Three Cultues Twice

Three cultures. In Mexico, it´s the European, the Indigena, and the Mestizo. In Spain, it´s the memory of the long centuries when the Christian, the Muslim, and the Jewish cultures coexisted in the Iberian peninsula. Ferdinand and Isabella declared Spain a Catholic country and expelled all the Jews and Muslims who had not already left in 1492, but before then, there had been this long period of three cultures living side by side, with varying degrees of comfort and discomfort with each other.

I went to a gathering of the many cultures of religion that now populate the Iberian Peninsula, a Parliament of World Religions, framed for the local area along the lines of the much larger Parliaments being sponsored by UNESCO. I believe they got the idea from the 1893 Parliament of World Religions in Chicago, a Parliament that was the brainchld of some Universalists and Univarians in the United States. In Spain, the Catholic majority seems to be learning that there are not just three cultures, but many, and some of them are learning that there are useful things to know about spirituality from learning more about these other cultures.

In Mexico, Catholicism has absorbed many practices of the religions that were there before, making it a more diverse faith tradition than you might think on the surface. They go through various times of insisting on more purity and other times of allowing more latitude. Mexico could learn from Spain about the deadly consequences of insisting on purity. The third culture, the one that exists now, is a mixture. I saw a group performing a ceremony that clearly had roots in both European and indigena cultures, and one of the striking features was the use of some very old-seeming European style musical instruments, like from the sixteenth century.

There was a concert Saturday night during that interfaith conference that featured an early music group who played "Three Cultures" music. This would be a little older than those musical instruments in the pueblo in Mexico. It was clearly music that was of a certain period and clearly music that shared certain instrumentation -- despite having differences in content and purpose, the music of three cultures sounded like music of one culture-- the three shared a great deal. What a shame that some of those who shared in the richness of that time were declared "other" and required to leave.

There was a laugh and a lesson at the end of the concert. We were on a university campus, a place that wanted some security while at the same time wanting to economize on its security force. Our residence was just outside the main campus. Between the concert and a night´s sleep there was a checkpoint. But the checkpoint was only staffed --we suspected, but had no official word--until midnight. This being Spain, where things go on into the evening, and it being a concert with three different groups, the concert was not over until well past the witching hour. There was no one at the checkpoint. Instead, the big gate was closed. What to do? I confess, after strolling around a little and failing to find a quick alternative, I was among those who climbed over the gate, went back to the residence, and went to bed. A more cautious, rule-following soul we saw the next day had wandered the streets until 3:00 AM, looking for a legitimate way to leave campus. There are still walls. And we still have different ways of dealing with them.