What Walls Say, Security, and some pics from Honduras

Yes, that's me on December 8. 2013

Colorful leaf giving its all for Christmas.

Walking to church today, on this my 52nd birthday, on streets and sidewalks in Tegucigalpa the walls around each home in the neighborhoods sent clear messages. Not that I've gotten any crazier than you knew me to be; am not saying these walls have voices or speak with audible sound. But being a student of communication, have realized that sound is not required to convey meaning between humans. How people live sends signals. These Tegucigalpa walls could be construed any number of ways: Stay Out, Go No Further This Way, Walk Elsewhere, You Are Not Welcome Here, My Fortress, Don't Look Because You Can't See, You Cannot Be Trusted, You Are Separate From Us. 

Beth and I went hiking at La Tigra National Park in November.

Beth and I had coffee in El Valle de Angeles at La Estancia.

 Trujillo on north coast. First place for Christian mass in Western Hemisphere.

Mostly, the walls made it clear I was on the outside, excluded. That's one thing I'd like to note in this writing, the sense of exclusion and how it can affect a community.  Another point I'd like to make: in the US, despite our very heightened sense of individualism, we strike a living balance between separateness and togetherness, inclusiveness, in a way I value enough to keep. To me, that's one way the word security achieves meaning for a community or nation: the measures we take to keep what we value.

Lake Yojoa

However, the word "security" today, especially in national terms, usually conjures images of up-armored, gun-toting police or armies and weapon systems in national defense, metaphoric Big Walls. I argue that when a family, community or nation overemphasizes these methods for their "security," they misspend resources. That is, if security is disproportionately achieved through force or defense (a big imposing fence or wall), then life behind that wall will suffer, will be less than it could be. 

Another view of Lake Yojoa

Am talking not only in material terms. Of course, fences or walls cost money and paying for them takes resources away from other important facets of life, say education or health or highways at the macro-nation level. At the micro level on my own plot of land (which I hope to have some day), I will choose to distribute limited resources according to how I will live. If I overspend on a defensive wall, there is less available for vital parts of life: house, garden, yard, decent furniture, qualities that make life enjoyable. Security on the micro level translates to the macro level: big fat expensive fence walls do not make for a home nor do big expensive armies and weapons make for a nation, at least one worth living in. Viz the Soviet Union, North Korea, or consider Pakistan, where the Army (those who live on the wall) owns the nation, financially, economically, and psychologically. 

Yacht race on Lake Yojoa in early October

Am also talking about mentalities of obsessing on big fences, force or weapons to build walls against outsiders. This mental dynamic affects people inside the wall, those on that wall defending, and those outside the wall. In the first case, people inside a big and looming wall can have a latent tendency to live in fear, which can cause knee jerk and overreaction, herd instinct, a quickness to misunderstand. Indeed, a wall's primary function, it seems to me, is to make people inside feel safe. Whether or not they truly are can be up for debate. For those people that must or choose to serve on the wall, they usually default to considering others outside the wall as a threat; it’s a matter of profession. They usually become part of the wall. This can take away from a person’s availability to interact and lessens their innovative, creative side, an important quality for a thriving people. In other words, entrepreneurship is not valued in the military and policing professions; risk/reward is calculated in life and death terms and failure is an unacceptable outcome. (I prefer to live in a society where failure is not a black mark, second and third and fourth and seven times seventy seven chances exist.) Finally, people outside the wall can feel excluded, arrogated at, distrusted. A high, impregnable wall by default and at the outset accuses a passerby. I would argue this initiates an exchange between people that can end up in a violent overthrow, e.g. Cuba, or a goofy government that accuses the wealthy and enervates incentive to produce, e.g. Venezuela.

These women in La Jigua insisted on a pic with me. Must be the hair.

A pig in Chepelares, one of the towns in which I observed the elections.

As you can probably tell, I miss the neighborhoods of the US where I can walk and see front doors, houses, warm lights inside, and those inside can see me walking down the street, if they choose. There is no default to fear or distrust or accuse. We have a way of life I value, indeed enough to be willing to put my life on the wall to defend it. But to say that is security falls short. Security comes from the way of life created by all of us in our community, our civil way in our nation. Doctors, bankers, waiters, teachers, construction workers, even lawyers, every walk of life in our nation contributes to our security because we have all taken measures to keep what we value. We adhere to laws, written and unwritten, certain customs and manners, so we can enjoy what we have built together and will continue to build through our Constitution. We live in a relatively open civic system; we got a good thing going. Let me finish with an hypothesis: there is a time and place for a wall, but the less visible and less costly they are, the higher the quality of life will be for that family, community or nation that secures themselves with unity in heart and manner. And am proud our Pledge of Allegiance acknowledges the Spiritual Power, the invisible and most effective security, and says outright, “…one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” 

Waterfall near Lake Yojoa

If you find walls and people and thinking intriguing, please let me refer you to a poem by Robert Frost, mending the fence between his property and that of his neighbor: 

...He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me-
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Frost both questions and acknowledges a human need for boundaries, reflecting existence on this Earth. 

