On the Wealth & Autonomy of the Church, Part II.

I am well into my promised post on What Happened in Caracas.  It's gotten unwieldily, and needs to be edited with a good re-write, and then split into two parts, one about Chavez and my inchoate take on the politics and such down there, and then one with the straight narrative of my trip.  I've been too busy the last few days to get that accomplished, but will try to tonight and tomorrow.

In the meantime, I'm going to post a couple things I wrote in a comments thread over at Slate under an interesting article by Matt Yglesias about the wealth of the Church.  I spent too much time on them to have them get buried in a thread for no one to read.

One of the main problems I have in starting to write on the things I've been mulling and want to express, is that on the one hand I have quite a lot to say, while on the other the basic thrust boils down to essentially a half dozen "tricks" or themes that I am going to play over and over again a few dozen times with various inflections.  I've been hesitating because of this, but there's really nothing for it but to just put on my show and hope that all the acrobatics don't get repetitive and boring.  So here we go, my first flip:

Yglesias suggests in his article that the Church (a word that in my usage always refers to the apostolic Church, all the churches in union with Rome, and the Orthodox and other Eastern Churches that descend from the apostles - protestants are merely heretics who relate to the Church by virtue of their baptism and faith alone. Their organizations are not Churches in the sense that they are vested with any true authority like apostolic bishops have), should be subject to taxation and auditing by the State.

I disagree. This is why:

Another point: Mr. Yglesias and many commenters here seem to think that the State curtailing Church's freedom and power would be an unambiguous good. That is in effect what giving the State the power to tax and financially audit the Church (and divers churches and other religious groups) would do.  

But he misses an important thing: the separation of Church and State is not merely an innovation of the American Constitution. It's deeply embedded in the Christian, which is to say European, hence Western, experience. ("Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's, give unto God what is God's.")  Unlike in Islam where the Ummah theoretically constitutes the government and there is therefore no public distinction between the sacred and secular spheres; or in the Orthodox annoiting of the imperium, which has stunted the political life of Russia and made the Church there essentially a department of the state, creating an incestuous relationship between political and religious power; the Catholic Church has effectively created a tension in Western society that creates a sphere for conscience and then even legally legitimate political action *supported by the churches* as institutions. The churches act as catalysts or spaces for political action that have often counterbalanced, even frequently opposed, the otherwise overwhelming power of the State. This is counter the Enlightenment narrative of Catholic obscurantism, of course; but I submit that the Catholic Faith - with its doctrine of freedom of individual conscience (human beings are ontologically free, our fate is not predetermined, our actions have meaning) which is concomitant with the doctrine of the  sacredness of the human person; as well as the doctrine that political sovereigns are bound *legally* by the Church's law, which demands fair treatment of the poor and places critical limits on use of power such as just war doctrine (which essentially still constitutes the basis for modern international law and human rights doctrine) - is at the core of the Western cultural ascendency.  

See Boniface VIII's (the sucessor of the last pope who resigned, Celistine V, whom Boniface imprisoned) 1302 bull Unam Sanctam. It articulates the principal of dual authority. I argue that dichotomy vitally reinforces the moral and spiritual authority and freedom that the churches have had in our society to agitate for everything from emancipation to suffragism, from economic justice for the poor to opposition to war, from prohibition to opposition to (and support for) abortion flows from the legacy of that dichotomy. 

The universities are incidentally adjunct institutions that are utter creatures of the Church, and until now have provided a intellectual clerical caste (with authority in the sciences, medicine, law and humanities that is preeminent in our culture) that grew out of, and has now secularized the prior Christian clerical ascendancy. As we eradicate the influence of the Church, the authority of this class will - I predict - also be called into question and eroded. That our universities are now behaving like hedge funds; and tenure is being eroded, only to be replaced by teachers for hire; and universities are now being re-cast as businesses (U of Phoniex type abuse of the student loan system); is actually symptomatic of this. The dogma that human beings are iconic of God; are always ends, never mere means; is fading. Now, the market and cash, and homo economicus are all that is left. 

