Cori's Blog

Johannesburg Central Methodist Church

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:22:00 +0000

In June I blogged about Paul Verryn, bishop of the JHB Central Methodist church, where some 3000 Zimbabwean refugees have found shelter. At the time I was moved by the way he was responding to the refugee crises even though there was a lot of controversy around the way things were run at the church. Verryn admitted that there had been rapes and even a murder in his church, but said he'd rather have these things happening within the church with Christians responding than outside of our comfortable suburbs, where we close our eyes to it.

Over the last few weeks Verryn has been in the news as a government task team has investigated the situation at the church and has made the decision to close it down. Interestingly, in a Mail and Guardian article dated 13 March, a local government official was quoted as saying, in response to the situation, "Any church, any community hall is not meant to be inhabited by people". Really? A church is not to be inhabited by people?

I'm not sure what I think about the chaos of Verryn's church. Apparently there have been up to 120 unattended children staying there, including some babies. The place has been a complete mess and terrible things have happened. And yet he was one of the few people, religious and non-religious, who is actually responding to the refugee crises. In a statement in The Sowetan dated 6 November, Verryn said, "They may close this place down but we will not stop. They can blame me and justify it but I will not apologise ... It is about time the South African government recognises that people will keep coming into the country until the economic and political problems in Zimbabwe are recognised and dealt with."

Since the xenophobic violence in 2008, there has been very little talk or action in terms of responding to the refugee crises. Unless people like Verryn bring this issue into the spotlight, we may be heading for another possibly violent crises. I may not agree with the way Verryn has gone about things but I applaud the fact that he is standing up and doing something.

Some peace news

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:01:00 +0000

Things have been a little hectic, so no time for blogging, but just wanted to link to two things. The first is a post I wrote for 121's fundraising page over at Givengain. Here I wrote about how educating learners rather than putting up higher fences will bring about safer schools.

The second is a peace event I attended in Silverton on my 30th birthday on Friday. Steve Hayes has blogged about it here.

Questionnaire

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:08:00 +0000

1. What do you think caused your heterosexuality?

2. When and how did you first decide you were heterosexual?

3. Is it possible your heterosexuality is just a phase you might grow out of?

4. Is it possible that you heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of others of
the same sex?

5. Isn't it possible you just haven't found the right same-sex partner yet?

6. Do you think you might have turned to heterosexuality out of fear of rejection?

7. If heterosexuality is so normal, why are a disproportionate number of mental patients heterosexual?

8. Your heterosexuality doesn't offend me as long as you don't try to force it on me. Why do you people keep trying to seduce others into your sexual orientation?

9. The greatest number of child molesters are heterosexual. Do you really think it safe to expose your children to heterosexual teachers?

10. Why do you insist on making such a public spectacle of your heterosexuality? Can't you just be what you are and keep it quiet?

Based on the questionnaire developed by Dr Martin Rochlin (1977).

Celebrating peace

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:04:00 +0000

On the 6th of November I'm going to be attending a talk by Israeli students who are refusing to join the military after school. In Israel, that will mean two years in prison. The event in Pretoria is hosted by the End Conscription Campaign who were also active during Apartheid when we had forced military service in South Africa.

The thought that eighteen year old girls and boys (picture your own daughter and son) would have to pick up a weapon and engage in acts of violence against their will seems unthinkable in the twenty-first century. But beyond that, these Israeli students are protesting what they feel is an injustice enacted by their government. Read more about it in this article.

My study supervisor once pointed out the irony that in peace time you are jailed for murder but in times of war you can be jailed for refusing to kill. The 6th of November is my thirtieth birthday and it seemed an apt way to celebrate it in a small act of protest against conscription, against injustice, against violence and against war. Or perhaps I'd rather say that on the day of my thirtieth year on this planet I want to celebrate peace and the potential of the human race to become more humane.

My journey with the Church

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 06:10:00 +0000

Due to recent ecumenical experiences I’ve been thinking about my journey with the Church. My first eighteen years were spent in the Reformed church. It was a mission church set up by missionaries from the Reformed church in Holland and had loose links to the Reformed (Dopper) church in South Africa. I remember on odd occasions visiting the Afrikaans Dopper kerk, having to wear a dress and being in a frighteningly formal environment! I also remember exciting, although lengthy, encounters with the rural Zulu churches the Reformed missionaries had planted, which were filled with a lot of singing and very long sermons.

