Living under a coup – Day 27

Am I in trouble?

No, but luckily the Hondurans I know don’t hold it against me that the US futbol [soccer] team beat the Honduras team again – the third time this year, I believe. I haven’t yet become a futbol aficionado, but…

PREACHERS’ WORKSHOP

My great joy today was spending several hours in Dulce Nombre with the training session for new preachers. In Honduras, since about 1966, delegates of the Word have been trained to lead Celebrations of the Word in the rural villages. Dulce Nombre has 42 rural villages and 5 towns and it impossible to have Mass in every village even once a month. And so, to make up for the lack of priests, pastoral workers lead worship every Sunday morning in most villages, not only here and in this diocese, but in many places in Honduras.

Thirty two people showed up. Some were experienced “preachers” who had missed one of the refresher sessions, but there were new pastoral workers, many of them young. Father Julio César Galdámez, the associate pastor, led most of the morning session, but I led some exercises between the talks. Padre Julio’s presentations were very participative. I led a part of the afternoon session but left about three to get back to Santa Rosa. (I have to pick up the parish pick up at the mechanic's early tomorrow morning.)

The group was good and fairly participative, with a great spirit of service for their villages. I tried an exercise to have them use their bodies to show various emotions. Most were a bit reluctant and a little timid. But I ended up doing a lot of showing how it is important that one’s bodily gestures and postures accord with what one is saying. I had them laughing with me (or was it “at me”?) by my antics. I didn’t know I had that element of a comedian in me – but it must be a gift from my father who was quite the joker all his life.

EVENTS

I was in the middle of my presentation when firecrackers went off nearby. I jumped a bit. The firecrackers kept going off for awhile. I wondered why.

Later someone suggested that it was because the ousted President Mel Zelaya was in Honduras since he had crossed briefly into Honduras at a Nicaraguan-Honduran border station about the time I heard the firecrackers. He stepped in and then stepped back into Nicaragua to avoid being arrested, some said.

What is interesting is how the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is reacting to all this. Today she had said, “President Zelaya's effort to reach the border is reckless.”

I don’t know if it is reckless or not. But it reminded me that some actions of people like Martin Luther King were called “unwise and untimely.” I do not want to compare Zelaya and King. King was an advocate of nonviolence; he had a strong strategic sense; he was not corrupt; he was not a politician seeking power. But I think we should be wary of political calls for “prudence” which may be based more in realpolitik than in discerning what is just and good.

My continuing question: Where will this go from here?

I don’t know.

But I heard an interesting suggestion from a campesino this afternoon. Both deposed president Zelaya and de facto president Micheletti should be replaced by a person who is poor to serve as a real interim president.

That will be the day!

But there is always hope.