The last time I visited with Pete was in early February, 2023, when a good number of us gathered in Miami, Florida, for Cousin Louis’s memorial service.
As usual, his sense of humor was intact and his ability to laugh and to make me laugh along was no less sharp than was the case ever through the decades.
Pete was also known to many as Peter, his given name; however, in the mid 70s he was introduced to me as “Pete” and it stuck with me. Many of my long-time acquaintances still call me “Ricky” and I don’t mind it at all, as I’m sure he didn’t mind my (and others) calling him “Pete”.
I had the opportunity to say a few words to him over the phone the day he died. As I told him, “I know you can hear me” and spoke assuming just that. In fact, his loving family, including his wife, my cousin Janis, and his parents, now in their 90s, also spoke to him till the end.
I told him that when I thought of him, two characteristics immediately came to mind.
First, his faithfulness. Pete was a consistent and faithful Christian dedicated to serving the Lord, along with his wife, Janis. In this he never wavered. And for this, I, for one, am truly grateful and humbled when I consider it. This is not flattery on my part; only a recognition that there are many today who truly desire to do right, by God’s grace. And Pete was one of them.
Second, his sense of humor. I reminded him of the time he and Janis visited us decades ago and Pete told of his visiting several churches in the Midwest and reading up on the customs and ways of life so as to know what to talk about with his hosts. In one town, after church, he and Janis had Sunday dinner with a large family under the shade of a massive tree. The family raised hogs and Pete asked them when they would “slap the hogs” as he wanted to witness that. The family was nonplussed and Pete kept insisting that he had read this. Finally one elderly gentleman leaned over and said, “Well, we do SLOP the hogs….”
As I laughed, Pete told about folks falling off the picnic benches convulsing with mirth before this city slicker.
Pete’s life began on an air force base in Illinois; however, he lived his childhood in New York City and played in various rock bands and even a folk group in Greenwich Village. He came to know the Lord Jesus in the 70s when his family had moved to Miami, Florida. Shortly thereafter, he was called into full time ministry and never looked back.
In addition to earning his Doctor of Ministry Degree he developed an interest in antiquities and participated in archaeological digs in Israel. Our family enjoyed a movie he filmed, “Rossvally: From the Synagog to the Savior”. But that was not enough to exhaust his energies as he also was very active in Civil War reenactments in several states.
Pete cheerfully battled cancer for many years and, after a series of mishaps he succumbed on January 17, 2026, at the age of 72.
I don’t remember a time, if ever, in which I did not see him as a member of the family. We cousins grew up very close to one another. Our aunts and uncles were just a degree removed from our parents: they could discipline or instruct us without any pushback whatever. When Pete joined the gang, he quickly became one of us, and I’m sure we became one of his.
On that phone call the day of his passing, I read to him Psalm 23, knowing that as one approaches death, there is nothing better than to hear the Word of God as one is about to meet him face to face. I know Pete appreciated that.
Pete departed this life over a month ago, but it is still fresh to me. And I know it is very much more so with Janis.
Rest in peace, Cousin Pete.
Cousin Vivian is second from left, her son Jeremy is to her right and her daughter Rebecca is to her left. Cousin Pete is to my right and Cousin Rick (Vivian’s widower) is to my left. Photo taken at Cousin Louis’s memorial service, February 11, 2023
From left, cousins Janis, Pete, and Vivian, February 10, 2023
“Without justice what are kingdoms but great bands of robbers? And what is a band of robbers but such a kingdom in miniature? It is a band of men under the rule of a leader, bound together by a pact of friendship, and their booty is divided among them by an agreed rule. Such a blot on society, if it grows, assumes for itself the proud name of kingdom.” — St. Augustine
In recent months, I’ve written about Venezuela’s outright support for and complicity with the Tren de Aragua worldwide enterprise (see here, here, and here).
Sociologists tell us that one of the important indicators of a society’s or culture’s ability to withstand or defeat the lawless chaos it may be confronting is “resiliency”. Ronna Rísquez, in her courageous exposé, El Tren de Aragua, cites a sociological definition from the Índice global del crimen organizado (The Global Index of Organized Crime): “… the capacity of state and non-state actors to resist and dismantle the activities of organized crime through political, economic, legal, and social means.”
According to the index, the indicators which serve to measure the resiliency of a country or community include their “political leadership, governance, civil government [state] transparency, accountability, international cooperation, the judicial system, law enforcement, territorial integrity, the fight against money laundering, and the support and encouragement of victims and witnesses”.
