I have a feeling that when we return home and you ask your child, “How was your adventure?” or “What did you see?” the answer is going to be something like, “The trip was great.  We saw some really cool old stuff” and then the conversation will launch into the silly things, the funny moments connected to their friends on the trip, and the minutia that is more a side note than a main theme.

In a few days some things will start to bubble up to the surface and you will catch snippets of the experience.  “We swam in three different seas,” “We sat in the theater where Plato sat,”  “We went up 10,000 feet and hiked in and out of craters on Mt. Etna.” The pictures will help remind them where they were and what they saw.  Their journals will offer another vehicle for memory and perspective.  But, largely, it will be a jumble of places, food, monuments, ideas, facts, feelings, and people.

They have been swimming in a sea of history, art, architecture, philosophy, mythology, literature, science, and Sicilian/Italian culture.  They have had full days of activities and arrived tired at the hotel only to shower and rest for a few moments, then dress for dinner at 8pm.  I wish you could have seen them at dinner!  Not only were they trying new things, finding new tastes, discovering new flavors, but they sat and talked and enjoyed life and conversation and each other for two or three hours, which is  the Italian/Sicilian way.  Despite the fact that sometimes their volume reached middle school refectory levels, we received compliments on their behavior from people of all different nationalities. Time after time, someone would approach our table, ask what we were doing in Sicily, pepper us with questions about our school, our program, our students and walk away impressed with and envious of them.

In fact, I am envious of them.  They have made an Odyssey, an epic journey that will color all their experiences in the years to come.  And, like Homer’s epic, it will take a lifetime to understand it and appreciate not only what it was, but also how it has changed them.

So be patient with them and their cursory retorts.  Just ask them about the small things and you might start to see some of the big things.

I have a feeling that when we return home and you ask your child, “How was the trip?” or “What did you see?” the answer is going to be something like, “The trip was great.  We saw some really cool old stuff” and then the conversation will launch into the silly things, the funny moments connected to their friends on the trip, and the minutia that is more a side note than a main theme.

In a few days some things will start to bubble up to the surface and you will catch snippets of the experience.  “We swam in three different seas,” “We sat in the theater where Plato sat,”  “We went up 6,000 feet and hiked in and out of craters on Mt. Etna.” The pictures will help remind them where they were and what they saw.  Their journals will offer another vehicle for memory and perspective.  But, largely, it will be a jumble of places, food, monuments, ideas, facts, feelings, and people.

They have been swimming in a sea of history, art, architecture, philosophy, mythology, literature, science, and Sicilian/Italian culture.  They have had full days of activities and arrived tired at the hotel only to shower and rest for a few moments, then dress for dinner at 9pm.  I wish you could have seen them at dinner!  Not only were they trying new things, finding new tastes, discovering new flavors, but they sat and talked and enjoyed life and conversation and each other for two or three hours, which is  the Italian/Sicilian way.  Despite the fact that sometimes their volume reached middle school refectory levels, we received compliments on their behavior from people of all different nationalities. Time after time, someone would approach our table, ask what we were doing in Sicily, pepper us with questions about our school, our program, our students and walk away impressed with and envious of them.

In fact, I am envious of them.  They have made an Odyssey, an epic journey that will color all their experiences in the years to come.  And, like Homer’s epic, it will take a lifetime to understand it and appreciate not only what it was, but also how it has changed them.

So be patient with them and their cursory retorts.  Just ask them about the small things and you might start to see some of the big things.

So I would like to take a moment and describe how much I am enjoying my beloved colleague, both for his entertaining perspective on this journey and his blog posts.  Not only is he kind enough to share his thoughts, but also his irresistible joy and appreciation of all the people and places we are encountering along the way.  He is a great support and booster of all our endeavors.  And even more impressive than that, I think his photo count is in quintuple digits right now.

Segesta

Segesta is a place of history and beauty. When I was a student, studying Latin, ancient Greek, and archaeology in Rome, we spent a few weeks in southern Italy and Sicily.  This is when I first fell in love with Segesta.  The city was not a big player in world affairs, nor did it have an impressive run while it was in its heyday.  Nevertheless, it was pivotal as the impetus for a doomed expedition from Athens, signaling the defeat of the Athenians during the Peloponnesian War.  However, it means much more to me than the sum of its parts

Besides the intense natural beauty of its surroundings and its uncrowded, off-the-beaten-track novelty, Segesta, in the form of its theater and Doric temple, to me offers what is best of the Greek genius.

The very first people in the western world to take a huge step forward in the intellectual adventure of mankind were a group of philosophers we refer to as “pre-Socratics” or “monists”. These pioneering geniuses decided to make a break from the notion that the universe was mysterious and incomprehensible and totally left to the caprice of the gods.  They tried to find the One factor or substance that tied everything together.  Some thought everything was made of water or air or change itself, and that all matter consisted of those things in different states of being.  These philosophers may have gotten it wrong, but they were the first scientists and we owe everything to them.  They taught humanity that we are not doomed to the darkness of our ignorance and the frailty of our fears.  The temple, a monument to the divine and a symbol of the power of scientific, rational thought–in the complexity of its architecture and design–is a reminder of our connection and participation in the infinite.

On the neighboring hillside, the theater, which post dates the temple by a hundred years or so, portrays the other aspect of our humanity–our connection to each other.  After the Monists started grappling with the nature of the universe, a man named Socrates came along and asked questions about the nature of who we are and how we can live together, as well as the big question of why we are here.  Socrates lived in a world where drama was not mere entertainment.  Drama, literature, poetry, and music were meant to teach us about what it is to be human.  The mythological themes and the plight of heroes portrayed in tragedy educated the viewer and cleansed the community.  The Greek word for cleansing was ‘catharsis’.

So the theater and the temple at Segesta together, having weathered the crucible of time, stand like monuments, physical tributes to the rationality of the human mind, the beauty of what we can bring to this world, and our opportunity to participate in eternity.