A cultural challenge

It doesn’t happen very often, but there are times when I realize how much some aspects of the culture here conflict with some my ingrained habits.

It happened last night at the Pentecost Vigil in Dulce Nombre – which began at 6 pm and ended about 12:30 am. It was preceded by about an hour of music provided by one of the groups in the parish.

There was a lot of the evening which was good – but what hit me was the amount of loud music and almost constant verbiage. I had a slight head ache as the evening ended.

I realize that I really value silence. This can be absolute silence or a quiet sustained by quiet music.

But the music was most often loud – with a heavy drum beat. My ears still hurt.

But what really hit me was the amount of words – even during the exposition of the Eucharist the priest and several others prayed aloud. Since it was in Spanish I could almost block it out. But I would have preferred silence – even with acoustic instrumental music.

The procession throughout the church with the monstrance was sustained by more tranquil hymns.

Procession with Eucharist (in monstrance) during the Pentecost Vigil

Maybe I’m just a hermit by disposition. But the continuing wordiness bothers me.

It’s not that people cannot be quiet. Our experiences with Ignatian contemplation in groups have been good, with a tangible silence among the participants.

But there are all too often too many words.

I don’t have problems when I’m with people, speaking with them alone or in small groups. But all the verbiage in large meetings and formal events is a bit much for me. This includes the long sermons that I sometimes sit through – and occasionally sleep through.

I don’t know why there is so much verbiage here?

Maybe it’s because people feel that they are not heard in society and therefore have to verbalize so much.

Maybe it’s because there is not a real support, even in some groups in the church, for a more contemplative approach.

Maybe it’s part of the educational system which is, in Paolo Friere’s terminology, a banking approach to education, where the teachers, the authorities, have all the knowledge and the others have to get their knowledge from them.

I do know, however, that for me silence and careful conversation are important. I want to hear God – not just let me voice be heard.

A mix of events, thoughts, and whatever

A lot of seemingly non-connected things have been happening in the last week or two. This blog post includes a number of them - in a very disconnected fashion.

Reina, a young lawyer, who works in Caritas’ program on Strengthening Citizenship has been doing research into the human rights situation in the municipalities where the project is working.

One of these is Dulce Nombre. The juez de la paz, an official to take legal complaints has a backload of cases, no secretarial support, and a provisional office. This sounds just like what the authors of  The Locust Effect wrote about.  See my earlier post here. 

One of the major concerns in legal issues in the Dulce Nombre municipality is domestic violence. Illegal gun traffic is another.

The health situation is dire. The Dulce Nombre health center is supposed to get medicine every three months from the government. The last shipment of medicines was last August, the only one last year. The doctor though has been able to get donations of a few basic medicines from some suppliers in San Pedro Sula.

The rains have finally started. Usually people here plant about May 15, the feast of St. Isidore the Farmer. But this year there had been little rain until a few days ago.

The rains have been torrential – as is not uncommon. The results are muddy roads and mud slides. Today on the road between Copán Ruinas and San Jerónimo there was mud over the road – despite a stone retention wall.

The house in Plan Grande is going well. Thursday they will start laying bricks on the first floor. I am hoping it will be done late September or early October. We’ll see.  I just hope I have enough patience, I really want to move out there as soon as I can.

Last week a taxi driver from Santa Rosa was killed in his taxi outside Dulce Nombre. It seems quite strange since, as I’ve been told, it was not a robbery and the driver may have been shot by a passenger from within the taxi. The taxi had been active in politics and was supportive of LIBRE, the opposition party. He also had a regular program on a community radio station in a nearby municipality. I am almost positive I rode in his taxi several times in Santa Rosa.

Saturday is the Vigil of Pentecost. We will be having a 6 pm to midnight vigil which will include Mass (and maybe a procession.)

Next week Padre German and I will go to two zones of the parish for the workshops with community base community leaders. There will be meetings in the four parish zones this month.

Deacons Mark and Jeff

Later this month I will be going to Iowa for the ordination of three young men to the priesthood in the Archdiocese of Dubuque. I know two of them since they wen tot Iowa State. One of them, transitional deacon Jeff Dole, sang the Gospel at the Pope Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday this year. The three of them distributed communion at the canonization of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II. The other one I know, Mark Murphy, started a story when he was an undergraduate at Iowa State University that outlived his time here. Supposedly I was a Navy Seal in my former life and had a conversion to a justice and peace advocate. I neither confirm nor deny this.

I do, however, still want to confirm that I continue to be a vegetarian; today, when I encountered cows sitting on a rural road I didn’t even consider slaughtering them. I honked the horn for a long time and a worker (cow herder?) came and helped me get through them. So much for Honduran traffic jams.

Ignatian contemplation among the poor

I don’t know when I first heard about Ignatian contemplation, the imaginative reading of the scriptures.

As Jesuit Father James Martin explains in his book, Jesus: A Pilgrimage:

Ignatian contemplation encourages you to place yourself imaginatively in a scene from the Bible. For example, if you’re praying about Jesus and his disciples caught in a boat during a storm on the Sea of Galilee, you would try to imagine yourself on board with the disciples, and ask yourself several questions as a way of trying to place yourself in the scene.

