San Pedro High School

My adventures today surronded visiting the largest high school in South America. It's run by the CLM and is an absolutely beautiful school! More than just being physically beautiful, the anthropology of it is amazing.

The school is called San Pedro (St. Peter-the Rock!). The school is separated between a boys and a girls school from K-12th grade. At the bottom of the hill, you have the younger children and each year you graduate, you move up physically to the next level. It's a beautiful strategy that teaches the children the importance of being role models for the younger students.

The picture above is the Quad where they meet around the "Rock" as a community.

Alejandro is posing here for me in one of the mini-symposiums that the children experience. Here the children, as young as kinderguarden, meet in a round type like environment to discuss different important topics. They may have a guest speaker like a priest or the principal to have an open Q&A session.

The chapel above is truly beautiful. Again, continuing the idea of the "Rock", the alter is made of one giant stone, simple but beautiful. Students are required to attend Mass weekly, but a number of them chose to celebrate daily.

This was a really neat aspect of the school, a paintball battle field. In addition to having they typical sports, they also offer the ability for men to be men, to teach courage and strategy.

Something else very fascinating about this school, is that they naturally collect their own water for the plants on their grounds. At the top of this mountain, you can see what looks like fence posts. Essentially what they do is they run a tarp which caputures the winter mist, condense it, and channel it down a canal like system to water the soccer fields and plants. Pretty amazing!

Walter's Birthday

Today was Walter's birthday (He's the one on the left with the smile) and we celebrated with a lunch and cake in the office.

Below you can see the "after party" celebration.

One of the things I'm struggling with here is not being able to fully participate in group events. Although my co-workers are very good at explaining things to me, it's just not the same as understanding and joining in on the laughter (or creating some laughter myself). It's certainly the of the loneliest things about being here.

However, it was pointed out to me today, that while it may be lonely, it's also an excellent opportunity to focus on listening, to observe body language, and try to figure out what's going on.

To me, this is harder than it sounds. I find myself zoning out after about 5 minutes of not understanding, it's very painful (and humbling) to continuously not know what's going on.

Tonight, I picked up my dry cleaning. What an ordeal that was. Sounds simple right? Well, I arrived, handed over my reciept and the woman retrieved a large bag of clothes.

Hmmm...is everything here I wonder?

Nope, missing some things, that's for sure.

"Donde esta mi pantelones negro?"

"No se. Es todo."

"No es todo. Donde esta me pantelones?

"Blah blah blah..." (Points to receipt)

I'm not checking the receipt, where are my pants.

(Walks away)

I hope you're going to find my pants! I thought. Boom. There are my pants. Ok, what else am I missing? Ok, two shirts.

Same process. No, I'm not checking the receipt, where are my shirts?

(Walks away)

One shirt.

"Donde esta mi polo negro?"

(Points at receipt)

"No, donde esta mi polo negro?"

(Walks away)

Second shirt.

We went through this comedy act about 5 times!

Lesson learned: Trust, but verify!

Peter Kreeft Culture War Part 6

Our enemies are not even the canker worm within our own culture—the media of the culture of death, the Larry Flynts and Ted Turners and Howard Sterns and Time-Warners and Disneys. They, too, are victims, though they too are our patients—thought they hate the hospital and go running around poisoning other patients. But the poisoners are our patients, too, for whoever poisons was first poisoned himself.

This is true also of gay and lesbian activists and feminist witches and abortionists. If we are the cells in Christ’s Body, we do what he did to these people. We go into their gutters and pick up the spiritually dying and kiss those who spit at us and even shed our blood for them, if necessary. If we do not all physically go into the gutters as Mother Teresa did, we go into the spiritual gutters, for we go where the need is. If we do not physically give our blood, yet we give our life in giving our time. For life is time—“life-time.” Our time is our life’s blood. (Please don’t have children unless you understand that.)

Our enemies are not the heretics within the Church—the cafeteria Christians, the a la carte Christians, the I-did-it-my-way Christians. They are also our patients, though they are quislings. They are the deceived. They are the victims of our enemy—not our enemy.

Our enemies are not the theologians in some so-called Christian theology departments who have sold their souls for 30 pieces of scholarship and prefer the plaudits of their peers to the praise of their God.

Not even the Christophobes who wear spiritual condoms for fear Christ will make their souls and the souls of their students pregnant with His alarmingly active Life. Not even the liars who deny their students elementary truth in labeling—the robber teachers who rob their students of the Living Christ. They, too, are our patients. And we, too, do what they do—though unwillingly—in each of our sins.

Our enemy is not even the few really wicked ministers and pastors and priests and bishops and rabbis, the abusive babysitters who corrupt Christ’s little ones whom they swore to protect and merit Christ’s Millstone-of-the-Month Award. They, too, are victims in need of healing.

Who, then, is our enemy? Surely you must know the two answers. All the saints throughout the Church’s history have given the same two answers. For these answers come from the same two sources, from the Word or God on paper and the Word of God on wood—from every page of the New Testament and from Christ. They are the reasons He went to the cross.

Yet they are not well known. In fact, the first answer is almost never mentioned today outside so-called fundamentalist circles. Not once in my life can I recall ever hearing a sermon on it from a Protestant or a Catholic pulpit.

Our enemies are demons. Fallen angels. Evil spirits.

Our secular culture believes that anyone who believes this is at least an uneducated, narrow-minded bigot and probably mentally deranged. It follows logically, therefore, that Jesus Christ is an uneducated, narrow-minded bigot and mentally deranged...

