The Inka Express

After hiking all morning in Machu Picchu, we returned to the little town of Aguas Calientes for some final picture taking, some shopping, and coffee before boarding the Backpacker train to Cusco. For a few brief moments we thought we would be joined by a very nice guy from Argentina named Jose, but just before leaving he was asked to change seats with a woman who wanted to be in the same car as her grown children. Cathy is convinced he is the one that got away for me and will be posting his picture on various travel sites in her tireless attempts to help me find the perfect guy.

We returned to Cusco for a brief night of sleep in our home away from home in Peru, the Hotel Belvidere (or the Quri Inn, depending on who you ask). The Hotel was in a nice little plaza with a pizza place playing Bossa Nova, an internet cafe, and a small market. We were up again early in the morning for our adventure on the Inka Express. Cathy shares the tale of our near mishap that morning in her blog.

The Inka Express took us on a 10 hour bus ride south through Peru to Lake Titicaca. The views were breathtaking and the stops fascinating... even if the tour guide was a little stingy with free time and a little overly generous with the information he had to share with us!

Our first stop was in Andahualilillas to see the "Sistine Chapel" of the Americas. The beautiful interior was in the midst of restoration.


I was more fascinated by the exterior. So different from the cathedral and large churches in Cusco. This church was in a little village in the midst of nowhere with incredible murals and a floor to ceiling altar covered in gold leaf. A much simpler exterior. The next church would strike me as even more amazing. Raqchi (also in the middle of nowhere) is a little town set next to the ruins of a huge ancient Inkan worship site.


This was the center wall of a huge temple several stories tall. The roof sloped down on either side and was supported by giant columns that no longer exist. It is said to be the site of Wiracocha's palace, the creator God of the Inkans. It may seem strange for three Covenant pastors to travel to the ancient temples of foreign gods. I was taught as a young Christian that there would be evil spirits in such a place that might possess you or lead you astray. Instead, these sites serve to open my eyes to the beauty of God's creation, especially in an through all of humanity, even if in veiled form. My faith and the one I have faith in are strong enough to learn from other religions without feeling threatened. In addition, though, there is a sense of loss at these sites, religions and cultures that disappeared... perhaps religions and cultures that might have brought new expressions of the Christian faith.

As mentioned above, adjacent to these huge stone walls was a small village and we were lucky enough to arrive just in time to witness one of the festivals taking place at the Catholic Church. The church itself was one of the most beautiful I have ever seen... I loved the natural stonework.


The festival itself was in celebration of the Virgin Mary. The priest led a procession around the town square, stopping at each corner for a blessing.


Yes, the priest was American... from Boston. He has been serving in Peru for most of his life. I had mixed feelings watching all the people of the village following him around the square. I am amazed at his commitment and calling to this place. I wonder when someone from within the village itself might rise up to lead the people themselves.

The Peruvians were in beautiful, colorful costumes carrying elaborately decorated floats bearing the Virgin.


Given a choice, I would have stayed much longer. They had just processed the Virgin back into the church and now the young people were gathering to dance in the square. Alas, the pitfalls of being on a guided tour. Instead, we made our way up to the highest point of our trip, La Raya at 4313 meters above sea level.


The views along the way were spectacular. Ragged mountain peaks covered in snow. Sweeping plains filled with herds of llamas (YES! Llamas!) Small villages. Spectacular!




There were a few more stops... a lunch buffet in one town and an archeological museum in another... before we finally came upon the delta of Lake Titicaca and began our descent into the town of Puno. Past the giant statue of the puma on the mountainside , though the bustling city, into the bus station on the shores of the lake. That night would be spent in one of our more interesting accommodations, but that story will have to wait for another day.

What I loved about the tour... though I hate pulling up to a small town along with several other big tour buses to consume a village, we saw places we probably would have never seen on our own. I love being surprised by beauty. I still remember rounding a corner in Paris one night and coming upon the Hotel D'Ville all lit up. I remember finding St. Chapelle and climbing up into its amazing stained glass chapel. And I will probably always remember this part of the trip, especially Raqchi where we stumbled upon a community celebrating in worship to God, full of joy and exploding with color in the midst of a desert landscape. While the Holy Spirit is always with us, I love to think of the Spirit bursting into our lives in unexpected moments like this... full of joy and exploding with color. And I am challenged by the call to be those moments of joy and color for those who live continually in a desert landscape.

Does Society Equal Religion?

This past week classes started up again. This year I am a student rather than an administrator! I thought I would miss my work, but I have been too busy to really dwell on it. Plus, I am really interested in what I am taking.

This past week I have been reading Emile Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. It is a seminal and controversial work in the field of sociology of religion. In a nutshell, Durkheim was searching for the basic fundamental building blocks of religion. To do so, he read the notes of anthropologists and sociologists who had studied what he felt to be one of the most basic and simple forms of religion in the world at the time, the Totemic religions of the tribal groups in Australia. His conclusion, very simplified, was that human beings are fundamentally social people. As they gathered together into social groups, they experienced the force of the collective. You might say they felt “peer pressure.” They had no way to articulate what they were feeling, this pressure that seemed to come out of no where, and so they created symbols to represent what they were feeling. These symbols became attached to certain elements in the world, totems. Over time, these totems that symbolized the force of social pressure were thought to embody that force and became objects of worship. Those objects of worship eventually became gods. Those gods represented, or were equal to, society or the people themselves.

There is one clear issue with this theory. It presumes that there is no God. There is no outside force that acts upon humanity or this world. God is just a manifestation of ourselves collectively, of society. So, I fundamentally disagree with that. But his theories are helpful. While I disagree with his conclusions, Durkheim highlights the nature of social forces in this world. As one who is concerned about issues of racism and sexism in our society, this is a helpful step. Racism and sexism, while embodied in individuals, also has a collective social component. It becomes embodied in our rituals, our structures, our organizations. There is “peer pressure” that seems to perpetuate these sins in society even when we are trying to fight against them. I am not trying to deny individual agency in these particular sins. We still have free will and the ability to make choices. But individual changes are not sufficient.

In thinking of religion as a social force, I was drawn to two parallel theological concepts: the trinity and the body of Christ. Regardless of Durkheim’s presuppositions, he was right. Religion is social. Religion is not social because it is a manifestation of society. Religion is social because God is fundamentally social. Some theologians point us to the relational nature of the trinity. God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is always in relationship with God’s self. God is three in one because God is inherently social. The social aspect of God is manifested in the world in the Church. We are individual created in the image of Christ, but even more fundamentally, together, as believers, we are the body of Christ. God is manifest on earth in society, in the gathering together of believers. Part of Christianity, then, is to preserve this unity of the body of Christ. For Durkheim, ritual was central to this process. As a tribe gathered together for worship, they reestablished connection with one another. In the act of coming together, the power of the society was palpable. The people left feeling stronger, safer, empowered for their life.

The body of Christ needs ritual to exist. Not individual ritual, but collective ritual, the coming together for worship. It is the act of gathering that unites us. And when that gathering is focused in worship, we gather strength as the body of Christ.

I haven’t done justice to Durkheim… or to Christianity for that matter. But perhaps this will stir something for a few of you. For me, it has helped me to understand why I continue to gather in worship each Sunday. Honestly, I feel very little in church these days. I miss the emotional highs of my youth group days or the contemporary worship that has been a part of my past. While emotion serves to form community, it is not central. The very act of gathering is efficacious. While I might not always feel it in my heart, knowing it in my head helps. Sometimes we have to act ourselves into belief.