We’re flying 36,000 ft above above the Great Lakes, winging our way toward home after four and a half months of travel and adventure.  Kai’s reading Percy Jackson on his Nook, Naomi and Chris are reading on the other Nook — a Patricia Polacco book on Lincoln.  We’ve all been in good moods today anticipating this journey home and the joy of sleeping in our own beds tonight. 

We made a final trip into Concord this morning where we met our dear friend Julie Ells, with whom we had explored the Mayflower and Plimoth Plantation way back in March, and with a little time on our hands before lunch, we walked to the North Bridge once more.  All was in full flower there, a marked contrast to the snow and ice that had greeted us the first week in March; a fitting ending, as people and places that marked our sabbatical beginnings come full circle once more,

Some circles come to completion with this flight home tonight, but many others will remain open for months or years to come.  The sights, sounds, and tastes of foreign lands; the kinship we experienced with communities of faith we met along the way; the new friends that are part of our circle now; the grand sweep of artistic, religious, literary and other cultural expressions that touched us through the course of our travels; what we’ve learned about our own capacities and the life of faith to which God is calling us–all of this will continue to journey with us going forward.  How all this will weave its way in and out of our lives as individuals and a family remains to be seen; but I am hopeful.  

We’ve switched from being pilgrims to being tourists during this post-sabbatical time on the East Coast…or so we thought.  Our first day in the Big Apple took us across the harbor to the foot of Lady Liberty.

The poem by Emma Lazarus, donated by her in 1883 to the campaign to raise funds for Liberty’s pedestal, came to prominence only after her death when it was placed on the completed pedestal in 1903.  She entitled it THE NEW COLOSSUS, and having seen the place in Rome where the ORIGINAL COLOSSUS erected by Nero once stood, we now had another layer of meaning to add to the content of what she wrote.

As we boat neared Liberty Island, words which I’d put to memory in my elementary school choir came to the surface once more:

That poem, which has never failed to move me, took on even greater meaning when, after bidding Liberty adieu, we docked at Ellis Island.

There we stood in the very room where my grandparents Ingvald and Anna Kindem had stood with their three young children Olaf, Halvor and Andi, on June 5, 1923 as immigrants from Norway.  In the computerized files, we were able to find their names on the ship’s manifest and even glimpse a photo of the ship itself–The Stavangerfjord–which bore them safely to this new land.  Yes, pilgrimage territory indeed!

From Ellis Island, we journeyed on to the 911 Memorial.

The Memorial is a powerful and elegant tribute to those whose lives were taken from them that awful day, and a tribute to the enduring principles to which we aspire as citizens of this republic.  Standing at the edge of those two great pools whose waters continually cascade downward and ever more deeply toward the center of the earth, I found myself turning inward, remembering that awful day.  The powerful nature of the time we had there was made more powerful still by my encounter with a young man named Harry.  Harry asked if I’d mind snapping his photo next to one particular name that was engraved on the bronze apron that surrounded the North Pool.  Happy to comply, I asked Harry to tell me about his friend, and I learned that the engraved name belonged to a young man he’d grown up with; who he’d gone to elementary school and karate classes with; a friend with whom he’d shared his childhood; a friend whose name was Aaron.  Aaron Horwitz.

Harry and Aaron grew up in Manhattan.  They were both there the day the towers came down; one on the inside, the other watching safely from his parent’s apartment nearby.    “You know,” Harry told me, looking out on the Memorial grounds, “they got it right.”

That was our sentiment, too.  Later we went through the newly opened 911 Museum.  It’s cavernous spaces dwarfed us, but the exhibits carefully invited us in, offering an opportunity to go more deeply into the lives and stories of 911’s victims and those who rallied to save them.  If you ever have the chance, I would recommend it.

View from atop St. Peter’s Dome

Erik here, writing from my sister’s home in Carlisle, Mass, to which we’ve returned after leaving Rome yesterday afternoon.  The snow and frigid temperatures that greeted us when we arrived here on March 4^th at the start of our sabbatical journey have been replaced by verdant hardwood forests and mid-90 degree heat with high humidity.  In March we walked on frozen Walden Pond; today we sought refuge from the heat there, enjoying a swim in Walden’s waters.

It feels good to be back in familiar territory, even while we continue the process of unpacking what we’ve experienced over the past four months of this extended journey.   There’ll be no summing up in this post—we’ll be sorting through all this for many, many moons to come—but I did want to reflect a bit on our Roman experience particularly as it relates to the Christian story.

REFLECTION 1:  Imperial Rome was a juggernaut of incredible proportions.

The geographic reach of imperial Rome during its heyday was truly astounding.  From Hadrian’s Wall near the Scottish/British border in the north, and throughout France and Italy we continually encountered evidence of that reach. 