Fatherhood

Thursday, January 22, 2009 was the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Regardless of where we stand on the issue, it's a time to reflect upon how we can reduce the the necessity of this law.

I have been blessed with fewer distractions and more prayer and reflection time over the past 2 weeks. Alejandro has provided me with a few spiritual books, and I've been working through a few of my own.

So, I think it's a good day to reflect upon "Fatherhood."

In many of my readings, the idea of "Father" often comes up. The purpose of our biological Father is beautiful, he:

• Is a creator of life


• Accepts and loves us


• Mentors and forms us


• Encourages us and provides self-esteem


• Disciplines us and points us in the right direction

Today, not all of us can say we totally can relate to this idea of a Father. Maybe we didn't have a Father, or if we did, maybe he didn't provide us with these beautiful gifts. Perhaps we were told we were "an accident," were unloved, or never received any Fatherly direction.

It's probably because there's an endangered species missing in our culture: the Father. How can a boy be raised to become a man, when his own Father wasn't? Who will teach him how to treat a woman? Who will teach him how to do the right thing? Who will teach him when and how to "fight?" When will the boy know when he's wrong, and how to right his path?

What about little girls? How will a girl know what a good man is if her Father wasn't? Who will protect her? Who will encourage her to chase her dreams, to be whatever she wants to be?

Not to mention the effect on wives!

"Our Father, who art in Heaven..." How can we relate to God-the-Father, if we don't have many real Fathers left? Jesus spoke about His Father in a time when men were real Fathers, when this analogy connected to people, when people thought positively when hearing the word "Father."

Today, a father is seen more appropriately as such:

"A father half apologetic for having brought his son into the world, afraid to restrain him lest he should create inhibitions or even to instrust him lest he should interfere with his independence of mind, is a most misleading symbol of the Divine Fatherhood..."

Instead of:

"...consider how Our Lord regards His own Sonship, surrendering His will wholly to the paternal will not even allowing Himself to be called 'good' because Good is the name of the Father. Love between father and son, in this symbol, means authoritative love on the one side, and obedient love on the other. The Father uses his authority to make the son into the sort of human being he, rightly, and in his superior wisdom, wants him to be..." -The Problem of Pain, CS Lewis

When Americans are polled, a majority believe responsibility needs to be more emphasized. In fact, 69% of all business leaders recently polled believe Social Responsibility is important to the future of the US Economy.

The problem, of course, becomes how to encourage responsibility.

Many want more responsibility as long as it doesn't reduce "freedom of speech", "corporate profits", "standard of living", or "sexual encounters." We also don't want more responsibility if it increases "taxes", causes "sacrifices", or inflicts "pain." I could probably count myself in some of these categories from time-to-time, but the problem is, we are practicing "safe" responsibility if we say "personal responsibility but..."

Today, we mark this day 36 years ago, when fatherhood (little "f", not Divine Fatherhood) failed us. If men were really men, we wouldn't need this law. If men were real men, women wouldn't be in this paradox.

Let's pray for a return of personal responsibility in the home, with a return of the Divine Fatherhood.

Peter Kreeft Culture War Part 5

2. Knowing Our Enemy
The second prerequisite is knowing our enemy. Who is our enemy?

For almost half a millennium, Protestants and Catholics have thought of each other as the problem and have addressed the problem by consigning their bodies to graves on battlefield[s] and their souls to hell.

Gradually, the light dawned. Protestants and Catholics are not enemies; they are separated brethren who are fighting together against the same enemy. Who is that enemy?
For almost two millennia, Christians thought it was the Jews and did such Christ-less things to our Fathers in the Faith that we made it almost impossible for the Jews to see their God—the true God—in us.

Today, many Christians think it is the Muslims. But they are often more loyal to their half-Christ than we are to our whole Christ, and live more godly lives following their fallible scriptures and their fallible prophet than we do following our infallible Scriptures and our infallible Prophet. If you compare the stability of the family and the safety of children among Muslims and among Christians in today’s world; or if you compare the rate of abortion, divorce, adultery, and sodomy among Muslims and Christians in today’s world; and if you dare to apply to this data the principles announced by the prophets in our own Scriptures when they say repeatedly that God blesses those who obey His law and punishes those who do not, then I think you will know why Islam is growing faster that Christianity today. [Ed. note: These remarks were delivered in 1998.]

Faithful Muslims serve under the same general God, though through a different and more primitive communications network. And the same, I think, is true of the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Quakers.

So who are our enemies? Many of us think our enemies are the liberals, but for one thing, that term is almost meaninglessly flexible, and for another, it’s a political term not a religious one. Whatever is good or bad about any of the forms of political liberalism, it is neither the cause nor the cure of the spiritual cancer that makes this culture war a spiritual one—a matter of life or death. Eternal life or death, not economic or political life or death. Whether Jack and Jill go up the hill to heaven or down the hill to hell will not be decided by whether government welfare checks increase or decrease.

Our enemies are not even the anti-Christian bigots who want to kill us, whether they are Chinese communist totalitarians who imprison and persecute Christians or Sudanese Muslim terrorists who enslave and murder Christians. They are not our enemies; they are our patients. They are the ones we are trying to save. We are Christ’s nurses. Some of the patients think the nurses are their enemies, but the nurses must know better. Our word for them is, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do..."

