Christmas Eve--Faith is a Verb

 En El Principio era El Verbo, y El Verbo era con Dios, y El Verbo era Dios. 

                                                    --San Juan 1:1

Faith is a verb. As is God, as is eternity.

Short story: When I taught writing at UCO, I'd use John 1:1 to emphasize the critical importance of verbs.

At a state university, I could usually count on a few students to quote John 1:1, in English. Then I'd explain, assuring the class that they didn't have to believe, but I wanted them to understand the theology behind it, that the "Word" was the agent of Creation ("Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life...."),  the pre-existent Christ.

Then I'd ask for the Spanish word of "word," and a few could answer "palabra." Then I'd put the  Spanish version up on the board, which is closer to the original Latin, and thus Greek: "En El Principio, era El Verbo...!"

Lesson: if you want to  "create" writing, sentences, pay attention to the verbs!

As I painted today's Christmas Eve card, I thought of people around the world gathering in churches, and homes, especially the poor, the paisanos and pueblo people of northern New Mexico. They  gather, walking through snow, to their adobe churches, expressing faith in their actions, seeking peace and sustenance in their humble lives.  Their faith is not something fancy or elaborate or have, but who they are and do.

Those were my thoughts last night as I was considering how to write this today. But then...

My mornings start with a reading from the journals of Thomas Merton. Today's selection, from Dec. 15, 1962,  had to be more than coincidence.

Consider these excerpts (italics are his):

• " The interior surrender of faith... (is)...an act of obedience, ie., self-commitment... (submitting) to God's truth in its power to give life, and to command one to live.
• "...Faith is not simply an act of choice, and option for a certain solution to the problem of existence, etc....To believe is to consent  to a creative command that raises us from the dead."

Tonight many of the faithful (those full of faith, a verb) gather to celebrate  the Verb who became flesh, "Y el Verbo se hizo carne...." San Juan 1:14 

No wonder faith  is a verb!

(P.S. I know, two sermons in one post today. Also consider that faith is different than belief. )

  

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Turquoise thoughts

"Turquoise Universe" 7 x 8 watercolor, on our front door turquoise bench

When you need to transcend the ordinary, the drudgery of a life burdened with chaos, I recommend color, especially turquoise.
No matter the shade or the "purity," the blue-green gem has powers recognized for centuries. I didn't know that growing up in New Mexico, where I saw a lot of that color, but now I'm more aware of it than ever.
I'm no new-ager, but there is a calming power  in its presence. My wedding ring, silver and turquoise from Santo Domino Pueblo inn New Mexico is one instance. Another is the silver and turquoise bolo tie of my Dad's that hangs around my rear view mirror. Another is the color of our front door. 
As an aspiring watercolorist, I've found that color heals, and especially turquoise.
Why? I takes me back to New Mexico where it is the color of the doors and windows and jewelry of the Spanish and Native Americans. But there reverence is a recent as those of us gringos.
First mined as a gem in Persia, long before Christ, it became a royal color of the Egyptians. When it spread to Europe, it acquired the French name, turquoise, because of the Turks. And the Spaniards who invaded North America brought that color because of the influence of the Moors in North Africa and Spain...as well as many of their words.
No matter. In the sun, in the southwest air, against adobe, set against silver or the cobalt blue intense sky, it has power for peace and beauty and ages beyond the present.
In the midst of human and viral contagion, we need it. Thus today's watercolor.

Why America IS great, Day 5

Palacio del El Gubanadors, La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis...establecido en 1610

America has been great a long time, and it started for Europeans in what is now America in 1540, and officially in 1610 with the founding of the oldest capitol here, what is now Santa Fe...and speaking English had nothing to do with it. 

In fact, today on those streets and in that historic capital city, you will hear numerous languages, including versions of Spanish, English, numerous Native American languages, and mixes thereof.

Under the great portales of the palace of the governors, you will find every day the first Americans selling their artwork to the mono-lingual English gringo newcomers. They probably speak at least three languages.

This is exactly what has made America great, in spite of her problems, through the years...new peoples, new ideas and cultures, blending sometimes peacefully and others not, but still generating an energy of greatness that endures... in spite of a white man's current stupid campaign slogan implying that they, and we, are not great.

The High Road beckons

The High Road, 6 by 9 watercolor, 140# d'Arches

It's called "The High Road to Taos." branching off the main highway at Espanola or Pojoaque and heading toward my favorite New Mexico mountains, the Truchas peaks. 
You go back in time the higher in altitude you get, because of the ancient Indian pueblos and Spanish villages, like Chimayo', Nambe, Cundiyo, Truchas and Las Trampas. Some people up there still speak Castillian Spanish, from the days of the Conquistadors.
The way hasn't been paved long, and it's an excellent back road trip away from tourist traffic to our favorite town, Truchas, at more than 8,000 feet in elevation, still 5,000 feet below the 13,000 foot trio of Truchas peaks looming above. 
Most people don't know it, but they are the mountains in the famous Ansel Adams photograph, Moonrise over Hernadez, N.M.
The High Road to Truchas beckons as I see it in the days before pavement.

111 countries, and a record July

Panama became the 111th country to have had a reader click on this blog, and total number of hits for the month of July is reaching a record, well over 4,300. Earlier in the month two other new country-clickers were Uruguay and Togo.

Panama has a long history intertwined with the U.S. It was originally colonized by Spain, after Balboa crossed the isthmus to be the first European to see, and  name the Pacific Ocean, in 1513. It gained independence in 1821 and was part of Colombia until 1903.
That's when the U.S., wanting to build the Panama Canal, managed to get it to secede from Colombia. The 48-mile canal was completed in 1914 by the US Army Corps of Engineers, and remained under American control until 1999. That happened because of a 1977 agreement, and there's an Oklahoma connection. Senator Henry Bellmon was one of those backers and he was criticized heavily in his home state and  on the editorial pages of The Oklahoman. I remember seeing a billboard saying "Benedict Bellmon."
But American intervention has also been tawdry. The country was largely democratic until the military took over in 1968, and the US and CIA supported it, including a military strongman, Manuel Noriega, tho took over in 1983, even though he was involved in drug deals and assassinations. 
President Reagan  supported him, using secret funds to back Contra rebels in Nicaragua. Congress learned of it, and blocked the funds, but Reagan and his CIA subordinate Marine Oliver North used secret money from arms sales to Iran to work with Noriega and illegally keep the funds going. It's called the Iran-Contra affair. Eventually though Reagan invoked sanctions on Noriega, and President Bush(the first), invaded in late 1989 to capture him, based on threats to Americans, drug charges, and protecting the canal. Noriega was captured in five days, and was in prison until 2007. He was extradited to France on murder charges and sentenced to seven years in 2010. But the French released him to Panama, to serve 30 years in prison.  Oliver North now works for Fox news.

Since then, the country has had four successful democratic exchanges of power. The country is economically strong. A 2012 poll found that its capital Panama City has the happiest people in the world. Revenue from the canal is a huge portion of the country's income.
Its flag, dating from independence, has two stars and four squares, representing the different political parties. The blue is traditional for the conservative views, and the red for the liberal. America has it backwards, referring to blue and red states. Until that division in very recent years, calling someone in America a "Red," amounted to calling them a Communist. 

Landing on the beach, almost, and 107 countries

No, this isn't "photoshopped," but a real jumbo jet landing at Sint Maartin

"Sint Maartin" read the statistic of a country of a new reader of the blog this month. I thought it was a typo. It wasn't. It's less than half an island in the West Indies, owned by the Netherlands, and someone on that island clicked on this blog, marking the 107th country to have readers here.
The photo above, that I pulled off the Internet, is meant to catch your attention, because the runway is so short that jets actually are this close to the beach landing and taking off. I read somewhere that people have been blown off the beach by the jet blast, but I haven't confirmed that.

Sint Maartin is the smallest and southern portion of the island known as Saint Martin, and French is spoken on the other side. Dutch and English are official languages here.
The island has a long history, discovered by Columbus on his second voyage in 1493. Since then it's gone back and forth between Spanish, Dutch and French control, the Dutch settling in 1631, a base for its trade between Brazil and New Amsterdam (now New York). After the abolition of slavery on the plantations by the French and Dutch in the 1800s the island dwindled  until the mid-Twentieth Century saw the boost of tourism as a duty free port.

Sint Maartin became an "island territory" in the 1980s, part of the Netherlands Antilles, and in 2010 a "constituent country." Today about 40,000 people live in the country, and 36,000 on the French side, and tourism is the major economy. On the French side naturally, the flag is the French Tricolor. But Sint Maartin has its own flag, bearing its coat of arms.
The Princess Juliana International Airport requires the low approach over the Caribbean, and it handled more than 1.6 million passengers and 100,000 aircraft in 2007. There have been no accidents. I'd like to land there and blog away.  Another view: