{"id":10989,"date":"2023-12-27T14:30:27","date_gmt":"2023-12-27T14:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mcelhinneyart.com\/?p=10989"},"modified":"2023-12-28T12:00:47","modified_gmt":"2023-12-28T12:00:47","slug":"top-of-the-world-volcanoes-hookups-and-little-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcelhinneyart.com\/jlmcelhinney\/top-of-the-world-volcanoes-hookups-and-little-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"TOP OF THE WORLD: Volcanoes, Vikings, Hookups, and Little Talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Kathie had booked a waterfall tour for Sunday. Things did not go as planned. In, stead, they went far better than expected. Three Super Jeeps made up our caravan. Leaving Reykjavik, we head east on Highway 1, the southern coast road. Passing route 38 on our right, the land drops away. A broad inlet off to our right is fed by an estuary that snakes across the plain below. Passing the foot of table-lands rising steeply to our left, we drive past the town of Selfoss. Our driver Arni (pronounced \u201cArnie\u201d) informed us that Chess-champion Bobby Fischer is buried at a churchyard not far from here. \u201cI thought Fischer was Jewish,\u201d I replied. \u201cHow is it that he is buried in a churchyard?\u201d\u00a0 Arni couldn’t say for sure, but he explained that most Icelanders are Lutheran, and not by choice. When the island fell under Danish rule, Lutheranism was the compulsory denomination for all legal baptisms.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cThe story we Americans are told in school,\u201d I tell Arni, \u201cwas that Leif Ericsson had converted to Christianity a thousand years ago.\u201d \u201cThat may be true,\u201d Arni replied, \u201cbut many continued to worship the old gods. Some still do.\u201d I tell him about how indigenous Puebloan towns in the American Southwest celebrate both Catholicism and traditional Kiva<\/em> mysteries\u2014not in defiance of Christianity, but in a blending of spiritual traditions. Early Christian Europe was syncretic; building its flock by converting pagan deities into Christian saints. Medieval cathedrals were often built on the site of Roman temples that had replaced indigenous places of worship. \u201cThat\u2019s very interesting,\u201d Arni replies, \u201cbut I don\u2019 think the Lutheran church would go for it.\u201d I ask him how Icelanders were persuaded Icelanders to go along with the church. Arni laughed. \u201cWe finally agreed to embrace Christianity, but only if the church let us keep our slaves and eat our horses.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathie had booked a waterfall tour for Sunday. Things did not go as planned. In, stead, they went far better than expected. Three Super Jeeps made up our caravan. Leaving Reykjavik, we head east on Highway 1, the southern coast road. Passing route 38 on our right, the land drops away. A broad inlet off … Continue reading TOP OF THE WORLD: Volcanoes, Vikings, Hookups, and Little Talks<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"yoast_head":"\nTOP OF THE WORLD: Volcanoes, Vikings, Hookups, and Little Talks -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mcelhinneyart.com\/jlmcelhinney\/top-of-the-world-volcanoes-hookups-and-little-talks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"TOP OF THE WORLD: Volcanoes, Vikings, Hookups, and Little Talks -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kathie had booked a waterfall tour for Sunday. 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