Rose and Stone

Here at last in Assisi, settled down for our longest stretch in one place. It’s the last day of 2017, a year both traumatic and abundant.

It is also our first day here — we explored the medieval streets and alleyways this morning, first looking for coffee, then looking for groceries, then looking for bread. It was quiet very early, and then quickly filled up with seriously celebratory crowds, looking at the view of the mist on the plain and wandering through the souvenir shops, kids and nuns and Italian tourists and everyone else too. It feels like the Middle Ages but with different clothes.

There are small nativity scenes everywhere, in shop windows and on corners and in churches and displays, made of all possible materials. We followed our feet through the arches and churches of rose-colored stone, finding secret little spaces and chapels tucked away in the walls. The whole town seems carved out of pink stone, and is blessed with a deeply calm and gentle feeling of peace and celebration.

The beauty of the St Francis Basilica and the Giotto frescos is hard to describe or overstate. We are happy to be here at the end of a year, and the start of a new one.

May we all be well, may we all be happy, may we all be free from suffering, may we all be filled with loving kindness, may we all be filled with joy.