Santa Rosa diocesan Stations of the Cross, 2011

Friday, April 15, several thousand people from all over the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras, came to Santa Rosa for the diocesan Stations of the Cross, Via Crucis (Latin for "Way of the Cross").

The texts reflect a reading of the stations in light of life in Honduras today. I offer you here some photos and a selection of the texts which I quickly translated today.

First Station:

Jesus is condemned to death

Matthew 27, 11-25

Theme: Maladministration of Justice 

Reflection

What great injustice! What a shame that the tribunals of justice lend themselves to this type of attacks against human dignity. The authorities are called to make justice and law prevail, but they act completely differently. Here in Honduras the application of justice ends up being the greatest injustice. The cards are all stacked. Everything is politicized.

The very persons in charge of the administration of justice, the judges, are named by ruling politicians to have them at their beck and call…

And so it appears that after more than 2000 years we have not been able to overcome the fact that the tribunals of justice act manipulating and fitting the law for the interests of minority groups and powerful individuals. And today, as in the judgment of Christ, innumerable injustices are committed. All the weight of the law falls on the poor and humble who cannot pay for a lawyer; but the corrupt politicians who squander the public treasury and the business men who violate the rights of workers, and those who enjoy a good economic situation get the city for the jail or they are exempt from any responsibility. There is Jesus condemned  - in the workers who earn 5,500 lempiras ($290) a month if they are lucky while the deputies in the National Congress gain huge quantities of money and hardly work four hours a month; in the campesinos without land while large land owners fatten their cattle in the best valleys in the country; in the workers demanding their rights while the business owners pressure the government with their policy of abandoning the country if the government demands they do something which might favor the workers….

Second Station

Jesus carries his cross

Mark 8, 34-38

Theme: Exploitation, in the maquilas [piece work factories] and the exploitation of children.

Reflection:

In Honduras there are some types of work that are excessive, risky, and ill paid and there are business owners who take advantage of the need [of people to work] in order not to respect the labor laws. The value of merchandise prevails over the person…

Work ought to be a means of liberation and not of slavery.

Those most in need are weighed down by the cross of exploitation of workers…

Prayers:

For women mistreated by men’s machismo, that those who govern apply the laws that defend women, we pray to the Lord…

That at the social, economic and political levels women are given equality of opportunity, we pray to the Lord.

Third Station

Jesus falls for the first time

Isaiah 53, 4-5

Theme: Alcoholism: against the commandment “You shall not kill."

Reflection:

…With his Cross, Jesus puts himself in solidarity with the weak who fall again and again despite their good purposes and intentions to change….

Many people take advantage of the opportunity to go to confession.

Fourth Station

Jesus meets his mother

John 19,25-26

Theme: The disintegration of the family; loss of values

Proposals:

We beg, in the name of God and the Church, that a stop is put to the exploitation of women who in maquilas [piece work factories], in the houses of the powerful, en nighttime work and that the rights of women as human beings are recognized.

Fifth Station

Simon of Cyrene is forced to carry the cross

Luke 23, 26

Theme: Education and health

Reflection:

The political crisis which originated in the weakening of the institutions [of government] until the collapse with the coup d’état, is being prolonged with great force in the conflicts of the campesinos and of the unions of the teachers and health workers…

In Honduras thousands of young people remain excluded from formal education…

The Honduran people feels frustrated by the lack of the goods most indispensible for life and by the brutal repression of their aspirations for life with better and more human conditions.

Sixth Station

Veronica wipes the face of Jesus

Isaiah 52, 13; 53-3

Theme: Corruption at every level

Seventh Station

Jesus falls the second time

Luke 22,25 y Mark 10; 42.

Theme: Violence, Hit men, drug-trafficking, insecurity

The death of innocents is contrary to justice.

Eighth Station

Jesus consoles the women of Jerusalem

Luke  23, 27-31

Theme: Migrants and unemployment

A life full of injustice provokes migration.