During these growing up years, we lived in a small village where there was a lot of ecumenical interaction and I was exposed to the Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians. The feeling I had of these groups (I’m not sure where I got this from) is that they were all very good people doing some great things but that they had a slightly loose relationship with Biblical truth! I remember in my teenage years the Charismatics coming to town to bring the revival all the other churches active in the area were, according to them, failing to bring. Although I’m sure these new kids on the block irritated every other church in the village, I remember finding Friday night events they organized quite fun, especially their singing which they rather excitingly termed ‘worship’.

On starting my student career, I joined the Baptist church, mostly because both my brother and his good looking friend who I had my eye on, attended that church (yes, that friend is now my husband, Kevin!). I had a very vague and disconnected experience of the church, which may explain why, after three years of attending it a man sitting next to me asked if I was visiting that day. But I remember really enjoying the church’s weekly student Bible study where we had a lot of deep and searching conversations. During that time I was also part of an interdenominational student group on campus, which probably played a greater role in my spiritual formation. I also visited Grace Fellowship, which remains one of my favourite churches in terms of its high levels of creativity and relevance. I didn’t agree with much of its teaching (especially around the position of women and finances) but found they responded to their context better than any other church I’ve experienced before or since. Grace Fellowship would probably be identified as a Charismatic church although I think they termed themselves non-denominational.

After this I spent some three years in the Pentecostal church, Assembly of God. This was a very positive church experience, mostly because of the teaching, which spoke directly to where I was at and the mentoring I received from the pastor there. I also appreciated the sensitivity there was to the Holy Spirit, and to the possibility of God working outside of the box. Of course there’s a lot of room for error with this kind of openness, but also room for a lot of blessing and growth.

From here I moved to Pretoria and joined the Baptist church, where I’ve experienced the highest sense of community in all my church experiences. Where my everyday life always seemed rather divorced from church, I currently find that my church community is the same community I interact with in my daily life. Although this has been a major plus, perhaps due to my diverse experiences I sometimes find myself looking for something a little more on the edge. This may have led me to become involved with a group that would probably describe themselves as post-denominational and emergent, which is wonderfully open to diversity, creativity and new possibilities but sometimes lacks the strong stability and structure that I find myself nevertheless seeking.

My most recent church experience has been with an ecumenical group of mostly Catholics and Anglicans, with some Methodists and Presbyterians. This is my first encounter with Catholicism and I even have had the opportunity to participate in the Catholic Mass on several occasions. I’ve appreciated the tremendous sense of the movement with the ages through the strong tradition of the Catholic Church. It gives a wonderful structure in its deep rituals, and a rich symbolism which allows one to engage God with not just the mind but also the senses.

All these many church experiences, from Charismatic to Catholic, from Reformed to Methodist, have left me with the conviction that all churches represent important aspects of the Body of Christ. I would like to position myself as ecumenical, or non-denominational, or post-denominational as that would probably most accurately describe the diversity of my experiences. I find it hard to identify with one denomination more than with another, as each seems richly gifted but each also has major pitfalls or weaknesses. At some level I have a desire to attach myself to a particular tradition and find my home there, but until now, I would rather see myself as at home in the Church but denominationally homeless. How about you?

Inspirational Christian bloggers

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 05:51:00 +0000

Here are some blogs I've been following:

The Jesuite Institute in South Africa has a blog which several of the Jesuits and Ignatians write for, primarily about current affairs in South Africa. I find their discussions relevant and insightful, giving a thinking Christians response to politics, crime, governance and the like.

On Journeying with those in Exile may be a similar type of blog in the US context. Dan is a follower of Jesus who deeply engages the issues in his world, challenging fellow Christians to respond more thoughtfully and with greater action in our contexts.

I've also really appreciated Steve Hayes blog although his posts are quite long! Writing from an Eastern Orthodox perspective, Steve's well-researched thoughts on South Africa, the Church and our times gives a lot of food for thought.

These blogs give me hope that there are a lot of people that follow Jesus passionately but think deeply about the world around them and engage the world actively and intentionally with a desire to make a difference. They inspire me and make me excited about being part of something really good.

International Peace Day

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Today is International Peace Day. Officially, on this day, there should be a global ceasefire and as a result thousands of lives are saved. For those of us living in countries free of war it may be difficult to understand the significance of this or feel the need to celebrate such a day. But for those of us who are used to waking up to the sound of gunfire and shelling, a day of peace amidst the chaos is a miracle.

