She asked a question, a question so many have asked before, “Why Piegaro?” Piegaro is a village of less than 1,500 people, in the middle of the only state in Italy with no coast line, “how did you get here?” My simple first answer is always “God brought me.” With the caveat, of fate. Having lived in a city most of my life, Seattle, people expected if I were to take time away, it would be in a city. But in the end the simple answer to why schedule to stay here for my sabbatical, hopefully much longer, is that it feels like home to me.
Now this is odd to some people, as one friend pointed out, I am in process of learning a new language, an old dog learning a new trick, not easy to do. She suggested I could have gone to the home of many of my ancestors, Ireland, and be able to speak the language. But I arrived here, to a country I never had a desire to go to, Italy, and fell in love with a village and people. There was simply with no need to meet new people and find a new village elsewhere. The village found me through God, providence, whatever… through a congregation member with property here. Here in a little village, almost no one has heard of before, I am taking time to rest, reconnect with spirit and simply be and breathe.
Now, coming from the city several people expected I would take time in Rome while I am here. I was born Catholic, graduated from a Catholic school of theology, and have landed and departed from the Rome airport 3 times. But that is the extent of my time in Rome. One of the reasons I am taking sabbatical away from the United States is that I simply wanted to escape the empirical culture. While I respect each culture has its own values, I no longer feel at home in the culture of the U.S.A. and haven’t for years. Going to Rome, birthplace of the first great western empire, has no draw to me, if it wasn’t the cheapest airport to fly into, I wouldn’t have passed through at all. My apologies to the ladies at Mary’s who hoped I would spend time in Sabbatical in Rome, it just is not my call of faith.
Ah, but northern Umbria, home of Perugino, a teacher of Renaissance artists, is inspiring. The Renaissance, where art, culture, history won out over warriors and established the true Italian language and nation, just miles north of here in Florence, that is a draw. My history professor once said we should take a good look at the buildings in our city, for by their size and architecture you will know what is important to the people there. In Florence it is the cathedrals, the cathedrals with an abundance of art and a magnificence of architecture, built on piazzas where public events have been held for centuries, where the residents come together. People, art and faith all coming together in place, ah, beautiful. I suppose I could have settled in a city like Florence.
But then I came back to why I am on Sabbatical, for a sense of healing and purpose, and a sense of place, a place like Home. When I was in high school and a bit beyond I lived in a small town in New Mexico, there were 9 people in my graduating class. 5 years after high school, I returned for a wedding and had a dear young man ask me when I was coming home, he was the first, and the last man to invite me “home.” I said after college, and never came back. But the reality that small town life, where everyone knows everyone, and a bit too much of everyone’s business really did feel like home to me has been floating in the back of my mind ever since. I left that place when I needed to make hard choices in my life and was too afraid to do them, I left to get lost in the city. And yet in every part of the city I realized I could find small community without trying hard, for there were always us who wanted, who desired a more intimate way of living.
Why Piegaro, simply put, it is a great mystery of life how I got here, but not a mystery why I want to stay. It is a more intimate community, it is a place where people know who I am, and I am getting to know who they are very rapidly. It is not a place of empire, but where my friends talk about their fears of what is happening in Lybia with the military of Italy taking part with the U.S. and other western forces in yet one more armed conflict. Where this is not America and we are not a million miles away from the violence that is happening. It grieves me to hear of people who know that Ghaddafi’s son attending college in Perugia, a town we can see from the rooftop deck here. To know that people worry about missiles and bombs that could be hurled here easily. To know friends who long for the same peace on earth that Jesus spoke of in the same context as me, who ask the same question, when will we love our neighbor? It is both sad and comforting to have my friends here want to pray with me for peace in this region, for my friends who like me are tired and sad for all the oil wars.
I didn’t come for empires and great cities, I came for friends who share a heart for God and peace, and who know this beautiful place they call home, Piegaro.
Do you have a place you call home?
What makes it home for you?
How do you honor your home and the different places and cultures others call home?
How do you love your neighbors in and around home…and those far away?
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