Jesus the
Thirsty. That’s the name of a street I walk on often. It’s just a side street
that happens to connect my avenue (Cruz del Campo, probably named after the
giant brewery at the end of it…). On the corner of
Cruz del Campo and Jesus the
Thirsty (Cristo el Sed), there’s a decently large church.
I get that
Spain is a Catholic country. I understand that there is no chance of me eating
meat in the next 4 months. But beyond that, I didn’t think about religion here
too much after that. Then I got to my house and was greeted by La Virgen who
looks down on me when I come home at 4 am. She’s a mosaic in the driveway. The
Jesus mosaic is on the patio, naturally. My senora says that her Mary mosaic is
the only one with blue eyes in all of Sevilla. What a curious thing to brag
about.
My host
parents never pushed me on explaining why I was that vegetarian who ate fish
but not squid. Spaniards generally aren’t too nosey about others. Sure, they
gossip from one house, each woven to the next by a clothesline and audible by a
decibal above a whisper. But, they are not pushy (except for the gypsies by the
Cathedral, but sevillanos don’t seem to love gypsies really). Even with that
buggy 25% unemployment (“paro” is an important vocab word here), there are very
few beggers. They just don’t get up in your business.
Until you’re
calmly eating your third fishstick and your roommate isn’t around for dinner
and you find yourself under a Spanish inquisition of the inquisitive type: “So,
you don’t eat meat because you’re Jewish. Are pigs holy? Did you know they are
actually really clean animals?”
And then the
big one, “So what do you think of Jesucristo?”
Uhhh.
Awkward spoon drop here. Glass clinks. The news reporter on TV even seems to be
quiet, waiting for the perfect diplomatic and valid answer, automatically
invalidated by an indoctrinated country.
I explain
that I see Jesus as more of a holy man, a prophet, but not the end-all-be-all
of messianic thought. And for me, religion is about values, community, and
heritage.
But I
explain that in Spanish. So it was probably translated as “He’s like, a great
guy, maybe a ‘prophet,’ but not really, como se dice, ‘the messiah’? Anyway, I
like Judaism for community also past and traditional experience so, I’ll pass
on the pork, but thank you. Really for me, it’s about being a good person,
that’s what’s important.”
Grammatic
flawlessness. Wow. I should probably run the UN’s interfaith communications
committee - I’m basically a religious diplomacy experta.
Ha. More awkward glass clinking noises. Luis
Manuel: “Estefania, eres una buena chica.”
Maybe he was
thinking “but you’re not going to be saved ever,” but I doubt it. I think he’s a
good person too.
Two days
later, I’m spending my afternoon in a cathedral and hotdamn, it’s sparkly in
there. Glimmering altars, gilded chairs, marble columns extending to skylit
domes of shining stained glass in a million colors. A baptism fountain the size
of a birdbath for an ostrich. More than 3000 pieces of artwork from Goya,
Velazquez, and all the Spanish greats. The altar the princess of Spain was
married on, right next to the confirmed ruins of Cristobal Colon (how we call
him Christopher Columbus? No se.)
I’m
undoubtedly stunned, awed, marveling at the wonder that Catholicism has done at
physical manifestations of higher power. This cathedral is miraculously
stunning, historically significant, and majorly enormous.
With
ceilings appearing about as close to heaven as it gets, the Cathedral has me
feeling incredibly tiny in Sevilla. And again, thrilled.
While I may
have chicken in New York, no state has this historic level of beauty. No state also has free sangria
until one a.m. the night before and churros open until 6 on the same block.
This city amazes me nonstop.
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