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Posted: February 13
Saturday I walked over to our local art supply store to buy some X-acto knife blades. I was preparing five paintings to be framed, but the only blade I had was too dull to use. Before I came to Rome I studied painting with my uncle, Robert Wogrin, who passed on much of his considerable knowledge about painting. One of his methods that I have found really useful is to buy a bulk supply of several yards of high-quality linen painting canvas. Then you cut off pieces as you need them, which saves a lot of money and enables you to do more paintings. Of course, this only works on smaller paintings. Then you glue the finished paintings to a backing like gator board, cut them to size and put them in their frames. (You cut the cloth larger than the finished size because it needs to be stapled to a drawing board.)
Well, I had the five paintings and their frames but no blade. This is a long prelude to explain what I was doing walking down the street, striding purposefully to the art store but walking with a smile because the paintings are very good.
A block before my destination, I noticed a new store that I had not seen before: full of mountain climbing equipment. I stopped dead in my tracks, but then decided that I better do my business before giving in to the temptation to wander through the things I had spent so much time on in my youth. Twenty minutes later I was back. Here in the heart of Rome, in an area dedicated to churches, tourism and restaurants, here is a store filled climbing ropes, carabiners, nuts, slings—all the paraphernalia one needs to do technical rock climbing. The mountains are only a little more than an hour away from Rome, so I probably should not be surprised, but this store is something completely new.
The technical equipment is on the second floor while the ground floor has the fancy clothes any self-respecting Roman climber would need. This being a very hip store, they carry all the big name brands. One of the salespersons watched me come in and welcomed me. He also immediately recognized the brand name of the coat I was wearing. A scirocco wind had blown in that morning from Africa bringing a light rain so I was wearing a light-weight mountain rain coat.
What sticks in my mind was the sailesperson’s reaction: he saw the brand and assumed that I knew something about climbing. Actually, I do, or at least I used to when I was growing up in Colorado.
That made me think about our brand, “Jesuit.” Do people still see it and immediately recognize it? Most people do, but it is something that we need to work on and maintain, not through slick publicity and carefully crafted photos, but by reality. We need to live out our ideals and live up to them.
The Jesuit Refugee Service is doing that in a very impressive way. One of the men I live with heads this organization and just got back from a trip to Sri Lanka where the JRS has been very busy helping victims of the Tsunami. Of course, they were there before the tidal wave, and they will still be there once the relief organizations and reporters pack up and leave. JRS helps people dealing from the human disasters that force them from their homes, and the key phrase is their commitment to “accompany” refugees no matter how long it takes. JRS makes me proud to say that I am a Jesuit
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