We have a walkway underneath the porticos in our little town’s piazza. Several days a month it gets filled up with pedestrians: Locals, Tourists, X-pats and more. It’s not the Champs Elysee, it’s more like a river of humanity that passes by. (Speaking about rivers: General Xiang, the Asian thinker, once said: “If you sit by the river long enough – you will see all your enemies float by.” But Father John said:”If you choose to go down the river, you might meet a new friend there.”) Either way, it is a great pastime here to watch the people drifting by: French, Germans, Brits, Americans, Canadians, Africans, Israelis, young, old, well dressed, some looking like they fell out of bed, some with tattoos, rings in noses, some are fashionistas, some looking like the villains in recent movies, other like the heroes, many on their phones, many taking pictures, Every one of all of them seem to have come in peace and with good intentions. I watch them many days a week and I wonder why it can’t be like this all over the world, all the time. It seems as if everybody here has forgotten about what is going on in the world today. Is it so hard to build a little cobble-stoned piazza’d town and a have a gentle good time of it all? I guess it is.
Some quotes:
“Once a year, go somewhere you have never been before.” –Dalai Lama
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” –Mark Twain
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
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