Gaucho Belt

The Russian poet said, “The sweetness of the nectar of a flower is only fragrant when you can share it with someone.” I want to share with you an experience in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at a time when the country was in the shackles of corruption, following the tyrant Peron and his wife, Evita. I was staying at the Sheraton, in Buenos Aires, had gone across the street and was sitting on a bench in the park. Almost always, in world travel, someone always appears trying to sell you something. Since the financial situation in Argentina at that time was so cruel, uniformed soldiers standing on every corner with guns, a man came up and told me he would like to sell me a gaucho belt. The Argentinian cowboy is called a gaucho and many of the cowboys out on the plains (Argentina is known for its cattle and beef) would have handmade, wide, beautifully tooled leather belts with old coins and semi-precious stones attached to the leather. Such was this one; many silver coins, many stones. This was many years ago. I don't remember what I paid for the belt, nor do I remember what I sold it for online. It hung in my den for many years and was always a conversation piece because most people had never seen anything quite so beautifully crafted. The lesson is, this was probably the most valuable possession of one human being as he worked in Patagonia. And, it probably made a big difference to the relative who sold it to me. Its history made a difference in my life and I hope the buyer did appreciate the belt.

On an island in the Mediterranean in the same decade, it seems that it was the island of Rhodes, I was on all these islands at one time or another. In Santorini, the most beautiful place I have ever been, I was eating a meal in a hotel dining room and the movie actor Yul Brenner came over and joined me. It turns out, he was much more interested in me than I was in this great movie actor who was on the island with others making a movie. (It seems I remember the name Sunny Bono.) Anyway, this great, bald movie star (The King and I) was interested in my world explorites; the fact that a aging, blind man still had curiosity about the world. People are the same all over the world. The poorest are always the happiest and life is a continuous learning experience regardless of your ability or disability. I told him about my love for the movies. How, like a book, you can completely escape a limited existence. I told him about the first movies I ever saw in a town, near our farm, where westerns were shown on the side of a building. I said, “The poorest people in the town were exposed to life experiences that they could dream about and sense, through eyesight, in a fraction of a second a picture is established in the neurology of the mind, there forever. And, like a book, serves as a great memory reference library.” I told him about an expedition to Antarctica where I shared a cabin with a fleet street banker from London. The banker said to me, “You can tell about the future of any country by the culture of it's people.” The western decadents of Britain and the United States, laziness and disorganization, will eventually destroy these great cultures.

Just recently, a study revealed that of 143 countries the happiest people were in Latin America with Costa Rica heading the list of 143. USA ranked 114 out of 143.

Brittan has borrowed more money than their entire welfare budget and more than in cost to fight WWII. They are now deciding if they can maintain their Trident nuclear submarine fleet. USA will be facing the same with the tremendous expenses of NASA and space exploration. Those who are on the Obama train ride, refuse to look out the window on either side, right or left, because they are afraid of what they will see. An energy tax, which will become an international tax, for the nations that can afford it and you will find that your electric bill will go up many hundreds of dollars, as well as government inspections of your houses and all other buildings. A value added tax (VAT), will be required to finance the socialized health care which will bring in 40 million additional people to a Medicare and Medicaid system, already bankrupt and already overwhelmed. Mr. Thomas Jefferson, second president, perhaps the most remarkable mind in our country's history said, “Our part is to pursue with steadiness what is right, turning neither to right nor left for the intrigues or popular delusions of the day, assured that the public approbation will in the end be with us.”

Everyone deserves a chance to live a happy life. I have experienced poverty at its worst. I worked alongside parents, siblings, and hired farm laborers drenched in the sweat of endurance, joyful in the faith of opportunity. Like Paul, a rebel against God redeemed with joy on the road to Damascus. I have had the privilege of walking down the street called Straight in Damascus. Paul, though blind regained his sight. I, at the time, had sight but now have joy in blindness. Because, like the Argentine cowboy, knowing the freedom of Patagonia, I have the liberty that only comes from a free man in a free country knowing the liberty provided by God in Christ. I believe this is the reason that many of the poorest people in the world are the happiest. (Most of the poverty of the world is below the 30th parallel: South America, Africa and Asia.) They know the splendor of the beauty around them and are not entangled by “things”. There is no technology developed by man that comes close to the technology developed by God in the body and mind of man. Like the mosquito on the railroad track, shouting at the approaching train, “I don't believe in you,” many have found a happiness in faith that more than satisfies.