Perfect Place

When I was a kid there was a cartoon where Yogi Bear and all the Hanna Barbara characters traveled the world in search of a “perfect place.”  Each week they were disappointed, finding something wrong with each place they visited, because in fact, there is no perfect place.  However, there are important places in our lives, one dear friend named them as “thin places” where spirit and earth are so close together, you can simply reach out and touch the sacred. 

This week has been so beautiful in Piegaro, the weather is amazing, after last week’s snow, this week we have nothing but sun, and it gets warmer every day.  It is very hard to stay indoors to write when the days are so gloriously beautiful.  And with my moving about, I’ve had the pleasure of being out in the evenings with other people, or sleeping.    While enjoying the beauty of the village, I decided to take advantage of the winter season and get a sheep’s eye view of the village, walking about the river valley meadows where the sheep graze from spring to fall.  This is one of my favorite places, a place to see the sheep, hear their baaaas and their bells, and feel the life of the animals, the valley and the river. 

As I walked toward the valley I noticed from the road there were stairs heading up to Piegaro that I hadn’t seen before.  I knew that was a place of new adventure for me, that somehow my heart beckoned me to take that path on my return home.   It wasn’t a totally new place where I ended up, but rather a place I saw in a new way.

In my last visits, and even in the last few weeks I had taken pictures of the sweet old church and the adjoining animal run with its terraced bathtubs for water.  Last fall there was a great group of bunnies there, and I wondered if they were for savoring.  But this week I discovered more.  The stairs lead to one of the older walls of the village, complete with arrow holes for shooting at encroaching intruders. As you round the corner of the walls, there appears before you terraced gardens for food, and a most wonderful cistern that is constantly pouring forth water from the underground springs of Piegaro.  The cistern is very old, very beautiful, and I was informed where the women washed the clothes in the village for many, many years, before modern laundry.  The gardens, the cistern, the animal pens encircle the older church in the village, a church with adjoining home. 

It struck me at once as a “perfect place”… and one friend asked me why “perfect” – was it the church?  I said the church was amazing, and the most wonderful man with such a sweet spirit that glowed from within his soul through his eyes let me in to take pictures and to pray.  But it was the whole package…a package I spent two days unpacking.  When we are on spiritual retreat, it is good to contemplate what moves our soul beyond the normal, what moves us to the sacred and the special.  So my friend’s question, “why perfect” was important for me to contemplate for a while.

To begin with, was the beginning, the sheep’s meadow, right under this special place, is a place that already had meaning to me from my previous trip to Piegaro.  It was upon arriving at the bottom of Mt. Arale, in the sheep meadow that I found the beautiful metaphor for a life when “hitting bottom” also the place where we find hope.  There is life and beauty in the image of the sheep, not only in faith, but simply in experience.  Hearing their cries, hearing their bells, seeing them move gracefully in a group as they get their physical needs met is a visible, audible sign of hope and beauty.  My little “perfect place” overlooks the sheep’s meadow, in perfect range to hear their bells and baaaas. 

Then came the stairs, the walkway, itself, it was a practical blending of the old and the new.  New was the stairs, the lighting, and old was the old wall with the arrow holes.  Now the old wall has been filled with dirt, as many “new” walls were built to guard the village from invaders, but to see, touch, and know the security of the old wall, which now serves to secure a very large terrace of the village, and the main road, is pretty amazing.  What is old supports that which is new, yet another great metaphor for life, and I can touch it.  I can feel the depths of the arrow holes, run my fingers along the centuries old wall, sense this piece of time and space.

And then there was the gate, the grate, and the wooden guide rails; serving to protect people from falling down the steep hill onto the terrace below.  All were practical, all were common, all were utilized for the care of the community.  They are the handiwork of the gardener, and others to keep the terraced garden a place where people could see, but not fall into.  To say that I crept around them to get good pictures is an understatement, I almost fell down the hill a couple of times, but what caught my eye, my heart, was the attention paid to making this steep area safe for all who would pass this way.  And I found it all simply beautiful.  Not neon, not colorful, not a sign screaming PRIVATE, KEEP OUT, or CAUTION.  Rather the gate, grates and rails were simple reminders to stay on the path most welcoming.

