All Roads Lead to Rome

March 26, 2009
7:51am, Firenze FMN Stazion dello Traino

Beside me Brent's DNA is undergoing vast changes as he guzzles the soy-based fats of a McDonald's breakfast in Italy. He complains, "dude, they made these hashbrowns in a different way, and they're not good."

Weighed down by the fats emulsifying slowly in his belly, Brent rests his head against his jacekt, while one of all the roads that lead to Rome (this one currently inside a tunnel) whiz by outside the window on our left.

The road to Rome is picturesque: rolling hills, trees still recovering from winter, verdant fields, patches of farmed land, occasional columns of smoke, small and innocent like what comes from a pipe, red-tiled roofs, and, most distance, mountains rising into the clouds, covered over by the golden fog of early morning.

I'd like to say it looks like California but the lie is beyond me. It's far more beautiful. Perhaps because it is new to me but more likely because it is sparse and historic, old enough that the houses have become infused with the countryside, a natural part of its natural glory. God may vacation in many places, but if He has a home on earth, surely it must be here in Tuscany.