Cori's Blog

Black Tuesday: Secrecy Bill

2011-11-22T11:55:00.000+02:00

Today, along with many other South Africans, I'm wearing black. The National Press Club has dubbed today 'black Tuesday' because it is the day that the Protection of Information Bill will be passed in parliament. The Right2Know campaign is holding protests across the country and Radio 702 has been holding a vote on its show where the vast majority of South Africans who have called in have voted 'no' to the bill.

In Friday's 'Mail and Gaurdian' large portions of the article about Mac Maharaj's possible involvement in the controversial arms deal were blacked out, indicating the effect the Information Bill will have on the Media in terms of reporting anything related to government corruption. Some have argued that the primary purpose of this Bill is to prevent more information about the arms deal, in which many high level leaders are implicated, from coming out. Even were this not to be the case, coming from a history of banning and censorship during Apartheid, many see this as a major step back for South Africa.

Wearing black today will not change the fact that the Information Bill is passed or the content of the Bill, but as Sarah Britten writes in Thought Leader, visibility matters. As people change their avatars, blog and tweet and wear visibly black clothing, a movement is started that slowly gain momentum and impacts society. We can't always predict what the impact or outcome will be, but the movement has started, and as Britten argues, "Once its out their, nobody can pretend otherwise".

South Africans are making themselves heard: We don't approve of the Information Bill, we want press freedom, we will protest. Protest in this country has brought down a government and a powerful and evil system. Watch this space to see what Black Tuesday may lead to yet.

Identity and openness

2011-10-25T09:06:00.000+02:00

People who do not have an identity, who have not put down roots and do not have a clear set of values, cannot be really open to others. They cannot give because they do not really know who they are, what they want and what they are capable of. Those, on the other hand, who have a strong identity, but who are closed in on themselves and on their own particular circle, behind solid walls, are convinced that they are right. They judge and condemn people who do not see things their way. Either they are in danger or suffocation, or they tend to create conflict.

Those who have an identity and who are open to people different from themselves will gradually become people of compassion, peace and reconciliation. Through humble and simple acts, through listening and kindness, they will bring peace and unity. By directing their abilities towards communion, they will help others to live their humanity more fully and to be united in love and in a common purpose.

Openness also implies trying to understand those who are different, and those who use their authority to oppress people, in order to find ways of entering into dialogue with them. Openness impels us to make space for them in our hearts.

-Jean Vanier, Our Journey Home, p 146

God is wide

2011-09-29T10:01:00.000+02:00

A few days ago, a street vendor was trying to sell me something at a robot and spotted the tattoo on my arm. He first complimented it and then asked what it meant. I started saying it was from Ghana, and he immediately broke in, "God is wide!" making an expansive gesture with his hands. I've heard the meaning of my tattoo described in various ways, such as 'God is soveriegn' or 'God is in all things' but I think 'God is wide' is my favourite. And the fact that a street vendor recognised it pleased me a lot!

I've been learning the past few years that God is wider than anything we can possibly conceptualise and because of this can embrace a diversity of people, situations, contexts and events with a love and acceptance we can barely imagine.

Every time I glimpse my tattoo I am reminded of God's expansiveness (how high and wide and deep and broad is God's love, says Paul!) and I feel myself expanding to embrace more of myself, others and the world around me.

Therapy: The Wounded Self

2011-08-25T15:11:00.000+02:00

Since I started seeing a psychodynamic therapist two years ago, a number of people have asked me what therapy is all about. I'm going to write a few posts over the next couple of months that will explore some of my answers to this question, although I’m sure therapists themselves might have countless more ways of describing their work. So these posts will describe some aspects of the therapy process that seem particularly pertinent to me but won’t pretend to be an exhaustive description of therapy, which can take so many forms and be approached in such a variety of ways.

A therapist seems to me to be someone particularly adept at engaging my wounded self. We all have selves that have been wounded by the rough and tumble of life. Much of this wounding apparently happens during those formative early years of our lives before we are able to really understand or articulate our experiences. As we grow older, we develop ways of protecting this wounded and vulnerable self. This is often referred to as developing defense mechanisms. These defenses have helped us get through certain periods of our lives, but later become inappropriate and stunting as we need to grow and develop.

These defenses can become quite strong and bury parts of ourselves deep within us, so that they are rarely accessed by others or even ourselves. Sometimes we encounter these parts of ourselves in dreams, or in the moment of intense emotion or trauma, or in the freedom of creativity. But mostly they are hidden – both the gifts these parts of ourselves might offer and the raw pain they try to keep us from having to feel. A therapist, I believe, knows how to draw out this wounded self gently and in a safe environment. If these hidden parts of self are revealed to us too quickly, the pain and internal dissonance can be psychologically dangerous (as Archibald Hart writes about in Me, myself and I). There is a reason we have developed defenses to protect ourselves from this, after all. But a therapist knows at what speed to draw out this wounded self and how to engage it without the rest of us being overwhelmed.

The therapist begins carefully to engage the wounded self. But more importantly, the therapist helps us engage our own wounded self and as we speak to the hidden parts of our psyche, healing begins to take place. It is a painful process to have those defense mechanisms peeled away. We may become resistant to the process and withdraw in fear. But if we persevere in faith and trust, behind those tough outer layers lie some treasures waiting to be discovered.

I think this is a little bit what C.S.Lewis was writing about in Voyage of the Dawn Treader (in the Chronicles of Narnia) when Aslan tears Eustace's dragon skin off. The relevant excerpt can be found here. In this case, Aslan as a metaphor for Christ, is the one who peals away the defensive layers so that we can experience the joy of 'being a boy again'. Perhaps the defences are sometimes so great that we need the help of a therapist. But at the most fundamental level, I guess I believe the process to be a spiritual one and that the integration of our wounded selves might be what it means to be born again.

Brutal violence

2011-08-18T14:34:00.000+02:00

This weekend I went with a friend to visit her relatives. While there, an elderly family friend came to visit who told the most horrific story about how her 67-year-old sister was brutally attacked in her home only a few days ago. She was beaten, raped and stabbed several times, and only by some miracle had survived the ordeal and was receiving emergency surgery as we spoke. This family friend broke into small, controlled sobs while telling the story and then quickly composed herself again.

It was a heavy story to receive. We sat in shock as it unraveled before us and we were left not knowing what to say in response. I've often read and heard stories of violent crime, but this incident was particularly recent, close and brutal. We struggled to make sense of the cruelty of the crime. It seemed possible that it was committed by a beggar that this woman had been giving food to.

In the US, this kind of crime would probably be seen as the work of a psychopath and be dealt with within that framework. In South Africa, these crimes are normally set within a political framework, assumed to be racially motivated and to draw from deep seated anger and resentment still simmering within people as they recover from Apartheid. Or perhaps the theories about poverty, unemployment and frustration are brought into the mix.

Any of this might be true. But it doesn't explain the cold brutality and cruelty of the crime. The senselessness of it. Pure maliciousness and hate seem to be at its root. As I sat with it, tried to make sense of it, had it play over and over in my mind, a small tendril of fear started to grow in me. The fear is not so much about being the victim of such a crime as it is about what it says about the human race and our ability to lose touch completely with our humanity.

The family friend said several times, with a heavy heart, how it shakes one's faith. She was speaking about her faith in God and God's protection. It shakes my faith in humanity. It shakes my faith in the ability of people to rehabilitate, be restored, be healed, be whole. It shakes my faith in the possibility of reconciliation in our fragile society.

And yet, in that painful conversation, there was already the narrative of forgiveness and healing. I think it was probably much too soon. I think there would need to be a lot of anger and hatred; a sitting with the feelings of betrayal, fear and doubt. I think there would need to be a being with the sick reality of the cruelty and brutality of what happened. But growing out of that, is a little seed of restoration. The family friend spoke of being with her sister once she's out of hospital and recovering, sleeping next to her in her bed, holding her while she sleeps. My faith is a little shaken but perhaps hope will, in its determined and persistent way, show its face amidst the horror.

Argentina and the quest for identity

2011-07-27T08:29:00.000+02:00

I was in Buenos Aires last week attending a conference on genocide. One of the topics that was discussed at some length was the 30 000 people who 'dissapeared' there during the dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s. Some political activists who were kidnapped had their babies taken from them and they were then adopted by military families. We heard the stories of women who had lived their entire lives believing themselves to be the children of particular military people, only to discover in their thirties that their entire identity has been a lie.

One young women in her thirties described the struggle to regain her own identity. She was married with children at the time of her discovery. Suddenly, she was not the daughter of a general who was standing trial (and who she was defending at all cost) but the daughter of the political activists who that same general had killed. Not only did her name, her family and her genetic knowledge change overnight, she had to suddenly begin perceiving herself, her past, her present and the world around her from a completely different frame of reference.

Since being back from Argentina I've been sick in bed with a cold and decided to use my recovery time by watching all three of The Bourne movies ('The Bourne Identity', 'The Bourne Supermacy' and 'The Bourne Ultimatum'). These movies reflect a similar quest for regaining a lost identity and the pain involved in facing terrible things that have been done to you and terrible things you may have chosen to do because of the context you found yourself in.

