I like history, psychology, biology, neuroscience, philosophy, and the humanities. I like thinking about religion, and art, and the ways of mankind, and I found myself perfectly suited to this place.

When we went to the Vatican Museum we saw Michelangelo’s Pieta. We saw the Belvedere Torso. We saw tributes to Greek and Roman Mythology.  We saw the Raphael Tapestries, the Borgia Apartments, the School of Athens, and pieces from Chagall, Matisse, and Dali. Countless sculptures, paintings, frescoes, friezes, and bronze pieces graced my eyes in each new room. I saw the chiaroscuro technique in person, and observed the effect of Raphael’s Resurrection of Christ. Though our pace through the Museum was less than ideal, I have never felt so privileged, so enlightened, as I did walking through those halls. You try to take it all in, but everything is calling for your attention. Walking becomes difficult as you gape up at the engravings on the ceiling, snap a picture of the maps of Italy, identify each portrayal in the School of Athens, or spin around for one last look at something in the last room.

Your anticipation grows. You know what you’ll see at the end of the Museum. You’re speeding past more modern artwork just to see it. Flights of stairs, hallways, and artwork after artwork pass by and finally you’re entering it, about to see it. You step into the Sistine Chapel and out of yourself.

You lose sense of time standing there in the crowd, looking up, turning, soaking in the frescoes covering every inch of the walls. Your mouth hangs open, your feet hurt, you get immense vertigo, a stranger is standing uncomfortably close to you (could be pick pocketing you)-but you don’t care. It is impossible to retreat back into yourself. I wanted to sit in the Chapel forever-and it would take forever to fully appreciate it for what it is. If the scale alone isn’t enough to make you cry, the layers upon layers of meaning in every line should be. I could spend months looking at the Last Judgment alone, but the time came and we were shepherded out by the security guards…

I was completely removed from my ego for a good hour prior to leaving the Chapel, and I wish that it had stayed that way. You step into the sunlight and people begin speaking freely again but it doesn’t feel the same. I know I left something of myself in the Sistine Chapel, but I gained something of much greater value in return.

The effect of Raphael’s Resurrection tapestry