The Sistine Chapel

It is unthinkable to visit Rome without seeing the Sistine Chapel. (Visit this link to see the good reproductions and comparisons of the ceiling before and after the restoration.) We had read that the Vatican Museum is the least crowded on Wednesday mornings when the Pope gives his weekly blessing at the plaza. It was true. There was enough room that we could spend a long time staring at the ceiling.

What a curious selection of tales from the Old Testament! There are four scenes from the Biblical Creation. The others are all stories of crime and punishment: Adam and Eve are tempted and driven from Eden; survivors give thanks after the Flood, Noah lies drunk before his family, the wandering tribes in the wilderness are offered reprieve from the plague if they look at the bronze snake, Judith beheads Holofernes, David beheads Goliath; and Haman is hanged for his conspiracy. At the edges the Prophets and Sybils brood, while small figures push at the pillars or perch in between.

One panel usually called "The Parting of the Waters" shows God reaching straight down. Perhaps I had been staring up at the ceiling too long. Studying this panel, I suddenly felt myself falling into the ceiling, into an eternal moment where creation, consequence, a struggle of good and evil — all recur endlessly. I was caught up in a whirlwind of emotions from the stories — gratitude, curiosity, despair, triumph, humiliation, fear, relief — watching them swirl around me, all of them happening at that moment, as though I shared the perspective of the giant figures on the edges who continually watch this in silence through all these centuries.

I once heard a radio interview with the writer Jeanette Winterson about the idea of time dilation in narrative. She talked about how the past continues with us, how some moments are as real to us now as when they first occurred. Either she said or I concluded from her comments that, in this sense, time does not always exist for us. This is what makes it possible for us to go back in time and redeem our past sorrows.

Is that what Michelangelo experienced all those years he painted the ceiling?