“…free curiosity has greater power to stimulate learning than rigorous coercion.”—Saint Augustine, Confessions
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“And what have you learned?” Annie was asked.
Annie listened, staring out from veranda upon street of colors, culture, and charm—all new, enchanting, to her. She had wanted to go, to see and learn, and so they went taking with them a curiosity to learn, explore, and little more.
Beyond the sun-washed walls of city span and color strike contrasts of shutters, doors, and decoration accents that enhanced brilliance of it all, church-bell spire of a stone basilica rose, its sound and steadiness echoing over and through the streets—a consistency and constant as sure as the paradox of idle race that seemed to be the nature of local life.
She thought of the race and idleness and wondered if it wasn’t so much the same world-across—at least by those seeking to prove to them a life purpose rather than to simply enjoy.
It struck then, low-metallic resonance rolling over air as if waves upon a coast, rhythmic, steady, rolling through and breaking on, only after telling hour-bells, resonant waves of bell-tower quieted, stilling back to silence, until called to sound again.
She watched the vendor commerce, little different save for structures than that of malls or shopping center designs. There were food vendors, carts of vegetables, fruits, and breads—and these, maybe people needed. The rest, they sold mostly un-essentials, trinkets and false-treasures tailored to those, like her, arriving mostly to observe, experience, and likely never return again.
Still, the street was busy, all crying and calling for a sale, fast hustle, for a material possession neither cared much for.
What had Solomon written?
“…I commended mirth, because there was no good for a man under the sun but to eat, and drink, and be merry, and that he should take nothing else with him of his labour in the days of his life, which God hath given him under the sun.”
Annie smiled remembering, and resolved, “and so I shall do, regardless of way world and others race.”
She thought of the way she came to see, break from despair of seeking what she did not want, opening possibility toward what, of life, she did; and though she never thought herself religious, she could not deny her faith in spirit, energies, though she was recalcitrant to call such God; but in a place like this, she couldn’t help but wonder.
Maybe there was more.
It was a beautiful place, moment, and scene: near-to Spain but absent its severities of asceticism and stains of certain histories.
The last bell of the hours rolled, and its wave of crash attenuated soft again to silence; but still there left an impression, a draw of focus back to source; tower and cross omnipresent over street-view scene.
In her moment-observation, quiet thoughts in mind, she did ignore the question; but it was only after the bells when, filling void of tower’s silence, she responded.
“…To be curious…” Annie answered. “…that if you want to learn, try; if you want to find, seek; if you wonder, ask the question and be open to surprise of unexpected answer. Maybe it’s energy of the universe and Cosmos…” she spoke into trailing silence as the bells: or maybe it is a Something else, she thought, unspeaking.
She smiled kind to the one who sat and rested beside her, gazing on same street scene, untelling how it appeared to him: whether he was there for equal desire of experience, or there because he knew what it meant to her.
“I’ve learned to have mirth, that there is nothing better under the sun than to eat and drink and be merry, for this is our lot…”
Where had that come from? Why did it speak? Why did it sound and speak so natural and true? She had not thought the words. They simply rose and, to her, appeared to speak themselves by means of her own voice.
She shook the thought and sought again a levity of spirit, the mirth with which the words of wisdom told.
“And so let’s go,” she smiled, a curiosity inspired. “I want to see the basilica. I’ve never been in one.”
And so they went, rising from repose of view; entering as piece and character into hurry and spirited intercourse of living city-scene.
They walked the busy streets, passing vendors, colored doors and shutters on sun-bleached structures roofed in red clay tile. They wandered maze of city shaped to men, with winding and erratic alleys that grew as man expanded—turning sudden, dead-ending without warning or reason why—different modern cities who with order and planned design shape men to it with indifference to who or what the men may be: no art, no soul, no story—just order.
After wrong turns, exploring, and adventure of losing and finding one’s way, they arrived before the church. It rose in stone form with sculpted figures of angels and saints, humble and glorious figures that stood guard around base and sloped roof of nave and wings that spread structure into crossed print upon the earth.
Inside the basilica, stained glass shone with a splendor she had never imagined: sunlight converted into color and cast of a man’s dreamed aura—enduring creation of centuries before—and behind altar, there hung crucifixion of Christ, in all his agony and pain with effect and impression never sensed from softened and benign symbol of Protestant crosses—invitation without he pain; its greatest offense its inoffensiveness which to Annie seemed objectionable on account of the passion and fervor with which one was supposed to believe.
In the crucifixion, there was no divorce of tie between torment and transcendence. Pain made medium and passageway for Paradise.
Absurd.
She stared in shock, suspended between awe, staring on crucifixion, mystic, in dream-light of stained-glass aura: visceral, violent, and a word she’d never used—holy.
Next, existence tremored as energy moved all around and through—body and air—as clock-tower struck above, nearness of its deep-heart leaving to tremble all it touched in waved effect. Even vision pulsed and wavered from periphery to center-focus in force and wave from energy.
Three bells, each with wave and repeat effect—same as first toll—and then the settling of air and sound, vision and sense, back into a still.
Annie stared still on the crucifixion—realism and pain in blood-rose and warm gold of window-gleam.
She was curious on the mystery.
Was it all artistic mastery: synchronicity of known senses for strikingness of effect, or was force of Something else?
What happened? Had anything? Was there anything to any of it?
Had she seen a deeper magic? No, and magic was not the word.
Mystery. Yes, mystery was the word. She was drawn to the mystery, curious to what transpired to live and play and strike with such effect—the wave-sense energy of belltower sound, stained glass light, and vision of pained death embodied in art of lived-act, and recreation, that tormented and pained on heart and, too, flash-sensed window path to onward-promise: transcendent and eternal.
Unless it was imagined dream…she thought…like the dream-light of the stained glass. But an artist had made the light real. She knew this with her own eyes. What then of the other, should God—like man, made in his image—be, too, an artist and creator, making truths of dream?
Why did question cause tremor?
Further mystery.
“Let’s go!” Annie spoke, as she reached for the arm of the one with whom she came. “Let’s go back into the world,” she pleaded as she turned from the violence of the crucifixion; desiring not to further think upon or see as vision, but she did.
Outside, the streets and scene were not the same. Their aesthetic enchantments were disturbed.
They wandered the streets, experiencing their offerings, dining on fine and local fare where after they returned, making love in streetlight glow through curtains, drawn, that danced faint in night’s cool breeze.
Mirth and comfort were restored as she thought no more of the day, only the moment. They made love long and deep into the night, erasing disturbance on her countenance and spirit. After, with city and its sounds long quieted and stilled, and at last their passions, Annie lain near to sleep when in the darkness, belltower sounded—three strikes in the night–its resonance and energy affecting as before: vision, awe, and spirit-tremor; mystery resurrected.