Identity is difficult to grapple with in ordinary circumstances. But in the case of the hundreds of Argentinians who need to face the truth of who they are it is unimgainably traumatic. As I heard the stories of the women coming to terms with who they are, I was reminded of the crucial role that truth plays in any healing process. We need to know what has happened to us and who we are in order to become whole. Facing that truth can be the most difficult thing some of us may ever have to do. But knowing about our own pasts and being able to place the multi-faceted truths of our lives in context remains necessary for healthy self integration.

World Refugee Day: Hope

2011-06-20T15:49:00.000+02:00

Today is the United Nations World Refugee Day. The theme chosen this year is 'hope'. With over ten million people seeking asylum in other countries, and some 26 million displaced in their own countries, this seems a pertinent theme.

As I take a moment to think about what it means to be a refugee, I think of the times I've been away from home for long periods of time. I remember the three months I spent in Paraguay in 2001. Although my times there was exciting and stimulating, there were also times of great frustration. I was constantly misunderstood; the little bit of Spanish I learnt was never enough. Learning how simple things, like the public transport system and shopping, worked took large amounts of energy and time. People would sometimes get frustrated with me and treat me like a child. Towards the end of my time there, I was desperate to come home. I longed to be in my own environment, where I'm know and understood and where my environment is safe and familiar.

Magnify my frustrations and my longing by tenfold to begin to imagine the experience of someone who is in another country not by choice, not because they want an interesting adventure, but because it is the only way to survive. Magnify this again when considering someone who has not been able to pack a suitcase with appropriate clothes, toiletries and favourite belonging or stash up on travellers cheques and the relevant currency but who has come empty handed, at the mercy of strangers.

During the first few months, all one is focused on is the hard work of survival. But as the months go by, the longing for home increases. The longing turns into a desperate ache as you keep reading news reports and looking for clues about when it will be safe to return. And perhaps enough months, even years, pass to make going home less and less likely as you make a new life for yourself elsewhere. And however good this new life may be, it will never make up for the fact that you were once uprooted against your will.

Hope, for the refugee, is perhaps the only lifeline. Hope of survival. Hope of return. Hope of the continuation of life in new circumstances. Hope that strangers will be merciful. Hope that somehow, in all that has happened, meaning can be found. Hope that maybe one day there will be the possibility of feeling like a fully contributing human being again.

May we be merciful to the refugee so that they who have been forcefully removed from their own homes may have their hope increased.

My first vote

2011-05-18T14:51:00.000+02:00

Today I cast my vote. I participated in the municipal elections as a South African citizen. That's a first for me! I became a citizen at the end of 2008 and received my ID book a few days too late to register to vote in the 2009 national elections, so this was my first opportunity to participate in our democracy in this way.

Curtis wrote a challenging post which I'd like to quote from on this, my first voting day:

You are not politically engaged and involved simply if you vote once every couple of years. You are politically engaged if you are a part of building a community, country (and indeed a world) where human (and animal and plant) life can flourish. Your voting should only be a moment in the lifelong journey towards building the ’Beloved Community’, a place of equity, faith, hope and love.

So even though this is a momentous occassion in my life, and my heart beat a little faster as I stood in that little voting booth and made my mark, I hope that prior to this day and after this day, I have been and will continue to be politically engaged and continue to build the 'beloved community' Curtis speaks of.

To the left is a photo of me eating celebratory icecream at Lollipop Roadhouse with friends after having cast my vote. In the background you can see what a beautiful Autumn day it is and perhaps its evident how content I felt at that moment, to be in the warm South African sun on a day like today.

Palm Sunday: Jesus and the donkey

2011-04-17T13:38:00.000+02:00

A few nights ago, at an Ignatian event, the Palm Sunday passage from Matthew was read to us and we were invited to write a letter from the perspective of someone who had been an eye witness to the event. I felt drawn to writing a letter from the perspective of the donkey that Jesus rode. This morning at Mass our priest said something interesting about the donkey carrying the load that was Jesus, but that Jesus also became the donkey, carrying the load of all the world. It was an angle I hadn't considered and inspired me to write the following 'donkey journal entry'.

From the journal of a particular donkey

I really detest the arrogance of those human creatures, their assumption that I should be readily available to them whenever they please. Their cruelty reaches unimaginable portions. In the past few weeks I've been kicked and whipped, scuffed over the head and had my ears pulled. I am so sick of being humiliated and walked all over.

I have never felt such rage as I did a few weeks ago, when not only I but also my little foal were dragged from our cosy barn to carry some man through loud, noisy crowds. My little foal has never carried anyone before. He's too young! I had hoped to protect him from the taunting cruelty of those human creatures for as long as possible.

But as we were led to him, I sensed something different. He stroked my muzzle, gently, reassuringly. Then he looked down at my little foal, and his eyes were filled with respect and admiration. As he carefully climbed onto me and rested his feet on my little foal, who walked anxiously beside me, I suddenly felt grateful that this should be my little foal's first encounter with the task of carrying human creatures.

For the first time, I didn't feel like a dismissed, disdained donkey but instead was filled with a sense of dignity. My little foal must have picked up what I was feeling, because he started walking beside me with pride and joy. We walked through that noisy crowd in a way I had never walked carrying a human creature before. And every now and then, the man would take the time to be aware of us, to notice us, to reassure us, as if he knew what it was to be a donkey.

Little did I know that he did know what it was to be a donkey. After that joyous ride into Jerusalem, the most treasured moment of my donkey life, that man too became a 'beast of burden'. He, like a donkey, carried that heavy wooden cross. And like a dismissed, disdained creature, was nailed to it. All the cruelty and taunting I had endured don't compare to the burden this man carried.

And as he became the donkey, for the first time it felt that someone other than us donkeys knew what it was to be a donkey. Someone else entered into our pain and suffering. And somehow that made it all okay. Or perhaps not okay. But I wanted, after that, to always carry my burden with the pride and dignity I had felt when carrying that man, trusting that, however I was treated or whatever else might happen, I was indeed worthy of dignity and respect. In becoming the donkey, that man had somehow redeemed what being a donkey meant. Nothing was ever the same after that.

Mornings in Jenin

2011-04-01T09:38:00.000+02:00

I'm reading Susan Abulhawa's Mornings in Jenin. Through its central narrator, Amal, it follows the story of Palestinians under Israeli occupation from the 1948 war until today. Although I had always vaguely followed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I had never really understood it. As I was growing up, white Christian South Africans were generally very pro-Israel. If I remember correctly, I would sometimes hear my parents offer a more balanced view, expressing compassion for the Palestinian position and questioning the legitimacy of Israeli action. But it was an issue I never took the time to fully understand.

Last year I had the opportunity to hear a talk by a young Israeli conscientious objector. He is part of a group of Israelis who refuse to join the Israeli military in protest to Palestinian occupation. I admired his very brave position. His views could result in his being jailed or worse. Yet even then, I don't think I fully understood the intricacies of the political history of the region.

On reading this novel, written from the Palestinian perspective, I was inspired to read up on this ongoing conflict, to understand better why this violence has been going on for so long. What shocked me most, from Abulhawa's novel, was the massacres that remain largely unknown to the western world, and particularly the Christian western world which continues to support Israel regardless of the violence it metes out on innocent civilians. Abulhawa describes in some detail the massacre in Lebanon (the Sabra and Shatila massacre) in 1982, where women and children were raped, totured and killed while Israeli defence forces looked on.

The sad tragedy is that the roots of Israeli violence lie with the Nazi death camps. And the roots of the Palestinian violence in the form of suicide bombers and the so-called terrorist attacks (for example, on American embassies) lie with Israeli occupation and the continuous humiliation and violence meted out to Palestinians.

What Abulhawa's novel shows is that injustice must be given a voice. Suffering and pain must be heard or it builds within people and communities until they can no longer bear the intensity of the helplessness and voicelessness and make themselves heard through violence. For the first time I understand that what inspires suicide bombers is not so much religious fundmantalism as generations of unheard and unacknowldged pain beyond imagining. Perhaps we need to start listening more to these unheard voices, taking a bit of effort to look for the marginalised stories.

African homophobia

2011-03-28T10:56:00.000+02:00

Homophobia in Africa is expressing itself in horrific ways. In Uganda, gay rights activist, David Kato, was recently murdered. Although the Ugandan government tried to muddy what happened through fabrications about Kato's lifestyle, the truth is that it was a homophobic hate crime. In South Africa, similar horrific things are happening, where women are raped in order to 'correct' their lesbianism. Avaaz is running a campaign to bring this into public awareness here. They write,

Thembi (name changed) was pulled from a taxi near her home, beaten and raped by a man who crowed that he was ‘curing’ her of her lesbianism.Thembi is not alone -- this vicious crime is recurrent in South Africa, where lesbians live in terror of attack. But no one has ever been convicted of 'corrective rape'. Amazingly, from a tiny Cape Town safehouse a few brave activists are risking their lives to ensure that this heinous practice is stopped and their massive campaign has forced the government into talks.

