At least the seasons will be my excuse. Maybe because they remind me of the transitory nature of life, my inability to hold onto moments, people. Maybe because I have memories associated with seasons. Summer is for barbecue and mowing grass and baseball and root beer floats. I don’t have those here.

Although I do have root beer, because one of the families from our team has just arrived and brought me some. Some people have kindly asked me if it’s easier being here with a team. And I think it’s better, but in some ways harder. My nostalgia can’t sink as deep and fester under the surface like it did when I was here alone, but it is pricked more often in seeing families (that aren’t mine), in having our identity in common but not here. I’m not allowed to forget.

I pulled out my hymnbook this morning, and quickly started crying. Those words have comforted and encouraged me so often, and the church that I sang them in has given me so much love. I have found comfort sitting at the piano and playing through the hymns, trying to improvise (I wonder if that’s related to provare, to try). But I don’t (even) have a piano now.

I don’t like admitting to being homesick. It makes me vulnerable, and I don’t like being vulnerable, admitting weakness. I want to be tough, to not need anyone or anything. But only God is self-sufficient, and I ought to know by now that I’m not God.

So I walk through days of twilights

Living in a lack

And always looking back.

The Italian way to say, “I miss…” is more like, “This is missing to me…I am without this…it is lacking in my life.” It is a statement of fact.

This is the problem with my desires. They very quickly go from descriptive to proscriptive, implying that something is wrong because I don’t have what I want. If one takes the word want in its older sense (to lack something necessary) that phrase is incredibly arrogant, as if I am telling God that He has not given me what is necessary for my happiness, and that my happiness is the only thing that matters to me and ought to matter to Him. In other words, He doesn’t know what is good. He isn’t good.

And I am like a baby screaming IwantIwantIwantIwant instead of like “a weaned child with its mother,” quiet, not making demands.

The important thing is not how I feel, but what I do. I don’t think it’s an accident that my Bible reading came from Philippians 3 this morning. “I count all things as loss…in order that I may know Him, and be found in Him.”

I can only be found in Him if I lose myself first.

Nulla mi manchera’. It’s a promise, a statement of hope, a commitment to faith. Nothing will be lacking to me. Nothing will be missing. There is nothing lost.

I shall not want.

Hungry II

Besides trying to grab control away from God, I also worry at times that He’ll forget about me. Those are the days when I’m trying to resist hunger because it’s a whole lot easier to afford not to eat (I’m either practicing up to be a starving writer by being a starving missionary or I practiced up for a career in missions by getting a degree in literature, or both). I spend all my thought time calculating and re-calculating and trying to devise clever schemes for how I can save money (let’s see, if I take napkins from McDonald’s…and plastic forks—ketchup’s no good, since they charge you 20 cents a package here). I wonder how long I can go on surviving like this. What’s worse, I worry about what kind of worrier I’ll be in the future. What if I ever have a family? I can picture myself with a starving husband and children, trying to convince them that cornbread and beans make a viable meal option—five days a week.

But this isn’t living as if God is God. Once again, I’ve tried to pretend to myself that I am, that if I’m just clever enough or twist the numbers in a certain direction, I’ll be okay, and then I can pat myself on the back for being such a good …um, steward. But the whole idea of being a steward is that none of this money is mine to begin with. It’s God’s. He has graciously given me enough to be able to eat right now, and has told me to trust Him tomorrow for tomorrow’s food. How foolish I am to act like He needs my plans for how to save money in order to be able to provide it. Doesn’t He take care of the sparrows of the air and the lilies of the field? Hasn’t He always provided for me before? Isn’t He—God?

Yes. And I am not God, but I am God’s, one of His sheep. Which means not only that I have to give Him control and obey Him, but—I can trust Him to provide for me too. He won’t forget me. So I can eat with thanksgiving.

Mamma mia said there'd be days like this

Flip-flops don’t flip much when the part between the toes breaks. They just sit there on the road and look at you (fruitlessly trying to convince them they want to go along with your feet at the very moment when they have freed themselves forever from bondage) smugly. Flop.

