Spain, one mire time

I keep remembering the amazing building we toured in Cordoba, mosque on the outside with a cathedral in the middle.  I was going over my pictures again and found these tow which I think give a little idea of what it was like.  Look to the left in the top picture and you can see the original red and white arches of the mosque, which go on and on, row after row.  We were sitting in the pews when I took this picture, then looked up and took the bottom picture.  Such an amazing contrast to the original flad roofs and rows of columns.

God's not Dead 2

I saw a really good movie today "God's Not Dead 2". A friend recommended it or I probably wouldn't have gone to see it. The movie obviously carries a strong Christian message but not in a hyper emotional way.  The bulk of the story takes place in a courtroom where a public school teacher is on trial for supposedly "preaching about Jesus" in her history class.  The prosecuting attorney was a little too devilish looking for my taste - I don't think that the producers needed to hit us over the head with the fact that he was a greedy opportunist. But all in all it was a good story with a satisfying ending.

the great grape dillema

This weekend I bought refreshments for a meeting scheduled for Monday. Then, for a variety of reasons the meeting was cancelled.  Much of what I bought was packaged or could be frozen and saved for the next meeting in two weeks, but one of the items I bought was two big bags of grapes, one red, one green.  Faced with the prospect of eating grapes morning, noon and night for the next several days, or watching them rot, I decided to take them along to another meeting today, one where we don't usually have refreshments.  Well, surprise, surprise, everyone loves grapes (especially when there's no other option). My grape glut has been taken care of.  As we were leaving after the meeting, one lady, who evidently really loves grapes, said to me "You know, you can freeze grapes. Then eat them frozen and they taste like ice cream." Who knew?  I'll have to buy more grapes to test this out.

holy humor Sunday

On Sunday, during our regular worship services at First Pres, we celebrated Holy Humor Sunday, an ancient Sunday after Easter tradition but new for our church. We had lots of fun; the kids told jokes during the children's sermon time and "the devil" showed up during the sermon.  He claimed to have had a hand in several church related activities over the generations, "Who do you think invented committees?"  My favorite joke of the day: A surgeon, an attorney and a politician were debating what is the oldest profession. The surgeon pointed out that Eve was made from Adam's rib, a surgical procedure.  The attorney said that before Adam and Eve, God brought order out of chaos, obviously a legal maneuver.  But, said the politician "Who do you think created the chaos?"

another kind of walk

I've finished with the recap of my Spain / Portugal trip, at least for now.  I do have 600 more pictures just in case someone would like to see them all some day. This evening I took a different kind of walk.  I was part of a walk from the MLK bridge to our church followed by a very inspirational program commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King's 'mountaintop' speech. There were several inspiring speakers with the special guest being Rev. Dr. C. T. Vivian, now 91 years old, who was on Dr. King's staff for several years and has gone on to do his own work for desegregation, been an adviser to business people and presidents, and a frequent award winner.  Altogether a very moving event attended by at least 200 to 300 people from several different churches in Ft. Wayne.  While I appreciated the warmth and  camaraderie, especially as we all joined hands to sing "We Shall Overcome" I couldn't help wondering what the future holds for the five young black men (apparently teens and pre-teens) sitting in the row in front of me.  They all looked like perfectly nice kids, bright, attentive and well behaved, and yet, statistically, one or more of them will end up dead or in jail before they reach 20.

My favorite city in all of Spain was Barcelona, founded over 2000 years ago by the Romans. I liked it because of the wild variety of architecture among other things. We drove through the "Modernism" section of the city, apartments from the early 1900's, definitely the high rent district. Very ornate street lights, three different architects on one street, one of them Gaudi. Casa Mila was built 1906-1912. "Passa de Gracia", a street from 1906, originally lined with large homes and apartments, now elegant shops, expensive apartments (owned like condos). You can buy one for 2 million euros. I'll keep this in mind when I win the Power Ball. Gaudi, one of the city's most famous architects, said "there are no straight lines in nature", so none in his work. He died in 1926, hit by a tram, never married. Gaudi's park, which was originally intended to be a suburban housing development but no one wanted to live that far out of town, is amazing, very fanciful and fun. Spain is a fun, fanciful country. Everywhere you look things that make you smile.  I'm ignoring the bull fights here. The Church of the Holy Family, Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's final project, is a combination of traditional Gothic, started by another architect, and Gaudi's unique style. Impressive, some beautiful elements, lovely strong sculptures on the front of the building. They expect this church to be finished in ten years. Gaudi is buried in the crypt. I still really like "pure" Gothic.  When asked when the church would be finished Gaudi said "My God is not in a hurry." 1936-1954 nothing done on this church, money ran out.
Olympics were in Barcelona in 1992. Reawakened interest in the city, lots more visitors to church. They have plenty of money to finish it now.  Lots more tourists in general. Olympic athletes stayed on cruise ships, Then Barcelona became a popular cruise stop. An exciting city and a wonderful place to end out trip.

While staying in Barcelona we drove to the monastery on Monserrat (serrated mountain - we might call it saw-tooth mountain - certainly lived up to its name). The Black Madonna is there. Legend says two young boys found the Madonna statue in a cave. Men from the village came to help them carry it down to the town. At one point she got so heavy that they couldn't carry her anymore, decided that was the place she wanted to be and built a Benedictine monastery on the spot. The Romanesque Madonna there now is not the original found by the boys. This Madonna is black because of 400 years of accumulated smoke stains from being in a small space with candles burning constantly. This is considered the most important religious site in Catalonia, one of the five districts of Spain.  Long winding road to the top, almost collided with a car on the way up. Our bus backed up a ways to let it pass. I would have made the car back up but we have a really good driver, Alberto. 80 monks live in the monastery now.  There is a famous boys choir here. Spectacular mountain views going and coming up this mountain. Can't do justice with a camera but here are a few of ,my attempts: