Reserection

I'm done. Done with education for a life time, and I know what some of you thoughtful people are thinking 'you never stop learning' or whatever, but I finished school and education is over. HAH. I win.

Now, (that felt good) I've got one week here in Bville and then I'm off. Throughout my adventures thus far I've met a lot of life changing people and I also learned that friendship is meant to last forever. This becomes difficult in the US today, with our ba-gillion things to do and the terminal-nature of so many activities in our lives. It seems that when an activity like HS, college, even something like a student orginization ends, so do the friendships built there. I'm working on a hunch here, but I think that's wrong.

This blog is not a solution. But a start, and hopefully a resource for folks who really don't want to stop when the world says we should. I will be working hard to stay in touch from my end, but it will require a lot of work from both sides. Here are some things though that have come to mind as I think about how to do non-geographical friendship:

Letters
Skype
Gmail with Gchat
Phone calls (I'm verizon if that helps entice anyone) and even a quick text message is enough to let each other know what's new


This is what I've got for now, but more on this later.

Sand Blasting

Yesterday we had a full day of work at Gabriel Property Management. The old Studebaker mansion is getting old and everything is in dire needed of another paint job. Gabriel, which manages all the People of Praise properties, rented a sandblaster for a day that quickly turned into a day and an half and then two days.

As it turns out sand blasting is really difficult, and painful. I wasn't paying attention as I was jumpiung to the next ladder ( we set up ledders on after the other to keep us working rather than having to come down) and the blaster swiped across my arm - its a nice battle wound (Mom don't worry I can barely even see it now).

The sand blaster has a huge Ford engine that runs a air compressor, this then mixes the sand and air and 20 foot hose delivers the mixture to the wall we were blasting. The molding/gutters a long one of the sides of the house was flaking off and we needed to get if off to repaint it - painting actually involves very little painting - prep work is everything. So the sand blaster saved us days of sanding the molding down by hand.

It was like reverse spray painting. The paint came off like an aresol can puts paint on. Well, at least that was how it worked for the paint that was still pretty well preserved. Later we moved to the side that is directly hit by the sun and looked like it hadn't seen a new paint job in about 10 years. The paint was flaking off in sheets, but it actually took longer to blast that. The paint acted like a shield and the sand just deflected off it rather than penetrating and removing it.

We had been using silica at the beginning but opted out once we relized how cancerous it is. In its place we used play sand. Which was interested. The silica just formed into dust while the play sand rained down like snow. It was like a warm christmas at the top of the latter and surroundings. Everything was covered in sand by the time we were done. Monday our job will be to finish the job with 5-in-1's and elbow grease.

The Schedule

So we have a pretty gruelling schedule...

5:55AM wake-up
6 Physical Training
6:30 Personal Prayer
7 Breakfast
7:45 Morning Prayer
8-4:30 Work
6 Dinner
8 Evening talk
9 Evening Prayer
10:30/11 Lights out

and repeat...

New Beginnings

Its 4PM the Sunday following Philosophy Camp, and I think I finally got everything unpacked and resituated for the next two months here at the Company Summer Institute. I showed up late Friday afternoon and have spent much of the weekend spreading out my stuff and taking the talks I missed in. Abe, the company cook, recorded them for me.

The house we're staying in is quite long, it looks like a rambler, but with another half a house attached to one side. Everything is in common (shared). We have 2 regular meals with everyone 6 days a week (some people are gone for lunch and Sunday is free-for-all). We have triple bunks all in one room and have turned the house, the 14 of us are sharing, into a revolutionary barracks.

Wednesday through Saturday have consisted of 7 talks that make the social norms and codes conscious. The talks are about orienting us new comers to the experiential/spiritual knowledge the Company and the People of Praise has gained from living in intential community. We have talked about things like speech, friendship, and frogiveness and reconciliation in order to create a space to learn to grow/live in community.

However, tommorrow is when I will experience my first real Company day. Wake up at 5:25AM, PT, pray, Breakfast and begin work at 8AM. We then have a full day of work, dinner crew starts dinner at 4:30PM, with dinner at 6. Then evening talks will take place nearly every night as we continue to intentionally learn to build/live in community.

The CSI is about training ourselves to live community grounded in Jesus, and discerning what the Lord is doing in the world and what He has for us.

And so Philosophy Comes to an End...

It is the last day of Philosophy Camp out here on the plains of Southern Minnesota. We spent the last four weeks building intentional community and learning about 'lives worth living.' I started out needing to learn how to be.

My goals have changed and now I realize my life is about living in and building community (see Blog on Philosophy Camp website). I have grown socially, mentally, and spirtually. We have had an incredible time. Mary's all to intimate details, Birna's strong direction, Peter (nuff said).

Walking on our own paths we saw our beaten and beating trails converge. For one brief day we grew from a lone drifter to a small crowd each walking parallel down the same trail. We shared laughs, the nights and praire grass will forever murmur with our laughter. We told stories of terrifying joy and bone soaking sadness, and of other things. It was brilliant living. And now as the day's night turns to morning we one by one, ducking under low branches, take our own path back into the wood. Disappearing after hugs and warm good byes, but going nonetheless. Morning is coming and soon this road will be empty again. Me and the dust; open for new traveling companions.

Welcome

This is the first post and a welcome to those who I have shut out. It is my hope that this space can facilitate further communication and provide insights into my experiences while encouraging others to share theirs with me.

Letter from Mary Gaffney

I would like to start this by saying that this is a sharing of gratitude and I think thatit would be a real mistake not to take the opportunity to give glory to the Lord for sparing my life. I am not sure how much of the story everyone has had the opportunity to hear, and with such a vast body of Christ, I am sure that it is quite possible that some of you have not heard anything about it at all. Well, in short, if all odds went as they should have, I ought not be standing here sharing today.

