Granada lay in the cradle of the Sierra Nevada mountains, mountains that remain snow-capped well into the spring. The town is ancient and modern, layered with culture and classical, Renaissance, and Baroque architecture. 

Old Town Granada

We were dropped off in Granada near the statue of Christopher Columbus petitioning Queen Isabella for his journey to the West Indies in 1492. It was a fitting place to start.

Next, we walked through town to the cathedral, and then around the cathedral to the entrance. Because we were right under its walls and it was crowded on all sides by other buildings it was hard to get a grasp of its size. When we entered that became clear. It’s one of the great Renaissance cathedrals in Europe.

It is built on the spot where the Moorish mosque stood in 1492, when the defeated Moors handed over the keys of the palace to Ferdinand and Isabella. The cathedral’s soaring white marble columns and gilded sanctuaries are its most defining characteristics.

The Royal Chapel is connected to the cathedral and contains the tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella. Their recumbent effigies are side by side on alabaster tombs, their heads resting gently on stone pillows. 

Their actual bones are beneath, in the crypt, in unremarkable caskets. Unfortunately, there were no photographs allowed in the Royal Chapel.

In my mind, I debated the distinction I learned in law school between acts that are wrong because they are immoral (mala in se) and acts that are wrong simply because they are illegal (mala prohibita). I convinced myself that this was clearly the latter. Still, I didn’t want to avoid a Moroccan jail, just to end up in a Spanish one.

The Alhambra

After some local fast food our driver took us up the hill to the Alhambra. The Alhambra is the fortress the Moors handed over to Ferdinand and Isabella when they surrendered the city. It contains Moorish art—no images, just calligraphy and arrangements of shapes. Looking at it in room after room made me feel like Russel Crowe in A Beautiful Mind. 

The most important place in the Alhambra for me was the room where Isabella met with Columbus to approve his journey to the New World. 

It was nothing fancy. It’s the size of a large American living room with thirty-foot ceilings. The room is unfurnished, with a dark gray tiled floor. There are Moorish designs on the walls and windows.  But like so many of the places we visit on these tours, it was not about the sights but the site.

On timing and calling

Christopher Columbus loved God and believed God had called him to discover the New World not just for Spain but for the gospel. He initially presented his plans to the king of Portugal who rejected him but stole his idea and sent out his own failed expedition. Next, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain turned him down—they were busy at war with the Moors. He sent his brother to the king of England, but he was attacked by pirates on the way, and then no decision ever came. 

Columbus had been seeking a sponsor for seven years. With nowhere left to go, he decided to petition France. Before he left, Isabella summoned him. When he appeared before her in the Alhambra in April 1492, Spain had just defeated the Moors, freeing up funds from the war effort. By August, Columbus and three ships were on their way to discovering the New World.

When Columbus was rejected by Portugal and Spain, and his brother attacked by pirates, Columbus could have decided that his vision for sailing west to the Indies wasn’t God’s will.

In reality, it wasn’t God’s timing.

“For the vision awaits its appointed time . . . If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.” — Habakkuk 2:3.

God’s timing is not mystical but practical. We live in space and time. One person can’t be in two places at the same time. Certain things have to happen before others can happen. It’s a great, impossibly complex symphony, but the Conductor is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-present. We can rest easy.

We too often interpret “no” as a closed door. We quit too easily, and we are too quick to baptize failure. 

If we are certain of our calling, the question is never whether God will act but whether we can wait. GS