I went out for my paseo earlier than usual today, as I had a six o'clock rendezvous with Rosella at the Museo de Patrimonio Municpal just along Paseo Reding, a modern building, number one in the street, at the road tunnel end.
A couple of new cruise ships were in port, including the Italian registered Costa Arcadia, a smaller sister ship to the Costa Concordia which was wrecked off the Isla del Giglio off the Tuscan coast in 2012. It's still 289 metres in length and can carry over 2,000 passengers. By way of contrast, the MY Lady Sara was moored at the Palmeria de las Sorpresas, an exclusive twelve berth luxury hire, for about €275k a week all in, at summer rates. Along the coasts or inland lakes in the Western world you get a glimpse of the immense wealth invested in leisure of all kinds. Any disastrous weather event and terrible human error shows just how much loss humans are prepared to risk in order to have a good time or flaunt excess riches.
Walking through Calle Alcazabilla, I noticed that the door of the Salomon bin Gabirol interpretation centre was open, the first time I've noticed this. I went in and was surprised by what I found. Apart from a welcome desk and a couple of bookshelves with tourism pamphlets and books, plus a video facility, the story of the man was displayed in texts written on the walls.
Salomon bin Gabirol was an eleventh century Jewish resident of Malaga, a neo-Platonist philosopher and a poet. There were many Jews and Christians whose learning and moral qualities found them a place in the governance of Muslim cities around the Mediterranean and in the Middle East. Everybody knew their place, and as long as they accepted who held the power, there was a measure of tolerance and mutual respect, which made it possible even for inter-religious dialogue about God to take place.
Back in September 2012, while on Costa Azahar locum duty, I visited Sant Matieu, a historic town inland from Vinaros that has a fine 13-14th century Valencian gothic church with octagonal tower. This was where a schism in the western church was brought to an end in 1429. There's graffiti in the north transept of the church commemorating another historic meeting of regional Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars to discuss their understandings of God. It's part of the complexity of the eight hundred year occupation of Spain by the Moors.
What was unusual about this scholar and intellectual was that his writings were in Arabic, not in Hebrew or Sephardii. His seminal work 'Fuente de la VIda' bore no reference to Hebrew texts which shaped his thought but it was translated by Franciscan scholars a couple of centuries later, who made the connection. This work was highly regarded by both Islamic and Christian scholars. An amazing post-mortem achievement. In the latter part of his life he move to Valencia where he died. Legend has it that he was buried there beneath a fig tree.
The significance of this can be found in St John's Gospel story of Nathaniel, where he's spotted 'under the fig tree'. This is apparently a Hebrew rabbinic metaphor for studying sacred scripture. It's a lovely homage to another remarkable influential Andalusian Sephardi thinker.
My evening rendezvous with Rosella was to attend a meeting convened by the Ajunatmiento's inter religious forum, to listen to a talk on La Felicidad (Happiness), given by the Tibetan Buddhist Lama Geshe Tenzing Tamding. About fifty people were present in an upper conference room of the ground floor museum. Many took photos on their smart phones throughout. I renounced taking either my camera or a phone, so I would not be distracted from giving this speaker full attention, as he would be speaking in Spanish. I suspect he speaks several languages apart from his native Tibetan. He speaks Chinese, and English as well as Spanish!
As he wasn't a mother tongue speaker, he was clearer and more deliberate, therefore easier to follow. His message was simple and as Rosella said, quite repetitive, but that's not a bad idea when people are slow to get such ideas, and need to ponder what is said. As I was familiar with his theme and have heard similar discourses in English, I was able to follow a great deal of what he said without too much loss of concentration. Again a great opportunity for listening comprehension to end the day. Getting there slowly with Spanish, if only the variation in accents wasn't so challenging - just like English of course.
Walking through Calle Alcazabilla, I noticed that the door of the Salomon bin Gabirol interpretation centre was open, the first time I've noticed this. I went in and was surprised by what I found. Apart from a welcome desk and a couple of bookshelves with tourism pamphlets and books, plus a video facility, the story of the man was displayed in texts written on the walls.
Salomon bin Gabirol was an eleventh century Jewish resident of Malaga, a neo-Platonist philosopher and a poet. There were many Jews and Christians whose learning and moral qualities found them a place in the governance of Muslim cities around the Mediterranean and in the Middle East. Everybody knew their place, and as long as they accepted who held the power, there was a measure of tolerance and mutual respect, which made it possible even for inter-religious dialogue about God to take place.
Back in September 2012, while on Costa Azahar locum duty, I visited Sant Matieu, a historic town inland from Vinaros that has a fine 13-14th century Valencian gothic church with octagonal tower. This was where a schism in the western church was brought to an end in 1429. There's graffiti in the north transept of the church commemorating another historic meeting of regional Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars to discuss their understandings of God. It's part of the complexity of the eight hundred year occupation of Spain by the Moors.
What was unusual about this scholar and intellectual was that his writings were in Arabic, not in Hebrew or Sephardii. His seminal work 'Fuente de la VIda' bore no reference to Hebrew texts which shaped his thought but it was translated by Franciscan scholars a couple of centuries later, who made the connection. This work was highly regarded by both Islamic and Christian scholars. An amazing post-mortem achievement. In the latter part of his life he move to Valencia where he died. Legend has it that he was buried there beneath a fig tree.
The significance of this can be found in St John's Gospel story of Nathaniel, where he's spotted 'under the fig tree'. This is apparently a Hebrew rabbinic metaphor for studying sacred scripture. It's a lovely homage to another remarkable influential Andalusian Sephardi thinker.
My evening rendezvous with Rosella was to attend a meeting convened by the Ajunatmiento's inter religious forum, to listen to a talk on La Felicidad (Happiness), given by the Tibetan Buddhist Lama Geshe Tenzing Tamding. About fifty people were present in an upper conference room of the ground floor museum. Many took photos on their smart phones throughout. I renounced taking either my camera or a phone, so I would not be distracted from giving this speaker full attention, as he would be speaking in Spanish. I suspect he speaks several languages apart from his native Tibetan. He speaks Chinese, and English as well as Spanish!
As he wasn't a mother tongue speaker, he was clearer and more deliberate, therefore easier to follow. His message was simple and as Rosella said, quite repetitive, but that's not a bad idea when people are slow to get such ideas, and need to ponder what is said. As I was familiar with his theme and have heard similar discourses in English, I was able to follow a great deal of what he said without too much loss of concentration. Again a great opportunity for listening comprehension to end the day. Getting there slowly with Spanish, if only the variation in accents wasn't so challenging - just like English of course.
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