December 2020 – The Pull Of The Land

Unvisited Tombs

December 31, 2020December 31, 2020 Richard Barnes

“The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” — George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

George Eliot lived and worked during the Victorian Era, hence, despite her atheism, her works were imbued with a Christian ethos. Unlike today’s fellow atheists, she did not overexert herself to hide her Christian presuppositions, given that these were considered to be discoverable by mere human reason and tradition, not needing supernatural revelation.

Since the early 20th century, vast evidence of the solitary, nasty, brutish, and short nature of atheistic life has been accumulated, including 100,000,000 extra-judicial deaths in atheistic, Communist lands (if your stomach is strong, see The Black Book of Communism for details). Given that reality and much more, contra Eliot, skeptics have been more careful to deny or obfuscate anything that might point to Christian presuppositions in their efforts to demonstrate moral virtues without Christianity. It’s not an easy task.

But this year’s end post is something of a salute to Eliot’s quote above, which is easily reconcilable to Biblical teaching.

When year’s end approaches, I often find myself thinking about Juan el bartender.

Juan the bartender?

Juan was Portuguese. He came to Venezuela to earn money which he would send to his family in Portugal. He eventually made his way to the interior of the country where he was hired by Bethlehem Steel to serve as the El Pao Club bartender. Near every year’s end, Juan would treat some of the boys by giving each a ride on his motorcycle. He would take his rider to the labor camp (otro campo) for a short spin around the area, saluting friends and other kids, and then he’d return them to the El Pao Club.

It was years later before I came to realize that what seemed a mere kick to me, required Juan to sacrifice part of his lunch hour in order to give a few boys something to remember for many years later, in my case for many decades later. That was very kind of him and tells me much about his character.

He eventually sent enough money to Portugal that he resigned and returned to Portugal, hopefully to rejoin his family and to live a productive life there. I am sure he also gave joy to children in his little corner of the earth.

I also think of Mr. Serrao. Every New Year’s Day, he would drive his and as many other camp children who could squeeze into his station wagon, around El Pao and then to the labor camp, honking his horn, and encouraging the kids to scream, blow their own little party horns, hang their torsos out the windows, and clap their hands as they yelled, “Feliz Año Nuevo!” as loudly as screeching parrots. The folks in the labor camp always expected this and would join in the festivities by clapping, laughing, and yelling back, “Felíz Año Nuevo!”

As with Juan el bartender, it was years later before I came to appreciate Mr. Serrao’s New Year’s practice. This took precious time from him, including having to awaken early on New Year’s Day, when I am sure he would have preferred sleeping in. At least a bit.

And to have a multitude of kids jam pack themselves into his vehicle was no walk in the park. But he was cheery and happy along with us and seemed to genuinely enjoy being a highlight of the year for us.

Mr. Serrao and his family lived next door to us for a number of years; his sons were very good childhood friends. He requested and obtained a transfer back to Bethlehem and that was the end of the Serrao New Year’s festivities. But they live on in my memory.

Juan Villanueva was the pastor of the small protestant church which met in the labor camp. Each year, he would celebrate a New Year’s Eve service designed to last until the chiming of the bells announcing the new year. I would lie if I told you I looked forward to this annual service. I did not. However, I would also lie if I told you I did not enjoy it, once there. I did. And, looking back, I deeply appreciate those services.

Here again, we have a man who took precious time to prepare for and celebrate a service designed to encourage us to remember that our days are in the hands of Him Who created us and all things about and around us, including the very days of our lives. It was both joyful and sobering to be so reminded, year in and year out.

Juan Villanueva left El Pao and pastored a church near the Orinoco River. I last visited with him in San Félix, in the early part of this century. It was a most happy meeting. He passed away this year. The world is a better place because of him.

One New Year’s morning, amid the hustle in our kitchen, my father laughed and told us about a report he had just heard on his short wave radio which was tuned to Voice of America. The broadcaster said something along these lines: “Many people went to sleep last night thinking of great resolutions they would embark upon today; many others went to sleep apprehensive about today; many other people lay in bed last night wondering and worrying about what the new year might bring; and a vast number of people went to bed last night as if it were just another night in their lives with nothing special about it at all.”

