Cathedrals

This is not my first time in Europe, a few years ago My twin brother matthew, my friend Ryan, and I all traveled from london to berlin, stopping in france, italy, austria and other places in germany to see the sights and eat cheap delicious bread and be treated rudely by the french and really quite kindly by the rest of the world. So I've seen a few cathedrals in my day, the cathedral of notre dame in paris, the duomos of florence and milan, a basillica dedicated to saint peter in the vatcan, but no matter how many times you've seen gargantuan and lavishly decorated churches you still have to stand and wonder when you walk in and look up at the ceiling hundreds of feet above, the wood carvings as large as small houses, enclosing pipe organs whose arrangement is in itself a work of inspired creativity, the pulpits with images of biblical stories depicted with gold and silver and all around people of the worlds most advanced age wondering at the things that we have lost.
Interesting things about this cathedral. It was all about the benjamins (money), no surprise there. As in the mequita of cordoba, wealthy families would pay probably vast sums of money to be able to secure for themselves small sections of the cathedral for their own personal sanctuaries. The arrangement of these sections were like small chapels with a pulpit and grand art work, but they also served as a burial ground. As a caveat I have never understood peoples obsession with the meat left over when they pass on. Whatever is eternal and unique in each person is not kept in their fingernails or hair which will soon be devoured by creatures with twelve cell nervous systems, so paying absurd sums of money to protect a shell of ones self seems like a poor investment. Better to spend it on something that might affect the part of you that's eternal by enriching your life which is marked by the presence of a soul or your life's affect on others which is souls reciprocally affecting one another. But I'm off on an opinionated tangent, the point I meant to make is people with money could own what they desired, the church, the state, other human beings which is and was terrible but resulted in some of the most beautiful architecture and artwork ever commissioned. So its another mixture, a hypocrisy, something else to keep things interesting.
At the end of the tour we climbed thirty flights of stairs to the top of the tower known as the giralda and looked down on the city and we felt like the angels carved into the tower, looking down on the city and appreciating how hard it is to see beyond the wall in front of you when you are confined to the ground. Maybe this was a taste of the clarity with which god sees the world, the whole picture at once with the knowledge that everything fits together like a puzzle, but even with clarity of height I found myself nostalgic for the ground, the big picture is too vast. I'd rather let god handle that.

Thanks for the valentines day wishes from mom (I love you too, and don't say it enough) and Grandma (thanks also for the pictures, you live in a meteorological wacky land), Sorry i use this blog to reply rather than with email, I get easily sidetracked from emails but i will try to be better. Happy belated valentines day to all those I did not talk to. I hope everyone is well and felt loved that day.
My next entry will deal with the city of Ronda. Take care, I love you guys and will be in touch again soon. (Pictures are coming.)