Apart from silencing the guns of war for a day, Peace Day brings to our attention the need for peace in our homes, our schools and our communities. As long as there is poverty, as long as there is injustice, as long as there is enmity between people there is no peace.

Let's join with hundreds of thousands of people across the world to celebrate a day without war. But let's also commit on this day to contribute to peace, by bringing about reconciliation in our personal relationships, reaching out to people we wouldn't normally reach out to, adding goodness and love to the lives of others, and taking action against the little injustices we see on a daily basis.

As Alice Walker writes, "You must live in the world today as you wish everyone to live in the world to come. That can be your contribution."

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:31:00 +0000

Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.

~Les Brown

Our marriage story

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 04:59:00 +0000

A number of people have asked how Kevin and I, an atheist and a Christian, ended up getting married, so I thought I’d share the story here on my blog.

We met during my first year at university in 1998, when we were both part of the Student Christian Organization (SCO) on our campus. During one SCO meeting we were encouraged to find a prayer or accountability partner in the group and I happened to be sitting near to Kevin, a friend of my brother, and so we chose each other. I remember one of the first things Kevin said to me was that he often felt his prayers hit the ceiling. I was immediately drawn by this as it seemed that amongst a lot of Christians who were pretending to have it all together, here was someone who had the courage to be authentic.

I had been brought up with a strong leaning towards critical thinking and questioning everything from within a Christian context. Kevin had been brought up not to ask too many questions and just to believe and obey on blind faith. I think my constant questioning surprised and unnerved him somewhat, whereas his rather simple belief seemed to me frustrating and out of sync with the rest of him. Kevin has always had a highly creative, philosophical way of thinking which he applied to every area of his life and led to fascinating conversations between us. But he didn’t apply it to his faith, and it seemed that his Christian beliefs weren’t being integrated into who he was or was becoming.

When Kevin started to lose his faith some four years later, it was very threatening and frightening for me. It was at a time when my own faith was going through a slightly fundamentalist, gung-ho sort of phase. We would have heated, fiery debates that went beyond the validity of the arguments to the far deeper issues of identity. While we were discussing evolution versus creationism, the existence of God, morality outside of religion and so on, what we were really trying to thrash out was who we were apart from each other and in relationship to one another.

It took us about another three years to come to a peace with one another. When we got married at the end of 2004, Kevin was a declared atheist. But by then we had both mellowed and developed a deep respect and admiration for the people we had become, rather than for the arguments we each held. It seems to me in retrospect that Kevin’s particular package of Christianity was stunting his personal growth. I love the person he has grown to become as he has grappled with the more meaty things in life. I love the person I’ve become as I’ve had to grapple with a perspective so different from my own, and all the doubts, questions, identity issues and fears that has brought up for me. I hope that Kevin will meet God again, free from all the baggage of his previous understanding of Christianity. But that’s between him and God. For now, I’m just grateful for the way we’ve grown, for the people we’ve become and for the richness and diversity that our relationship holds.

Teenage resistance

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:20:00 +0000

I work for an NGO that runs a program during detention sessions at high schools. During one of the recent sessions I ran, students were on detention for what they called, in Afrikaans, ‘massa bunk’. This is where a whole class will choose to stay away from class for a period. When I heard this my initial reaction (which I had to hide from the students!) was one of delight.

When I was at school, I remember trying to encourage my peers to join me in a mass-action bunk but their response was horror that I would think to defy the system and those in authority. I grew up in Apartheid South Africa where blind obedience to authority was the norm (this may be some of the context for Kevin’s recent blog post). It appalled me that so many people so easily bought into the system without questioning it and that my teachers at school had such absolute power. So the recent action on the part of these students seemed creative and courageous to me.

But on further thought I wonder if blind obedience to authority hasn’t been replaced by blind obedience to one’s peers. As we enter our postmodern period, there is an increasing mistrust of the system and of those in authority. This is clearly evident in the behavior of young people in the context of the school system. But it seems to me young people may have filled the gap of authority figures and rules with the authority of their peers and group-think.

