FROGLEGS

Everytime I go to Barcelona, I come back feeling refreshed and ready to take on the world. I don’t really know why that is. Maybe I feel even stronger that where I live now is really where I need to be, what I am going is what I need to be doing… I dunno. That may be seen as a veiled dig at Barcelona… and it probably is. Barcelona is a beautiful city, it really is. There is such variety of people, of architecture, of cuisine, of attractions. But that just isn’t my thing. I want to be able to have my barrio that is full of my people, not a mish-mash of tourists. No offense to anyone who lives in Barcelona. It is a great city with lots of fantastic features. It just isn’t for me.

A friend from Sevilla, Rúben, came with me. He’s going out with a lady who lives in Barcelona, I figured that he’d be up for coming along, so I asked him about 2 months ago. I am really glad I did. He was a real laugh, kept telling me that the seminar I gave was really good (is that me being vain??) and it was great to hang out with him and some of his friends from Barcelona. We had some good food, fun late night walks and great conversation.

I have NO idea what was going through my head at this point. This is what happens when people take pictures and you aren’t aware. You end up making stupid faces. The lady I am talking to is named Tatiana, she’s from Bulgaria and she basically told me she wanted to start a Boiler Room for Okupas. Okupas are politically active (or supposedly so) anarchists who work out their philosophy by property squatting. She feels called to them and really wants to start her own “Casa Okupa”, but with a Christian spin. She started saying that she wanted to involve music, prayer and social action in one house, but she wasn’t really sure if these things could go together or she was just nuts. I laughed and told her I thought she might be on to something. She doesn’t even know what a Boiler Room is or what it could imply, but she’s dreaming! The pic to the right was taken in “La-Lanzadera’s” classroom just after my seminar.

My goal for the seminar was to:

1. Give a historical background for what we popularly term “post-modern” thought, behaviour and world view.

2. Give the attendees permission to dream outside of their current frame of reference (otherwise known as “the box”).

3. Share a few ways to be able to share truth with young people that seem to be devoid of firm values, beliefs and truths.

I think I did all those.

After the seminar, Rúben, his girlfriend Silvia and I went out with a few more friends to a nice Syrian restaurant and ate, drank and talked late into the night. The staff ended up throwing us out of the place when we failed to heed several indirect hints that they would like it if we squared up and left. Whoops!

Then the next morning Rúben and I got up RIDICULOUSLY early to go out and take a walk with Silvia. It was well worth it, but boy was I tired as a result. The Ramblas is the central boulevard in Barcelona with a load of shops and street performers set up everywhere. Rúben and I took a picture with a golden rapper. Rúben looks reasonable cool, while I have NO idea what the heck I am doing.

A few hours later we were back on an airplane…

I’m heading up north on Tuesday afternoon with a friend named Rúben. I’m going to be teaching on Evangelism and Discipleship in a Post-Modern context in a youth ministry school that some friends run up there. Should be a good time. If you pray, pray for safe travel, my teaching prep and that I’d get over a nagging cold.

…cause really I didn’t have the guts to come out and say over a week ago that I was pretty sure Ratzinger would be the next pope. But I’ve been saying since John Paul II died that Ratzinger was a show in. Aside from what I said in my last post, I am really excited by a few things that have come out in the past hour:

1. Check out what Ratzinger said as he addressed the crowd in St. Paul’s Square:

“Dear brothers and sisters after the great Pope, John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me, a simple and humble worker in the Lord’s vineyard. The fact that the Lord can work and act even with insufficient means consoles me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers”

Good stuff!

2. His choice of name: Benedict XVI

For those of you that aren’t up on papal history… Popes that choose that name are usually seeking to emulate Saint Benedict of Nursia, grandfather of modern monasticism from whom the Benedictine Order gets its name. As well as founding the largest monastic order in the history of the world, he is also credited with greatly contributing to evangelization of Europe. Commentators on spanish TV are saying that this choice of name means that Ratzinger (or should I say Benedict XVI??? What is up with the name changes? Confusing.) will put an emphasis on the revitalization of the church in Europe and the evangelization of the continent where the church is dying the fastest.

C’MON!!! More on the new pope later. Go to Amazon.com and take a look at some of his books. Interesting titles.

