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| The cure for anything is salt-the sea, sweat or tears |
Not many folks realize it, but you can take the stairs to the top of the dome in St Peter's Basilica., which is exactly what I did.It is the highlight of my trip so far in Italy. That is saying a lot since yesterday I was in magical Venice.
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| Put this on your bucket list-ringing the bells in Vatican City |
My last trip to Rome was seven years ago. Here is that trip report:
Reprinted from Sept 18, 2009
I'm thinking of starting a Christian rock band. I got the perfect name-Heritic. You guys know any base players?
Broken ArrowI spent this morning at the epicenter of Roman Catholicism, Saint Peter's Basilica.
PPL were queing up for Kodak moments. The only place were there were no lines were the confessionals.
CNN verses The Alphabet
Religion is so pre September 11th.
Of course, 20th century psychology has replaced sin with guilt.
The fusion of cyberspace and spirituality is a happy accident. a magical realm where all is possible . First there was the Pope of Software, Bill Gates. "He" has created an electric gaia, or gobal brain, a collective unconscious that makes what is deeply personal universal, the uncensored, distributed self, and cyberspace--the location of the virtual self/community on the web. Sartre said, "Hell is other ppl" Gates might as well say, "We are god...or at least made in his image".
Deus Ex Machina vs. Electric Gaia
Home isn't where your heart is, it's where your Blackberry is. Landlines are place; cellphones, people. The fundamental 'human-friendliness' of the Machine-God...It starts with e mail, E-mail, as a metaphor for networked, global, uncensored communication and continues with FB, YouTube, Flickr,Twitter and yours truely, kid blogger.
Furthermore, The Dali Lhama of Integration, Steve Jobs, has created a celestial jukebox on tap- itunes absolution for 99 cents-The GGD's, Better Days for instance handing out blessings-"Cuz everyone is forgiven now.Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again".
The blogerati voices coming to us from the frontier of human experience is the largest uncensored form of communication in history. Although I am physically traveling, I get to swim in a new geography of existence on the net, shattering time and space. Thus the moniker Hotel @nyware. Does it really matter where we are--because this kind of existence is location neutral.
Welcome to Infinite Smile
Putting the sin back into sincere, I decided to step into the English speaking Confessional to receive 'penance,' the place where sins are forgiven. The basic requirement for a good confession is to have the intention of returning to God like the "prodigal son" and to acknowledge our sins with true sorrow before the priest. At the very moment, the Monsignor, came out , and hung a sign saying closed. LOL.
There wouldn't be a second chance to make a first impression. The power of intention, however, was enough to provide salvation. As Woody Allan, once told me in 1980 at Stromboli's Pizzaria, in Greenwhich Village,"Showing up is 99%".
I figured it was 11AM; just in time for an Italian mass. Let me tell you, SOMETIMES THE MOVIE (King of Kings(1961) w/Jeffery Hunter as Christ) is better than THE (good) BOOK. I started to cough, and thought I better let these pious PPL pray in peace, and headed out.
Voice Inside My Head
Did you say your prayers today in Rome?
Me
No but I ate my lunch
I'm A Nobody
It was a Zencrafters moment--Instant enlightenment in less than an hour. You see Nobody's perfect, and little me in that big church felt like a nobody.
You gotta be a somebody first before you can be a nobody-- What is sin, after all. It is an old archery term. It means missing the mark.
Cut to song "Who else is gonna bring you a Broken Arrow... We got mountains to climb"
Mother Mary Comes To Me
So I am standing on line, listening to my ipod, before I set off the Swiss Guards metal detectors with Euros, my Google Phone and mp3 player.
Let It Be is the soundtrack to the waiting. Yet I can't help but have John Lennon's "Imagine, there's no religion" lyric creep in.
Putting the odd back into God
I'm feeling a lot better now that I know God is a white man with a grey beard. That Sistine Chapel is , as we alter boys say, " off the chain", mos def.
Stay away from the light. The light is dangerous. Don't go near it. Don't even look at the light.
Check Please!
It was a Zencrafters moment--Instant enlightenment in less than an hour. You see Nobody's perfect, and little me in that big church felt like a nobody.
You gotta be a somebody first before you can be a nobody-- What is sin, after all. It is an old archery term. It means missing the mark.
Cut to song "Who else is gonna bring you a Broken Arrow... We got mountains to climb"
Mother Mary Comes To Me
So I am standing on line, listening to my ipod, before I set off the Swiss Guards metal detectors with Euros, my Google Phone and mp3 player.
Let It Be is the soundtrack to the waiting. Yet I can't help but have John Lennon's "Imagine, there's no religion" lyric creep in.
Putting the odd back into God
I'm feeling a lot better now that I know God is a white man with a grey beard. That Sistine Chapel is , as we alter boys say, " off the chain", mos def.
Stay away from the light. The light is dangerous. Don't go near it. Don't even look at the light.
Check Please!
