deacon pedro

First published July 2, 2010

Today I’m thinking about summer… ahh summer… I remember very clearly, as if it was yesterday, the last day of school before the summer break – not sure why we even went to school that day, ’cause it was one big party. We would celebrate the end of the school year and then… hello freedom!

I remember spending hours on my bike – riding around my neighbourhood – sometimes playing with or hanging out with my friends, from school or the neighbourhood. I remember spending days at my grandmother’s house – we spent a lot of time there anyway, but in the summer, sometimes we would go for a week or two – and she’d take us to the lake and to the neighbourhood restaurant for fried chicken.

At some point in the summer we’d go to the beach – now, I grew up in Panama, so going to the beach is part of day to day living, but the beach in the summer means long days, and no schedules – looking for hermit crabs and admiring the sunset…

Summer for us also meant a bit of structure: there was swimming lessons or tennis – a couple summers I went to art school, so it wasn’t all play, but a good mix of organized activities and unstructured play.  I learned a lot from both and remember both fondly.

Now I have kids of my own and they’ve never had too much of a structure in the summer. It just hasn’t worked that way. But we live in a place where they can spend all day on their bikes, or they can go into the forest, or down to the river. They can spend all day kicking a soccer ball or throwing a basket ball. They do spend sometime playing video games, but in our case, most of the time is spent outside.

Summer for us means taking it outside. Our back deck becomes our living and dining room. Our BBQ becomes our kitchen and the breeze blowing through the trees gives us dinnertime music.

I don’t know if you’re reading this thinking that I am nuts ’cause your summers are not at all what I am describing, but no matter what your summers were or are like, I hope that they mean a change of pace. I hope that they mean that you can look at the world from behind your bicycle’s handlebars and not from behind your desk; that you can process the world by sitting under a tree with a good book and not through the voice of your teacher or boss. So here’s to change of pace, to slowing down. Here’s to summer!

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First published December 25, 2009

It seems that every year we have the same discussion around this time: what is the real meaning of Christmas? and let’s keep Christ in Christmas. There are even campaigns to boycott department stores that refuse to acknowledge the “reason for the season.” It’s so easy to jump onto that band wagon.

To add to this, “Christmas” starts right after U.S. Thanksgiving. In Canada, some stores already have Christmas merchandise and decorations after Halloween. On my street we’ve had houses with lights for a month already; some of my neighbours have had their tree up since the end of November. I am of the belief that the lights should be lit on Christmas Eve, and then we celebrate Christmas during the Christmas season, not during the Advent season.

There are at least two radio stations that claim to be Toronto’s Official Christmas station. For a month now they’ve been playing Christmas music exclusively. In previous years I could not stand this. Nothing spoils your Advent as having to listen to Wham’s Last Christmas every day starting on December 3rd!

But while driving home the other night I realised something quite profound: at no other time of the year will radio stations play Christian music. What I mean here is that Christmas music is Christian music. I don’t mean Mariah Carey singing All I Want For Christmas is You. I mean the Barenaked Ladies and Sarah MacLachlan singing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. I mean David Bowie and Bing Crosby singing Little Drummer Boy-Peace on Earth. Regardless of the intent, these lyrics are helping us focus on the reason for the season and proclaiming Jesus Christ.

So, I’m driving in my car and on comes Boney M singing their wonderful rendition of Mary’s Boy Child.  I love that song! And it’s not just a nice Christmas song. In their arrangement they go out of their way to make a point:

Oh My Lord, You sent Your son to save us
Oh My Lord, Your very self You gave us
Oh My Lord, that sin may not enslave us, and love may reign once more.

This on secular radio!

And the other night, on my way home I heard a new Christmas song – I almost had to pull over to really try and understand the lyrics. This is what I heard:

You’d say that today holds something special
Something holy and not superficial
So here’s to the birthday boy who saved our lives
It’s something we all try to ignore

I later found out this is Taylor Swift’s new song, Christmas Must be Something More, a song that very clearly says that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus and that is not scared to say the name of Jesus. This on a secular radio station.

So – I’m going to be a little less judgmental from now on – if radio stations want to start playing Christmas music from December 1st, that’s OK for me, because, Advent or not, any time is a good time to proclaim the name of Jesus on radio!

So if you’re looking for something to do on December 26th, after all the turkey and eggnog, tune in to Salt + Light Radio on the Catholic Channel (Sirius XM 129 at 10pm ET). As Mary Rose mentioned yesterday on the blog, join us for our Christmas special, featuring some of our favourite Christmas songs (and some new ones), and some wonderful reflections and thoughts to carry you through the Christmas season. If you don’t have satellite radio, no worries, you can podcast the show at www.saltandlighttv.org/radio

If Taylor Swift is not scared to proclaim it, neither should we: Christmas must be something more!

Published December 19, 2009

Exactly 20 years ago I was at a nightclub in Panama, where I had gone to spend my Christmas holidays. I had just gone for dinner with my brother and his new girlfriend and gone to watch the movie Sea of Love, with Al Pacino. Just after midnight, the owner of the club shut the music off, made an announcement that there were “disturbances” and that we should all finish our drinks and go home.

We knew what “disturbances” meant – for the last weeks there had been several mini-clashes between the Panamanian military and American soldiers stationed in Panama, which had led General Manuel Noriega to go on national television and declare that Panama was in a state of war against the U.S.

As my friends and I made our way to one their homes, we passed three U.S. army trucks rolling down one of Panama city’s main avenues – and we knew these were not just normal disturbances. Thus began one of the most surreal and life-altering nights in my life – anyone who’s been in a war can probably say the same.

We stayed up all night as we heard bomb blasts, and airplanes and choppers flying overhead. In the distance, out the window, we could see fires from the blasts — at the airport and in the other direction at the Panamanian Defense Forces headquarters. We followed the developments on radio and television… this was what made it surreal: it was all televised! We could watch the live coverage!

This was Operation Just Cause, the U.S. invasion of Panama, carried out to protect the Panama Canal, to capture dictator Manuel Noriega and to return the country to democracy.

For the next week, leading us to Christmas, I experienced the real meaning of the holiday, as we were in a city in lock-down, with limited mobility, with army tanks and trucks parked on the side of the road and street barricades reinforced with U.S. army-issued barbed wire.

Operation Just Cause was exactly that – a just cause. Not that violence is ever warranted, but we do believe in the concept of a just war. But let me be really clear: I am not speaking about Vietnam or Grenada or Iraq – I am very specifically speaking about the invasion of Panama 20 years ago. In my opinion, and in the opinion of millions of Panamanians, it was a successful mission – it lasted about 8 hours and the so-called occupation lasted 2 weeks. About 500 people lost their lives and that is very serious. Many ended up in mass graves, and many, many thousands lost their homes, but Panama today is a much better place because the three goals of Operation Just Cause were achieved. Panama is now a democracy, no longer recovering, but thriving. So tonight, please join me in remembering the people who lost their lives 20 years ago – and in thanksgiving for how God has blessed the Panamanian people despite, or rather, in the midst of our struggles.

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