I remember visiting Italy in April, probably in 2008. That’s because one of our granddaughters was born in Vicenza, Italy, in March of that year. What made me remember, not only because I think of her ALL the time, but at church last Saturday, the priest was wearing his purple vestment representing the Lenten season.
Traipsing around Italy was such an exciting event for me. I had never been to a foreign country before. No, I take that back, I’d been to Mexico, but Mexico is a whole other experience. I take that back again, I was born in Japan, but we came back to the states when I was 11-month-old, so I hardly remember that.
Anyway, the Color Purple, was everywhere in Italy around the Easter season. All the store mannequins were wearing purple, all the decorations were purple. I’ll admit purple isn’t necessarily my color, I don’t think I own anything purple, but it was quite distinctive back then, everywhere you went in that part of the country.
So, back at church Saturday evening, something the priest preached about was “let whoever is without sin among you cast the first stone.” Something like that … What he was getting at was about this lady who was accused of committing adultery. That was a pretty strong offense back then and it’s one of the 10 commandments, the seventh, Exodus 20:14, “You shall not commit adultery.” Nobody stood up! Nobody “cast the first stone.”
I guess I was taking the homily quite seriously the other night. Sometimes I have this knack of actually paying attention.
Anyway, it made me really think about gossip and accusing someone of a crime or offense or just plain old judging people. Like that saying goes, “You never know what a person is going through.” Or “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.”
“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see” – Mark Twain
