For the Beauty of the Earth

Dear Reader,


Today, we take the hymn "For the Beauty of the Earth" (LDS Hymn No. 92) and talk about the wonderful things that our Heavenly Father has given us. This is a combination thought coming from two events in a town we visited this past weekend.

Jorge, our new friend and literature master. 

You know what time it is: trip summary time! This trip was unexpected for our group. According the schedule we have been using, we were under the impression that the trip to Portugal last week was the last trip we were taking before coming back the United States (Which is coming up soon). However, that trip did not end our adventures here in Spain. Our director gave us the news that we would be traveling to Burgos and Silos!

Now, these are both very small towns. Both have very amazing stories. We left Friday morning to travel to Burgos, about 3 hours north of Madrid. One of the most exciting things on this trip were the two tables on our bus with chairs facing each other. That means...party on the bus! Our group has become pretty good friends throughout our entire stay here in Spain. Anyway, we arrived in Burgos in the early afternoon and we arrived at the cathedral. What is one of our trips without a large cathedral? It was a beautiful Gothic design with a very extravagant interior. It was hard to do a tour because they were having some kind of presentation at the time we went. It wasn't mass, but I'm pretty sure it was some other religious service or class. We did our best to learn about the architecture and history.

This is just an awesome picture. 

While in Burgos, we had many an adventure trying to find chocolate and churros. It is a normal thing in Spain, just in case you were wondering. Before going off on those ventures, we took some time to listen to Jorge. He is a literature professor who has taught at Brigham Young University and used to be one of the faculty members for the Spain study abroad program years ago. He and his wife came on this trip and shared many insights with us. In the picture above, he is reading the story of "Mio Cid," a story of a knight under the command of King Alfonso VI. It is a story that is based on true events, but the details are always fuzzy because the story was only told orally for years before being written down. Even the earliest written copy is missing pages, so it is hard to understand the reasoning for most of the story. The excerpt that Jorge read to us was about Mio Cid's exile from Burgos. The king apparently did some bad stuff and Mio Cid was banished because he tried to force a confession from the king about his wrong-doings. Jorge did a very good job retelling the story in old Castilian-Spanish.

After leaving Burgos, we took a short drive south to Silos, a small town. It is a REALLY small town. Molly and Taylor explored the town that night and told us all about their hour walk around the entire town. Before that, we made a very important visit to the highlight of Silos: the monastery. It was important because there were real monks singing real Gregorian chants.  That is amazing! Gregorian chants were commonly sung back in the renaissance, but now they are hardly ever heard. We heard them. That was our first activity when we got to Silos and we went back to the monastery the next morning (Bright and early at 6 AM) to hear their morning chants. As a singer, it was an amazing chance to hear a new style of music in person. Although, I have to emphasize the fact that the music was not the main purpose for the monks. It is evident when they are chanting that it is 100% in devotion to God and 0% for performance or pleasure of singing. It was an interesting spirit that I really liked. It was a beautiful sound that you cannot mimic.

That is the entire town of Silos. That tower in the middle is the monastery. 

After hearing the morning chants and reading of scriptures, we explored the town. Taylor and Molly showed us the statue where they had a scare the night before (The lights all turned off and they were in pitch blackness) and we climbed the hill next to the river. It was beautiful country. I thought about how nice it would be to live in a town like Silos, but then I thought about how visiting for a couple days every once in awhile is sufficient. I would get very bored living in such a small place. It is beautiful. It was a good opportunity to enjoy some of God's creations and see how other people see it.