A significant contributor to the problem is the lack of education in this area. Many people in Africa (including South Africa) have absurd misconceptions about what it means to be homosexual. Some of these include that being homosexual is primarily about sex (as opposed to sexual orientation) and that homosexuals are promiscuous and dangerous in that they might have sex with anyone, including children, of the same sex.

How hard is it to accept all human being as human beings? According to Albert Kinsey's research in the 1930s (which has been confirmed again and again over the past eighty years in studies done across the world) most people fall somewhere on a continuum between straight and gay. Very few people are fully one or fully the other. Realising this may help us to realise that those on the more gay end of the continuum are as human as those on the more straight end. And all human beings have a desire to commit to a loved one for the long term, to be in a safe and loving relationship and to contribute positively to the world around them.

Let's be careful with the homophobic jokes we tell or the condemning things we say, keeping in mind that that small homophobic attitude in us is resulting in rape, jail sentences and death in some other, not so far away, contexts.

Going greener...

2011-03-18T13:03:00.000+02:00

One of the reasons we wanted to live in an intentional family (see previous blog post on this) was to adopt a more ecologically sensitive lifestyle, which is easier to do when you're living with others with the same vision. Here are some of things we're doing:

Radical recycling: I say 'radical' because we try to recycle every single item of packaging. We've also learnt that it helps to decrease the size of recycle items through crushing (tin, plastic) and folding (cardboard) to reduce transport space and that it's important to clean your recycling in order for it to be reused.

Composting: We compost all the kitchen and garden waste we can in a simple compost heap in our garden using the 'feed-and-forget' method described by Allan Shepherd in 'The Organic Garden: Green and Easy'. He suggests that dumping garden and kitchen waste on a random pile, without turning it or doing anything at all with it, "reflects the chaotic nature of soil decomposition in nature". So far, it's been working for us!

Reducing waste: We try to minimise what we throw away, seeing how long we can go before emptying our bin, challenging ourselves to re-use what we can and buy things that are low on waste.

Using gren products: We buy our green cleaning agents from Faithful to Nature (and discovered someone in Centurion selling these products a few weeks ago!) and have found they work as effectively as their less green counterparts. One of my family members also uses green personal hygiene products such as shampoo and make-up. I have yet to make this transition!

Saving water and electricity: Wherever we can, we try to turn off lights, reduce the amount of times we put on the kettle and save water. Using green washing powder for hand-wash and a biowash ball for machine washes has meant that washing water can be reused in the garden. I used to tumble dry all my clothes but now hang them on the line - better for the clothes and our electric usage!

Natural gardening: We try follow natural, green gardening guidelines (as suggested by Allan Shepherd and Charles and Julia Botha in 'Bring Nature Back to Your Garden'). THe Botha's stress that we wouldn't need to use pest control in our gardens if we maintained the natural eco-system.

Car-pooling: One of my family members and I work at the same place, so we car pool. We try to car pool as often as possible, and as soon as the public transport system in Pretoria is up and running we hope to make use of that as often as possible.

Supporting green projects: Farmers markets, green markets at the Botanical Gardens and the Green Times newsletter are some small things we do to support green efforts in South Africa. I also signed the anti-packaging campaign that the Green Voice is carrying.

Vegetable gardening: We're starting slow with this one but hope that our little garden will soon be providing us with fresh veg and herbs and spices.

These are just some initial things that we're trying. We realise that there are far more radical ways of going green and would love for you to share with us some more ideas of simple things we and readers of this blog could do to become a little greener!

Why SA is not the next Zim

2011-02-24T15:53:00.000+02:00

When my South African friends are being particularly pessimistic about our country, they might say something like, "South Africa is going to go the same way as Zimbabwe". I attended a talk while still an undergraduate student, when the Zimbabwean crises was only just manifesting itself in the public sphere, where an expert on Zimbabwe explained how South Africa and Zimbabwe differed. Their histories, politics, development paths and current realities differed so greatly, he argued, that there was no logic in comparing the two.

Some twelve years later, people continue to say the same irritating and ignorant things about South Africa and Zimbabe. The Daily Maverick, a South African news source I greatly appreciate, has an in-depth article here explaining why South Africa is not going to be the 'next Zimbabwe'. For anyone who still needs convincing, read the article!

Expansive inclusion

2011-02-02T09:20:00.000+02:00

A recent comment on a blog post I wrote a few years ago on my interfaith marriage inspired me to write more about my current circumstances. In the early years of keeping a blog, I wrote a number of posts about my marriage to Kevin, who is an atheist, as that was something I was grappling with at the time. Our conscious engagement with our interfaith marriage expanded our outlook on life and the world around us. It expanded it so much that I feel I'm now engaging new and different paradigms of inclusivity.

The issue for me, then, was the idea that Christian marriage and my life as a Christian would exclude people of others faiths and other ways of being. I was seeking greater inclusivity as the good news Jesus came to bring seems to me to be intrinsically inclusive - always broadening the scope of love to include more and more of those the religious leaders of the day sought to exclude. I wanted to explore what an inclusive way of being might look like.

I became increasingly aware of how marriage and the concept of the nuclear family are in themselves exclusive. I've become sceptical about the idea of the nuclear family. I'm drawn more and more to the idea of intentional family, which can include various people from various walks of life choosing to be a family to one another. In this model, there are no categories of 'single', 'married' and 'divorced' but rather just people living together, loving each other and forming meaningful life-long relationships with one another. The label 'married' falls away as the primary identifier and instead we are people engaging people.

Embracing ever expanding inclusivity - to open my heart more and more to include greater diversity, newness, otherness and difference - is the most beautiful journey I could ever have embarked on.

South Africa 2010-2011

2010-12-24T09:55:00.000+02:00

As we transition from 2010 into 2011, there is room for reflection over the past year and dreaming for the year to come. One of my favourite columnists, Marianne Thamm, in Fairlady, writes about the growing citizen activism in 2010 and has hopes for more of this in 2011. I think she captures what I appreciate so much about South Africa: our strong civil society.

When people pessimistically ask whether South Africa will go the way of Zimbabwe I often site our level of citizen activism as the factor that sets us apart. In the five years that I've studied in the field of Peace Studies it has become apparent that one of the primary means to sustainable peace in a country is a strong and active civil society. As long as a citizenry speaks out, a government is limited in its power, big business is reigned in, and injustices come to light.

Thamm describes how this became a reality in 2010 in terms of the civil action against the Protection of Information Bill. Apart from this, civil society movements such as Lead SA and Shout! have transformed the way ordinary South Africans participate in issues of national importance. If this continues into 2011, things look good for South Africa! Along with Thamm, I call on all South Africans to make this our year of speaking out.

South Africa: Hopeful

2010-08-27T08:59:00.000+02:00

My brother who is visiting South Africa from Europe said to me the other day how the public servants strikes in South Africa are bringing the racism out in some South Africans. But it’s also bringing the heroism out in others. Lead SA has been initiating an alternative response to issues in the country, calling South Africans to take the lead and make a difference. Amongst other things, Lead SA is encouraging a spirit of volunteerism, which has resulted in thousands of people rolling up their sleeves and getting stuck in at hospitals that have been abandoned by their striking staff.

The Jesuit Institute's weekly reflection reads:
Lead SA is asking us to reflect on what kind of leadership we are creating in our country and what contribution we can make. Whether in politics, in business, in unions, in schools or in the churches, we worry about a ‘crisis of leadership’. Can we still tap into the ideals that drove the Struggle? Can the spirit of togetherness that we found during the World Cup continue after the flags have been folded? Whilst it is tempting to blame those who have the title of leader, we should remember that actually we are all leaders: we have the ability to influence those around us and we have the responsibility to challenge those whose leadership is found wanting.

In terms of the strike, the weekly email from TGIF had an interesting comment. Beyond all the political and social complexity of this drawn out strike, lies the “somewhat undereported dimension of relationships. Yes, the strikes are about money, but there's something deeper going on - something at the relational level. The mere occurence of a strike, it could be argued, bears evidence of relational breakdown. Then there are relational implications in the huge earnings differentials between top and bottom public service officials - it says something about how people are valued. Intimidation and violence only occur where relational capacity is already damaged, and they certainly effect little that is relationally redemptive. It might not be enough to address the money issues without addressing the relational issues. Justice is a complex matter, but at its heart, justice has to be relational.”

I thought this an important slant on the situation and it leads me to wonder what I can do to restore relationship with my fellow South Africans. On a really small scale, it felt important to me that when a few hundred teachers sang and danced their way through The Junction (a relatively upmarket shopping center in Pretoria North) I stood by and listened to what they were saying and read their signs. It felt important to listen and hear and take in. It felt important that I could exchange a few words with some of these teachers and show them that I cared about what they had to say. It sounds really insignificant but it feels important to me that we think about our relationship with others who feel unjustly treated. By being open to hear them, we may be taking a small step towards redemptive relationship.

Things are pretty rough at the moment, between the strikes and the threat of media tribunals. And yet there are so many people who are rolling up their sleeves and making a difference. People are choosing to take the lead. That’s what makes me excited to be a South African!