I’m not one of those people that see any shift in society as negative. I know a lot of people bemoan the fact that young people don’t respect authority as in the good old days. I’m rather cynical of those days, as it went hand in hand with obeying unjust systems unquestioningly. The question, though, is how to handle this shift in who young people follow. I wouldn’t like to force young people today into strict authoritarian structures but it probably isn’t helpful for them to thoughtlessly follow their peers either. Mass-action bunk has something wonderfully passive-resistant about it (in the way of nonviolent resistance as practiced by Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jnr.) but somehow students need to learn how to use this tool constructively and in a way that benefits themselves and the world around them rather than merely kicking against the system for the sake of kicking. Any ideas how?

Freedom Park

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:32:00 +0000

I had planned to meet a couple of friends at Freedom Park. Due to some misunderstandings the staff assumed these two friends to be at a particular place in the Park and promptly whisked me away in one of their little carts so that I could join two perfect strangers on an unplanned tour. It was great! I am so glad for the misunderstanding and the chance to see Freedom Park, although it was a bit unpleasant for the two people I had intended to see who then had to wait for me to finish the tour!

Freedom Park is a new development on the southern outskirts of Pretoria that commemorates all South Africans through the history of our country who gave their lives for our freedom. I learnt things I was never taught in school history classes. They name seven major conflicts that shaped South Africa, namely, Pre-Colonial Wars, Slavery, Genocide, Wars of Resistance, the South African War, the First World War, the Second World War and the Struggle for Liberation. Genocide here, I found out, refers to the massacre of the Khoi San (commonly known as Bushmen) people.

The museums are far from complete and most of the tour centred around what is going to be on display by June, 2010. But even the tour of what the tour will be like in the future was worth my twenty rand and I highly recommend it to anyone living in the area.

Overdetermined

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:43:00 +0000

I've just returned from an eight-day silent retreat in Durban. What an experience! I probably won't blog too much about it, but wanted to mention a lovely book I picked up towards the end of the retreat. It's M. Scott Peck's Searching for Stones. As he writes in the opening pages, it's a kind of autobiography in that it's about a three week trip he and his wife take in Great Britain. As the trip unfolds he explores some of his ideas about philosophy, psychology, spirituality and life.

One of the central themes that runs through the book is the idea that everything is overdetermined. In other words, for everything that happens there are many causes or many reasons. When we just give one reason for something happening, we over-simplify which in many cases can be stunting or even dangerous.

For example, if we say the reason there is an upsurge in crime in South Africa is because young black youth are aggressive we're missing the complexity of the situation. There may well be a high level of aggression within certain demographic groups in South Africa, but it more likely that there is an overdetermination of causes, from unemployment, to a break down in family structures, to a natural movement in the beginning phases of a democracy, to a breakdown in traditional values, to an unjust social system, etc etc.

Throughout the book he describes the many possible reasons why certain things may or may not have happened. He often draws on logic, history, current affairs, evidence, experiential knowledge and a range of others things, to bring a depth to any phenomena. The one of greatest interest to him and his wife is why prehistoric people in Great Britain built these magnificent megalithic structures (such as Stonehenge), hence the name of the book, Searching for Stones. But he is also interested in questions such as why he and his wife have stayed together all these years when he was unfaithful to her, and why certain of his clients (in his work as therapist) reacted in certain ways to various treatments.

I found this an excellent read and highly recommend it!

Everyone's a believer

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:22:00 +0000

Kevin and I have attended a group called TGIF a number of times. This is a group of philisophically minded people who meet at various venues in Joburg and Pretoria to listen to a short presentation on a variety of thought-provoking topics and discuss these, largely from a Christian perspective. The organiser of these events, Thorsten, normally precedes the weekly TGIF email-update with something similarly thought-provoking and I appreciated what he wrote this week:

The term "unbeliever" is sometimes not particularly helpful and potentially misleading. It wrongly suggests that some people don't hold beliefs, while others choose some or other belief as an optional "add-on" to the facts of existence. In this paradigm, it is unsurprising that people would dismiss "belief" or "faith" as superfluous. More truthfully, however, we should recognise that all people have beliefs, though not all beliefs are necessarily "religious".

Just about everyone holds some beliefs about how we can know reality (reason, intuition, tradition, revelation, ...), what type of universe we live in (fluke, illusion, creation, ...), our identity (product of evolution, fertiliser, one with the universe, I am because we are, made in God's image, ...), our core problem (ignorance, desire, religion, evil spirits, rebellion, ...), the solution (enlightenment, science, appeasement, voluntary extinction, atonement, grace, ...), and so on.