Reflection:

Migration is the consequence of the government’s unjust administration. There aren’t well-paid sources of work and [some] find themselves obliged to emigrate from the country sine the state’s policies are discriminatory in the sense that they only favor party activists and family members of the [political] party in power, following the lines of voracious leaders. Concretely, foreign investors come to exploit the workers and leave them more miserable and limit the opportunity of an integral development.

It is estimated that one thousand Hondurans emigrate each day and 100 thousand a year, following the route through Guatemala and Mexico.

Ninth Stations

Jesus falls the third time

Matthew 11.28-30

Theme: Coup d’état, polarization, reconciliation

Reflection:

…In Honduras, the coup brought us a polarization of the entire society, each person defending their positions, some against and some in favor [of the coup]. What is certain is that we find ourselves divided and we cannot continue in this way since Jesus himself has said that a kingdom divided against itself will come to ruin.

During the coup, there was an increase of violations of human rights: the liberty of expression, with the decree of a state of exception which congress declared, we found ourselves subjected and they took away our right to meet, to circulate freely, threats, detentions, injuries, deaths, etc.

After the coup, the violation of human rights has continued… We can say that the effects of the coup in will continue to be seen in the lives of the poor since those who manipulate political and economic power have their business and even their very interests guaranteed.

Prayer:

For all the families who find themselves divided because of the political crisis, product of the coup, that they return to unity and peace reigns. We pray to the Lord.

Tenth Station

Jesus is stripped of his garments

Matthew 27,34-35

Theme: Extreme poverty

Reflection:

…Jesus experienced mockery, torture and maltreatment who are the fate of the condemned in all the poor countries of the world.

Today Jesus continues to be stripped in so many men and women of our age whose rights have been taken away: the right to life, health, work, dignified housing, freedom of expression, land, work, just wages, equality…

Therefore we Christians ought to struggle for the respect of the dignity of every human being, following the example of Jesus who handed himself over out of love, because before being Christians we are first of all human persons.

Eleventh Station

Jesus is crucified

Titus 2, 6-8

Theme: Two party monopoly (bipartism), traditionalism, client politics (The country is our inheritance.

Reflection:

In Honduras there has never existed an authentic political party. Both are political organizations of descendents of mestizo landowners to defend and increase their privileges and inheritance at the cost of impoverishing and looting the people of Honduras.

Why have the politics parties failed in Honduras? They failed because they never conceptualized an ideology, an ethic, a mystique, a program which was in accord with the reality of Honduras. The landlords/patrons organized themselves to rob the State and to guarantee their business with their power. They made themselves into employment agencies for their party members and so looted and auctioned off the country in the name of the poor…

…We call democracy [rule of the people] what is partidocracy [rule of the political party] and the Rule of Law what is the military transgression of human rights. In this way, there will never appear an authentic and full citizenship in Honduras.

Twelfth Station

Jesus dies on the Cross

Luke  23, 44-46

Theme: Attacks on Life:

(Climate change, mining exploitation, and human rights: disappearances, hired assassins, abortion, drug-trafficking)

The destruction of nature is an injustice against life.

Reflection:

Today there are so many signs of death that we encounter around us where Jesus continues to suffer his death. Our planet, which is our common home, is mortally wounded because of human beings’ egoism, greed and avarice. The desire for riches has led people to place the value of capital and money above every other value of life, no matter if it affects one’s own destruction….

The violation of human rights which legitimates the law of the jungle where the strongest survive…

Jesus with his death offers the poor and humble people a plan for life and liberation, for fullness and true happiness. In Honduras also there are killings, tortures, repression, jailings, beatings, bombings, gas attacks, and assassinations of those who think like Jesus. But his plan is possible is we are ready to live with simplicity gospel poverty, in fraternal openness, identifying ourselves with Jesus’ plan and not with the current powers and oligarchies which only know how to repress and bring out coups in a cowardly manner against an undefended people without weapons who struggle for dignity, truth, and justice, based on the common good.

Prayers

That we may unite ourselves in a single people who struggle for the refounding of Honduras through the National Constitutional Assembly (Convention) and defend the natural resources, which belong to everyone. We pray to the Lord.

That as a Church we become aware of our commitment and mission to defend human life and nature. We pray to the Lord.

Thirteenth Station

Jesus is taken down from the Cross

John 19, 38-40

Theme: those who have fallen in the struggle

Reflection:

… Jesus Christ suffered out of love for us so that we might attain eternal happiness, making of human suffering a redemptive suffering when it is accepted freely and confronted with divine courage. In this sense, suffering was converted by Jesus in his obligated path in order to come to the glory of the Father and to bring about our redemption. In God’s pedagogy, the suffering of Jesus makes us feel ourselves loved by Him and the object of the Heavenly Father’s choice. This wakens faith in us and through faith love and hope in God.

Meditating on the falls of Jesus on the way to Calvary, we think of the mocking and the derisive laughter of those who saw him fall. To see a neighbor fall makes us laugh instinctively and when it’s a question of someone we hate we even rejoice. When they kill someone who is not a family member or a member of our group, at times we look on with indifference and there may be some who find joy in the death. If they kill campesinos in Bajo Aguan we think that is was because they professes an ideology or that it was someone who was attacking the unjust and supposed established order in which a person who had financial power and the power of weapons uses the power of the state to kill the poor, who the established injustice will slowly kill in all sorts of ways.

Remembering the way of the cross of Jesus of Nazareth we illuminate the Way of the Cross of our diocese which is in solidarity with the poor, rejects the money of graft and bribery and  makes itself poor with the poor to win them to Christ. We pray for those who have fallen in the struggle for land and we put ourselves in solidarity with their families.

[We make] an appeal to the generosity of all of you to send the Mass collection to the families of those assassinated in Bajo Aguan.

Fourteenth Station

Jesus is laid in the tomb

John 19 ,41-42.

Theme: The image of Christ and the image of the Church are buried by the means of communication

Reflection:

…It grieves us that many social communicators because of privileges granted by the bureaucracy or personal or private interests have to quickly hide the truth….

Fifteenth Station

Jesus rises from the dead

Luke 24, 1-5

Theme: The resurrection of the people 

Bishop Luis Alfonso Santos of Santa Rosa de Copán

Reflection of  Monseñor Luis Alfonso Santos:

Holy Week is the celebration of the mission of salvation. Jesus Christ submits himself to his passion and death with the certainty of rising from the dead as he himself had announced: “Destroy this temple and I will build it up in three days.” The temple was his body.

As bishop of Santa Rosa de Copán I accepted the idea of a diocesan celebration in order to call to the attention of all the people of Honduras in the upcoming Holy Week, giving them an example of popular religion and of the deep faith in Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God and Son of Man, who was sacrificed for us. From the five departments of the diocese – Copán, Ocotepeque, Intibucá, and Santa Bárbara – almost always some ten thousand people have come with their parish priests, to this diocesan See, and with the Bishop at the head we have gone to the streets, remembering the Holy Way of the Cross which Jesus Christ walked almost 2,000 years ago.

The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus Christ is before the Heavenly Father interceding for our sins and that the Risen One will die no more. Nevertheless, the new catechism of Catholic spirituality affirms that the Lord Jesus continues suffering in the members of His Mystical Body  which we are. Therefore, without a doubt, we remember that Jesus suffered and we refer to his suffering in us, especially in the poor who, like Jesus of Nazareth, are born, live, and die in poverty. Like Jesus of Nazareth, the poor in Honduras are unknown by the religious-political powers and are victims of the same conflict, following the banners of the imperialism of their day.

(Today it is the imperialism of money which has been made into an idol.)

Like Jesus of Nazareth the poor are fed with the hope of the Resurrection. They know that the sufferings of this life are nothing compared to the glory that God has prepared for His children and that the poor are blessed because theirs is the Kingdom of the Heavens.

The poverty with which the powerful try to humiliate the poor is, in the Pedagogy of Salvation, an opportunity to believe in Jesus, the God-Human, and this is  made the source of redemption in the hands of a God who, out of love, makes himself poor,  suffers the lack of defense, and freely hands himself over to death in an eternal Way of the Cross which is prolonged in the flesh of his followers until his second coming. Therefore we do not curse poverty but embrace it like Saint Francis of Assisi and all those who have chosen the hidden path of the few wise persons in the world. Paulo Freire states that there is no más alla [more there/beyond/afterlife] is there does not first exist a más acá [more here/a life here/here and now]. For us Christians the beyond of the Resurrection exists because this is a here and now of a life of renunciation of sinful pleasures, an acceptance with hope of suffering, and a work of personal, social, and political perfecting which takes us from less human to more human conditions. [This is a  reference to Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Populorum Progressio…. Progress is not brought about by money, nor by mining. It is people living with dignity, justice, peace, and holiness.]

Therefore we urge every faithful Catholic to work forcefully to acquire the virtues who make them worthy of eternal live and to bring to fruition works for the good of their neighbor… In this way we are preparing now our resurrection in Christ in a process of death and resurrection, working out our liberation with far and trembling – a liberation which will one day be complete when we are forever with the God of love for all eternity.

This is from the written text. Monseñor made a few changes which are noted above in italics.

Prayers:

Lord, we pray for all those who have worked for justice and peace and have given their lives, that they may be raised up and rejoice in the eternal Kingdom. We pray to the Lord.

For those who have suffered the death of a loved one because of violence, so that they have hope for the definitive encounter in heaven on the day of the resurrection. We pray to the Lord.

That Honduras may rise as a country of peace, justice, and fraternal love. We pray to the Lord.

For a change of life for each one of us and that we may rise with Christ. We pray to the Lord.

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The Spanish original of the texts can be found at my Spanish blog, here.

More photos from this year's and earlier diocesan Stations of the Cross can be found here.

I hope to write a reflective piece on the experience of this year's Via Crucis.

On the land

“It’s better to exhaust yourself than to exhaust the land,” Ricardo López told us, as we visited the farm his father shares with him and three brothers in El Pelón, Esperanza, Intibucá.

Isabel, Cáritas France, with Ricardo López in the family bean field

 Manuel, the agricultural worker for Caritas Santa Rosa de Copán, was showing the project he is facilitating in Intibucá to folks from the national Caritas office as well as to Isabel, the representative of Caritas France which is financing the project. I went along as a representative of the Santa Rosa office. Padre Efraín Romero, the director of Caritas Santa Rosa, was with us for a short time.

Ricardo and three of his brothers work on their father’s land. Manuel has helped with terracing and drip irrigation and provided other technical assistance. Since they have irrigation they can plant in the dry season and they have diversified their planting, adding potatoes, carrots, and broccoli to the subsistence crops of corn and beans. They also have peach and apple trees.

When we arrived Ricardo and his father, Jacinto, were working in a field. They proceeded to welcome us and explain what they are doing, after sharing tasty peaches with all of us.

Ricardo was impressive, not only telling us what they are doing and the problems they are facing, but using semi-technical language to explain why using drip irrigation in a potato field is better than aspersion irrigation.

Ricardo showing the drip irrigation at work on chinapopa beans.

We went and visited other parts of their farm and saw how they use tall grass as windbreaks, their measuring rod to determine distances between different plants, and their nursery where they were nurturing broccoli shoots.

They have problems, including the problem of commercialization, since they have no direct access to good markets and so must depend on intermediaries who often don’t give good prices for the crops. The national Caritas office people talked about different ways they might get various growers to work together to market their crops, something Manuel is already working on.

Virgilio terraced potato field

After leaving the López family farm we visited three other sites, all in potatoes. We spent most of the time with the site Virgilio works with his brother. Last year he lost his corn crop because of high winds, but this year they are planting potatoes on a hill-side with terraces and irrigation. One field was about ten days from harvest, but Virgilio showed us a few of the potatoes which have to stay in the earth a few more days to develop a firm skin.

Virgilio's potatoes

We visited another plot but the farmer was not there. What was impressive about his field was his planting in the midst of trees and banana plants. He had not cut them down but was planting potatoes among them

It was a fruitful day.  And even though this project only helps about 100 farmers, it was exciting to see the work and even more exciting was to see the expertise of people like Ricardo, who, with only four year of formal education, has learned a lot about agriculture and is using it for the good of his family. He is also helping others, since he has helped Manuel to install drip irrigation at other sites.

Jacinto, Ricardo, and Hugo López

This Caritas Santa Rosa project does help some families but the situation in the Honduran countryside is critical. Just a few days ago an official of the FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization, reported that one-third of the rural population of Honduras does not have land and another third has very little land without the capacity to produce enough to feed themselves. 

It is clear that these efforts of Caritas are important but ways need to be found to help those without land. In fact, over lunch, Manuel, Isabel from Caritas France, the two National Caritas workers, and I talked a bit about how to do this. It's a long struggle and means changing structures, but isn't that what is needed.

There was only one really sad part of the day. One of Jacinto’s grandchildren, ten year old Hugo,  had an accident several years ago and his sight is severely limited. He can see some during the day but at night he can hardly see. Padre Efraín and I will be looking into ways to help this boy who, despite his near-blindness, helps his family on their farm.

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UPDATE: After contacting an eye doctor in Ames, Iowa, who has worked with a Honduran-run eye project in El Progresso, Honduras, we have arranged the possibility of an operation in June. Thanks be to God and generous people who help the poorest.

Stations of the Cross in daily life

Diocesan Stations of the Cross in Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras, 2009

A traditional Catholic devotion popular during Lent is the Stations of the Cross remembering the path of Christ from the judgment of Pilate to the tomb.

A street of the Via Crucis in Jerusalem

Its roots are in the pilgrimage to Jerusalem where pilgrims walk the streets in the footsteps of Jesus stopping at 14 places to pray, accompanying Jesus on the Way of the Cross - in Latin, Via Crucis.

When this was not possible it became a custom to erect 14 stations in the churches, promoted mostly by Franciscans.

The traditional stations are:

1. Jesus is condemned to death.

2. Jesus takes up the Cross.

3. Jesus falls the first time.

4. Jesus meets His mother.

5. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the Cross

6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus

7. Jesus falls the second time.

8. Jesus consoles the women of Jesusalem

9. Jesus falls the third time

10. Jesus is stripped of his garments

11. Jesus is nailed to the cross

12. Jesus dies on the cross

13. Jesus is taken down from the cross

14. Jesus is laid in the tomb

15. Jesus is raised from the dead.

During Lent many parishes have communal celebration of the Stations. The Pope traditionally has a Good Friday Stations of the Cross in the Roman Coliseum. 

In many parts of the world people erect crosses in the streets of their communities and walk the way of the cross where they live. In the 1960s, related to the struggles for peace and justice, various groups began to pray the stations, relating them to various sites of injustice or war preparations.

When I was a campus minister at Iowa State University we began a Stations of the Cross on the Iowa State University campus which is still going today, connecting the Stations with sites on the university campus.

We connected the first station, Jesus condemned to death, to the site on the campus related to the Manhattan Project and the production of atomic bombs. The fourth station, Jesus meets his mother, was near the building that houses the College of Agriculture, remembering Mother Earth. 

Fifth Station on the ISU campus

 The fifth station, Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the cross, was connected with immigrants, praying by a statue on campus of a Mexican carrying a woman across the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande. Remembering women affected by war, the eighth station, Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem, was prayed outside the armory on campus.

A Lenca woman praying
during the 2010 Via Crucis Diocesano

For many years here in Honduras, in the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán, people from the five departments of the diocese have come together on the Friday before Holy Week to pray the stations in the streets. The themes have always been connected with the reality of the country. For the Way of Christ to the Cross is mirrored in the way of the cross the people live each day here in Honduras.  

This year the themes are:

1. Jesus is condemned to death

       Maladministration of Justice

2. Jesus takes up the cross

       Exploitation (in sweatshops and of children)

3. Jesus falls the first time

        Alcoholism

4. Jesus meets his mother

        Family disintegration, loss of values

5. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the cross

         Education and health

6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus

        Corruption at every level

7. Jesus calls the second time

        Violence, hired assassins, drug-trafficking, insecurity

8. Jesus consoles the women of Jerusalem

        Migrants and unemployment

9. Jesus falls the third time

        Coup d’état, polarization, reconciliation

10. Jesus is stripped of his clothes

        Extreme poverty

11. Jesus is nailed to the cross

        Two-party system, traditionalism, client state 

           (the state is their inheritance)

12. Jesus dies on the cross

        Attacks on life (Climate change, Mining, human rights 

           [disappearances, assassinations, abortion, 

            drug-trafficking])

13. Jesus is taken down from the Cross

         Those who have fallen in the struggle

14. Jesus is laid in the tomb

          Image of Christ, image of the Church, 

              buried by the means of communication

15. Jesus is raised from the dead

          The resurrection of the people

And so this year thousands will come together to pray and witness to a faith that does justice. I will comment on this later this week with photos.

Our people live the Calvary of Jesus, crushed by poverty and without power to raise ourselves up, abandoned by the state.

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UPDATE: Photos and selected texts from the 2011 Stations can be found here.

Life from below - a glimpse into rural reality

Father Julio César Galdámez, who has been the associate pastor at Dulce Nombre, has had some serious health setbacks and will no longer serve in the parish. It’s a loss that the people feel deeply. The pastor, Padre Efraín Romero, has two other major responsibilities in the diocese – Caritas and the diocesan radio station – and so had to cut back a bit in the parish. He’ll be doing more now that Padre Julio has had to move and he’s asked me to do more in the parish.

This weekend I planned to attend two zone meetings. The parish is divided into three zones which have monthly meetings which representatives of the 11 sectors of the parish attend.

Friday there were about twenty-four people in El Limón for the meeting of Zone 2. Four guys came on horseback but the rest walked – or hitched a ride. (I gave several a ride when I met them on the rode.)

The El Limon church of Saint Michael with my car up front.

The meeting covered a lot of issues, some of which seemed to go on forever. But the seriousness of the people impressed me. Franklin who works on an agricultural project in the parish financed by Manos Unidas was there to talk about the project and to pressure for speedy loan repayments. He noted that one community has completely paid up its loans, but five out of the 23 villages in the projects will be dropped for any number of reasons, including lack of interest or cooperation. The project will probably get two more years funding.

For those who speak Spanish, there is a Spanish television program on the web  here - the first seventeen minutes detail the project in the Dulce Nombre Parish.

Franklin passed around a form for folks to fill out to help in an external evaluation which is being made of the project. Four people did not participate in the census because they could not read or write. Though pastoral workers, they were still illiterate.

Saturday I had planned to go out to El Zapote for the Zone 3 meeting. But I got into the truck at 7:15 am and something seemed wrong with the brakes. (And I don’t want to go out there with poor breaks – there are hills and precarious turns.) I eventually got someone to come and repair them, but one part we bought was the wrong size and so the mechanic had to go to find the right size washer. Yuk!

But it was interesting to talk with the mechanic. A young guy who spent two and a half years in Mexico. He was on the way to the US but got into an accident and had to stay in San Luís Potosí before returning to Honduras. He has very little education. His mother was killed a few years ago in San Pedro Sula during a robbery. But he’s working now in a mechanic’s workshop, learning the trade.

After the brakes were fixed I headed out to El Zapote, knowing I’d be a little late. I arrived as they were eating lunch. They had a few items on the agenda, including an economic report (including how much they were sending to the parish and my report). One young man asked for help for his sister who, because of pulmonary and larynx problems, can only whisper. She has a medical debt of about 7,000 lempiras and needs another 4,000 for medicine (about $670 in all). The group decided to give her 1,000 lempiras (about $53) of the 11,000 they had saved and promised to take up collections in the villages. The generosity of the poor.

After the meeting I went to Piedras Coloradas where we are beginning a project to help the community. We had a meeting with about 12 people attending. After a short shared reflection on the passage on the early Christian communities in the fourth chapter of Acts, I asked the community to share their successes. I had never tried this with a group here and was expecting that I’d have to drag examples out of them. However they chimed in with a list of about ten successes – from their base community to the work they are doing to try to get electricity to the town to the water project. I then asked them how they had done this and they shared about the groups that the community that had helped get many of these projects started. I was amazed, though they told me that they still had problems, such as not enough water.

I then asked them to dream about what they would want in their communities in 2015. I was again amazed –an improved school, a new roof and paint job for the church, fruit trees and vegetable gardens, a soccer team, a fish pond, better housing, and more. The most fascinating was a swimming pool and maybe even a water park! I asked them to get the kids in religious education to do the same time of dreaming as well as any other groups in the community. Next month we’ll examine them and begin to see what we can do.

I told them I came without money or projects and that we would work together for the community. I did, though, promise to bring them one of the soccer balls that the St. Thomas spring break group brought down.

I drove home tired, but reflecting on how privileged I am to be able to work with these people and to recognize what good they do and what good they can accomplish. Several of the people were illiterate. One young man had six years of school but the majority had four or less, but they had a great wisdom. I spent a few minutes talking with a 75 year old man who at first said he knew nothing. But I insisted that he had a lot of wisdom. I told he that he knew how to feed himself, growing corn and beans, but I couldn’t.

There are many who look down on these people and lament how Honduras has so many illiterate people who, these commentators seem to think, cannot be critical thinkers or good citizens because of their lack of education. I beg to differ. Formal education does not necessarily bring forth people with wisdom.

And so I returned to Santa Rosa with a deep sense of peace and I look forward to my next visit to piedras Coloradas in May. I have much to learn from them.

Today is the anniversary of the execution of Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany in 1945. There’s one quote from a 1942 Christmas letter of his that reflects my vision of life and of ministry:

“There remains an experience of incomparable value. We have for once learnt to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled — in short, from the perspective of those who suffer....We have to learn that personal suffering is a more effective key, a more rewarding principle for exploring the world in thought and action than personal good fortune.”

Random thoughts and events

Breaking up the unions?

The teachers are back in the schools – at least temporarily. A new law affecting education has passed through the Honduran Congress that many teachers feel could lead to the privatization of education. There are voices in Congress that are calling for further laws that will change the character of education in Honduras.

I have my doubts that the laws proposed by Congress will really have a positive effect on education here. Dominated by political and economic elites legislators usually have their own interests at heart more than the common good. I could be wrong.

But the other day I attended a meeting of people involved in water issues, preparing for the regional Forum on Water. Most of those present are deeply concerned about the possible privatization of water and the increasing granting of concessions of water use to private corporations, many non-Honduran. But one person made an interesting remark that helped me put the current situation in perspective. He sees the policy of the government is to break up organizations (desorganizar), beginning with the teachers unions.

All of a sudden I thought of what is happening in Wisconsin and other states in the US – the efforts to undermine public service unions. Of course change is needed, but the goal often seems more about power than about reform.

Interesting parallels.

Poverty amid plenty

A few days ago a friend shared what he heard on a television program that morning. Honduras exports are up this year and this is good for the economy.

But poverty continues unabated; the costs of fuel, food, and other items increases. The poor suffers while some reap immense profits.

Seeking alternatives to violence

This past weekend I helped host in Santa Rosa a workshop of the Alternatives to Violence Project.

The project began in prisons in New York state after the Attica Riots and Massacre, when prisoners asked the Quakers to help them deal with violence in prison. The project has grown and is in many countries throughout the world.

The workshop was led by two Honduran women and a US woman who is one of the founders of the project. Eleven folks came together in the Community Center of Colonia Divina Providencia in Santa Rosa, one of the poorest communities in the city. They included five people from the neighborhood.

The workshop is very participative, using methods of popular education. After this workshop there are two more workshops for those who wish to pursue the topic, even to the point of becoming trainers, as had the two Honduran women leading the workshop.

I was impressed by the seriousness of the participants and hope that we can continue this effort.

And so, while governments seek to undermine unions and other organizations of the people, small efforts are being made, throughout Honduras and the world, to bring people together to create a world with justice and peace.