Absent this lingering Catholic dichotomy where an institution like the UN apes the Church in moderating the power of states and arbitrating disputes peacefully between them; we are utterly in the world ruled by the logic of Stalin, Hitler, Hobbes and Machiavelli. Just because we bourgeois think we are just too darn nice to be baldly brutal like them, does not mean that we should glibly dispense with the Church - and the various Christian splinter churches and other religious authorities - merely because we see them as backward and irrelevant in light of progress, which means merely because we disagree or think them ridiculous. 

Civilization is a thin skein, and it was woven by religion. Tear at it at our collective risk.



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Self Portrait: Aux Nuages Au Dessus La Piste, March 2013.

I've been meaning to write and post daily since the beginning of Lent, but have been a victim of demon sloth, as usual.  My one fragile excuse is that I have been skiing, reading my magnificat, saying my rosary and going to mass daily, with the exception of a few days this past week, when I took a break from all that discipline.  My ambition to write here, and elsewhere, has been too easily sloughed off as vanity, and needless self exhibition. But today, I re-embrace my croix doux..

(because even if it takes slight discipline, praying the hours and going to mass is actually almost a carnal pleasure for me these days.. I've even learnt how - or rather, have been granted and taught - to mediate on the rosary with pleasure - what used to be a chore to say even a decade, now I could easily say all the mysteries without pause or difficulty.  The key is realizing that all prayer is a grace, and asking for it.. Bit slow on the uptake, here.  But I have kind of gotten it, at last..)

And have decided that these coming few weeks I will finally post some of the things I've been gestating  and threatening to inflict on you all, my slight public, ever since I began this blog.

Tomorrow, I'll recommence by finishing my tale of Venezuela, of how my foray into that place went awry.  I didn't feel like writing about it all last fall when it happened, but now that Chavez passed this week, I thought I ought mark the occasion with the story of my misadventures in his country..

Alors, à demain.



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Loma Lane, c. 9 p.m., November 30th 2012.

A Beer Caught by the Light of the Moon..

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Maracaibo: Where I Arrive In Kenny's Old Truck

So I left Santa Marta today.  I wanted to take a bus direct to Maracaibo, which is the first large city (population 2 million+) in Venezuela.  But there were none, and the woman at the bus station said there would be none until Monday.  Since I want to be at the Brazilian Embassy in Caracas at 9 am Monday to get my visa taken care of, I had no intention of waiting.  I had to take a small bus to Maicao on the border, and then transfer to another bus to Maracaibo.

I got to Maicao in about four hours, a place my guidebook warned me was going to be gritty and possibly dangerous, while there I needed to"watch my back."  Heartening, that.

When we arrived, the door of the bus was crowded with jammering men demonically leering, wanting to sell me services.  I was mildly disoriented, and my Spanish, which usually is quite solid in everyday situations, fled me.  I was understanding less than half of what they were saying.  I was not happy, and felt mildly threatened.  I was in no mood to trust anybody, but I needed directions.  I got one of the guys to cart my bags into the terminal on his dolly.  I always take advantage help with my luggage these days, because the 50 cents or so I tip saves me the stress of lugging my overpacked bag, which is well worth it.  This time I got a little paranoid, thinking he might run off on me.  I ran behind him as he sprinted off to the collectivo office.  I wanted the counter of the main busline, but was in no condition to interject myself properly into the situation.

There, there were more men shouting at me, pricing the trip in three currencies, and wanting to change my money..  They kept telling me that the border was closing in an hour and a half, if I wanted to go today I needed to make my mind up right away.

Way too much to handle.  I needed to clear my head.  I tipped the luggage guy, grabbed my bags, and fled into the open air.

I asked a man where the main busline counter is. He pointed the way.  One man from the collectivo office is following me.  I try to ignore him.  He taps me on the shoulder.

I turn, about to lose my temper, which is a very, very rare thing for me to do. But I'm on the edge.

He hands my wallet to me.  I'd dropped it.  I take it, stammer my thanks, and run to the busline office.

I ask if there's a bus.  No.  Tommorow?  No.  Monday?  Again, no.  Why the hell not?

The guy looks at me, and hands me a brochure with Hugo Chavez's face on it.  Because of the elections tomorrow he says.  Would I like to change my money?  He starts spouting information about collectivos again.

