Madrid airport waiting for others to arrive

This is the second year that I have been invited to be part of this Christian Arts Festival in the remote and historic town of Burgo de Osma in Soria Diocese.

The festival which has been running for 15 years was founded by Alfredo Luis Diaz a Spanish singer songwriter and his wife Monsie.
The main language of the festival is Spanish and the vaste majority of those attending are from Roman Catholic backgrounds. This year there was a strong representation from Central American and Italy as well as Spain of course. Those attending tend to be from the evangelical wing of the Catholic church and many have experience of Charismatic renewal. The most refreshing thing I found again this year was the strong emphasis on the church as community.
I believe that, in the past, the protestant churches have tended to be over eager for doctrinal purity at the expense of community.
Equally, in former times, the catholic church has underplayed the place for a clearly based biblical theology.
My personal experience suggests that it is easier for those who have a strong understanding of church (and community) to move into a renewal biblical faith than for those with strong biblical faith to get fully into real community living.
Enough of the theology, what happened ?
Well I was met at the airport by Alfredo a student at the seminary and Fredrico a singer songwriter from Mexico.
The two hour trip across the hot plains of central Spain went quickly as we shared stories of our experiences, and we arrived early evening in the seminary where the festival was to be based.
My roommate for the next four days would be Joe Moorman a singer of spiritual songs form the USA so no language problems in the this one room at least !
I was to perform on the first night ( for those who have seen it, it was the story of Jonah with newspaper. )It was fairly well received. Then for the next three days various workshops on storytelling ( cuenta cuentos in Spanish!)
some of my hiaku from last year were translated into Spanish and published in the conference programme among them:

On Saturday I gave a talk to the teenagers and at night I did the story of Samson with paper rope and some rubber band 'bees' I managed to get hold of.
They were effective I think and all flew away at the right time.... I'll have to get move now. David and Goliath and David and Saul are taking shape..

My translator Begonia at teacher of Russian and English from Barcelona, was as superb as last year, really entering into the stories with great expression and enthusiasm. As she put it "we make a good team! "
One of the most striking characters there was Jaime ( pronounced Heime) from Costa Rica. He danced during the Eucharist with table cloths and flags and also dressed up exactly as the pictures of Jesus from the religious book press of the past century. He was quite amazing, with his flowing white robes, long hair and beard quiet smile and gentle movement.
On the last evening only a few of us remained and we had supper round a long table Ja

ime came dressed as 'Jesus' and we had egg and chips for our last supper ( a concession to the non Spanish amongst us who had done very well with rice, pasta and spiced sausage
( cohoricha) over the past few days.
Altogether a great experience meeting old friends and making new ones, and as usual I found the informal meetings the most important, teaching Marvin a clown from Guatemala how to juggle with a puppet, teaching a Korean nun how to make string games, having a private guitar lesson with Miguel a classic guitar teacher and performer from Barcelona Guitar School, meeting the Frs. Angel and Xavier again and being invited to lunch with the owners of the cheapest and best shop in all of El Burgo, who also gave me a present of an excellent traditional Spanish mouse trap..............
The final day after most people had left i heard Miguel playing one of the Bach pieces I had tried to learn many years ago... He played a selection of pieces of me an audience of one. and as I left was still playing this lead me to write to he following haiku poem:

saying goodbye in' string'

the Roman fort

moonrise in Burgo

go to MultiFestival David website

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