Earthly Pleasures in Kraków: Vanilla cones and vows (#447)

I was walking along a cobbled street in the heart of Kraków, half tourist and half daydreamer, when the scene unfolded.

It was one of those soft afternoons when the light seems to linger on everything.

On the stone facades. On the tram wires overhead. On the small clusters of people drifting between cafés and churches.

A busker a block away was playing something vaguely familiar on an accordion.

The air smelled of coffee, caramel, and city dust.

And then I saw them.

Four nuns, in full habit, walking in a neat line. Each one held a vanilla ice cream cone, tilted at just the right angle so the sun brushed the top of the scoop. Their steps were measured, but their faces were not. Their faces were lit up.

They were laughing. Not loudly, but unmistakably delighted.

One of them took an enthusiastic lick, then leaned slightly toward the others, saying something that made them all laugh again.

Another tilted her cone, inspecting the melting edge with the seriousness of someone evaluating a fine wine.

As they moved down the street, they paused in front of a fashion boutique.

Behind the glass stood headless mannequins in sharp silhouettes. Sleek black dresses, tailored coats, improbably high stilettos.

The nuns, still holding their ice creams, leaned in to look. They pointed to a dress, then to a pair of boots, and smiled in that knowing, wordless way shared by people who understand more than they might ever buy.

That was when the phrase floated into my mind, uninvited and completely right:

Earthly pleasures.

Not said with judgment. Not as a critique. Simply as a description.

Four nuns, savoring ice cream and window-shopping in Kraków. A small tableau of joy lodged itself in my memory.

What We Expect to See

We carry quiet assumptions about certain people.

We expect monks and nuns to be severe and ascetic, existing somewhere slightly above the ground, closer to heaven than to the mess and sweetness of daily life.

We imagine them in cloisters, not in ice cream queues.

In prayer stalls, not paused thoughtfully in front of a window display featuring red leather handbags.

And yet, here they were, being as human as anyone else on that busy street.

There was something profoundly disarming about that. Not because nuns shouldn’t enjoy ice cream, but because the moment revealed how quickly we put other people in narrow boxes.

We compress entire lives into an image.

A uniform. A role. A stereotype.

Then you see one of those boxes gently crack open under the pressure of something as simple as vanilla ice cream, and you realize how flimsy the box always was.

The Theology of a Cone

If you were to write a theological treatise on ice cream, you might begin with this:

An ice cream cone is gloriously temporary.

You must be present for it.

Ice cream insists on now.

Wait too long, and it melts down your fingers and onto the pavement.

You cannot hoard it.

You cannot keep it for later.

You must lean in, commit, and taste.

There is something almost sacramental about that. This focus on the immediate. On the here and now.

The nuns on that Kraków street were not rejecting their vows or their spiritual lives by enjoying those cones.

If anything, they seemed to embody them. Gratitude. Simplicity. Presence.

A quiet delight in something small and unremarkable.

Earthly pleasures has sometimes been used as a warning label. Things to be avoided if one is serious, disciplined, spiritual, or ambitious.

But that afternoon, the words took on a different meaning for me. Not as temptation, but as texture. The texture of a human life.

We are bodies and souls, thoughts and taste buds. We are drawn to beauty in stained-glass windows and in tailor-made coats behind polished glass. We can kneel in a church and still appreciate a well-cut dress. There is no contradiction unless we insist on one.

Desire, Distance, and the Window

The detail that stayed with me most was not the ice cream. It was the way they looked through the shop windows.

They didn’t rush past. They didn’t turn away as if the clothes inside were somehow off-limits, radioactive, or morally dangerous. They also didn’t fling open the door and rush inside, credit cards in hand. They simply stood on the outside, observing. With curiosity. Maybe with appreciation. Maybe with amusement.

Desire can be complicated. We’re used to it being either indulged or suppressed, especially in a consumer culture where the primary instruction is:

If you want it and can afford it

(or can borrow enough to afford it)

buy it.

The nuns’ posture suggested something else. The ability to notice and appreciate without needing to possess. To enjoy the look of a coat or the elegance of a dress and then continue walking, content with what you already carry.

They were participating in the moment fully. Sharing laughter. Savoring ice cream. Watching the shifting theater of street life and window displays. Without being captured by it.

Isn’t that a healthier relationship with earthly pleasures than either anxious denial or unthinking indulgence?

What the Moment Asked of Me

I realized, walking behind them, that I was being invited into something too.

Not into religious life, but into a different way of seeing.

Could I enjoy simple pleasures without turning them into distractions or trophies?

Could I let small delights interrupt my internal monologue about work and worries?

Could I notice the world around me. A song drifting from a side street. The tilt of late-afternoon light on cobblestones. Four nuns laughing over melting vanilla. And let those things puncture my self-importance?

Earthly pleasures need not be grand or expensive. They can be an ice cream cone, a shared joke, a slow walk on an ordinary afternoon in Kraków.

They can be the moment when someone you’ve silently placed on a pedestal, steps down and joins you on the same level, reminding you that no one is beyond the reach of a good dessert and a friendly conversation.

A Quiet Blessing on a Kraków Street

The scene passed as quickly as any other street moment. The nuns finished their ice creams, moved on, and disappeared into the crowd.

But long after they vanished, the feeling stayed. A kind of quiet blessing.

Kraków is a city of layers. Medieval walls, Renaissance facades. Baroque churches. Modern cafés. And the unresolved shadows of history.

Amid all that, four women in habits, savoring ice cream and admiring shop windows, managed to say something wordless about being alive.

They reminded me that spirituality is not an escape from the world but a way of being more deeply present within it.

Restraint doesn’t have to mean joylessness.

Vows of simplicity do not cancel out laughter, or sweetness, or curiosity about a pair of stylish boots.

We are all, in the end, walking down some busy street, between our duties and our desires, our beliefs and our appetites, trying to figure out how to be fully human.

On that day in Kraków, four nuns showed me one gentle answer:

Walk with friends.

Lick the ice cream before it melts.

Admire the dress in the window without needing to own it.

And when the words earthly pleasures come to mind, let them arrive not as condemnation, but as a quiet reminder to savor this strange, beautiful, temporary world while we’re still here to taste it.

Postscript

I took a photo as they walked away. I'm so happy I did!

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