Coherence in the Andes

Today we tape establishing shots of the traffic in downtown Lima and then head for the airport for the last leg of this documentary shoot, Santo Domingo.
Many Quechua people in Peru, to mention only one and the most numerous of the indigenous communities in this country, are Catholic. Speaking with Anibal Ni�o, a young deacon who will be ordained a Catholic priest in February 2004, I learned that to this day native spirituality is tied to the earth, the sun, the wind. A colleague of his who directs the rosary campaign at the Peruvian conference of Catholic bishops, Hugo Zorilla, confirms that the sierra still beckons and gives inner strength and guidance. Before deciding to work in Catholic church projects, Hugo traveled from the city of Lima to his home town in the Andean sierra where he meditated and read Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort. He points to this sierra experience, with Catholic European reading, as a spiritual reawakening experience.
Dichotomies, cultural clashes and exclusive categories seem far away here. There is coherence and unity of experience. The many particulars simply strengthen and enrich experience.
When I get back to Houston I will post some of the Andean images. Somehow, when you are here, things do seem to all belong together.
Adan