We all have basic presuppositions regarding these key questions of life, and to do so is to hold beliefs. Even the sceptic lives life making some assumptions about the reality in which she lives and about how knowledge does and does not work. People never move from unbelief to belief or vice-versa, but rather from one set of beliefs to another. Everyone's a believer.

Happy birthday!

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:03:00 +0000

I’m using the public space of my blog to wish my good friend a very happy birthday! We wish both Jacomien and her twin sister, Salomè, a great day and even better year ahead.

Jacomien, we've thoroughly enjoyed your sense of humour, your deep and insightful ways of looking at the world and your endless, rather bizarre stories of association so many of the places we visit together seem to inspire. Thanks for the past few years of friendship and here's to many more!

Hostile Christian Bloggers

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 07:42:00 +0000

I've been rather disturbed these past few months with the hostility expressed by Christians towards others on their own blogs as well as in the comments they leave on others' blogs. Kevin often says I shouldn't take it too seriously as those bloggers may well just be kids or lonely, isolated individuals without any friends, for all we know! Steve Hayes makes the point on the Emerging Africa site that these kinds of people don't represent anyone except themselves.

In this post, Steve refers specifically to the blog Discerning the World, where the writers say rather malicious and unfair things about the Amahoro conference. Kevin has often been on the receiving end of hostile and cruel comments by Christians on his blog, and has recently been singled out in a rather hurtful post by the writer of the blog Beautiful Redemption, which Kevin writes about here. I also wrote a response to Heather, which I'll paste here verbatim:

Dear Heather and all the other people who have commented here. I appreciate the way everyone has engaged so passionately on this blog. The danger with blogging is that we don't see each other face-to-face and as a result we sometimes speak in a way that we wouldn't were we to be, say, sitting together over coffee. The post referred to here about the Potter and the Clay were written by my husband out of a long and difficult journey that we and others shared over some ten or more years. It has been a very precious and heartfelt journey and I respect Kevin so much for his integrity on this journey even though he hasn't reached the same decision I have (which is to follow Christ). I have also admired the way Kevin has always spoken with such gentleness and respect to Christians and people that believe differently from himself on his blog. Unfortunately others have not been as gracious towards him. I encourage us as Christians to be more gracious, more loving, more kind, more good, and more gentle in our blogging. Sometimes we get so caught up in the truth that we forget to speak it in love. Blessings and love to you all.

I should probably just let all this go. Discussing these things on our blogs gives these bloggers and their blogs only more attention and perhaps fuels what should really just be encouraged to die down. Yet I also feel that there needs to be a certain level of accountability in this kind of shared public space. I would certainly intervene if Christians were to call out hostile things to Kevin or other unbelieving friends of mine on the street, and similarly feel I need to intervene when this happens on the web. What do you think? What should our response to this kind of behaviour by Christians on-line be? Beyond my frustration with such behaviour I would really like to practice what I preach and live out love even, or most especially, in these situations.

Christian Spirituality

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:01:00 +0000

‘Spirituality’ has become quite a trendy phrase in our postmodern society and is bandied about in a wide variety of contexts. Christian spirituality, too, is gaining interest, but what exactly is it? I’m currently involved with a two-year training course with the Centre of Ignatian Spirituality to become a spiritual guide. In an assignment for the course which asked that questions, what is Christian spirituality, I wrote, “Christian spirituality is a God-initiated process involving all that which will lead us towards a deepening intimacy with God and a growing fruitfulness of service in God’s world”.

The word ‘all’ in the definition is quite significant. I’m currently reading a book that resonated deeply with where I’m at right now, called The Discerning Heart. Here, Wilkie and Noreen Au suggest that hearing God involves becoming aware of our inner world of feelings, desires, thoughts, bodily sensations, dreams, aspirations and fears. It also involves a sensitive awareness to our external world, the things of the every day. They argue that God speaks to us in all things.

They suggest that “many of us have been conditioned to mistrust our personal experience and intuitions” and instead look for ‘the truth’, ‘right answers’ and God’s will in outside authority. Although they don’t dismiss external authority by any means, they encourage those seeking deeper intimacy with God to be open to the experiences of our inner worlds. They write: “The prejudice against the inner workings of the Spirit lead easily to an unhealthy betrayal of the self, the intimate dwelling place of God” (2008, 5).

There is a lot to say on the topic of Christian spirituality but perhaps this is a good introduction to my thoughts on it and what draws me to exploring Christian spirituality for myself. There is a deep emphasis on being open to parts of myself I so long mistrusted and denied. But I realize now that the very thing I was denying was that which God had so wonderfully created. I read on a bumper sticker recently something that perhaps captures this: Our Story – His glory. As long as I am in denial of all that I have been created to be, I am in denial of the One who created. Christian spirituality opens a way to sensitively and gently begin to explore the precious stories each of us hold within us that speak out the good news to the world around us.

Questioning the Nuclear Family

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 06:45:00 +0000

In Christian circles there has been a lot of talk around protecting the nuclear family. Perhaps it is less today than it was ten years ago, but nevertheless there is the assumption that the family unit of mom, dad and kids living in their independent house in the suburbs is an ideal that needs to be protected. Yet I question whether the nuclear family is a Biblical concept at all and I further question whether living in nuclear family units is necessarily the best social set up for us.

Interestingly, a very cursory internet research on the nuclear family shows that the idea of the nuclear family is argued to be necessary for the survival of the human species, to support certain political and economic systems, such as democracy and capitalism, societal ideals such as the American dream, the industrial revolution, the British aristocracy, and the maintenance of ideological roles of men, women and children. None of these are particularly Biblical.

According to Wikipedia, the idea of the nuclear family became prominent in Western Europe with the arrival of early capitalism because it was a financially viable social unit. Further, “after the Second World War the United States experienced a renewed interest in 'the home' and building family units. The family unit became a symbol of security and a return to traditional gender roles”. The popularity of the nuclear family came about, in part, through business practices of people such as Henry Ford and the policies of Franklin Roosevelt.

But outside of the West, and prior to the 20^th century, the vast majority of the world’s population have lived in a variety of set ups other than the nuclear family. Interestingly, the West is also moving away from the concept of nuclear families towards such things as blended families, binuclear families (separated spouses marrying new spouses with children), and single-parent families. “Today nuclear families with the original biological parents constitute roughly 24.1% of households” (Wikipedia).

While some may see this shift in the West as a negative thing I experience it very positively. The short period (some 100 years) that a small sector of the world’s population (Western Europe and the US) lived in nuclear family units, which originally originated due to political, ideological and economic influences, has had its pros and cons. However, to hold onto it as some sort of Biblical or Christian ideal seems it may be misguided. Its origins are not Biblical nor are its ideals.

Love, in spite of?

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 07:07:00 +0000

“God loves you in spite of who you are”. At a book discussion about The Feminine Soul we were talking about shaming messages well-intentioned people have spoken into our lives. Barbara Hillaker then mentioned the destructiveness of being told God loves her in spite of who she was. If my husband said that he loved me in spite of who I am I would feel offended and demeaned. Surely he loves me because of who I am. Surely he treasures and holds all that I am and affirms and loves that.

And God created me. God created me as I am. How could God then look at God’s own creation and say, in spite of what I made, I love this? Surely God would say, what I have made is good! Surely God would say, I have created this being wonderfully and carefully in their mother’s womb. Surely God would say because I have created something good, because of all that this created being is, I love them with an everlasting love.

We hear these messages over and over, internalize them and pass them on to others without stopping to think about what we are saying. What we are saying about God. When Jesus interacted with people one never had the sense that he was rather disappointed with who they were, a bit put off by their rottenness, disassociating himself from their true selves, but somehow loving them all the same. On the contrary, he seemed to deeply affirm them for who they were and draw them out to be more of who they were created to be.

I hope and pray that I will have the courage and boldness to live out the truth of the gospel, the good news of Jesus, that he has come to set us free from such shaming, demeaning messages that blind, cripple and imprison us, preventing us from being all he created us to be. God loves you because of all you are, all God created you to be.

Soft lavatory paper

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:18:00 +0000

In the Terry Pratchet movie The Color of Magic, Cohen the Barbarian is asked, after all his adventures and travels, what he would say the most treasured things in life are. He replies, "Hot water, good dentristy and soft lavatory paper". I really resonated with that on my return from Rwanda and Burundi!

Although the cold showers were bearable in the humid weather, I was shocked by stories from people in the rural parts of Burundi that rotten teeth are removed with the use of a hammer and nail and with regards to the lavatory paper, well, no complaints there but I've learnt a lot about handling a torch, a roll of toilet paper and a long drop in the dark of night!