I get defensive once again, and start to lose my mind.  I need a pen and paper.  Write everything down.  Prices. Exchange rates.

I told him that the bankrate on the Venezualan Bolivar to the dollar is 4.25, because that is what the internet said.  He said their rate was 9 to one.

First the thuggish looking collectivo dude gives me back my lost wallet, and now I'm getting quoted and exchange rate twice the official rate.  Surreal.  What is going on here?

At that point I just surrendered, and realized that paranoia was getting me nowhere.  I decided to trust these people.

Next thing I know, I am hurtling toward the border bouncing around in the back this,

 I found Kenny's Old Truck in Venezuela. Who'da thunk?

Crammed alongside a bunch of campesinos, with twice as many Bolivars as I'd initially thought I'd have in my pocket.

Hugo Chavez decreed in 2007 that Venezuela be a half hour - that's right a half hour - timezone ahead of Columbia,  just to make arriving in his country just a little more annoying than it need be.  That Hugo.  Crazy guy.  We'll see if he wins today..

Four hours in the back of Kenny's ramshackle old truck later, I'm now safely ensconced in a hotel in center Maracaibo, which the a major oil hub here.

The guy at the hotel desk keeps putting his finger to his eye everytime I walk by him, squinting and hissing "cuidado cabellero: indigentes!"

I ignored him, and went out looking for a bottle of water.  I saw a bunch of gypsy ladies on the corner running what looked at first as I approached like a hotdog stand. I went up and asked if they had any drinks, but when they turned around the one closest me had this wicked orcish looking five inch blade in her hand, and I saw that the box they had wasn't of hotdogs, but was instead a pile of raw offal.  Viscous entrails, that is.  The woman was wearing a black dress and bandana, and looked as if capable of gutting me there on the spot.  They all snarled and glared at me, and croaked "no" in unison, like they were the witches in MacBeth or the Fates or something..  I fled, beating a hasty retreat back to my room, where I am reduced to drinking tap water for the first time since I've been in Latin America, hoping it's safe..

The hotel is a cheap one, within a few blocks of the bus station and the cathedral, which is convenient, because I hope to catch mass in the morning, and then leave for Caracas tomorrow afternoon.

I'll keep you all posted as I get along.  As always, keep watching  this space..



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Picture of the Day: Existential Kitty

The Ninth Tail

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Location:14th Street,Santa Marta,Colombia

Listen to the Wicked Witch Cackle..

Now for a completely political post.

I've been thinking that one salient reason to vote Obama over Romney (who in virtually every other respect would probably govern more or less the same) is that I've thought that Obama is slightly less likely to attack Iran than the utterly neo con Romney.

I'll take the moderate neo con foreign policy of the Democrats over the insane jiggaboo neo con extremism thrown off by the Republicans in a heartbeat.

Abortion, bank and corporate servitude, health care reform, assaults on the Bill of Rights and human rights, ever burgeoning institutional militarism, all that, I think Romney and Obama will govern basically the same, because the president isn't really calling the shots anymore. The corporate elite are.

I've thought though that Obama is temperamentally less likely to do something totally idiotic in the Middle East and plunge us all off a cliff that could lead to WW III and the utter bankruptcy of our economy.

(Actually, as I think about it, Obama is probably preferable to Romney on taxes - he's less likely to cut them, more likely to raise them, if he could - and entitlement reform- I'm still naive enough to hope the Democrats really want to save and even extend to all Americans - read Gens X, Y & other future generations - Medicare and Social Security.. Both essential bastions of the Middle Class as we know it, economically.. But Obama's record has me wondering about that too, and while Romney talks libertarian smack, like most things he says I'm not at all sure he means it, and may in fact govern more moderately.  So who to trust when they're all lying and playing double games??  Obama seems moderately less oleaginous, a bit more sincere, than Romney, is all I can say..  But in the end that may mean very little, given the circumstances.)

Witness how he is blowing off Netanyahu, and refusing to meet with him.  That warms my heart.  It is exactly what Likud and the Israeli right deserve.  Exactly in keeping with our national interests.  And that is something that Romney would never do.