God bless your holiday season. Also, isn't it crazy that Christians celebrate the birth of Yeshua at this time of year, when sunlight is at its nadir? What kind of God would send his Child to Earth at such a moment? Some kind of Other Worldly But Here Love. Wishing you comfort and joy. Love, Tim

Rabble Within

180 degree panoramic view from small balcony just off dining room

Writing from Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Though I have visited much of Central America over the past 30 years in my fool's paradise (Thoreau called traveling a "fool's paradise"), I have avoided Honduras. Might be because I couldn't say this city's name easily. Have found that if something appears not easy, I avoid it. Probably why I became a pilot, fly over the difficult--The Flying Boy Robert Bly calls it-- so much easier than actually being on the ground dealing with tangles, emotional life, wild over-undergrowth, thorns, bugs, threats, and pain that makes life in the jungle so un-fun. My life has been obsessed with fun--aviator saying, "If you're not havin' fun then you're doin' somethin' wrong." Not that fun is bad...or a sin. (Heck, have had to let go of "sin" and "bad" and even "good" as labels in order to keep going. Probably because I have sinned so much and done so many bad things...just too much baggage to carry. (Airline only let me carry two bags down here.) Have had to let go to find new meaning for these concepts. Letting go has meant accepting, even welcoming, uncertainty--lose the illusion of control.) Back to fun. I realize that I couldn't say "Tegucigalpa" with any fun, no "r's" to roll excessively to impress. Have spent a lot of my life trying to impress. Indeed, am probably even trying to impress you now, those of you watching me, who have read to this point. Have also spent a lot of my life trying to get attention. So in this first paragraph, the following has  come to the fore: my desire for ease, to fly, for fun, to impress, to get attention. All this probably has to do with my childhood, a lot with my relationship to my father. If my actions have been "sins" or "bad," I should like to blame my father. For then I would not be responsible, I could skirt reflection (or reflect on skirts), and keep having fun. 

However, these days I sit quietly at 6 a.m. in meditation to start the day. Sitting here and now has become, for me, a new form of prayer, which many of you know has always been a vital part of my spiritual path (by the way, a gift from my father who showed me that men can pray in life). So as I sit here quietly in Tegus ("Teh goose"), meditating, just breathing, a subtle strong dynamic that I just cannot avoid flows into my life. Have had to start calling that dynamic, "Truth." I realize that blaming my father for my sins and bad acts makes me blind to seeing life for what is here and now, choices here and now, choices to come today and into tomorrow. Blaming him, or anyone, disempowers me from moving forward in freedom, as a child of God, loved intensely by the Divine. 

At the same time, though, sitting there quietly, voices mushroom in this contemplative jungle. One voice tells me, quite authoritarianly, "But if you don't blame your father, then you will have to accept responsibility for your choices. And if you go there with all the sin and bad things you have done, your life is not going to be fun. Nor will you impress anyone, anywhere, anymore, anyhow. No one will pay attention to you. You will be alone, (which is all you have ever really been, by the way, (see your last blog post!)). And on top of all that, you will die." Other voices, grouped with that guy, grumble in grisly agreement that death is a bad thing and suggest that continuing to blame father is the best way forward for fun. All these guys fear what looks like to them certain death.

Here's another view straight out from the balcony.

Okay, "So, what's with the voices, Tim/Bender?" you may ask. You may say, "That's crazy talk; crazy people have voices talking at them, crazy people hear voices, crazy people listen to those voices." Okay, call me crazy. Or let me offer an alternative articulation, call me 'tchrazy.' Back to the voices. That's why I titled this, "Rabble Within." Have come to recognize that I move around my day, in the midst of a rabble, a throng of persons inside, formed throughout my life by myriad experiences, good and bad, fun and droll, sinful and sacred. And it's only by Grace I can keep walking. Seems different moments in my life have congealed personalities I have used to survive, to get to here and now. Sitting there with Grace, I can recognize some of them. For example, there is a 22 year old fool who loves to travel, born of being able to travel for almost free on Frontier (thanks again, Dad) and solidified when I came through this region with Phil Neff and a backpack in 1984 (thanks, Phil). There's the five year old who had to protect himself from being tricked by his mother and brother; and the fifteen year old who is convinced that being told, "No, you cannot do that now," to immediate gratification equals searing inner pain and certain death; and the twenty-three year old who just wants to have fun, no strings attached, fly over emotional involvement; the 40 year old who genuinely strived for right action in marriage, in fatherhood, and in church membership; even the 51 year old sitting here, bent, broken, twisted, and cracked, opening up to you, now from far flung Tegus.

This city often under crawling cotton candy clouds sprawls, spreads through, up and around tropical tree and green covered steep hills, some with inclines that exceed holding houses, undevelopable. Other hills have a grade on the edge, able when dry or perhaps with some rain, to hold houses, especially poor houses, shacks really. With excessive rain, which you get from time to time with a Cat V hurricane raking into this vulnerable region, those shacks together in groups prove again gravity works. Would bring a new fun way to say out loud in a different racist way and crassly, "There goes the neighborhood," were the event not deadly and irrecoverably destructive to so many. 

