An 80-year-old Nicaraguan told us this was her first
opportunity to vote for the candidate of her choice.
Her red-inked thumb shows she has been to the polls.
Pat Hoffman, a spiritual guide for me, turned to me during a particularly dry
presbytery meeting in the 80’s and asked, “Chris, would you like to go to
Nicaragua?” Without missing a beat, I replied, “Sure! Can we go now?!” Anything
to escape an ecclesiastical wilderness.
A
word about Pat. We wrote our first books together, mine being Uncommon Calling, about LGBT efforts to
reform the Presbyterian Church, and hers being Ministry of the Dispossessed, about ministry among the farmworkers
of California. We met for lunch every couple of weeks, exchanging and reviewing
each other’s books, chapter by chapter. Sometimes we met for tea at Trump’s
(yeah, really!) in Beverly Hills; we
couldn’t afford their formal tea, but we found we could share a pot of tea and
two scones in its stylish bar for a total of $10.
Pat
was helping organize a group of twenty Presbyterians, Disciples, and United
Methodists under the auspices of Church World Service to witness Nicaragua’s
first free and fair election after deposing the despot Somoza, occurring the
same week as Reagan was seeking re-election while illegally funding the
contras—the counter-revolutionaries who opposed the Sandinista government. A
U.S. warship sailed menacingly off Nicaragua’s coast while we were there, and
we heard two sonic booms each day as U.S. spy planes flew low overhead.
A Maryknoll sister (left) briefed us on what
was happening. Pat Hoffman is in yellow.
There
are many stories to be told about that trip, including the one when we decided
to “crash” the American election party at the U.S. Embassy, where we had
earlier met with a diplomat explaining what we considered misguided U.S.
policy—after which Pat, with a mischievous smile, asked me, “Is he one of
yours?” I laughed, realizing her “gaydar” was as astute as mine.
Anyway,
about ten of us crammed into two tiny taxis and showed up election night
outside the gate of the highly fortressed U.S. Embassy. The taxi I was in arrived first, so I jumped
out of the car and ran up to the gate. As quickly, I was met with bayonetted
rifles of several soldiers running out of the waterless moat that surrounded
the embassy! To the soldier at the gate, I explained why we were there. He put
me on the phone to his commander inside, who politely explained that the party
was not at the embassy itself, rather at a hotel, and that it was “by
invitation only.”
A
few days before we had been welcomed at the Nicaraguan election festivities,
which required no such invitation. There we joined hundreds of Nicaraguans in
an open soccer field listening to American music as election results began to
trickle in—but only after walking through unlighted downtown areas of Managua
destroyed by a devastating earthquake years before, never restored because
Somoza drained the economic aid that came from other countries. In the
darkness, we had to avoid manholes missing their covers.
Me, sitting beneath Che Guevara.
The
reason I bring this up is all the talk about “revolution” in this current
election. A history professor with us explained that Nicaragua had experienced
a true revolution, but by contrast, she shared many historians’ view that the
so-called “American Revolution,” was actually a rebellion, because it did not
turn upside down the class system, putting “lower” classes, however defined, in
charge. It was still largely governed by wealthy, educated, propertied white
men.
I
was a little peeved at her for disillusioning me about our seminal American
event, but I saw her point. Still, our Founding Fathers and Mothers did set in
place a system potentially “of the people” that would radically transform the government,
society, and culture. Yet we are a representative democracy, not an absolute
democracy.
So
it gives me pause whenever the word “revolution” is tossed about so loosely as
it has been this year. I had felt uncomfortable when activists in my own LGBT
movement claimed ours was a “revolution.”
I thought it was too audacious and unrealistic to believe our activities
could turn things upside down, as it was said of the first Christians (see Acts
17:6).
Others
of us viewed our efforts more modestly and humbly as reformers. The system,
both church and government, provided opportunities for reform, and look what
the LGBT movement has accomplished in a generation!
Of
course, self-proclaimed “revolutionaries” get the lion’s share of press, but in
so many cases, the reformers deliberately sculpting our institutions accomplish
more in the long run. Self-proclaimed “messiahs” lead to disillusionment
because too many followers don’t have the patience to do the hard
work—including voting in midterm elections, campaigning for down-ballot
candidates and issues, paying attention to so-called “lowly” offices like
school boards and town councils, networking with other movements.
Even
revolutions require reformers, as we have witnessed in Nicaragua since that
election day in 1984. In my journal on the trip, I wrote:
Election Day
Sunday, Nov. 4
It’s like watching the birth of a child, the blossoming of a fruit tree, the first green after winter. It’s one of the most exciting experiences I’ve witnessed. Not just history. Not mere accomplishment. It is hope in action—not a fait accompli, not an ultimate answer, not the promised land—but a signpost along the way. And that’s just it—along the way. Nicaragua is moving—its people are moving. I am grateful to watch from along the way, instead of being in the way or far away.
Where people are on the way, God’s Spirit is at work.
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Copyright © 2016 and photos Copyright ©
1984 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution
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