A little consideration

2010-07-14T14:19:00.000+02:00

One thing I always appreciated about Kevin and his dad is that they always address petrol attendants as ‘sir’. It would be, “Good morning sir, would you fill up my tank please?” and, “Thank you very much sir, here is a tip.” And yet, how often haven’t I seen people speak to waiters, cashiers, petrol attendants and domestic workers with impatience and disrespect? When taxis and trains are on strike, we suddenly realize how dependent we are on this workforce that forms the backbone of our society. Yet you wouldn’t think this based on the way we speak.

Is it so hard to treat another human being with dignity? To say ‘u’ and ‘mevrou’ to someone who is older than myself, regardless of their occupation? To say ‘sir’ and ‘madam’ to someone of my parents’ age, whether they’re filling up my petrol tank or cleaning my house? To say thank you and please, as I was taught as a child? And is it really okay to send back food in a restaurant when the smallest thing is not quite like we wanted it? Something I hear so often, when people do this is, “South Africans aren’t good at demanding good service”, as if this justifies rude behavior.

It makes me wonder about my own work ethic. I tend to work best when people affirm and encourage me, when they recognize and acknowledge me, when they appreciate what I’m trying to do, even if I’m not getting it right all the time. When people make demands, are fussy or tell me how to do my job (especially if it’s a job they would never want to do themselves) I tend to become resentful, moody and uncooperative.

If that works for me, why wouldn’t that work for others? I don’t want to go around demanding better service from the enormous workforce that does bottom of the range kind of work for an absurd salary. I want to demand better behavior from the crowd of us who can afford to eat five fruits a day, have pudding after every meal, go on holiday four times a year and have a subscription at the gym to work it all off.

It's been a while since I've ranted. But the dignity of our fellow human beings feels worth ranting about!

Feel it. It is here.

2010-07-04T07:05:00.000+02:00

As we move towards the semi-finals of the World Cup, I thought it about time I blog about my own experiences. It has been incredible being in South Africa as we host the soccer. Feel it, it is here! is the official slogan that we hear repeated on our TVs during every game. And it has been a great feeling! Some of my highlights so far include watching the opening ceremony at a friends’ house, watching Bafana beat France at Arbreu’s coffee shop at the Wonderboom Junction (which has the best coffee I have ever tasted) and attending the USA-Algeria game at the Loftus stadium in Pretoria. Apart from this, I love hearing foreign accents in shopping centres, listening to everyone’s stories of their fan park or stadium experiences and picking up the general vibe of joy and excitement.

A couple of Sundays ago I visited the church 3rd Place, where Pierre du Plessis used the theme 'feel it, it is here' in talking about the kingdom of heaven. As he described how the Kingdom is here and now, I felt the same excitement I've been feeling about the World Cup. That connection between strangers as you sit in a restaurant shouting for the same team, the energy in the street on vuvuzela day (when everyone paraded through the streets blowing their vuvuzelas prior to the tournament beginning), the inexplicable deep feeling within you of something good and meaningful taking place that completely transcends the competition on the field or even national and international politics.

I had the same sense with the Kingdom of God. It felt to me it had less to do with the man-made kingdoms of church denominations, rules, doctrine and competition, and more to do with some inexplicable knowing deep inside that something good and meaningful is happening that transcends all the muck in the world. And this knowing leads to meaningful action. Every time there is compassion, healing, hope, love, faith, then the kingdom has arrived.

There is nothing like being in South Africa this June and July. The vibe and energy is indescribable. The sense that we are pulling this off against all odds, when just sixteen years ago we were coming out of Apartheid, is phenomenal. There is similarly nothing like being part of the kingdom of heaven, where hope and meaning persist against all odds. Where God's plan for this world is being pulled off even though it may not always seem that way. I'm thrilled to be in the host country during the Soccer World Cup. And I'm more thrilled to live everyday in the kingdom of heaven, where life takes on greater significance on a daily basis.

Krygystan

2010-06-21T13:14:00.000+02:00

I've been troubled about the conflict in Krygystan. It reminds me of so many other conflicts along ethnic lines. Uzbeks living in Krygystan because of random national boundaries after the fall of the Soviet Union find themselves on the receiving end of horrific violence. Uzbekistan debates closing its borders to the hundreds of thousands of Uzbek refugees because it can't cope with the numbers. What is the identity of these Uzbeks? Ethnically they are Uzbek but nationally they are Krygystan. Where do they belong?

As I was sitting with all of this, the Jesuit Institute sent a reflection that brought together World Refugee Day, Father's Day and the situation in Krygystan. I felt I had to share it!

Quotation: “I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection”. Sigmund Freud

Reflection: Since World Refugee Day and Father’s Day fall on the same date, let’s try and link them through Freud’s quotation, and thus make Father’s Day more than just a sentimental card-opportunity.

In the last few days thousands of Uzbeks have been driven out of Kyrgyzstan and into Uzbekistan. Many of the refugees from this conflict are women and children who have been separated from their husbands and fathers who have remained behind to try to protect their property.

It is hard to imagine how vulnerable a young child feels whose father has been left behind in a zone of ‘ethnic cleansing’. This is one of the more terrible aspects of the plight of refugees – the tearing apart of families and the consequent trauma among their young and vulnerable members.

Prayer: Loving Father, we bring before you all children separated from their fathers, their mothers and all members of refugee families who suffer from the pain and terror of having had their families torn apart. May we who live in security and whose family ties remain intact, be moved to repair what damage we can and help make good what they have lost.
Amen.

Exploring our psychosexual journeys

2010-06-14T10:32:00.000+02:00

In the previous blog post I wrote about Rob Bell’s Sex God, and how I found it both enlightening and dissatisfying. In this post, I’d like to share some thoughts from an article by Sandra Lossmann which I found in the collection of essays titled Sacred is the Call.

Like Bell, Lossmann speaks of the origins of the word sex in the Latin ‘to be cut off from’ and how sexuality is an expression of the desire to be reconnected. Sexuality is about overcoming seperateness, about giving ourselves over to community, friendship, family, service, creativity, humour, delight, and martyrdom, writes Lossmann.

Lossmann suggests that finding intimacy in these ways is an answer to dealing with our sexuality. She also stresses the importance of integrating our sexuality with our spirituality. She argues that an asexual Jesus is unhelpful, but that we need to grapple with Jesus’ sexuality in relation to come to terms with our own as a means of integration. She suggests that a more integrated sexuality leads to a deeper response to God, ourselves and others.

One way of starting to do this, Lossmann suggests, is to spend some time writing a ‘graced history’ about our own psychosexual journeys. By ‘graced history’, I think she means allowing ourselves to think back on our past out of a place of knowing that we are safe and held by a loving God. I remember reading in one of Dr Archibald Hart’s books that self revelation that happens too fast, and outside of a context of feeling safe and loved, can be quite damaging. But we can start this process by placing ourselves intentionally and consciously before a God who loves us and ask God to guide our process of reflection.

She suggests a few guiding questions:

Think of seven or eight key stepping stones in your own psychosexual journey and what they reveal about your own search for love and intimacy.
What were the core life messages about sexuality – verbal or nonverbal – in your family?
Who are the persons who have helped you come to a more affirming understanding of sexuality and intimacy?
What would you like to reimage or reinterpret in your attitudes and inherited messages towards sexuality?

Lossmann encourages us to note our responses and then bring them into prayer. Perhaps, if we’re in a trust relationship with a mentor or friend, we could share some of this with them.

Sex God

2010-06-07T09:30:00.000+02:00

I read Rob Bell’s Sex God during the December holidays and have been intending to blog about it ever since. I found the first half of the book riveting and loved the way Bell opened up the topic of sexuality and spirituality. Bell writes about how the word 'sex' comes from the Latin word secare which means to be cut off, severed or disconnected from the whole. Sexuality, then, is our desire to be connected again. Bell describes how a rock concert experience can be sexual in that the intense experience brings us to a deep sense of connectedness with a mass of people, even if only for a moment. It is our disconnectedness from God, from ourselves and from others that drives us towards seeking greater intimacy with others.

He writes about how the red light district in Amsterdam is the least sexual place he knows. A lot of people are having sex but there is no real connection.”You can be having sex with many, and yet you’re alone. And the more sex you have, the more alone you are,” says Bell. “And it’s possible to be sleeping alone, and celibate, and to be very sexual. Connected with many” (44). He suggests that we deeply need to be connected in community and discusses some of the ways community has become broken. He talks about the two extremes we could fall into, in being either angels – and denying the sexual self that needs to be engaged with – or animals, simply giving in to our sexual drives.

Although I loved the way Bell described our issues with sexuality it wasn’t so clear to me what we should do with it all. In the final chapter, which is a page and a half, he writes that this book may have opened up wounds and then suggests that we let them go, as a married couple released balloons into the air at a wedding he attended. This didn’t seem particularly helpful to me. The kinds of wounds people carry related to sexuality and disconnectedness from others are deep and require a lot more attention. Bell describes our predicament well but leaves us with more questions than answers. Or perhaps the answers he leaves us with feel a bit stale to me. I would like to see a follow up book that will give a clearer idea of how we can work through some of these issues and form a healthier, more integrated personal and collective sexuality.

