I remember it like it was yesterday.  I was in Rome, Italy.  January 20, 1977.  The day Jimmy Carter was inaugurated President.  I was a 2o year old college student studying abroad.  That may sound a bit Ivy League, but it really wasn’t all that.  I signed up for a Jan-Term archaeology course at Samford University that included a three week trip to Israel and Italy.  “Studying abroad” just sounds cooler.

Our class spent two weeks in Israel seeing the sights and visiting archaeological digs .(Basically, we visited what other people had dug.  Interesting, but not really National Geographic material. We were, however, housed in the cold attic of a three hundred year old church.  That was cool.)  I enjoyed the trip very much.  Just being in the land that Abraham claimed, that David ruled, and that Jesus walked was inspiring enough.  But we got to visit places that regular tourists couldn’t even see.  It was an exhilarating adventure.  I thought about Jesus every single day.  It was quite a spiritual romp for a twenty year old.

One day in Jerusalem was especially memorable. We were strolling through the Valley of Hinnom, on the southeastern side of Jerusalem, just outside the ancient wall. It is a beautiful municipal park now, but in the time of Jesus it was Jerusalem’s garbage dump.  No kidding.  In Jesus’ day it was called Gehenna, where there was always garbage burning and dead animals smouldering and swelling in the hot sun.  Imagine the stench!

Jesus, when speaking of the fires of hell, pointed to the Valley of Hinnom and said, “Hell is like Gehenna, where the fire is never quenched and the worm doesn’t die.”  Whoa!  I was actually walking through hell, or at least Jesus’ metaphor of it.  And then, if that wasn’t enough, it began to snow on that cold January day in Jerusalem.  What perfect timing!  Now I can say with confidence to my children and grandkids, “I was there the day hell froze over.”  (ba dum tsh, ba-dum ching!)

After the Israel experience, we flew to Rome and spent most of another week in Italy–  in Rome, Florence, Naples, and Pompeii.  On our final day in Italy our professor gave us a free day to do whatever we wanted, as long as we didn’t go anywhere alone.  I, however, wanted to visit some places that no one else wanted to go, so I set out alone– confident that I could take care of myself.

I set out first of all to find a bookstore where I could surely purchase a map of the city of Rome, in English.  After walking several blocks from the hotel, I found myself on the Via Veneto– a main drag in Rome.  It was a wide and busy boulevard full of shops, cafes, and important government buildings– including the American Embassy, where i noticed a proud Marine standing guard at the entrance of the embassy compound.  I crossed the to the other side of the Via Veneto, and was lucky to locate a tiny bookshop nestled tightly between a cafe and a shoe store, directly across the Via Veneto from our embassy.

A little brass bell jingled when I entered the narrow shotgun styled bookshop.  The Italian shopkeeper standing behind the counter at the other end reminded me of Clark Gable.  His jet black hair was slicked back, and he sported a thin mustache that gently graced  his upper lip.  He smiled and nodded as I walked in, but said nothing.  My eyes quickly located the tourist maps halfway back on the left, so I moved quickly to them and began looking for an English map among the ones in German and Japanese.

Less than a minute later I heard the bell jingle again.  Another patron entered chattering in Italian from the moment he stepped inside the door.  I paid no attention to the conversation between the two, but it never slowed down.  All of the sudden there was silence.  The silence was way too silent, so I glanced over my shoulder to see what was going on.  I froze.  My heart skipped a beat. The muscles in my neck tightened to the point of choking myself when I saw the Clark Gable look alike with both hands up in the air, and the chattery stranger holding a black pistol pointed straight toward the shopkeeper’s belly.

I didn’t move, hoping he would’t see me.  But it was too late.  The shopkeeper looked toward me, as did the robber.  Waving the pistol, he directed the shopkeeper to stand next to me.  Instinctively, I put my hands up as well.  The gruff intruder said something to me in Italian, and I squeaked out a response in the best Spanish I knew–  “Ingles?”  (I know, Spanish and Italian are not the same.  I was stressed, ok?)  I could smell his nasty cigarette breath as he leaned in and said, “Money.”

I figured that was what he wanted.  And the truth was, I had all the money I owned in the world on me that day!  But it was hidden in a money belt that I had strapped tightly under my underwear for safe keeping.  Hoping he wasn’t a perv, and that he wouldn’t strip me naked, I eeked out, “Here’s all I got, and you can have it.”  (Not true, but a necessary lie.)  I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a few hundred Italian lira– amounting to about $5.  He laughed at me.  I raised my hands high again, still gripping the Italian lira.

That’s when everything went into slow motion for me.  He methodically placed the pistol barrel right next to my left ear, giving my lobe a couple of nudges.  My whole life raced before my eyes.  I thought of my family back home in Alabama.  I assumed he would kill me and dump my body in the Tiber River where one would ever find me.  My poor Mom and Dad would be broken hearted, never knowing what happened to me.  Thoughts came like lightning bolts.  I wondered why the brave Marine didn’t leave his post and bring a brigade of the proud and the few across the street to rescue an American citizen!  I thought about pain.  About dying.  About Jesus.  About Eternity.

Just then he moved the pistol down to my belly, and gave it a push into my belly button.  “That’s better, I thought.  Maybe he’ll just shoot me in the stomach or the leg and let me go.  I’ll take that any day over the alternative.”  A few seconds passed– or maybe a couple of minutes– I don’t know.  Strangely, the surly gunman pulled back his overcoat and inserted the pistol into a holster strapped to his belt.  I noticed a gold seal with gold writing pressed into the leather holster– Roma Polizia— Rome Police!  Good grief!  That sucker has killed a policeman, stolen his gun, and is holding us hostage in a bookstore!

Then, like I was coming out of a trance,  I noticed that the shopkeeper was no longer holding his hands up.  In fact he and the stranger were laughing!  Together!  At me!   The man with the nicotine breath gestured in my direction, “American0!  Joke!”

All the blood that had drained to my feet suddenly came rushing up into my head!  I trembled. I felt feverish. I thought my head was about to explode.

“Some joke!” I screamed as I jetted out of the bookshop slamming the door and abusing the poor bell as I exited.  Storming up the busy Via Veneto sidewalk I pursed my lips tightly until I couldn’t hold it in any longer.  I ruptured into tears, sobbing and snotting all the way through the intersection to the opposite side of the busy boulevard.  I buzzed at the gate of the American Embassy, hoping for help and vindication.  A big  bellied American in a ill fitting suit asked me what my business was.  I told him the whole story– with drama enough to win myself an Emmy.  His response?  “Welcome to Rome, Buddy.”

It was truly the first time in my life I had ever felt my mortality in my throat.  It was a day that I have lived and relived many times in dreams and nightmares.  The only way to make peace with the whole affair is to laugh at it, and get others to laugh with me– because it WAS a joke– a cruel joke, but a joke none the same.   Still, I remember the day I lost my youthful invincibility, and became a mortal man.  It was then that I realized the truth in Ecclesiastes 1:11.  “He has set eternity in our hearts….”