I often think nostalgically about my blogging years and in particular about the people I ‘met’ here, that are still in my heart. I’ve passed my time since then in the ‘fast lane’ of Facebook, and now even Whatsapp and Twitter. I think I can safely say it’s become an addiction, albeit in some way a necessary one because it keeps me in touch with my family abroad. But it absorbs so much of my creative energy that I have been feeling increasingly empty and unsatisfied. So I think I’m going to come back to blogging, at least for Lent, and then we’ll see. I’m certain that harnessing my many thoughts and giving them some kind of form will be therapeutic for me. Life has become so complicated and even depressing that it’s become a matter of survival. I doubt I’ll be writing every day because I work full time now, but maybe I’ll go back to writing on Saturday or Sunday mornings like in the good old days when I stayed in my pajamas all morning long and actually produced something. I hope to find a few of my friends again while I’m here. Hello Blogging World, I’m back!
I know what a harsh winter it’s been for everyone in the Northeast USA and Canada, as it’s taken a great toll on my family in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, back in Abruzzo, we’ve had a mild winter. The almond trees blossomed on time in mid-February, but the peach and apricot orchards were fooled into thinking it’s spring, and have blossomed as well. I hope we don’t pay for this later on, because if we get a cold snap, summer fruit will be expensive and hard to find. But, even more than enjoying the pretty white and pink trees spotting the increasingly green landscape, it’s the return of my favorite honeybees that is always the true sign of hope and renewal. Last year on Facebook I posted the following note:
“When I get up in the morning, I enjoy listening to an Italian website that has live streaming with the prayers of the Liturgy of the Hours. There is a soft-spoken man who recites the prayers while a soothing piano tune is playing in the background. Even though I’m often distracted, making my coffee, forgetting the spoon, then the sugar…(I feel like I’m on a see-saw, that’s how many times I get up and sit back down at any given meal, and breakfast is no exception), that man’s calm voice and the beautiful and timely psalms help me feel centered…Italy is going through a terrifying political, social and even religious crisis. I mean after all, the Pope lives here, and anything having to do with him is bound to have an effect on life or even on our moods, so you can imagine what an impact Benedict’s abdication and Francis’ election could have. Of course a general political election with no winner is just as earth-shaking (*since then, the coalition government that had been set up has fallen and a new one took its place just a few days ago, with no appreciable improvement with respect to a year ago). Everything in the world seems to be in the throes of labor right now, doesn’t it? So I find that listening to words that help shift my focus from the mayhem that reigns, to the peace that only trusting in God can bring, is a good way to start my day, even though much of the time I’m not a very consistently religious person. Today was special, though…I had this feeling inside that told me, keep still, don’t let whatever’s going on take away your peace. And that was enough, it really was. Then, driving down to work (literally 5 minutes), there is a bee farm with multicolor wooden boxes that the bees produce their honey in, as they gather pollen from the early blooming peach trees. I love driving by that spot; there is this surreal aura, with spots of golden light flitting in the early morning sun rising from the Adriatic.
It reminds me of something I read by Thomas Merton years ago that resonated in me, describing his experience of the “point vierge“, a sort of moment of truth or ‘epiphany’ that occurred in his life:
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak His name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billion points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely. (Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p. 158)
I don’t know how many times I’ve been tempted to just stop and watch how the sun beams cut through the trees, illuminating the field with wide bands of light rendered sparkly by the lazy movement of the bees. But I never do stop, not just because I’m always in a hurry, but because it’s almost as if I instinctively know that if I look too hard, I’m going to somehow break that magic spell – my own personal ‘point vierge’. It’s something I’ve got to just let happen…I’ve been waiting all winter for the bees to come to life again and after two weeks of on again/off again flu, I saw them for the first time today. I took it as a sign of hope…Spring is coming, the weather is warming up, things are changing, and change is not always a bad thing, is it?”
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