Montserrat

Yesterday we took a hike on top of Montserrat.  The trail was on the back side of the mountain with long views over the valley.  There were only a few fellow hikers up there.  On the winding road that we took the day before to visit the monastery we could see huge bus after huge bus laboring around the corners and could only imagine the chaos at the tourist site itself.  Our trail wound through thick vegetation that ended where the rocky face of the mountain began to jut up sharply. formed millions of years ago by a receding ocean.  

At one point we took a small side trail that ended at the ruin of a 10th century church.  The mountain is dotted with these tiny structures that the monks built so that they could get even further away from the monastery itself - when someone is looking for more peace and quiet than a monastery can offer you know that's someone who is serious about meditating.  We began to feel the spiritual nature of the area that must have attracted the old guys long ago.  That's the thing about religious sites - there is often a sense of something bigger present. a sense of a special place.

On a decidedly non-spiritual note I paged by the message I sent to my sister asking her to give the money she owed me - and gleefully held as her own - to my niece for her charity event.  No acknowledgement from my sister that she actually gave my niece the money and no thank you note from my niece.  Did she give her the money or not?  I have no idea.  I'm simply happy  to be rid of the whole mess.

There was a painting in the museum we visited of St. Lorenzo - the first saint from Puerto Rico - being roasted alive on a metal grate, earning his martyrdom big time.  I looked him up - never happened.  He was suspended upside down until he suffocated to death.  Lovely.

The monastery is famous for having a black Madonna.  Really, when you think about it, why would a woman from the middle east be as white as the pure driven snow?  In all of the paintings and tapestries and sculptures she's holding what appears to be a Holy Hand Grenade.  I have been unable to determine what it is.  The little baby Jesus, as wizened looking as a octogenarian, is holding something of a similarly sinister nature.

Those kooky monks.