So, since you’re a ten-minute walk from home and trying to get to language class on time and have already tried sticking the between-toe part back into the hole it came out of and it just kept flopping, you pick it up and thank God you like to walk barefoot anyway and are almost to class and do your best to look elegant and nonchalant and not-American, because even if this could happen to anybody the raised eyebrows that lady was muttering probably impute this unfortunate incident to your nationality. I suppose the middle-part (what is it called, anyway?) doesn’t come out of Prada heels.

Have no fear. When I got to class I discovered that I had a safety pin in my purse, which, yes, was enough to hold it together. My Spanish classmate tells me that the name for safety pins in her language is “un-lose-ables.” I’m jealous of Spanish. Only we have musical chairs, and they only have “the chair game,” so there.

Trevor and Rhonda needed to get their codici fiscali today, so we made our way to the agenzia entrate, open 8:30-12:30 M-F, 2:30-4:30 T Th, and didn’t get there until about 4 Thur. It’s the one office where I haven’t ever had to wait long. But the employees were obviously ready for the day to be done. After I explained that we wanted to get numbers for Trevor and Rhonda and their three children (5), the woman at the front desk gave me three numbers. “That will be enough.” So Trevor’s number was called and we ran back to desk number 9 to start his paperwork. Then sure enough—tac! (which is Italian for something happening suddenly) Rhonda’s number was called. No problem—it was at desk number 8. Got her started—tac! The number for the three boys. At desk 7. So Rhonda gave me the passports and I passed them to the agent, who was clearly annoyed (but not necessarily at us). The man running the number system asked if he was ready for a new one. “Does it look like I’m not helping anybody over here?” he asked. “He’s matto,” he told us, and waved his hand expressively. “How do you say ‘matto’ in American?” “Crazy,” I said. “Oh, yeah, that’s right.”

So from there we went to the anagrafe, which is where you can get residency after you get a permesso di soggiorno from the questura after you apply for it at the post office. The post office is behind everything, and so everything is behind.

But they needed a residency permit now—we think—to be able to pick up their stuff which is arriving in July, and can’t wait three months at a minimum to get their permessi before applying for residency. So the very kind lady was telling us how once they had applied for the permessi they could apply for residency if they had these other documents, but one of them was one I’d never heard of or seen and she said they should be able to get it when they apply for the permessi but what kind of permessi were they? Religious workers? Hmmm. That might be different then, but we’d have to find out from the questura.

And then I loaned them my internet key, and went to recharge it and found out that I owed 8 euros even though I haven’t been using it (and couldn’t because I didn’t recharge it) because I didn’t deactivate it (which is free, as is reactivating) and so I had to pay 8 euros for that plus 9 euros to use it for a month which comes to 20 euros. How’s that? Math’s not my strong suit, but even I can figure out that 9+8 is less than 20. Ah, but you can only pay in blocks of 5 and 10.

New flip-flops might have to wait.

Fear not

Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

Set me as a seal upon your heart,
I have called you by name, you are mine.
For love is as strong as death.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
Many waters cannot quench love;
And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
Rivers cannot wash it away.
When you walk through the fire you shall not be burned,
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
And the flame shall not consume you.
The very flame of the Lord.
For I am the Lord your God,
The Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
Because you are precious in my eyes,
If a man offered for love
And honored, and I love you,
all the wealth of his house,
I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.
He would be utterly despised.
Fear not, for I am with you.

Randomness

- Italians eating at the airport last thing before heading to Germany for a wedding the next day, because (in a sinisterly knowing voice), “Who knows what there will be to eat tomorrow.” Admitting the next day that the breakfast was actually good (although there was too much of it), but the coffee was terrible.

- Here there are people who pretend to be statues in order to get money. I’m not sure why I’m supposed to give them money for pretending to be statues, but there you have it (the first time I saw one I didn’t know what he was. I just knew there wasn’t a statue there the day before. So I went and examined it—I’m sure the person inside was having difficulty not laughing). One man, however, I find more impressive—instead of pretending to be a statue he pretends to be in motion—walking down the street, hair and tie blowing in the breeze—and holds it still. This does mean, though, that when he’s actually walking or standing talking with someone he looks kind of strange.

- We saw a crazy man today. And not any ordinary crazy man. This one was tall, well-dressed, leaning on an umbrella—and, um, growling to himself. He then started to shriek, then switched to singing Pavarotti.

- Speaking of music, I heard “Part of Your World” from “The Little Mermaid” issuing from the apartment next door. Which wouldn’t be strange, except that I had been under the impression that it was two single guys living there. Hm.

