Lights of Sintra

The lights of Sintra, Portugual are beautiful, jut like the Christmas season. Here is hoping that all of you are enjoying the Christmas cheer and time with loved ones.

"And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace,
Emmanuel"

The old man and his motorcycle.

I'm spending a week at my parents house. I don't really know anybody around here, so it can get a little boring sometimes. But I have things to work on that need to get done anyway.

I called a friend of mine up that I haven't seen in nearly a year. He drives a motorcycle. We call him "Captain" because his first name is Kirk, but he's about as unlike Cpt. Kirk as anybody could get. Long hair, thin(well Cpt. Kirk used to thin but not anymore), and soft spoken. We had chinese and talked about what had happened over the past year and where God was taking us.

I think that that's my favorite part about friendship. You get to catch up with eachother over chinese, laugh about old times, and then laugh even harder about new times.

Well, Captian, here's to courage and friendship!


P.S. My program that I use for posting pics is being delinquent, so the cool pictures of the city Christmas lights in Sintra, Portugual will have to wait.

I'll be home for Christmas...

My last week in Spain went by so fast. I didn't look like I was going to have time to fit saying goodbye to everybody into one week, but I did. It helps alot knowing that I will be ack in a few weeks and I'm looking forward to it.

Now, I am safe and sound back at home... where ever that means. My friends Lindsey and Isa picked me up at the airport. We drove to my parents house straight from the airport so I could see my sister before she goes back to Tulsa. Now I'm going to head back to Austin for the week before Christmas to try and see a few friends.

Hope to see everyone soon.

Feliz Navidad!!

Things so good to hear.

I haven't really seen my old roomate, since he got married and we all moved away, but it's good to see that he is still charging on.

The day I broke free of the tired old idealology that church is about suits and old hyms, is the day I really came to know God. As Christians we should question ourselves so that we grow a strong faith in what we believe, and so we know how to express that to others. We should never pass up an oppurtunity to listen to other opinions. As americans we learn to avoid risk but as christians we need to enbrace it, because it is that which keeps us alive.

-from Chris' blog

I've got alot of old friends scattered all over the world now that I've had to leave behind, but it is always so good to hear from them from time to time. It lets me know that God is still moving.

To Quote Bilbo Baggins...

"Stepping out on the road is a dangerous business. You have to keep you feet under you, or before you know it you'll be swept off to who knows where!"

Or at least something similar to that was Bilbo's take on adventure. We certainly had a bit of adventure ourselves this past week. We had several days of holiday and so we decided to rent a car and drive to Lisbón, Seville, and Córdoba for 4 days. This took us down the Atlantic coast into Portugal, then east back into southern Spain. Now the only road atlas that we were able to obtain was four years old. It might as well have been of a different country for all it was worth. Most of the roads we used apparently didn't exist according to the map, and nothing had the same name anymore. Also, it was very evident to us that the Spanish and Portuguese road systems were developed by some one who was neither an engineer, nor had ever driven a car. At one point, while attempting to use secondary highways in Portugal that would not be tolled, we were driving down a major highway which suddenly became a goat path. We thought we must have missed a turn somewhere, but there had been no turns at all. After winding our way through a pueblo and through a mountain pass, we crossed a one lane bridge and were suddenly on a major highway once again. Cement and everything. Surreal.

Complaining aside, we had a great time and saw some breathtaking cities and countryside. In Sintra, Portugal outside of Lisbón, there are two Portuguese palaces and a Morish castle on top of the mountain overlooking the ancient village. Lisbón is a busseling metropolis of highrise apartment blocks with a great waterfront full of cool forts and monuments to explorers.

Seville is also a large city, but much less a modern. Never plan on parking over night there. At €60 every 24 hours, you might as well park in New York City. We drove around until I found a place to parallel park on the street for free. There's way too much to see in one day, but we managed to squeeze in the palace and gardens, a walk through the old downtown by the cathedral (which was closed), and the Plaza de España( my favorite building in the world short of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul).

Córdoba is really more a really big town than a city. It's just as old as Seville and just as interesting, but not as touristy. I've been wanting to go see the Mezquita there for a long time. It's a huge Moorish mosque with a 17th cent. gothic cathedral smack in the center. Very weird, but captivating. The inside gives the impression that your in a forest because of the huge number of pillars and the low level of light. Some of the pillars are even from ancient Carthage! (Way cool!)

On the 15 hour drive back to Santiago, we stopped in Peñarroya. It's a small backwater pueblo in the middle of no where, but I had stayed there for two weeks with some friends freom England in the summer of 2000. I had lost their contact info and so hadn't talked to them in four and a half years. So we just stopped by and knocked on their door. We had lunch with them and caught up with one another. Not much had changed in Peñarroya since I'd left. :) It's always good to see old friends.


Later that night, we had a lot of problems getting back because of heavy fog, bad maps and crazy road signs, but we managed to finally hit the sack about 3Am... normal bedtime for Spain. :)

The VIP Pass

Apparently, Santiago has something of an international concert scene. This last week "The Violent Fems" were in town. Somehow they ended up finding Café Terra Nova, realized how cool it was (or maybe just that it had WiFi), and practically set up shop there the whole week. Then they put us on the guest list for their concert at the end of the week. Nice guys.

Its kind of funny because no one really knows who they are in the States anymore, but they were completely suprised to find out that they're insanely popular over here. (so were we) I mean, Spaniards can't even understand the words to sing along. They were pretty cool guys. They spent their time checking emails and coming up with silly lymrics about finding tuxedos and walking out on stage in speedos. You can tell that they have alot of fun in concert as well, even if the crowd doesn't have a clue what they're singing.


PS. The guy on the bass guitar at the far right is actually the sax player for "Pink Floyd". He's a friend of the band and happened to be touring with them.

101 Pieces of Baggage

-No pictures today because the cafe I normally use is closed today.-

A few things to catch up on:

• Caleb and Lindsey Crider welcomed their first son, Jonas Scott Crider, last Monday. Felicidades and congradulations!
• I've been invited to live with a friend of mine in his apartment, so I'm looking at going home for Christmas and coming back to Santiago.
• I've realized that most of my digital photos have been resized by posting them to my MSN group, and thus are too small now for using for an exhibit. Boo!
• It's raining again.

Further thoughts:

Well, I've been chewing on this idea of modernism and postmodernism for sometime now with respects to a realtionship with God. Being from a modernist culture, I've been engrained with the necessity of proof, with the idea that objective truth not only exists, but can be methodically proven. I've read all kinds of books and have heard all sorts of conversations and sermons on the topic of proving the existance, supremecy, or the character of God via logic. i.e. Many people believe "X" about God when in fact "Y" is true as proven by evidendes A, B, and C. Therefore, explain A, B, and C to the next person you meet who believes "X" and convert them. We have this deep need to win arguements and logically define the infinite God as proof that He exists. For truth is logical, and God is surely truth. As if He needed our help in existing and would cease to be if we happen to fail in our endevours of proof. I grow suspicious anytime we begin to construct ideas of God and reality that depend on us for their success or validity.

The thought occured to me today, that the postmodernist, whom we in our culture tend to view as illogical and faithless, is in a far better positon than we are to please God if "it is impossible to please God without faith." For by definition, if objective truth exists, we can not truely know it because all perspectives, proofs, and arguements are faulty and are insufficient to explain truth. In essence, he has nothing left to use but faith in order to know the Omnipotent. Is is possible that God would remove all other suports in order to lead us to depend solely on Him? It sounds to me exactly like the behavior of the God of Abraham.

When we, in a supposedly Godly culture, look to the postmodern culture, we see a land that is dry and arid, full of rocks and unsuitable for planting seeds. I think maybe God sees something different. Maybe he sees a people who are fed up with being manipulated, who are dissillusioned by the logic of this world that so easily fails, and who are not impeded in knowing Him by a need for proofs.

Maybe he sees a people who have no baggage that keeps them from faith.