Tuesday, January 16th was the first day of classes for the semester at the University of MN. It was 4 pm and I was on my way to meet Kevin for Management class. I bike around campus in all weather and especially during the winter because I am able to get places much faster and I found that I stay a lot warmer. It had snowed the day before so I decided to take the sidewalk with my bike instead of the street. As I picked up speed on my bike I noticed ahead of me that a car was backing out of the next driveway that I was approaching. Everything happened so fast that I only had time for thoughts and not for reactions. The next thing I knew the bumper of the car was knocking me to the ground. I realized that I was caught and that the driver had no idea I was even there. I never actually fell off my bike, so I was pulled under the car with my bike and dragged out into the street face down. I felt the wheels pressing harder against my back the driver accelerated to get out into traffic. I thought for sure that the car was going to roll right over me, but all of a sudden it stopped. The driver could not go any further because the bike and I were lodged under the front axle.

Right before the accident I had observed that I was alone on the street. When the car stopped backing up I thought for sure that the driver knew I was there but quickly found out that they did not because they shifted gears and began going up the driveway to take another attempt at backing out. As the car pulled forward I was flipped onto my back and all of a sudden I could hear other voices. I then saw a young man running towards the car and yelling for the car to stop. I felt then like I could finally stop yelling myself. I was told later that he was driving by, and he pulled over jumped out of his car and ran across all four lanes of traffic on University Avenue to stop the vehicle. That was the Lord. When I have gotten to this point in telling the story a number of people have said that I must have had guardian angels around me and that they all must now have grey hair.

One young woman offered me her coat, and adjusted my bag under my head to support it
because I was so awkwardly lodged under the car. The driver of the car sat next to me and held my hand. I told someone that I lived three houses down and asked them to go get someone from the house. As the paramedics, fire department and police were arriving, Ben Reinhardt came to the scene. It was such a relief to see someone that I knew. Ben told me that everyone was praying and then knelt down next to me, put his hand on my forehead and began praying over me. I had recently been reflecting on a talk that I once heard about prayer and intercession, and what stuck with me most about that talk was that when people intercede the situation IS changed—and I knew that to be immediately true here. I knew that my brothers and sisters were praying and I was being healed right at that moment. I found out later that the Lord had me on a few people’s hearts even before they knew about the accident. They were just moved to pray for me. As Ben prayed over me, there was a peace that was strengthened within me—something that words cannot describe. The situation had already changed.

The doctors and nurses in the trauma ER were so very good to me. As I reflected upon it later, I knew that I had the army of the Lord surrounding me. My faith in humanity was greatly strengthened, and rightly so. When they finished the CAT scans of my entire body they took me to a stabilization room where Genevieve, Hannah, Mike, and my dad were able to come and be with me. Another way in which the Father was watching out for me here was that my dad was in town. He had been trying to leave town for the past 24 hours at least and things kept coming up. And there are too many reasons to count for why his being able to be there was such a blessing.
I was still in shock and shaking constantly, not because I was cold, but I just could not settle my nerves. Every one in the room prayed with me and within about 5 minutes it had completely stopped, which was the first time since the scene of the accident. The doctor then came in and told me that they needed to keep me over night because there was free fluid in my abdomen which indicated the possibility for internal injury, and in addition to that they needed to clear all the CAT scans of my spine. Genevieve stayed the evening with my dad and me until I was finally able to take the collar off and get a permanent room. Then Hannah stayed the night with me, which allowed my dad to go home and be with my mom and brothers.

One quick story about the evening with Hannah…one that I am very proud of… It was about 10 or 10:30 pm when they finally let me have something to eat. Hannah had gone home earlier in the evening and the household had put together a sweet care package full of chocolate goodies for me, as I am a true choc-aholic. Hannah did her best to convince my doctor that I ought to be able to eat the chocolate, but he did not seem to understand how chocolate fit into a clear diet. So we had to surrender to the orange sherbet, which is my next favorite treat. Things were not too bad. Anyway, I had to remain flat on my back, so Hannah was feeding me sherbet. I had recently been hooked up to a few new IV fluids and a pulse-ox monitor. One of the machines started beeping. Now, I am not sure where this thought came from, but my immediate reaction was to play possum…cry wolf…however you want to think of it. So imagine this machine going
beep, beep, beep! Hannah stops spooning sherbet and sits erect and says with concern, “Mary, what is that?” I look at Hannah and grab my chest and start gasping for air. This sent Hannah launching out of her chair and me bursting out in laughter. For a moment there Hannah’s face got so red that I thought she was going to combust, but then it all turned into laughter and we laughed for about 10 minutes, no kidding. I was exceedingly proud of myself. This instance was a good representation of how my room was for the remainder of my stay—full of laughter. It was a great contrast to what was going on in the rest of the rooms around me, and it was the Lord.

The next morning at 8 am Mike Wacker waltzed right into my room disregarding all hospital rules about visiting, but doing so with ease and a big smile by cleverly wearing his sticker from the day before. Anne Varevice was now with me as well. She came that morning at 5:45 am to relieve Hannah so that Hannah could go to Trinity to teach for the day. Around that time the doctors came in and announced that I could sit up which meant that my spinal scan had been cleared. At 10 am they came in and told me that I could eat solid foods—this meant chocolate and it also meant that the fluid in my abdomen had cleared, Praise the Lord! Mike left later to go get household members who were available to visit me. Angie and Matt were able to come, and it was such a treat to see them. My mom also came around the same time, and again the room was full of laughter. This is when the stories about the revenge of the squirrels came in.

About a month or two before this accident I had the unfortunate, or fortunate, depending on whom you talk to, occurrence of running over a squirrel with my bike. I tend to bike quickly and
the squirrel just ran right into my path and was toast. It has been a division wide joke that the revenge of the squirrels was coming eventually, and so it was unanimously agreed upon that this was it. I even received a plush gift-squirrel to commemorate it! At 1 pm I was released. That was only 22 hours in the hospital. I was released only with abrasions on my face and legs, and scrapes and bruises on the rest of me. No stitches, no torn or stretched ligaments or muscles, no broken bones, and no internal injuries. Before I left the hospital my head doctor came in and said, “Just so you are aware, people do not walk away from things like this as you are. At the very minimum you should have had three surgeries and 4 months in the hospital.”

When I arrived home I was greeted by a number of brothers and sisters, everything that I needed, and many things that I did not need but really liked. One example that really illustrates the thoughtfulness and love of the members of my household is that because my bunk is the top one, Amy and Colleen had moved everything to the bottom bunk. I never would have thought of that on my own. My needs were met before they even registered with me as needs. I received countless phone calls and emails and some visitors. I was really heartened by the way that SO MANY took the time to tell me that they were praying for the driver as well. That was something that was so important to me and to be so strongly supported in that was a great gift.
I also have to share yet another still ongoing instance of the Lord outdoing himself in service and love for me. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and immediately after the accident, it occurred to me how heavy the repercussions of the accident could be on my arthritis. When Genevieve, Hannah, and Mike first saw me, though, they gave me a word of encouragement which was that the Lord would not only heal me of the effects of the accident, but also from my arthritis—that I had been given a NEW life. I also received confirming words of this throughout the next week from a few other people from other branches and divisions around the country. I still have the arthritis, but this much I do know: I have not had one bit of arthritic pain due to the accident, and for the week after the accident I was basically immobile, which usually causes flare-ups and I have not
experienced anything. Glory to God!

As I was reflecting and praying after the accident, I remembered praying the Our Father that morning before the accident, and in praying “give me today what I need to do all that you want me to do” and “do not put me to the test, but deliver me” I prayed “Father, don’t give me enough so that I am just making it, but give me an abundance. Give me all of creation.” And he did. I received that abundance. The enemy tried not only to get at me, but this was an effort to get at all of my brothers and sisters…at the whole body of Christ. It was an effort to distract us, and I was not going to stand for that and neither was the body.

I was right back at classes the next week, and back on my bike…yes, my bike…the same bike!! The Lord really outdid himself again on this one and my bike was found to be more than ride-able. I feel very confident that I could do commercials of endorsement for Silver Ridge Bikes, Columbia Sportswear, and Timbuk2 messenger bags due to how my things survived the accident, but not for Ford Motor Vehicles... My bike definitely has character…more so than it used to. I was also right back in the pool. Before the accident I had been swimming 5 days a week and I was not about to give that up. I kick-boarded it for the first couple of days, but by the end of the week, thanks to physical therapy exercises given to me by Jen Torma for my legs, I was back to swimming full throttle. I also decided that I wanted to continue to build on what Jen started me on with exercises, so Laura Brummer is training me in weight lifting. By looking at me now, you would not even know that any of this happened to me. The only physical mark left besides a few bruises is that part of my left eyebrow is missing where my face came in contact with the pavement. This actually has been a great source of jokes and laughter since the accident.

When the cut on my eye healed the women in my household would say things like: “Oh, I think your eyebrow is growing back, Mary!” “Maybe you ought to fill it in with a bit of pencil like my grandma does.” Or “Maybe you should get squirrel fur implants!” At dinner one night someone made a comment about being willing to give up more than an eyebrow for me and someone else followed that up by saying, “Hey, we should all join with Mary in this and shave off the same section of our eyebrows.” It was unanimously agreed upon that it would be fitting to do so. So we made a spontaneous household event out of it. Now I tried to encourage everyone to accomplish this task in the most natural was possible—by friction! They were not so excited about that, so they managed other ways. We decided to call this act of love “Mary Solidarity”. School has been a definite challenge, but I decided to keep all of my classes. I really saw the Lord’s protection for me in that I am taking 4 out of my 5 classes with people in the division—two with Laura, and one each with Angie and Kevin. The Lord spoke a really clear word to me after the accident and that was that all of my brothers and sisters are laying down their lives for me that I may be able to keep going with the work that the Lord has for me…that I may keep building his kingdom with my brothers and sisters as a missionary, that I may continue to pursue the biological sciences in school, and that I may do all of this because of the body of Christ and come out of this even
greater than I went into it.

All of these things that I have described—all the instances in which I am able to glorify the Lord—these are all instances of Unity of the Spirit where love is both the foundation and the fruit. Thank you all for your prayers and letters and conversations. Please continue to pray that the Lord completes his healing of my arthritis. Glory to God!

Allendale

neighborhood in Shreveport where the People of Praise has started building a city, our first of 200 on the next 40 years. There are 6 houses built with shared space in mind (ie. one has the main kitchen and dinning room, another the main living room, and so on).

IG4

stands for Initial Group, 4 people. This is a group within the Company. Fall '06 this was Brian Couch, Thomas Duddy, Joe Gleason, and John Gapp in Allendale. Spring '07 this is Brian and Thomas-both in Allendale, John, Nick Holovaty and me in Indianapolis.

People of Praise

community (not church) of Christians who, moved by the Holy Spirit, try to live their lives as much together as possible. Comprised of about 1,800 adults in 21 branches across the US, Canada, Jamaica and Grenada.

The Company

group of young men in the People of Praise who have committed to finite terms. During each term a Company member makes himself free to be called to other cities to do God's work.

Nick Holovaty

from South Bend...I think. He was in campus fellowship when he was in college at Notre Dame. He is now the Head of the Company, and the Director of the Missionary Company. He is currently with Jon and I in Indianapolis.

Thomas Duddy

from Hawaii, he's lived in Dinkytown for a year before coming down to Allendale with the other guys Fall '06. He is still in Allendale with Brian.

Jon Gapp

also from Burnsville, MN. He attended the U of M for 1 year before taking tw0 years off to do missionary work with Brian, Joe, and Thomas in Allendale Fall '06. He is currently in Indianapolis with me.

Joe Gleason

originally from Burnsville, MN, but attend Notre Dame in South Bend, IN. He also joined Brian Couch in Allendale the Fall '06 semester, and is back at Notre Dame for Spring '07.

Brian Couch

orginally from South Bend, IN. He lived in Dinkytown for a couple years and attended the U of M's Architecture School, before taking two years off to do missionary work beginning Fall '06. Still at it in Allendale.

Fidel's Final Victory

By Julia E. Sweig
From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2007

---

Summary: The smooth transfer of power from Fidel Castro to his successors is exposing the willful ignorance and wishful thinking of U.S. policy toward Cuba. The post-Fidel transition is already well under way, and change in Cuba will come only gradually from here on out. With or without Fidel, renewed U.S. efforts to topple the revolutionary regime in Havana can do no good -- and have the potential to do considerable harm.

