I forget

Sometimes I forget that I’m not in Kansas anymore.

I try to normalize my life here in Spain, but an unusual event or overlooked occurrence startles me awake. I then see my grave mistake. The issue is safety – physical, emotional and spiritual. These states of being cannot be “normalized” in the world I am living in.

Here are some things that have awakened me from my slumber:

Monday I was hauling heavy cabinets up slippery marble stairs in the new building. The stairs are slick as hell; I am wearing flip-flops and a new shirt I bought with some Christmas money. Since there is no railing yet in the stairwell, the illegal Romanian workers are smarter than me and stick to the wall as I pass on the outside. One slip and I break myself. I’m wearing nice clothes because I just came from the police station to help fill-out a robbery report for a young Maps worker who had her house broken into. She has trouble leaving the house now because she wants to protect it.

Monday night there was an attempted break-in at our office. The garage alarm went off and the garage door was jammed closed with the light on inside. Young Maps couple that lived on the top floor watched a Spanish cop chamber a round in his pistol before going in. No one was in there.

Next day we went to the Tomatina, the world’s biggest tomato fight in the small town of Bunol. 40,000 young people were drinking at 9:30 in the morning to get fuelled up for the event. The streets were narrow. Five huge dump trucks drove in. I got caught in the crowd. We were being pressed forward by hordes of people. We had to push out with our arms in order to get a breath. The crowd became more and more rowdy. Friends of ours got pushed into a warehouse as the door buckled and broke under the pressure. A mother with a young boy started trying to get past me. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to breathe. Denise’s sunglasses were cracking because of the pressure on her head. I got dizzy and began to panic, fighting and swimming my way out with Denise behind me trying to keep me calm and the mother and her kid clutching onto Denise as we emerged. I shook for about 4 hours after that and watched from a distance.

Came home after a three-hour drive on the Spanish Autopista and watched the news in an “I am alive” stupor. Saw a story about a young lady named Monica who had been murdered while walking her two dogs in a barrio near here. She was killed by a member of another family that had been feuding with her family. The police had to beat the families off of each other with billy-clubs. Women on both sides were hysterical. Men were pounding the windows of the police vans.

Another story involved a kidnapped 13-year-old girl from a squalid gypsy camp near here. She had been taken to another gypsy shantytown and was to be married to a 15-year-old boy. The gypsies from all areas kept the news crews out but admitted that they had all gotten married when they were 14 and 15 – so "what is the big deal?" One of them had a little girl about 10 or 11 who was only wearing underpants. She started dancing a flamenco for the camera and the older ladies started clapping a beat while shouting “olay!” Great fun! The news crews are here!

Two more illegal workers were electrocuted on the hi-speed railway. There have been over 600 work-related deaths so far this year. I do not want to be one of them.

Forest fire season has begun in the Castilla region. Smoke in the air.

Last Friday night it was hard to sleep as little kids were playing at 1 a.m. in the street.

I’m holding my breath at police check-points because I’m no longer a legal driver. We spent $1,200 and six weeks trying to set-up a “required” class and exam in English. The school kept changing the dates and the price and then finally cancelled because the English-speaking instructor was in the hospital. This school has a good reputation. Tell this to a cop at a road-block who can impound your car and take you to jail if he wants to.

Our young Romanian friend Kristina is staying with us until Master’s Commission starts in a month. She is being hounded by a lawyer who wants his 500 euros for starting the process to get her some papers that will allow her to work legally.

I woke up this morning to a convoy of dump trucks driving over speed bumps on there way to the massive 3,000 unit housing development near us. (Actually it was the shotguns of the rabbit hunters outside our window – BAM…voices… BAM BAM squeeaaallll!)

Spain is on a land-development high. Many new houses are put up so fast that they are unsafe. Old apartment blocks are crumbling. Construction is unsafe. Repairs are left in dangerous states for months as residents learn to avoid the dangerous zones inside and outside their units. Some new houses are built illegally on park-land and sold to unsuspecting buyers. Then the authorities come in and tear the new houses down to the foundations. The corrupt deal then goes to the courts and the “house-owner” gets caught in the legal swamp of trying to get their money back from the long-departed developers while still being liable for the fines of living illegally on city property.

The prostitutes at the bottom of the hill are enjoying a surge in business as well. At least they seem to be smiling when they lick their lips and waggle their tongues at me when I drive back up the hill.

There are doctrinal opinions and theological ideas being preached as gospel truth – many times contradicting each other during the same church service, mainly by missionaries. I’ve been told that if I have a book with a naughty word written in it somewhere in my house then I am a hypocrite if I take communion because I grieved the heart of God. These are Americans.

I heard that Mother Theresa had a long “crisis of faith.” Spain is Disneyland compared to India. Many people have begun to ask questions about her. One missionary I greatly respect opined that she "was never a Christian because she could not feel the presence of God."

I remember a story recently about a young marine who won the Congressional Medal of Honor (if you win this even Generals are required to salute YOU! cool!) But he won it posthumously by doing-the-dive on a grenade and saving his buddies. I think Mother Theresa dived on a spiritual grenade from hell and the explosive burst lasted 50 years. Eventually the emotional shrapnel ripped into her spirit and she suffered a mortal wound in her soul. She took one for the team. Who can follow the call without cost?

Maybe this is a secret, but we have an Iranian connection in England that is waiting to translate the videos we produced of the Path of Jesus into Farsi – to be broadcast into Iranian living-rooms. This is not the dross. This is the gold.