Whispers, Secrets, Lies and Murmurings!

Olá tudos! // Hey everyone! We had a great couple of days visiting Seville last week. I thought I would take a little time to briefly share some thoughts on and images of our trip with you. First and foremost, definitely high-tail it to Seville: a beautiful, vibrant city full of history, art and magnificent architecture. Do not miss it!

Whispers

Seville — Sevilha in Portuguese and Sevilla in Spanish — is just an hour and half east of us, much closer than Lisbon. It is an easy day-trip but we decided to spend two nights this time. Why? Our good friend Rita travelled all the way from South Bend, Indiana to celebrate her 75th birthday with us. That is a shout, not a whisper! Thank you Rita for traveling so far to celebrate your monumental day with us! On our second day in Seville we visited the Real Alcázar together. Childlike wonder and awe know no age limits in such a place.

The present building, while entirely Islamic in design, was built in the 14th century by Pedro I of Castile. Later rulers, including Isabella and Fernando, expanded it through the late 15th century. The first building on the site, a 5th century Roman basilica, became a Visigoth Arian Christian church in the 6th century. The Caliphate of Al-Andaluz established itself in Iberia in the early 8th century. In the early 10th century the Caliph moved his headquarters to Seville from Cordova. He needed to create a bit of distance between himself and some raucously dangerous rivals in Cordova.

Adb al-Rahman III built his fortified palace using both the foundation of and the marble from the Roman-cum-Visigoth building. Later Caliphs during the next three centuries expanded and improved the palace. The construction of a massive mosque adjacent to the palace occurred in the 12th century. Very little remains of the original Islamic palace. Pedro I had been to Granda and had seen the Alhambra. He wanted something as grand and as beautiful.

Secrets

Pedro, while Castilian and Christian, was no fool. He happily used and respected the talents of everyone under his rule. Pedro hired the best Islamic architects and craftsmen to design and build his palace. He also used Jewish merchants and lenders. They sourced the materials and the furnishings used to build and to decorate the palace. Both Islam and Judaism find places of honor throughout the palace. The full ugliness of the Reconquista took several centuries to dominate the consciousness of the new Christian conquerors.

The secret — shh — people of all backgrounds, cultures, languages, traditions, religions, etc. once managed to get along. They respected their differences and saw glimmers of commonalities. But do not get me wrong. Everyone on all sides of the differences struggled to get the tolerance right while having the upper hand. The balance teetered for centuries under both Islam and Christianity before it collapsed.

Another secret although not quite so important: I once spoke Spanish fairly fluently. After two years in Portugal, as Rita noted, I will never speak Spanish again, at least not without a Portuguese accent. It is interesting how hard it is to hold onto two similar although different things simultaneously. It would take me constant practice in both languages in order to keep both. A lot of effort would go into that. The same with tolerance of others’ beliefs along side yours and your community’s beliefs… maintaining balance with humility and respect requires daily practice.

Lies or Half-Truths

Truth can somethings get lost in the stories we remember and the stories we tell ourselves. Not quite outright lies, they arise as mis-remembrances, that is, partial truths, and also as convenient myths. Story, myth, partial truths and mis-remembrance encrust Seville, as they do all human history and story.

Seville’s grand cathedral, the largest Gothic structure in the world, started its life as a modified grand mosque. For 200 years after the Reconquista, the Christians worshiped within the mosque, which went mostly untouched and only slightly modified. The Christian conquerors knew they could not improve on the magnificent building that was there. They had neither the wealth nor the skills to do so. It is only in the 15th century that the Christians began a major redevelopment effort to make this great mosque into the world’s largest Gothic cathedral.

The mosque’s minaret became the cathedral’s bell tower. The only permanent change to this day was the addition of the bells in the 16th century. These bits of truth, the debt owed to those who proceeded in power, get lost or buried in a new, i.e., our own, retelling of the story. Nonetheless, these forgotten or buried memories remain vital and important. They are our heritage too. They are also our protection from ourselves.

In the Cathedral museum there is a set of ritual keys on display. A sign indicates that one key represents Christian Seville and the other Jewish Seville. The keys would have been handed over to a new conqueror, the sign says, symbolizing the transfer of power and ownership of the city.

What the sign does not mention is that in Renaissance Spain the Jewish community was actually locked into its ghetto each night and for weeks at a time during Christmas and Easter. The key to Jewish Seville was not simply symbolic. It was a means of control, harm and violence. Not something we should forget nor gloss over.

Murmurings

While we were in Seville the retired Cardinal Archbishop, Carlos Amigo, OFM, died at age 87. His funeral was held while we were there. We passed in front of the cathedral while the procession of dignitaries, of well-dressed society denizens and then of the city’s hoi polloi entered the cathedral. Curious tourists brought up the rear.

Fray, or Brother, Carlos, as he seems to have been called, had lead the Seville archdiocese for 27 years until he retired at 76. Before Seville he had been the leader of the archdiocese of Tangiers in Morocco. I read various versions of his obituary. I learned that throughout his long career he fervently pushed for and lead dialogue and collaboration among Muslims, Jews and Christians. He also advanced and advocated the rights and the role of women in all three cultures and religions.

What little I know of Fray Carlos’ life sums up the lessons I learned on this trip to Seville. Our collective stories — different and simultaneously similar — are comprised of whispers, secrets, half-truths and murmurs. Like a whisper, awe and wonder in the presence of each other are prerequisites. The non-secret is that balancing tolerance and personal conviction require daily practice if we are to keep our fluency in each. The lies and half-truths, well, we lose so much when we forget the breadth and depth of our story; the forgetting is also dangerous. Finally, the lives of those among us that murmur softly reveal the truest truth of our collective story. That is, we are at our best when we humbly respect our differences and strongly embrace our commonality.

Obrigado por se juntarem a nós nesta pequena viagem a Sevilha! Até logo! // Thank you for joining us on this little trip to Seville! See you soon!