Julia E. Sweig is Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow and Director of Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground and Friendly fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century.

CUBA AFTER CASTRO?

Ever since Fidel Castro gained power in 1959, Washington and the Cuban exile community have been eagerly awaiting the moment when he would lose it -- at which point, the thinking went, they would have carte blanche to remake Cuba in their own image. Without Fidel's iron fist to keep Cubans in their place, the island would erupt into a collective demand for rapid change. The long-oppressed population would overthrow Fidel's revolutionary cronies and clamor for capital, expertise, and leadership from the north to transform Cuba into a market democracy with strong ties to the United States.

But that moment has come and gone -- and none of what Washington and the exiles anticipated has come to pass. Even as Cuba-watchers speculate about how much longer the ailing Fidel will survive, the post-Fidel transition is already well under way. Power has been successfully transferred to a new set of leaders, whose priority is to preserve the system while permitting only very gradual reform. Cubans have not revolted, and their national identity remains tied to the defense of the homeland against U.S. attacks on its sovereignty. As the post-Fidel regime responds to pent-up demands for more democratic participation and economic opportunity, Cuba will undoubtedly change -- but the pace and nature of that change will be mostly imperceptible to the naked American eye.

Fidel's almost five decades in power came to a close last summer not with the expected bang, or even really a whimper, but in slow motion, with Fidel himself orchestrating the transition. The transfer of authority from Fidel to his younger brother, Raúl, and half a dozen loyalists -- who have been running the country under Fidel's watch for decades -- has been notably smooth and stable. Not one violent episode in Cuban streets. No massive exodus of refugees. And despite an initial wave of euphoria in Miami, not one boat leaving a Florida port for the 90-mile trip. Within Cuba, whether Fidel himself survives for weeks, months, or years is now in many ways beside the point.

In Washington, however, Cuba policy -- aimed essentially at regime change -- has long been dominated by wishful thinking ever more disconnected from the reality on the island. Thanks to the votes and campaign contributions of the 1.5 million Cuban Americans who live in Florida and New Jersey, domestic politics has driven policymaking. That tendency has been indulged by a U.S. intelligence community hamstrung by a breathtaking and largely self-imposed isolation from Cuba and reinforced by a political environment that rewards feeding the White House whatever it wants to hear. Why alter the status quo when it is so familiar, so well funded, and so rhetorically pleasing to politicians in both parties?

But if consigning Cuba to domestic politics has been the path of least resistance so far, it will begin to have real costs as the post-Fidel transition continues -- for Cuba and the United States alike. Fidel's death, especially if it comes in the run-up to a presidential election, could bring instability precisely because of the perception in the United States that Cuba will be vulnerable to meddling from abroad. Some exiles may try to draw the United States into direct conflict with Havana, whether by egging on potential Cuban refugees to take to the Florida Straits or by appealing to Congress, the White House, and the Pentagon to attempt to strangle the post-Fidel government.

Washington must finally wake up to the reality of how and why the Castro regime has proved so durable -- and recognize that, as a result of its willful ignorance, it has few tools with which to effectively influence Cuba after Fidel is gone. With U.S. credibility in Latin America and the rest of the world at an all-time low, it is time to put to rest a policy that Fidel's handover of power has already so clearly exposed as a complete failure.

CHANGE IN THE WEATHER

On July 31, 2006, Fidel Castro's staff secretary made an announcement: Fidel, just days away from his 80th birthday, had undergone major surgery and turned over "provisional power" to his 75-year-old brother, Raúl, and six senior officials. The gravity of Fidel's illness (rumored to be either terminal intestinal cancer or severe diverticulitis with complications) was immediately clear, both from photographs of the clearly weakened figure and from Fidel's own dire-sounding statements beseeching Cubans to prepare for his demise. Across the island, an air of resignation and anticipation took hold.

The dead of August, with its intense heat and humidity, is a nerve-racking time in Cuba, but as rumors sped from home to home, there was a stunning display of orderliness and seriousness in the streets. Life continued: people went to work and took vacations, watched telenovelas and bootlegged DVDs and programs from the Discovery and History channels, waited in lines for buses and weekly rations, made their daily black-market purchases -- repeating the rituals that have etched a deep mark in the Cuban psyche. Only in Miami were some Cubans partying, hoping that Fidel's illness would soon turn to death, not only of a man but also of a half century of divided families and mutual hatred.

Raúl quickly assumed Fidel's duties as first secretary of the Communist Party, head of the Politburo, and president of the Council of State (and retained control of the armed forces and intelligence services). The other deputies -- two of whom had worked closely with the Castro brothers since the revolution and four of whom had emerged as major players in the 1990s -- took over the other key departments. Ranging in age from their mid-40s through their 70s, they had been preparing for this transition to collective leadership for years. José Ramón Balaguer, a doctor who fought as a guerrilla in the Sierra Maestra during the revolution, assumed authority over public health. José Ramón Machado Ventura, another doctor who fought in the Sierra, and Esteban Lazo Hernández now share power over education. Carlos Lage Dávila -- a key architect of the economic reforms of the 1990s, including efforts to bring in foreign investment -- took charge of the energy sector. Francisco Soberón Valdés, president of the Central Bank of Cuba, and Felipe Pérez Roque, minister of foreign affairs, took over finances in those areas.

At first, U.S. officials simply admitted that they had almost no information about Fidel's illness or plans for succession. President George W. Bush said little beyond soberly (and surprisingly) pointing out that the next leader of Cuba would come from Cuba -- a much-needed warning to the small yet influential group of hard-line exiles (Republican Florida Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a nephew of Fidel's, prominent among them) with aspirations to post-Fidel presidential politics.

A few weeks into the Fidel deathwatch, Raúl gave an interview clearly meant for U.S. consumption. Cuba, he said, "has always been ready to normalize relations on the basis of equality. But we will not accept the arrogant and interventionist policies of this administration," nor will the United States win concessions on Cuba's domestic political model. A few days later, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon responded in kind. Washington, he said, would consider lifting its embargo -- but only if Cuba established a route to multiparty democracy, released all political prisoners, and allowed independent civil-society organizations. With or without Fidel, the two governments were stuck where they have been for years: Havana ready to talk about everything except the one condition on which Washington will not budge, Washington offering something Havana does not unconditionally want in exchange for something it is not willing to give.

From Washington's perspective, this paralysis may seem only temporary. Shannon compared post-Fidel Cuba to a helicopter with a broken rotor -- the implication being that a crash is imminent. But that view, pervasive among U.S. policymakers, ignores the uncomfortable truth about Cuba under the Castro regime. Despite Fidel's overwhelming personal authority and Raúl's critical institution-building abilities, the government rests on far more than just the charisma, authority, and legend of these two figures.

POLITICALLY INCORRECT

Cuba is far from a multiparty democracy, but it is a functioning country with highly opinionated citizens where locally elected officials (albeit all from one party) worry about issues such as garbage collection, public transportation, employment, education, health care, and safety. Although plagued by worsening corruption, Cuban institutions are staffed by an educated civil service, battle-tested military officers, a capable diplomatic corps, and a skilled work force. Cuban citizens are highly literate, cosmopolitan, endlessly entrepreneurial, and by global standards quite healthy.

Critics of the Castro regime cringe at such depictions and have worked hard to focus Washington and the world's attention on human rights abuses, political prisoners, and economic and political deprivations. Although those concerns are legitimate, they do not make up for an unwillingness to understand the sources of Fidel's legitimacy -- or the features of the status quo that will sustain Raúl and the collective leadership now in place. On a trip to Cuba in November, I spoke with a host of senior officials, foreign diplomats, intellectuals, and regime critics to get a sense of how those on the ground see the island's future. (I have traveled to Cuba nearly 30 times since 1984 and met with everyone from Fidel himself to human rights activists and political prisoners.) People at all levels of the Cuban government and the Communist Party were enormously confident of the regime's ability to survive Fidel's passing. In and out of government circles, critics and supporters alike -- including in the state-run press -- readily acknowledge major problems with productivity and the delivery of goods and services. But the regime's still-viable entitlement programs and a widespread sense that Raúl is the right man to confront corruption and bring accountable governance give the current leadership more legitimacy than it could possibly derive from repression alone (the usual explanation foreigners give for the regime's staying power).

The regime's continued defiance of the United States also helps. In Cuba's national narrative, outside powers -- whether Spain in the nineteenth century or the United States in the twentieth -- have preyed on Cuba's internal division to dominate Cuban politics. Revolutionary ideology emphasizes this history of thwarted independence and imperialist meddling, from the Spanish-American War to the Bay of Pigs, to sustain a national consensus. Unity at home, the message goes, is the best defense against the only external power Cuba still regards as a threat -- the United States.

To give Cubans a stake in this tradeoff between an open society and sovereign nationhood, the revolution built social, educational, and health programs that remain the envy of the developing world. Public education became accessible to the entire population, allowing older generations of illiterate peasants to watch their children and grandchildren become doctors and scientists; by 1979, Cuba's literacy rates had risen above 90 percent. Life expectancy went from under 60 years at the time of the revolution to almost 80 today (virtually identical to life expectancy in the United States). Although infectious disease levels have been historically lower in Cuba than in many parts of Latin America, the revolutionary government's public vaccination programs completely eliminated polio, diphtheria, tetanus, meningitis, and measles. In these ways, the Cuban state truly has served the poor underclass rather than catering to the domestic elite and its American allies.

Foreign policy, meanwhile, put the island on the map geopolitically. The Cubans used the Soviets (who regarded the brash young revolutionaries as reckless) for money, weapons, and insulation from their implacable enemy to the north. Although the government's repression of dissent and tight control over the economy drove many out of the country and turned many others against the Castro regime, most Cubans came to expect the state to guarantee their welfare, deliver the international standing they regard as their cultural and historical destiny, and keep the United States at a healthy distance.

The end of the Cold War seriously threatened this status quo. The Soviet Union withdrew its $4 billion annual subsidy, and the economy contracted by 35 percent overnight. Cuba's political elite recognized that without Soviet support, the survival of the revolutionary regime was in peril -- and, with Fidel's reluctant acquiescence, fashioned a pragmatic response to save it. Cuban officials traveling abroad started using once-anathema terms, such as "civil society." Proposals were circulated to include multiple candidates (although all from the Communist Party) in National Assembly elections and to permit small private businesses. The government legalized self-employment in some 200 service trades, converted state farms to collectively owned cooperatives, and allowed the opening of small farmers' markets. At Raúl's instigation, state enterprises adopted capitalist accounting and business practices; some managers were sent to European business schools. As the notion of a "socialist enterprise" became increasingly unsustainable, words like "market," "efficiency," "ownership," "property," and "competition" began to crop up with ever more frequency in the state-controlled press and in public-policy debates. Foreign investment from Europe, Latin America, Canada, China, and Israel gave a boost to agriculture and the tourism, mining, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and oil industries.

These changes rendered Cuba almost unrecognizable compared with the Cuba of the Soviet era, but they also allowed Fidel's government to regain its footing. The economy began to recover, and health and educational programs started to deliver again. By the end of the 1990s, Cuba's infant mortality rate (approximately six deaths per 100,000 births) had dropped below that of the United States, and close to 100 percent of children were enrolled in school full time through ninth grade. Housing, although deteriorating and in desperate need of modernization, remained virtually free. And a cosmopolitan society -- albeit one controlled in many ways by the state -- grew increasingly connected to the world through cultural exchanges, sporting events, scientific cooperation, health programs, technology, trade, and diplomacy. Moreover, by 2002, total remittance inflows reached $1 billion, and nearly half of the Cuban population had access to dollars from family abroad.

