A friend sent me a note this week which I’d like to share with you as encouragement as well as challenge. If you have children or grandchildren, do your best to inspire them to love God and country.
That is easier said than done, of course. But reminiscences like those of my friend are a good starting point.
He alludes to the “shacks around Caracas”. For more on that, see my series on “ranchitos” beginning here: Ranchitos I.
Here is his letter:
Dear Richard,
Thanks for the info about Venezuela. It’s sad to see a beautiful country taken down by evil men. The people are the ones who suffer. I remember all the shacks in the area around Caracas and that the city was noted as the pick pocket capital. I know I lost all the Upjohn travel money I had to a gang of pickpockets. It makes me worry about the US and the direction we are headed.
I remember life in Kalamazoo when I would walk to school and to church, about 6 city blocks; we had no car. We would see the little flags with the blue and gold stars in the homes of individuals with sons in the war. But I still remember Sundays as a day of rest: no lawn mowers, no sports, no car washing. But the sound of church bells announcing the start of church services. There were 3 large churches in our neighborhood, and we attended the farthest away. We walked there 3 times a Sunday, rain or shine, seeing all our friends on the way.
Now, no church bells; they may offend someone. It’s all about sports, baseball, golf, basketball, football, and only one church service on Sunday.
And political corruption.
Are we headed in the same direction?
God bless you and yours.
J.V.
Looking north on Burdick St., Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1950s Looking east on Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1950s.
(Although I found photos of individual Kalamazoo churches in the 50s, I was unable to find any panoramic prints that showed at least several of them in one photo)
For our family, today, Epiphany (or Día de Reyes) marks the end of another Christmas season. We have celebrated the past few weeks through today with gratitude and rejoicing. Most of our children were able to be with us for at least a time in December and/or thus far in January. We know, in these modern times when people tend to atomize, thereby forsaking the critical need and importance of family, it is a privilege to spend time together, to pray together, to worship together, to work and play together in multi-generational groups.
We are not unmindful that, although many also share this joy of “being home for Christmas”, many others do not or are unable to and we try hard to not take this privilege for granted.
My father would often tell me of the last Christmas he spent with his own father, not knowing that it would be the last; and how important it is to be appreciative and to make every moment count.
It is wonderful and instructive — and fun! — to celebrate the 12 days from Christmas Day through Twelfth Night (Epiphany Eve). This gives us many opportunities to “compartir” with friends and loved ones and family; and to consider, during meals, family discussions, outings, and other activities, the Great Truth of the Incarnation, its continuing impact on the world, and the Ultimate Victory in Christ.
We wish you and yours the very best in 2022.
Family meals Teaching the Little One Church friends Chores still must be done OutingsMemorable days and nights
“Charlie blinked and looked off toward the barn, toward Manuel. “I never thought it would wind up like this. I thought we was all fixed here for life.”
Lupe shrugged. “God has His reasons. He knows that when we have our bellies full, we don’t bother much with Him. He knows that we stop and listen to Him only when the trouble comes, so once in a while He sends trouble. Maybe He says to Himself, those people down there they think they are too big to need God any more…. Someday when all the people learn to pray again He will make it rain.” Lupe looked down. “I will pray, Mister Charlie.”
The Time It Never Rained, Elmer Kelton
Texas has produced fine literature over the years. Her earliest works were in Spanish, with English taking over in the 19th century. As with all fine literature, Texas works apply universally — across other states and countries and generations.
(Of course, this post does not at all deny that the above also applies to good literature from other states. In fact, I would encourage readers and friends to investigate the literature of your particular state or of a state you might be interested in. You are likely to find some real treasures.)
Although I am in Puerto Rico as I write this, reading Elmer Kelton transports me to West Texas in such a way that, even as I sit midst bright, deep, tropical green jungles, I can feel the dry, hot wind blowing from the west and see the swirling dust boiling from behind my vehicle as I take a short cut across an unpaved road southwest of Midland, Texas, in a dry spell.
As for universal themes, Kelton’s novels deal abundantly, lyrically, beautifully, and poignantly with them, most prominently, that of men or women, however imperfect or scarred, who seek, sometimes desperately, to remain true to their roots and principles in the face of rapidly changing times and values.
There are other Texas authors who also do this well — Tom Lea’s The Wonderful Country comes to mind. Not to mention fine works of non-fiction, such as Walter Prescott Webb’s The Texas Rangers: A Century of Frontier Defense. But I’ll restrict my comments to Kelton’s novel quoted above, as that is what I am currently reading.
Charlie Flagg is a decent man, a rancher determined to do whatever it takes to salvage his ranch during the terrible west Texas drought of the 50s. With a slow, elegiac, spare pace and narrative, Kelton draws you in to the life of the ranchers and cowboys as they toil with hands and brain, ideating creative solutions to lack of grass and then lack of funds to buy feed, as the drought wears on, relentlessly, year after year. Lupe and his wife, Rosa, have lived and worked on Charlie’s ranch for many years and by the time of the quote above, their three children had been born there.
Kelton manages to show that Charlie loves his son, Tom, but the reader sees that Lupe and his family are more valuable to Charlie than his own son, who lives for rodeo and whose wild, irresponsible ways eventually catch up with him. By the time of the above-quoted scene, Tom has sobered up and looks on with quiet, dawning understanding.
And Mary, Charlie’s wife, is a constant: sometimes as irritant, sometimes as encourager, but always a support and comfort whom Charlie loves and respects.
So we are confronted with a man, Charlie Flagg, who is fighting for his life, the only life he has ever known, as a killer drought consumes all before it and kills the dreams and life investments of neighbors and friends who have to fold and move away, never to return. As if that is not trouble enough, Charlie has also to deal with his stern banker, his devil-may-care son, relationships with Anglos and Mexicans, overbearing government agencies who insist that he take aid he has never taken before and refuses to do so now, and much more.
In other words, the novel presents us with the realities of life and how men and women deal with them.
For Texans who lived during that time, this has to be a very hard novel to read, as the images it evokes are powerful and wrenching, although, ultimately, deeply moving.
For all, especially the young, regardless of state or country you come from, it will grant an appreciation of your grandparents and great-grandparents’ determination to work and live for the future that they knew God had prepared but which they, perhaps, would never see. But you and I have.
And, it was all worth it.
“Time and memories — so many good things and so many bad — but strange how the bad things seemed to fade so that you remembered mostly the good. Maybe that was one of life’s main compensations, having those memories with the rough edges blunted down and the bright parts polished to a diamond gleam….”
The drought extended from about 1949 to 1957, with several of the years being the driest in 600 years.
“Eileen is doing well,” her husband replied, “Just sad.”
A friend in Venezuela had not heard the news and when informed, replied, “¡Qué año tan fuerte ha sido este!”
In the summer I wrote about two childhood friends who had passed away earlier in the year (Lizbeth and Cyril). Their passing had saddened me.
And now the passing of my cousin, Max (“Papaito”) Albert Barnes has added bleakness to the melancholy occasioned by my friends’ preceding departures. Maybe the old adage, “Blood is thicker than water”, helps explain why this hit me a bit harder.
But I think it is more than blood.
Perhaps it is that all three marked my childhood.
Ultimately, none of us chose where we were to be born or who our parents were going to be. Darwinists credit the doctrine of selection; Christians credit the doctrine of election.
But neither Darwinist nor Christian can seriously claim that he had anything to do with where or with whom he came into this world.
Papaito had a wonderful sense of humor but you would have been unwise to have sold him short when it came to serious matters. For instance, in early 1969, a few months after our uncle’s murder, he and I were talking about our uncle as we arranged moving boxes in the garage. He stopped to take a break, taking a seat on a bike, “Is our family all that special?” he asked.
“Huh?” I replied, rather dumbly.
“I mean, we talk about our family as if it were something special. But is it really? Don’t all families believe they are special?”
I responded, unthinkingly and immaturely, “Of course we are special! How many families have a grandfather who descended from the Pilgrims and was the first to leave Massachussets and go to Cuba to the war? And then marry a Spaniard and then his children go to Venezuela, etc. etc. etc.?”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he concluded, but not with too much conviction.
In retrospect, I now can see that he was onto something true and that my reply had completely missed his point. What he was inchoately reaching for (and what I was too immature to catch) was not so much that we are more special than others, but, rather, that we are to be grateful for what went before. What came before us helped make us what we are and we are to improve on that and forward that heritage plus our improvements to the following generations, just like our parents and grandparents had done for us.
We do not worship our fathers and mothers or the long line of folks that preceded us; we do honor them, however. We tell our children stories about that past and their duty to honor likewise and build and live up to a good name so as to progress in the true sense of the word.
To worship the past is to stagnate; to honor the past is to progress.
In that sense every family is special.
Papaito was way ahead of me there, whether he realized it or not.
In the case of my cousin, my two friends and other children, we all “met” in El Pao thanks not to any overarching plan of ours, but to the will of a sovereign God. Some arrived a bit sooner while some left later. But that’s where we met and that’s where we and our families formed bonds that, for some, prevail to this day.
And those bonds extend to our families and friends outside of El Pao. For example, in my case, although they visited once or twice, my cousins in Miami did not live in El Pao. And yet, the cords that were knit in that camp extended to them and from them to me. The same goes for my cousins and friends who lived in Venezuela but outside El Pao.
At the end of the day, what will survive — even into eternity — is not the car you drove or the house you built or the lands you visited, but rather the bonds you forged. The family, loved ones, brethren, people whose paths you crossed in life.
Including during childhood.
What did you want to be when you were a child?
We tend to smile — I know I do — when hearing that, or a variation thereof.
I always found it difficult to answer that question when posed to me in childhood. (In later childhood the difficulty was in admitting what I really wanted to be.)
I’ve heard it said — by professionals and laymen alike — that what you were inclined towards in childhood in regards to making a living or making a life, most likely, generally speaking, is what you were meant to pursue.
That, in capsule form, illustrates the lasting power or impact of a boyhood and girlhood which included a blessed home, a caring family, a faithful church, decent brethren, friends, and more.
This is not to dismiss those who came after who also had a major influence on your life (see Unvisited Tombs, for example). Nevertheless, oftentimes, when folks are asked to name important mentors or sources, one seldom hears about people or events in their nonage.
No, I am not a Freudian. My allusions to the springtime of life have nothing to do with that.
They have everything to do with gratitude to the Lord for the parents and grandparents He gave me; for the home and extended family He lent me; for Miami — not the city so much as the family and loved ones that awaited me there year after year; for El Pao; for my church and brethren in the labor camp; for cousins, such as Max (Papaito); for childhood friends such as Cyril and Lizbeth and more, some who have passed away, a few with whom I stay in touch, and others of whom I’ve long lost track.
They all had an immeasurable and lifelong impact on me. And I am a debtor to them.
Yes, like my cousin Eileen (Max’s sister), I too am sad. Not in the sense of those who have no hope, but rather in the sense of saying farewell. Not as an “adios”, but as an “hasta luego”.
As this year 2021 ends, I extend my sincere and heartfelt condolences to Papaito’s surviving wife, Isabel, and sister and brother (my cousins Eileen and Michael) as well as children and grandchildren and loved ones and more.
I wish for them and for you a wonderful and prosperous 2022.
My simple yet genuine thank-you to Papaito for fond childhood memories and learning experiences.
“… or ever the silver cord be loosed …. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God Who gave it (Ecc. 12:6a-7).”
May you rest in peace, Max (1952 – 2021).
Cousins, left to right: Janis, Sarita (d. 2014), Vivian, Max (Papaito), Louis (Papito) circa 1961. Edwin (d. 1982), Max (Papaito), José — circa 1965 Louis (Papito) and Max (Papaito), 1969 From left to right: Pete and Janis (Colón), Eileen (Barnes) Morillas, Michael Barnes, Isabel and Max (Papaito) Barnes, Ronny Barnes, circa 2013 Photo courtesy Jim Shingler. El Pao end-of-bowling-season banquet, 1964. Many are gone; practically all had a major impact on many of us.
Friends and readers of this blog have known that I’ve not been keen on the elite’s response to the virus that has characterized those in power and their sycophantic media for twenty-two (22) months, and counting. For example, see here.
My unease has only grown since. In fact, it is now more than unease; it is alarm.
I am a Protestant. However, consistent with Reformers of old, my faith does not throw out the baby with the bath water. What I mean is, for instance, just because Roman Catholics believe something, does not automatically — knee-jerkingly — cause me to toss it aside.
For example, Roman Catholics affirm the Trinity. They also affirm that 2 plus 2 equals 4. I agree. And my Roman Catholic friends understand.
And I have agreed with retired Archbishop, Carlo Maria Viganò, who has been sounding the alarm since 2020.
His 2021 Christmas letter is below and I urge you to read it calmly and with the seriousness it deserves. No, I do not credit Plato as much as he does; however, that weakness towards pagan wisdom should not obscure his very serious and cogent warnings. As for his references to The Great Reset, as much as that sounds like science fiction, you can duckduck it and see for yourself.
However, I remain optimistic. The Incarnation took place, despite the elite’s efforts to kill the babe in the manger. The Cross accomplished the redemption of God’s people, the Resurrection assured the Victory, and the Ascension has Him seated on the throne, the True Sovereign over all Creation. And He will return as King of kings and Lord of lords, to climax the whole of history.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a most prosperous New Year.
MESSAGE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
Dear American People, Dear Friends, for two years now, a global coup has been carried out all over the world, planned for some time by an elite group of conspirators enslaved to the interests of international high finance. This coup was made possible by an emergency pandemic that is based on the premise of a virus that has a mortality rate almost analogous to that of any other seasonal flu virus, on the delegitimization and prohibition of effective treatments, and on the distribution of an experimental gene serum which is obviously ineffective, and which also clearly carries with it the danger of serious and even lethal side effects. We all know how much the mainstream media has contributed to supporting the insane pandemic narrative, the interests that are at stake, and the goals of these groups of power: reducing the world population, making those who survive chronically ill, and imposing forms of control that violate the fundamental rights and natural liberties of citizens. And yet, two years after this grotesque farce started, which has claimed more victims than a war and destroyed the social fabric, national economies, and the very foundations of the rule of law, nothing has changed in the policies of Nations and their response to the so-called pandemic.
Last year, when many still had not yet understood the gravity of the looming threat, I was among the first to denounce this coup, and I was promptly singled out as a conspiracy theorist. Today more and more people are opening their eyes and beginning to understand that the emergency pandemic and the “ecological emergency” are part of a criminal plan hatched by the World Economic Forum, the UN, the WHO, and a galaxy of organizations and foundations that are ideologically characterized as clearly anti-human and – this needs to be said clearly – anti-Christian.
One of the elements that unequivocally confirms the criminal nature of the Great Reset is the perfect synchrony with which all the different Nations are acting, demonstrating the existence of a single script under a single direction. And it is disconcerting to see how the lack of treatment, the deliberately wrong treatments that have been given in order to cause more deaths, the decision to impose lockdowns and masks, the conspiratorial silence about the adverse effects of the so-called “vaccines” that are in fact gene serums, and the continuous repetition of culpable errors have all been possible thanks to the complicity of those who govern and the institutions. Political and religious leaders, representatives of the people, scientists and doctors, journalists and those who work in the media have literally betrayed their people, their laws, their Constitutions, and the most basic ethical principles.
The electoral fraud of the 2020 presidential election against President Trump has shown itself to be organic to this global operation, because in order to impose illegitimate restrictions in violation of the principles of law it was necessary to be able to make use of an American President who would support the psycho-pandemic and support its narrative. The Democratic Party, part of the deep state, is carrying out its task as an accomplice of the system, just as the deep churchfinds in Bergoglio its own propagandist. The recent rulings of the Supreme Court and the autonomous action of some American states – where the vaccination obligation has been declared unconstitutional – give us hope that this criminal plan can collapse and that those responsible will be identified and tried: both in America as well as in the whole world.
How was it possible to arrive at such a betrayal? How have we come to be considered enemies by those who govern us, not in support of the common good, but rather to feed a hellish machine of death and slavery?
The answer is now clear: throughout the world, in the name of a perverted concept of freedom, we have progressively erased God from society and laws. We have denied that there is an eternal and transcendent principle, valid for all men of all times, to which the laws of States must conform. We have replaced this absolute principle with the arbitrariness of individuals, with the principle that everyone is his own legislator. In the name of this insane freedom – which is license and libertinage – we have allowed the Law of God and the law of nature to be violated, legitimizing the killing of children in the womb, even up to the very moment of birth; the killing of the sick and the elderly in hospital wards; the destruction of the natural family and of Marriage; we have recognized rights to vice and sin, putting the deviations of individuals before the good of society. In short, we have subverted the entire moral order that constitutes the indispensable basis of the laws and social life of a people. Already in the fourth century B.C., Plato wrote these things in his last work the Lawsand identified the cause of the Athenian political crisis precisely in the breaking of the divine order – the cosmos – between these eternal principles and human laws.
These natural moral principles of the Greco-Roman world found their fulfillment in Christianity, which built Western civilization by giving them a supernatural impetus. Christianity is the strongest defense against injustice, the strongest garrison against the oppression of the powerful over the weak, the violent over the peaceful, and the wicked over the good, because Christian morality makes each of us accountable to God and our neighbor for our actions, both as citizens and as rulers. The Son of God, whose Birth we will celebrate in a few days, became Incarnate in time and in history in order to heal an ancient wound, and to restore by Grace the order broken by disobedience. His social Kingship was the generating principle of the ordoChristianus that for two centuries now has been fiercely fought against by Freemasonry: because the Revolution it promotes is chaos; it is disorder; it is infernal rebellion against the divine order so as to impose Satan’s tyranny.
Now, as we see what is happening around us, we understand how mendacious were the promises of progress and freedom made by those who destroyed Christian society, and how deceptive was the prospect of a new Tower of Babel, built not only without regard for God but even in direct opposition to Him. The infernal challenge of the Enemy is repeated over the centuries unchanged, but it is doomed to inexorable failure. Behind this millennial conspiracy, the adversary is always the same, and the only thing that changes are the particular individuals who cooperate with him.
Dear American brothers and sisters! Dear Patriots! this is a crucial moment for the future of the United States of America and of the whole of humanity. But the pandemic emergency, the farce of global warming and the green economy, and the economic crisis deliberately induced by the Great Reset with the complicity of the deep state, are all only the consequence of a much more serious problem, and it is essential to understand it in depth if we want to defeat it. This problem is essentially moral; indeed, it is religious. We must put God back in the first place not only in our personal lives, but also in the life of our society. We must restore to Our Lord Jesus Christ the Crown that the Revolution has torn from Him, and in order for this to happen a true and profound conversion of individuals and of society is necessary. For it is absolutely impossible to hope for the end of this global tyranny if we continue to remove from the Kingdom of Christ the nations that belong to Him and must belong to Him. For this reason, the movement to overturn Roe v. Wade also acquires a very important meaning, since respect for the sacredness of unborn life must be sanctioned by positive law if it is to be a mirror of the Eternal Law.
You are animated by a yearning for justice, and this is a legitimate and good desire. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” says the Lord (Mt 5:6). But this Justice must be based on the awareness that this is a spiritual battle in which it is necessary to take sides without equivocation and without compromise, holding transcendent and eternal references that even the pagan philosophers glimpsed, and that have found fulfillment in the Revelation of the Son of God, the Divine Master.
My appeal for an Anti-Globalist Alliance – which I renew today – aims precisely to constitute a movement of moral and spiritual rebirth which will inspire the civil, social and political action of those who do not want to be enslaved as slaves to the New World Order. A movement that at the national and local level will be able to find a way to oppose the Great Reset and that coordinates the denunciation of the coup that is currently in progress. Because in the awareness of who our adversary is and what his aims and purposes are, we can disrupt the criminal action he intends to pursue and force him to retreat. In this, the opposition to the pandemic farce and the vaccination obligation must be determined and courageous on the part of each of you.
Yours must therefore be a work of truth, bringing to light the lies and deceptions of the New World Order and their anti-human and antichristic matrix. And in this it is mainly the laity and all people of good will – each in the professional and civil role he holds – who must coordinate and organize together to make a firm but peaceful resistance, so as not to legitimize its violent repression by those who today hold power.
Be proud of your identity as American patriots and of the Faith that must animate your life. Do not allow anyone to make you feel inferior just because you love your homeland, because you are honest at work, because you want to protect your family and raise your children with healthy values, because you respect the elderly, because you protect life from conception to its natural end. Do not be intimidated or seduced by those who propagate a dystopian world in which a faceless power imposes on you contempt for the Law of God, presents sin and vice as licit and desirable, despises righteousness and Morality, destroys the natural family and promotes the worst perversions, plans the death of defenseless and weak creatures, and exploits humanity for its own profit or to preserve power.
Be worthy heirs of the great Archbishop Fulton Sheen, and do not follow those of your Pastors who have betrayed the mandate they have received from Our Lord, who impose iniquitous orders on you or who remain silent before the evidence of an unheard of crime against God and humanity.
May this Holy Christmas illuminate your minds and inflame your hearts before the Infant King who lays in the manger. And just as the choirs of the Angels and the homage of the Magi united with the simple adoration of the Shepherds, so also today your commitment to the moral rebirth of the United States of America – one Nation under God – will have the blessing of Our Lord and will gather those who govern you around you. Amen.
May God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.
