“L’intento dello Spirito Santo, nell’ispirare la Bibbia, era insegnarci come si va al cielo, non come va il cielo”.

Roughly translated, this means “the intent of the Holy Spirit, in inspiring the Bible, was to teach how one goes to Heaven, not how Heaven goes”.

Apparently, Galileo was paraphrasing Cardinal Baronius… I don’t know who he was, but this is a great way of reminding us that the Bible is not intended to answer scientific questions.

Today was the big day, as it were. I arrived at the designated location for the oath ceremony about 30 minutes early, around 8:30. Found the auditorium and checked in. The check-in process consisted of answering a set of questions (e.g. have you been arrested since your interview) on the letter previously received and then signing and dating the letter at one table; then moving to another table and signing the naturalization certificate. At this point we were assigned seat numbers and told to take a seat in the auditorium. Eventually, we were given programs which showed that the actual ceremony was to start at 11:00. So we waited and waited. Fortunately the gentlemen seated next to me was a very interesting and pleasant character, so chatting with him helped to pass the time.
At last, the proceedings started. The court was opened and the judge said a few words, someone sang “God Bless America” (why?) and then someone else gave a speech. Finally, we all said the citizenship oath; at which point we officially became U.S. citizens. Then, the pledge of allegiance. We all sang the national anthem and things ended as the new citizens received our certificates.

Once I got home, I changed and went to the license office and registered to vote.

This concludes my immigration blog. All in all, in retrospect, it has been a fairly quick and painless process.