when your eyes are downcast

I had had an exceptionally numbing week. By that I mean this: failure to connect with anything on an intimate and real level. Emotionally, i couldn't separate lies from truth.

Yesterday began as follows: I slept in, had a rather weak breakfast and went grocery shopping with my flatmate, Theresa. By the time I headed to Montmeló for my private lesson, I was thoroughly drained and lethargic. My spirit felt shriveled up. 

At home group on wednesday, i had shared about my lack of strength and perceived inability to feel or connect with the Father all week. my friend asked the Father in prayer to give me strength and renew my spirit.

i arrived at my co-worker's house, whose son i tutor, and her husband had lunch ready for the family. i had been invited to join them, and i have to admit that i happily anticipated the meal. i love to eat with friends; it is intimate and christ-like. the meal was typically catalan, and i savored every bite. it included beef filets, salad, fettucini in a light mushroom/onion sauce. we had fruit for dessert and topped it all off with great cafe con leche.

After the meal, we sat around the lunch table, talking and sharing life experiences. all in all, it was wonderful. Neus and her husband are both teachers, and some of the best people i have met here in spain.

after my lesson, i headed home, planning on taking my laptop and visiting the internet cafe in the Born neighborhood. i decided to walk to my destination, rather than take the metro. 

as i left my flat, my estranged heart cried out with honesty and longing. This primordial call filled me with desire and excitement. i was going with Jesus. i asked ABBA to restore me. and like this, i stepped out into the bustling street.

my stroll led me through various areas of my neighborhood. some were rather sketchy, like the area of Raval, where i had to dodge prostitutes, pimps, and their customers. and the whole time i was thinking: what the crap am i doing walking around here after sunset, with my laptop strapped to my back? these were not the only thoughts crossing my mind. i also felt a deep sense of sorrow as i passed beautiful young women (many of them Romanian) selling themselves, unaware that they are worth and valued so much more. but, how do you respond to such thoughts? i wanted to stop and listen to them, to talk with them and share something of hope with them. but i kept on walking, not knowing what to think and do.

and so i kept on, making my way through the narrow, dimly lit aromatic streets of the arabic and indian communities. and i continued until i reached one of the plazas, where i noticed a sign reading: spanish guitar concert, hanging from an arch outside a catholic church. i entered because i love spanish guitar, and it reminds me of home, where i used to play old spanish guitar records for my dad and i.

and what happened then is to me, an expression of my ABBA'S love for me. as soon as i entered the church, my spirit began to ache for His presence. i made it to a bench, knelt and cried out to ABBA, my daddy. and i wept and i was comforted and loved and restored. right there, in the middle of a nearly empty catholic church, where stage-hands were quietly preparing for spanish guitar concerts, and where God's presence was palpable.

i am so thankful that i know a God who does not despise the broken-hearted, the heavy in spirit and the sinner. because i am all of those things, and yet he loves me infinitely, without reproach, without condition and without hesitation.

i felt the catholic church, and did not return for the concert.

my macbook companion and i continued on, through the Raval, through the Barri Gotico and into Born. by this point, i was less determined to make it to the internet cafe. i was simply relishing my walk, time, revelation and the pulse of everything around me.

and that is when i came across L'Ametller. L'Ametller is a little wine and cheese nook. it is dimly lit by candles, its walls decorated with ink sketches and filled with the magnificent sound of verdi and other classic operas and symphonies coming out of an antique wooden radio. christmas ornaments hang from the ceiling and give the place a warmth hard to describe. in one of the windows sits a traditional nativity scene and on a nearby chair, a black tomcat is sleeping. but the thing that really drew me in was the elderly man, working away at a crossword puzzle. he was hunching over his newspaper at a table that was stacked with papers, and crowded with ink-pens, paints and brushes and an ashtray containing 6 cigarette butts. i took him to be the nook-owner. and so i sat at one of the tables, from where i had a good view of the sleeping tomcat, and the dark night outside.

i asked him for a glass of wine, as he didn't have coffee nor tea, and three goat cheeseballs, drenched in garlic-flavored olive oil. the cheese and wine were amazing together, and i read my book, fighting the urge to interrupt the man and ask him about his life, his nook and his smoking habit.

but, i wrote a new poem instead, and cried again because in those moments while i was sitting in that nook, filled with that music, i was carried back home, to my parent's living room, where my father and i were sitting on the sofa, listening to chopin and mozart and tchaikovsky's hearts. and for those moments, i was 14 again.

and i told the man: your nook is the nook of my dreams.
the old man smiled for the first time and said that that made him happy. and then i got up, walked to his working table, and sitting down on a stool, i did what i knew i needed to do. and i listened and he shared and we laughed and i was in awe of god's love. because god knew i needed that moment, and so did Marcel.

i finally left L'Ametller. i was feeling my glass of wine and joy and wonder.

and this is how ABBA worked in my life.