When in Rome…

On the Trastevere village in Rome:

Trastevere has a smooth romantic feel. The hazy lights of the lamp posts cast golden glints upon the dark cobblestone streets. The piazzas hum with locals and vendors selling an array of jewelry and trinkets, and everyone in Rome seems to be out late, enjoying the cool air of the evening. In the central piazza next to the Santa Maria church, a gypsy performer twirls fire amid the fountain’s trickling water. The sounds of accordians and opera singers echo down the side streets that meader vein-like throughout the village. An old man, tanned deep like dark leather sits selling lavender. He hands me a twig as I pass, and the soothing smeel seethes about the breeze. The men hang off the arms and waists of beautiful women like hand-bags, and couples coo over candle light and wine. Yes, this is a village of locals and lovers. 

Some observations and thoughts while sitting in St. Peter’s Square, just outside the Vatican:

I. nuns in heels stroll down cobblestone cautiously

II. birds toss flippant wings of feathers over fountains

III. vendors sell souvenir rossaries and heart-shaped lockets of popes

IV. tourists “que” in mile-long lines, sticky and spiritual

V. lord jesus christ, son of god, have mercy on me a sinner

Coming home

For the past week, I have been in Rome and Tuscany and Florence. I have so so much to say, but only 5 more minutes before the internet cafe closes. In an hour, I catch a train from Florence to Pisa. I will spend the night at the airport and then fly to Stansted in London where I will catch a bus to Heathrow airport and fly to Chicago and then Atlanta. Whew. 5 airports and a train station in a day… it will be interesting…

Time is almost up… while I am not ready to leave, I am so ready to see everyone.

Peace.

Art and theatre…

Last week was a big week for art and theatre.

Everyone should look into an artist by the name of Damien Hirst. He creates sculptures, paintings, drawings, and “installations” that challenge the very nature of art and push its boundaries. He explores connections between religion, science, and pop culture and does things that are unimaginably creative, disturbing, and powerful. Basically he blew my mind. (He was the artist featured at the White Cube.)

Also, I finally ventured out in search of some Banksy artwork (Richard, you should be proud!). Banksy is an anonymous graffiti artist whose street art is widespread and usually political in nature. Here are the 2 works that I found: the cash machine and thugs for life.

  

We also saw Les Mis (an instant favorite), Wicked, and La Vie en Rose… so good!

Working abroad for lobbyists

Over the past 6 weeks, I have been working… a lot. I work at the Local Government Association (LGA) and the best way to describe this organization is that it is a breathing forum. It is hard to compare the LGA to an organization in the states because the structure of the gov’t in the UK is very different from that of the US. Here, central government reserves powers over local government. The central government is responsible for issues such as health, social security, universities, arts and culture, however, the local authorities are responsible for issues such as education, social services, housing, local planning, roads, waste disposal, environment, and leisure. This is where the LGA comes in: the LGA functions as a lobbyist group for local authorities across England and Wales. They consider themselves decentralists. Because there are over 410 local councils and over 11,000 towns, parishes and community councils in England and Wales, each individual local authority has a very small voice when they have issues to bring to the central government. The function of the LGA is to offer these councils and boroughs a membership, and through their membership, they join forces with hundreds of others, thus magnifying the volume of their voices.  The LGA has a staff of over 200 and they have a membership of almost 500 local authorities, representing over 50 million people, collectively. The mission of the LGA is to promote the betterment of local government by working with and for their members. They strive to give more power to the people by devolving centralized powers. They transcend party politics and cultivate discussion on how to improve communities. The LGA works with (and if necessary, lobbies for) the central government to make sure that its policies, legislation, and finances support and fulfill the needs of local governments and authorities. They are c o o l .