The Third World

Today, I want to reflect on some of the differences I've seen between the "First World" country I was raised in, and the brief time I've spent in a "Third World" country.

First, let's define what we're talking about.

The Third World Definition:

"The underdevelopment of the third world is marked by a number of common traits; distorted and highly dependent economies devoted to producing primary products for the developed world and to provide markets for their finished goods; traditional, rural social structures; high population growth; and widespread poverty. Nevertheless, the third world is sharply differentiated, for it includes countries on various levels of economic development. And despite the poverty of the countryside and the urban shantytowns, the ruling elites of most third world countries are wealthy.

Because the economies of underdeveloped countries have been geared to the needs of industrialized countries, they often comprise only a few modern economic activities, such as mining or the cultivation of plantation crops. Control over these activities has often remained in the hands of large foreign firms. The prices of third world products are usually determined by large buyers in the economically dominant countries of the West, and trade with the West provides almost all the third world's income. "

(http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/General/ThirdWorld_def.html)

If you've been following my blog, you've seen some of the pictures from the shanty towns, and maybe that's your view of a "third world" country. While it is true that these countries have huge populations in poverty (I'm talking real poverty, not like we see in the US). There's a lot more to the equation. I could easily make this a boring economic lesson, but I'll instead comment about my interactions with people, the surprising knowledge they have and don't have, the peace that comes with a certain amount of nievity, but also the limits.

Surprising Knowlege, Jobs, and Such:
People living in the "third world" know how to actually create tangible things. Maybe this isn't a surprise to some of you, but it was to me!

• Handiness. If you own a car, you know how it fix it, because it's going to break and you don't have the money to fix it. Handiness is non-sexist too, so that includes females (can you imagine some Scottsdale girl fixing a car on the side of the road?!?).
• Languages. They know many and I know one. Gosh, I feel dumb (and they can read my blog, I feel double dumb!)!
• Pop Culture, celebrities, songs, bad bands, and movies. They haven't always had TV or Cable, but they know who's famous and they have a strong opinion about them! If I was on an American Pop Culture Game Show against my co-workers, they would dominate me!
• Creative Jobs. Unemployment is high and many workers are "unskilled", but certainly not "un-creative." If there's a way to create value and earn a few "lucas" (bucks) they'll do it. Lima's a big city with a tone of population density, which means traffic congestion, so parking is difficult to find. When you do find it, it's even more difficult to back out. Don't worry, there's a guy who will stop traffic and back you up, but don't forget to roll down your window and tip him. Cartwheels in the street will also get you paid, or run over, depending on the taxicab.

There are clearly many other surprising things that I haven't listed, but these are a few of the heavy hitters, if you will.

Now here are some things I've struggled with in the "third world":

• Pollution. Part of this is a geographic thing. Lima is in a valley, which much like LA or Phoenix, tends to collect the "brown cloud". Not surprising, however, is the fact that they don't have an EPA or emissions testing. So, your car could be producing a little brown cloud behind you, and as long as it's still running, you don't worry about it. Being an asthmatic, I thought I was going to die the first few days I was here! Seriously, I woke up that first night coughing because a truck dumped a brown cloud in my room!
• Lack of Individualism: Maybe "indiviudalism" isn't the right word, but certainly a lack of private space and quiet. Lima, by far, is the busiest, loudest city I've ever been in. They talk about Vegas as the city that never sleeps, that may be true, but Lima is the city that never shuts up. Loud cars are always rumbling through, beeping their horns at intersections and causing a havoc. I've been to New York, I've lived in DC, this place is truly noisy and truly big! My biggest pet peeve in this area are taxi's. You cannot walk for more than 2 minutes without a cab beeping at you! They always want to take you somewhere. I'm thinking about making a shirt that says, "Beep you, I'm walking!" I wonder if that would sell here?
• American Influence: I'm not talking about our official foreign policy, in fact, I think the US-Peru trade agreement is really going to benefit Peru and workers rights here, I'm talking about our biggest export (no not debt), culture. Peruvians have such a rich, diverse culture here and it's sad to see a Starbucks being held in such esteem, especially when Peruvian coffee is much better. I also struggle with the poor "American Values" we've exported, "Grand Theft Auto", the "sexual revolution", and our questionable "family values." You may say it's just a movie, and that may be true to us (probably because we've destroyed our conscience), but Hollywood definitely is shaping beliefs about Americans, about what "success" is, about how to be "happy."

Again, I struggle with other little things, but generally speaking, these are the biggest irritants.

I've also realized important things about how life works here:

• Specialization isn't always better. The US is the biggest economy in the world for a lot of very complex reasons, but one thing we do better than most is that we specialize in something and become really, really good at it. It's basic Econ 101: if you can produce something really well and efficient, focus on it, and trade with somebody that specializes in something else. Trading, you produce more than if you learned both jobs. Yet, after living here, I've learned there's a point of diminishing returns, not just economically, but psychologically. As humans, I think we need to feel dignity and worth from what we produce, if we can't connect it to the larger picture, we get depressed (even if we make a lot of money). I think it's because we don't feel connected, because we don't see how our tiny work actually makes a difference in the world. Really good bosses can connect any job, but there aren't a lot of really good bosses. Anyway...Peruvians don't specialize as much, but are more well rounded, and thus, I think, more connected with their "neighbor." Which means that they can work on random things together, they have more in common, and tend to share better (they probably played better on the playground too!)
• It's all about your instincts. Everything from driving, to crossing the street, buying fruit, to picking a story, to fundraising, to business planning, to lunch/dinner choices, to weekend planning. I've never met more people that spontaneously "plan" something and it actually works out well. Maybe it's their trust in God? It kind of drives me crazy sometimes not having a calander, but at the same time very liberating. No longer do I need to tell people to send me a Lotus Note invite, or put a date and time in my phone, it just happens!
• What cell phone manners? It's like 1990 here when it comes to cell phone manners. People have these cell phones, but I don't think they really know when it's appropriate to use them or how to silence them. Alejandro told me last week that they actually had to run a public service campaign to try to instill cell phone manners...Speaking of cell phones, It's liberating only having 6 numbers in my phone. No texting or phone calls really to answer.
• Banks rule! My roommate affectionately calls his bank "my bastard bank," but he claims it's the best in Peru. What's the issue? Fees. It doesn't seem like there's much competition in the Peruvian Financial Sector. People don't really save for retirement, most don't know what a stock is, and don't know how to financially plan for the future (is this really any different than Americans?!?) It's just sad to see 1) a lack of options for people to put their money to work and 2) no knowledge/education on finance. It's no wonder "first world" countries have been blamed for taking advantage of "third world" nations. These people can learn these simple rules, but nobody's taught them.

Those are my reflections for the day. Maybe part 2 tomorrow...

Peter Kreeft Culture War Part 4

But America has the most just and more moral and most wise and most Biblical historical and constitutional foundation in the world. Yes. Just like ancient Israel. And America is one of the most religious countries in the world. Yes, just like ancient Israel. And the Church is big and rich and free in America. Yes, just like ancient Israel.

And if God still loves His church in America, he will soon make it small and poor and persecuted just as He did to ancient Israel—so that He can keep it alive by pruning it. If He loves us, He will cut the dead wood away. And we will bleed. And the blood of the martyrs will be the seed of the Church again and a second spring will come and new buds—but not without blood. It never happens without blood, without sacrifice, without suffering. Christ’s work, if it is really Christ’s work and not a comfortable counterfeit, never happens without the cross. Whatever happens without the cross may be good work, but it is not Christ’s work. For Christ’s work is bloody. Christ’s work is a blood transfusion. That is how salvation happens.

And if we put gloves on our hands to avoid the splinters from His cross, if we practice safe spiritual sex, spiritual contraception, then His kingdom will not come and His work will not be done. And our world will die.

I don’t mean merely that Western civilization will die; that’s a piece of trivia. I mean eternal souls will die—billions of Ramones and Vladimirs and Tiffanys and Bridgets will go to hell. That’s what’s at stake in this war. Not just whether America will become a banana republic or whether we’ll forget Shakespeare or even whether some nuclear terrorist will incinerate half of humanity, but rather whether our children and our children’s children will see God forever. That’s what’s at stake in Hollywood vs. America. That’s why we must wake up and smell the corpses, the rotting souls, the dying children.

Knowing we are at war at all times, but especially in such times as these, is the first prerequisite for winning it.

Laundry and Locked in the Bathroom

Yesterday was a very productive day. I made some good headway on the fundraising project, drafteds some critical outlines for some of the projects we're seeking grants for, and updated my database.

My big accomplishment yesterday, however, was making it the dry cleaners. I have been here for two weeks, and well, it was time to make the trip. The good news is, I hadn't run out of clean clothes, the bad news, however, was that I would the next day. Procrastination.

I don't mind going to the market, or grabbing food by myself, but I thought that it's kind of a high risk situation to be taking 90% of your clothes to a dry cleaner without knowing hardly any "dry cleaning" words.

"Do you want the clothes washed together? How would you like this shirt pressed? What do you want to do with these pants?"

Ahhh, just the thought of having to wear shrunken, tiedied clothes for a day or two makes me pretty embarrased just thinking about it.

Luckily, one of my co-workers agreed to go with me and be my translator.

We went out to my favorite cafe for dinner afterwards, had another great meal, and got to know each other a lot better.

Walter, thank God, speaks English very well. He actually went to school to be a translator. I believe he speaks Spanish, English, Italian, and

French (or at least can translate those!)

After dinner, I made a stop in the bathroom to get something out of my eye. You can see the little slidding door above has a bit of a funny lock. It didn't lock when you turned the knob, so I played with it and manually got it to catch.

After I washed whatever was in my eyes out, I tried to open the door. Oh yeah, the lock's broken dummy! So I effectively locked myself in this tiny bathroom for a couple of minutes. It's a good thing I wasn't claustrophobic, because I think I would have lost it in there!

I used one of my keys to poke the latch up and was freed! Phew! Not going to do that again!

Culture War Part 3

Peter Kreeft's Culture War Part 3:

"...But, you may object, is not the God of the Bible compassionate? He is. But He is not compassionate to Moloch and Baal and Ashtaroth and to the Canaanites who do their work, who cause their children to pass through the fire. Perhaps your god is compassionate to the work of human sacrifice—the god of your demands, the god of your religious preference—but not the God of the Bible. Read the book. Look at the data.

But is not the God of the Bible revealed most fully and finally in the New Testament rather than in the Old? In sweet and gentle Jesus rather than wrathful and warlike Jehovah? The opposition is heretical. It is the old Gnostic–Manichean–Marcionite heresy, as immortal as the demons who inspired it. Our data refuted; our live data, which is divine data and talking data. Thus His name is the “Word” of God. This data refuted the heretical hypothesis in question when He said, “I and the Father are one.”

