Farewell to Joanne

Yesterday I went to the funeral of a friend from church that I’ve known for almost 25 years.
When I first moved to the US and I attended my first funeral I was shocked, to say the least, as I came from a culture that viewed wakes and funerals as a somber moment, and here I was at a celebration. I am not saying that there isn’t any pain, because that would not be truthful, honest. There is always the feeling of final farewell, but this was a joyful “adios”.
Coming back to my friend, the thing that everybody who gave a testimony about her agreed on was the fact that the thing that you would always get from her and from her husband was love. The love that God through his son Jesus Christ had shared with them. Even in the midst of a painful illness there was still joy.
Many years ago a friend told me that joy stands for “Jesus, others, and last yourself”. And that in a nutshell is what Joanne and David have shared with us, the whole idea of putting others first. We can go down the list of things that they have done, but probably the one that illustrates it better is the Homeless Sheltering. They gave shelter to homeless men on Saturday nights for 20 years.
And yes, yesterday was a celebration, to her life, to her love, to her faithfulness, cut short because of the illness that afflicted her for over a year. And in the midst of everything God always reveals himself, he is always present.
Now she is at peace.
Farewell my friend.
God bless you, Joanne.
The Lord bless you, and keep you; The Lord make His face shine on you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.

What happens to our loved ones when they pass away

Ever since my cousin passed away in the UK 2 years ago, my aunt, her mother, has been worried, preoccupied, concerned, with her daughter soul’s resting place.
The reason of her concern is because my cousin was not a believer.
As a believer myself this things do not worry me, as I know it is not up to me, to us, to decide if we go to heaven or hell.
I believe that by the blood of Jesus Christ, his sacrifice, and his resurrection we have nothing to worry about, death has been conquered, and he paid the ultimate price for our sins, even for those who were not conceived at the time, as we were already in God’s plan.
Catholics believe in purgatory, and I find this to be troubling, because, based in what they believe nothing can stop us from going there. This is where my disagreement lies, because of the crucifixion, and Christ’s taking on his shoulders the sin of the world, he has lifted that burden from us.
Another cause of disagreement is that good work may influence in God’s decision. As I said earlier, it is not up to us to pay our way into Heaven, this is through God’s mercy, and through the suffering of his son Jesus that we can rest assured that we have a place there, at the right hand of God the father.
A good friend of mine says that the moment when we die it is over, that we do not go to heaven, that we remain in God’s memory until the time of the second coming of Jesus, and the resurrection of our bodies. I cannot agree or disagree with that opinion. I respect it because it comes from somebody who has lived longer than me, and who has more knowledge than me.
It is just a bit unsettling for some people to accept that because when Jesus is on the cross and he turns to the thief and says: “Truly I say to you, Today you will be with me in Paradise”, that statement seems to say that the moment that that thief passed away he would be with Jesus in Heaven.
As far as my cousin is concerned, which was the beginning and the relevant part to this blog, I do believe that she is in heaven, because, as I said earlier and will repeat, not because of who she was and/or did but because of God’s mercy, and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our savior, to whom be the Glory.

Obama is halfway on the road to success

As the vote has come to an end in the House of Representatives and the health care bill has passed, together with the reconciliation passing as well, we can say that we are 50% on our way to having “almost all” Americans health care coverage.
Is this bill perfect? Nothing ever is in life. For those of us who were uncertain about this ever happening, as we did not see President Obama fully committed to this cause, this is a great moment.
There are some people who should take credit in the congress for this happening, nobody as much as the speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi. She is a very shrewd politician.
But the number one person who should take credit for this is the president himself. He proved tonight that he is a leader. When everybody thought, including me, that he was not being forceful enough, that he was not campaigning seriously for this, ala Lyndon Johnson, he showed us that his style can be just as effective and successful as the one who passed Medicare and Civil Rights Act legislation 40 years ago.
Just a couple of months ago I wrote a blog questioning his credentials, today he proved me wrong. And I say this with great pride and joy, as many times we vote for our leaders without knowing enough about them.
Members of congress know that it took great courage to vote for this legislation because many of them in just a few months will have to face the voters, as the opposition will be saying that this bill as Armageddon, that it will destroy the economy. President Obama said something that is true, that legislators should vote what is good for the country and not what is good for them.
Is this bill going to do everything we wanted to? Time will tell. But it is time for the USA to lay the ground work for health care for everybody, like every other industrialized nations has, as health care is not a privilege like conservatives believe but a right. Now let the GOP run next November against Americans having health care.

Finding God in nature

I always seem to write about politics, but today I will talk about the things in nature that I admire.
For those who don’t know me I have always loved traveling, because I believe that it enriches me, by being exposed to other cultures, their customs, food, language, etc.
I always remember being in Dubrovnik, in what was then Yugoslavia and today is Croatia, and walk into a small restaurant where locals would eat, and nobody spoke any other language but Yugoslavian, so we had to point at the food, without knowing what it was. That for me is an enriching experience, trying to get ourselves understood even though we could not understand their languages, nor they could understand us.
But today I will talk about the places that I think that nature is at its most spectacular, dramatic, where no adjectives, comments can express what we are viewing , and possibly feeling. These are the places where I find that God reveals himself the most, where his hand is everywhere.
They are in no particular order:
1. The Grand Canyon.
2. The glaciers in Argentina.