At Pont du Gard in southern France we encountered one of the most astounding symbols of Rome’s calculated ingenuity—the remains of an aqueduct system which delivered water from freshwater springs near Uzès to the city of Nîmes, over 50 kilometers (31 miles) to the south.  Over its course, the water in the aqueduct passed over a series of underground and above ground covered structures to the catchment basin in Nîmes, maintaining a consistent drop in elevation of 10 inches per kilometer and delivering 50-100 gallons of fresh water per second to the city’s inhabitants.  The aqueduct bridge spanning the Gard River (Pont du Gard), 900 feet long and 160 high, was an astounding achievement.  All these centuries later it continues to astound with its beauty, massive proportions, engineering prowess, and the organizational systems that enabled such a project to be realized.  Aqueducts such as this, along with the famous Roman road system that stretched throughout the Empire and the temples, theatres, and amphitheaters we touched along our way, testify to Rome’s reach and control of territories and peoples.

Mythologically speaking, Romans understood themselves to be descendants of Mars, the god of war, and when you’re in Rome, you can see how that core belief undergirds the city and its greatest monuments.  Ancient sources testify that during the first 100 days of games in the newly inaugurated Colosseum in 80 AD, 9000 animals were killed; and that each year as daily spectacles were staged there, thousands of gladiators (and condemned prisoners) lost their lives.  The structure itself was erected just after the Judean Wars, which culminated with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD; in fact Jewish exiles from that war provided much of the slave labor needed to build it.  A few hundred meters from the Colosseum, you can still see the Arc of Titus which celebrates that Roman victory and depicts Jewish slaves carrying sacred Temple treasures—now Roman war booty—from Jerusalem back to Rome.  Imposing arcs like this one, which celebrated significant military victories and ushered Roman generals into the Roman Hall of Fame, were a dominant feature of the ancient city. (Including the one erected by Constantine—standing near the Colosseum— following his victory over Maxentius; a victory that presaged his conversion to the Christian faith.)

Relief from Arc of Titus depicting Temple treasures being brought back to Rome

Reflection 2:  Going against the grain of this Empire by following the life and teachings of a poor Jewish carpenter was risky business.  The contrast between the Roman way and the Jesus Way of being in the world has been brought home to me as never before.

One of the most moving experiences for me in Rome was our visit to the catacombs at Callixtus.  Located outside the ancient city along the Appian Way, Callixtus became a burial place for early Christians during the 2^nd century after Emperor Commodus granted Christians the right to bury. 

Entrance to catacombs

1. Burials had to be outside the city walls.
2. The means of disposing the bodies would have to be sanitary.
3. The burials would have to be on private property.

The least expensive land was this non-arable expanse of tufa so that’s where Christians began to bury their dead.  Tufa, consisting of consolidated volcanic ash, was too soft and liable to collapse when first dug.  But with exposure to air, it hardens, and so it proved to be an ideal place for burials, to the point that eventually a half million Christians were eventually buried there.

As the Christian community developed these tombs (the main architect assigned to this task was named Callixtus and the name stuck), digging down from the surface, adding skylights and ventilation shafts, they eventually reached down 20 meters into the tufa rock.  95% of the tombs were for individuals, but a small percentage were carved out for families or extended families.  During this era when Christian teachings were anathema to the Empire’s interests and Christians were labeled “atheists” for their failure to participate in Roman cultic practices, the catacombs became places apart and the larger family burial rooms provided spaces and the opportunity to pray. The catacombs were not secret places, however. They were well known, and this fact was not lost on the Roman authorities.  The Way practiced by Christians was still illegal and, at times, violently opposed in the second and third centuries. If caught in the act of prayer, you could be summarily executed.  The story of early martyrs testifies to this. 

While walking through these subterranean passageways we saw early Christian symbols painted on the walls and ceilings of some of the family tombs:  Fish, shepherds, lamps, doves, anchors, doves, and others.  These symbols, many of which had reference points in Roman culture, became infused with new meaning as Christians used them to express their burgeoning faith in a God/Man who had suffered the worst kind of death Rome ever conceived—crucifixion—and rose above it.  The Jesus these symbols celebrate commanded his followers to love—not to slaughter—their enemies.  To become one of his followers was to place oneself on a clash course with the mightiest Empire the world has ever known.  What courage it took!  What Spirit to persevere and endure against all odds, knowing that the ultimate victory belonged to Christ alone!

Reflection 3: All of this changed when Christianity became legal.  When Constantine declared Christianity legal and later called the first ecumenical council, the church began moving from the margins to the center of Roman culture; from the underdog to the overlord.  In that process, many of the systems that had sustained Rome over the centuries became features of the fledgling institutional church.  What followed as church structures, doctrines, and hierarchy developed over ensuing centuries was an ecclesia that more and more mirrored the Empire. 

Inside St. Peters in Rome

The upshot:  the fingerprints of ancient Rome are all over the Western Church as it developed institutionally, and that heritage is still present with us today.   Like the Roman Empire, that imperial church is dying.  In many of the places we visited that empire-church has become little more than a museum piece and it’s hard to imagine a sustainable future for the kind of vision they once embodied.  Still, there is evidence that something new is emerging from the old.  We found this was particularly true among some of the communities with Celtic Christian roots.  Whether it will prove strong enough to revitalize the church in Western Europe remains to be seen.