So I've been thinking that I might vote Obama for that reason, alone.  Because it is of utter importance that we never go gratuitously to war with Iran, in the absence of an egregious act of aggression by the Iranians.  

Then I see something like this:



This shows you just how corrupt and unified our governing class truly is.  How little the charade that is our political process matters.  The old man on the left is James Baker, former Secretary of State under George H.W. Bush.   The woman is of course Hilary R. Clinton, our current Secretary of State.

Listen to her laugh.  They're discussing a potential war that will make the Iraq boondoggle - which despite what everyone these days thinks, has come off exceptionally well, considering what could have, and yet still might happen there, precipitated by our meddling - look like tiddlywinks, the moderate act of colonial aggression it was.  

An unprovoked attack on Iran will not only discredit us utterly as a nation in the eyes of the world, shredding what moral authority we have left (and that really matters, because it makes people want to follow us, and imitate us) it could lead to global conflict, destabilizing the Gulf, Turkey, and Pakistan, possibly drawing in Russia.  It could not so hypothetically lead to WW III.

Even in a best case, it will cost trillions and kill hundreds of thousands.  More American troops will die in months than have in all the last ten years.  The impacts - political and economic - will be incalculable.

Jim and Hil of course know all this, and this type of talk is posturing to intimidate the Iranians.

Jim: "We oughta take them out."

Hil:  "Frankly, there are those who are saying the best thing that could happen to us is to be attacked by somebody.  It would unify us, it would legitimize the regime."

It would legitimize the regime?  The regime?  The US regime?  Or the Iranian? The editing here is unclear.  I think she means the latter.  I hope she means the latter.

The crazy thing is, it is no longer beyond thought that she could mean the former.

This is whichever way you cut it, utterly evil and irresponsible.  Loathsome.  And I'm just paranoid and cynical enough to believe them capable of "creating the conditions" necessary to provoke the Iranians and precipitate conflict.  I mean, it's not like they haven't done it before.  Jim and Hil are informed by a CIA/Rand Corp. Machiavellian calculus that only considers things in materialistic, economic terms.  It's all about the resources.  And Iran and the incipient Arab Shia revolt the Iranians are patrons of, sits on the jugular, threatening our Sunni Arab petrol client states. That's the real deal, the Israelis are secondary, but much more popular domestically, so they get all the propaganda airtime Stateside..

Enough.  I'm voting third party, is all I have to say.  Enough of this bullshit.  I hope everyone who reads this will consider following suit.

It's time for a change.

[h/t: Daniel @ Caelum et Terra]



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Martha, Mary, Magdelena..

I wrote a post last night that got partly swallowed by Blogsy, an ipad app I like, but that has its issues.  I gave up re-writing because it was past midnight and I was meant to be up at 7 this morning to dive.  When I got up this morning they told me that because I was the only one who'd booked diving, they were postponing 'til tomorrow.

I went out and walked about Santa Marta instead.  The hostel is at the city center, just off the beach.  There's a central square surrounded by a dozen banks, and a few casinos (and hardly anything else, scum collects) with a great equestrian statue of Simon Bolivar, the George Washington of South America, who died here at 47 in 1830.

The Liberator

There's a container port with one of those great hoist cranes to lift the containers off the boats on the waterfront, and a beach that verges into a breakwater.

Port lights at night

The water seems relatively clean, and there were urchins diving and swimming all along the waterfront, looking for coins and seafood.

I was propositioned by this very talkative and friendly woman who wanted to give me a massage.  Twenty five bucks, my choice of creams.  Much more subtle come on than usual from the prostitutes down here, who usually are quite aggressive.. She left me the pretension that we could have been talking about shiatsu, which we in fact could have been, but I'm pretty sure weren't.  I was grateful for this, because I can't stand aggressive whores.  I listened to her, as she told me about her life and all about the coast about the city.

I left my camera in the room, so this evening after eating a forth time at the superb Mexican place that is owned by the hostel, I decided to go out and walk about getting pictures, including the two prior.