- Last night we went to see a performance by the dance schools of the Veronese territory. It was good, but we were amused by the food vendor walking around ahead of time. He was selling chips, beer, pop; later on limoncello and coffee (we could smell that). I tried to imagine that happening at an American dance recital. Maybe people would enjoy it more if it did.

- Saw a t-shirt in the window the other day that said: “Jonk New York/ Born America/ U.S.A. University/ Old Style/Manhattan Zone”. I’m not sure where this English is from or what it was trying to express. Jonk?

Hungry

I looked at the bathroom scales. Or maybe they looked at me first, scaley and seductive. Why not? They whispered. You can just check to make sure you’re in a healthy range. Otherwise you might keep worrying about it. And then you can go away and forget about it. You’re past that whole problem of finding your worth based on your weight. I gave in. The number was in the general range I said I would be satisfied with, and so I intended to leave it there, happy. Soon, though, the nagging started again.

Remember a few weeks back when you weighed three pounds less? You looked and felt a lot better then. You shouldn’t just accept this weight when you know you can lose three pounds.

Alright, I said. I’ll try to eat less, like I was doing three weeks ago. I had been dieting before a friend’s wedding, and kept telling myself that it didn’t matter if I felt hungry all the time, because I’d eat when it was over. Of course that hadn’t kept me from always thinking about food.

Must control my appetite. Not eat every time I think I’m hungry. Then I can lose three pounds and feel attractive and happy again. Bother, I’m hungry already.

“You fill the hungry with good things,” I read. But you also give us hunger. And expect us to exercise self-control. Sometimes I feel like I’m competing with you God, to see which will win out—my hunger (which you sent), or my self-control (MINE). But you’re God, which doesn’t seem fair. You’re in control of the whole universe, can’t I even have control of my own body? By the way, that wasn’t a very funny trick you pulled. That was my muscle. So now I can’t go running. And you know I like to run. It makes me feel so—in control. I bet you did it on purpose.

And then I pray, which means agreeing with God that He is in fact God. And I’m not.

“I urge you therefore, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices.” Offering up control, even of our bodies. Asking to be controlled by the Spirit, who gives self-control, but only as fruit (not fertilizer, as my dad used to say). Relinquishing my desire to exercise control over my life, which always leads to pride or despair, or both. Recognizing that all things are from Him, and through Him, and to Him. How desperately I need the True Food and True Drink.

He can only fill my mouth when I open it.

Overheard

A father to his young daughter: “‘Amare’ vuol’ dire volere bene bene bene benissimo.”

My best attempt at translation: “‘Love’ means to like somebody veryveryverymuchthebest.”

(because “volere bene” (lit. “want well”) means love, but the parent/child/brother/sister/friend kind of love, and “amare” means amorous love).

We need more precise words in English.

Dress to Express

I like clothes (shocking revelation, I know). My siblings have always teased me because I remember events by what I was wearing. One of the great sadnesses of my life was outgrowing my favorite dress ever (it was shiny pink, with a full ruffly skirt that had bells sewn into it which jingled when I walked—I don’t know why they don’t make dresses like that for those of us past fourth birthdays).

One of my great mantras of dress has always been, “Wear exactly what you feel like,” because I’m limited in my forms of artistic expression, but I still feel like I’m accomplishing some when I put together an outfit. And yet I don’t know how many times I’ve been put off of wearing something for fear others might notice, might deride my decision. So I end up wearing something safe.

But lately I’ve been trying to focus more of my life on glorifying God—that is, trying to consciously remember that God is God, and I am not. As I care more about what people think about God (a natural result of remembering that He is God), I find that I care less about what people think about me.

I notice that all the flowers are praising God with different colors. The trees and sky and river are rejoicing together by being trees and sky and river, and I want to be in on it. I wear my big bright orange rose on my hot pink polo shirt as my expression of thanks and praise and joy in God (have you noticed the colors in the biblical accounts of His glory? I’m so glad He loves color, and that I know even from science that there are colors I haven't seen yet).

And I find that, like so much of the Christian life, it is a paradox. The more I submit myself to God, the less I am concerned with my Self and what will make me happy and what others will think of me, and the more of myself I become and am able to express (“to press out,” the exact opposite of impressing). The more I become what God made me to be.

And I don’t really mind if others think I look silly—after all, the God who made me is the same one who made the platypus.

“Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” Romans 13:14

Anna

I met Anna yesterday. I’d actually met her before, but yesterday was our first time to talk--we’re exchanging conversation to practice our Italian and English.

It didn’t take long to find out that she loves country (pronounced “cow-un-tree”) music and line dancing, and was excited to find out that I really do come from Oklahoma. Her fiancé runs a Wild West show, and she always rides in carrying the American flag at the beginning (of course, she explained, they have to carry the Italian flag and play the Italian national anthem too, but she chose the American one). Her fiancé is very particular about doing things Right, so they watch rodeos (rod-E-os—we mispronounce words we borrow too) on youtube, and Italian children scramble to pull the ribbon off of a goat’s neck. She invited me to come read the Cowboy’s Prayer at the beginning sometime.

She was supposed to get married this year, but they wanted to buy a house too, so that came first, and fixing it up is happening now (so my vocabulary lesson for the day was in the construction field), and the wedding will come next year. She is a little sad that she will be so far away from her family (a 45-minute drive) and her parents won’t be able to babysit for her, but also thinks that with a little space she will have to make decisions on her own and grow instead of always depending on her parents, and will appreciate her family more when she does see them.

She’s never been to an opera, although she was born and raised in Verona, because, you know, you never see the things where you live. And yes, Italy has some beautiful places, but America…America must be visited.

Quietness and Trust

Yesterday God called my attention to some sin in my life. Not the first time that has happened, but it’s never a pleasant experience. The relief of confessing it and knowing I was forgiven was, however, and I was singing and reveling in grace all afternoon, knowing that the weight that had blocked fellowship between me and God was gone, and that now I could look back on the past days of dissatisfaction and know why I was so dark and dry.

Today the feelings were not so sharp, but that is alright, because it is not feelings of God that I worship, but Him, and it is not feelings which He requires of me, but obedience. I look at my past and realize how many times I have committed variations on this sin of living with myself at the center of the world instead of God (that’s what sin is, after all), and am sad that I have repeated it and probably will again. And I look at the patterns of my life that lead to sliding into this state of sinfulness, and I see that it starts with trying to be righteous on my own, which starts when I am not spending time with God in prayer, in His word. And so I determine that this will not happen again, and set to work to kill the flesh in the power of the flesh.

And then I get tired.

I make a cup of coffee, admiring the pattern of blue and yellow flowers on the tiny white cup and saucer. I think the secret of why I like espresso is really the delicacy of the cups.

Jesus said we bear fruit by abiding in Him, our vine. It doesn’t take work to abide, only dependence, which is trust. And I am caught up again in the paradoxes of this Christian life, the fight to be still and let God fight. But I know He wins in the end.

Hope, I recently read, is the future tense of faith. It is trusting God with the future that I can’t do anything about. And my hope of glory is Christ in me. When He appears, I will be like Him, for I will see Him as He is. For now, I can trust.

“In quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” Isaiah 30:5

lo di che han detto addio

I am going away soon, and have been feeling that it must be a little similar to dying. When you get past the pain, the awareness of life it gives you is beautiful. I wouldn't want to live like this always, but it is nice for the moment, and necessary. Probably dying is its own separate thing, and needs its own courage.

When I let go trying to hold onto what will soon be no longer mine, there's a sense in which it's more mine and more beautiful and I'm more aware of it for not trying to cling to it. And I can be grateful for the hours, or moments that are allotted to me as sheerly superfluous grace.

I feel like I'm noticing things more, and am being grateful for them (not just "grateful," but being grateful in an active way). I see people around town and think how silly some of my former dislikes of them were, and am filled with an expansive love for humanity for being so much like me. My old dog is sitting on my feet, snoring, and I love him for it.

It becomes so much easier to tell people you love them, because you know it's the essential thing, but also harder, because you know it will sound trite and not convey what you really mean: that you--love them.

I have felt so much wonder for light, for the sunshine and sky. I feel sometimes as though I had just returned, and was rediscovering the beauty of my home. We've had lovely sunsets lately. "With you is the fountain of life, and in your light we see light."

It must be a little like death. But death is a prerequisite to resurrection.