In 2004, a process of "recentralization" began: the state replaced the dollar with a convertible currency, stepped up tax collection from the self-employed sector, and imposed stricter controls on revenue expenditures by state enterprises. But even with these controls over economic activity, the black market is everywhere. Official salaries are never enough to make ends meet, and the economy has become a hybrid of control, chaos, and free-for-all. The rules of the game are established and broken at every turn, and most Cubans have to violate some law to get by. The administrators of state enterprises steal and then sell the inputs they get from the government, forcing workers to purchase themselves the supplies they need to do their jobs -- rubber for the shoemaker, drinking glasses for the bartender, cooking oil for the chef -- in order to fill production quotas.

At the same time, the revolution's investment in human capital has made Cuba uniquely well positioned to take advantage of the global economy. In fact, the island faces an overcapacity of professional and scientific talent, since it lacks the industrial base and foreign investment necessary to create a large number of productive skilled jobs. With 10,000 students in its science and technology university and already successful joint pharmaceutical ventures with China and Malaysia, Cuba is poised to compete with the upper ranks of developing nations.

STRAITS JACKET

The last potential turning point in U.S.-Cuban relations came with the end of the Cold War. Cubans greeted the fall of the Berlin Wall with a collective sigh of relief; it was, they thought, an opportunity to explore the kind of society Cuba might become once it could no longer depend on the Soviet Union. But over the next decade and a half, U.S. policymakers -- hobbled by domestic politics and a fundamental misunderstanding of the reality on the island -- missed opportunity after opportunity to bring decades of enmity to a close.

Instead of allowing debates about reform to take their natural course in Cuba, Washington jumped on the chance to, as Bill Clinton put it in the 1992 presidential campaign, "bring the hammer down" on Fidel. Congress passed and Clinton signed the Cuban Democracy Act, which, among other things, barred foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba and ships traveling from Cuban ports from docking in the United States. Havana reacted with predictable outrage, condemning U.S. imperial designs in dramatic public protests. More important, some reform proposals were put on hold -- lest the slightest crack in Cuba's armor open the way to U.S.-backed counterrevolution. National security trumped everything else.

The next decade saw a series of half steps forward followed by large steps back. Hoping to learn more about the island while driving a wedge between its people and its government, the Clinton administration began to allow licensed travel to Cuba for academic purposes and for the sake of lending "support to the Cuban people." It also embraced a policy of "calibrated response": as Cuba changed, U.S. policy would as well. Without ever relating them to U.S. gestures, Cuba did undertake some important (and largely unreciprocated) reforms, loosening restrictions on family and some professional travel, relaxing residency requirements for writers and artists, and continuing the economic openings. And when 40,000 rafters left for U.S. shores in 1994, after a summer of brutal heat and electricity and food shortages in Havana, U.S. and Cuban officials began secret negotiations in Canada. The result was unprecedented cooperation on migration issues -- Washington would provide 20,000 visas to Cubans a year, and the U.S. Coast Guard would send Cubans picked up at sea to the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay -- and a degree of official and people-to-people contact unknown since a brief opening under Jimmy Carter.

But these tentative steps, bitterly resisted by exiles who feared a slippery slope toward full-blown U.S.-Cuban relations, were soon thwarted. In February 1996, the Cuban air force shot down two planes being flown in the area by an exile group called Brothers to the Rescue. Led by a Bay of Pigs veteran, the group would make surveillance flights over the Florida Straits (to inform the U.S. Coast Guard of rafters) and occasionally drop anti-Castro pamphlets over Havana from Cessnas bought at Pentagon tag sales. Sometimes, U.S. officials would join the flights. Havana had repeatedly warned Washington that the flights would not be tolerated, but the shootdown nonetheless resulted in swift congressional retaliation -- in the form of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidary Act, better known as Helms-Burton.

Helms-Burton took the U.S. embargo to new extremes. It attempted to halt all foreign investment in Cuba by allowing investors to be sued in U.S. courts. It mandated that future presidents could lift the embargo only if Cuba complied with a number of conditions, including holding multiparty elections, recognizing private property, and releasing all political prisoners. And it stipulated that any future change in U.S. policy would depend on Fidel and Raúl Castro -- along, implicitly, with other senior officials in the military and the Communist Party -- leaving politics altogether.

The Cuban regime responded with its own hard line. Raúl, although a leading advocate of economic reform domestically, was an absolutist when it came to confronting the United States. Even as some liberalization continued, and a new Cuban constitution opened the way for a religious revival by allowing Communist Party members to practice openly, there was a government-wide purge of academics and intellectuals -- many of them party loyalists -- thought to be associated with the United States or U.S.-backed reforms. The message was chillingly clear: given a choice between national security and a more open society, the revolution would pick security every time.

In the wake of Helms-Burton, the Clinton administration worked to revive a series of goodwill initiatives. When Pope John Paul II visited Havana's jam-packed Revolution Square in 1999, he asked "the world to open to Cuba and Cuba to open to the world." His entreaty gave both Washington and Havana political cover to revive some momentum on improving relations. The countries' coast guards worked together on antidrug operations, and retired U.S. military commanders met with Fidel and Raúl. The Baltimore Orioles and the Cuban national baseball team played each other -- once in Baltimore, once in Havana -- and after the musicologist Ry Cooder released an album of traditional Cuban ballads, there was a "Buena Vista Social Club effect," with American artists, musicians, clergy, academics, students, businesspeople, and politicians flocking to Cuba in record numbers. Cuban Americans who had not returned to the island since leaving as small children visited for the first time, and then returned over and over, reconnecting with long-lost family members. A number of prominent Republicans, including former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, called for a bipartisan commission to undertake a full-scale review of U.S. policy toward Cuba.

But the day after Thanksgiving in 2000, progress was undermined once again -- this time by the arrival in southern Florida of a six-year-old boy named Elián González. Elián had left Cuba with his mother, but she had died on the trip to the United States. At first, the Clinton administration was slow to take Elián from the custody of his relatives in Florida and return him to his father in Cuba -- inflaming Cuban nationalism and inciting mass anti-U.S. protests in Havana. Then, when Attorney General Janet Reno ordered federal agents to seize Elián in a predawn raid and return him to his father, the exile community erupted. The incident not only ended the prospect of a further thawing in U.S.-Cuban relations; it also (at least absent a recount) helped tip the presidential election to George W. Bush, who defeated Al Gore in Florida by a few hundred votes.