This time, I ran into a whole clutch of whores.  Just as I was taking that picture of Bolivar, there.  Four or five of them, a couple I think were transvestites.  Now, to be honest, there's something venal about the Caribbean, that I dislike intensely.  One of the reasons La Cieba, Honduras got so much on my nerves, and was so depressing was that you couldn't walk the waterfront in the evening without being harassed by streetwalkers.  I've never noticed this type of aggressive pandering stateside.  Granted, I never go where you'd probably encounter it.  But the center of a city?  Right next to city hall?

This is why I detest libertarianism.  Like this crap is supposed to be legal?  Leave me the f**K alone, please. Where are the cops? If you think prostitution should be legal, think about having our public spaces invaded like this. This type of thing makes me appreciate what it must be like for girls to be hit on and leered at.  Not cool.

Still, there is in fact a certain nasty charm in being propositioned so blatantly.  They're actually kind of funny, the things that they say, like "¡Que rrrr-ico!" (how yummy!) "¡Ay, papi!" - other stuff like that.  Until they get down to groping (no respect for personal space, they try to feel you up) and flashing you (the girl - I think she's a girl - in the picture below actually has quite a nice ass, I know because she showed it to me several times) and asking to fellate you.  I flatter myself, I think a few of them would have done it for free..

They wanted me to take photos of them, I obliged:

Que rico.

Yeah.  So that's Santa Marta by night.

I then headed back to the hostel, which is quite happening.  There's a bar upstairs where they blare the tunes until two-ish every night.  Not so loud that it disturbs my sleep, so I don't mind.  As I mentioned, there's a really, really good Mexican place in the same building, and the downstairs has a groovy swimming pool in the center courtyard, with a movie room where they have probably a few hundred films tevo'd and on constant rotation.  The crowd is twenty-ish and international, but largely anglophone.

The hostel too, has an air of decadence about it.  This picture is on the wall in the stairway to the bar area.  It's pornographic and sacrilegious, so don't study this image too closely if you don't want to be offended:

That's just how we roll these days, eh.  Penis jokes never get old, especially when they're blasphemous, right?

Creepy.

There's also a ram's skull on the wall of the barroom, which reminds me of this.


All of which leaves me ambivalent, in that while this town and hostel are once beautiful, they are also charged with a souspeçon of corruption.  I've been of paranoid mind these past few years.. I've been getting over it lately, throwing myself more fully back into an emphatic life of prayer where I'm trying to avoid analyzing things and becoming judgmental (ergo prudentes sicut serpentes, et simplices sicut columbæ.. that in my case by grace alone, because I'm too much the fool to manage it by my own) and thereby jacking up my inner life with the idea that I understand anything or anyone, or that I am actually in control of anything or anyone beyond my own mind and heart, and even that is touch and go, most the time...

Anyhow, as I came back to catch some sleep before diving tommorow, I noticed that the hostel is right next door to this:

eis qui sine peccado..

Which made me smile.  We're also right around the corner from another Paroquia de San Francisco here, as well.  I took a couple crummy shots of the church, it's a humble little colonial structure, I like it quite a lot.  I hope I can assist at mass there sometime before I leave here these next couple days..

He's always popping up, wherever I happen to go..

Tonight is the eve of our little brother's feast.  Saint Francis, pray for us.  I pray tonight especially for my little whores, may they come to no harm in the resurrection..

Oracion Simple

Senor, haz de mi un instremento de tu paz, 

Que alla donde hay odio, yo pongo el amor. 

Que alla donde hay ofensa, yo pongo el perdon.

Que alla donde hay discordia, yo pongo la union.

Que alla donde hay error, yo pongo la verdad.

Que alla donde hay duda, yo pongo la Fe.

Que alla donde hay desperacion, yo pongo la esperenza.

Que alla donde hay tiniebas,  yo pongo luz.

Que alla donde hay tristessa, yo pongo alegria.

Oh Senor, que yo no busque tanto
Ser consolado, cuanto consolar.

Ser comprendido, cuanto comprendar.

Ser amado, cuanto amar.

Porque es dandose, como se recibe. 
Es olvidanose de si mismo, como uno se encuentra a si mismo.

Es perdonando, como se es perdonado.