A typical Monday-Thursday:

(for Russell, Richard, Sarah Kate and those of you who have asked…)I climb out of the stiff res-hall bed at roughly 7:30am, try to dress somewhat “casual smart” for work, and pack a PB&J and raincoat in my bag. At 8:30am, I leave the res hall. The weather outside is typically cool and fickle (hence the raincoat).  I catch the number 11 or 19 or 22 bus to the tube @ Sloane Square and catch the Circle or District line to Westminster. The tube is overly crowded and most people look angry. I exit from the tube just under Big Ben and walk past the Houses of Parliament, dodging oblivious tourists taking pictures. It quickly becomes my goal to find a large person to walk behind; commuters are fierce in the mornings. By 9:30am, give or take, I arrive at the Local Government Association, go through security, and take an elevator lined with mirrors to the Conferences and Events Department on the 5th floor.  Work is typical… sometimes interesting, sometimes not, but everyone says “cheers,” and offers you “biscuits” with your tea. 

There are 8 conferences alone in July that we are managing. The conferences deal with controversial issues on social, environmental, or policy-related topics. The biggest one is going on now in Birmingham and is the Annual Conference where David Cameron (the leader of the Tories) is speaking. This is a 3-day event with over 50 speakers and 2,000 delegates from across Britain. I am going up to help tomorrow. The delegates who come to our events are usually MP’s, councilors, or local authorities. Needless to say, we have been busy making sure everything happens and happens well.

As for lunch breaks, I typically spend them one of three places: at my desk (if we are extremely busy, which is a lot), on the 7th floor terrace (that overlooks St. John’s cathedral with a view of Big Ben and Westminster Abbey), or Strutton Grounds Market (which is just down the road). I leave work around 17:30, and as I walk past Parliament Square, there is usually someone shouting anti-war messages through a loud-speaker. (This is what I heard yesterday: “Wake up, Britain! As you sleep, your government is killing children! When will this genocide end?”) I head to the Westminster tube station, and on a good day, there is a musician playing jazz or the blues; techno or classical. I catch the tube and then the bus and arrive at the res-hall around 18:30. I eat, ice my ankle, and then we head to the theatre or a gallery… or I crash. On Tuesdays, I don’t get back from work until 20:30 because we have tutorials… Tuesdays are l o n g . All in all, I’ve loved work. The people are “brilliant,” as is the organization as a whole. I’ll be sad to leave the LGA, but it will be nice to get paid the next time I work somewhere… 

train-ride ramblings

I write between sips of coffee and ticket checks on a train from London to Edinburgh. It is early – an ungodly hour – but I remain awake. By now, I figure we are passing through Northumberland. The train ride has been slow, but the scenery is captivating. Right now, we are traveling through a patch-work countryside that runs along rolling hills and swims with sheep and cattle. The clouds hang low here, just out of reach, blanketing the land like a cool cotton throw. We’ve passed countless parishes, cathedrals, and castles, most of which will remain nameless in my memories of this morning. Emily Haines sings sweetly through my headphones and I’ve decided that train rides are to be savored like this rich cup of coffee that I sip. As I look out the window, I feel as if I’m watching a movie: I’m entranced by the film-like way in which the foreground zips by the train – a smear of green bushes and shrubs – while the background passes by in slow motion – lazy hills and trees and buildings inching by. I can just make out the coast to my right – yes: we are in Northumberland. We will soon be in Scotland where the kilted men roam and bagpipes surely echo through the hillside.

reflections on gandhi’s statue in tavistock square

Gandhi, enshrined (link to the photo)

an enshrined prophet of copper sits with legs crossed and eyes fixed low as lovers rest in shade, cast long by purple trees. the pigeons keep an eye on things around here, as do the squirrels. a rare white pigeon encircles the centerpiece-prophet like a dove, crying “peace, peace” with its flapping wings. but no one hears. and the light inches out of the park – down, down, down, and out – as it sinks low behind the concrete fortress of buildings. the seated prophet watches the light inch away. he finds it strange that the empire he brought down to its knees now enshrines him in copper and places him among pigeons.

Oh, the endless boundless joys of public transportation

some observations and occurences:

1. a man of business – standing, tall, white hair, 50-something, suited up – sneezes (a big one!) on the outstrected newspaper of the unsuspecting woman – seated, small, younger-than-50 – in front of him.