The opposition between nice Jesus and nasty Jehovah denies the very essence of Christianity—Christ’s identity as the Son of God. For let’s remember our biology as well as our theology. Like father, like son. That Christ is no more the Son of that God than Barney is the son of Hitler.

Will the real Jesus please stand up? He does so gladly. The gospels are pop-up books; open their pages and he leaps out. Let’s dare to look at our data. Let’s see what sweet and gentle Jesus actually said about the sins of the Canaanites, about the culture of death.

Many centuries ago, those Canaanites used to perform their liturgies of human sacrifice, their infanticidal devotions to the devil, in the Valley of Gehenna, or Ge Hinnom, just outside Jerusalem. It was a vast abortuary, like our culture. When the people of God entered the Promised Land, the Prince of Peace commanded them to kill the supernatural cancer of the Canaanites. Even after that was done, the Jews dared not live in that valley or even set foot there. They used it to burn their garbage. So the devil’s promised land became God’s garbage dump. And the fires never went out, day or night. (No matches, remember.)

Now, sweet and gentle Jesus chose this place, Gehenna, as his His image for hell. And he told many of the leaders of His chosen people that they were headed there and that they were leading many others there with them. He said to them, “Truly, truly I say to you: The IRS agents and White House interns go into the Kingdom of God before you.” That’s the modern dynamic equivalence translation. He said, “Whoever causes one of these little ones [that] believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” That is our data. That is the real Jesus. And that is the Jesus who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I do not think he has started manufacturing Styrofoam millstones.

But, is not God a lover rather than a warrior? No, God is a lover who is a warrior. The question fails to understand what love is, what the Love that God is is. Love is at war with hate and betrayal and selfishness and all Love’s enemies. Love fights; ask any parent.
Yuppie love, like puppy love, may be merely compassion [in] the fashionable world today, but father-love and mother-love is war. God is love indeed, but what kind of love? Back to our data. Does Scripture call Him “God the puppy” or “God the yuppie” or is it “God the Father”? In fact, every page of this Book bristles with spear-points, from Genesis 3 through Revelation 20. The road from paradise lost to paradise regained is soaked in blood. At the very center of the story is a cross, a symbol of conflict if there ever was one. The theme of spiritual warfare is never absent in Scripture and never absent in the life and writings of a single saint. But it is almost never present in the religious education of my students at BC. “BC,” by the way, stands for “Barely Catholic.”

Whenever I speak of this, they are stunned and silent, as if they have suddenly entered another world. They have. They have gone through the wardrobe to meet the lion and the witch. Past the warm fuzzies—the fur coats of psychology disguised as religion—into the cold snows of Narnia, where the white witch is the lord of this world and Aslan is not a tame lion but a warrior. A world where they meet Christ the King, not Christ the kitten. Welcome back from the moon, kids.

Who doesn’t know we’re at war? Who doesn’t know that the barbarians are at the gates? No, inside the gates, writing the scripts of the TV shows and movies and public school textbooks and juridical decisions. Only the ones in the lunar bubble of academia or the lunar bubble of establishment religious education programs, with their unprofitable prophets who cry, “Peace, peace” when there is no peace; the ones who compose those dreary, drippy little liberal lullabies we endure as contemporary hymns.

The drug dealers know we’re at war. The prostitutes know we’re at war. The beggars in Calcutta know we’re at war. The Polish grandmothers know we’re at war. The Cubans know we’re at war. The Native Americans knew we were at war—until we gave them firewater and then gambling casinos to dull their dangerously awake minds.

Where is this culture of death coming from? Here. America is the center of the culture of death. America is the world’s one and only cultural superpower. If I haven’t shocked you yet, I will now. Do you know what pious Muslims call us? The Great Satan. (Impious Muslims call us that, too, but that makes no difference. We are what we are.) And do you know what I call them? I call them right..."

What is Freedom?

So today was a big day for a lot of people. We've heard a lot of talk about freedom lately, about hope, about fear, and about people suffering. It's made me very reflective, and since I spend a lot more time with spiritual readings, prayer, and reflections, I have a few things that I've read/thought about that I'd like to share.

Fear:

"...if God's moral judgement differs from ours so that our 'black' may be His
'white', we can mean nothing by calling Him good; for to say 'God is good',
while asserting that His goodness is wholly other than ours, is really only to
say 'God is we know not what'. And an utterly unkown quality in God cannot give
us moral grounds for loving or obeying Him. If He is not (in our sense) 'good'
we shall obey, if at all, only through fear-and should be equally ready to obey
an ominpotent Fiend."

A couple of thoughts here: If I believe God exists, why do I try to understand what is 'good.' Is it out of fear as CS Lewis questions? No, because there are things that I fear in this world, but do not worship. Rather, I believe were search for 'good', albiet in our own way, because we were created to do 'good', in His image and likeness. We receive the gift of joy, and we know well when we have done something good!

"...The escape from this dilemma depends on observing what happens, in human
relations, when the man of inferior moral standards enters the society of those
who are better and wiser than he and gradullay learns to accept their
standards, a process which, as it happens, I can describe fairly accurately,
since I have undergone it...The new moral judgements never enter the minds as
mere reversals (though they do reverse them) of previous judgements but 'as
lords that are certainly expected'. You can have no doubt in the direction that
you are moving; they are more like good than the little shreds of good you
already had, but are, in a sense, continous with them. But the great test is
that the recognition of the new standards is accompanied with the sense of shame
and guilt; one is conscous of having blundered into society that one is unfit
for."

