First Assisi Journal 2007

Comment: I plan to go to Assisi later this year. It will be a return trip. I was there once before, six years earlier. It was a life changing trip, a pilgrimmage, that turned me West and decided me to move to Oregon. Here are a couple of journal entries from that time that capture the spirit of it for me, what Francis really meant. It seems timely now, as our new Pope sets a new tone.
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Oct 1st, 2007. Walking in the soft sunlight in the afternoon, up steps, past stone walls and narrow alleys, olive trees, and dust. In the hills the sun glints. Everywhere are churches, sanctuaries, and honors to saints. The people of this town seem almost as pious as they must have been. No one here needs to argue about whether God exists, or whether science and faith conflict: they are too busy bathing in the joy of the Spirit. God is a God who showers us with joy and blessings, and wants us to walk laughing in the sun. God is not about oppressive duties, dark dogmas, heavy arguments, or dutiful obedience to arcane concepts. God is about sheer joy, and love, and compassion. For this reason, Francesco (St. Francis) is loved as God should be loved, because St. Francis showed us God’s tender spirit. Yet somehow we continue to imagine that God is about deep dark beliefs that we must sort out. People continue to argue angrily about God and faith and religion. All of this is tragic. God is love. And those who know God, live in love. There is nothing to argue about, nothing to “believe”, only Love to experience, Healing, Joy, and Wholeness. This is what Francesco knew, walking in this dusty sun, renouncing the military ambitions symbolized in the fortress walls on the hilltop, and rebuilding the church in the valley, where the real power is. All the rest, all the arguments, all the anger, all the ego and all the “identity” we assert about faith, or atheism, or science, or reason, or dogma, is mere posturing, empty, silly, tragic, and empty. What is inviting us is Love. This was the genius of Jesus, and of Francesco. It is why they are loved for all time, instinctively, without question. The way a child loves a good parent, we love God, instinctively, when we know the real God. But when we project our imaginings, we begin to protect turf, build walls, fortresses, draw lines to defend, and guard identities and honor and all such blighted nonsense, all from the devil. God brings freedom, not walls, but sunshine; not angry garrisons, but joyful celebrations.

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Oct 2, 2007. Sweet dusty hike up to Eremo Delle Carceri. Uphill all the way, about 2-3 miles (4 km) past the city walls, up into Mount Subasio. Didn’t manage to find any trails, but the road itself was beautiful enough. This is the place St. Francis and his guys used to retreat for prayer, and the book says it is "unchanged." The signs say “silencio” but the people cannot be silent, even for two minutes. They crowd in and talk continuously. So, it is not a sacred place to them, but merely an artifact, an interesting exhibit, a museum. This was the same at the sanctuary of San Francesco earlier today—so many crowds, all talking and not present, I had to get away. I could not be there. Up on Subasio, in the Eremo, it was somewhat the same, with people talking and a sense that the spirit of it was violated, even while knowing that Francesco himself would have welcomed them all without rules, and without pretense, and with a laugh and an arm on the shoulder, would have fed them and entertained them in his place. But one wants to try to get a sense of what the Saint and his followers experienced, and thought, and felt, before all this.

Thus distracted, then I did manage to sneak into a chapel to pray, and looked out the window, and saw the spectacular view down the mountain on to the Umbrian plain. It dawned on me, as though I had never seen it before, that St. Francis came out to the woods, to the dusty trails, and to the best views of the mountain, to be with God. That the Spirit that draws me out into the mountains, is the same one that drew Francecso. He hiked up and out, to get to these places, into the woods and up where he could see the entire valley, away from the town. He loved what I love. He walked away from city walls and important events, to the stillness of the forest and the mountainside. So he blesses me in my deepest desire. Back then there were no cars and no electric lights in the valley. The stars he saw must have been fantastic! On the way, I ask a stranger on the road how to reach the mountain top. He speaks but one word: “dritto.” Straight ahead. Amen to that.

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I think our society, at least among men, is all about status. Monkeys, orangetangs, chimps, even dogs, horses, they are all preoccupied with status, with hierarchy, with rank. We evolved from those animals so if we merely follow our instincts, we become obsessed with status, with social rank, with being important. This is what most people in society are concerned about, their status, respect, honor, rank. They won’t admit it, but all of our behavior tells us that status is what matters, however it is gained. Christ taught us to leave all this and become like children. He meant, walk away from status, forget about status, and be content to be small, unimportant in the eyes of the world. Francis understood this instinctively and walked away from the status games and the military options and the rationalizations of injustice that religion had and has become. He created his own place of joy and freedom. In God. How do I walk away from the status games? Begin to have the freedom of St. Francis?

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Vespers at San Damiano. Once again and every day and still, after 800 years, voices still sing in worship here in this place that you, Francesco, with Chiara (St. Clare), renewed and rebuilt. Here on the hillside, below and outside of the town, where we can still watch the sunset in peace, with no walls to look over, no status needed to see the sky. This small church is not too large for people, not supersized, but nice and small and just right for a community. Not a whole town, but a good intimate community. You knew what you were doing. Here God is present in the dust and trees, and those who love God can gather to pray. How ironic that high church is brought here, with vestments and incense, all that you escaped from, in your San Damiano. Yet, that doesn't matter tonight. Here, the prayer is real and so is the piety, alive and vivid, and the Blessed Sacrament is well served to be adored here by these earnest worshipers. I find I am completely am at home in church with these people, speaking a language I do not understand.

 

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Oct 3 2007. Cross of San Damiano hangs still in the Basilica for Chiara. People snapping photos as the guard asks them not to, smirking at their stolen goods. Ruining the sacred feel, tourists, thinking what they can take. They cannot go a minute without taking! Then St Francis whispers to me: And you, old monk, cannot go a minute without a self righteous thought! Lord have mercy on me, a sinner, then, after all.