Ms Rísquez goes on to note that Venezuela has negative numbers in practically all those indicators, principally because “authoritative states have lower levels of resiliency than do democracies….”
However, seemingly oblivious to the irony, she then goes on to say that such resiliency, as defined, has also decreased significantly throughout the continent and the world. In other words, regardless of political structures, criminality has filled in the vacuum left by the loss of resiliency worldwide.
So, whether democratic or authoritarian, peoples across continents have lost resiliency.
Seems an important indicator might be missing from the list cited above.
The late Harvard Professor, Harold J. Berman, wrote in his magisterial Law and Revolution (1983):
“The traditional symbols of community in the West, the traditional images and metaphors, have been above all religious and legal. In the twentieth century, however, for the first time, religion has become largely a private affair …. The connection between the religious metaphor and the legal metaphor has been broken.”
Is it any wonder that bonds of race, religion, soil, family, class, neighborhood, and work community have dissolved into abstract and superficial nationalisms? “It is impossible not to sense the social disintegration, the breakdown in communities, that has taken place in Europe, North America, and other parts of Western civilization in the twentieth century,” Berman wrote in 1983
In other words, the loss of resiliency, as defined above, has very much to do with our willful ignorance if not outright hostility towards our Christian heritage and this loss has resulted from a total absconding of the Christian religious jurisdiction by those who should know better.
In his follow up volume, Law and Revolution II Berman writes:
“Why is it important to remember the influence of Roman Catholic and Protestant Christianity on the Western legal tradition in past centuries? First, because we are the heirs of that tradition and our law is a product of those influences. We cannot understand what our legal institutions are if we do not know how they came to be what they are, just as we cannot know who we ourselves are if we do not know how we came to be who we are. Our history is our group memory, without which we as a group are lost. If we live only in the present we suffer from memory impairment, a kind of social amnesia, not knowing whence we came or whither we ar going.”
Berman notes what most of us have understood since childhood but has been effectively blotted out of our collective consciousness: without a knowledge of the past there can be no true commitment to the future. All of life becomes an existential — and short-lived — fling.
Berman goes on to state, “For many centuries, [the West] would be identified very simply as the people of Western Christendom.”
“From the eleventh and twelfth centuries on, monophonic music, reflected chiefly in the Gregorian chant, was gradually supplanted by polyphonic styles. Two-part, three-part, and eventually four-part music developed. The contrapuntal style exemplified in the thirteenth-century motet evolved into the harmonic style of the fourteenth century ars nova, exemplified in the ballade. Eventually, counterpoint and harmony were combined. The sixteenth century witnessed the development of the great German Protestant chorales, and these, together with Italian and English madrigals and other forms, provided a basis for opera …. Eventually Renaissance music gave way to Baroque, Baroque to Classical …. etc. No good contemporary musician, regardless of how off-beat he may be, can afford not to know this story….”
Not too long ago, American citizens, and certainly lawyers, judges, and justices were required, in a similar way, to know the story of the development of our institutions and their great debt to Christianity.
For example, about a century ago, in the early 20th Century, just about everyone in the United States understood that [church] canon law constituted the first modern Western legal system. Eventually, canon law and royal law complemented each other and formed a basis for the Western legal tradition. It was understood, at least inchoately, that rejecting the religious heritage of the West has always led to tyranny.
(This knowledge encouraged or otherwise allowed even children to appeal to the Christian tradition when rebuking behavior contrary or opposed to it. Behavior such as we see on just about every American street today.)
However, today, our rich heritage is not only generally unknown but should it be even mentioned it is only to have it dismissed outright, even by clergy who delight in writing books or preaching sermons denying our Christian legacy. In so doing, we greatly err and worse: we join forces with those who would destroy our legal and social foundations.
We encourage the bands of robbers that mark the disintegration of a civilized society.
It is no mystery that many who most despise the American heritage have an undisguised hatred for the Christian religion because that religion places man and his institutions under an eternal, Triune God and His law. And this is unacceptable.
Once we understand this philosophical enmity, much of the violence and chaos in our era — such as the invasion and disruption of church services in St. Paul, Minnesota, two Sundays ago — becomes not only intelligible but compellingly so.
Previous Revolutions, even the execrable French and Russian, may have altered or amended our Christian legal tradition; however, they ultimately remained within it because the former peoples understood their heritage far better than we do today.
The present upheavals are far more concerning because the secularization of the modern mind has succeeded in obfuscating the minds of even intelligent, courageous allies like Ronna Rísquez, who neglect to acknowledge that ours is the Christian heritage and without it there is no resiliency.
Without it, we have bowed the knee to our ostensible enemies:
Engels: “We … reject every attempt to impose on us any moral dogma whatever as eternal, ultimate, and forever immutable moral law ….”
Lenin: “We repudiate all morality derived from non-human and non-class concepts. We say it is a deception, a fraud in the interest of the landlords and the capitalists … We say: morality is what serves to destroy the old exploiting society and to unite all the toilers around the proletariat … We do not believe in an eternal morality.”
Marx: “Man makes religion, religion does not make man … The abolition of religion as an illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness….
Anyone who has read the detestable Communist Manifesto will recognize the above sentiments, and more.
Such sentiments, so fashionable today, are the polar opposite of our legal and cultural heritage, which no amount of “indicators” will ever restore, absent a genuine return to the Christian faith which transformed the world.
“Without the fear of hell and the hope of the Last Judgment, the Western legal tradition could not have come into being.” — Harold J. Berman
Harold J. Berman (1918-2007)
The French Revolution (late 18th Century) was characterized by rivers of blood and debauchery
Unearthed bodies massacred by the Soviet Communists in 1940. Mass graves are a feature of atheist regimes. But even they had enough understanding of their remaining Christian heritage that they sought to conceal their atrocities.
And believing it, I know that Good will triumph over evil because God is good and He, the Creator and Redeemer has told us how it will all end, with His Kingdom triumphant and His people as kings and priests.
He has also made it clear that the route to that end will not be an easy one and will very well see much evil and disappointment along the way. A classic example of this is the well-known story of Joseph and his sale as a slave to Egypt by his own brothers.
But what did the same Joseph say to his anxious brothers, who feared revenge from Joseph after the death of Jacob, their father? “Fear not … ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good…. Genesis 50:19-20).”
Some 16 centuries later, Peter spoke in similar fashion when he told the men of Israel at Pentecost, that Jesus was “delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” and in the same breath goes on to say, “ye have taken, and by wicked hand have crucified and slain…. (Acts 2:23).”
The sale of Joseph was an evil act; infinitely more so was the betrayal and crucifixion and murder of the Son of God.
Nevertheless, in both cases, as in all cases, God is on the throne, ensuring that such actions will abound to the triumph of His good will and to the good of His own people.
Our duty is to persevere in the good fight. To the end. We may not see the victory. But we know that it will come and that we will have had a part in it.
So as we read about mayhem in Minnesota, including a church invaded and children terrorized:
“Agitators blocked stairs so parents were unable to get to their children at Sunday School. One screamed at a kid, ‘Do you know your parents are Nazis, they’re going to burn in Hell?’ Other agitators continued to scream and get into women and children’s faces while they were crying…. Other testimonies told of agitators following them and surrounding them in their car and would not allow them to leave … and that their children are traumatized…. One woman’s arm was broken….” Etc.
As we read about events around our country and in other parts of the world, it is easy to get discouraged and become “defeatist”.
That would be the wrong response.
While we are not called to be Pollyanna, we certainly are called to be faithful and to be confident in our eventual victory in Christ, even if our current circumstances are not rosy.
My children convinced me — well, “convinced” is not the right word, as I did not need much convincing — to watch the current release of TheLord of The Rings Trilogy, now in theaters, some 25 years after their worldwide premiers at the turn of this century.
At the end of The Two Towers, as Sam and Frodo, with Gollum in tow, are about to leave Osgiliath, Frodo, who shortly before barely escapes death, says, “I can’t do this, Sam.”
This all-too-familiar and all-too-real lament, is the catalyst for Sam’s monologue, which he delivers while, intermittently, the film shows scenes of their friends engaging in fierce battles taking place in far away lands but all having roles to play in the little Hobbit’s quest:
“I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.”
Frodo then asks, “What are we holding onto, Sam?”
To which Sam replies, “That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo … and it’s worth fighting for.”
Although my children have heard me criticize the director, Peter Jackson, more than once for presenting a much weaker Frodo in the movies than the Frodo J.R.R. Tolkien created in his books, I also happily compliment Mr. Jackson for having included in his movie this decently condensed version of the speech written by Tolkien in his book.
The three books and the three movies have a good number of memorable lines and speeches; however, in my view, Sam’s Monologue is the highlight.
Good friends have asked for my reaction to the recent events of which, unless we have been living under a rock in a desert, we are all aware.
In a post a few weeks back (here) I explained why I leaned against a military intervention.
One can respectfully disagree with actions or policies taken while still honoring those who planned and executed such, which in this case were indeed a wonder to behold!
As you can see in the above link, the situation in Venezuela, for practically the entirety of the 20th Century is not as clear cut as most pundits present it. The ideological convictions of the land of my birth have been steeped in the revolutionary principles of the French Revolution, as has been the case with much of South and Central America (see here and here and here and elsewhere in this blog).
Even today, after the events of three days ago, we have conservatives friends in Venezuela who insist that the expropriations of the iron ore and petroleum industries by the Venezuelan state were fair and agreed-upon by all. That is simply not true. I was in Venezuela when the iron ore and petroleum enterprises were “nationalized”. It was robbery — they in effect paid book value, not market, and this after decades of royalties paid as agreed. But that’s what one would expect with a people imbued with French revolutionary ideology. The negative results of such actions were seen almost immediately.
But President Carter did nothing and, sadly, neither did President Ford before him when it was obvious this was going to happen. I don’t mean they should have invaded! But they could easily have negotiated on behalf of American companies with a stronger hand.
However, wittingly or not, both presidents followed Woodrow Wilson’s footsteps, abandoning United States interests while siding with revolutionaries. William F. Buckley, Sr. testified before Congress in 1919 concerning early 20th Century Mexico’s upheavals, “… the abnormal element of the present series of revolutions is the active participation in them by the American Government.”
Clearly, President Trump’s actions are the opposite of Wilson’s, Carter’s, and Ford’s.
Related to the above, it is very important to remember that Venezuela is not a sovereign country. Over the years, throughout this blog I believe I’ve made that case abundantly clear. One book that explains this very well is La invasión consentida [The Invited Invasion]. Others include, El Delfín de Fidel, El imperio de Fidel, La conspiración de los doce golpes, and more. In addition, this blog has numerous posts that elaborate on this reality.
Ever since Chavez, Venezuela invited Cuba to take over. This is not an exaggeration. For some information see here and here. When I last visited Venezuela in 2005, the Cuban takeover was so obvious it was frightening. As Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado put it: “We have already been invaded.” In addition, major inroads and influences by China, Russia, and Iran are also evident.
As for family and friends who I’ve been able to contact, they are happy but apprehensive. The shouting in Caracas since these events tells us that my family and friends are not alone. Nevertheless, they are greatly concerned with what lies ahead.
I watched the press conference Saturday and wish the president would have explained the Monroe Doctrine better. That has not been taught properly in our schools for generations now. We needed a Reagan explanation but it was greatly lacking, unfortunately.
In summary, that doctrine advised the world that attacks, military or otherwise, against the United States via Central and/or South America would not be tolerated. It was primarily directed against European powers at the time, but ultimately against nations and empires beyond the Americas who would seek to do us harm via our neighbors. In my view, with the Venezuela action, President Trump defended that doctrine, as did President Reagan in the Grenada landing in 1983.
Nevertheless, if you take the time to read the linked posts you will see my concerns about our ability to remove an entrenched Communist political infrastructure in a large country such as Venezuela and to do so quickly. Not impossible, but certainly a highly formidable enterprise.
For example, the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, although she has emitted conciliatory utterings, is a dyed-in-the-wool radical Communist. She is the daughter of the late Jorge Antonio Rodriguez, a leftist radical who engineered the kidnapping of William Niehous, an American executive in Caracas, in 1976. Mr. Niehous was held for over three years before his rescue.
Delcy Rodriguez’s first executive action since taking the reins has been to unleash the Chavista “colectivos” — motorcycle-riding armed thugs — against public demonstrations celebrating the US action. Of course, Chavez disarmed the Venezuelan people two decades ago. Only the colectivos and the armed forces can carry weapons.
Interim President Rodriguez is no stranger to revolutionary guerrilla warfare and terror. Now, multiply her by the tens of thousands and you have an idea of the difficulties ahead.
Bottom line, as difficult as it may seem, I do hope this is a Grenada situation and not another Iraq! But we also must be sure to not let the Venezuelan people high and dry as we’ve sadly done to others too often during the Cold War. In the case of Grenada — a much, much smaller country to be sure! — our troops landed on October 25, 1983, and our last remaining troops were withdrawn in December, 1984, when elections were held and all Cuban Communists were gone.
By the way, October 25 is a public holiday in Grenada. It is called, Thanksgiving Day.
To be clear, I still wish we had not intervened militarily even though I grant that there are complexities.
One thing we can be united in doing is to pray for the Venezuelan people and to pray for wisdom and grace for President Trump and his administration as he deals with this situation.
Operation Urgent Fury, Grenada, October 25, 1983
US Soldiers Guard Cuban Nationals in Grenada during Operation Urgent Fury, October, 1983
Several of the 1,600 plus medical students kissed the ground upon arrival in the United States after their rescue from Grenada
Over 1,600 American students returned home
We will learn more about the Venezuela operation in the days ahead. We do know that critical military installations were disabled.
In past letters or posts I’ve referred to a family reunion that took place shortly before Christmas in 2006. For that occasion we compiled a video, of which we made DVDs along with soundtrack CDs to give to each of us to take home as a memento.
One of the selections is the Coplandesque “Short Trip Home”, composed by Edgar Myer and performed by a classical and bluegrass quartet: violin, bass, mandolin, and guitar. I know it doesn’t sound promising, but check the YouTube link below (if you are reading this on the blog) and decide for yourself after giving it a hearing.
My son and I picked this selection to play as the DVD displayed a 1972 family photo, which served as the basis for the reunion. We had the piece reprise towards the end. Our extended family has had a good balance of the country and the city, the folk and the highbrow. In our view the piece embraces that balance and is a fitting background to those of us in that picture throughout our lives.
Unfortunately the topic of home and Christmas has become so gooey as to have lost all meaningful significance. In other words, listening to Glenn Campbell’s rendition of Sammy Cahn’s “There’s No Place Like Home” misses the mark by a mile, in my opinion. “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” is better, but not by much.
Each of these songs and others like them aim for sentiment, which has its place, of course. It’s not that I don’t like the songs; it’s simply that home means so much more to me and these songs don’t touch the outskirts of that meaning.
When I was a kid, I’d often hear my mother tell me to “remember whose you are”. By that she meant both God and family, or home. Regretfully, I did not always remember. However, that admonition left a mark on me. And it’s obvious that many of our parents said similar things to my cousins and other loved ones because they all seemed to have an idea of their duty to what has gone before.
About 12 years ago, looking for a grocery store in a foreign land, I drove by a large intersection, one corner of which had large plastic bags before which sat a woman with 4 or 5 small children, all begging. I had been warned not to stop when I saw such a sight, for it could be dangerous to do so; that if I wanted to give, there were other means available. I did pray for her and the children and gave elsewhere.
However that sight immediately hit me: why was I not born in such a place and in such circumstances? Indeed, why was I not born, say, in a tribe in 1420 in what we know as Mexico, easy prey to the cannibalistic Aztecs? When we pause for just a moment to think on such matters, if we are honest, we cannot but marvel at the Lord’s sovereign care for us and our duty to Him and to others. Properly understood, this ought to humble us and to inspire us to eternal gratitude.
My grandfather was born in Massachussets, my father, in Cuba. My mother was born in Venezuela as were her ancestors. But their heritage was Christian. The title of my blog is The Pull of The Land and most of my posts have to do with the land of my birth, Venezuela.
However, when I’ve traveled to Spain or to England, I have sensed the pull there also. Unmistakably. I very much enjoyed my visits to other lands and wish I could visit them again. However, if given the choice (besides Venezuela) I’d vote for Spain or England. The pull is that strong.
And if you pause to consider your own home and your own background, I daresay you also sense that pull. I believe the Lord puts that pull in us all. Once again, I agree with Whittaker Chambers: “No land has a pull on a man as the land of his childhood.”
In my view, the source of such a calling to one’s roots is simple gratitude.
Gratitude to the Lord for having given you your parents and those who went before; your culture and background; your experiences; and most of all your Christianity, which can only come through faith by God’s grace through Jesus Christ, the Second Person of The Trinity incarnated on that first Christmas a couple of millennia ago.
It’s all a gift. And home ought to bring forth that recognition and the accompanying gratitude. Even if your childhood was not a happy one, you can still be grateful. Reading Whittaker Chambers’s powerful autobiography, Witness, you readily see that his childhood was not a rosy one. Yet he was a grateful man.
Going back to that 1972 reunion, the DVD and CD closed with John Rutter’s arrangement of “The Lord Bless You and Keep You”. This hymn was sung at the conclusion of each worship service, every Sunday, year after year, at the Community Church where Aunt Sarah would take us whenever we were in Miami with her.
We are fully persuaded that the Lord has indeed been good to us. He, the only Constant in life and eternity, adds delight and joy to our lives as we seek to please Him.
We are well; grateful for decent health which enables us to continue to visit with one another throughout the year and hopeful we can continue doing so throughout next year as well.
And grateful to old friends, including our parents’ friends, who continue to challenge us to do good.
Our family wishes yours a Very Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2026.