It was truly an amazing trip which triggered a lot of half-formed ideas and latent dreams about things I might want to start doing with my life in terms of East and southern Africa, research and peace education. I'm sure all this will unfold in due course.

On the theme of travel, Arthur is covering a series of travel tips, the first is be quiet ("no need to broadcast to everyone where you flew from, that this is your first time to Africa, or what you ate for lunch"), the second is around packing light and yesterdays addition was exercise. Perhaps my tip would be to make friends. I've found that the friends I've made at airports or while on public transport have often come in handy later on in the journey, especially when traveling in East Africa! What are your travel tips?

Borra Borra

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:15:00 +0000

Crazily enough, Sarah and I are sitting at a luxury beach resort with the exotic name of Borra Borra with American and a British Youth for Christ volunteers, alongside the beautiful Lake Tanganyika. And there's wireless internet! Bujumbura has its perks :-).

In the news!

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:32:00 +0000

An article about our event at Humura Centre (a day care centre for physially and mentally disabled children) can be found in Rwanda's most circulated English newspaper The New Times here. It includes a photo of me alongside Miss Kigali!

Reconciliation Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:21:00 +0000

Here I am in a fancy new internet cafe in Kigali, called Blue Cafe, right next to the central mall. Since I was here a year ago, new developments are evident all around the city. This particular cafe is a wireless hot spot, so Kigali is keeping up with technological advancements!

This past weekend has been chaotic but also very fruitful. Sarah and I arrived Thursday at 4am and left our hosts home at 11am for the days events. We attended a celebration at a Psychiatric Day Care centre, where Shalom has been training staff in nonviolent communication. Mentally and physically disabled children sang and danced for us, the staff put on a play illustrating what they had learned and we had a tour of the surprisingly well-equipped centre. Miss Kigali was also present, along with journalists from well known radio stations and newspaprs, so it was quite an event!

From here we went on to a secondary school where I ran a training session on nonviolent discipline. Teachers told me the average class had fifty students (and we complain in South Africa when here are forty in a class!). They seemed a motivated, committed group of teachers and we talked through some of the challenges with regards to the practical implications of alternatives to authoratative discipline models.

On Friday we spend the day in Rwamagana where we held a mini conference with forty leaders of the Rwamagana district (this is a rural area about an hour from Kigali). I spoke about storytelling and reconciliation which I think was less relevant to them than the other pertinent topics of forgiveness where some passionate debate took place around how we actually forgive and what the implications are.

On Saturday we went back to Rwamagana for Shalom's major PREST (Peace and Reconciliation through Song and Theatre) event. A choir that my colleague, Basabose, has been training in reconciliation performed an entire self-produced program on reconciliation, with songs and plays all related to the process of reconciliation in Rwanda. It was really quite remarkable and I could well imagine this sixty-strong choir touring the world with their heart rendering stories from genocide related experiences, followed by songs they themselves have written about unity and forgiveness. The choir is made up of people that would have been on opposite sides of the conflict which adds to their powerfl testimony. We also showed some movie clips on reconciliation which pulled in a crowd of some thousand people!

We spent the night at a guesthouse in Rwamagana, and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast on Sunday morning, followed by a church service at a Pentecostal church, where Basabose preached on our need to be bringers of peace, bringing a gospel of reconciliation. What moved me during the service was that when the collection was taken many of these villagers brought the best of their produce (peanuts, cow grass, vegetables, sugarcane) rather than money. Rather suprisingly, these items were then auctioned off to the highest bidder at the end of the service!

On Sunday afternoon we held the Shalom Board meeting and by the end of the evening we were all tired through and through! This morning I slept in though, and enjoyed breakfast on the verandah of my hosts house, in the lovely Kigali climate with birds all around. It is truly beautiful and I am so happy to be here. Perhaps at a later stage I may have time for more than a mere run down of my activities!

Travels

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:21:00 +0000

On Wednesday I'll be off to Rwanda and Burundi again for a little under three weeks. This is an annual trip that I've taken for the past three years. What I'm particularly looking forward to is the warmer weather after an increasingly cold Pretoria winter.

My travel companian, Sarah, and I will arrive in Kigali at 5:30am on Thursday and in the afternoon I'll be running a two-hour training session for teachers at a secondary school on nonviolent discipline in schools. Even though it feels a bit hectic to be doing something like that after our badly timed flight, I'm looking forward to seeing how some of the principles I've been applying in the South African context pan out in the Rwandan context.

