Why I believe in God

So much to my dismay, I`m still here in San Salvador. My diarrhea got a lot worse, so I couldn´t go with my trip leader, Sally, to the campo. She`s going up to Berlin to check in with Amanda, whose feeling a little homesick. My health could be worse though, Michael got diarrhea around when I did, and two other women in the office are sick.

I was up too late last night, not because I wasn´t tired, but because I had a splitting headache. I had just finished watching Dogma (my fourth favorite movie), and began to reflect on religion. And I began to ask myself, why do I believe in God?

Given my background, it seems unlikely I would have come to this conclusion. While I was raised Catholic, and still am, I was all but atheist for about a third of my life (7-14). Before I returned to the faith, I was fare more interested in the girls at my Catholic youth group than discussions of theology. And of the members of my immediate family, none attend Church more than a few times a year, if that.

And despite all this, I´m a pretty religious person. While I certainly have doubts from time to time, and certainly do not except all of the teaching of my denomination, I pray and attend church at a somewhat regular basis. What happened?

I`m generally a logically person, and do not tend to believe in things that are logically fallacies. But it is my belief that the existence of God is not a logical fallicy, but if anything, the absence of God is a logical fallacy.

There are two pieces of logic which I feel more or less prove the existence of God.

The first reason is the trilema, penned by CS Lewis, the author of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. To paraphrase, this is how be proven the existence of God, with three possible realities:

1) Jesus was a liar.
2) Jesus was a fool.
3) Jesus was the son of God.

When one analyzes the historical evidence of Jesus (and yes, historian all but unanmimously agree he did exist, albeit not as the son of God), it becomes clear to me that the most likely answer is c. I don't think that Jesus was a megalomaniac, lying to everyone and sinning on the side; nor do I think that he was a crazy fool, because he is the wisest man that will ever live.

But the second reason I belief in God is faith. And that came with help and prayers from a friend, mentor, and pastor named Father Gary Thomas. He was head pastor at St. Nicolas Church in Los Altos, and he changed my life. On a warm winter night my sophmore year in high school, I confessed that I had serious doubts about the existance of God to a man who had been my pastor nearly my entire life. When he spoke, it was like the words of Christ, and I was born again in Him. He said, paraphrased to the best of my memory:

"Well Matt, you have two possibilities. You have a beautiful world here, and all of the wonderful things in it. Your mother and father, who I know love you very much Matt. You have all your other family, and your friends at Bellarmine, her at this retreat, and elsewhere. You have all the wonders and the mysteries of this universe.

Now, there are two options. This could all be a random chain of events. Or, there could be an almighty God who loves us, no matter what. And I believe in that."

And that's why I believe in God.

Life in the Campo (Countryside)

So I´m back in San Salvador now, because I have diarrhea (again). I went to the doctor today, and while I feel a lot better, they assured me that I was still sick and prescribed two pills I have to take every day for the next five days. I`ll probably go back to the campo tomorrow or Wednesday.

I figured this was a good opportunity to describe my life in the campo thus far. I live in the tiny town of San Antonio (where no one knows how to hook me up with Spurs tickets!), which is a hamlet of the larger town El Carmen in the department of Cuscatlan, and about an hours drive from San Salvador. I will be working with the Program for Basic Education of the Archdiocese (PEBA), which educates farmers on methods for organic farming and sells food cooperatively in San Salvador.

My host family consists of seven people who live at home. The mother runs their small farm and is active in PEBA and with the community, in addition to keeping house. She is a very busy woman! The husband is a security guard in San Salvador, and works shifts as long as 20 hours! Do to their hard work they live a decent, middle-class lifestyle. They´re home has electricity (for lights only), a concrete floor, and a tin roof. None of their major appliances are electric though, and we use a hose for bathing and laundry.

They have three girls and two boys who live at home, ranging from a 15 year-old high school student to an adorable four year-old girl. Another daughter attends college in the city and works as a domestic servant. Their oldest child has a farm in the same neighborhood. They also have another child who died when he was young. It`s hard for me to imagine having eight kids!

So far I have learned a lot from my host family. Every morning I get up (at 5:30am!) and help milk the cows. After breakfast I help move them to pasture about a 1/2 mile away, on the other side of a shallow river that is mostly dry in the summer. I have also learned to do laundry with a hose and iron.

Their four room house is not only filled with people, but often with animals. The family has two cats, three dogs, three cows, three sheep, about a dozen rabbits, and at least two dozen chickens. They also grows lots of different vegetables, fruits, herbs, and plants.

I`m going back to the campo tomorrow since I`m feeling better, but I`ll be back San Salvador to post on July 4th!

Is there a third way?

There was a very good economic presentation today by an economic advisor for the leftist party here, the FMLN. For some background, the FMLN was the name of the leftist guerrilla uprising during the civil war, and after the peace accords they turned in their arms and became the second largest political party after the hyper-conservative ARENA, which has ruled the country for at least the past 25 years.

The thing I couldn´t help thinking about was a consistent problem that I feel is gripping Latin America. On the one hand, you have the United States and its neo-liberal allies (like ARENA), who are pursing an extreme form of capitalism. They are pushing a degree of privatization and deregulation that is surely a cause of the flood of immigrants that cross our border every day. These countries aren´t really even pushing free trade though, because of the subsidies that the United States has for agriculture and light manufacturing, which make up over 50% of Salvadorean exports.

On the other hand, the second most powerful leader in the Americas is arguable Hugo Chavez. His reliance on protectionism, bloated public sector, and political oppression hardly offer a decent alternative to neo-liberal policies. I worry that if the FMLN were to come into power, they would quickly fall under the influence of Chavez and Castro. While this is in many ways preferable to ARENA, it is hardly the best choice for the Salvadorean people. Why isn´t there a third way?

There needs to be a new party in El Salvador that rejects both of these approaches to economics, trade, and foreign policy with the US. It needs to embrace America as a friend and essential to the Salvadorean economy, but not as puppet ignorant and uncaring of American exploitation of third-world economies. It needs to provide Salvadoreans with the education they need to do more than grow coffee, make T-shirts, and migrate to the US for work. At the same time, it must be lean enough to be supported by the small tax base that El Salvador can provide. Is there another party that is pushing this moderate agenda? Perhaps I should do more research into El Salvador´s other parties.