When our family arrived in a town called El Calafate, the closest town to the glaciers, almost the most southern place in the province of Santa Cruz (Saint Cross), in Argentina, we were not prepared to what we were about to see.
As we arrived at one of the glaciers that’s called Perito Moreno, in remembrance of one of Argentina’s biggest explorers, there is a panoramic point with a viewing area.
While standing there the silence is deafening. The only thing you hear is just the noise of the glacier squeaking, like it would be cracking, although you hardly see pieces falling. What you actually here is just the movement of the ice, the pressure of its thousands of pieces moving, although slowly, forward. The advance of the glacier is possibly a few inches a day at most.
The view from this panoramic place is fantastic because the glacier is around 10 miles deep, between the mountains, and you can compare the white of the peaks to the light blue of the glacier. The sun plays games with the reflection on the ice, which makes it more spectacular, more amazing.
The Grand Canyon. What can I say about the Grand Canyon that has not already been said. That the pictures don’t do any justice to what the eye can take. That it is majestic, awesome, indescribable. And still I haven’t said anything different than anybody else. My daughter said the same thing that we did when we went there the first time: “it is much bigger than what I thought or imagined”. I remember the first time we were there, with my mother in law, no kids, and we got to the cliff right after sunset, in a period known as twilight. The reflections of the light on the many layers of rock that make the Grand Canyon were truly amazing. I also remember the three of us with our mouths wide open, admiring the view.
The reason I took the time to write about these two places today is because what I felt standing there is a list of emotions going through me. The strongest one is emotion, feeling moved, tears running down my face. And any time I think of these two places I feel the same emotion. For me they are the closest places to my creator. They are the images of heaven.

The myth of the United States - Part 2 (Final)

People would say why don’t they go back where they come from? I would ask the same question to the immigrants I would talk to and they would say: go back to what? Or : go back and admit defeat?
Both parties have sold their souls to the biggest bidder, in most cases corporations. There is almost no difference between the parties. Who is to blame for this? In my honest opinion, us. We tend to forget that politicians work for us, the represent us, the constituents. If I have a business with employees, and I don’t check on them, there is a very good chance that they will not look out for my interests. We have a saying where I come from that says: “the eye of the owner fattens the cattle.” I think that is very clear. If it’s not clear enough I will be very happy to explain that.
The US is turning into a third world country. We call that capitalism, so in the name of free markets we are pushing more people into poverty for the benefit of a few people at the top. We are removing people from their houses so that the banks can recover the money of bad loans that they created, and misled the public into getting. Where are the authorities recovering the money that they loaned to Wall Street, at the expense of Main Street.
When I go to a store, either clothing, electronics, shoes, nothing is made in the USA. Everything is imported. We have lost our industrial base. What made this country number one.
I have never seen any other people around the world vote against their own interests. I don’t have to go very far. Just in New Jersey people voted for somebody who will cut the education budget. Communities will have to raise their property taxes so that they can still pay for the people who teach their children.
Pundets will say that it is good to fend for yourself, and that it is good to cut taxes. We have been teased and misled to believe that one day we can be part of the top 1% of the population.
We are not number in education, we are number 36 in return on investment on health care, we have not been investing like other industrialized nations in the future of the country. The only thing that the United States can be proud of being number is debtor of the world, and the only thing that we have been exporting for the last few decades are jobs.
My conclusion is that the country has been hijacked by corporate America. The same people who make us believe about a free market, and the utopia of capitalism, and then they are the first ones to ask for bailout when things don’t go as planned. Capitalism is you make it, great, and if you don’t you are on your own. Free market, which I find a joke, because they are never free,means that the each one competes to be the best. That is not what happens here, what we have here is just corporate welfare.

The myth of the United States - Part 1

Today I will make a lot of enemies in the US, as the title of my blog today will touch, and may offend some people born in this country. If it does I am very sorry.
This year I celebrate my 25th anniversary in the United States of America. As such I will include here a few observations that I have picked up during all these years.
It is very simplistic to play the blame game, so I will try not to fall into that trap. For those who know me, and know my points of view, you know that many times it is almost impossible to be completely detached.
The reason I called this blog the myth of the US is because I look at the country that I came to live to in 1985 and I say “where did it go to”. I’m not even comparing it to the 50s and/or 60s because I was not living here then. I am saying what happened.
These are a few reasons:
We have been told for 30 years to go and have a good time, and now it is time to pay the credit card bill, and we have no money to do so.
Another reason is because we live in total fantasy thinking that this country’s best days lay ahead. I’ve lived through some of the same mistakes, but back there we would say “the problem is that we have a corrupt government”, or during military dictatorships we would say “the problem is that we have no freedom of expression, we are being repressed”.
When I used to go door to door selling cable I would run into other people that came from South America, and I would ask them if the US had fulfilled all their expectations, and many times I would here the same answer, that when their were living in their countries they would view “El Norte”, the north, as many times we refer to the United States, as the MECCA of a human being, but that when they finally came here they realized that it was not everything they had imagined, that life was just as difficult as at home, and that they were far from their native land, far from their loved ones, with a language that they didn’t know well, and that they were hardly making ends meet. In other words it was not as good as they had been told. This takes me to my last point, we still think of the US as the land that everyone want to come to. Not really. The Europeans, arguably the largest group of people that came through Ellis Island are no longer coming to these shores. Why? They see no benefit, no incentive. The people that are coming to the these shores are people from impoverished nations, primarily from South America. Probably, with a dream that when they get here it is no longer fulfilled.