I do remember, though, one of the first times it really touched me. Before going on a two month sabbatical to El Salvador, to do some research for a book I’m still writing, I had an eight day retreat with a Lakota Franciscan sister on the Pine Ridge reservation.

She explained the method and gave me a list of passages to work with. I chose the Gospel passage of the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth.

I read the scripture and, without planning, I felt myself as John within the womb of Elizabeth. I sensed something – the presence of Jesus – and jumped for joy.

Ever since that time I find myself reading the scriptures in a different way, a way also influenced by my experience with the poor.

Here I find that many people read the scriptures to get a message, often a moral message. That’s all very good but I think that the scriptures are also a way for us to encounter Jesus.

That’s what I really like about Ignatian contemplation.

A few months ago a few commentators noted that Pope Francis used a form of this in his Sunday homily in a parish in Rome.

So I thought I’d try it with catechists.

We first did breathing exercises to calm ourselves and to create a space of silence. Then I read the parable of the Prodigal Son and asked them to place themselves in the parable.

The silence was tangible and the atmosphere was one of deep prayer.

After a time I asked them to share what they had experienced with the people around them. Then a few shared with the whole group. One person noted how she felt the warm embrace of the father.

I think we are on to something.

So Padre German decided to try to renew the base communities, many of which had become top heavy meetings where one person talked and others listened or where the themes were very intellectual. He proposed that only once a month would the communities use materials. The second week they’d celebrate birthdays or anniversaries. The last week they’d discuss a situation in the village and propose some ways to respond. The third week would be “reading the bible in a different way” – Ignatian contemplation.

We tried it in a meeting of village base community leaders, I also have been using it in my training sessions with catechists. I have even written a form of this into the training for catechumens. I hope we can work this into much of our pastoral ministry.

It sometimes works, sometimes not. A few times I have read the passage and stopped with questions after a few verses. Other times I have read the whole passage, after urging them to place themselves into the situation.

I think this will be a good way to help the people revive their imaginations and see scripture not as a book to be read for its messages, but as a way into the heart of God.

Drawing - first communion class - El Zapote de Santa Rosa

Viejito - old guy

The other day in the market here in Santa Rosa I passed by a booth and a kid called out “Viejito.” I pretended to be offended. When the kid saw me a few minutes later, he apologized.

“Viejito” – old man; “abuelito” – granpops; and even “viejito rancio” – rancid old man: there are all often affectionate ways people address older men. It takes a little bit getting used to.

But now that I turn 67 tomorrow, I guess I do qualify as an “old guy.”

I also find that as I get older I get more like my father.

Today, I started joking with the workers on my house in Plan Grande. One of the guys was singing and I told he that his singing would scare the roosters. (Where I got that phrase I don’t know.)

The guys thought it was hilarious.

I then told them that I am getting more like my father who was incredible joker and could tell puns like no other person I know.

One of the guys noted that it’s better to be laughing that getting angry.

That's a good thing to remember at my age!

Antisemitism or ignorance

I was disturbed very recently by the remarks of a Honduran priest, someone who is fairly politically radical.

In trying to explain the Good Samaritan story he made a few remarks about Jews that upset me. I am oversimplifying what he said, but I think this is the gist of what he said.

He suggested that in the time of Jesus some Jewish leaders used the laws of the Torah to enrich themselves. He then proceeded to note that Jews have really succeeded in business throughout history. But then he started to make a jump to talk about Jews in Honduras. I objected strongly and vocally.

I felt that he was making several jumps and generalizing about Jews. In the process, what he said could be used as a caricature of Jews. I fear that he is naïve about Judaism and Jews, as are all too many people – even educated people – who have never met a Jewish person and rely on broad generalizations. This is also complicated by the history of anti-Judaism in Christianity and the misuse of the reference to the Judeans in the Gospels.

Of course, his response was that he was opposed to what Hitler did and was only talking about what happened in the time of Jesus. But that’s not what I heard. He responded that maybe I didn’t understand what he was saying.

I responded by saying that we must be very careful about how we speak, avoiding generalizations that can lead to racism. I didn’t use the word “anti-semitism” for a number of reasons, including that he might not understand what I meant by that.

He later talked about the “Arabs” in Honduras. I interjected that the so-called Arabs or Turks (turcos) are mostly from Lebanon and Palestine. They came here and to other parts of Latin American largely to escape the Turkish Empire.

A little later he began to speak about the Israel-Palestine conflict, speaking of it in terms of the children of Sarah and the children of Haggar. I objected again and reminded him that there are Christian Palestinians.

There were other remarks he made, including one wondering whether Facussé was a Jew. Facussé is the son of Catholic Palestinian immigrants.

All this leads me to believe that, in large part, he was acting in ignorance, talking off the cuff, not really careful in his facts.  All too common here.

How sad.

--- A few years ago I wrote a blog entry about anti-semitism in Honduras which can be found here.