Our Visit to Cordoba, Spain

In early June Laurel and I met up with my mom, dad, and sister for a 10-day visit to southern Spain. What I learned about and saw during our short time there was so surprising I needed more time to process before writing on it. Now that we're fairly settled into Tennessee I'm starting to reenter the news cycle again, and the current controversy over the siting of Cordoba House, the proposed Muslim community center and prayer space, near New York's Ground Zero reminded me that I still owed myself (and others?) some reflection on our brief time in Cordoba, Spain.

Our rental car's GPS passive agressively guided us the "direct" (wrong) way down one-way narrow streets in the city's historic center before encouraging us with a chuckle to drive over what seemed to be a small pedestrian plaza to our hotel. Huh: a broad, tree-lined street seemed to lead to our destination as well, but what fun would that have been? After unloading the luggage, we struck out on middle-of-the-day, searingly sunny march for lunch and to get what my dad refers to as a "lay of the land." We made it a few hundred yards before tucking into some tapas, some of our best yet of the trip: rabo del toro (ox-tail roasted tender) was a delicious specialty.

By a stroke of luck, that evening we watched a full-scale public procession from the Cathedral to the center square commemorating Corpus Christi, a Christian holiday celebration for which Cordoba is known. Rosemary, sage, and lavender scattered thickly along the parade route stirred up a rich citrus-y aroma as on-lookers peeked from balconies decorated with hand-painted tasseled silk scarves. Patios, also of Cordoban renown, beckoned from behind iron-grilled gates or appeared suddenly upon turning up a quiet alley -- their potted flowers reflected in the surface of cool gurgling water fountains.

The next morning we entered the Mezquita, the principal tourist attraction of this Andalusian town. Spanish for "mosque," the Mezquita symbolizes and embodies to this day the tension between and the fusion of Christianity and Islam. What a sight it is: Quiet, dark, low-ceilinged intimate space and stretch-to-infinity Moorish arches supported by delicate columns greet us as we enter. Suddenly, in the center of this peaceful labyrinth, a blindingly white, soaring-roofed, Baroque-ly loud and triumphant cathedral appears, stitched seamlessly into the mosque's arches. You got it: not a cathedral built over a mosque built over a church (a dime a dozen throughout southern Spain), but a cathedral built within a mosque built over a church. Regardless of the architectural mixed messages, since the Reconquista victory in 1236 the Catholic Church has treated the sacred space as unambiguously Christian.

In this place history's interpretation matters. After local Muslims expressed an interest recently to resume Friday prayer here, the Catholic Diocese of Cordoba responded with a glossy marketing display emphasizing that "the Cathedral of Cordoba is not simply a monument or a temple of different cultures; nor is it a mosque, but the Mother Church of the Diocesis." In other words: no.

But there is more to a history including a small Visigothic church at this site, its destruction at the hands of the Moors and the subsequent construction of the third largest mosque in the world during the Caliphate of Cordoba, and its Christian co-optation by King Ferdinand III as the Christians marched steadily south, eventually completing the "reconquest" of Spain over the Moors in Granada in 1492. In the twelfth century, while under Moorish rule, Cordoba was the largest city in Europe, the first with lighted streets and indoor plumbing, and producer of some of the finest minds of the Middle Ages, including the great Jewish and Muslim philosophers Maimonides and Averroes.

This period of Moorish religious tolerance and blossoming civilization inspired the developers of the proposed Islamic prayer space and community center to name the project "Cordoba House." While I don't profess to know the ins and outs of the current controversy over the siting of this center so close to Ground Zero, I believe strongly in the potential of the peoples of the Book (Jews, Christians and Muslims) to find much common ground in their overlapping faiths and to build great things from this shared foundation. It happened in Cordoba once. And the Mezquita's Islamic-Christian architecture may one day herald the way ahead: from pain and conquest to dialogue and reconciliation.

Why I Just Walked 72 Miles

Joined by our good friends Matt and Molly, Laurel and I spent the last five days walking the final 72 miles of the Camino de Santiago, a medieval pilgrimage route in northern Spain to the traditional site of St. James' final resting place (the story of how he got there from the Middle East, which involved a stone boat, is worth a read!)

As you can imagine, we had a lot of time for thinking, so I spent some of the time pondering the question, "Why am I doing this?!" The coolness factor, for starters: when else will I walk 69 miles in 4 days and 21 miles in one day ever again? Good bragging material, clearly. As a goal-oriented Western experience collector, there was a specific goal and (thankfully) good signage that led to a successful arrival at our destination.