Like most aspiring presidents casting around for votes, candidate Bush had promised to end the Castro regime. But it was not until the September 11 attacks, and the administration's newfound attention to democracy promotion and rogue regimes, that U.S. Cuba policy took a decidedly more aggressive turn. Bush's first-term Latin America team (many of whose members had either helped write or lobbied for Helms-Burton) rejected any business or security cooperation with Havana and encouraged speculation that Cuba was developing bioweapons for export to rogue regimes or use against the United States. (Those allegations, not surprisingly, withered under closer scrutiny.) By the end of its first term, the Bush administration had upended virtually all initiatives, official and unofficial, for improving relations. It ended the bilateral talks on migration. It stopped approving most medical sales, made legal travel to Cuba difficult for all but faith-based groups and some academics, and cut off visas for Cuban academics and artists. And it almost entirely barred Cuban Americans, who lean strongly Republican, from visiting or sending money to Cuba. Only sales of U.S. agricultural products, because they were explicitly allowed by Congress, escaped the crackdown.

INFIDELITY

Although the George H. W. Bush administration ended covert efforts to topple Fidel, the United States today spends about $35 million a year on initiatives described by some as "democracy promotion" and by others as "destabilization." Radio Martí and TV Martí broadcast from Florida to Cuba; other U.S. government programs are intended to support dissidents, the families of political prisoners, human rights activists, and independent journalists. Although some Cubans do listen to Radio Martí, the Cuban government blocks the TV Martí signal, and without open ties between the countries, only a fraction of the support actually reaches Cubans living on the island; the lion's share is distributed through no-bid contracts to the anti-Castro cottage industry that has sprung up in Miami, Madrid, and a few Latin American and eastern European capitals. The recipients of such federal largess -- along with the Cuban intelligence agents that routinely penetrate the groups they form -- have become the primary stakeholders in Washington's well-funded, if obviously ineffective, policy toward Cuba.

On the ground in Cuba, moreover, these efforts are generally counterproductive. U.S. economic sanctions have given Cuba's leaders justification for controlling the pace of the island's insertion into the world economy. The perception, pervasive in Cuba, that the United States and the Cuban diaspora are plotting regime change further strengthens domestic hard-liners who argue that only a closed political model with minimal market openings can insulate the island from domination by a foreign power allied with old-money elites. Dissidents who openly associate with U.S. policy and its advocates in Miami or the U.S. Congress mark themselves as stooges of the United States, even if they are not. Moreover, the Cuban government has successfully undermined both the domestic and the international legitimacy of dissidents by "outing" some as sources, assets, or agents of the United States (or of Cuba's own intelligence services). The 2003 arrest and incarceration of 75 dissidents was intended to demonstrate that Cuba could and would preempt outside efforts at regime change regardless of the consequent international outcry and U.S. congressional rebuke.

There are some genuine dissidents in Cuba untainted by either government and not weakened by infighting. One, Oswaldo Payá, is a devout Catholic who heads the Varela Project, which collected more than 11,000 signatures in 2002 for a petition calling on the Cuban government to hold a referendum on open elections, free speech, free enterprise, and the release of political prisoners. Yet it is only by resisting the embrace of the international community, and of the United States in particular, that Payá has maintained his credibility and autonomy. Meanwhile, below the radar screen (and throughout officially sanctioned Cuban institutions), there are scores of thoughtful nationalists, communists, socialists, social democrats, and progressives who may not yet have the political space to air their views publicly but who express dissent in terms that U.S. policymakers either do not recognize or do not support.

The upshot of a half century of hostility -- especially now with ties severed almost entirely -- is that Washington has virtually no leverage over events in Cuba. With no other way to make good on its campaign commitments to Cuban Americans short of a full-scale invasion, the Bush administration established the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba in 2003 and appointed a "Cuba transition coordinator" in 2004. To date, the commission, the membership and deliberations of which have been kept secret, has issued two reports, totaling over 600 pages, on what kind of assistance the U.S. government could, "if requested," provide to a transitional government in Cuba.

The basic assumption behind the commission's planning is that with outside assistance, Cuba's transition will be a hybrid of those in eastern Europe, South Africa, and Chile. Those analogies and the policy prescriptions derived from them do not hold up. Unlike Eastern Europeans in the 1980s, Cubans, though enthusiasts of American culture and dynamism, regard Washington not as a beacon of freedom against tyranny but as an imperialist oppressor that has helped justify domestic repression. (Moreover, the United States had actively promoted travel, commerce, and cultural ties with the Soviet bloc before the transitions there began.) In the case of South Africa, the sanctions that helped topple the apartheid regime were successful because they were, in contrast to the unilateral U.S. embargo on Cuba, international in scope. And in Chile, the U.S. government was able to ease Augusto Pinochet out of power only because it had staunchly supported him for so long.

The second feature of Washington's vision for post-Fidel Cuba is more dangerous than a bad analogy. The Bush administration has made clear that its top priority is to interrupt the Castro regime's succession plans. The Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba report released just before Fidel underwent intestinal surgery in July states, "The only acceptable result of Fidel Castro's incapacitation, death, or ouster is a genuine democratic transition. ... In order to undermine the regime's succession strategy, it is critical that the U.S. government maintain economic pressure on the regime."

Since the 2003 war in Iraq, Cubans have closely observed the effects of de-Baathification there. Like membership in Iraq's Baath Party under Saddam Hussein, membership in the Cuban Communist Party is a ticket to professional advancement for devout believers and agnostic opportunists alike. Party members include sophisticated intellectuals, reform-minded economists, clergy, brash up-and-coming youth leaders, scientists, professors, military officers, bureaucrats, police officers, and businesspeople in the "revenue-earning sectors" of the economy. In short, it is impossible to know who among the roughly million party members (and 500,000 members of the Union of Communist Youth) is a real fidelista or raulista. Purging party members would leave the country without the skilled individuals it will need after Fidel, whatever the pace of change. And should the United States, or a government that Washington deems adequately transitional, ever be in a position to orchestrate such a purge, it would then face an insurgency of highly trained militias galvanized by anti-American nationalism.

