Newsletter: Spring, 1999

Responding to the Heart Cries of the World
— Patricia Mathes Cane

Our recent visit to Honduras faces us with one of the great paradoxes of life. With the torrential rains of Hurricane Mitch, 18,000 Hondurans died or disappeared within a week. More than one third of the population of six million was left homeless. Whole villages and regions were buried in mud. Vast agricultural areas and the food supply of a people were destroyed.

A natural disaster reduced an entire country, already living below the poverty level, to a state of extreme hardship and chaos. As we listened to the heart cries of the people, it was impossible for us to fully comprehend the destructive forces of nature and the massive change wrought in the lives of an entire nation.

We had planned to be working in Honduras in early November but had to cancel our visit when the hurricane hit. Our February visit was a promise of solidarity, committing CAPACITAR to be part of the process of healing the trauma. We have been hosted by Gladys Lanza, Alba de Mejia and the women of Centro Visitacion Padilla during the last fifteen years. During the worst of the violence this valiant group of women has listened to the heart cries of the Honduran people, accompanying especially the very poor of the grassroots communities. Since Hurricane Mitch they have been working with refugees and displaced families in some of the most battered parts of the country.

Gladys Lanza. former union leader and former national president of the coalition of popular movements, said that some of the victims see the devastation as a punishment. On the contrary, Gladys, a woman who has suffered greatly for justice and peace in Honduras, see this as a time of great trial, but also a time of great possibility. Honduras is considered by international analysts to be the third most corrupt country in the world. So this moment of chaos can become an opportunity to listen to the reality of the people - a time for the people of the grassroots to mobilize and to become involved in the national reconstruction.

Margaret Wheatley in her thought provoking book, Leadership and the New Science, develops the principles of self-renewing systems - systems that in the midst of chaos can be open, dynamic, adaptive, creative and resillient. Following chaos theory, Wheatley describes an approach to planning that must be open to an evolutionary spirit, to new thought and ideas that can organize in the minds and hearts of people to give order and structure, prompt growth and define what is alive. It is both the underlying structure and the dynamic process that ensure life. New physics also talks of the attractor fields which coalesce new positive realities from the chaos.

Gladys and the women of Visitacion Padilla embody the principles developed by the new science. Through their love and vision in the chaos, they are attractor fields. They are moving through the darkness as a great positive energy force coalescing new life and creative possibilities. Gladys has great hope in this new life for the people. For her it is not enough to rebuild the infrastructure of the country. Values and minds must also change to create a new heart in the country based on justice, peace and love.

It is a great challenge to keep home alive in the chaos and uncertainty. Margaret Wheatley talks about becoming comfortable with this uncertainty. I move differently in the world these days since traveling in the realms of order and chaos and quatum events. It has become a stange and puzzling place where I cannot rely on what I knew…I've become aware of how difficult it is not to be certain…Every step requires that we stay comfortable with uncertainty and confident of confusion's role… The work to be done in Honduras will most truly be characterized by this uncertainty and possiblity, catalyzing in those who face the chaos, vulnerability and brokeness, a greater wisdom, new understandings and the creation of unforseen possiblities.

What is happening in Honduras is a metaphor for all of us as we face the disintergration of systems in our world. Facing the chaos and the confusion in ourselves, listening to our own heart cries and to those of our communities, can lead us to the creation of a new heart. The Sufis talk of the need for the heart to be broken open so that the depth of love and compassion can be released, so that the intensity of love can be learned and the world transformed. The Prophet Ezechial spoke of the time when God will transform our hearts of stone, placing within us a new heart and a new spirit. Each of us through our efforts to transform our own chaos and brokenness, are bringing into being this new heart and new spirit.

It is fitting that our newletter is named CAPACITAR—Women Planting One Earth As we listen to the heart cries of the world and walk in solidarity and healing with the people who suffer, may we truly learn to plant a new heart and a new spirit in ourselves and our world.