The Sunday in the middle of our holiday we were in Verona, and it was 35 degrees. It’s hard to do the enthusiastic tourist bit in 95 degrees F, when you’ve left a Scottish July floundering in temperatures struggling to better 60 degrees F. But we did our best and we did quite well – saw the cathedral, did the amphitheatre which felt like a brick kiln as thousands of tons of marble acted like storage heaters on full power;
saw the statue of Dante the great medieval Italian poet, and the balcony where Romeo apparently invented romance while asking Juliet out.
But one of the sights every bit as worth seeing took place under the shades of a street restaurant. As we guzzled a couple of litres of sparkling mineral water, under the shades, an elderly woman made her way along the pavement, clearly struggling and near exhausted. The woman who had tended our table went quickly into the restaurant came out with a bottle of water, and we watched (rude I know) as she downed half of it in one long guzzle, and grinned with the kind of joyful wonder usually associated with the beatific vision.
The day before our holiday ended we went to a wee family patisserie down the back streets. It was just as hot, and we had come for coffee and a not modestly sized portion of Italian cake – in my case three layered Tiramasu, while Sheila claimed a wedge of light rich lemon cheesecake. Well we sat down gratefully at the table, and the elderly proprietor came forward with a hose gushing water, signalled for us to lift our feet, and he hosed down the flagstones till they were cool – actually he did our feet as well! Then he brough over our orders and we sat in refreshing bliss, eating our cake,entirely oblivious of the existence of calories. The whole experience was a beautiful performance of hospitality to Scottish guests.
Don’t know how much water we bought over ten days – at least a litre each in addition to other drinking water at wells and street taps. Water costs on average 2 Euro per litre, 4 at the table – so we reckon we spent £75+ on water. That isn’t a complaint – it’s a sign of how important water is. That’s probably why Jesus chose to emphasise the importance of the cup of cold water – a life restoring, life enhancing act of hospitality. An elderly shopper treated as a guest by a waitress – two Scottish Baptists hosed down by an Italian baker – parables, reminders, of how those little acts of love and care transform the world by celebrating and consolidating neighbourliness.
And in the country of Dante, they were small indications of ‘that Love which moves the sun, and the other stars’.
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