Posted: March 1

Renewed by the rain

It has been so nice to be back in Rome that I can’t explain how that city suddenly became Seattle. It has rained steadily here for over a week, like it sometimes does in November, but longer and more steadily. The Tiber has risen dramatically and the ground is sodden. It cleared long enough on Sunday that I could work in the garden; if the sun ever comes out the earth is ready to throw up sudden growth. But I am not sure when the sun will return. It makes one pine for the warm shores of Australia.

Of course, the good news is that rain makes it very comfortable to sit in front of a computer, inside where it is warm and dry, and work steadily on web pages. Which is what I have been doing for the last week. I even finally figured out how to display all the photos I took over a year and a half ago of the incredible murals in the library of Unisinos, the Jesuit university in São Leopoldo, Brasil. There is a program called iView MediaPro which I use to catalogue and manage digital photographs. It also has an ability to generate web page galleries of images, even better than Photoshop. And it is easy both to use this and modify it a bit once the automatic work is done. Paulo Porcella is well-known in Brasilian art circles and he created a wonderful set of eight large murals in the big reception area of the library. The color is intense and the creative referecnes to familiar elements of the story of Ignatius’ conversion and the gathering of the first companions is exceptionally well done.

Saturday night at the English Mass at the Gregorian I met Fr. David Ely, one of a handful of Canadian Jesuits working in communication. David is teaching film criticism this semester at the Gregorian University. Although he used to be active in Jescom in Canada, the organization there has faded away and Jesuits in communication mostly work individually in distinct areas. Our encounter makes me aware of how many other Jesuits working in communication whom I should know about. Of course, David had not heard of this Jescom web site, which I shamelessly plugged. The small adjustments made to the site during this past rainy spell have made it a bit better, and, of course, I am pleased by the fact that its working at all, after the difficulties we experienced when it moved to a new hosting company. Perhaps everything is waiting for the sun to flower forth the beauty still seminal in our lives and projects.