Thanks to people like Juán el bartender, and Mr. Serrao, and Juán Villanueva, and millions of others unknown but to God, with tombs unremarked and unvisited, “things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been….”

As we stand at the door of a new year, why not determine to be blessings to those with whom we interact, whether family, friends, and even strangers?

With Thomas Gray we can say of those who are unknown, unheralded, and unvisited:

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

….

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

….

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Although the above stanzas seem sober (because they are), they also serve to bring joy. Our lives serve eternal purposes, regardless of whether or not they are remembered by proud men. God remembers. And that is all that really matters.

I wish you and yours a very happy 2021!

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans; 1819 – 1880)

School Christmas plays were one of several annual year-end activities the camp looked forward to. Above photo is circa 1959.

Christmas circa 1958. My cousin, Janis visited from Miami. Our neighbors, Elizabeth and her brother, Johnny.

Children in El Pao, circa year’s end 1957.

Decembers in El Pao were marked by dinners and festivities in each other’s homes.

Christmas Memories and The Pull of the Land

December 25, 2020December 25, 2020 Richard Barnes

Each of us creates memories which, properly interpreted, become the figurative or metaphysical tissue of one’s life and home and of the communities in which one lives out his existence on earth. Our very lives run a course that is greatly fashioned by memories sown and cultivated decades and centuries before our birth.

Some children have a stronger “connection” to that generational memory than others. For example, many children almost instinctively ask their parents to tell them about “when you were a boy” or “tell me about grandmother,” etc., while others do not ask such questions. In such cases, many parents “volunteer” such stories. In doing so they play a part in perpetuating those generational memories, although they might not think about it in that context.

Memory creates history and determines relations between nations and civilizations. For example, someone wrote that the “conflicting memories of World War I left a gulf between Europe and the United States, one that has shaped their relations down to the present.” The literature engendered by that war further strengthened the outlines of the memories which persist to this day. For an analysis of that literature, I would recommend Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory.

Similar conclusions can be drawn, perhaps even more forcefully, about the memories created over the centuries of the Spanish and English empires and their often deleterious influence on the relations between the United States and Latin America. Philip Wayne Powell’s Tree of Hate is a scholarly yet accessible study of that phenomenon.

A nation’s memory is but a fruit or product of her people’s collective memories, sown, and harvested over many generations. And, for many of us, childhood Christmases are a great part of such collective memories.

Many have noted the sadness and depression experienced by many in America during the Christmas season. Mental health professionals offer many reasons for this, including loneliness, anger at perceived commercialization of the season, subliminal envy at seeing or perceiving a joy in others, and more.

Perhaps a major reason for sadness is the nostalgia brought forth by childhood memories, especially those of Christmas, and a longing for recreating such times now, as older adults. Of course, one cannot re-puff soufflé, and if that is one’s goal, it will be met with failure.

Nevertheless, that does not mean one would do wrong to pause, dim the lights, sit on the sofa or easy chair, contemplate the Christmas tree, and remember those childhood days of Christmas….

Standing next to the diminutive Mrs. Bebita de La Torre singing “Noche de Paz” in the club on Christmas Eve. She was very short, but I was lots shorter than she at the time. I know, because her beautiful voice drew my attention and I could not help but look up to see her singing.

Rehearsing our school Christmas plays. Learning the words of Christmas hymns, especially as we rehearsed in the home of Mrs. Shingler, who worked indefatigably to make us all feel at home and whose visage immediately comes to mind whenever I think of Christmases in El Pao.

Receiving my aunt and uncle and cousins on Christmas Day. We would repay the visit on New Year’s Day by driving to their home in San Félix.

Bing Crosby, Perry Como, and Frank Sinatra singing Christmas Hymns and The Robert Shaw Chorale doing so more magnificently. Listening to Nat King Cole sing “The Christmas Song”, and not wondering how he knew I was hoping to see reindeer.

