Synergy
As I sit to write about my time in Spain, I cannot stop
the words of a favorite old song from running through my mind: “If a picture
paints a thousand words / Then why can’t I paint you? The words will never show
/ The you I’ve come to know.” (Bread). Why this song at this time? The answer
is simple. Just as the song expresses, there are no words to express the depth
of my feelings about my experience and the wonder of Spain. Of course, I only
have knowledge of a small piece of the country. My boundaries are limited by my
time and my pocketbook.
Nevertheless, if I were an artist, even if I could
capture the beauty, I could not put the wonder on a canvas. I look at the
pictures I have taken and am disappointed by the dull flatness of the image.
Yes, the beauty is there. But the essence is missing. The essence I will try to
carry home in my heart and bring out to wonder at again.
This week, we visited Merida. Funny, I started to type
that we had visited Rome – after all the footsteps of the Romans are still
echoing in the streets. The history that defines the city is everywhere just
waiting to be absorbed. When I think of the people who have walked there,
bought and sold there, lived and died there, I am awed. The ruins tell the
story of a people long past. I stood on the stage of an amphitheater built by
King Agrippa. I walked in the dirt where the gladiators fought their beasts. I
saw a coin engraved with the image of Caesar Augustus. Who knows? Maybe it was
the one held in the hand of Jesus when He told the people to “Give back to
Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" (New International Version, Mark 12:17).
For me, Spain is more than just my studies, the places
we’ve visited, and the people who make their home here. It is the synergism of
it all: the people, the study, the beauty, and the places all joined together
as one.
Works Cited
Bread. “If.” The Best of Bread. Hommes, Josh and David Gates, comps. Sony/ATV
Tunes LLC, Board Stiff Music, Warner Publishing Corp. CD.
New
International Version Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1196. Print.
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