Going Home, I'm A-Going Home

When last we saw our heroine, she was leaving Gallup, and winging her way East, toward another edition of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Bloggers. (Thanks to Niki who was the clever one to come up with that parody. I wish I had thought of it first.) Aren't the clouds pretty? You can see them all over the Southwest. Sky isn't as open in the big city.

We proceeded to Albuquerque. This is near the interchange at I25 and I40. In Dallas, they call their big messy area the “Mix Master”. Oklahoma City has flyover loops, but not many areas that are so many levels.

Driving through Albuquerque, I always get the sense that they are working on making the City pretty. Their overpasses are painted, their highway walls are stucco and have impressions of art on them. There is a tall thing that lights up at night. Jenna is embarrassed by the thing, but it is nothing if not interesting. I certainly wouldn't call it pretty. It is near the highway, so I didn't get a good picture of it. Which may be for the best.

We first went to Jenna's house, to clean out the car, and visit for a little bit. One of her dogs, Charlie Brown, is convinced that I have to be stared at. He knows my Mom, and he knows me. He seems to know we are similar, but he also knows we are not the same. I wonder sometimes if he has figured out that I am essentially her "pup". He sits on my lap, and looks deeply into my eyes, which for most dogs means a challenge. He will not bark at Mom when she visits. He sits near her when she is at Jenna's, as if she is in need of a guard. Jenna is sweet, moving the dogs to her room, where they can go outside if they choose. DH likes this, because he isn't really a dog person. I am OK with dogs as long as they don't bite me.

We then went to LooneyMom's home for a wonderful dinner. She prepared a Green Chile Stew, and even made tortillas from scratch! We got to meet her lovely family, and we had a good time visiting with her. Some of the people I have met online (and then in person) have spouses who wonder why they are letting this crazy lady into their lives. Not so with Liz's husband.

He was involved in the conversation, and was happy to meet us. I got to enjoy my favorite things about New Mexico: The green chiles and the people I miss so much. I got to indulge myself in a little homemade peach ice cream. We had a fun visit. Like so many other visits before, it ended far too soon. I cropped the pictures so that you can't see the writing on the wall. (There were household scribbles on the white board behind us, and they looked important, but Liz didn't want me to show them to you.)

We left Liz and went back to Jenna's to spend the night. I tried to get a picture of Albuquerque from Jenna's back door. She lives above the city. It was a spectacular view, but my camera didn't do it the justice it deserved.

Saturday, we decided that the 10 hour drive was going to be easy. We were not in a rush to get home. We drove at a leisurely pace, and stopped to see the things we had never stopped to visit. The one thing that really was in my mind was the huge cross on the highway at Groom, TX.

I have seen it from both directions for over 10 years, but this is the first time either of us had ever stopped to actually visit the scene. As I am not Catholic, I don't completely understand or agree with all the 14 Stations of the Cross. I took pictures of the ones that made sense to me. Here is Pilate washing his hands of the responsibility of killing Jesus.

Here is Jesus carrying the cross, with help from Simon of Cyrene.

Here is the Soldier nailing Jesus down to the wood.

A closeup of the hand of the Soldier, holding the hammer. I think of this as all my sin and anger nailing Christ to the Cross. I have this as my thumbnail picture on my profile. It is profound to me, and precious. Jesus still loves me after THAT. How can I help but live for Him?

Near here, they have a replica of the tomb. Up on top of the replica of the tomb there is a scene of three men hanging on crosses. The Center is, of course, Jesus. The other two are the criminals that were mentioned in the Biblical accounts. In the recreation, the thief on the right (the left of Christ) is the one that is repentent, and the one on the left (to the right of Christ) is the angry one. I got pictures of those in the sunset. It was hard to tell the features, because of all the back lighting.

But, that gives us my favorite picture. This is the representation of Christ hanging on the Cross, between two criminals that should have been me, you and everyone who has ever lived.

The area impacted me. It is not often that I can find meaning in images of what people think Christ looked like. These are bronze statues, so there is the earthen color of them, to make His skin look darker, which is closer to the actual Jewish heritage, and less like the Rennaisance/Romance/Pink Jesus usually depicted in art. I can't help but think that we are too gentle with the thought that He was pretty to look at. Isaiah said there was nothing about His features that made us come to Him. It was His love for us, not His pretty face, that put Him on that Cross for ME. It was His words and His way of caring for us that made Him attractive, not the soft hands and well-groomed beard and straight, golden-lit medium brown hair. I find it hard to think of these statues too long, as they are part of what I would consider as a graven image. God thought images were so important not to do, that he made it one of His Top 10 List of Do's and Don'ts.

I have pondered long and hard about huge crosses, because after Groom presented theirs to the world, a Community Church in Edmond went through a lot of trouble to recreate it here. That church put more money in Legal Fees fighting to get the “right” to build such a monstrosity, than my church family makes in many years. What if, for the sake of argument, they had used that heap of cash to feed the poor, heal the sick, provide for the community? Which acts would have shown the world who Jesus truly was? Now, they still have a hurting world to care for, and the only evidence I see of their faith is an ugly structure that may have cost their souls. I simply don't understand what is so important about displaying a cross instead of displaying the love of the One who suffered the cross to save us.

This is the large cross as I saw it looking down from the top of the hill where the three crosses were. You can see the “stations” around it.

To the left of me from this view, there is a building. It has in the center of it, a water fountain, with an image of Jesus standing in the middle, I guess making a speech.

There is a gift shop (that was closed because we were there far too late in the evening). The area continues to grow. The builders are working on a nativity scene. The family and visitors of baby Jesus.

The camel that likely brought them from afar.

Everything was made of, or pointed to, the cross. Even the light fixtures that shine on it at night are supported by crosses.

The rest of our trip through Texas and Oklahoma was made primarily in the dark. We got home, and had to remind the cats that we still live here, and that we would not harm them. We have never been away for a full two weeks before. Even though they had occasional company from our wonderful friend Cathy who came every day to feed them, they thought we had officially lost our marbles. Which I have not. In fact, I even bought one in Boulder.

I am sorry that the Vacation Chronicles have taken so long to finish. We have had a collapse of computer access. My DH is so intelligent. He rescued a lot of our pictures and word files from our failed laptop. He saved us at least $100, by getting into our desktops and burning CD's of information. I couldn't get the thing to let me into any of the programs. We did have to buy a “genuine” copy of Windows XP Home, and that is now loaded. We still have to get a driver, to tell the computer that it has, and can operate, the wireless modem. (We found out after we loaded the new Windows programs that we could have burned that information, too. C'est la vie!)

This post brought to you by the Awesome DH, and the marvels of modern technology. And by the letter T. And also by the number 3.