Accompanying my mother to set up the record player in the small church in the labor camp and play Handel’s Messiah, an event which attracted many in the camp to the church building to listen to a free concert.

Waking up on Christmas Days over the years of childhood and finding a silver bike, a roller coaster (I still can’t believe my father put that together overnight in the back yard), water rockets, a Lionel Ho electric train, a German-made rifle … opening presents around the tree.

Hearing the preacher caution us to remember that many children get nothing for Christmas and to be compassionate and to share.

Receiving visitors from households in the camp; they’d come and go, offering Christmas greetings and, often, gifts.

Visits by the aguinalderos with their expert musicianship and their hilarious lyrics; rewarded by my father with generous tips.

Childhood friends and their parents, many of whom are now gone.

Reading the Christmas story from Luke as we sat before the Christmas tree, and much, much more.

Those memories are not unique. What I mean is they are memories that are replicated numberless times over generations, with variations due to location and family traditions. Multiplied by the million, they serve to create mystical bonds across time and space that provide a common “pull”, a common experience, a common or shared memory. In this case, an American and Venezuelan memory.

For me, the pull of the land is in large measure the pull of memory. Not just childhood memory, but generational memories even of those whom I have never met but whose lives and works I and my generation inherited. That pull is strong; it is even felt by short-term visitors to Venezuela.

Others may be able to develop this much further than I.

But for now, it is important to point out that memories in and of themselves are not what bring joy. Memories are not the source of joy although their origins do proceed from that Source. Material things or events do not engender joy. Joy does not even spring from a happy childhood, as magical as that can be. Joy issues from the Person for Whom Christmas is named: Jesus Christ, God in the flesh.

He is the foundation for all that is good in our lives, whether or not we recognize it.

While it is true that, as some have so eloquently noted, the Christianity of mid-century America tended to be bland or generic, it was nevertheless recognized and honored. To attack Christmas in that time would have resulted in an invitation to leave town. That has changed, of course, but the memory is still there and is still strong. That explains the frenetic attempts to erase it.

But we can strengthen that generational memory by building, not on the manifestations of the memory, but on its Foundation: Jesus the Christ and His eternal Word. And as we build, the fruits will manifest themselves not only in evidences many of us remember fondly from our childhoods, but in many more that our children and grandchildren will remember and appreciate.

His Word promises this.

And after all, He is the Word made flesh.

Merry Christmas to all!

Memorable Christmastime in Puerto Ordaz in 1978. Speaking with the late Mr. Beran about the Venezuelan situation at the time.

The quintessential Venezuelan Christmas dish is the *hallacas*, a sort of “meat pie” encrusted in cornmeal and wrapped in banana or plantain leaves and boiled for several hours. The taste is sweet and spicy, but not “hot”, savor. The meat includes raisins, olives, pickled vegetables and more. It takes much work and time and is only served at Christmastime.

Young patient in a pediatric ward receives a surprise Christmas gift, circa 1955.

Provocative analysis of literature produced by men of that generation: traces the shift from romanticism and purpose to nihilism and futility.

Powerful analysis of centuries of superficial readings or discussions of the Spanish Empire and the deleterious impact of such superficial understanding (memory) on relations with Spain and Latin America.

Rome’s Bad Boy

December 15, 2020December 15, 2020 Richard Barnes

December 13 was this year’s third Sunday of Advent, which traditionally focuses on the joy of Christmas. Joy and its variants are seen throughout the Bible but one of the best known passages is in St. Paul’s epistle to the Philippians wherein he writes, “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, rejoice!” He wrote that as a prisoner in Rome awaiting an appearance before Nero, a man not known for his tender mercies. St. Paul made it clear that true joy is not dependent on circumstances or material goods but on the Person of Jesus Christ.

Thinking about this brought to mind a 2014 cover story in National Geographic: “Rome’s Bad Boy: Nero Rises From the Ashes.” The cover is a photo of the majestic statue erected in his home town, Anzio in 2010.

