Assisi

I arrived mid afternoon in Assisi.  I am staying in a convent, the St. Anthony Guest House.   It is basic, but it has everything one needs.   And the heat is sort of breaking with lows in the 60s expected the next couple of nights. 

I walked down to the Basilica of St. Francis, and I attended a mass at 6 PM for pilgrims.   It was a Catholic mass, so I was of course a little bit out of the mainstream, and it was in Italian so I understood very little except the basic structure, but it was praying together with other people, so it was great.   And it was for pilgrims, and the place was packed.  Of course they are at about 60% capacity (people a meter apart, so half the people in the pews and they have added a bunch of separate seats a bit further out for people who don’t fit.   

I really feel like a pilgrim today.   My time in Rome, focused just on church history stuff, has taught me new ways of understanding what the early and medieval Christians were going through, reading more about Francis’ life helps this Protestant see how he was trying to change what was wrong in the church in his time, and more of what his life meant, as well as some of what it was to be a Christian in this day.   

I’ll admit that I really feel that this sabbatical IS doing exactly what we talked about it doing, giving me a new kind of view into the things that I already knew, new connections, new context - a context that is experiential and that is kinesthetic, a walking through this time, with prayer and scripture and readings, and lots more. 

Oh, and I have calluses on the bottom of my feet that are bothering me at night.   Not as much during the day.  I think I have a problem when I wear my sandals, so I’m going to stick to the boots when I have a lot of walking to do, like tomorrow.