Then there's the pragmatic rationalization: since I'm soon to begin seminary and aspire to become an Episcopal priest, I figured it would be helpful as I imagined how far Jesus walked from the Sea of Galilee to the Jordan River by Jericho to be baptized. Practical, right?

We figured it would be fun to travel with Matt and Molly, and it was. The four of us hadn't really factored in how the my-foot-is-about-to-explode pain might detract from the fun quotient, however.

Of course, there was something else larger than these reasons and less tangible, more mysterious. For more than 1000 years people have walked far greater distances than our measly 116 km for penance, for hope, in faith. Pilgrims packed Santiago's cathedral at the end of the journey for the daily Mass, sitting at the base of columns, standing everywhere, beyond tired and still searching for something even as we realized this particular quest was over. We yearned for a ritual that would preserve the spirit of this experience and guide us in a new direction.

We head to Ireland for 9 days tomorrow, and then we will be home in San Diego for only a few days before driving to Tennessee to begin seminary. It too will be cool, practical, and fun (hopefully free from foot pain, though) -- but it also involves a larger, longer, and more mysterious search for Home.

The Monkey Ate My Poncho

We just waved goodbye to my mom, dad, and sister after a 10-day visit to southern Spain and Portugal. Seven hundred years of Moorish (Islamic) rule in the region left a fascinating mark that remains startingly relevant today. I hope to share more soon as I process it all.

Our day trip to the rock of Gibraltar proved easier to digest. In the eighteenth century War of the Spanish Succession, Spain granted the infamous rocky northern gateway of the Mediterranean to Great Britain, only to quickly regret the decision. The UK has held on tenaciously since to the mile-long, 1400-foot high chunk of limestone from the top of which can be seen two oceans and two continents. It's definitely the best view around, and it comes with monkeys! About 200 Barbary Macaques live on the top of the rock, and tradition has it that as long as the primates remain, so will the British. That explains why the local government feeds them, besides their oh-so-cute-and-novel attractiveness to tourists.

Signs all around the viewpoint state very clearly that we're not supposed to feed the monkeys. No problem. We just wanted to take pictures with them. They're photogenic little buggers, seeming to enjoy the attention and posing with studied aloofness. I snapped some shots, then started listening to the audioguide from the highest point in the area while two monkeys dozed on the guard rails. The introductory video again warns of impending doom and a 500-euro fine if you feed the monkeys, and that they've been known to steal food from tourists' backpacks. Whatever, I thought. I'm smarter than a monkey. Besides, these two nearby couldn't have looked more bored and disinterested.

I realized I felt a bit cold for the first time in days, so I slipped off one strap of my backpack, slid it in front of me, and pulled out a windbreaker while listening to the audioguide's history section. Then I set the pack on the ground so I could pull the jacket over my head, but as I let go of the strap I see out of the corner of my eye a monkey three feet away and closing in fast. Realizing he'd been spotted he lunged for the open backpack in the half second I spent in shock. He yanked out my plastic poncho, apparently thinking there was food inside of it, while I wondered if I should try to start a pulling contest with a monkey. Fortunately, he moved a foot away to munch through the balled up layers of plastic, giving me a more comfortable space to slide the pack away...

...right into the next monkey, which had also been "sleeping" just moments before. This guy hit the jackpot, because beneath my poncho was an orange that he snagged with ease (and I swear a snicker, but I was feeling pretty paranoid at this point).

Smart enough now to know I needed to pick up my backpack before some other monkey parachuted in from goodness knows where, I look up to see dozens of wide-eyed tourists watching me -- but mostly filming me for their family videos. I quickly hid in a corner to nurse my monkey-bitten ego. Trust me, it doesn't feel good to be outwitted by an evolutionary antecedent. (And it brought back that painful memory of being beaten in chess by a 6-year old I was babysitting while at Stanford...)

The mastermind of the one-two monkey punch got little for his efforts but a mouthful of plastic, which he spit out and waited in consternation for his buddy to share some orange with him. But the co-conspirator selfishly wolfed down just about the whole thing and left quite a mess of peels behind. While I'm usually good about picking up trash, particularly my own, something in me refused to pick up the rest of the orange. Apparently, the monkeys are smart, so they should learn how a trash can works.

As we walked over to St. Michael's Cave, immortalized in Homer as the entrance to the Underworld, we soon watch in disbelief as monkeys jump onto unsuspecting tourists' backs to try to open their bags, while others climbed on cars and hung on to the side windows even after the cars started driving. That would have been helpful information about 15 minutes earlier. So take it from me: never turn your back on a sleeping monkey!