As a child in Venezuela, I’d hear adults say something along the lines of, “Más malo que Nerón,” [“More wicked than Nero”]. I never imagined I’d grow up to hear learned individuals defend Nero. But even that is nothing new under the sun. After all, the ancient prophet warns, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.”

What follows is a letter I wrote my family shortly after reading the article while away on a business trip in 2014.

Dear Family:

T.S. Eliot famously said that those who deny God will pay their respects to Hitler or Stalin. And as we put God farther from our thoughts, we will surely fall for attempts to rehabilitate monsters. Especially explicitly anti-Christian monsters.

The then-Mayor of Anzio, Luciano Bruschini, commissioned the statue [on the National Geographic cover]. He says, “As children, we were taught that he was evil – among the worst emperors of all. Doing a little research, I came to conclude that it’s not true. I consider Nero to be a good, even great emperor, and maybe the most beloved of the entire empire. He was a great reformer. The senators were rich, and they owned slaves. He took from them and gave to the poor. He was the first socialist!”

Of course, you will be shocked! shocked! to know that Mayor Bruschini is also a socialist.

As you might recall, Nero was considered by many in the apostolic and post apostolic era to be the Beast described in the book of Revelation. Such interpretation largely fell into disuse in succeeding centuries and some now even consider it to be heresy, because such a reading would deny the futuristic view of Revelation so prevalent today.

Without entering into an eschatological argument … we ought to at least consider why so many through the ages have thought Nero to have been that beast (recognizing that the epithet applies to an individual as well as to a kingdom, depending on the context).

What follows is not an analysis of the article; were it that, I’d begin with the wording of the title itself: Nero as “bad boy.” That sort of removes the sting of “beast” or “monster,” and conjures up some sort of Roman Dennis the Menace. My intent is not so much to analyze as it is to caution.

Since some of Nero’s most egregious acts are a matter of record, the article does note them: kicked his pregnant wife to death; murdered his mother after committing incest with her; murdered his brother; ordered his mentor, Seneca, to commit suicide; burned Christians alive, using their bodies to light his gardens, and blamed them for the great fire in Rome, which enabled him to embark on an enormous building program for himself. (Since Mayor Bruschini noted that the senators owned slaves, we will also helpfully note that one of Nero’s pastimes was dressing up as a lion, molesting slaves who were tied up, and then slaughtering them. That was not in the article.)

As horrible as that litany is, by placing it at the beginning of the cover story and then going on about the great things Nero did and his good intentions and his rich enemies in the Senate, and framing his reign within the tiresome class warfare Marxist doctrine (Nero was for the poor, you see) and quoting professors and mayors and sundry apologists, by the time you get to the end of the article, unless you are imbued with a Christian worldview, you’ll be sort of nodding in some agreement: he wasn’t so bad after all. Or as the author of a Nero biography put it, “…even today he would be avant-garde, ahead of his time.”

Not only that, although the article notes that other emperors were also bad, the only one contrasted with Nero is the Christian emperor, Constantine, sarcastically identified as “a saint”. And you’ll read that he had “his son, second wife, and father-in-law all murdered.” So typical of modernists; always seeking to cry, “Aha! Tu quoque!:” an effective red herring to the unaware. However, Constantine, unlike Nero, did not stomp his pregnant wife to death and the deaths noted above were executions, although there is considerable debate as to the reasons. Regardless, the whole tenor of the life of Constantine was poles opposite to Nero’s. But you’d have to look that up on your own.

Again, unless you are steeled with Scripture and a strong Christian weltanschauung, you’ll fall like the foolish moonstruck maiden for the smooth talking rake that alienates her affections from God and home. Likewise, these godless twits seek to alienate your affection from Christ and the historic faith.

A subversive technique cleverly employed in the article is to draw equivalence between its readers’ pleasures in life and the pleasures enjoyed by people-like-us in Nero’s Rome. So you’ll see photos of “Roman revelry” today: a couple about to start slobbering over each other; an 81-year old has-been actress showing off her leg; a crowd of partying, smug-faced (not one bright smile in the lot) high-society 70-year-olds doing their downright best to look like Burberry models. Life under Nero wasn’t all that different from today! And we all behave like that too, anyway. So what’s the big deal?

