Monday, June 29, 2009

Monday

I need another Margarita.

I'm right now right at that happy stage...tired, but feeling pretty good. This is a Mexican all-inclusive, but they are playing Michael Buble in the bar here. "Sway with me..."

So, I did work out this morning. My wife kicked me out of bed and told me to go work on "bringing sexy back". Just kidding, she's too sweet for that, but she did get me motivated and I lifted and did elliptical. Plus, we got to play some beach volleyball in the afternoon. Boy, didn't realize what hard work that is.

Yeah for Anna...she just brought me a lime margarita on the rocks.

The trip to Chichen Itza yesterday was awesome. Anna had always wanted to go see some ruins, and we did. I am in complete awe at the mathematical precision of the observatory and the temple. Small details, like the number of stairs, the number of sunken panels...the temple was literally their calendar. How did they figure all of that out? Would I be able to if I were alive back then? Could I have built a building that formed the body of a snake in shadows at the exact time of the solstices? With all of our technology, are we really that much smarter, or do we just think we are? Here's a question that bothers me...what worth would I be on an desert island? Seriously? How much knowledge to I have stored, what could I build, what would I remember...and what would I have forgotten?

Lol, you are probably wondering how much the Margarita's have affected me.

One interesting, yet sad thing, that I noticed was the inherent bias that our tour guide had against Christianity. Now, 75%-80% of Mayan descendants are now Catholics, but I get the feeling that they are still more loyal to their original Mayan religion than Catholicism. Well, there is a very good reason for that. The Franciscan Missionaries who were the first Christians the Mayans came in contact with, destroyed the Mayan's early writing and therefore, much of their history. They tore down some of the buildings, and used the stones, including the snake stones that the Mayans worshiped, in the construction of their churches.

That spoke volumes to me. Here, nearly a millennia later, a culture is still biased against Christians because they attempted to "Christianize" them rather than see what Jesus would look like in their cultural context. Mind you, I am not advocating integrating a culture's religion in with Christianity; polytheism and Christianity can never be one and the same. But, to destroy a culture, their writings, their history in the name of Jesus does not seem correct to me, especially still seeing the fruits of that poor decision so many years later. Not to say the Franciscan's were terrible people, but we should be able to learn from their mistakes.

Totally off subject, just throwing this in to make Anna wonder, but I think I know the perfect Christmas gift for her.

And speaking of, I should probably go push her around the dance floor to this music. Or take her upstairs and rub Aloe Vera on her back...she thinks she doesn't need sun-tan lotion here. Today it bit her in the ass. Or, more appropriately, in the shoulders and back.

2 comments:

  1. LOL! I think Anna should bring you yet another margarita and get that Christmas gift idea out of you ;-)

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  2. I've thought about the same thing before. How would I have survived back then, would I have invented new things, or would I simply have tried to stay alive!

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