We have a few more hours here in Marsala and then move to the east side of the island to the Catania region tomorrow morning. We think that (east side) will be the major focus for a while but will return this side to Agrigento and also Aragona before too long. So a little update on our time here.
This marker has been our main focus while in Marsala. It marks the most westerly point in Sicily, marking the entrance of Garibaldi and also the first Punic War between Rome and Carthage which was fought at sea just off the coast here. There were three Punic wars and when they ended it meant that Rome ruled the Mediterranean.
Garibaldi coming from the north with his ‘1000’ is the prime mover in the unification of independent states to form Italy. Did he liberate Sicily or sow towards its subjugation?
So a little summary… and I will use language that might not be exact but hopefully communicate what has gone on. We came to Marsala working out that it was the appropriate place to start as we had been given a ‘word’ by someone with a good credible background that the South West was where we had to spend time, and that there would be a ‘book’ that we would receive…
After a couple of nights here in a dream an angel came with a book, a big heavy book supported at three corners, one in the stomach and two in the hands fully stretched. At the final scene in the dream the angel placed it on a lectern where it could be read. Dream ended. We have worked with the one corner in the stomach of the angel being this place here – the extreme west; the other two points being the extreme south east and the north east. A simple ‘google’ search will show that not only is Sicily a triangle but it is marked by the three points. While here we have very much thought the early pages of the book have been written and the final pages are for us to ‘write’. Bring the past to a conclusion and from a clean place to sow into an ‘inception’ for the future.
We have found that there are strange experiences that we don’t have to make ‘literal’ (in some scientific sense) even though they are real. And a few nights after the dream, in a moment between wakefulness and sleep Garibaldi (more on him below) came and said ‘You cannot undo what I have done’. I am not interested in exploring what ‘really’ took place but in understanding what we should do in the light of this. For days we had been praying into the arrival of Garibaldi in Marsala resulting in the beginning of the unification of Italy (there was no Italy prior to this, Sicily was key in what was known as ‘the kingdom of the Two Sicilies’).
And at one level we cannot undo what has been done… But we can change the ongoing effect of the past. Same as an individual so with a geography. History shapes an individual and a geography but neither a geography nor an individual are subject to the history on an ongoing basis… but the past has to be finished.
We leave here in a few hours to the next geography though we think it will take more time particularly as we will cover a larger area geographically.
Life is an adventure! And each of us need to find the track that we are to be on. So yesterday I spent a couple of hours a few doors away – with a tattoo artist, someone who is of the land. With tattoos on either side of her head(!!!) and arms and fingers and who knows where else. But an hour of conversation – her Italian and my Spanish – with a few hand signs thrown in I explained about our interest in history in order to draw a line on the past and open up a possible different future. Her take on Garibaldi was mine totally – that the result was that of colonisation and oppression (Garibaldi : 1860 here and between 1901 – 13 25% of the population had to leave the island due to poverty… although prior to that the ‘Two Sicilies’ had more gold reserve than the northern states that were to become part of the united Italy).
And the conversation… sparked by a design I sent to the ‘Freedom Tattoos’ of Marsala with a rising sun and some composite koine Greek that I drew from Rev. 21 and 1 Cor. 5. ‘Is this a name?’ she asked. My reply – let me tell you a story, which will also explain why we are here!
Now we have to continue to live that out. We all need a dream – thank you Martin Luther King. But deeper – thank you John the Seer for your words ‘I saw a new heaven and a new earth’ and for Paul who said that our whole vision is different if we are in Christ for there is a new creation.
Here then is the design…not a name, but in the light of the ‘Name’ a dream that we wish to live out. Europe – post-Christian, getting closer to the context in which John and Paul spoke of their vision. A challenge… can we consistently see (I chose the past tense ‘I saw’) a new heaven and a new earth, though I chose to shorten that.
In all its glory(?):