And you’ll read about Nero’s love of art and music and great building programs and how they began to be re-discovered in the Renaissance (so-called) and how such discoveries continue on today. Including documented evidence of a statue, almost as high as the Statue of Liberty, Nero erected to himself standing midst his palace grounds but which could be seen from all directions at great distances. Since he considered himself to be a god, the sculpture denoted the rays of the sun on his head, as do some extant coins from that era.

And you’ll read about how he just luuuved the people; and the people just luuuved him back.

Yes, boys and girls, it is lamentable that a “ruler of such baffling complexity was now simply a beast.” A “public relations man ahead of his time with a shrewd understanding of what the people wanted, often before they knew it themselves [emphasis mine]” is reduced to just being a monster. His reign was “warless.” He gave us “Neronia – Olympic-style poetry, music, and athletic contests.” He “created something no one had seen before: a light-flooded public place not just for hygiene [don’t you love that? ‘not just for hygiene’!] but also where there were statues and paintings and books, where you could hang out and listen to someone read poetry aloud. It meant an entirely new social situation.”

“In addition to the Gymnasium Neronis, the young emperor’s public building works included an amphitheater, a meat market, and a proposed canal that would connect Naples to Rome’s seaport at Ostia … to ensure safe passage of the city’s food supply….”

We are now privileged to discover “the full architectural greatness of Nero’s reign.” The inscription at the statue at Anzio says, “During his reign the empire enjoyed a period of peace, of great splendor, and of important reforms.”

I guess we plebes should have focused on all that, and not on the guy’s fruits which are seen in his deplorable actions and resultant lakes of innocent blood. Poor Nero; no one really understands him. My heart breaks.

The Bible warns us to beware of men whom every one praises, for example, the pharisees. Did not Herod die horribly for receiving praise that belongs only to God? The history of the world is littered with men and women, “loved by the people” but who played God. They had one thing in common: they hated Christianity. And they’re dead. And those today — high and low, known and unknown, famous and obscure — who hate likewise, will eventually be so too. And that, forever.

A funny thing about character is that it will out on what you do. Nero initiated a horrible persecution of Christians in November, AD 64. Vast numbers were murdered, most by horrible means. The numbers were so great, that even Roman chroniclers, who also despised Christians, nevertheless felt compelled to record the vastness of the slaughter. Of course, both Peter and Paul were put to death by Nero. At least one Roman historian specifically called Nero ‘a beast’.

But people kept bringing flowers to his tomb for months and years. He was greatly mourned and lamented. Many believed, and hoped, he would return from the dead. As the article puts it, “…the persistent belief that the boy king would one day return to the people who so loved him.”

The article documents his great power; his great glory; his “godlike” characteristics; his vast riches; his power to give or take life; the belief by many that he’d rise from the dead. And it also cannot help but mention or allude to his beastly cruelty; his hatred of Christ and Christians; and more. Clearly a host of his contemporaries thought very highly of the guy, and many, including him, thought him to be a god. And now we see that many today seem to think likewise!

Some things never change.

Your loving father,

Dad

The September, 2014 *National Geographic*

Rosa

December 7, 2020December 7, 2020 Richard Barnes

Recently, someone asked me about life in El Pao and in the course of the conversation, she asked a question that made me think about Rosa. I am glad she asked me. It had been too long since I thought about that lady who deserves to be remembered. She is one of billions who lie in their graves, forgotten but to God. And to those who remember.

José was her brother. I remember him too. He showed up once a week or so to work on our garden. He’d amble up on this burro, laden with what looked to me like large canvas bags on either side, towards the rear, swinging heavily, slowly, comically. Seen from behind, José looked like an unstable, ponderous metronome atop a slow yet choppy sea, while the canvas or hemp bags swayed behind him like loose pendulums, slapping the donkey’s upper thighs as she plodded the quiet streets of El Pao where Jose’s gardens graced several homes.