Boy, does this hit home. I've been here for less than two weeks now, but being surrounded by such holy, hardworking, selfless people has rubbed off on me. Some of my habbits are already changing, humility is increasing, and I'm learning much more kindness (in a lot of ways because I can only show my affection, not through words, but actions!).

Love and Hope:

"...There is kindness in Love: but Love and kindness are not coterminous,
and when kindness is separated from the other elements of Love, it involves a
certain fundamental indifference to its object, and even something like contempt
of it. Kindness consents very readilty to the removal of its object-we have all
met people whose kindness to animals is constantly leading them to kill animals
lest they should suffer. Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether the object
becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering...It is for people
whom we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any terms: with our
friends, our lovers, our children, we are exacting and would rather see them
suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging modes..."

I had to read this section a couple times for it to really sink in. "We would rather see them suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging modes..." This is pretty deep, but very simple.

The first example that comes to mind is extreme, but it helps the analogy: if you see somebody addicted to something (drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc.), you see them 'happy' when they're doing it, but you know that in the long run it's going to be a disaster. When you finally convince them to change their course, it's painful (very painful!), but you know that this suffering that you're encouraging them and helping them through, is actually out of love!

To me, this is a huge problem in our society today. We are all yuppies (me included!) and we avoid suffering. We'd rather be addicted and keep taking our drugs (whatever our addiction may be), instead of purifying our lives and forming ourselves towards God's Will.

Freedom, wild vs tame dogs:

"The relation between Creator and creature is, of course, unique, and
cannot be paralleled by any relations between one creature and another. God is
both further from us, and nearer to us, than any other being. He is further from
us because of the sheer difference between us...Another type is the love of a
man for a beast-a relation constantly used in Scripture to symbolize the
relation between God and men; 'we are his people and the sheep that he
shepherds.'...Its great merit lies in the fact that the associate of (say) man
and dog is primarily for the man's sake: he tames the dog primarily that he may
love it, not that it may love him, and that it may serve him, not that he may
service it. Yet at the same time, the dog's inerests are not sacrificed to the
man's.

The one end (that he may love it) cannot be fully attained unless it also,
in its fashion, loves him, nor can it serve him unless he, in a different
fashion serves it, Now just because the dog is by human standards one of the
'best' of irrational creatures, and a proper object for a man to love man
interferes with the dog and makes in more lovable than it was in mere
nature.

In its state of nature it has a smell, and habits, which frustrate man's
love: he washes it, house trains it, teaches it not to steal, and is so enabled
to love it completely. To the puppy the whole proceeding would seem, if it were
a theologian, to cast grave doubts on the 'goodness' of man: but the full grown
and full trained dog, larger, healthier, and longer-lived than the wild dog, and
admitted, as it were by Grace, to a whole world of affections, loyalties,
interests, and comforst entirely beyond its animal destiny, would have no
doubts.

It will be noted that the man takes all these pains with the dog, only
because it is an animal high in the scale. he does not house train the earwig or
give baths to centipedes. We may wish, indeed, that we were of so little account
to God that He left us alone to follow our natural impulses-that He would give
over trying to train us into something so unlike our natural sleves; but once
again, we are not asking not for more love, but for less!"

Phew, there's a lot going on here! To me, however, there's a very simple theme: God has chosen humanity to Love and we are better off by allowing Him to Love us!

We are the highest on the scale, again created in His image and likeness. Left to our own devices, we are like the wild dog. Yet, God feeds us, He calls us in to be warmed by the fire of His Love. He shares with us his Law, which makes us healthier and long-lived. Just like dogs, we sometimes stray. Maybe we steal something off the table when nobody's looking.

Why should we do that when we know we'll get feed?

Because it's our instinct, our free will.

Because our Master loves us, He will punish us, but He allows the suffering out of Love!

Garbage Trucks!

Ok, so I have to write about this topice, because for the last week or so I've been fascinated by it. Last week, I was walking home from dinner and I came around the corner to see this garbage truck fly around the corner, and out popped 3 tiny guys running full speed, they grabbed bags of trash, grabbed on to the truck and jumped back on. All in a matter of a few seconds the all of the trash bags down these street were picked up! Nothing machnical, just 3 superfast little Mario and Luigi's!

So, tonight I set out to capture these little speed demons on my camera to show you.

Every night the trash is picked up here at just around 8 pm. So I got my camera and set-up shop. I stood outside the gate of ACI-Prensa with my camera ready to go. I took a few practice shots, and got the camera on the right setting.

While I was waiting, I saw a number of random things happen. First, I saw my first female taxi-driver. Not too random right? Except for the fact that her cab broke down. Instead of calling a tow-truck or AAA, she got out of the car, opened up the back, and got her tools out. She spent maybe 10-15 minutes under the hood working on

something and away she went! I've noticed a lot of people working on their cars in the most random of places! People keep their cars here until they pretty much can't be fixed anymore, which means, you don't drive unless you know how to fix your car, kind of a good rule!

Also, my nextdoor neighbor got picked up for a date tonight. Some guy pulled up on a skatboard and whistled from the street to get her attention because her house is gated in.

So I was getting ready to give up on my garbage truck friends, when around the corner they came. I tried to take these pictures, but as you can tell, those suckers were just way too fast! I'm going to try and get a video next time! I like the effects of the last picture because it looks like the guy is like the Flash!