Es muriendo, como se resucita a la vida eterna.

Amen + 

I think that's all I got for you guys tonight.  Blessings on your heads.  Sleep tight.



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Location:14th Street,Santa Marta,Colombia

Hiatus, Undone

So, after fulsome promises to blog with conviction once I left Guatemala, I have instead fallen into a severe rut in which I have not felt like blogging at all. And so, I haven't.

La Cieba, Honduras left me a moderate depressive (I'll probably get around to explaining why here, soon) so that I decided not to go out to the Bay Islands to dive like I'd planned. Instead, I came directly south to Tegucigalpa, then Managua, then San Jose, then Panama City. I spent several days in Costa Rica's national Marian shrine, in Cartago near San Jose, which I will blog these coming few days. I have good pictures, and the place was impressive. I'll gloss everything I've done, mostly by posting some of my backlog of photos. That's both easier, and I think more interesting than writing and reading a blow by blow of my travels.


In any case, last week I took a sailboat to Columbia. If you were not aware, there is no road from Panama to Columbia, the isthmus is blocked by a jungle called the Darien Gap that is home to FARC communist insurgents, drug smugglers, and other thuggish types best avoided. The passage took five days, and it was exceptional. I shall blog that, too..

See how glibly I promise. I'm not much in the mood to write, even now. But I ought to, just to feel virtuous.

Tonight however, I'll just tell you that I am in Santa Marta, Columbia. I was in the extremely beautiful colonial gem Cartegena for five days after debarking, and spent far too much - 45$ - Like a cheap American motel price, for a nice room in Getsemani, one of the historic parts of Cartegena, a room that in the States would cost probably at least three times what I paid. 45$ for a crappy motel stateside would have me feeling frugal and disciplined, but that price here made me feel bovine and used. This afternoon I hopped the bus here, where I suppose I'll go diving if feel so inspired tomorrow. If I don't, I'll just hop another bus to Maricaibo or Caracas. I figure I need go pay Hugo his respects, perhaps sooner than later.

Anyway, I got nickel and dimed stupidly by the cabby from the bus station to the hostel tonight. He asked for 10k pesos - about 5 bucks, again maybe half what I would have paid in the states for the 3km ride - when I asked at the hostel what the going rate is, they told me 5k. So I was left feeling absurdly gypped over 2.5$.. Until they quoted me 35$ for a single room here, putting that in perspective. I took it, because I am in no mood to sleep in the dorm, nor look for another hotel where I may not even get a better deal.

I'm kevetching about all this because until Panama I never paid more than 20$ a night down here. One of the great charms of traveling Latin America has been sleeping and eating well on less than 30$ a day, which is rather significantly less than it costs me merely to live in a damn apartment and eat groceries and all that back home.

Anyhow, I'm sitting at the bar at the hostel here, surrounded by people speaking English - lots of Australians mate d- and being ignored by the bar tender. Like what the crap. You know. What the crap. There's a horned bull skull on the wall opposite, creeping me out. There's absurd alternative music playing, damn kids these days think it's still 1988. Have REM sold out? I still don't care. Like whatevah.

I shouldn't be here.

From here on down, I am am avoiding these gringo infestations. Puede llamarme Carlitos del Barrio.

I'd post a picture, but I got nothin on the pad. Tomorrow. Maybe.

Well, gee, I'm cranky. Time to go to bed.

 

(autre chose: aujourd'hui c'est le fete de chere ste. therese. prie pour nous tous therese. I'm beginning a novena, tonight, time to get down, you know..)

 

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Location:14th Street,Santa Marta,Colombia

 

Posted with Blogsy

Into El Salvador

 

Today I finally did something I have been meaning to do all this week.  I took the minibus on the hour long 30Q roundtrip ride up to the Salvadoran border, and walked across for 15 minutes.  You know, just to say I've been there.  (That's one more country to my list Mr. Coady!)  Unfortunately, because of the CA4 customs agreement, I entered on my Guatemalan visa, and got no nifty Salvadoran stamp for my passport, even though I asked very nicely, por un recuerdo, you know?  But they are rigid bureaucrats there, and refused me.  But they stamped me out and back in on the Guatemalan side, which is almost as good..  

