"Soneto a Cristo Crucificado"
No me mueve, mi Dios, para quererte
el cielo que me tienes prometido;
ni me mueve el infierno tan temido
para dejar por eso de ofenderte.

Tú me mueves, señor; muéveme el verte
clavado en una cruz y escarnecido;
muéveme ver tu cuerpo tan herido;
muévenme tus afrentas y tu muerte.
Muéveme, en fin, tu amor, y en tal manera
que aunque no hubiera cielo, yo te amara,
y aunque no hubiera infierno, te temiera.

No tienes que me dar porque te quiera,
pues aunque cuanto espero no esperara,
lo mismo que te quiero te quisiera.
          -Fray Miguel de Guevara (1585-1646)

I miss taking Spanish courses.  I have no friends here who speak Spanish regularly, and I miss it.  I use my major and my other minor fairly often, but I have no way to keep up with the Spanish... One day, one of Walt's fellow teachers asked me to translate something for her - it was pretty basic, things like "please be sure that your daughter wears a coat on Wednesdays, because we will walk to the library...", but it gave my brain some exercise.  It was nice, but I haven't done anything since.  I thought about this poem this week, but nobody I could think of even knows it... I found it because it was assigned to me (at random, I didn't even pick it) for a group project in my last Spanish grammar course... but I just loved it.  (I later read it in a "literatura de españa" course... and still loved it, of course...)

Basically, it says:  Heaven and Hell cannot move me to love you, God.  What moves me is seeing Christ crucified for me.  It moves me to know of Christ's suffering, and of Your love for me.  That would move me, even if I had no hope for heaven, nor fear of hell.  ... except it says it much more beautifully than that.

not much else to report.  We have mice in our walls, but we haven't seen them yet, just heard them.  ok, back to work.