Fringe Book Project

2010-06-02T07:56:00.000+02:00

On Monday morning I found myself sitting at a restaurant called Motswako, in the township Zandspruit, eating pap and vleis. I was there with ten others, all of them leaders in Christian ministry in one way or the other, but with what could perhaps be called fringe leanings in their engagement with Christianity.

We meet together every now and then to discuss various topics and then each write an essay on the topic. This collection of essays is intended to be drawn together into a book. The essays are displayed on the website BasterDieBoek. My first contribution is here. There are some really interesting and diverse essays on who Jesus is to us.

Even were this never to become a published product, the conversations with some really interesting people struggling in very authentic ways with the challenging task of being relevant as Christians in South Africa in the twenty-first century has been deeply meaningful to me. If you get a chance to read some of the essays, I think you'll find them deeply meaningful as well.

Pentecost and the World Cup

2010-05-24T13:12:00.000+02:00

The Jesuit Institute of South Africa has been running an email prayer campaign daily during Lent, and weekly since Easter. I found the Pentecost reflection particularly meaningful:

Quote: If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart ~Nelson Mandela

Reflection: It has always seemed to me that Pentecost celebrates two miracles. The first is that the disciples were delivered from their fear. The second is that they were able to go out into the streets and to make themselves understood by all peoples. This seems a particularly appropriate feast to be celebrating in the run up to the world cup. As a nation we have recently felt the burden in our own hearts of violent xenophobia. We have succumbed to the fear of others, rather than recognising our universal humanity. The up coming world cup challenges us to see the other as a human person just like ourselves. We are invited to open our hearts, our land to a huge variety of visitors from all over the world. The world cup provides us with a powerful symbol of how connected and small our planet is.

For a month we will be exposed to the wonderful richness of culture and language that the world has to offer. Of course these are ‘tourists’ as opposed to ‘refugees’, a source of hopeful wealth rather than a perceived drain upon our resources. Yet in fact these two groups are not different; they are all strangers in our land, and we are called upon by faith to greet them with hospitality and respect.

Prayer: Lord, grant us the people of South Africa, the gift of hospitality. As we celebrate the world cup, help us to recognise the universal humanity of all your peoples. May this be a transforming season, in which our hearts are healed of their xenophobic fear and opened to all the people who live in our land. We ask this trusting in your love for us.

To subscribe to this email prayer campaign, email admin(at)jesuitinstitute.org.za.

Wounds of the church

2010-05-19T16:46:00.000+02:00

For a long time, I’ve struggled with my church. There have been many things that have made me angry, and often I’ve felt that I’ve wanted to find a new church. The issue hasn’t been so much with my church as with my church tradition or denomination. Yet something has compelled me to stay. Today I came across an article by Sandra Lommasson, in a wonderful collection of essays titled Sacred is the Call, which has helped me to understand why I may be staying.

She writes that our own wounds sometimes intercept with the wounds of the church, and that these wounds need to be engaged. If we leave our wounds unresolved, we may well take them into our next church encounter. The places where we feel the deepest pain, anger and disconnect, if opened up to God’s healing, can become the places where we most deeply encounter God, in ourselves but also in our church tradition.

I grew up in the Reformed tradition and, on and off, for some years have found myself aligned to the Baptist tradition. Although in many ways quite different from one another, I think that the wounds I’ve encountered in both traditions, or perhaps the areas that have angered, frustrated or hurt me the most, are quite similar. And often the wounded parts of a church tradition are the flip side of its great strength. For example, in both the Reformed and Baptist traditions there is a strong emphasis on the study of the Bible as our primary means for encountering God. And yet the wounded side of this is that the more emotional, experiential, perhaps feminine, ways of encountering God are often sidelined.

In today’s Christian protestant evangelical culture, it is quite common to join a church not because of its tradition but because of the music or the preaching or the community. My involvement with Ignatian Spirituality and the Catholic tradition has opened my eyes to the deep history and significance of each tradition. Each church tradition has a particular gift it is imparting to the whole Church. And each church tradition also has wounds that need healing.

This perspective on the Church has challenged me to spend some time thinking over my church history, my church tradition, and the gifts and wounds I find in my church tradition. Before leaving any church community or tradition in frustration, Sandra Lommasson challenges me to identify what it is I’m seeking elsewhere and to locate that in my own tradition, even if it is in its wounded form. From here, the journey of healing may begin.

Update

2010-05-16T07:00:00.000+02:00

At the end of March, I resigned from my work with the church-based NGO, 121@VMA. I had been working there for about four years and it was a difficult decision to leave. The greater part of the reason for leaving was a sense that there is something else in store for me and that I needed a bit of time out before starting with that.

One of the things I've been doing during this time is finishing my PhD, which is due to be handed in at the end of this month. I started with my research on reconciliation in Rwanda at the beginning of 2005, so its been quite a long journey. Apart from the academic journey, it was also a personal journey where I confronted questions of suffering and hope. Perhaps I'll blog about this some more later.

Another thing I've been doing is reflecting on y life over the past five years. During April, I went on days of retreat here and there, giving myself space to think about what I've been involved with and what's been happening inside of me. I became aware of how great an impact my work with 121 and my research into the genocide in Rwanda has had on me. In the business of daily life we often don't realise the effect things have on us. As I slowed down, I realised there was a lot of bruising and wounding as a result of the hundreds of painful stories I had heard from teenagers in Pretoria (through 121) and people in Rwanda (through my research). It's been good to allow some tentative healing to start taking place.

I notice that most of my blog posts this year have been on themes of peace and reconciliation, and current events. Part of this is that I'm exploring whether I want to start working more directly in the field of peace and reconciliation. Part of this is that I haven't had a lot of energy for more personal blog posts. But I have a few lined up for May and look forward to engaging what are perhaps difficult, but important, topics with fellow bloggers.

The most significant lesson of this time out is that periods of waiting are so important. On Ascension Day, I stayed with Luke 24:46-53, where after Jesus' ascension, the disciples waited. And in that waiting, they prayed. And during this time of seeming unproductivity, "they were filled with a deep joy".

Atheist spirituality

2010-04-30T08:22:00.000+02:00

Kevin has just posted up a really beautiful film clip titled 'My spirituality as an atheist'. Kevin describes it as capturing his own experience of the world and that he was near to tears because it resonated with him so deeply. I was close to tears when watching this! It confirmed for me what I have believed for a long time: that everyone has a deep spirituality but that it doesn't need to be grounded in any particular religious system for it to be meaningful and authentic. I highly recommend taking a look at this.

Warming up for World Cup

2010-04-25T08:34:00.000+02:00

We're about seven weeks away from the World Cup Soccer tournament and excitement is rising in South Africa! We've secured tickets to the USA-Algeria game to be played in Pretoria and are dusting off our TV so that we can set it up to watch the games. Here are some of the things I've been aware of as we warm up for World Cup:

The South African flag. On the 100-days to World Cup mark, along with hundreds of thousands of South Africans, Kevin attached a South African flag to his car antenna. Our flag has a particular significance to me as it was chosen so intentionally after 1994 to represent the journey our country has been on and where it dreams about going. Read more about it's meaning here.
Human trafficking. This has been on the agenda a lot as we build up to World Cup. Fears abound about how bad this is going to be, but I'm glad that the World Cup has brought this issue onto the table and brought to light how great a problem this has been in South Africa for a long time. TIME magazine covers the issue here.
The Gautrain. This will be South Africa's first fast-train and I am thrilled about it! It is planned to travel between Joburg, Pretoria and the airport. The major concern is whether there will be a good bus system to transport people between train stations and their destinations. The Gautrain will make a significant different to traffic jams on our major highways and will be the first step to getting an efficient public transport system in place in our country.
Vuvuzelas. "What's plastic, a metre long, brightly coloured and sounds like an elephant? It's the vuvuzela, the noise-making trumpet of South African football fans, and it's come to symbolise the sport in the country." So states a tourist website here. There has been a lot of debate on South African radio and other forms of media, about whether they should be banned or not, some arguing that they are a dangerous health hazard due to the amount of noise they make, and others arguing that they're a necessary part of South African sport. Studies have even been done to measure the effect of many vuvuzelas on people's hearing. I'm pro the vuvuzela, but ask me again after attending a game!

These are some of the things that I've been aware of. Any you would want to add?

Dialogue with your opponents

2010-04-15T17:32:00.000+02:00

I normally travel to Rwanda and Burundi around the middle of the year but have been advised not to this year as both countries are having their democratic elections during this time. Everything may be fine, but then again, there may be an outbreak of violence. My study supervisor, Geoff Harris, sent a newsletter out today with suggestions around minimising pre-election violence. His suggestions resonated so well with my previous blog post on dialogue that I decided to post his ideas up verbatim:

• I am convinced that understanding our opponents better is central to building good relationships with them and that dialogue is a central tool to better understanding.

