The View From The Third Edge: Europa Europa

November 05, 2003

Europa Europa

Just flew back from Europe and, man, are my arms tired from the turbulence over the Atlantic. I was gone for 7 weeks ... you did know that, didn't you? Work-related mundania, mostly consisting of training on stuff I already know. Regardless, never bite the hand that signs your expense statement and sends you on an almost-all-expense-paid trip to Europe.

The weekends were fulfilling, spent mainly in London, Paris, Cologne (or Köln, for you purists), and Amsterdam, not to mention a whole week in Barcelona towards the end. An unplanned trip into the new British library by St. Pancras station put me face to face with the Magna Carta, one of the first 50 Gutenberg press Bibles from 1459, Leonardo da Vinci's Codex, the Codex Sinaitica (the oldest version of the New Testament), and many more ancient scrolls and texts. To imagine that Caroline and I went into the building merely to get out of the rain!!! A short walk away, the British Museum was also highly impressive, owing to the ancient Egyptian, Babylonian and Sumerian artifacts, Rosetta Stone, and the 800,000 year old quartz spear head from Olduvai Gorge from which I had the honor of standing less than 1 foot away. Can you believe it - human technology from 800,000 years ago??? Despite my being a geologist who deals in millions and billions of years and who considers 800,000 years to be a blink of an eye, the visceral nature of this particular object and the thought of an 800,000-year-old hand chiseling it out of a chunk of quartz had chills running down my spine. Almost a million years later, and we are as sophisticated.

Returning to the States just in time for Halloween was a great decision, which I will describe in a later entry. Back to REAL food, Cajun and Creole cooking, the mother's milk, the elixir of satisfaction, as opposed to the culinary products that result from the terrible spice shortage that seems to plague the Netherlands.

Yet, a longing to go back to the tiny kingdom on the North Sea. I think I now know why. The Dutch are the perfect blend of obsessive-compulsive and laid back. While they are not pathologically cleaning their cities, beautifying their parks, and outdoing each other in dressing well (and I mean well), the people of Netherland really know when to call it a day and have a good time. They don't sweat the petty stuff, either. They don't care if you are black, white, brown, or purple; they couldn't care less if you are gay or straight. But, they do care if you litter or if you don't purchase a round of beer when it's your turn. Additionally, did you know that Spanish voters can check a "None of the above candidates" box and their vote gets counted? If more than 50% of voters do not want any of the listed candidates, another election has to be held. What a great way to reduce voter apathy and get the populace excited about choosing their government representative! I really think these guys have their priorities in the right order.

While on the topic of European priorities, a socio-religious motif I discovered in the continent is the need to explicate the phenomenon of Jesus via architectural channels. The tallest building in almost every village, town, and city is the church, specifically the Catholic church. Ranging from the austere and minimalist to the ornate and carved, these places of worship delved and probed and shucked and tilled into the stories of the Bible through sculpture, stained glass, paintings, and writings, aside from the obvious and almost obligatory Jesus hanging from a cross at the far end. The most logical and straightforward explanation would be that the building is a place of worship and that the art and architecture was put there purely to illustrate the tenets of the religion at hand. However, I feel that it was done for more than illustrative purposes. If it were, why wouldn't there be the exact same expression at every church? Why the differences in style, and between churches in the same town? Why confuse the under-educated locals if the sole object were to awe these folk into prayer and good Christian living? The architects who designed these churches and their patrons were trying to display their religion and find additional meaning in it through their art. This was their method of contemplation and meditation on what they considered sacred.

Take Barcelona's churches, for instance. On one end of the city is the Gothic cathedral, gargantuan and respectable in its own right. And almost on the other end is Temple de la Sagrada Familia, envisioned and created by Antoni Gaudi. Two large churches, housed by the same city, that explore the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus in completely different ways. Gaudi was a strict Catholic, but he truly revolutionized the structure and appearance of a traditionally somber church. It had to be because he found for himself the connection between god, Jesus, and all of the things on this planet, and elucidated that discovery by designing a colossal dazzler that does everything to connect the earth and the sky.

Barcelona was constipated until Gaudi came along and made the city worth looking at. The man's work is a testament to following your passion with discipline. Function before form; the function of celebrating all that is benevolent before throwing columns and crosses at it. And what forms they are. Ones that make you want to fall back on your ass in wonderment, and drop your jaw to the ground in sheer admiration of Gaudi's sensitivity to nature, his sensibility in incorporating the beauty of this earth into a tangible home for the weary, and his impeccable architectural timing. Notre Dame and the Dom in Cologne were beautiful, too ... how could the good Christian not feel the spirit in places like that? (And that's what the "pious" popes and their coffers were going for, let me tell you. Feel god and pass the cash.) Gaudi's architectural marvel, however, doesn't bring out guilt and humility in you. Quite the opposite, it makes you want to revolutionize worship. Standing there in the unfinished nave of the temple, I could envision the priests wearing robes and vestments by crazy designers like Gaultier and Galliano, the choir singing from missals written by C.S. Lewis topped off with an aria by Aretha Franklin, communions of tropical fruit cocktail from the Caribbean and red, red Shiraz from Australia ... draping myself in crimson velvet to stare at the top of the spire in congratulation of god. What a fine world the spirit did make that we could worship it this way. How much respect and love would we have for each other then? Isn't that what religion originally set out to gain? That would be my recipe for the new Catholicism. Guilt shmuilt.

Europa Europa ... may common sense continue to shed its grace on thee. While elsewhere in the world, tyrants and spindoctors do their best to demote character and culture, you still have something of great value that lives and breathes on your land. I hope that you find the answer to your ecclesiastical mystery, and in more than just shrouds and saints. Until then, here's a toast to your hospitality. This ethno-junkie will be back for more.

Posted by maitri at November 5, 2003 10:21 AM

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