Italian Presepi!

From our wonderful Lay Minister 
​Carol-ann Howe

We spent a day in Naples this June, before heading quickly to the more scenic Amalfi Coast. Naples has beautiful bones but is run down, drowning in litter and swarming with scooters- not the most glamorous of the Italian cities. Gritty might be a nice word. But on one dark back street a centuries old tradition continues, with the manufacture of presepi. These are nativity scenes ranging in size from miniatures to sit on a table to filling whole basements (photo of the basement one below), and tourists can see the craftsmen working away in their shops on their creations even in the heat of June.  The magic of the presepi is the detail found within, these nativity scenes often depict entire villages going about their work, women doing their laundry, each item of clothing tiny and perfect, functioning water mills, the baker making tiny ciabattas, and nowadays may even include celebrity figurines, mostly footballers it seems, standing next to the goatherder and his animals. While looking at a presepi what does not jump out at you at first glance is the nativity itself. The baby in the manger is often hidden away in a tiny stable, lost behind the greengrocer’s shop and the family eating lunch. It is almost an aside, the baby, his parents, and sometimes the Magi and some tiny animals, it is rarely in the centre, and in the photo below, it is not one of the parts that is lit. We have to search for it, the sacred is hidden behind the everyday and the profane.   But it is there, within the beautiful chaos of everyday village life, the divine is there. Heaven on earth, quietly changing the world while the world (and Maradona) rush around without noticing it. It isn’t easy to find that baby in the manger within the distractions and bustle, but it is worth the effort.