More Adventures and Strage Things

After work today, I attended Mass. At the church nearby they have 4 daily Masses and I would say about 300-400 people attend each one, a very large crowd no doubt.

Sitting next to me today was this older woman who thought it was so hot in there (maybe 75 degrees), that she thought she would turn on her little portable fan. I don't know where she bought this thing, but it sounded like it had a diesel engine! Not only do I have a hard enough time trying to understand what the priest is saying, but I also have a pickup truck in my ear!

After Mass, I walked down the beach aways and say one of the most beautiful sunsets! It was too bad that I wasn't carrying my camera with me, but I'll remember it next time.

As I was walking, I decided I needed to explore more of the city. I turned left and headed down a street that looked pretty busy. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I figured I'd know it when I saw it. Up and down the street I went, passed shops and stores, passed cafes and restaurants, passed hotels and casinos, up and down the streets I went. Until I found it. The market (grocery store).

I went inside, grabbed a basket and wandered around like a lost gringo. Some of the things I saw were new, like cow eyes. Other things were not so new, but in different form (like sugar you scoop yourself).

I decided I would buy some food to prepare dinner for the next few days. As I was filling up my basket, checking prices, and evaluating products, I realized I only had $/50 ($17). So, not remembering if tax was included in the price of food, I played it conservative. Sales tax here is about 20%, which can add a lot on to a bill, but I was reminded later that it's the law that tax must be included in the price of everything!

Near the checkout line I saw some very large Black women that turned out to be Americans from Detroit. They certainly resembled the stereotypical Americans I've been teased about since coming here. Not only were they overweight, but they were buying very unhealthy, fattening food and...diet cokes!

They were pretty funny in line too. They didn't make any attempt to speak Spanish and when they weren't understood, they just raised their voice louder (as if it were a volume issue, hello, you're in Peru!).

After walking home, I started to prepare my dinner. Hamburgers and chicken fried rice. Interesting mix, I know. So as I'm preparing my meal, I realize my roommate doesn't cook, so there aren't any condiments. There has to be something around here. I started combing through the kitchen and found 1 ketchup packet. It will have to do.

When my hamburger was cooked, I squeezed the ketchup out, and what came out looked to me like BBQ sauce rather than ketchup. I had no idea how long that packet had been in there, so off went the ketchup.

Which brings me to my next topic: Strange observations about Peru.

1. Women don't drive here. I think maybe 5-10% of the drivers are women. Weird.
2. Expensive restaurants offer you ketchup packets. Cheap restaurants offer you ketchup bottles. Apparently, it's more refined to fight through those little packets to get at your ketchup.
3. Expensive restaurants charge you for refilling your coke glass. Cheap restaurants offer free refills. Again, what the heck?
4. A generous tip is 10%, but you tip the guy standing near your car that helps you back-up.
5. Many, many, many more people attend Mass here, but only about half of them receive Communion. It seems to be the opposite in the US. I think it's because Americans maybe aren't aware that they're in mortal sin, or maybe they believe that they're entitled to it. Probably a little bit of both.
   

Peru = Top 10 Places for Culture?

The picture on the right is of Our Lady of Fatima. It's the church that I try to visit daily. Luckily, it's just a 2-3 minute walk from my place.


http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/15/culture-travel-destinations-forbeslife-cx_ls_0115travel_slide_8.html?thisSpeed=15000





Peru
Known both for its textiles and folk art as well as ancient structures and biodiversity, the OECD says Peru classifies 93% of its tourists as cultural tourists. However, Peru is different from many other cultural meccas in that it targets young travelers who spend less per day, but tend to stay longer. Along with volunteer tourism, those with an International Student Identity Card receive discounts on everything from hostels to Inca Trail tours.

It was exciting to see that I'm in one of the top countries in the world for culture! Hopefully some of it will rup off on me!

The continuation of the Culture War from Peter Kreeft:

...There is, however, an irrefutable refutation of the “pig philosophy”; the simple, statistical fact that suicide—the most in-your-face index of unhappiness—is directly, not indirectly, proportionate to wealth. The richer you are and the richer your country is, the more likely it is that you will find life so good that you will choose to blow your brains out. (Perhaps that is the culmination of open-mindedness.)

Suicide among pre-adults has increased 5000 percent since the happy days of the 50s. If suicide, especially of the coming generation, is not an index of crisis, I don’t know what is.
Just about everybody except the “deep” thinkers know[s] that we are in deep doo-doo. The students know it but not the teachers—the mind-molders, especially in the media. Everybody in the hospital except the doctors knows that we are dying. Night is falling. Mother Teresa said simply, “When a mother can kill her baby, what is left of civilization to save?” What Chuck Colson has labeled a “new dark age” is looming; a darkness that christened itself The Enlightenment at its birth three centuries ago. And this brave new world has proved to be only a cowardly old dream.

We are able to see this now, at the century of genocides closed—the century that was christened “The Christian Century” at its birth by the founders of a magazine devoutly devoted to false prophecy.

