I have the digital equivalent of a role of film taken in the towns of Ulm and Tubingen, but for the sake of time and your eventual boredom I will limit myself to a few of note, with the obligatory long-winded diatribes that seem to accompany them.
Saturday morning we awoke (though it was probably almost noon) to a bright sky, perfect for climbing, that is right, climbing. As the pictures illustrate, Ulm is home to the tallest church in the world, Muenster.
I persuaded Anja, though perhaps the size and weight of my backpack should have caused me to think better of the idea, to scale the summit of the mighty Muenster, and so we did.
Imagine, if you will, a stone closet, no large than the size of the one in your hallway that houses your winter coats, extend it almost straight up for about 7oo stairs, and that should give you some idea of the trip to the top. We
climbed and climbed, and finally we made it to the top, a breathtaking sight. Ulm and the border of Bavaria sprawled out before us like an architectual model of some ancient city, hardly appearing real, and I could say or do nothing except stare, both at the beauty of the landscape, and at the architecture of something so massive built several hundred years before my home country came into existence.
As I came down, much fast th
an I ascended I might add, more than the feelings of awe and wonder, I was left with one overriding emotion, sadness. I was truly, deeply saddened at the thought that the German people live in the shadows of some of the most spectacular churches known to man, but they are viewed as little more than tourist attractions or premodern examples of the greatness of German craftsmanship. In short, Christianity has been widely discarded here, placed somewhere in the middle ground between careless apathy and outright rejection, leaning towards disdain. These magnificient structures that dot the roadways of towns and villages both large and small are as ghost-towns on Sunday mornings, shells of their former selves.
The place that birthed Martin Luther, who in turn birthed the modern Christian movement with his utterly rebellious, grace-laced salvation by faith alone, has now subjugated this "faith" to much the same realm as the recycled trash that they sort so thoroughly, good for its orignal purpose, but now serving no conceivable good. So it has been tucked away into the realm of folklore and superstition, and perhaps were it not for the ominous buildings such as Muenster, it would be forgotten completely.
These are the thoughts that circled about my head as I walked down cobblestone streets of Ulm, much the same as they have as I daily pass the churches in Muenchen on my common route; the very same buildings whose towers cast their long shadows on the people of Germany house something so precious, and yet so forgotten.
So, enjoy the spectacular view, and, as I did from the tallest point in the Christian world, pray for the people of Germany, pray that their heritage, so rich in the foundations of the faith, might be recovered as the Israelites did so long ago.
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