I’ve thought a lot about my negative experience of religious paintings in Valencia since writing my last post. I’ve been feeling uncomfortable about feeling uncomfortable viewing crucifixion scene after crucifixion scene. I’m clear in my belief that I can’t and don’t want to associate that type of imagery with any notion of “spirituality.” However, I have been wondering lately about just what “spirituality” does mean to me.

Then I came upon this magnificent field of coquelicots, the beautiful brilliant red wild poppies with jet black centers in bloom here everywhere at the moment. I had a sort of gentle epiphany. As I stood awestruck before that field, I realized that Nature is the temple I choose to worship in. When in the presence of such natural beauty I can’t help but feel a mixture of reverence, wonder, and an almost delirious joy  –  the proverbial “religious experience.”

I told my father-in-law Geoff about the coquelicots and he told me that, in English, they are known as Flanders Poppies. The poppies are wild and grow in profusion in Flanders where thousands of soldiers killed during World War One are buried. Thus the poppies have become a symbol of remembrance – such a beautiful word. As I look at the poppies now with that knowledge, it’s curious how other religious terms come to mind, words like shrine, holy place, resurrection …

Here are the opening lines from the famous poem, In Flanders Fields, by John McCrae –

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Categories: Memories, Provence, The World Community
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