• Dialogue is not a debate where each side tries to win. Rather, dialogue is a sharing of information and ideas about yourself so that others, who are hopefully listening respectfully, can understand you better

• So what is needed is for political opponents (I'm thinking about party members/supporters rather than the candidates) to meet together at the local level (in hundreds of locations across the country) and have dialogue.

• Once they understand each other better, then there is the possibility (at a later meeting) of working together on a shared task e.g. what can we do (together) to help this election be peaceful? (Working on a shared task helps builds respect for one another).

There is another point to make about transforming conflict i.e. changing our mindsets. Trying to understand our opponents (which can be our wife, husband, children or parent at times, as well ‘enemies’) is good. Being willing to change our mindset is even better. Such willingness means that you view your opponent with 'intense high regard', as Gandhi put it. That is, with love. That, as with many things to do with peace, is a spiritual challenge.

The value of dialogue

2010-04-12T07:39:00.000+02:00

Over the past few years I’ve grown in my appreciation for dialogue. As a teenager I was quite a proficient debater. Not only did I participate in my school debating team, but in conversations with peers I could often convince others of the rightness of my point through clever and articulate arguments.

Through my exposure to nonviolence as a way of life, I have come to see the value of dialogue. Where debate would pit my position against yours, one possibility against another, dialogue places them alongside each other. Rather than focusing on who is more right, or who has the greater handle on truth, dialogue suggests that by listening to various positions we, together, begin to explore more of the truth. It’s almost as if in dialogue various angles of truth begin to emerge in the richness of multiple perspectives on the same issue.

When someone comes with a point they want to debate, they’ll often state their position and then ask you for yours. For example, “I think it’s terrible that they’re allowing gays to become pastors because homosexuality is wrong. What do you think about it, Cori?” Now this would be my cue to either agree or state my counter opinion. My most desired response, though, would be: “Tell me more about what led you to this belief”, or “Let’s share our stories about our engagement with the issue of homosexuality”. But this is often seen as evasive action by others. Their response would probably be to the effect of: “Don’t beat about the bush. Tell us what you believe.”

The premise is that we can simply hold one position or another, unambiguously, on a variety of issues that stand in isolation from the complexity of our unique life stories and experiences. The assumption is that my position on an issue is the result of a logical and rational head-process. A dialogical approach would suggest that the stances we hold on various issues are the result of complex life experiences that often leave us with ambiguities, questions and unresolved emotions. Through sharing our stories in relation to various issues we can begin to unearth rich complexities which lead to a deepening understanding of an issue from a variety of perspectives.

More and more, in conversation with others, I’m trying to find creative ways to draw out the stories rather than the arguments and to share my story rather than my position on a specific issue. And I’m discovering surprising depths of meaning and insight. When just focusing on the issue, I sometimes find myself feeling very irritated and alienated from people who differ in opinion from me. But as I start to hear their stories and the experiences that led to their opinions, I find myself filled with understanding and wonder, even, as their unique journey unfolds before me.

Richard Rohr

2010-03-27T04:58:00.000+02:00

I was about to put up a quote from Richard Rohr, whose writings I have appreciated for a while now, when I saw at the Emerging Africa site that he is visiting Cape Town. If you live in the area, these events would be worth attending!

Here is the quote:

"If your religion has no deep joy, no inherent contentment about it, then it is not the real thing. If your religion is primarily fear of self, the world, and God, if it is primarily a need to tend to religious duties and obligations, then it is indeed a hard yoke and a heavy burden and hardly worthwhile. One wonders why so many people bother with such chosen unhappiness … If your truth does not set you free, it is not the truth at all."

This quote is taken from Rohr's book, Adam's Return, which I haven't actually read, but it's in line with so much else Rohr writes. His writing is the kind of stuff that leaves you feeling deeply relieved and as if God's grace really is enough to deal with all of our brokenness.

This quote also resonates with a significant theme running through my life at the moment, of freedom from fear and from a religion that drains and sucks me dry rather than drawing me towards faith, hope and love. It has been a difficult journey where I haven't always been certain which things to leave behind and which to hold onto. But each step of the way I feel a little more authentic, a little more hopeful, a little more alive. Just knowing and experiencing that God's primary role is not to measure up all I do but to gift me with so many graces has been tremendously liberating.

Bloggers Prayer

2010-03-23T15:11:00.000+02:00

In a Facebook note that Arthur wrote, Roger alerted me to The Bloggers Prayer that Andrew Jones wrote some five years ago but seems meaningful and relevant to me today:

The Blogger’s Prayer 1.0
by Andrew Jones

Our Father
who lives above and beyond the dimension of the internet

Give us this day a life worth blogging,
The access to words and images that express our journey with passion and integrity,
And a secure connection to publish your daily mercies.

Your Kingdom come into new spaces today,
As we make known your mysteries,
Posting by posting,
Blog by blog.

Give this day,
The same ability to those less privileged,
Whose lives speak louder than ours,
Whose sacrifice is greater,
Whose stories will last longer.

Forgive us our sins,
For blog-rolling strangers and pretending they are friends,
For counting unique visitors but not noticing unique people,
For delighting in the thousands of hits but ignoring the one who returns,
For luring viewers but sending them away empty handed,
For updating daily but repenting weekly.

As we forgive those who trespass on our sites to appropriate our thoughts without reference,
Our images without approval,
Our ideas without linking back to us.

Lead us not into the temptation to sell out our congregation,
To see people as links and not as lives,
To make our blogs look better than our actual story.

But deliver us from the evil of pimping ourselves instead of pointing to you,
From turning our guests into consumers of someone else’s products,
From infatuation over the toys of technology,
From idolatry over techology
From fame before our time is right.

For Yours is the power to guide the destinies behind the web logs,
To bring hurt people into the sanctuaries of our sites,
To give us the stickiness to follow you, no matter who is watching or reading.

Yours is the glory that makes people second look our sites and our lives,

Yours is the wow-factor,
The heavy ambience,
The shining glory,
For ever and ever,

Amen

How we live

2010-03-14T06:25:00.000+02:00

I'm part of a group that discusses movies, books and poetry called Art of Soul. Our latest discussion was around the movie The Edukators which challenged me on a theme that keeps coming back to me: In a world that operates along a particular system that isn't working, how should I be living differently?

Dan explores this in a blog post titled Solidarity and Resistance in New Creation Communities. He takes the idea of alternative living further than I am able to at the moment but this paragraph stood out for me:

I think that a movement towards a more intentional way of sharing all of life together is absolutely integral to what it means to follow Jesus and serve the God of Life. To simply live the way in which our culture teaches us to live – growing up, getting a job and credit cards, developing debts, buying a home and a couple of cars and settling into the practice of bourgeois comfort paired with bourgeois charity and family values – seems so far away from the pattern of life established by Jesus, Paul, the prophets and the Deuteronomic law that I am baffled that those who live this way find their inspiration in the Christian story ... Observing God’s gift of gracious abundance, patterning ourselves upon the life and deeds of Jesus, and relying upon the empowering Spirit of Life, should lead us to engage in practices that our culture will consider to be risky, foolish, and even threatening. This is why I have spent four years living in intentional Christian communities.

Kevin and I have been talking with friends of ours about the possibility of living in community and embracing alternative ways of living. Dan is writing from a Christian perspective and I share his sentiments but I think that the movement towards communal living is not only motivated by Christian values. In the case of The Edukators it comes from a general dislike for the arrogance and injustice brought about by wealth. I know of communities that exist out of ecological motivations. All these reasons add fuel to my desire to explore and embrace alternative ways of being in this world.

Reconciliation in the Church

2010-03-10T11:19:00.000+02:00

My Dutch blogging friend, Paul Abspoel, invited me to write a guest blog post for his Lent series titled 'Heel het liggaam'. This, in Dutch, is a play on words, 'heel' meaning both 'whole' and 'heal'. In this blog series, Paul has invited people from around the world to write about healing and wholeness of the Church in their context.

His request happened to coincide with my experience of teaching a week-long course in peace education at the Lutheran Seminary. During the course, the pain and hurt of pastors working in churches in South Africa became apparent. They related stories of continued racism and insensitivity amongst white church goers in South Africa. We spoke about how damaging it was that so much of the Church in South Africa remains divided along racial lines.

If you can read Dutch, check out my post over at Paul's blog. In this post I also write about the changes that have happened in my own church, from being completely white and Afrikaans, to becoming multiracial and multilingual.

There is a discussion about reconciliation in the Church taking place at the Facebook Shalom group for those of you who would like to participate.

Responding to hijacking

2010-03-04T06:19:00.000+02:00

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the amazing way Hettie Brittz responded to her experience of being raped in her own home. Today I'd like to link to my friend, Andries Louw's blog where he describes here how he was hijacked but that instead of this event making him angry or bitter, the experience left him feeling cared for and loved as the community gathered around him to help him through the event. Along with the post I wrote a few weeks ago about Hettie Brittz, these stories give me a sense of hope, show a glimpse of what living in the kingdom of God is like, and make me proud to be one of many South Africans who choose life over negativity and despair.

Peace is a choice

2010-02-21T15:12:00.000+02:00

Next week I'll be running a peace course at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Pretoria. I'll be looking at the basic concepts of peace, understanding and analysing a conflict, possible interventions to a conflict and basic concepts of reconciliation. I'll also spend some time looking at nonviolent communication.

While preparing for the course, I came across so many concepts, ideas, stories and experiences that reminded me of the necessity of the way of peace as a way of life. The UNESCO Seville Statement is a document put together by some of the world's most renowned scholars from a variety of disciplines from around the world. It states unequivocally that that there is nothing biologically which would support violent behaviour in human beings.

In a series of propositions, they state that it is scientifically incorrect to state that we have a tendency towards violence due to our animal ancestors, genetic make-up, wiring of our brains or that it is our natural instinct. The theory of evolution does not justify war, genocide, colonialism or other violent behaviour. War is a product of culture.

"We conclude that biology does not condemn humanity to war, and that humanity can be freed from the bondage of biological pessimism and empowered with confidence to undertake the transformative tasks needed [for peace]... Just as 'wars begin in the minds of men', peace also begins in our minds. The same species who invented war is capable of inventing peace. The responsibility lies with each of us".

My study supervisor always said: Conflict is inevitable but violence is a choice. We choose on a moment-by-moment basis how we will respond to conflict. Will we choose the way of peace or the way of violence?

Responding to rape

2010-02-16T05:02:00.000+02:00

Last week Monday Hettie Brittz, wife of well known Afrikaans gospel singer, Louis Brittz, was raped in her home in Pretoria. Incredibly, she has made a public statement about the event, describing God's grace and protection and committing to not becoming bitter about what happened. She describes how both Louis and herself prayed out loud for those violating them. In an article in Beeld, it's reported that she said,

"What had happened to her now was relevant 2 000 years ago when Jesus died on the cross for the rapist too .... She said this didn't mean the rape was unimportant. It was also not unimportant to the Lord. He said after all that he collected people's tears and that the blood of believers was precious to him ... She knew the Lord was not unfeeling. He had prepared her and she had felt him holding her undamaged soul and spirit despite what had happened to her body."

This to me is what is means to be a follower of Jesus. In the horror and joy of daily life events, our response is deeply and significantly different from the bitter, angry, hopeless responses around us.

I was a little sad that a group of South Africans started a Facebook cause around this event calling for criminals to be punished. Although I'm sure Hettie would want people to face the consequences of their actions, I wonder if a statement more in line with her testimony wouldn't be: restore broken people to their full humanity. Or perhaps that's me putting words into her mouth.

Either way, her testimony astounds me and gives me hope. Hettie is a therapist who has counseled rape victims and says in the article that she is sure she'll feel anger and all the usual emotions one goes through. Yet she chooses against bitterness and for trust in a God who loves her and has not abandoned her. That's the God I believe in and long to share with others.

Zuma is honest

2010-02-13T07:44:00.000+02:00

Our president, Jacob Zuma, has caused some controversy in fathering his twentieth child with someone out of of wedlock (which Zapiro illustrates so wonderfully in the above cartoon). A lot of the talk I'm hearing is around the fact that he has four wives and sleeps with other women he's not married to. Although for many this poses a rather serious moral issue I feel that he's acting with a measure of integrity in that he has no pretenses about his lifestyle. He claims this lifestyle is in line with cultural practices and at no point has lied about what he has done. This differs somewhat from other presidents, such as Bill Clinton, who claimed to live in accordance with particular moral norms, but in fact didn't and then lied about it. I appreciate the fact that our president doesn't lie about this, which for me gives him a certain amount of credibility.

Kevin says that the central issue for him is that our president is having unprotected sex. I would agree with this as in a country with a high prevalence of HIV and Aids, unprotected sex is a major concern. Culturally and by law, people may be married to more than one person, and realistically people will have multiple partners, but it is of crucial importance that South Africans engage in protected sex.

These are some of my thoughts on the matter. What about you?

Stages of growth

2010-02-05T08:11:00.000+02:00

Kevin wrote an interesting post on morality, drawing from the work of Lawrence Kohlberg. I came across something similar from a more religious or spiritual angle. Wilkie and Noreen Cannon Au, in there fabulous book called The Discerning Heart describe Friedrich von Hugel's three stages of integrated growth which were published in The Mystical Element of Religion in 1908. The three stages are as follows:

1 - The institutional phase: We believe because we are taught to by those we trust. We draw from tradition, authority and the wisdom of a faith community.

2 - The critical phase: We begin to question through reasoning and argument and want to find out what it really true.

3 - The mystical phase: We believe because of what we have experienced. 'Religion is felt rather than seen or reasoned about, is loved and lived rather than analyzed, is action and power rather than external fact or intellectual verification'.

With Kohlberg's stages, we move from relying on external authority to guide our moral behaviour to critically engaging this authority by the use of reason and come to a place where we behave morally not because someone told us to but because we have deeply internalised what it means to be human together (I'm paraphrasing a bit here!). Similarly, in terms of our faith, we believe because we rely on external authority. But as we grow, we move beyond this, through a phase a questioning and critiquing what we have been told, to a place of deeply internalizing our faith through unique encounters and experiences.

According to Wilkie and Noreen Au, all three of these phases need to be engaged simultaneously in our faith journey. We need to draw from tradition, we need to crititcally engage this tradition and we need to be sensitive to what our own experience of the faith is saying.

Understanding these phases helps us not to be threatened when someone begins to question and critique their faith. This is a crucial part of the faith journey and shouldn't be pushed aside because it's uncomfortable. It seems to be a crucial step towards coming to a place of owning one's faith for oneself.

Haiti and helplessness

2010-01-28T12:57:00.000+02:00

I've been shockingly out of touch with the disaster in Haiti. What perhaps woke me up to it was the link on Dan's blog to an article that suggests that this is an opportunity for the US and Canada to stage a military take-over under the guise of aid. Here an extract from the article: "In effect, the U.S. has staged an invasion of Haiti, under the pretext of providing security for humanitarian aid, and in doing so has prevented the delivery of humanitarian aid."

Only time will tell if this is an accurate assessment of the situation, but as I per chance am also reading Arhundathi Roy's The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire I'm finding myself increasingly sceptical of anything the US is involved in. I should be quoting from Roy's book on my blog in the near future.

These things leave me feeling endlessly helpless, but as Roy so aptly states, on confronting 'The Empire': "We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them".

The Sout Project

2010-01-25T13:12:00.000+02:00

Nic Paton sent an alert out to some of us who have been involved with the Emerging conversation in South Africa that a new CD called Story was coming out from something called The Sout Project. I checked it out on-line and was very excited by the blurb: “This fresh expression of "world emergent" music has been conceived and recorded in Cape Town, South Africa. While deeply engaged in diverse musical traditions, and oozing creative musicality, "Story" is more than just an album: it represents a vision, woven into song. Eclectic and ecumenical, the music emerges from a spiritual journey which is being shared by many others across the world.”

When I started playing the CD I was initially disappointed. I didn’t resonate with the opening song which used the melody of the old hymn Be thou my vision with a sort of techno make-over. But from there on, I began to be drawn in, particularly with songs like Vine, Aumen and In All Things which included Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans and Sanskrit text and a diverse variety of instruments.

Story asks the question, “Why does the world not change? Why do we keep living by destructive stories?” Its songs call towards unity and reconciliation; a transcendence of all those things that divide us and keep us apart. It’s inclusiveness in terms of both its language use as well as bringing together a diversity of spiritualities inspires thinking beyond the differences towards our common desire for wholeness.

As is spoken in the opening of the CD, “Everything can change. If we learn and live by a new story, beginning today, beginning now, beginning with you and me”. This project may come to play a significant role in contemplative worship experiences which seek to bring together people from across the spectrum towards a God who calls us to an abundance of love and life.

Holiday reading

2010-01-09T11:43:00.000+02:00

In South Africa, everything comes to a standstill between the 16th of December and the 5th of January as we enjoy our summer break. A great exodus takes place as thousands of people from Pretoria and Joburg trek down to the South Coast amongst other destinations. Kevin and I annually join this great trek south, to holiday with my family in Port Edward.

Even more than spending time on the beach, a priority during this time is working through a pile of books. My holiday reading started with Ernest Hemmingway’s Islands in the Stream. Although I am barely interested in the themes he writes about and find nothing in common between myself and his characters, I find myself inexplicably drawn into his stories and the lives of the people he creates. I found myself riveted by the 30-odd page description of Thomas Hudson’s young son, David, trying to catch a fish when I don’t like fishing. I was held by the conversations between the down-and-out artist, Thomas Hudson and the prostitute, Honest Lil, in Cuba, even though they made pitiful characters. And the hours of waiting and slow conversation on the ship as Thomas Hudson and his crew pursue the Germans became compelling reading.

