JIM CONRAD'S NATURALIST NEWSLETTER Issued from Hacienda Komchén de Los Pájaros just outside Dzemul, Yucatán, Mexico January 23, 2005
HATE, LOVE & HOT MEXICAN AFTERNOONS Right now I'm reading Graham Greene's novel "The Power and the Glory." It's set in southern Mexico during that period when the Mexican government was trying to rid the country of religion, during the late 1920s. Wanting to review that period, in Ana María's library I found a Spanish-language edition of John W.F. Dulles's "Yesterday in Mexico. A Chronicle of the Revolution, 1919-1936." Page 285, open next to me as I type these words, bears a full-page photo taken in 1927 of Padre Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez standing stiffly against a wall with his arms outspread,, a droopy-eared dog looking on, moments before being shot by a firing squad. It's a chilling picture. Greene's novel captures those days of craziness magnificently. On hot, windy afternoons these days I'm doing some awfully good reading. Greene's pages are ripe with buzzing flies and black vultures, and when I read his book all around me there are buzzing flies and black vultures. In this shimmering, scorching air, ideas finely crafted into beautiful words detonate like beetles crashing onto tin roofs. "Hate was just a failure of imagination," Greene says his hunted-down priest-protagonist thought. "When you saw the lines at the corners of the eyes, the shape of he mouth, how the hair grew, it was impossible to hate... " I think the reason that thought resonates so powerfully with me is that I try to wrap own life around it. "If I can just get people to know nature a little better, maybe they'll stop destroying it... " I remember thinking many years ago. And though long ago I realized that the concept, in view of human nature, is faulty, I've never been able to replace it with a better one in which to root my daily activities. Polluting, buying too much, not really caring what's happening to our forests and streams... is just a failure of imagination. If I could get people to recognize the beauty in biological evolution, the deeper meanings of blossoms, the fresh promises of each new season -- how would it be possible for people to keep on destroying as they are now? If you'd like to read about Mexico's anti-religion period of the 1920s, there's an article about it at www.epcc.edu/ftp/Homes/monicaw/borderlands/21_cristeros.htm http://www.backyardnature.net/n/05/050123.htm ***** Best wishes to all Newsletter subscribers, Jim All back issues of this Newsletter are archived at www.backyardnature.net/n/ ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Ever feel sad or cry for no reason at all? Depression. Narrated by Kate Hudson. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Ntf6vA/esnJAA/d1hLAA/0NYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Apply for Commercial Real Estate loans online and submit your deal to dozens of hungry lenders in just minutes. Loan programs for all types of business and commercial real estate. Apply anytime at http://realestatezoo.com BiFem :) a bifem.net publication -------------------------------- Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web Site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BiFem Chatoom: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BiFem/chat Visit BiFemLounge our 24 hour chatroom at http://bifem.net Get a New Orleans Free Email account at http://bifem.net Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BiFem/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
