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Posted: December 8
Another day of rain as this fall follows the classic Roman script of November and December rains to balance the dry sunshine of the summer. It all balances out. Sunday morning was too wet to go out for a bike ride, so I lay on my bed with the windows open, just listening to the rain fall. It was deliciously lazy. Today is a holiday in Rome so the Curia is quiet as we celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Several of us went up to the North American College for their celebration of the school’s patron feast. We enjoyed a very, very high Mass, done very well; I enjoyed it very much. After a full dinner I came back and drew a bit, planning my next big painting. Instead of just jumping into it, I am trying to do a pencil sketch first to settle on the values and the design. I hope it helps. Then I wandered over to my office to listen to my favorite radio station, Boston’s WUMB, which I get streamed off the web. The quality of web radio now is quiet amazing. When it first debuted in the early days of the internet, the quality resembled that of a cheap drugstore radio. Now it sounds as good as the Cds that I have copied onto my computer. This makes me wonder about the future of radio, and the possibility that it might have a much broader reach than we used to think. When TV arrived on the scene, some pundits predicted that radio would disappear. That did not happen, although radio changed a lot and fragmented along different formats or audience tastes. Now it seems that the internet might push the medium into even bigger changes.
I find that I am getting to know the announcers by name, and have a sense of their personalities. And I want to go visit Boston so I can drop into the places that keep being mentioned when the calendar of performances is announced every day. Even though I have never lived in Boston, it is starting to feel familiar. There is a power here that the Society of Jesus could tap. Father Peter Scally of the British Province is working on a new site that would deliver brief daily prayer in MP3 format that could be downloaded. Since he was one of the founders of Sacred Space, I think he will probably pull this new idea off—and do it quite well. What are the limits of our homilies or spiritual conversation? Certainly not the limits of a parish, or school, or whatever local institution where we live.
On a different note, I got good news this week. Rockhurst University in Kansas City accepted three of my photographs for a show called “Pied Beauty” that will run from January 21 through February 12, at the Greenlease Gallery on campus. (I like the reference to Hopkins.) The three black and white images come from a work in progress that explores the National Mall in Washington D.C. under the rubric of its function as the “cathedral” of American Civil Religion. I started work on the project when I was living in Washington and working for the Jesuit Conference. It has languished for the past four years with all I have had to do getting adjusted to Rome and developing web sites, etc. But it was good just to go through the images to pick ones to submit. It is good work and I need to get back to work on it. My hope is that it would be a terrific exhibit and book. So much to do and so little time.
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