I was jarred, to say the least, by the strangeness of my circumstances a couple of days ago. To call my whereabouts paradoxical would be an understatement.
I’m still feeling caught off balance, for lack of a better word, but I’ll do my best to describe what happened in order to hopefully achieve a bit of clarity.
On Sunday afternoon, I found myself sitting in a pew of the Córdoba cathedral, staring at the ornately decorated ceiling and feeling slightly sick to the stomach. The elaborate décor was nauseating, especially after having spent a long day in 100+ degree heat.
But the over-the-top architecture was but a small part of the strange feeling that was beginning to build inside of me. During my visit to the cathedral, I felt an oppressive weight that threatened to push me into the floor.
This was no ordinary cathedral. The Córdoba cathedral is superimposed within the confines of what was once the second largest mosque in the world (only Mecca was bigger). It is located in a city that was the capital of the Muslim world for hundreds of years.
The Catholic Kings defeated the Muslims in 1236, and in a show of power and religious domination, built the cathedral in the middle of the mosque.
You could say that history repeats itself.
The Muslims had built the mosque on the site of a Visigoth church, which had replaced a Roman temple in years prior.
Every succeeding religious/political group (because this site is deeply intertwined with both sides of the coin), took pieces from the people they conquered to tell their own story of victory. This is a common historical phenomenon. It’s actually identified by psychologists as victor’s amnesia, where the winner tells their version of the story, forgetting the story of the people who were defeated.
What’s not so common is the way in which the Córdoba cathedral/mosque personifies this phenomenon so explicitly. Only in Córdoba can you see a catholic crucifix juxtaposed with Arabic architecture, swirling arches and words from the Koran on the same wall as the bleeding Christ.
The Catholic church allows its members to worship inside the cathedral, but attempts by Muslims to use the mosque for its intended purposes have been denied.
Could this possibly get any weirder? Actually, yes, it could.
For me, the paradox of the Córdoba mosque/cathedral became intensely personal when I realized mid-conversation with a Spanish friend that it was the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks.
I was an American in Spain, in a city that was once the Muslim capital of the world, in a building that was once a Muslim mosque, turned Catholic cathedral and is now a bizarre and beautiful mixture of both worlds, 10 years after the tragic attacks that are oft attributed to religious fanatics of Muslim origin.
I don’t write this merely to be provocative (although the experience certainly provoked confusion and wonder in me). Primarily, I want to raise a big question:
“Are we willing to listen to the whole story?”
There are so many layers to any story. At some occasions it’s just more obvious than at others.
Dirt and brick and stone and mortar.
Blood and tears.
Prayers and petitions.
Things are not as simple as history textbooks, or newspapers or friends and family make them out to be.
What is more, many of us have the luxury of being born into a lineage of victors. Politically, religiously, geographically, racially, economically… I could go on, but I don’t want to belabor this any more than I already have.
Truth be told, I often don’t pay too much mind to the oppressed, the grieving, the poor, the marginalized… their voices are very, very quiet. And there are a lot of other voices that are very, very loud.
But on Sunday, those small voices were louder still. The whispers of mourning wives, starving children, expelled communities, homeless gypsies, imprisoned fathers… they all swirled together in a cacophonic choir that made my soul shudder and want to cry:
“Will we be people of compassion or hatred? Will we be communities of justice or tyranny?”
Oh, that we would listen! That we would be people of compassion, listening to the voices of those who have come before us and those who live among us, who do not yell, and only sometimes can manage a whisper. I long for this world to be transformed by communities of people enacting justice for those who cannot stand for themselves.
God, help us. We’re going crazy down here, and we sure can't do this alone.
