february 2009 newsletter...
the power and the glory...
Sometimes I feel guilty about how much I love my job and all the opportunities that come with it. This week, I stood in an 800 year old room of the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, Italy, addressing a group of students from Cameroon, Poland, Russia, England, Turkey and several other nations. They were simulating the UN Security Council, developing a mock resolution on Kashmir. My task was to give these student leaders some idea of the historical complexities of Indo-Pakistan relations. About two minutes into my presentation, I began thinking "How am I here, doing this?"
My brief moment in the palazzo combined with the glory-echoes of Genoa to set me thinking about spheres of influence and how God seems to drop us in and out of positions of influence. The moments to stand and speak truth, to change history, pass almost before we realize they've come. And yet we bear heavy obligations to exploit the opportunities God gives us.
On Wednesday our group explored the city, guided by Cecilia, a young student from the school hosting our conference. We visited Christopher Columbus's house. I stood outside, looking at the simple brick structure and thinking about how he, cliche of all historical cliches, was just another man living in just another house for most of his life. Some sources record that he was a devout Catholic, others that he had a wide streak of brutality and a deep well of greed. I don't know what to think, but I doubt he saw himself permanently altering the course of history and thrusting his home city on to the center of the world stage. Temporarily. Now Genoa hardly makes an appearance in the guidebooks. It's hard to find the story on anything in the city.
In the afternoon, we walked through the Via Garibaldi. It was along this street that wealthy Genovese merchants built their competing palazzos in the fifty or sixty years following Columbus's voyage. There's the Palazzo Rosso and the Palazzo Bianco which stand opposite each other. Then there's the Palazzo Reale, guarded by two marble mermen whose noses have been cut off. The merchant wanted to remind all house guests that this is how his enemies could expect to be treated. Cecilia told us how when Rubens arrived to paint frescoes for one merchant, all the others instantly decided they needed frescoes and that Rubens needed to paint them. Some things never change. Only that none of these families own their palazzos any more. They've all moved to Rome or Florence, where there's more action. Now banks own most of the buildings and do most of the competing for prestige.
By far what thrilled and saddened me most were the churches. The massive Cattedrale di San Lorenzo, begun in 1115 AD, overwhelmed me with its beauty, but seemed like an empty relic; a tomb for dead worship. When we sought the equally enormous and magnificent Chiesa di San Siro, replete with early Renaissance frescoes and a gorgeous Pieta statue above the altar, none of the local people had even heard of it. They would shrug their shoulders and say, "Oh, I don't know where the churches are." The emptiness and death in these sacred spaces mystified me. I love beauty and I felt inspired to worship by so much of the beauty in these churches, but looking around, I often felt a stronger sense of the power of the Church than the power of the God intended to dwell in them.
After feeling torn all week over my feelings of disquiet in visiting these churches, I've seen to a new degree how God intends us only to be channels for His beauty, His power, His love. There's no room for pride of accomplishment in our lives, or for hoarding power, or for manipulating the influence we're given. It is God who shines a spotlight on each of us occasionally and He will demand an accounting of how we use our brief moments.
I returned straight into the usual bustle of school. After I had been rushing around all day trying to catch up, a kind colleague passed a card into my hand with a smile. When I opened it, I read Ephesians 2:10, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." I smiled at the grace of this good reminder and I feel profoundly renewed in my commitment to walk down whatever path God has already beaten out for me. I pray that God extends this same grace to you, today, and that He will enable you and me to reveal His beauty, power, and love in every circumstance.
Your fellow pilgrim,
Amy