Nouwen, mission, and self-emptying

A Facebook friend, after reading my previous blog entry, wrote to ask me if I had read Henri Nouwen’s ¡Gracias! A Latin American Journey, and pointed me to a passage where Nouwen reflects on the lack of silence. At the time this was written, in the early 1980s, Nouwen was looking at the possibility of moving to Latin America and working with Maryknoll.

Here is an edited version of the passage.

                                                          Wednesday, January 20 [1982]

Can we truly live with the poor? Although I live with them and share their life to some extent, I am far from poor.…

So my living with the poor hardly makes me poor. Should it be different? Some say yes, some say no. …

I have been here only one week, … but I know one thing: right now I would be physically, mentally, and spiritually unable to survive without the opportunity to break away from it all once in awhile…. there is seldom a moment of privacy, with kids walking in and out all the time, and the thousands of loud sounds make silence a faraway dream.... Living here not only makes me aware that I have never been poor, but also that my whole way of being, thinking, feeling, and acting is molded by a culture radically different from the one I live in now. I am surrounded by so many safety systems that I would not be allowed to become truly poor. …
At this moment, I feel that a certain realism is necessary. I am not poor as my neighbors are.… I have to accept my own history and live out my vocation, without denying that history. On the other hand, I realize that the way of Christ is a self-emptying way. What that precisely means in my own concrete life will probably remain a lifelong question.  

The realism of Nouwen’s reflections strikes home.

I am not poor. I can leave when I want. But, as he writes, “I have to accept my own history and live out my vocation, without denying that history.”

But the challenge is there – how to live in self-emptying way of Jesus, accompanying the poor.

I think moving out to the countryside and living in a village is a first step, a step I am really looking forward to. But even then I will not be living as a poor person. The house will be simple, but far from poor.

But what more might God be asking me?

This past Friday, talking with Padre German about some of the pastoral work in the parish, he asked me about becoming a deacon. It would really help him in the parish, he said.

Permanent deacons are rare here in Honduras – there may be two or three. But our new bishop is open to ordaining permanent deacons.

I told Padre German I had my doubts. He then asked me if it was the commitment that this would entail. That struck home since in many ways I have a lot of freedom in what I do here. A deacon would have less freedom.

I told him my concerns, besides my unworthiness. Because of the clerical culture here, this would possibly be a way of “separating” even more from the people I minister with.  As a lay person I at least share this with the people.

But who knows?

Would this be a “raising up” of myself – or a self-emptying?

I have to keep myself open to wherever God calls – even though I’d rather stay where I am.

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