The minibus driver on the way back drove like a bat out o' hell, which drove me nuts - he'd take sharp corners going at least twice as fast as my old man nerves could handle.  It began to rain, and whenever he stopped to pick a new passenger up (they pick anyone who hails them down along the way up) he'd slam on the breaks unnecessarily stressing both his stupid van and my heart simultaneously.  I was sure one or both would give out before we got home here, in a blur of hydroplane wipeout ending with us careening violently into one of the many stream gorges by the way, but we somehow all survived. 

I'll just add that I am oddly wearing the same damn clothes in this image as I was in the last I posted of myself.  That's because I only have three sets of clothes in rotation here (well packed, or something thereabouts.. clotheswise, anyway) and I had my laundry done the other day..  Just thought I'd call unecessary attention to that fact.

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The Basilica of Esquipulas From the Roof of My Hotel

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Como Siempre, Me Porte Como Quien Soy..

Okay, aside from the fact that in my last post I claimed it was the feast of Saint Dominic, when in fact his feast is not August 4th, but this coming Wednesday, August 8th ..

(an error due to my not checking the calender and thinking that the 4th of the month is always the feast of a cool and somehow important saint to me personally - see how October 4th is St. Francis, November 4th is St. Charles Borremeo (my patron), December 4th is St. John Damascus, January 4th is St. Elizabeth Anne Seaton, and August 4th, is um.. yeah, St. John Vianney.  Not Dominic.. Uh.  That's what lack of due dilgence born of laziness gets you..  I ought take this opportunity and write up one of my many cuentas de los domini canes.. But I wouldn't want to fall prey to overweening blogger ambition or anything.. )

I have to say that while I have been busy with a dozen different things, in addition to my taking full advantage of the shrine here - I've been to confession, mass daily, and have spent a bit of time there praying - I have yet to really sit down and crank out the finished essays I have been gestating here.  One of the things I have been doing these past two days is organizing my computer and hard drives (3 of them, nearly a terrabite of data) so that I know where everything is, and everything is hopping and popping the way it ought to softwarewise..  Major aspect of this is my photo and video library, nearly a decade's worth of accumulated material scattered everywhere, with duplicates and multiple caches and libraries - a total nightmare.  I have excellent software to help me address all the various gnarly issues, but it still takes a while to run it all.   Over 300G of images takes a while to process, vet, rename and properly organize, see..

When I have finished, say sometime tomorrow,  I will have a mother load of material ready to deploy.  And I fully intend to lay it on you, my dear public.   Even if there are only a dozen of you out there that may care, I am committed.  I will not disappoint.  

At the moment however, my main library is being sorted for duplicates, and I cannot touch it.  So the grand illustrated meditation on my sojourn in Guatemala that I am preparing will have to wait until tomorrow evening. 

As a sop for your ravening curiosity though, I give you this wee appetizer.  The most interesting of all possible subjects, a picture of myself before the basilica here in Esquipulas.  As I say, more coming right soon.  Enjoy:

Soy asi, me porte como quien soy.

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Cuentas de los Perros del Señor.. Que Viene Muy Pronto..

Today is the Feast of Dominic de Guzman, founder of the Order of Preachers.  And thus it is one of my feasts, as I am by my association with Providence College a friend and disciple of the Fathers. 

I have a few stories to tell of that relationship, one of them of the afternoon I spent at the House of Studies in DC on this very day several years back.. But not tonight.  For while I am no longer in Antigua, I am still in Guatemala.  I have resolved to begin writing in earnest when I am finally free of this amazing country and her people, whom have given me occasion for a deep retreat these last few months.  The retreat comes to its end this week, and now I shall be bent on adventure, exploits and great feats.. of blogging, at the very least.

So, I've come to the national shrine here at Esquipulas for one last long weekend before crossing south into Honduras, Tuesday.  I will post a few final thoughts on Guate before then.  When I am in Honduras, I intend to write much more, and about many multifarious things..

Tonight, though, I am tired and have only in me to beg Saint Dominic's intercession, and bid you all dulces sueños, que sueñes con los santos ..




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