On Friday, I'll be attending a conference on reconciliation hosted by Shalom, Educating for Peace, where I'll give a talk on Storytelling as a means of healing and reconciliation. Again, this is a good opportunity to see how ideas I've been working on in my PhD thesis will pan out with a live audience. I'll focus on reconciliation in the South Africa context, though, leaving some room for application into other contexts.

The rest of the time in Kigali should be somewhat more low key and we'll travel through to Burundi the following Thursday. In Burundi we'll be spending time with Youth for Christ, where we'll probably get to spend a significant amount of time at their orphanage.

I hope to have internet access to be able to update this blog with my travels. But if not, I'll be sure to fill everyone in when I get back!

The Sinner or The Dancer

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:35:00 +0000

One day there was girl who loved to dance. But she knew that dancing was a terrible sin. Some nights, while lying in bed she could not sleep for the twitching of her body, and furtively she would crawl out of bed and dance in the silence of her room. Afterwards, she would feel wracked with guilt and shame and the next morning she would come before God on her knees, pleading that she might be forgiven.

Sometimes she would walk past night clubs, those dens of the devil, and hear the thump, thump of the music and her feet would involuntarily start moving to the beat. Her body ached to dance. But again and again the voice from the pulpit had made it undeniably clear that dancing was a sin. How she struggled with this sin! How she would repent of this sin and beg that God would release her from it. How she longed for this thorn in her flesh to be removed. It was an endless, exhausting cycle of sin, repentance, turning over a new leaf and then falling into sin once more.

But then things started to change. Some new people joined her congregation and said that dancing was okay. She started discovering that there were others in her church that liked to dance. In fact, she caught more and more people dancing in public! One day one of the upstanding members of her church invited the whole church to his wedding. To her surprise, at the reception there was a dance floor, and couple after couple of her God-fearing community were moving onto the floor and dancing to the music! Very nervously and shyly she made her way to the floor. Her stomach was in knots with fear and desire. In a dark corner, she started to tap her feet and bob her body. The relief was unimaginable. Before she knew it, she was taken away by the music and lost herself in the rhythm all around her. As she danced the night away, a deep joy filled her being and for a moment she thought she sensed God dancing with her.

Are there sins we hold before God in guilt and shame, that we struggle with endlessly, that trip us up in exhausting cycles of repentance and forgiveness that one day we may find are not sins at all? I’m starting to feel like I’d like to dance a little more…

Amahoro Gathering Overview

noreply@blogger.com (Cori) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:27:00 +0000

There is so much I could or want to say about the Amahoro Gathering that I don't know where to start! But being quite a blogging sort of crowd a large number of other people have blogged about it and covered various things I might otherwise have written about.

Some of the highlights for me were encountering Adrian Vlok, previous minister of Law and Order during the Apartheid regime, hearing from Paul Verryn, the Methodist pastor who has opened his church doors and now has some 3000 homeless people sleeping in his building every night and being challenged by Rene August to speak out as a woman, emotionally and vulnerably, as my contribution to reforming my community.

But perhaps more than any of the stirring talks, I appreciated all the spontaneous conversations I had with Kenyans, Burundians, Ugandans, Rwandans, Zimbabweans, Australians, Americans and South Africans I would normally not speak to. These conversations, normally over meals, were more transformational than any planned event at Amahoro. Melanie Lorenz has blogged about the 'ministry of presence' which describes best what I hold onto the most from this Gathering. I'm sure to write more about all of this over time but in the meantime, here are just some of the links to Amahoro related blog posts for the interested:

Steve Hayes at Emerging Africa has blogged about an Amahoro synchroblog here.
Melanie Lorenz, an apprentice at Nieu Communities, Pangani has blogged about the Ministry of Presence and about the legacy the West left Africa. Here she mentions Brian MacLaren's reference to the 'haves' and have-nots', something that stayed deeply with me as well.
Joe Reed from the same community blogged about his impressions of the Gathering here.
Tom Smith blogged about being white and African.
Cobus van Wyngaard blogged about Adrian Vlok (in Afrikaans) and about his personal transformation due to Amahoro here.
Mark Riessen from Australia blogged about the Amahoro Context.

It will be clear from all these people that Amahoro has left a deep imprint in all our lives. Although nothing tangible came out of it in terms of something achieved or some sort of action plan, lives were changed, and out of that transformation I trust will come transformations in our respective communities.