21020: Mason: Haitian Spirituality: Griffiths Part V (Recent History, Conclusion) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: MariLinc@aol.com

What We Can Learn From the Methodist Church of Haiti (Part V)

Rev. Leslie Griffiths

I must pass over some of the other illustrious Methodist leaders because time
is passing quickly, but I just must mention people like Moïse Isidore and
Alain Rocourt, who in our own generation have shown the same kind of courage that
I have been trying to instance and elucidate by this appeal to history.

>From this small, embattled, struggling community of people -- simple people
-- with no great triumphs to boast of, we can learn a lot about courage and
bravery.  It's become fashionable these days to quote Vaclav Havel, the President
of Czechoslovakia, who helped lead the moral resistance against the
occupation by the Russians, when all the Czechoslovakians had to hold onto was their
authenticity, their integrity, their truth -- all of which were to be discovered
not by assent of the intellect, but in the search and in the struggle.

I can with hand on heart tell you that from the Methodist Church in Haiti I
have found a community who in the search and in the struggle have remained
authentic, retained their integrity, and shown me deep things about truth.  I
think that that is a wonderful thing to say, even when we can't say we've
converted Haiti, we have more numbers than anybody else, we've greater success than
anybody else measured by the familiar criteria by which we measure success.

This is quality of witness.  And it's been done in the face of consecutive
governments -- and I took this quote out of some of the stuff that Marilyn sent
[referring to the series of 5 information packets on Haiti issues sent out to
delegates prior to this Convocation, assembled by Marilyn Mason, researcher
for the UMC National Haitian Network Committee], which I read every word of,
I've been so interested by it -- "against government after government whose only
functions have been extractive and coercive."

Now, that's the integrity we're talking about and therefore I beg you folks
who've got any responsibility in the United Methodist Church here -- Don't
think of Haitians as problems.  Look to them for their character, for they have it
in abundance.

I'll skip the bit about the Intellectual Tradition, and you'll no doubt heave
a sigh of relief.  Four categories there:  a, b, c, & d because of the
considerable contribution to Haitian culture that Methodists have made, whether in
poetry, or in social sciences, or whatever.  I'll also miss the section about
what I call the Arid and Florid Times.  Arid because they were kicking each
other to death, tearing each other apart, involving their energies in useless
fights about the nature of the Pope and transubstantiation and daft things like
that.

I'll leave all that, but I will mention that the 4 great periods of greatest
evangelical endeavor (1868, 1889, 1908 and 1928) ALL took place when there
wasn't a missionary in sight!  All took place by ordinary Haitian people doing
their own thing and presenting their own Gospel.  Great message there, too, you
know.  I've had to struggle with my own identity as I've related to the work
that I've been doing in Haiti, but that's another story for another time.

But, there's one last point that I just must offer because I think that
Americans have a debt to Haitians.  Not only for the reasons I've been describing,
but because in 1824 when it was unfashionable and rather difficult for White
People in the United States of America to know what to do with Black People who
were free, there were various attempts to colonize various parts of the world
in order to get rid of the problem.  (That's a good way to deal with a
problem, by the way -- get rid of it!)  And one of the places of course was Haiti.

There was a move mounted in 1824 to repatriate thousands of free Black
Americans in the only free Black Republic of that time, namely Haiti.  And the
Methodist Church in Haiti at that time gave itself 100% to the task of doing what
it could for these new arrivals.  It reorganized itself -- in Samana and in
Puerto Plata (because at that time it was one great country), in Cap Haïtien, in
Port-au-Prince, in Aux Cayes -- it reorganized itself in order to accommodate
these newcomers.

And I believe that we would do well to remember that.  Because they didn't
have many skills either.  They weren't well endowed with material benefits
either.  They came in little boats, too.  And sometimes risked their life and limb.
 They didn't always meet with success.  But we're not arguing about success.
We're talking about welcome!  And I'd like to read just one little section
from my article on that because I think that it just needs remembering.  Oh,
just the questions that were answered, and the openness of the welcome, and so
on, but just listen to this:

A wholehearted yet motley response has resulted from this promise of
hospitality in Haiti.  The island haven became a dream for thousands.  Slaves in the
South (because the people who came were from the North) got wind of this.  "Why
can't we be free, too?  We want to go to Haiti!"  Slaves composed songs about
Haiti, such as this one by A. W. Wayman:

Sailing on the ocean,
Bless the Lord,
I am on my way,
Farewell to Georgia
Moses is gone to Hayti.

How about that?  The quote goes on:

Wayman tells of how in 1824 he listened to his elders discussing Eastern
shore bondsmen who were trying to escape to Haiti -- one in particular whose owner
had set frantically out to pursue him as far as Philadelphia.  All
conceivable avenues of escape were used.  It remained an abiding marvel to historians
that some of the dilapidated craft resorted to for transportation should have
landed their human cargoes.

And no Haitian Coast Guard tried to stop them!

So, we just make an allusion to the fact that hospitality in times gone by
has been offered by Haitians to Americans and therefore we throw the present
situation upon the generosity of Americans who I know in their turn will want to
show that they can reciprocate the gesture.

I read in the papers that came:  "Haitians are viewed as surplus population
... groups of people who have become expendable, who've not simply become
redundant demographically but who've become superfluous politically.

And that is Haiti.  I struggle in England to give anybody there an idea that
Haiti exists.  It is way down everybody's agenda.  I was called by the BBC to
give a comment on Haiti one Sunday morning, got the call as I was going in to
do my services.  I said, "I've got to celebrate the divine mysteries before I
come and talk about the earthly ones".  And that was fine.  The interview was
set up for 1 o'clock with a link-up between Washington, Port-au-Prince, and
Paris to look at a coup d'état, one of the many that's happened in the recent
years.  And by the time I had celebrated the divine mysteries and taken my taxi
to the BBC, a coup d'état had happened in Burma, and what does Haiti matter?
Burma's in the news!  And that is Haiti's story all the time!

And I'm working hard in England where there's almost nothing to work with
simply to keep Haiti in the front of people's minds.  Not as a problem!  But as
brothers and sisters, human beings, made by God, enjoying the dignity that
comes to all who are made in the image of God, and to see the relationship with
them, if only it can be established, as offering signs and portents of the
Kingdom of Heaven itself!

Positively is how we've got to think about this, not negatively!  It's an
opportunity.  It's a time of opportunity and I commend to all of you, my friends,
this moment that God has given you where with His grace you'll make of what
seems at first a difficult set of circumstances into that out of which all that
God's Kingdom is made of will become apparent to those who look at us and
what we do for Him.  Thank you.  [Applause]

-------the end---------


Recorded and transcribed by Marilyn Mason, 1990

© Copyright Marilyn P. Mason, 1990-2004

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