Death and destruction run rampant here. Honduras has the distinction of being the most violent society in the world according to statistics. In this small country of about 8 million people, twenty people are murdered on average every day. Honduran political leaders point to the narcotraffickers; am relatively certain they are part of the cause. However, the statistic cited most frequently is 85.5 homicides occur per 100,000 people per year. Violence is somewhat why  I am here. State Department sent me to assess the probability of violence taking place in relation to the elections this Fall, November 24. People here seem sick up and fed with their politicians. May be a good thing these people are not part of Thomas Jefferson's political body that experiences, and I quote, "a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." God bless these Hondurans who have such a strong sense of sovereignty and who pride themselves on their peacefulness and tranquility; perhaps they will find a way without violence. As you know, I took this job with full awareness the State Department would not send me to garden spots. But this place could be such a garden!

Mint, rosemary, a gardenia (Thanks, Hartwell!), and eucalyptus

Speaking of gardens, here are some pics. One of the persons inside me must be a gardener, enjoy relationships with plants! (Must gotta thank my grandfather for that: thanks, Tjerk! oh, and Mert: thanks, Mert!). Because I am working in the Political Section of the embassy, they have put me up in a four bedroom, three bath apartment, two levels, with a lower level patio and upper balconies. Compared to hooch living quarters in Afghanistan it is downright luxury and I am very grateful. From my apartment, I listen to this city, often quiet, quite peaceful. From out of nowhere, though, the shrill shriek of a car alarm frequently breaks out. I am strongly warned against walking the neighborhood or walking to work, a mere mile away. Thugs can at any moment zip up in any neighborhood in a car or on a motorcycle to take valuables at gunpoint then dissolve back into city jungle. (Sidenote: for this reason, it's illegal in the city for two males to ride on a motorcycle together. A couple weeks ago, a policeman pointed this out to a pair. The thugs pulled a gun, struggled with the cop, one of the good guys, put him to the ground, shot and killed him, cold blood, in the back, then sped off. The incident was caught on video camera.) Nevertheless, the rabid fifteen year old inside me hears, "No, you cannot walk to work or on the street or to a nearby park," and convulses in anger and pain, wanting to shout back, "Bullshit!" and "Watch me!" The 51 year old mentor, who likes his job, loves life, and finds more peace in temperance, enters the scene, acknowledges the fifteen year old's frustration at lack of freedom then motions lovingly the teenager sit down, and says firmly, "Not now, my young friend."

Gerbera daisy (thanks, Norrie!), cilantro, thyme, and basil

Life goes on. Robert Frost said that often. Life goes on. Speaking of which, Brennan and Rose released news that they are pregnant. Life does go on. With the blessing, I will be a grandfather in February 2014. Wow! What wonders will that new life experience? How will life go for him/her? Am uncertain, out of control. Lovingly, I let go to see. God bless them as father and mother, life goes on through them.

In other joyful news, Beth and I are promised to one another. Three years of being together, having enjoyed the fun honeymoon phase of dating, continue to as we learn ballroom dancing and adventure together, we now engage in the serious business of understanding how the great good living Lord has chosen us for each other to work us over, shaping, carving, twisting, bending, pruning, pushing, thawing, melting, and resolving us to be closer to each other and more ready for home together and home onward.

Beth will visit here soon and make this home momentarily. We plan a weekend on the northern coast hiking in Pico Bonito National Forest then out to snorkel in island waters off Cayos Cuchinos. (Good thing parts of this country are difficult to say, hard to get to, on a road less traveled.) Incidentally, we will be out there on Sunday, September 22nd. That day has been set aside by the churches here. The Catholic and Evangelical churches have come together (first time on this scale in this nation's history) to pray that Sunday for Honduras, unite against violence, honor the victims, and call on leaders, government and otherwise, to make real changes in the justice sector. Indeed, prayer could be the only operational activity that will work. Church bells will ring. Flowers will be placed in public places nationwide to sound out, seek Blessing. Some of you who read this are prone to prayer. For those of you so bent, I respectfully request you put this event on your calendar to pray for this nation, this capital city. (Don't worry if you have a hard time saying "Teh goo see gal pah," the Triune who knows what we all mean, always, will hear.)

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers, for paying attention to me, watching me as I wander this world, the whole time wending through self and gratitude for you in my life. Without you, I would be alone and I am grateful every day that I have you to send these to. Thank you for all the grace, love, and care for all the personalities over the years, rabble within. Until that next time when we can sit ourselves down together, quietly or talkatively, I will reach out to you in fun and reverence. All of me remains yours. Peace and Love, Tim

At the soccer game between Honduras and Panama with our State Department team

Don't mind that smug smile. Got me some plants for my balcony.