“Sra., las rosas se ven bellas hoy,” he would invariably utter those or similar words, sotto voce, as he unloaded his baggage and pulled his spade and shovel from their respective canvas casings draped on either side of the burro’s neck. To me, it seemed José was born wearing a permanent, drooping straw hat. It was part of José. I never saw him without it.

“That’s thanks to you, José. This whole garden is thanks to you!” My mother would give directions as to what she wanted to see done and often she worked the garden with her own hands, but always gave credit to José.

His sister, Rosa, would accompany him many a time and while he worked the gardens and landscapes, she’d assist with laundry, general cleaning, and even rearranging the furniture at times. She also became a sort of informal nanny to us for a time. By and by Rosa became as well known to folks in El Pao as José. In my child’s recollection, I had thought they lived in the labor camp in a home provided by the company. But my mother corrected me on that memory. They were well known and loved in the labor camp too, but did not live there.

Cancer struck Rosa. A nasty, encroaching, overwhelming, suffocating cancer. Her beauty and bustling energy rapidly became things of the past as her Spanish skin became sallow and her cheeks sank and her eyes lost their happy luster.

Soon she no longer could play with the boy, and he didn’t want to play with her because she just looked very sick.

And soon, she no longer came to the camp.

“I’ll be back shortly,” my mother had paused by me as I memorized my assigned arithmetic tables one afternoon.

I saw her taking a small pot.

“I am taking her a beef stew. She asked that I bring her a little of that stew that we make here once in a while. She’s always liked it because she says it combines an American dish with Venezuelan seasoning and it’s a favorite of hers. I asked the doctor and he said it’d be OK for me to bring her some.”

“Rosa died this morning,” I heard my mother speaking into the telephone mere days later. “We will attend the wake tonight in the labor camp; as you know, she’ll be buried tomorrow.”

Although she did not live in the labor camp, someone had offered his home as the site for the wake.

Rosa had expressed, as best she could, her gratitude for the beef stew. But she never tasted even a teaspoonful. She just could not. Impossible.

“I want to go.”

“That’ll be fine, son. But just remember, Rosa will not be there; only her body. She will rise again one day, and on that day you will not see her stumbling stiffly because of the pain. You won’t see her cheeks hollowed out or her skin with that deathly color. You won’t see her wasted, unable to eat or drink….”

But that night I would see that I did not really understand what my mother was trying to tell me. As we entered the house I became uneasy seeing all the candles uncertainly piercing the darkness. Why didn’t they turn on some more lights? What seemed to me a multitude crowded the small living room. I saw José standing next to the simple coffin, at the head as folks milled by, expressing their pésame and hearing his expression of simple thanks in reply. I barely recognized José, probably because I had never seen him looking so sad and forlorn; but most likely because this was the first time that I saw him without that drooping straw hat resting easily on his head. On this grievous occasion, it revolved, slowly, loosely, by the rim, by means of José’s sun-darkened, scarred, knobby hands.

I was just tall enough to see Rosa lying there, covered up to her neck in what looked like white lace, under which she seemed clothed in a white, shiny dress. At least that’s what I’d always remember. Then I looked at her face. I hardly recognized her. It was hardened and wasted; it seemed battered. I saw pain, much pain in poor Rosa’s face. I noticed cotton in each nostril and wondered at that and did not like it. I wanted to cry, but did not.

I could not pull my eyes away from her face.

“Son, we need to go home now,” my mother had leaned over me and gently whispered in my ear.

And so, I opened my hands, which had been lightly gripping the edge of the casket, and backed up a bit, and, after a long look, I turned away.

But for days, and months, and years I’d have dreams, frightfully real dreams, of Rosa peering at me. Sometimes I’d fear going into a room alone at night because I could see her face right outside the screened window, looking at me.

I would learn, much later, that these visions and dreams were vivid examples of paradox: I loved and missed Rosa very much. I wished she had not gone. I loved her. But I hated seeing that face of death.

May you rest in peace, Rosa.