Clowning in Rome: Reflections on Solitude, Celibacy, Prayer and Contemplation

Nouwen writes, "The clowns are not the center of events. They appear between the great acts, fumble and fall and make us smile again after the tensions created by the heroes we came to admire. The clowns don't have it all together, they do not succeed in what they try, they are awkward, out of balance and left-handed, but ... they are on our side. We respond to them not with admiration but with sympathy, not with amazement but with understanding, not with tension but with a smile. Of the virtuosi we say: "How can they do it!" Of the clowns we say: "They are like us." The clowns remind us with a tear and a smile that we are sharing the same human weakness. The longer I was in Rome the more I enjoyed the clowns, those peripheral people who by their humble, saintly lives evoke a smile and awaken hope, even in a city terrorized by kidnapping and street violence ..."