“We used to be told in the nursery that if a man were to
bore a hole through the center of the earth and climb continually down and
down, there would come a moment at the centre when he would seem to be climbing
up and up. I do not know whether this is true. . . If I do not know what this reversal or inversion feels
like, it is because I have never been there. . . We cannot follow St. Francis to that final spiritual
overturn in which complete humiliation becomes complete holiness or happiness,
because we have never been there.”
G.K. CHESTERTON
Such a great St. Patrick’s Day (even though I learned that
nobody really cares about it in Orvieto). I spent it at mass at San Giovanni
where I practiced with the choir afterwards for the upcoming Easter service.
One of the men in the choir is my very own Andrea Boccelli. He also sang in a
concert that we attended Saturday night in the Duomo which was in the chapel
with some very famous frescoes. What is my life?
After grabbing a bite to each
from the bread shop by the post office, I descended into il Pozzo di San
Patrizio (St. Patrick’s Well) which
is quite the architectural fete. The well was built in the 16th century
for water access in the event of a siege, and was built large enough to bring
mules down the stairs to carry the water up. It has a double helix staircase so
you can go down and come up without retracing your steps. It felt like the
closest thing I would experience to what GK Chesterton was describing… descending
and coming up differently than we came down.
I also found the least Italian thing in Orvieto: a little
pub near our monastery that has a little Viking as their logo/mascot. They had
burgers and hot dogs (for when I break under pressure of homesickness) and are
one of the few places that serve Guinness. It felt like a cave in the area we
all squished into and there were clip art-esque murals of barrels and steins.
We finished the night bundled in the sala of our Monastery
(which is still without heat unfortunately) watching Fantastic Mr. Fox. I
couldn’t ask for more.
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