The Pull Of The Land

Ghosts

February 27, 2021February 27, 2021 Richard Barnes

The Home Page of this blog quotes the late great Whittaker Chambers as the source for its title: The Pull of the Land.

Although crediting Mr. Chambers for the title, I’ve said nothing about him beyond that. Going forward I hope to rectify this oversight, because, in probably the only sentence Arthur Schlesinger Jr. ever wrote with which I agree, “Whittaker Chambers has written one of the really significant American autobiographies. When some future Plutarch writes his American Lives, he will find in Chambers penetrating and terrible insights into America in the early twentieth century.”

Chambers was, and continues to be today, sixty years after his death, a controversial figure. He was a Communist spy, when Americans were told emphatically that no such thing existed. He then converted, after focusing on his infant daughter’s ear and submitting to his epiphany which insisted that such a marvel could not have come into existence absent an all-powerful God.

He went underground to avoid assassination by his erstwhile comrades and emerged publicly as a journalist, writing in The American Mercury and, most notably in Time and Life, two of the famous publications of Henry R. Luce, the others being Fortune and Sports Illustrated. Luce deeply respected and admired Whittaker Chambers, but he could not have anticipated the next, explosive era in Chambers’ life.

In 1948 he was subpoenaed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). However, this was not the first time he had come forward to alert the United States federal government of Communist infiltration in its highest echelons. Almost a decade earlier, he had spoken with a top State Department official, Adolph A. Berle, identifying Communist cells and names of individuals with critical access. Berle took the information to President Franklin Roosevelt, who promptly dismissed it, even though the Communists named included his special assistant, Lauchlin Currie, who would also become the president’s Special Representative to China, Alger Hiss, who would eventually go on to preside over the United Nations Charter Conference, and Victor Perlo, who had clearance at the secret bombsight project at the Aberdeen Proving Ground.

A cursory review of that decade reveals several of the earth shattering events of the 20th century, including the fall of China to Mao Tse Tung, the fall of the Iron Curtain across central Europe, and the creation of the United Nations on terms disadvantageous to the United States. One could bicker about “who lost” what, but one cannot ignore the role played by agents who had been identified by Chambers a few years before Pearl Harbor.

In his testimony in 1948, Chambers repeated his testimony and was promptly denounced by Alger Hiss who went to his grave denying his being a Communist agent. The contrast between the two men was dramatic. And instructive. Handsome, Ivy League, well-spoken, neat, fit vs. Crooked teeth, college dropout, mumbler, disheveled, poor health. President Harry Truman mocked Chambers calling him a “Red Herring” and refused to take action on the allegations.

Hiss was eventually convicted of perjury.

Allen Weinstein researched the case extensively, believing that Hiss was not a spy. But he, like many after reviewing the record, came to believe Chambers. The Venona Project whereby, after the fall of the Soviet Union, many, but not most, by far, files were deciphered and published, confirmed that Hiss was working for the Soviets, as testified by Chambers over four decades earlier. The list of Americans in the files was astounding. Hayden Peake, curator of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Historical Intelligence Collection has stated, “No modern government was more thoroughly penetrated.”

Every single name in Chambers’ testimony was in the Venona lists. And he is hated to this day by the usual suspects.

Whittaker Chambers wrote the deeply moving and genuinely classic American autobiography, Witness, from which I took the title to this blog.

He also wrote what many considered an explosive essay about the Yalta conference attended by Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, the WWII allies, in 1945. Explosive because Stalin was our “ally” and the essay did not reflect positively about the Soviet Union’s intentions. The staff at Time and Life rose in outrage and a “delegation” visited Chambers’ editor to urge the essay not be published. The editor, T. S. Matthews was so shaken, that he held the piece for a week, but eventually proceeded to publish it. Time was inundated with what today we would call “hate mail” along with cancellation requests. How could Time question the motives of our faithful Communist ally?

The essay was “Ghosts on the Roof”. The murdered Czar and his family, descend “with the softness of bats” upon the roof of their old palace and meet the muse of history already there. They proceed to discuss the conference now unfolding beneath them and the Czar announces his unabashed admiration of Stalin and his own conversion to Marxism, “What statesmanship! What vision! What power!” he exclaims. “And now … the greatest statesmen in the world have come to Stalin. Who but he would have had the sense of historical fitness to entertain them in my expropriated palace!”

Sitting next to a gravely ailing President Roosevelt was Alger Hiss. Roosevelt would die 3 months later.

Three years later, when Chambers’ prescience could not be ignored, Time republished the essay, saying it was worth a second reading.

We’ll write more about Chambers in future posts.

Lauchlin Currie (1902-1993). Member of President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Brain Trust”.

Alger Hiss (1904-1996). High ranking official in Roosevelt and Truman administrations. His guilt has been hotly disputed to this day. However, the overwhelming consensus among historians is that he was indeed guilty, as confirmed by the unanimous report of the bipartisan Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy in 1997.

Franklin Roosevelt at Yalta, right of center in the photo. He was ailing at the time. To his left, our right, is Alger Hiss. Josef Stalin is in the shadows at left. “The President seemed placid and frail,” wrote Winston Churchill. Churchill’s bodyguard, Walter Thomson, in his memoirs, recalled seeing Churchill “weeping over the concessions Roosevelt made to Stalin at Yalta. ‘Why, Thomson, did they allow the president, almost dying on his feet, to be there…? All Europe will suffer from the decisions made at Yalta.'”

Which is it?

February 10, 2021February 10, 2021 Richard Barnes

The Indian worker is poor, but he is free. His condition is preferable to that of the peasant in great parts of northern Europe …. — Alexander von Humboldt, circa 1800

… y el pobre en su choza, libertad pidió [And the poor man in his hovel, for freedom implored.]. — Venezuelan National Anthem, 1810

Well, which is it?

This blog has often referred to Humboldt (see Monster Aguirre and The Invention of Nature for but two allusions; the search bar will direct you to more). Humboldt was no royalist; he did not even pause for an irony alert to ponder that “modern”, progressive France denied him permits to travel for scientific inquiry, whereas obscurantist Spain did.

Nevertheless, he recognized that the poor in pre-revolutionary Spanish America were free and many were prosperous. He wrote that a Mexican peasant under the Spaniards earned five (5) times more than a peasant in India under the English. He further discovered that Nueva España (Mexico) provided twice more to Spain’s treasury than India, with 5-times the population, did to England’s. During his visit to Spanish America, Venezuelans consumed 189 pounds of meat per capita, compared to 163 pounds by Parisians. Mexicans consumed 363 pounds of bread per capita compared to 377 by Parisians. Miners earned 25 to 30 francs per week compared to 4 to 5 francs by Saxons.

Esquivel Obregón, a Mexican, wrote that a wage earner in his country could buy 38 hectoliters (a hectoliter is 100 liters) of corn and 2,300 kilograms of flour in 1800, but only 24 and 525, respectively, in 1908, after “independence.” These are not isolated figures, but they do signal the catastrophic decline of Spanish America’s standard of living and reflect the desolation caused by the “chimera of liberty”.

But no need to rely on a Humboldt or an Obregón. What did Simón Bolívar himself write in 1829, a year before he died?

“From one end to the other, the New World is an abyss of abomination; there is no good faith in [Spanish] America; treaties are mere paper; constitutions, books; elections, combat; liberty, anarchy; life, a torment. We’ve never been so disgraced as we are now. Before, we enjoyed good things; illusion is fed by chimera … we are tormented by bitter realities.”

So one must wrestle with the fact that “the poor man in his hovel” most certainly was not imploring for freedom. He was free and prosperous.

Much, much more was going on at the time, but the overarching canopy was the French Revolution and its atheistic concepts which sought to disparage all that went before, including one’s own history. A 19th century Colombian diplomat wrote perceptively,

“In the codices [Spain was notorious for documenting everything. These codices are treasure troves for those willing and able to research largely unread tomes waiting to be rediscovered] known by me, the history of the Conquest and of the vice-royalty was recorded…. Three centuries of a patriarchal empire whose glories were echoed in palaces, pulpits, taverns, Indian colloquiums, and in royal audiences…. Then the violent winds blew and our ship ran aground on the Oedipus reefs where the desire to assassinate the fathers, to destroy the moorings of common ethics and religion which bound diverse cultures and civilizations to one tongue, one culture, and one loyalty to common principles, exalted the passions and drove men to madness.”

That diplomat went on to say, “…the degree of destruction and depopulation experienced in these lands compares with my vehement desire that someone, one day will love the Truth enough to divulge what I have observed and written.”

Readers of this blog know that I love Venezuela, the land of my birth. It is a land of heartbreaking beauty and one that has absorbed many rivers of blood since the early 19th century and is even now suffering greatly. The way back to sanity, prosperity, liberty, and peace begins with the Truth.

Readers should also see significant parallels to current events in the United States. George Washington, in his Farewell Address, addressed similar matters as were addressed by that Colombian diplomat, including the need for a common religion and common culture to bind together diverse peoples. The current, unbridled rush to deny anything good in our founding, and especially to denigrate our common religion, is very similar to the temper which became prevalent in Spanish American elite circles in the early 1800’s.

In both, Truth is the first casualty and all else follows, beginning with ordered liberty.

To restore and preserve our ordered liberty, we must recover and speak the Truth. Pilate tarried not for an answer when he asked, “What is truth?”, but turned away from Truth Personified, Who stood before him.

Unlike Pilate who inquired and did not await for a reply, we must do differently.

And the Truth will set us free.

17th century Spanish American art from Peru

War to the Death

January 27, 2021January 27, 2021 Richard Barnes

I had promised to write about Simón Bolívar off and on, because “it is simply impossible to consider Venezuela … without grappling with Bolívar ….”

Bolívar possessed attributes that are worthy of admiration and imitation. But we must recognize that he also encompassed much that is not so worthy. Horribly so.

One fact we must deal with is his utter, dispassionate cruelty documented in contemporary journals and letters, including some in Bolívar’s own hand.

This post addresses Bolívar’s War to the Death Decree (Decreto de Guerra a Muerte) [Decreto]. This decree and the resulting bloodbath has to be addressed by Bolívar’s many admiring biographers and Venezuelan textbooks because it is simply too well known to be ignored. As I grew up in Venezuela I accepted at face value that the Decreto was issued in reaction to a “war to the death” on the part of the Spaniards.

That explanation was easy to accept given the Lascasian view of Spain so prevalent, even to this day, in South and North America (Bolivar). In addition, the unbelievably horrible depredations of “royalist” José Tomás Bove are well documented (Bove) and certainly help explain how a furious Bolívar might react with his own sanguinary actions.

However, a cursory review of the timelines and some additional study of easily-available documents — Bove’s actions took place after the Decreto and Bove was loyal to no one but his marauding, killer hordes; so much so that the Spaniards had moved to depose him — clearly show that Bolívar could not have used Bove as justification. Indeed, Bove’s name appears nowhere in the Decreto. How could it? He was practically an unknown at the time it was promulgated.

To understand the genesis of the Decreto, one need only consider the genesis of the South American wars for independence: The French Revolution (Bastille).

The Caribbean had already seen a “War To the Death”. It took place in Haiti, a nation which today shares an island with the Dominican Republic and which has never fully recovered from its own decree.

Bolívar’s Decreto was an adoption of the Haitian revolutionary model which had declared a “war to the death” on the French. To be clear: this was a decree calling on all inhabitants to “exterminate” every single French or European man, woman, and child on the island.

Jean-Jacques Dessalines, as bloodthirsty a man as has ever lived, succeeded in ridding Haiti of the French. He and his troops entered villages, encouraging the people to go to their churches to ensure their and their children’s safety. He and his men would then proceed to bayonet, decapitate, eviscerate, and otherwise torture the French, careful to leave the women and children for last for rape and abuse. In his presence, his troops burned at least one priest alive because the cleric dared to denounce Dessalines’s actions as Satanic.

Whenever you read or hear hagiographies of Jean-Jacque Rousseau , always remember: by their fruit ye shall know them. One fruit is his namesake, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who, in 1806, was brutally murdered and dismembered.

In 1804, Dessalines proclaimed himself Jacques I, Emperor of Haiti. He died a mere two years later, but not before he received the great Venezuelan, Francisco de Miranda. In that audience, Dessalines urged Miranda to do as he had done: proclaim a war of extermination on the Spaniards and Europeans. Miranda, to his eternal credit, declined to do so.

However, less than a decade later, Bolívar did take the advice and in 1812 the Decreto was drafted although formally proclaimed in June, 1813. Nevertheless, ever the man of action, Bolívar had previously ordered his men to kill without quarter and to incarcerate those who were not in uniform. In his letter to the congress in Nueva Granada, he wrote that he had traversed lands, cities, and towns, “where all Europeans and Canarios without exception were executed.”

And how were they executed?

The gory events in Caracas and La Guaira, where his loyal commander, Juan Bautista Arismendi, murdered 886 prisoners who had languished in execrable conditions for a year, provides an answer. They were pulled out of jail and summarily shot. He then ordered between 500 and 1,000 sick and disabled from hospitals and, to save powder, had them beaten to death with clubs and boards. The coup de grâce was by means of large rocks crushing the heads of the dying. He then ordered ladies to be dressed in white and dance among the bloody bodies as they awaited the rapine of Arismendi’s men.

Bolívar wrote about this to the Congress in Nueva Granada.

In a letter written a month before his death in December, 1830, Bolívar wrote:

“1. America is ungovernable, 2. he who serves a revolution, plows the sea, 3. the only thing one can do in America is emigrate, 4. this land will fall into the hands of an unbridled multitude who will then fall under petty tyrants of all colors and races 5. from which the Europeans will not deign to rescue us. 6. If it were possible for an area of the world to return to primitive chaos, this would be America.”

Despite his care about his physical appearance, Bolívar was one of the least self-aware men in history, never acknowledging his own role in thrusting great portions of South America into chaos.

A Venezuelan historian writes:

“Bolívar’s vocation was equivocal, his character mercurial. He proclaimed liberty and imposed tyranny. He praised civility and waged terror. He exalted fraternity and encouraged fratricide. He revered Spanish-American unity, but his wars destroyed the institutions that would have preserved it … Of that grand civilization that had successfully functioned for centuries, only the memory remained in a continent of men in conflict with men in the name of ghostly principles.”

One reason it is necessary to know one’s history is because that helps to understand how one got to the present and what path to trace towards the future. Venezuelans are no different than Americans in that they too seek peace and unity — not uniformity, but unity. In the United States that unity is achievable by a return to our traditions, which are not difficult to discern. Sources such as Bradford’s Journal, the Mayflower Compact, the Christian bases of our colonial governments, Washington’s Farewell Address, and more speak to us today.

In the case of Venezuela, her traditions, although a bit more difficult to discern, can be re-discovered with the removal of several generations of accumulated underbrush, including the hagiography bathing Simón Bolívar. One can begin with Bolívar’s own lament about “centuries of civilization” having been destroyed by his wars. What was that civilization? Can its foundations be rediscovered and improved?

I think they can.

Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Emperor of Haiti (1758-1806). Enraged by a priest who classified his slaughterhouse actions as “Satanic”, he ordered his men to burn the priest alive as he watched.

Engraving (1806) illustrating Dessalines holding the severed head of a French woman. He was murdered that same year.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). He loved children. Except his own — he left 4 or 5 in foundling homes because he refused to care for them. Yet he insisted on telling the rest of us how to live. And his philosophy is very much with us today. By their fruit ye shall know them.

Francisco de Miranda (1750-1816). Before Bolivar, he sought independence from Spain, but not for the same revolutionary reasons. Miranda lived in the United States and met George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, among others. A soldier, statesman, scholar. He was betrayed by Bolivar, handed to the Spanish, and died in exile in Spain, aged 66. The portrait is by Martin Tovar y Tovar, a famous Venezuelan painter.

Sketch of Simón Bolívar made from life by José María Espinoza in 1830, his final year.

Barred for Life

January 12, 2021January 12, 2021 Richard Barnes

This blog has alluded to President Marcos Pérez Jiménez on several occasions, such as here and here (the blog search bar will direct you to more). Hearing and reading about calls by the usual suspects to bar President Trump from running again for office, reminds me of Venezuelan politicians’ visceral detestation of President Jiménez.

First, to get a taste of how Jiménez is treated by the elite media, let us very briefly contrast the standard accounts of Pérez Jiménez with those of Fidel Castro. The following quotes are the initial paragraph for Jiménez and Castro, respectively, as presented in Brittanica:

“Marcos Pérez Jiménez, (born April 25, 1914, Michelena, Venezuela — died September 20, 2001, Madrid, Spain), professional soldier and president (1952-58) of Venezuela whose regime was marked by extravagance, corruption, police oppression, and mounting unemployment.”

“Fidel Castro, in full Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, (born August 13, 1926, near Birán, Cuba–died November 25, 2016, Cuba), political leader of Cuba(1959–2008) who transformed his country into the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere. Castro became a symbol of communist revolution in Latin America. He held the title of premier until 1976 and then began a long tenure as president of the Council of State and the Council of Ministers. He handed over provisional power in July 2006 because of health problems and formally relinquished the presidency in February 2008.”

Is it just me, or does the second entry have a whiff of heroism to it as contrasted with the first?

Well, Brittanica reflects the standard treatment, which paints Jiménez as a corrupt ne’er-do-well, while Castro is portrayed as something of an epic figure, as opposed to the brutal Communist dictator who “succeeded” in transforming Cuba from a country with a “higher standard of living in 1958 than half of Europe, a larger middle class than Switzerland, a more highly unionized work force than the U.S., more doctors and dentists per capita than Great Britain, more cars and televisions per capita than Canada or Germany….(Fontova).”

(I began distrusting the media during the Nixon years, even though I was not a Nixon fan. But it was the Reagan years that finally convinced me we could not believe the regular media. One of our founders, upon being asked what the 1787 Constitutional Convention had wrought, replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” A republic requires, among other things, hard work and study. That study requires gathering information and knowledge as one would dig for treasure. Being spoon fed by The New York Times won’t cut it.)

Jiménez enhanced Venezuela’s independence by promoting oil and ore concessions and improving or expanding the transportation and transit infrastructure. In brief, he catapulted Venezuela onto the mid-twentieth century. Caracas was modernized with skyscrapers, major public housing projects, and other initiatives, including the symbolic Humboldt Hotel overlooking the city. During his tenure, Venezuela built South America’s finest highway system, most of which is still in use into the 21st century, including spectacular freeways cutting through and winding around giant mountain ranges.

Venezuela was transformed into the most modern nation of South America: “modern” defined as excellent infrastructure, breathtaking skylines, and a rapidly growing middle class. In addition, during Jiménez’s tenure, about one million Europeans immigrated to Venezuela, from all countries, but principally Spain and Portugal. Many Americans came to work in Venezuela, primarily, but not exclusively, in the oil and ore industries. Recall that in the case of Cuba, tens of thousands emigrated. Other than disgruntled professors and assorted sympathizers, no one voluntarily immigrated to Cuba.

By the way, according to Brittanica (see above), the Jiménez “regime” was characterized by “mounting unemployment.” However, a million Europeans do not emigrate to a country with “mounting unemployment.” The truth is that employment was so plentiful that Jiménez opened the doors to immigration in order to fulfill the labor demand, which greatly exceeded supply.

(I must be charitable and diplomatic; therefore, I refuse to say that Brittanica and other elite editors are liars. I’ll just say that their assertions have little, if any basis in the facts of the matter.)

A plebiscite was held in December, 1957, which Jiménez won handily, but which opponents insisted was a rigged exercise. Full scale riots, with focal centers in the Universidad de Caracas, ensued, culminating in a military coup. Jiménez went into self-imposed exile in Miami Beach, in 1958, having received asylum from the United States. However, the Kennedy administration, extradited him back to Venezuela, vainly believing the United States federal government, for the first time in its history, could afford to break its promise of asylum in exchange for the applause of Venezuelan politicians. This was an asymmetrical swap: honor out; applause in. We succeeded with the former, weightier matter; failed with the latter, transitory one.

Jiménez was eventually convicted of theft and sentenced to 4 years, which had already been exceeded by the time of the sentencing, so he was released and emigrated to Spain from where he ran for the Senate in absentia and won by overwhelming margins. However, alarmed politicians succeeded in overturning his election. In 1973 his supporters nominated him for the presidency. Stunned by his popularity, the political parties amended the constitution, in effect retroactively prohibiting him from running for president again.

He died in Spain in 2001, having never returned to Venezuela.

Whether you love him, hate him, or are indifferent to him, Marcos Pérez Jiménez was one of the most remarkable men in Venezuela’s history. This capsule summary of his tenure reminds us that the vindictive nature of politicians is not limited to Venezuelans who barred their political opponent from running for president. We now have American politicians seeking to do the same against President Trump.

The Venezuelan politicians succeeded. We shall see whether the American variety succeeds as well.

*Time Magazine* (February 28, 1955) could not ignore the phenomenal results of Jimenez’s administration.

Despite horrendous results whereby Cuba descended from unprecedented prosperity to island basket case and torture chamber, Fidel Castro is treated with reverence by our elite media.

Caracas-La Guaira expressway under construction in the 50s.

Tunnel construction Caracas-La Guira Expressway, circa 1952.

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!