How's Your Piazza?

(Wait! Read that title carefully. This is not about your pizza.)

Greet some Italians with, "Everything OK?" and you get a cynical reply: "For now." It's a quick way to say, "I can't complain right now but give me a while and I'll think of something to be unhappy about."

Then there's Gianni.

I met him - a smiling, short middle-aged man outside a hotel where he works as a bellhop - in the small medieval town of Gubbio in the Umbria region of Italy. The hotel faces the town's central piazza (public square), which overlooks a peaceful valley and features the huge Palace of the Consuls - for centuries the city hall, now a museum (see attached photo). [We get our word "harangue" from the word used for this building's main room, the Salone dell'Arengo. Be glad you're not invited to Italian town meetings.]

The day I chatted with Gianni about his city, he told me simply, "This is the most beautiful piazza in the entire world." That was not brag, just fact, to him.

Pallazo_del_Consoli

Now I bet Gianni has not seen all of the piazzas of the world, but that fact clearly does not squelch his enthusiasm. And I noticed that hearing how he felt about his world made both him and the piazza seem more attractive.

Our friend Dr. Tracy Menard, a professor of counseling at Midwestern State University in Texas, and his wife are visiting this week. He reminded us that what makes a difference in life "is not what happens to us but what we tell ourselves about what happens to us." Abraham Lincoln said, "People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Everyday we prove him right.

We each are becoming either more like the Israelite slaves, who grumbled while they were slaves and then grumbled more when they were free, or like the apostle Paul, who learned how to be content in every situation. We have that choice.

The other day at 5:30 a.m. we drove some guests to the airport. "What a shame it is raining," they said. By 7:30 a.m. we were carrying some other guests to the train station. "How wonderful!" they said, "We are getting rain!" Sometimes people say, "Don't you hate this traffic?" while others say, "Look at those trees! I love this street." Same rain. Same streets. Different perspective. Every moment of our lives, we choose ours.

The opposite of faith is not doubt. It's grumbling - a dangerous, infectious spiritual problem. When we grumble about our buddies, our bodies or our bank accounts we, in effect, are saying to God, "No matter what you give us, we wish things were different."

We can learn from Gianni. No piazza is perfect. We can make ours nicer. But what would happen if we each chose to believe the piazza God gave us is the most beautiful one the world?

We might soon realize that we felt better and our world looks better.

And, chances are, more people would enjoy stopping to chat with us.