Post 5 - Return to Belize

Return to Belize

Previously, I told you that our daughter invited Virginia and me to go with her to Belize for a vacation.  She wanted to get me away from the business that was causing me such agony.  While in Belize, our Mayan guide told us an unusual folklore tale about ‘evil spirits.’  That tale had been passed down for an unknown number of generations in his village near the deserted city.  The tale seemed to have originated with some traumatic event there, possibly a thousand years ago when the ancients abandoned their city.  I believed it could hold a scrap of truth that would help us understand the famous Mayan Mystery, why they left so suddenly and never returned.  I could not pursue the tale at that time because we had to hurry back to our ship.

When we returned home, I began to study Mayan history as intently as possible, even though a great distance now separated me from where it all happened.  I looked for it on the internet, I watched for it on TV history channels, I read books and old National Geographic articles about it. 

I found that whatever happened to those Mayan cities was unexpected, and it happened suddenly.  The ancients left behind cook pots and tools that are normally carried when people move.  Jewelry and even jade carvings were also left behind in the abandoned cities and were found hundreds of years later, so the people appear to have fled in panic and they did not even return to retrieve their valuables.

Why?  Nobody knows.

Go home and write something.

I enjoyed the getaway to Belize with our daughter, but it did not work out as well as I had hoped.   The business was still losing money when I returned, more money than I had expected.  It was eating into my retirement savings, and I became very anxious.  Virginia feared I was sliding toward depression, and she again insisted that I should find a new purpose. 

Virginia and I both had gone back to our normal routines.  I walked about two miles every morning, and I sometimes stopped at a small church a few blocks from our home.  If the pastor wasn’t busy, I would briefly talk with him.  He told me he was working on an important course that should help him in his ministry, and he needed to complete a paper as his final step.  He said that preaching came natural for him, but he was not a writer.  This paper was causing him great difficulty and he was behind schedule.  He may not meet the deadline.

I told him that writing came natural for me, that I had made my living as a technical writer.  I offered to help him organize the paper but he would have to write it, then I would edit it and offer suggestions.  He completed the paper after only a few sessions of me working with him.

I then explained my problem, I told him that Virginia said I was sliding toward depression and needed a purpose.

“You need to go home and write something.”

“Write what?”

“I don’t know.  You just need to go home and write something,” he said, and he told me, “You need to embrace that depression.”

“No way.  I’m going to do everything I can to avoid it.”

He said that God sometimes sends desperation to force someone to change direction.  This depression may be a blessing sent to make me search for my true purpose. 

I had not realized that while I was helping him organize and complete his paper, he became convinced I had a God-given ability to write and it was God’s purpose for me.  He told me that I could retire from a job, but I could not retire from a purpose.  I needed to write something.

I wasn’t sure depression could be a blessing, but what he said about not being able to retire from a purpose did make sense, and it stayed in my mind. 

He insisted that I consider ’writing’ to be my purpose, and that I should resume it.  Perhaps he was correct, I had written about fifty computer instruction books, some more than three hundred pages, but I never considered writing to be my purpose.  It had been my job, and an aggravating job, at that.  I liked the writing part, but getting a book approved by as many as thirty picky reviewers, editors and engineers and marketing people and quality control specialists, was something I endured to make the money to pay my bills.  A job was all it had been to me.

Perhaps he was correct.  Perhaps ‘writing’ was my purpose.  How could I find out? 

Like he said, I needed to write something.  That would be the test.

Write what? 

A Novel Idea

My years as a technical writer had not given me anything interesting to write about, and my computer information was now obsolete.  I would need a different subject.

I did have one experience that had been exciting, the trip with our daughter to Belize.  While we were visiting the ruins of a city the ancient Mayans mysteriously abandoned a thousand years ago, our guide was a Mayan from a nearby village.  Someone asked if he ever came to these ruins as a young boy, and I remember his exact words.

“No, never!  The old folks told us evil spirits live here.”

I was intrigued by his ‘evil spirits’ folklore tale.  I grew up in a maritime town beside the Chesapeake Bay and collected folklore stories the old oystermen told as they sat around the store near the docks.  I learned that every folklore tale has at least a scrap of truth in it.

The scrap of truth in this tale could explain why many Mayans of this nearby village do not go to the ruins.  Could it also tell the reason their ancestors suddenly abandoned the city a thousand years ago?

That is the famous Mayan Mystery, researchers have been trying to solve it for decades.  Why did the ancients abandon their magnificent cities right at the peak of their achievements, without leaving a clue as to the reason they left or where they went?  I do not know of any other people recorded by history who had done that.  Researchers have offered several theories for why they did, but each of them has a serious flaw and could not possibly be the answer.  Could this folklore tale provide a clue the researchers had missed?

Perhaps it could.  Archeologists had searched for clues by excavating around the pyramids and among the ruins.   Perhaps I had learned something those researchers had not discovered.

I wanted to spend more time trying to learn about those ‘evil spirits,’ so when we returned home, I began to study Mayan history as intently as possible.  I found that whatever happened at that city was sudden and unexpected, and the abandonment was complete.  The ancients appear to have fled the city in panic, and they never returned.

Why?

When our son gave us airline tickets so we could return to Belize, this was my opportunity to learn more about those ‘evil spirits.’  If I could find the scrap of truth in that folklore tale, perhaps this would provide a clue for solving the famous Mayan mystery.

This time, Virginia and I spent enough time in Belize so we could return to those ruins and also visit nearby Mayan villages where the people lived in homes made of thatch.  They parched their corn and ground it by hand, like their ancestors had done, and they baked their bread in ovens made of dried mud and rocks.  They followed many of the old ways. 

From them I learned much about their ancestors, and I began to understand the scrap of truth in that folklore tale.   This was an important step in discovering my purpose.

What I learned by my visits to the ancient cities, and to the nearby villages inhabited by the descendants of the Mayans who abandoned those cities, helped me visualize life there a thousand years ago.  That led me to develop a theory for why the cities were abandoned.

Could my new theory be the answer when the theories by researchers failed?  That was possible.  This folklore tale about ‘evil spirits’ started my search for the important scrap of truth.  Researchers would not discover that tale by digging holes in the dirt around pyramids.

But what could I do with my theory?  An archeologist would present a research paper, but I could not do that.  I could write a paper, I had no problem writing because I had years of experience at technical writing.  The problem was that I could not present it because nobody would listen.  I did not have the proper credentials.

Then, an idea came to mind.

I could write a novel.  I did not need a degree in archeology for a novel, all I needed was an interesting story.  My search among the pyramids and palaces that had been hidden in the jungle for a thousand years was definitely exciting and some people would find it interesting.  It was similar to an Indian Jones adventure, and a lot of people like those movies.

This would be a test.  Had God given me the purpose of ‘writing?’  Had he provided me with a story interesting enough to become a book? 

One way to find out, write a book about the Mayan Mystery.  This would tell me if I was on my path of purpose.