Things i like: Kayaking out to a caye (key, i.e., island), where it’s just me and God and the Holy Spirit and lots of water and fish in the sea below. “God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.” (Gen. 1: 10)
Things I like, with respect to her greatness the late Susan Sontag, she who was a great list keeper who listed lots of the simple things in life that she simply liked a lot (as well as things she didn’t like but let’s have a positive Sunday and think about stuff we just like a lot):
I like–“high church worship services” like you get at Anglican Churches like St. Andrews Anglican Church were I usually attend church. Father Juan, on the right, is originally from Colombia but is now the rector at the dynamic St. Andrews. And my good young friend with the razor-sharp wit Father David (left), who grew up in Indiana and ended up an Anglican in San Diego and then in Colombia by way of Oxford University (did I mention he’s very smart?) is also at St. Andrews here.
We also had a mission team visiting today from Pittsburgh led by another talented young Anglican priest, Mother Elaine. Among things I like–to see young clergy with gifts and graces and talents and smarts and leadership skills and good humor coming up in the church universal.
Big crowd where I worshipped with those “high church” Anglicans in San Ignacio on a beautiful Sunday morning. St. Andrews typically has a lot of us American expats, tourists and visitors passing through town but mostly local and very faithful Belizeans. Many years ago, two of the elderly church-member women kept the church going without a rector. They are amazing church mothers, elderly lay Christians who refused to let this church die. It’s now one of the most dynamic and vibrant churches in western Belize, operating one of the best schools in the West.
View of St. Andrews from the altar. Kids graduating from the St. Andrews primary school got front-row seats this morning.
And in the spirit of Susan Sontag, more things I like, with picture postcards, follow:
I like: riding my red motorcycle (“Rojo”) around western Belize’s kazilion rural roads, where I happen across scenic little farms like this one. I like meeting Belizean farmers like the brothers who have this place who were under a shade tree drinking some beer and just gabbing and enjoying their Sunday when I mosied over and met them.
I like long walks, just to see what’s over the next hill, around the next bend, along the next little trail into the bush. Fewer things feel more spiritual and holy to me than an aimless walk, and not necessarily in the country. A city, a town, a village–the spirituality in it is just letting myself be free and open to whatever is down the country trail or the city sidewalk.
I like–being living close to ancient Mayan ruins and Mayan culture and because I love learning you can live forever and learn fascinating stuff about that mysterious Mayan civilization, such as it was. They could be a most uncivilized lot toward one another sometimes, one reason for their abrupt demise. The is “El Castillo,” the landmark at Xunantunich in Succotz Village where I lived for six months. Talk about a cool place for long walks . . . .
I like horses and riders, and there’s a plenty of them to remind me of Texas in a country as rural and rustic as Belize. Belize is actually a lot like the 1950s rural and still rustic Texas that I grew up in.
I like to come up on another roadside attraction of the sort that I can just never resist, like these little eateries where I like to stop and hang out out and eat too much and drink the sodas they bring to you in the big soda bottles, always with a straw in them, and listen to the locals gabbing. Sometimes I get strange looks, btw, when I take the straw out of my soda and drink out of the bottle. Found this place riding down the scenic Hummingbird Highway that goes from the capital city of Belmopan south to the Southern Highway that goes south to the southern Caribbean seas.
Did I mention all the horses and riders there are in Belize? If you like rural and rustic . . . come to the Wild West of Belize, as they call it.
I like how free-spirited the school kids of Belize are, like these on the wet playground of a Catholic school I walked by in Belmopan the capital last week. Go ahead and stomp your shoes in that mud real good, guys. It’s good to be a kid!
And a few more things I like, and like a lot, in the stream of consciousness manner of Sontag: Floppy bibles, St. Francis, Shiner Bock, barefoot women, libraries, wooden pews that creak, watching football, full moons, dark bars, taking photographs, Pope Francis, shrimp, long walks, Thomas Merton, hot sun, shade, history, tradition, rock n roll, indie movies, running, Mark Twain, water from a hose, barns, architecture, cows, target shooting, riversides, real tomatoes, going barefoot, small towns, big cities, the Lord’s Supper, Dorothy Day, candlelight, Spanish, dark-bar music, Wesleyan hymns, “The Letter From Birmingham Jail,” city life, country life, authentic people, “Hotel California,” St. Theresa of Avila, large full moons, Catholic sanctuaries, Oscar Romero, President Eisenhower, pubs, Letterman.
If there’s three books I like and always will (the bible notwithstanding) it’s “Too Kill a Mockingbird,” “Huck Finn” and “Great Expectations.” Maybe the only three I’ve read at least three times in my life, and will probably read again. I like em. I like em a lot.
And still more things I like, and like a good bit: Walking barefoot, Rabbi Heschel, deep breathing, classic theology, country people, campfire, green grass, Dickens, stand-up comedy, Larry McMurtry, Sgt. Pepper, pipe organs, C.S. Lewis, country churches, “The Simpsons,” “Taps,” the Dalai Lama, St. John of the Cross, sometimes some Mozart and sometimes some mean ol’ Mick Jagger song.
And there’s still more I like that I could list, and I probably will list.
So try pouring out your own simple pleasures at times, occasionally stopping to reflect on why you like something you like something. It can help to get clarity in defining yourself, finding the authentic you and being who you are in this world. And Lord knows there’s enough control freaks or conformists in the world who want to define us, to diminish us with labels they think are fitting for us, to make us fit into their own image of themselves.
They will, if we let them, rob us of that personal quality that Jesus insisted on–that quality of authenticity, the true me, the true you too, that God created.
And granted, God created us in God’s own (moral) image, but also gave us the freedom to find our own, honest-to-God hearts and passions in order to receive the gift of “the life more abundant” of which Jesus spoke.
No disrespect to the late Ms. Sontag, but I like you list a lot more. I am partial to penknives and microscopes, but the rest doesn’t do a whole lot for me. (A long-haired dog in a top hat would make the list, however.)
There isn’t much on your list I don’t like, on the other hand. One caveat: President Eisenhower I’m not so sure about. A good president and a good military man, yes; but he’s been pretty quiet these past 40-plus years. š
ACtually think Ike died, Boll, and I heard Mark Twain did too but those rumors might be greatly exaggerated. All that news about Elvis dying left a lot of people with egg on their faces after all.
That would explain it, wouldn’t it. Ike’s golf game has been consistent, though.