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Prayer and Liberation |
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written
by peeter / 10.24.2005 |
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| Silence and Belief |
1 of 1 |
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Assignment |
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A population of nuns whose sole purpose is to pray all the time lies deep within the fortified walls of Santi Quattro Coronati. After peering up at the strangely dwarfed bell tower, I pass through the ten-meter-thick entry, across the even larger square atrium, through the church sanctuary, and then onto a subtle, poorly-lit waiting area before a small, dark door with a tessellated wrought-iron grating. I then enter the wonderfully serene cloister where all of my rapid thoughts dissolve into rest.
This small courtyard somehow corresponds to my impressions of a Japanese Zen garden. Light, travertine gravel spread out in perfect planes, enclosed by soft little earth beds filled with calm unpretentious flowers. I have the urge to sleep; for I know that here it would be a deep, memorable sleep. Much healing has taken place in this garden, incredibly quiet, but not silent. No, the round fountain in its center does not flow, nor do colorful fish swim in its low pool, but this is not the reason for the peaceful stillness. This place is filled with the prayers of women that devote their entire lives to achieving oneness with God’s own heart. I look around from between the two columns among the many that make up the colonnade on whose ledge I sit, and I see the effect of these prayers on my friends. I draw them because they have put on new faces in this place.
Maria writes. She looks up, the light from above reflecting off of her fair skin, and finds something beautiful to look at until it inspires her to write further. Daniel sits on the ledge, two of its columns supporting his back, two preventing his bent legs from extending. He wanders in and out of sleep, allowing his mind to drift along the misunderstood line between consciousness and dreaming. Jane leans her head on a pillar and stares. She stares at Matthew, she stares at Christina, and she stares at everything else without worry of being misunderstood, for she knows that her gaze is not a judgment, but an inquiry. Any judgment to enter this garden has lost its way. Prayer does not judge.
Later I find myself on a confused Florentine street, disappointed in having been rejected by the lauded Bargello, as far from prayer as could be. My unfocused eyes notice a church whose open doors ask me whether or not I would like to come inside for respite. I would, and I do enter to encounter a deep sanctuary and its silence that removes me completely from this crazy little town overwhelmed by loud, hyper tourists fresh off their giant cruise ships. I sit in an oak pew and my neck arches back suddenly, well-conditioned in the classic sense to peer up at the ceiling of any Italian church in order to find a glorious visual reward. The legitimacy of my reflex is affirmed.
A huge Greek cross provides the template for the coffered oak ceiling. I want to lose myself in that vast textured surface of ornately carved flowers, leaves, and stems embedded into various geometric shapes which are enclosed by egg and dart borders. I am moved to stretch out in the pew and lie down completely.
Now the world above is mine to explore. The insufficient natural light does not reach beyond each of the four square points of the cross, leaving the central square in a mysterious puzzle of obscurity. A strange, fleshy flower lies at the intersection of four pairs of fern leaves, forming another cross. A perfect circle encloses this. The detail honestly takes my breath away. To think that so much was invested in this relatively little-known sanctuary brings up many questions. How much do I invest in the various components of my existence? I have grown tired of my recent tendency to apply a general application to all areas of my life, rather than selecting one area and investing deeply in its development. I have no desire to sleep here. My mind rushes. I see two people emerging from the dark chapel in the right nave. What happens there?
The chunky, beautifully carved swinging doors leading into the dim room beckon me to enter. I find nothing, not even the anticipated stairway to the top of the bell tower. I then notice a thin, vertical strip of light in one corner. I find a door whose crack allows some of the outside world into the sacred space. I reach through the iron grate to push the two doors open, discovering that the assumed “outside world” is in fact the true sacred space: The remarkably simple cloister of Santa Maria di Assunto.
A pleasant courtyard enclosed by a white colonnade and four huge walls comes into view. A large sycamore whose top branches I cannot see thrusts upward and out of the square patch of lush grass in the center. I am drawn into the cloister despite the physical impossibility of this, and I encounter life. Unlike the cloister in Rome, this larger space is more integrated with the natural world; a less-controlled environment. The tree in its center has shed a thin blanket of dead leaves on the grass, which have not been recently mowed. There is less attention to detail in the cloister of Santa Maria di Assunto. Finally, signs of life and human habitation are part of the cloister in Florence: A dining room table with several non-matching chains scattered around it reveals the daily utilization of space.
I emerge from the grand church more alive than when I entered. Although the presence of prayer was not as tangible here as it was in the Roman cloister, it is as if this plain space pursued me and then rescued me from self-doubt.
Each of the cloisters draws the participant out of confused darkness and into clear light, and thus each is associated with safety and represents liberation from insecurity, confusion, isolation, lifelessness, and anxiety.
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