The passing of Pope John Paul II seems to be sending some pretty big tremors through the Catholic Church. I’m not entirely sure that is a bad thing as my personal opinion is that a bit of shaking up is exactly what is needed. Heck, we could all use some ruffling of the feathers periodically! I came across two things today that give me a real sense of hope and expectation for what is to come in the Church. The first came from Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the Vatican’s chief theologian and a cardinal that some are saying may be elected as the next Pope. Keeping in mind who he is, the quote I read from him today is even more mindblowing:

“We might have to part with the notion of a popular Church. It is possible that we are on the verge of a new era in the history of the Church, under circumstances very different from those we have faced in the past, when Christianity will resemble the mustard seed [Matthew 13:31-32], that is, will continue only in the form of small and seemingly insignificant groups, which yet will oppose evil with all their strength and bring Good into this world.”

Sounds startlingly familiar… Has he been reading certain peoples‘ blogs? Or is God just sovereignly doing something? Probably the latter. I doubt Ratzinger’s seen a computer in his life!!! Although it is dangerout to underestimate those older folk.

It is a scary day when you discover that what you live on a daily basis is what some would say is a prototype for the future of the largest collective church in the world. I’m not sure whether to cheer or go crawl in a hole and hide.

Following on from that I read this FANTASTIC article about an Irish priest that has been working in the Philipines for the past 30 years. I would love to sit down and talk with this guy… Here are a couple soundbites:

“I think that the emphasis now on evangelisation and mission has to be more to reach out to people in the grass-roots and people who are suffering in prison…”

“The church as an institution is always a big problem… It is not so much the individual leaders, who are like Pope John Paul – a totally committed and dedicated man. We do have problems, of course, in the institutions where there is less of an involvement in the basic social work and dealing with the victims of human rights violations, of AIDS and of child sexual abuse… The church could do more to take a stand on behalf of victims of human rights in a global way….”

Fr Shay Cullen said he doubted if he would enter the church if he was considering a vocation now.

“Jesus never wanted a church. He never talked about a big institution. What would Jesus do today? I don’t think he would take up residence in the Vatican. He would still be out on the dusty roads and down in the markets and on the radio and the TV, trying to get his message out.”

I doubt he’ll be getting very many votes for Pope… But I’d vote for him!!!

So much has happened since the last time I wrote here. From the Saturday when my Mom left Sevilla until now, life has gone from hectic to frantic! I won’t bore you with the details… Needless to say life is busy and, although I am tired, it is happy too. A brief summary of life’s happenings in the last week:

Heather is really beginning to show the fact that she is pregnant. Her belly is starting to stick out and make it difficult for her to get through tight spaces. She’s still pretty thin, she just has an increasingly large bump in the middle (see picture to the left). We’re coming closer to agreement on a name… but that will stay shrouded in secrecy until we see the little tyke’s face and are sure that she is what we think she is. It’s a strange Spanish thing that I find a strange affinity with. You just don’t name the baby until you see the face. You have to SEE that the baby’s name goes with who they are. Having said that, there must be a lot of “Jesús”, “Maria” and “José” looking people in Spain… Sheesh! They all seem to go with some variation of those three…

I felt the baby kick this week. WOW! All the more real… All the more exciting… All the more frightening. The second time I felt her was when she made a rather well-placed kick in my ear… She’s not even been born and she’s already abusing me. Great.

This past weekend we had a wonderful visit with a couple that are studying at the YWAM discipleship course in Madrid. Robyn and Shmuel (that’s Samuel, but spelt phonetically from the Hebrew spelling) are from Michigan and are looking for a place to “land” in Spain. Maybe here will be a good place? If the weekend is any indication, then it probably is. We enjoyed hosting them and showing them around the city, introducing them to friends and getting to know them better. They’re off to Morocco in a week or so on outreach.

I’ve also been doing all the shopping and most of the cooking for everyone in the house. I enjoy it as it keeps me active and thinking about something other than the 18th century, church and 24-7prayer… But it does take up a lot of time. Just the way things are at the moment. I am sure someone will leave an all-wise comment about this only being the pre-cursor to life with a baby in the house. Thanks in advance!

The Pope died this week as well. For some great reading about him, the Catholic Church and how to pray click here.

Even typing is getting tiresome. I’m going to go watch some football!