Inside the Cathedral

There are big churches everywhere along the Way of Saint James, the Camino de Santiago. Some of them are falling into disuse, others are being tended by smallish congregations, and some have the support of large communities of faith. Many reflect the Spanish "golden age" of the seventeenth century, which was indeed an age of gold. It generally just makes me angry to see the huge golden retablos, because I think about the people who were native to the Americas who died by hundreds and thousands to make that gilding possible. Yet some of the art work is truly gorgeous. In Viana, a city that is much less important now than it was in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, I entered a gilded church with wonderful, vibrant figures of saints and angels reaching out from their sculpted places with lifelike grace and enthusiasm. And I had to think. Some of my thoughts were about now.


Here in Viana, artists worked with the materials that came to them, creating inspiring images. Those materials made it possible to have the four different shades of gilding, among other things. When you´re an artist, what shame is there in working with the best to create the best? And don´t we do the same? We work with the materials at hand to create our art and our lives, not really thinking about where things come from and what the human or environmental cost might be of what we are using. Because it´s there, right? And somehow it is okay, because the materials are there.


I don´t know what to do about this, other than to find ways to make sure the materials come to us from sources that don´t do violence to humans, other beings, or the Earth herself.


I stayed at the refuge for pilgrims provided by the church in Viana, and after the evening service, the parish priest presided over an informal and pleasant spaghetti supper for those of us who were spending the night there. Then he invited us to come back into the church by a passage that led from our quarters to the choir loft. Soft music played in the gathering dark. The silence was very serene within the great stone space of the building. The gold was far below. Just the quiet spirit remained. Inside the cathedral, many things are possible -- in the silence, there is no need to pray to any deity, and it´s easy to absorb the peace that seems to emanate from the walls. I left confused. It was not all right, that business with the gold. And I don´t even know what awfulness attended the raising of the great stone structure in the first place. Yet here, something breathes from the walls that really is all right.


I guess it´s true. Things are usually mixtures of good and bad.