After all the romantic stories of this beautiful place, it seems only right to reveal there are some pretty ugly sides as well. The main ugly side is the side of the roads. I love going for a long passiagatta (walk) with various friends, usually Maria. One thing that I noted right away was the amazing amount of trash on the sides of the road once you are out of the old town. There are two primary types of trash, that which has been thrown from the windows of traveling cars, the other bits of cars themselves and the damaged guard rails and reflectors; the result of car crashes.
These are great reminders of how we as humans contribute so much to the damage of God’s creation, we are not perfect, and in fact can cause so much harm. The throwing of garbage is much as when we speak words that hurt others or physically act out in ways that cause pain or suffering: personal sin. The force of auto accidents is a something that is a creation of the whole of humanity; it takes machinery which is made by many in factories, add human neglect of weather conditions or over-confidence in one’s ability or even circumstances beyond the control of the driver and you have a crash: institutional/communal sin.
Sin is part of the human condition; we separate ourselves from God and the beauty of creation in our thoughts or actions. The resulting garbage on the side of the road is ugly. No matter where you go in the world, you can’t escape the darkness of sin, whether intentional or not. As humans we have to note that we are fully capable of not only creating the grace the world needs, but that we are often the contributors to the garbage of the world.
How do we name our awareness to our own contribution to the word’s mess?
How do we work to clean the mess – bring about a change?
How do we look beyond the garbage and into the beauty that is creation – the creation outside of us, and within?
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