Barcelona

 Eleventh Monday after Pentecost

Lectionary Texts: 

Monday:

2 Samuel 17

John 6:35-40

Psalm 130 (UMH 848)

Tuesday:

2 Samuel 18:1-8

6:41-47

 

Many thanks to Nell Laton for being the only one to tell me she has read all 400+ blogs. Great goin' Nell.

It's Monday travelogue day. Today we go to another center of the world place, Barcelona. It's my second favorite city in the world, next only to Paris. It's a city full of life and full of beauty. The population is about 2,000,000. There are beautiful beaches on the Mediterranean on the south end of the city. 

The city itself bears the mark of one man, one of the greatest architects who ever lived, Antoni Gaudi (1852-1957). Spectacular, surrealistic Gaudi houses and a couple of Gaudi hotels are scattered around the city. There is one whole Gaudi subdivision. 

 

But the most spectacular Gaudi work of all, which is also number one on my top ten lists of churches is Sagrada Familia (Holy Family). It quite literally towers above the city. When completed in 2027, there will be 26 towers, all sizes, the tallest about 600 feet. The style is all Gaudi, somewhere between heaven and earth. All the towers have steps, the tallest have elevators. 

The interior of the church has stained glass windows the likes of which you would have never believed. The sun through these windows produces streams of color in the air, different at different times of day and different times of year. The only colors we normally see in the air are no color at all or the gray of fog or smog, or the black of smoke. The air inside Sagrada Familia may be lime green, or bright orange, or purple, or deep red, or light yellow, or tawny yellow, or bright blue--different colors in different parts of the church. Remember, I'm talking about the actual air, not reflections off the stonework or the colors of the windows. I've never seen anything like it.

 

Construction began in the 1890's. Once it started, Gaudi did nothing else the rest of his life. He lived in the church and kept on working on it. Work was suspended during the World Wars and much of the Fascist regime of Frederico Franco. Work is still going on, especially now on the remaining towers. Completion is scheduled for 2027, a hundred and thirty years after it was begun.

 

A mile or two away is one of, if not the, most fascinating street in the world, La Ramblas. A wide two lane street with an extensive median section, the Ramblas is full of life. The center section has many outdoor cafes and bars selling the Catalan national drink, Sangria--best you ever tasted, also the most expensive you ever tasted. On one side of the Ramblas is a vast covered market with just about everything you could imagine to eat, all fresh. Cafes are interspersed throughout. The market goes on and on. 

In the median of the Ramblas are many statues. Well, you think they are statues until you get close. They are actually humans covered in a plaster-like substance that makes them look like statues. They can hold a pose for an hour without the slightest movement.

The Ramblas is always bustling with people. The people are always happy. The Ramblas is life.

Barcelona has a long running struggle with Spain.The whole northeastern section of Spain is called Catalonia. Barcelona is its capital. The language is Catalan, not Spanish. Signs are in three languages, Catalan on top, English in the middle, and Spanish on the bottom. We were last there in October of 2017 with friends and blog readers Kin and Vicki Church. Demonstrations for Catalonian independence from Spain were going on city wide. All the demonstrators were very nice to us. We had dinner that first night at a sidewalk cafe on the town square right across from our hotel. One demonstration was going on just down the block. There were helicopters hovering over us during the entire time we were eating. It was strange indeed. There had been a general strike with just about everything closed, including schools, that day.  The next all was back to normal. By the following weekend we had figured out the customs. Demonstrations occurred over the weekend. During the week everything was back to normal. The Catalonian side demonstrated one weekend; the continued unity with Spain side demonstrated the next weekend. Our hotel had a rooftop bar with great views of a good chunk of the city.

Catalan in spoken throughout the Catalonian region of Spain. It is also the national language of the small country of Andorra, between Spain and France. There are more native speakers of Catalan that of either Norwegian or Finnish.

Barcelona is surrounded on three sides by hills/mountains. For those of you from the Wilkesboros, it's like your foothills. There are outdoor rooftop restaurants scattered through these hills, all with spectacular views of this beautiful city. There is a museum dedicated to the works of the twentieth century artist, Joan Miro atop one of these hills. Miro was Catalonian. The Nasher Museum at Duke had an exhibition of his works about eight years ago. Marianne still wears the t-shirt. Pablo Picasso lived in Barcelona for a couple of his teen years. 

I'll never forget the opening of the telecasts of the 1992 Summer Olympics, which were at Barcelona. It was a moving picture taken from a plane descending toward and over Sagrada Familia with all the lights of the city as far as you could see. 

God of the Cities,

We give you thanks for the life and work of Antoni Gaudi, for his total dedication to the gospel of Christ and his proclaiming that faith through the most beautiful church in the world. Amen.

Faithfully,

Christian