c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a pastor, writer and software developer living in Winston-Salem, N.C.)

ARCOS DE LA FRONTERA, Spain _ No more touring! say two of our travel-weary sons. So we leave them behind at the hotel pool and drive north across the sun-browned farmland of Andalusia.

Our destination is Arcos de la Frontera, one of the so-called”Puebles Blances”(“White Cities”), fortified cities built on hilltops and painted a glistening white. Set on a towering crest of rock, Arcos commands a vast and lush valley whose rolling land has been producing olives, grapes and hay from ancient times.

Whether the city commands anything more than a view of the land probably is debatable. If Spain’s landscape teaches nothing else, it is that kingdoms come and go, and even the most determined conqueror has only a short minute on the stage.

This land has seen marauding Celts, Carthaginians, Romans, Christian despots, Muslim despots, faith-flexible dukes, the pope again, sherry-makers, Franco, democracy-plus-a-king, and now the scooters, cellular phones, air-conditioned hotels, Coca-Cola signs and shorts-clad tourists of modernism. Each has added its layer of paint and moved on.

On a 104-degree afternoon, when only tourists are outside and the wiser Spanish are behind thick, sun-reflecting walls waiting for evening cool, we walk up a maze of streets too narrow even for Europe’s small autos. At the edge of a sheer cliff, we find a castle, a church and city hall.

The castle has Moorish and post-Moorish elements and, quite charmingly, is still a private residence. Two amused policemen blocking a path tell us,”The duchess lives here.” City hall is closed for siesta. The only open building is the church, and its only accessible point isn’t the nave door leading to worship, but a side door leading to commerce. At a small counter surrounded by postcard displays, a clerk listening to American pop music collects 150 pesetas (94 cents) for each visitor.

We continue through another door and enter a lofty sanctuary that dates to the seventh century. Private chapels line the walls, each one commemorating a patron who shared his wealth with the church. Most date from the 18th century and suggest the plunder of New World conquest.

Every wall is covered with paintings and frescoes, some mounted 20 to 30 feet high, where only God can see them. Open confessional booths are scattered here and there, looking more like princely thrones for dispensing largesse than private chambers for laying one’s sins before God.

Is this a field of thorns, where weeds choke God’s seed, or good soil, which produces abundant harvest? Who knows? I suppose it has been different things to every era and disposition.

I can’t imagine that this much gold, silver, ebony and pomegranate wood would ever testify to more than someone’s wealth. But maybe peasants toiling on the soil climbed to this 570-foot-high hilltop altar, experienced the grace of God and went back down the hill filled with joy.

Maybe the Muslim caliphs who sought to convert this land to their faith sat beneath this vaulted ceiling and had second thoughts. Maybe the Inquisitors saw the ceiling holes that allow hot air to escape and had regrets as they tortured unrepentant sinners.

Maybe Franco saw the open-air confessionals and realized his network of informers wasn’t the only one listening for error. Maybe the scooter-riding youths of this city pause and genuflect internally as they pass by stone that their exhaust fumes are steadily eroding.

Maybe we never really know which soil is thorny and which is good. Maybe only God has a long enough perspective to see that this eruption from the soil is nothing but a weed, while that eruption is a crop of great value.

Maybe what we take for grace is merely a weed soon to be choked. Maybe what we see as empty is merely fallow, waiting for rain. Maybe we are all tourists viewing layers of paint that defy our comprehension.

Maybe the precise and forcefully spoken definitions of God that mark modern American religion are just one more layer of paint, applied by one more transient conquistador.

Maybe God is nothing like any vision we have of him.

DEA END EHRICH