Chiesa di Santo Stefano del Cacco, Rome
The intrepid Parents of Acts of Hope have (if all has gone according to schedule) wrapped up their five day stay with the great-grandchildren (one boy, one girl) and their parents (Nephew the Elder and Lovely Spouse) and left for the third country in their semi-whirwind trip. Those of you who read my Italian earthquake update earlier this month may remember that Nephew the Younger and Lovely Partner live in the Abruzzi (a.k.a. Abruzzo), though not in the part of the province that had the earthquake. So Parents of Acts of Hope were due to fly into Rome and be picked up by Nephew the Younger and driven up to the hills an hour or so three hours away [edited 5/1 after getting accurate info] for a few days and nights in the Abruzzi, not too far from the Adriatic Sea. This will be their first time meeting Lovely Partner; I haven't met her yet either and look forward to doing so in the coming year.
Stay tuned and keep up the prayers. So far, so good. Brother of Acts of Hope and his Beloved spent the weekend in Portugal so four generations of the Acts of Hope family were together. I was the missing sibling in our generation. Nephew the Younger was the missing sibling in the next generation. It's already a wonder that so many in the far-flung family could be together at once. Hurrah for them. I am drooling in anticipation of the pictures and the stories.
Read this and get misty-eyed.
From left, Italia Tagliacozzo, Ester Di Segni, Emma Di Segni, earthquake survivor Nello De Bernardinis and Alberto Di Consiglio, pose for a group photo in the Casentino tent-camp, near L'Aquila, central Italy, Monday, April 13, 2009. Italian Jews and Holocaust survivors are rushing to aid communities that sheltered them during World War II and were hit by last week's devastating earthquake. Di Consiglio found Nello De Bernardinis, 74, the son of a couple who sheltered Di Consiglio's father and eight other relatives during the war.(AP Photo/Sandro Perozzi)
As a few of you know, the far-flung Acts of Hope family has a few members in Italy. Two of them, Nephew the Younger and his Lovely One, live in the Abruzzi (a.k.a. Abruzzo) region of Italy, where a 6.3 earthquake just hit early this morning. Their town was not near the epicenter, though, so there was no damage there. As you have probably heard, the damage is severe in the city of L'Aquila, close to the epicenter. 
Nephew the Younger and Lovely One were actually out of town at a wine convention (both are in the wine biz and they live near Lovely One's family, who are vintners) but have of course checked in with family. Do send prayers and good thoughts to the people in the region of the earthquake. It was severe, and Brother of Acts of Hope says he and his Beloved even felt the tremors in Rome.
Photo: Manuel Silvestri, Reuters.
I have returned to home base, after a visit home (intentional repetition of "home") with my parents who raised us in a home in another country and my brother and his beloved whose home is in two more countries. Home, home, home, home, home.
There's a meditation in that one, but for now, I am in catch-up mode at the office and in continuing mode with the stack of term papers. Church projects await as well - and the gym, to which I have sworn to return this week after an absence of weeks and weeks; most of the semester, truth be told. Not good. I am joining my buddy Paul in hauling my middle-aged arse back to the land of workouts. I've been walking and doing a bit of yoga all semester, but not enough of either. Ever since the tree fell the second week of an already packed semester, my life has been one long sleep-deprived term with less exercise than I have ever had in my adult life. Having to make choices between work and sleep, or sleep and exercise, or exercise and work, is not a healthy way of living. In Advent and as the academic semester ends, I am trying to restore the balance.
Isn't this fun? I don't know the name of the bearded printer, but he's in Indiana and that really is my book. Enjoy.
(Friday: Now I do, thanks to Amanda the Publicist: His name is Robbie Thomas and he's the binderyman.)
Coincidentally, just yesterday, in one of my classes on Christianity in the 16th century, I was telling my students about the relationship among the advent of the printing press, Christian humanism, and the Reformation.
I love books. Always have. One of my favorite books as a child was a French novel called La Petite Plantin, about the daughter of a printer named Christophe Plantin (a real historical person) who lived and worked in the Low Countries (Antwerp, if I remember correctly -- Anvers in French, a city in what is now Belgium) after the invention of the printing press and during the rise of the Reformation. I loved it because it had a strong female heroine, printing presses, language, and even a love story, though that was not the central thread of the biography. What is interesting is that the big project in the story is a multilingual (polyglot) Bible and that at the time I read the story I had no idea that I would become an active Christian, much less a preacher, nor that I would be teaching Christian history and theology. I just loved the book. I still think of it. I don't know where my copy is. When my parents moved from France back to the U.S. they couldn't move all my old books and many of my childhood books stayed in Europe. They gave some to friends and family so it's possible my goddaughter's family have some of them. Perhaps some day I'll find and read that book again.
I also love printing presses -- and old-fashioned teletype machines. My father was a journalist when I was growing up and I remember visiting his office when I was young and he was working for a news agency. It had a newsroom in the old style, wide open with everyone working in one space, and you could hear the clatter of typewriters and of the teletype. To this day I find those sounds both comforting and exciting. I also used to fall asleep to the sound of my father's typewriter in the next room. To me, this is one of the sounds of home. The typewriters are in storage (I don't think either my father or I can bear to let go of our typewriters even though we no longer use them) and both of us --and my mother and brother too-- have computers with near-silent keyboards, but the sound of the typewriter is like a heartbeat to me.
The sound of my mother's heartbeat, the sound of my father's typewriter. Yes, I am one of those people with ink in their veins.
Photos: Ave Maria Press. Click on photos to enlarge.
Today is the birthday of the Russian-French painter Marc Chagall, one of my favorite artists.
I have a small lithograph of the above in my study. (Back in the 1970s, you could find 'em cheap in a French art magazine called Derrière le Mirroir.) 
Chagall is not all flowers and flights of fancy. The painting below, "White Crucifixion," was occasioned by his reflection on the Shoah (Holocaust) and the decades of persecution and pogroms suffered by Chagall's Jewish neighbors and kin in his native Russia.
One also wonders whether the story of the Jewish artist in Chaim Potok's My Name is Asher Lev (am I remembering the right book?) and his use of crucifixion as a symbol in his painting was in any way inspired by Potok's viewing of this painting. Just a speculation, but it's possible. 
Nephew the Younger, to the delight of everyone in the family, is in the wine biz. Alas, he lives in Italy (and is not to be confused with Nephew the Elder, who lives in Portugal) so it's a little hard for Auntie Jane R to bop on over and mooch freebies from him. He is also a cat person and Her Grace Maya Pavlova and I have sent him love and feline vibrations on this auspicious day.
And a couple more...
This next one is part of Chagall's series inspired by the Song of Songs.
For more instructive and fun geography, visit my buddy Paul, the Byzigenous Buddhapalian.