2. the tube car is full, packed perhaps to the max, and the doors begin to close as a british voice reverberates through the masses: “please stand clear of the closing doors.” and then, a CRASH! a blue starched arm breaks through the closing doors, making a scene, and although the doors don’t open, a grunting body pushes its way through- determined, dirty, a blonde man of thirty- fighting the barely opened doors!…. and he triumphs! he does, however, take away some souvenirs from the battle: black lines and harsh creases in the blue starched shirt he wears. was it worth it? we will never know.

3. raised arms, bodies touching everywhere, little air, deoderant (or worse: the lack there of) drifting in and out of the spaces between facesneckstorsosarmshandslegsfeetbags of all the commuters who are united between tube stops only by frustration and the synchronized swaying of their bodies moving together, rapidly underground.

meeting dilip in trafalgar square

So I’ve been reading Dorothy’s Day’s autobiography “The Long Lonliness.” It is a very dangerous book… dangerous because of how it makes me think… dangerous because of the truth that rises out of the pages… dangerous because of how powerful a life lived in such abandon can be. And this book has been inspiring. I long to live in such a way where my words and deeds are inseperable; where I live out my deepest convictions and truly learn to love and serve.

 Last Thursday, I spent the morning on the bus reading the introduction to this book and of Day’s childhood. I left work around 5:30pm to head to Trafalgar Square where they were showing a 7:00 viewing of Swan Lake on a huge screen…. *for free. By the time I arrived at the square, I had about an hour to kill before I met up with the rest of the group, so I sat down with my book and a picnic dinner along a metal fence lining the outside of the square. Not too long after I sat down, an older man came to sit beside me. He was wearing a dirty white linen shirt and carrying a pink and purple back-pack. He smelled faintly of alcohol and saw dust. 

“You have a green aura about you,” he said, leaning over with a slight smile.

I laughed. “Do you think it has anything to do with this?” I asked, motioning to the bright green scarf I was wearing. 

“Maybe so,” he joked, ”but you have a rare mark of the psyche just above your eyebrow.” He pointed under my cap.

“A chicken pox scar,” I commented.

“No, no, this one is very rare.” He went on to talk about astrology and the different kinds of auras. He asked me for a pen and then for my palm. He drew on my palm different lines and planets and told me a bit about them. He proceeded to show me two magic tricks, one of which I caught, but the other still has me wondering how he pulled it off…

He said that he was from India, but had traveled all over the world. If he had the chance, he would live in the Bahamas… or Hawaii.

“Do you know of St. Teresa?” he asked. I told him that I did and that I admired who she was and how she lived. He asked me if I had any money I could donate to the St. Teresa Fund. “I’ll make sure it gets there,” he added.

I told him I didn’t have much money, but I asked him if he wanted to share my picnic dinner with me. He said no at first, but then I brought out the hummus and told him that everyone should try it at least once, so he did. We shared pitas and hummus and cheese and grapes while we talked and watched a camera crew fumble through the crowd.

We exchanged names. His was Dilip (he had to spell it for me). Then he told me about the Indian temple where he worships. He said that every Saturday from 8-9:00pm, they gather together and walk around the temple, chanting the name of God: Krishna. “There is something very holy about uttering God’s name,” he whispered. “Do you believe in God?”

I told him yes, and he nodded in approval and said that the most important thing we can do is to believe in God. I agreed, adding that it’s also important for us to live out our beliefs… to put flesh on them and give them life.  Again, he approved. He went on to talk about his experience with God. “We must know God before we can know peace,” he said. He invited me to his temple and we marked it approximately on my map. Before he left, he took my right hand firmly in both of his. “Tonight, I will pray for you,” he said, and I know I will see you again. Will you also pray for me tonight?”

I said I would. He gave me a hug and told me that he hoped to see me soon, and then he wandered through the crowd. I want more than anything go to his temple and worship with him. There was a genuineness about his spirit that stirred mine that day… and somehow we are brothers and sisters. On that evening in the square, we gathered around our make-shift table with a feast that fed so much more than our stomachs. I hope to see Dilip again. I hope to hear more about his life; more about his story, but tonight, we will meet eachother in prayer. Our God is truly a beautiful God.