Ah, the water, the cistern is amazing, awesome, and at the same time so darn practical.  The use of bricks to create the arches and tubs is done to not only serve the purpose of a place to get water and do laundry, but to do so in a place of beauty.  I can just imagine the women of the village, doing laundry en masse, laughing and gossiping with full view of the valley, the mountains and the sweet sheep below.  It is a place where labor is beautiful, and given some dignity, beyond just the necessary stone tub.

And the way the water constantly flows from the underground stream, ever-flowing is beautiful.  In the cold of the winter when all is frozen in the morning, the vibrant green of the moss on the stones that quiet the water coming through the cistern is beautiful.  The water and the surrounding stones and terra are alive!  Today I had the joy of washing my hands cut from work in the water and drying them with the nearby lavender.  From pain to fine in moments with the healing water and sensual herbs was miraculous, ahhhh the life giving fresh water.

There is lush grass with beautiful little blooming Margareta flowers leading to the stairs that take you to the entrance of the church.  On the special day I walked up this beautiful path, I met the sweet gentleman at the door of the church.  He was just closing and locking the door as I approached.  With my three simple Italian words, “Entra Per Favore?” he smiled sweetly and opened the door for me.  Once inside I did ask to take photos, but knew in my heart that taking many photos of this glorious little church was not necessary for my spirit.  To drink in the beauty of the fresco, the sweetness of the sanctuary, to feel the awesomeness of the love of God in this place was the gift I was given on this day.  It was easy for me to kneel and pray for one I loved and ached for, another soul going through change of life’s journey, something so many of us seem to be doing now.  I have been in many older churches in Italy, used as infrequently as this one, but none kept so well, so reverently, although I feel I am over-using the word, it was SWEET, sweet to my soul.  To find this dear sweet man I’ve seen about the village, smiling sweetly for me on this visit, to feel this grace, this sacred space was sweet as honey. (Which was yet another reflection as my name, Melissa, means honeybee/honey and outside I found a piece of honeycomb.) 

Then there was the magic that the whole place is circled with food producing gardens/animal pens which too reflect a sense of life-giving space.  (these are Franco's, the gentleman who let me into the church, I was informed that when I learn Italian, he is a good keeper of the local stories!) It is not large, but terraced, so the best usage of an acre of hillside that I have ever seen.  It brought to mind the phrase used by the author Erskine Caldwell of “God’s little acre” a metaphor for a place with a depth of meaning (although please read the book, it is a great commentary on what we value).   In this small space was life giving water, food, history and sacred space, to top it all off, it is on the hillside overlooking the beautiful valley and one “ugly” feature that also gives life, the glass factory.  The factory is a cooperative and a continuation of the tradition in this village of 8 centuries of glass production.  Even the factory has a gracious depth of meaning.

So in the end what made this little acre so special, so perfect, was the depth of meaning it held is so many, many ways.  And that in the end, it was in the surprise of finding this place, finding entrance into sanctuary and prayer, and in the underlying reality for myself that there is a call on my heart in this place BEYOND any words I can write.  It is a thin place for me, where I see the abundance of life, grace and beauty, something not to be explained fully ever.  It is the beauty of place, of people and of spirit.  It is in the knowing that this church is for the most part closed because it is on the main road and for worship to happen frequently there was a need of a safer place for the people to worship, and thus the new church was built…built for the good of those worshipping.  All is done for the good of God and God’s people.  How very cool…it touches my soul…..may we all find a place that touches our soul…may we all know a place that makes our heart sing…may we all have a person or people who make our heart dance… may we all feel so deeply the awesomeness that is in our world.