‘Meeting together is enriching, but it presents particular challenges for liberal Friends.’ Photo: Image: youngrobv on Flickr
World plenary: Peter D Leeming remembers a 1991 visit to Honduras
‘It was probably one chance in a lifetime to visit Friends on a distant continent.’
The plans for Friends World Committee for Consultation’s world plenary (see Tim Gee’s article, 14 July) are ambitious and exciting. They are also timely. A spirit of separation and exclusion is spreading throughout the world, tearing communities and nations apart. Now, more than ever, faith communities are called upon to proclaim their experience of loving solidarity, and to claim it for all.
Yearly Meetings across the world represent widely-different cultures. They have each developed their own forms of worship and organisation, but all claim their Quaker lineage and the importance of the inner experience insisted on by George Fox. Meeting together is enriching, but it presents particular challenges for liberal Friends. The experience of Young Friends in 1985 (Quaker faith & practice 29.17) makes this clear. They spoke of being shaken up, at times even enraged, intimidated, and offended by the differences in forms of worship and beliefs about Christ and God. And yet they found their way through to a shared, transformative knowledge of a loving Presence. Finally they declared ‘that there is a living God at the centre of all, who is available to each of us as a Present Teacher at the very heart of our lives’.
A similar message came from the third World Conference of Friends (Quaker faith & practice 29.16), held in 1991. Then, 300 Friends met at each of three sites: in the Netherlands, in Kenya and in Honduras, one of the poorest countries in the world. Friends from Europe and North America could meet for the first time ‘in worship and fellowship’ in countries whose culture and Quaker practice differed greatly from that of their own, and also experience something of the daily life of their local hosts. In Kenya, this meant much simpler accommodation than Friends from wealthier countries were accustomed to: sudden power cuts, heavy downpours and mud. In Honduras it was the heat and humidity, and security concerns when away from the conference site.
For many who attended, the Conference was probably one chance in a lifetime to visit Friends on a distant continent. We were encouraged to travel widely before and after the Conference, to deepen our understanding of the host country and the local Quaker community. During the Conference there were also organised excursions, including one to the historic Mayan ruins at Copán in Honduras. The following is an edited version of my article about that journey, which first appeared in the Friend that year.
Orientation to Honduras
What can we tell of Honduras? Should it be the history of its people from the time of the earliest settlements in 15,000 BC? Or perhaps the fascinating story of the Mayas deep in the southwestern hills? Their ruined monuments at Copán are clearly the expression of brilliant minds, native ingenuity and artistic skills, but they also convey a sense of cruel power and arrogance. At Copán a thousand years of heedless growth brought about the destruction of the land upon which that civilisation depended. Tradition has it that not a single tree was left standing for three days walk in any direction. But nature eventually reclaimed its own. Depletion of resources led to the collapse of that mighty kingdom, which ended in bitter internal feuds and violence. Eerily beautiful, perched a hundred feet above the valley floor, the ruined terraces and palaces may be a fascinating attraction for archaeologists and historians but they are also an omen for our century. After the Mayas came Spaniards, Mexicans, foreign invaders and exploiters, followed by revolutions and eventual independence but leaving only the troubled country of today. Brief periods of hope, inspiration and national pride between centuries of conquest and repression. Today, poverty and violence, a crying need for development and the painful longing to establish an independent economy, offer security and hope to its citizens. So much yet to achieve!
Visit this country and travel by local bus. Feel the potholed roads jolt you, shake you and shock you! Dust, heat and humidity, countless stops, starts and swerves. Long waits at army checkpoints while lists are examined and your documents checked. Clearly there are people here on the run, their lives at risk.
Despite the holdups and the humid discomfort of such a journey, when you return home you will remember forever the sheer beauty of this country, especially in the rainy season. Those lacy green hills seen far below the aircraft wing as it circles in to land at San Pedro Sula seem now so much higher from the road. Lush and shiny banana plantations so straight-lined and neat when seen from above are tangled and densely tropical down below; leaving the airport one has an overwhelming impression of greenness broken just occasionally by bright splashes of red. Individual bean trees stand out like bursts of scarlet flame. Hibiscus hedges pass us by, cruelly cropped; only a few fragile blossoms miraculously remain. Ragged African palm trees appear, oddly out of place and quite bare of fruit: tractors have hauled the crimson berry harvest away. Palm oil and bananas, cash crops for export, so much for too small a price. After that, great open fields of sugar cane, stretches of crazy, tangled, fallow land looking so savage. Then, suddenly, incongruously European in their openness, broad fields, perhaps for cattle grazing, cleared for meat by a wealthy few.
And what of the people themselves? How plain and humble are their tiny homes, glimpsed as we pass. Some are mere structures of poles and straw, squatting alongside others more substantially built of wood or stone. Others are built simply of mud bricks baked in the sun. Electricity lines along the roadside pass them by, often only a few feet away. Where on earth do all these families draw their water? Glimpses too of bare rooms, earthen floors, just a bed or two, a table, simple chairs. They own so little. And all around are dogs, hens and even a pig sleeping in the humid heat.
As our coach passes slowly by, people come out to watch and to wave. Rows of smiling children, so many to each house, with their parents at the door, curious and pleased. We long to get out, make contact and chat, assure them of our solidarity with them and of our love. In the distance the hills rise up, hazy in the dusty, torrid heat. Even here maize grows on slopes so steep that the next shower must surely wash it away. Coffee plants, emerald green, with beans planted among or beside: the pressure on this land grows relentlessly, there is so little space here to share among so many. But down on the fertile plains big landowners cling fiercely to their vast acres. These modest people up here in the hills have so little, but they turn to us with open friendly faces. There is joy here. Yet all the while those empty Mayan palaces warn us of the price to pay. What can we do for Honduras?
Comments
The world conference in Honduras was the turning point of my life.
By MargaretMFraser on 25th August 2022 - 10:04
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