From The Corn Maze

“You shall be my witness…My ambassador,”  What a grand offer from a grand God.  If you were to meet God today, how might the meeting go?  I imagine it would be warm, kind, and helpful. I would be grateful we met.  This is my job, my witness, my ambassadorship.  I am to be God to all I meet today.  We are tramping around Spain, mostly driving around the countryside but every day we end up in a city, a madhouse of tiny streets, thousands of signs all in a foreign language, and the whole thing laid out in what can best be described as a corn maze, complete with thousands of scooters, cars and buses.  It can be overwhelming that you just want to stop the car, get out, and throw up your hands in surrender.  However, invariably we meet all kinds of witnesses that help us to fit in, get where we’re going, and many who keep us out of where we shouldn’t be going, the wrong way.  The Spanish are not overly friendly, don’t naturally look you in the eye, but we have found, like all people the world over, that people are helpful.  This is God in them, the same God in me, the one He wants us to meet, the one who makes that offer to me every day.  Go meet my people.  From Santiago, Spain. lee  

Betty in the Plaza of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela

 

 

412 Steps

The Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage trail I have longed to walk, but I had become too ancient before I ever learned of it.  We will drive along its route today ending at the Cathedral de Santiago Compostela, the traditional burial site of St. James and the terminus of the trail.  A pilgrimage is not an act of one's body as much as one of one’s soul.  Today, Lord, Christ Jesus, we pilgrimage with You as we seek to on every day.  But let this be a meaningful day, one reserved for the three of us, together, alone, going with our Father, God.  Going with God.  Amen.  From early morning, leaving Bilboa, our soul set to the trail.  Lee 

PS: Yesterday we walked 412 steps on the Camino ending in the plaza.  It was a grand day.  We also saw the swinging of the censor in the Cathedral.  I had seen a video of it years ago, but didn’t know it was here until we walked in and saw the censor hanging from the dome.  God is good.  All the time.  God is good.  

 

Sunday Morning Coming Down

We left Loarre at sunrise, and the trip through the Pyrenees mountains was stunning and all alone ours.  Through great rock mountains and then opening into vast valleys of fertile wealth.  Wheat in abundance and deep yellowed fields of flowering rapeseed.  Rothko would have laid down his brushes.  The dry and arid spaces of east, central Spain were replaced with green mountain landscapes reminiscent of Switzerland and Austria.  By midday we eased into Bilbao to spend our whole Sunday afternoon at the Gunngihiem.  Two seminal works, Serra’s piece “The Matter of Time”, and a massive wall piece, “Rising Sea” by Ei Anatsui were worth the ticket.  Also, “Infinity, Mirrored Room, A Wish for Human Happiness Calling from Beyond the Universe” by Yayoi Kusama, an emersive experience of infinte space was meaningful.  

We ended our sabbath with prayers At St Jose of Montana church in downtown Bilbao, and an online message from my brother at his church in the foothills of Appalachia.  Sunday morning coming down from Bilbao Spain. lee  

I am the guy way in the back with his hand on the wall.

Always Seeking Shelter

We have moved north to Loarre, a small village in the foothills of the Pyrenees.  Loarre is famous for its castle, sitting higher on the hill above us.  There is a windstorm on.  Our small home wheezes and shudders but is warm, solid, and quiet.  Today we will travel further north. Over the Pyrenees, to Pamplona, famous for the running of the bulls,  and then on to Bilbao, famous for Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim, which we will visit today.  It has a world-class contemporary sculpture collection.  

We tramp around, poking here and there, one lane roads and narrower tiny village streets old as Rome itself.  If Spain is anything, it is ancient.  Western Europe was built in stone, and those relics still lie as ruins across the landscape.  I imagine meeting those who stood looking at what they had built, often a tiny hamlet, but a fortress against nature, which even now blows against me.  Humans build shelter.  We are in the same process ourselves, our home being built away in Beulah Land, a small hamlet at the end of a narrow lane.  We live in common efforts, shelter, safety, warmth.  From Loarre.  Lee 

Our place is down this narrow street to the left.

 

Coming out of the Pyrenees.

 

Soli Deo Gloria

Betty cried.  I cried. 

I texted our children.   “The most exuberant expressions of humanity worldwide are for our LORD.  Hot tears and prayers from us both.  To God be the glory. It just breaks you down. Undoes you.  What must heaven be like?”

The Sagrada Familia.  Our daughter Sarah has been here twice and haltingly tried to express it to us.  

My expression; humans longing to express our deepest gratitude, the essence of who we are in relationship with God through Christ, are exquisite works of our hands.  Soli Deo Gloria.   

   

 

University of Tennessee to Sagrada Familia

Barcelona.  We arrived mid-afternoon yesterday.  Here to see and visit the Sagrada Familia.  I first saw Gaudí’s Cathedral in Art History 40 years ago and knew one day I would come to see it.  University of Tennessee’s Art History did two things for me: renewed my faith in Christ Jesus with stunning visuals, and set my path to see it all.  So here we are, 40 years and 4488 miles later.  I sit in a single room in an Airbnb, with a bed, a desk, a light, and a stool, 10 meters from the cathedral, thinking how far He has brought me.  God is good. God is great.  Let us thank Him.   

Go Vols.

The star was lit last night.

  

 

Starbeings

We are all star people, racing around a planet, around a star, around a galaxy, racing away toward The Great Light. 

Yesterday I was baptized in humans in airports and airplanes.  My lover and I, star people, with other star people jetting around the heavens like cosmic travelers on epic journeys.  We travel horde-like, hysteria, slowly grouping, lining up, ordered, placed, instructed, buckled in, now an army in a starship.  It is as close to divine as we have been able to come, beaming around the earth in silver tubes at warp speed; eating nuts.  

I am now sitting quietly in Spain, my lover sleeps.  I just now hear the morning birds, the original star beings, and I smile.  We are all made to fly, starbeings, divine, eternal, living a magic so wonderful as to be holy.  Oh, the eternal holiness that is ours for the asking.  Lord, give us eyes to see we can fly!!!   

Strapped into our starship.

My quiet room with the starbirds.