Thursday, Oct. 11th

I wake at 5:45AM, shower quickly, and head out for some diet coke. Upon my return I find the inner Casa door, the glass one, locked. I ring the doorbell for about ten minutes until one of the breakfast ladies figures out what’s up and lets me into the building. I eat breakfast with the NYers. We talk about Brooklyn and the literature that may have influenced Francis’ life. I run upstairs, brush my teeth, grab my backpack, and walk through the city with the group to the tour bus. Juan, a Dominican, apparently oversleeps and we leave without him. We drive through the Italian countryside, past tobacco fields, and start climbing small hills that remind me of Western New York and Pennsylvania. Within a couple hours we’re in Tuscany. The mountain roads are a bitch. I luck out into a seat near the back on the right (this will become my seat for the rest of the trip, as a loose “saved seats” system emerges) so I miss most of the heights. When we arrive in Laverna, Francis’ mountain retreat, the wind is blowing cool and leaves scatter across the pavement. I’m reminded of Wisconsin in late October. The Laverna grounds are surrounded by old forests that wouldn’t be out of place near Milwaukee. We walk up the hill to the small chapel and take some pictures around a cool wooden cross placed near the edge of the mountain. I don’t get too close to the edge, of course, but I like the view. Fog is covering the peaks but the sun is climbing and the air clearing.

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We cross into a small church where we listen to BN for a while, then into a larger church with absolutely beautiful ceramic work on most of the little altars. One particularly beautiful piece, in which the angel asks Mary to bear Christ, fascinates me. I love the look on the angel’s face, and I wish I had more time to check out the church’s art.

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BN and LN give us the tour of the grounds. We see a huge boulder that supposedly broke when Christ died and a small rocky gorge with a cross propped up against one of the walls. People had scratched hundreds of crosses into the rock near the bottom of the narrow, elevator-shaftlike space.

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We also see the rock in the small chapel where Christ supposedly chatted with Francis. The rock on which Christ sat, and which Francis wanted cleaned with milk, sits behind a glass case. Motion sensors keep turning the lights off and on, which makes me laugh, and Ken takes on the job of waving his hand in front of the sensors every thirty seconds or so. We walk down a long interior corridor, supposedly built so the daily procession of the cross could take place even during snowy weather, and check out the frescos lining the walls. I take a pic of a cool one of Francis and the sultan together. You don’t see that scene in art very often.

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We enter the small chapel where Francis received the stigmata. The very spot is marked with a octagonal piece of glass. BN locks the glass doors and we crowd into the space for mass. Tourists gather outside while we run through mass. I don’t like locking them out…the idea seems contrary to the inclusive nature of Francis, but I’m not going to argue with Priest. He’ll whoop my ass. I almost fall asleep in mass. After the service I help load some chairs into storage and we meet in a cold, windy courtyard for lunch. I snag a vegetarian sandwich and sit on the floor in a small hallway with a couple pilgrims. We eat and chat. I decide to skip the walk up to the top of the mountain, begging off because of heights, and feel badly because River and I had talked a while back about making the trek together. Still, he’s got a group of people with him, and I could use the solitude, so after a quick gift shop perusal, I return to the large chapel with the ceramics.

The chapel is deserted save for a nun cleaning the tiles. She shoots me what I interpret as an unwelcoming look, but I sit in the side chapel, maybe six feet from the ceramic piece with the angle and Mary, and take in the chapel’s feel. The ceramic scene, by the way is maybe eight feet by five feet. Here’s a picture.

I sit in front of the piece and pray for a long time, at least thirty minutes, and let my mind go in the holy place. I am at peace as much as I have ever been. Laverna becomes my favorite pilgrimage place and day. I love the chapel’s silence, it’s isolation on the cold mountain, and the life emerging from the solid rock. I find later that many others feel the same way about the space.

The church begins to fill in anticipation of the procession, so I cut out, call home from next to the women’s bathroom, and pick up some postcards from the gift shop. I then sit on a ledge outside of the chapel with Bob, Laura, and Tim. River joins us after upon his return from the heights. Juan, the late-sleeping Dominican, took a cab up to Laverna, I discover, and he and I chat about the cost (over 100 Euros!). Later pilgrims will toss money in the hat to cover the cab ride. We chat about work gossip, including some funny stories about guys back on campus, until the procession starts and the nun gives us another look while opening the chapel doors. The friars pass, chanting, into the corridor. The time for departure is near. I return to the gift shop a third time, pick up a book on Laverna, and walk down the hill to the bus. The ride down is pretty tough, I feel like I’m going to barf but remain vomit-free. I listen to New Order, Nick Cave, and Moby, closing my eyes, trying to push my stomach down my throat.

We arrive back at the parking lot below Assisi late in the afternoon. I hit the internet café quickly upon our return to the city, on the walk back through the city, before returning to the Casa. I mess up dinner, arriving an hour early, and talk with LN a while in the classroom. I’m grateful for another chance to walk through town. I spot some Italian puppets I think the boys might like and run into Laura. We chat about work before hitting the Casa. At dinner I have more cheese (Suzie thinks they’re giving me too much) and change some cash from U.S. to Euros. I skip the post-dinner gelato run, chat with Ivan about how to bargain effectively, take a hot shower, read, and fall asleep.