What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared
to what lies within Us
So what now? Noam Chomsky describes the current crisis in Haiti as “awful, maybe beyond repair.” As the days wear on -- the Coordinator of Emergency Concerns (Dominic McSarler) says: “people need to be following this story – the challenges are changing – it was search and rescue for the first weeks; just trying to get people out – now over a month later the problem hasn’t ended it has just changed.
A video on CNN shows “Ruddy,” living in a tent in a makeshift community. He lost his 2-year old daughter. He lives in a community of tents where there is no sanitation and little water. Now there is a serious threat of infections arising from a lack of sanitation and clean water – now many people are building make shift homes from any parts of the rubble. -- And, now the red tape that faces relief efforts although perhaps justified means that necessary supplies are not reaching vulnerable populations.
One of the things Haiti keeps calling out from under the weight of this earthquake and decades if not a century of oppression to us -- the church in North America especially -- is to attend to what is from the position of respect and care and self-awareness. After all, is not reparation going to entail doing business in a much different way than we ever have before?
Much of that call comes from the people themselves and the people in the region – after all it has been those countries and people (Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuala, Boliva, Mexico, to name a few) who have responded with the greatest intention, awareness and understanding.
What is happening in Haiti is profound. In participating in this reconstruction we are a part of a new social world order where we must turn our attention to the power that lies in the margins – Dietrich Bonheoffer, from his cell where he was imprisoned by the Nazi’s calls this “the view from below,” which is, “in short, the perspective of those who suffer.”
When I asked a Latin American friend of mine doing relief work in Haiti what has been the most powerful thing he has noticed he told me the following: “Here there still is no time to rest or make calls, communication remains very difficult. I sleep in a tent here one night and in another place another night. The big event in Haiti is the “agreement of the Latin American Leaders during the Rio summit in Mexico to form an exclusive “Latin American Organization.” This excludes United States and Canada. It is a profound historical moment in the history of Latin America. It in a way fulfills the dream of Bolivar, Sandino and many other Latin American Leaders over the last 200 years. Here in Haiti we saw it live on television: the Cubans, Venezualan, Nicaraguans and thousands of Haitians – all were so happy – people were shouting and jumping for joy.”
Joan Chittister, who visited Haiti back in 1991 writing on discipleship in this day and age says: “Our main business is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.” Justin Mutter works with Partners In Health, an international health organization that provides a preferential option for the poor in health care: He says: “The logic of Christian love, and justice enjoins us to gather to the dust of marginalized communities and from it re-create concrete spaces of hope. In a globalizing world of promise still hampered by shocking inequalities, this indeed is the church’s call. Joseph Pierre was right – God is stronger than the Americans. But that strength is manifest only if the Church remembers that it is God’s fellow worker…..God’s field, God’s building. (1 Corinthians 3:9) and acts.”