One encouraging development is that the Cuban American community is no longer of one mind with respect to Cuba's future and its role in it. For decades, a vocal minority of hard-line exiles -- some of whom have directly or indirectly advocated violence or terrorism to overthrow Fidel -- have had a lock on Washington's Cuba policy. But Cuban Americans who came to the United States as young children are less passionate and single-minded as voters than their parents and grandparents, and the almost 300,000 migrants who have arrived since 1994 are generally most concerned with paying bills and supporting their families on the island. Now, the majority of Cuban Americans, although still anti-Castro, recognize that the embargo has failed and want to sustain family and humanitarian ties without completely eliminating sanctions. Overall, many want reconciliation rather than revenge.

The State Department is starting to recognize these changes, and many members of Congress must now answer to constituents from other Latin American countries who resent the outsized influence of Cuban Americans. But the hard-liners and their allies in Washington will continue to fight any proposed policy overhaul. They worry that if Washington adopts a more realistic approach to the island, the policy train will bypass Miami and head straight for Havana -- and they will have lost their influence at the moment when it matters most.

WASHINGTON'S MOVE

Even with the economy growing and new public-sector investment in transportation, energy, education, health care, and housing, Cubans today are deeply frustrated by the rigors of just making ends meet. They are eager for more democratic participation and economic opportunity. But they also recognize that Cuba's social, economic, and political models will change only gradually, and that such reform will be orchestrated by those whom Fidel has long been grooming to replace him. Washington, too, must accept that there is no alternative to those already running post-Fidel Cuba.

From the perspective of Fidel's chosen successors, the transition comes in a particularly favorable international context. Despite Washington's assiduous efforts, Cuba is far from isolated: it has diplomatic relations with more than 160 countries, students from nearly 100 studying in its schools, and its doctors stationed in 69. The resurgence of Latin America's left, along with the recent rise in anti-American sentiment around the globe, makes Cuba's defiance of the United States even more compelling and less anomalous than it was just after the Cold War. The Cuban-Venezuelan relationship, based on a shared critique of U.S. power, imperialism, and "savage capitalism," has particular symbolic power. Although this alliance is hardly permanent, and American observers often make too much of Venezuela's influence as a power broker, it does deliver Cuba some $2 billion in subsidized oil a year and provide an export market for Cuba's surfeit of doctors and technical advisers. (By providing the backbone for Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's social programs and assistance in building functional organizations, Havana exercises more influence in Venezuela than Caracas does in Cuba.) Havana, without ceding any authority to Chávez, will optimize this relationship as long as it remains beneficial.

Nor is Venezuela the only country that will resist U.S. efforts to dominate post-Fidel Cuba and purge the country of Fidel's revolutionary legacy. Latin Americans, still deeply nationalistic, have long viewed Fidel as a force for social justice and a necessary check on U.S. influence. As attendance at his funeral will demonstrate, he remains an icon. Latin Americans of diverse ideological stripes, most of them deeply committed to democracy in their own countries, want to see a soft landing in Cuba -- not the violence and chaos that they believe U.S. policy will bring. Given their own failures in the 1990s to translate engagement with Cuba into democratization, and the United States' current credibility problems on this score, it is unlikely that U.S. allies in Latin America or Europe will help Washington use some sort of international initiative to advance its desires for radical change in Cuba.

When Fidel dies, various actors in the United States and the international community will rush to issue and, if they get their way, enforce a series of demands: hold a referendum and multiparty elections, immediately release all political prisoners, return nationalized property and compensate former owners, rewrite the constitution, allow a free press, privatize state companies -- in short, become a country Cuba has never been, even before the revolution. Many of those goals would be desirable if you were inventing a country from scratch. Few of them are now realistic.

After Fidel's funeral, a "transition" government of the sort Washington is hoping for will not occupy the presidential palace in Havana. This means that the White House cannot responsibly wait for the happy day when the outlines of its commission reports can be put to the test. Instead, the current administration should immediately start talking to the senior Cuban leadership. Recognizing that Cuba and the United States share an interest in stability on both sides of the Florida Straits, the first priority is to coordinate efforts to prevent a refugee crisis or unforeseen provocations by U.S.-based exile groups eager to exploit a moment of change on the island. Beyond crisis management, Washington and Havana can cooperate on a host of other concerns in the Caribbean Basin, including drug trafficking, migration, customs and port security, terrorism, and the environmental consequences of offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The two countries have successfully worked on some of these issues in the past: each has bureaucracies staffed by professionals who know the issues, and even know one another. An end to Washington's travel ban, a move already backed by bipartisan majorities in the House of Representatives, would further open the way to a new dynamic between the United States and Cuba. Just as the first Bush White House formally ended covert operations on the island, this Bush administration or its successor should also affirmatively take regime change, long the centerpiece of Washington's policy toward Cuba, off the table.

By continuing the current course and making threats about what kind of change is and is not acceptable after Fidel, Washington will only slow the pace of liberalization and political reform in Cuba and guarantee many more years of hostility between the two countries. By proposing bilateral crisis management and confidence-building measures, ending economic sanctions, stepping out of the way of Cuban Americans and other Americans who wish to travel freely to Cuba, and giving Cuba the space to chart its own course after Fidel, Washington would help end the siege mentality that has long pervaded the Cuban body politic and, with the applause of U.S. allies, perhaps help accelerate reform. Cubans on and off the island have always battled over its fate -- and attempted to draw American might into their conflicts, directly or indirectly. Lest the next 50 years bring more of the same, the wisest course for Washington is to get out of the way, removing itself from Cuba's domestic politics altogether.

Fidel's successors are already at work. Behind Raúl are a number of other figures with the capacity and the authority to take the reins and continue the transition, even after Raúl is gone. Fortunately for them, Fidel has taught them well: they are working to consolidate the new government, deliver on bread-and-butter issues, devise a model of reform with Cuban characteristics, sustain Cuba's position in Latin America and internationally, and manage the predictable policies of the United States. That these achievements will endure past Fidel's death is one final victory for the ultimate Latin American survivor.

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