L. The Digital Nomad - ilLouminate.us

Essentially, I have become a digital nomad, working and living life on the road. I am no longer constrained by having a job and am able to work online wherever I am. When traveling in the past, I had to come back to work in a month and for any international trip, that is a very short time. Now, I can take my time up to the visa-free stay limit in the countries I visit, which is a much more economical way to travel and make pilgrimages. I no longer have to worry about and maintain a traditional house.

Society was originally nomadic. What made them settle down is agriculture. Anthropologically, they are characterized as patrilocal or matrilocal, that is, residing around the father’s or mother’s family. Much of society has matriculated from the agrarian to the industrial and now the information economy.

I frequently have text communications with so many diverse time zones on four continents and keep up with each country’s official holidays. Virtual communications have enabled society to be nomadic again. When used effectively, close long-distance relationships had always been developed through communication media from postal mail and now through email to video conferencing, as my correspondence with my dearest friends has been continuous and evolving over more than 50 years.

In the continental USA, I live and travel by motor home. In other countries, I travel by air, land, and sea, and connect the transit routes by my folding bicycle named “Mariposica Blanca”, Little White Butterfly, taken from the metaphor of St Teresa of Jesus from Ávila. Eggs are hatched into larvae, growing and forming a pupa where it metamorphoses and emerges as a butterfly that lays eggs and begets more of its kind. Such is our spiritual life.

The Virtual Hermitage

40 years ago I was set on being a hermit. The land was already allocated for me amidst the rice fields of Infanta. I made a change in direction and went to the USA to pursue graduate studies in music. I might say that my motor home and condo are now my virtual hermitage and I went full circle and am now a virtual digital hermit.

Biblical Truth

Most Nativity scenes show animals surrounding the newborn King in a manger. Nowhere in scripture does it mention animals. So why do we put animals in the Nativity scene? We make assumptions based on our culture, worldview, our customs, and traditions. Were there 3 wise men? Scripture does not enumerate them, nor give them names. Only the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh were stated. Because there were three gifts, we make an assumption that there were 3 wise men.

I read the Holy Bible in many languages and various versions within each of the languages. In preparing to teach a course, I was reading some biblical texts in Spanish and English, both of the same version, and I was forming a different mental image from each reading. This is why I have embarked on going back to the Hebrew and Greek original texts for the most accuracy.

When these inaccurate traditions are passed on to succeeding generations, the facts become lost and we end up with traditions that are unfaithful to the original. Most Christmas cards no longer have Christ on His own birthday. Rather than a Silent Night, Christmas is celebrated with football games, multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster motion pictures with gunfire and explosions, and hideous supervillains.

I will be celebrating next Christmas as a Silent Night away from commercialism.