Spanish poetry

Actually, let me preface this by stating that in using the phrase "Spanish poetry" I refer more to the country of origin, to Spain than to the language, as one might expect in a blog based on travels in Colombia.

No, my friends, I only want to pass on a little bit of light that shone through culture today. We had an inservice for the "bilingual program" in our district, an inservice led by a educator from the Spanish Resource Center - an educator from Spain - and meant as a workshop on teaching techniques, particularly, of course, teaching Spanish. The activities: primarily reading, listening, and watching Spanish literature and media and discussing the view.

The first poem was entitled "Para que yo me llame Àngel Gonzàlez" (How I came to be called Angel Gonzalez). Our task? To determine the mood of the poem. It was a bit of a sad poem, the poem of a man looking back on his life and forward to approaching death. What struck me though were the lines of reflection: in journeys, in beatings, in shipwreck, in dangers, in weariness, in brokenness... my life has come to this.

Where else do we hear the echoes of tones of hardships? Where else has a man reflected on a life so full of the bitter?

Tell me the lines of the ancients do not influence this poem of our modern era. Tell me that you do not hear the echo of Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 11. Tell me things of Jesus Christ do not influence our world, just as Paul used the poetry of the Greeks to influence their world in Acts.

But then. Tell me how sad is it that this man had only the moments of his old age to reflect on what he'd become, while Paul could glory in the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.