We’ve also had some true prophets who have warned us. Kirkegaard, 150 years ago, in The Present Age. And Spengler almost 100 years ago in The Decline of the West. And G. K. Chesterton, who wrote 75 years ago that, “The next great heresy is going to be simply an attack on morality, and especially on sexual morality. And the madness of tomorrow will come not from Moscow but from Manhattan.” And Aldous Huxley, 65 years ago, in Brave New World. And C. S. Lewis, 55 years ago, in The Abolition of Man. And David Reisman, 45 years ago, in The Lonely Crowd. And Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 20 years ago, in his Harvard commencement address. And John Paul the Great, the greatest man of the worst century in history, who had even more chutzpah that Ronald Reagan (who dared to call them the “evil empire”) by calling us the “culture of death.” That’s our culture—and his, including Italy, which now has the lowest birth rate in the entire world; and Poland, which now wants to share in the rest of the West’s great abortion holocaust.

If the God of Life does not respond to this culture of death with judgment, then God is not God. If God does not honor the blood of the hundreds of millions of innocent victims of this culture of death, then the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, the God of Israel, the God of the prophets, the God of orphans and widows, the Defender of the defenseless, is a man-made myth, a fairy tale, a comfortable ideal as substantial as a dream.

“But,” you may object, “Is not the God of the Bible also forgiving?” He is. But the unrepentant refuse forgiveness. Forgiveness, being a gift of grace, must be freely given and freely received. How can it be received by a moral relativist who denies that there is anything to forgive? (Except unforgiving-ness. Nothing to judge but judgmentalism. Nothing lacking but self-esteem.) How can a Pharisee or a pop psychologist be saved...?

The Culture War

One of the things I referenced in my initial blog post from December, was a talk I went to on the Culture War. I came across a similar talk again today and I thought that it might be interesting to post pieces of the talk each day, because it was so impactful in my own life.

So, here it is part 1 of the Culture War originally given by Peter Kreeft in 1998:

To win any war and any kind of war, I think the three most necessary things we must know are:

that we are at war;
who our enemy is; and
what weapons or strategies can defeat him.

We cannot win a war: first, if we are blissfully sewing peace banners on the battlefield; or second, if we are too busy fighting civil wars against our allies; or, third, if we are using the wrong weapons. For instance, we must fight fire with water—not fire.

So this talk is a very basic, elementary three-point checklist to be sure we all know this minimum at least.

I assume you wouldn’t be coming to a talk entitled “How to Win the Culture War” if you thought all was well. If you are surprised to be told that our entire civilization is in crisis, I welcome you back from your nice vacation on the moon.

Many minds do seem moonstruck, puttering happily around the Titanic, blandly arranging the deck chairs—especially the intellectuals, who are supposed to have their eyes more open, not less. But in fact, they are often the bland leading the bland. I have verified over and over again the principle that there is only one thing needed for you to believe any of the 100 most absurd ideas possible for any human being to conceive: You must have a Ph.D.

For instance, take Time magazine—please do. Henry Thoreau said, “Read not the times, read the eternities.” Two Aprils ago, their lead article was devoted to the question, “Why is everything getting better?” Why is life so good in America today? Why does everyone feel so satisfied and optimistic about the quality of life in the future? I read the article very carefully and found that not once did they even question their assumption. They just wondered, “Why?” And you thought Enlightenment optimist and the dogma of progress [were] dead?

It turned out upon reading the article that every single aspect of life they mentioned, every reason why everything was getting better and better, was economic. People have more money. Period. End of discussion. Except the poor, of course, who are poorer. But they don’t count because they don’t write Time. They don’t even read it.

I suspect that Time is merely Playboy with clothes on. For one kind of playboy, the world is one great bit whorehouse. For another, it’s one great big piggy bank. For both kinds of playboy, things are getting better and better. Just ask the 75 percent of Americans who loved Bill Clinton, the perfect synthesis of the two.

They love him for the same reasons the Germans loved Hitler at first when they elected him: economic efficiency. Autobahns and Volkswagens. Jobs and housing. Hitler wrought the greatest economic miracle of the century in the 30s. What else matters as long as the emperor gives you bread and circuses? People are pigs, not saints, after all. They love slops more than honor.

I think sexual pigginess and economic pigginess are natural twins, for lust and greed are almost interchangeable. In fact, our society sometimes doesn’t seem to know the difference between sex and money. It treats sex like money and treats money like sex. It treats sex like money because it treats it as a medium of exchange, and it treats money like sex because it expects its money to get pregnant and reproduce all the time. So we need some very elementary sex education...

Dinner and torn dollars

Last night I went out to dinner with 3 men from the CLM. We ate a very authentic looking Peruvian resturant that served Italain food. The food, as I have mentioned many times, was excellent.

During our dinner talk, one of the men, said, "Ryan, you are definitely Italian!" I didn't know to take that as a compliment or an insult. At first, I thought he meant my physical traits, but he was actually talking about my quick wits and the ability to match their banter. I guess I've never thought about that much before, and I was surprised that they've had that much contact with Italians, but they correctly reminded me that they travel to Rome and have many Italian contacts.

After dinner, we paid and walked outside. The waiter, however, tracked us down outside saying that we hadn't paid enough. A couple of the men I was with got a little irritated by this and we marched inside. The issue was not that we hadn't paid enough, but they weren't accepting a $20 US bill they we were attempting to use, because it had a small tear in it. They claimed the bank does not accept US Dollars that have tears or stains on them.

It became an interesting topic of conversation, because I know for a fact that there is an office in the US Government that will accept mutilated bills as long as they can put more than half of it back together.

Regardless, it was a good leasson for me to learn about early on!

Also, please pray for my boss Alejandro. He just sent me a message saying he's on his way to the hospital because they fear he may have a apendicitis!