Pax multa in cella, foris autem plurima bella

Today (August 20, 2022) we visited this church-monastery complex in Florence, Italy.

Here we met the most worthy of monks, Fra Bernardo, who listened to our first confession in 42 years and gave us His absolution of our sins.

If I hadn’t promised my mama that I won’t change my Orthodox faith some 31 years ago, I would have become Apostolic-Catholic for quite some time now.

Coming down these steps back into the tumultuous and noisy life of the Florentine metropolis, I remarked to my family:

“Pax multa in cella, foris autem plurima bella.”

Which translates so nicely into English thus:

There is peace in the cloister, but the world is full of strife and unhappiness.

For you see, my friends, I had just sinned this very morning and as much as I hate myself for it, my peccant organ is my tongue and even more so, my temper. But ultimately, my most sinful organ is my character.

I lose my patience very easily and I fly into anger pretty much instantly. Like this compatriot of mine, some of you may know from the history books. I’m talking about Stephen the Great, of course.

But coming back to my mea culpa, I told my daughter some very heavy words that I regretted almost instantly after they left my lips. Too late, too little.

Italy and especially Florence are beautiful but they are also very demanding on our family. The influx of impolite and almost barbaric tourists, coupled with a certain museum-fatigue, combine to make us all edgy.

I am the first to recognize that I can no longer keep my temper in check. And when my highly hormonal teenaged daughter challenges me directly over every freaking decision I make, I just lose it.

I shouldn’t but I do. And what makes it worse is I see it coming but in my exasperation, I am unable to hold my tongue. I tell my daughter and my wife things that I should keep to myself, not think, or at least not utter in a shouting voice meant for a ship in a storm.

What is even more distressing is the fact that we are all shocked by how things work in Italy. To us, the country seems to be in a constant state of movement and organized chaos.

Buses are always late. Trains are always late yet we were so far able to catch connections to our destinations. People are trying to extort us into buying stuff we don’t need and sometimes they do get us, by sheer persistence.

Vendors are somewhat aggressively promoting their wares. But people are very weak, at least when it comes to defending their points of view. Spineless, really. This is why if the Russians ever set their eyes on Central and Western Europe, the peoples inhabiting these parts will be easy and ripe pickings. For they lack both the physical and mental capacity to put up with a difference of opinions, let alone resist an armed invasion.

Yet, what makes us edgy is none of these interesting observations. What makes us edgy, is the fact that we are a bit disappointed with how dirty, unclean, expensive, unkept, commercial, and unmannered Italy has become.

The dissonance between what Italy used to be and create, and what it’s creating nowadays is so big. It seems to us Italy and to some measure, Europe, lives on time borrowed from the Ancients and Figures of the Renaissance.

Everything new is crumbling and even our hotel, built in the 1940s, and redone 20 years ago, is showing not only its age, but also considerable wear and tear.

Italy is expensive. Italy is beautiful. But Italy needs to be seen now before the destructive hordes of tourists destroy what’s left of her Ancient glory.

This makes me wonder about our place in the maelstrom of life.

Are we supposed to live in splendid isolation, in a remote cabin far away from the world?! Or must we live inside the busy tentacles of a modern city, full of life, riches, paupers, crooks, whores, beggars, albeit one that challenges the definition of decent living on all counts?!

I’m quite aghast to be pondering such musings at such a late hour for it is almost 1 o’clock at night. I am sad to be leaving Florence in a few days’ time. I am also relieved to return to a more ordered and yes, more parochial existence.

For life should be lived at one’s pace. Life should not be lived in accordance to how others force it upon you. Life should be a choice. Not a chore.

And life in Italy is harder on people, regardless of what Charles Aznavour would have us know.

I guess my point is that Italy, Spain, France ain’t what they used to be. They are no longer the model countries people once aspired to go settle down in, start families and grow old in. They are quickly becoming stale and toxic by virtue of being bogged down by bad politics, a poor economic model, and doubtful societal values.

One must look eastward to discover a society that values family, traditions, culture and civilization. The West will soon cease to be. Its demise will happen during our lifetime. Things are starting to precipitate due to the disastrous ways a continent is being mismanaged.

There will be a reckoning. People will suffer. Heads will roll. History will repeat itself. And the wheel of time will start again its inexorable cycle.