after three weeks we are now out from under the clouds and medieval spires that shadow the landscape of tuscany. june has drawn to a close. a third of the summer spent. i remember sitting with my mom on my name day in the Piazza del Duomo in San Gimignano just outside the Collegiate Church of Santa Maria Assunta. i went there looking for a rendering of the Annunciation that one of my beloved teachers sent me to find. this particular fresco is worth a visit to this town. if you visit the collegiate museum, you cannot miss it. i promise.
the sanctuary, you see, doubles as a museum. on that particular day, however, the sanctuary was closed for the afternoon on account of a funeral. needing a rest (a full day's rest really), my mom and I found a perch as we watched the pallbearers take the casket in and the locals file through the narrow entrance. we sat. and just a few minutes later, a limo pulled into the piazza.
people started stretching to see who it might be. we noticed several other onlookers who might have scattered after the hearse departed who were obviously interested in the new arrival. a photographer also appeared on the scene, lifting himself onto one of the pedestals at the foot of the duomo stairs. this gave him an elevated shot of the black mercedes. no one got out for a while.
then she emerged. she was wearing ivory, a satin full length skirt with a lace bodice and scalloped sleeves, and a hairpiece that sparkled in the sun. she turned, and i admired the satin covered buttons all down the back. almost as soon as she and her family disappeared into the civic building, the church bells began to chime. the bells toll for each year a person lived. my mom and i lost count.
as the bell rang in my gut, i thought about the wedding day of life and death in the creation (or explosion, whatever suits your fancy) of the world. the collegiate museum is one chronicle of this wedding feast. there are many narratives with a variety of syntaxes that different folks have used to explain this union. painters in the middle ages often chose the union of the holy books and hues wrought from the earth.
if you stand in the collegiate museum with your back to the altar, the back wall is a rendering of st. sebastian's martyrdom crowned with a contemporary stained-glass window in bright pastels. to the left is the new testament told in frescos and to the right, the tanakh.
so many of the episodes chosen from the tanakhic literature accounted the simultaneous providence and terror of living - expulsion from eden, abram's separation from his brother lot, the great flood, the parting of the red sea, sinai, joseph's tri[a]um[a]ph. on our first visit to san gimignano, mom and dad and i puzzled over one story in particular. to our surprise, the author had chosen the story of job.
this felt an apt narrative to encounter, especially since our first visit was just on the heals of the epic tornados in oklahoma. i was reminded of people's resiliency and faith despite incredible tragedy and death. regardless of what it is we have faith in, we can be inspired by perseverance - in living, in love, in one's faith, in relationships, for justice - knowing all the while that all of this will pass away and give way to the next telling.
i considered the year i've had and the year i am beginning, and i was comforted as the bell tolled in my heart, ticking my story into the stones of the pizza under the feet of the bride soon to be persevering in her cause to create something beautiful while the universe keeps chiming the hour.
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