I was excited to dip into Rob Bell’s Sex God with the subtitle Exploring the endless connections between sexuality and spirituality. I found the first half really exciting, introducing some new ways of thinking and talking about sexuality. But it seemed to me that from chapter five onwards he fell into rather traditional, stereotypical ideas that I’ve read a thousand times before, and that Bell failed to integrate his new insights in the abstract with the practicalities of lived relationships and human interactions. I’d like to read it again and write a more detailed blog post on where I felt a disconnect occurred between what he was suggesting in the first half of the book and what conclusions he came to in the second half.

I also started Jack Bowen’s The Dream Weaver in which a young boy explores philosophy with the help of a guide. It has a bit of a Sophie’s World feel to it although Bowen unpacks more of the philosophical questions. It’s a great introduction to some hundreds of philosophers from 500BC until today.

Amidst this more thought-provoking reading, I also enjoyed an Agatha Christie and have started on my first of the No. 1 Ladies Detective series by Alexander McCall which describes everyday life in Botswana through the ideas of a lady detective by the name of Mma Ramotswe.

What have you been reading?

2010: Freedom

2010-01-05T14:56:00.000+02:00

In a wonderful book by Elizabeth Canham titled A Table of Delight, she writes about how she always felt resistant to the idea of a 'rule of life' or spiritual disciplines. But then she discovered that the word 'rule' comes from the Greek root 'trellis'.

"A trellis provides necessary support for the plant but does not determine the direction it should go. The plant has freedom to grow and, at the same time, the structure it needs to move in a healthy direction".

I loved this as so often rules and discipline are constrictive and directive. I love the idea of a rule acting as a trellis which supports a plant but doesn't control it or tell it where and how it should grow.

I'm beginning to realise there is more freedom in Christ than we can possibly begin to imagine. 2010 is a year in which I hope to embrace this freedom. Happy new year to all my blog readers!

Harrowing

2009-12-13T06:38:00.000+02:00

I'm copying this straight over from the Pangani blog where Chris Kamalski has written something that best describes my own year. I hope you don't mind, Chris, but this articulates things better than I ever could!

Chris starts by quoting a poem from Let Your Life Speak, by Parker Palmer.

HARROWING

The plow has savaged this sweet field
Misshapen clods of earth kicked up
Rocks and twisted roots exposed to view
Last year’s growth demolished by the blade.
I have plowed my life this way
Turned over a whole history
Looking for the roots of what went wrong
Until my face is ravaged, furrowed, scarred.

Enough. The job is done.
Whatever’s been uprooted, let it be
Seedbed for the growing that’s to come.
I plowed to unearth last year’s reasons–
The farmer plants to plant a greening season.

Chris then writes:

So much has changed in the past 9 months of growth. I am uprooted in ways beyond my intellectual, emotional, even guttural ability to understand. I am becoming a different sort of person: richer, fuller, clarified. Paradoxically however, the seeds of this growth have happened through confusion, isolation as I am confronted with my cultural perspectives, and a gentle uncovering of my hypocrisy as I live within the mirror that is intentional community.

Although I wasn't living in the same intensity of community as Chris, these words could have been my own. As I read his post I think of how much courage it takes to live through this kind of shift of self, how frightening it can be, but also how liberating and powerful, leading to things beyond our imaginings.

A hat that fits me

2009-12-03T14:22:00.000+02:00

I recently came across the most wonderful children's book: Max Lucado's A Hat for Ivan. This book is about ten-year-old Ivan who lives in a village where everyone wears hats that reflect what they are best at. Ivan's father is the hat maker and he makes the perfect hat to fit each person uniquely.

As Ivan approaches the day on which he is to receive his hat, many of his friends give him hats to wear. His music teacher, who has a hat made of paino notes and guitar strings, gives him a music hat. But it looks silly on him. His fireman friend, who wears a big, heavy fire hose hat, gives him a similar one to wear but when Ivan puts it on he falls right over. His friend the baker wears a lovely white bakers hat and gives one to Ivan, but it slips right over his face and while wearing it, Ivan keeps bumping into things. But he feels he must wear these hats so as not to hurt his friends feelings. But he has to keep switching hats as quickly as he can depending on which friend is with him.

Eventually his father finds him in an exhausted heap amongst a pile of hats. His father says to him how wearing other people's hats is tiring, awkward and sometimes they just make you fall over. Then he says, and this is the crux of the book for me:

"Just because someone gives you their hat that doesn't mean you are supposed to wear it. They mean well but they don't know you.

The job of the hat maker is to give you a hat that fits you. Get your hat from the hat maker who will ask, 'What do you really love to do?'"

At the age of thirty I am just beginning to realise that I don't have to wear the hats that everyone gives me. They are well meaning, but they don't know me. Wearing everyone else's hats in order to please them or not to hurt their feelings is tiring, awkward and sometimes I fall over because of it. I'm starting to learn what it means to take off other people's hats and put on my own.

Johannesburg Central Methodist Church

2009-11-20T08:22:00.000+02:00

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

2009-11-12T17:01:00.000+02:00

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

2009-10-19T11:08:00.000+02:00

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

2009-10-15T09:04:00.000+02:00

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

2009-10-06T08:10:00.000+02:00

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

2009-09-29T07:51:00.000+02:00

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

2009-09-21T08:00:00.000+02:00

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."

2009-09-17T11:31:00.000+02:00

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

~Les Brown

Our marriage story

2009-09-12T06:59:00.000+02:00

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

2009-09-07T13:20:00.000+02:00

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

2009-09-01T15:32:00.000+02:00

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

2009-08-26T09:43:00.000+02:00

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

2009-08-07T08:22:00.000+02:00

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!

2009-08-06T06:03:00.001+02:00

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

2009-08-03T09:42:00.000+02:00

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

2009-07-28T15:01:00.000+02:00

‘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

2009-07-23T08:45:00.000+02:00

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?

2009-07-20T09:07:00.000+02:00

“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

2009-07-14T08:18:00.000+02:00

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

2009-07-04T18:15:00.000+02:00

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!

2009-07-01T16:32:00.000+02:00

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

2009-06-29T12:21:00.000+02:00

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

2009-06-21T17:21:00.000+02:00

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

2009-06-16T09:35:00.000+02:00

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

2009-06-13T12:27:00.000+02:00

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.

A diverse God

2009-06-10T06:46:00.000+02:00

I'm sitting in bed, wrapped up in blankets in the loft of my dorm at the YFC Cyara Campsite in Magaliesberg where I'm attending the Amahoro Gathering, along with several hundred others from all over Africa and some from the US. (Thanks Melanie and Barbara for the tip on the loft-I love it!).

One thing that stood out for me after the morning session yesterday was the diversity of God. In the keynote address yesterday morning Dr Kenso Mabiala from Ugana mentioned that God is not one in spite of being three but God is one because God is three. The suggestion was that for a Western way of thinking the trinity causes endless dilemmas (how can God be three and one at the same time?) but that in an African paradigm, God's 'threeness' is the very thing that makes God one.

And because God is diverse God can encompass all our complex diversity.

The first day of the conference has been excellent and I've enjoyed every conversation I've had so far with such a wonderful diversity of people, from Kenya, South Africa, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and the US.

Steve Hayes blogged about his thoughts prior Amahoro here and will probably soon blog about his thoughts with regards to yesterday. Roger has also blogged about it here. His description of what happened during a session with Adrian Vlok (former Minister of Police during the Apartheid regime) is a must read. I will blog about it myself when I get a chance.

Cartoon

2009-06-06T14:06:00.000+02:00

Thanks to Nic Paton for posting this on Emerging Africa. The original cartoons and others like it can be found at ASBOJesus.

Choosing Peace

2009-05-30T08:30:00.000+02:00

While cleaning up my computer I came across something I wrote as introduction to my final assignment in the course I was following in Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies, before embarking on my doctorate in the same department. I thought it made for interesting reading!

In the Hollywood blockbuster, Miss Congeniality, the character of Sandra Bullock is an undercover cop who has to participate in a beauty pageant. During the pageant, the various contestants have the opportunity to tell audiences what they most desire. The vast majority end their little speech with a sweet smile, fingers forming a ‘v’, saying, in a sickly-sweet voice, ‘world peace’. Prior to embarking on this Peace Studies course, I always imagined the idea of world peace to be synonymous with the empty idealisations of participants at beauty pageants.

This course has challenged my cynical paradigms tremendously, making me realise that what I accepted as ‘that’s life’ is only one possibility of life and that other possibilities are also attainable. Throughout my growing-up years, if I would mention suffering, poverty and injustice, the response of ‘that’s life’ was so common that I too came to accept it. Yet I realise now that kindness, non-violence, love and justice are also ‘life’. Both are possibilities, choices open to us as to what our life and the lives of future generations may be. After following this course I choose a life of non-violence, of active resistance to injustice, of seeking the truth and sincere love of all people (and animals and nature). That’s life!

Love Defies Orientation

2009-05-30T08:20:00.000+02:00

The Wikipedia post on bisxeuality suggests that there are four possible sexual orientations: heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual and asexual (not interested in either gender). The post refers to Alfred Kinsey who suggests that sexual orientation operates along a continuum, and he describes seven possibilities on that continuum:

Rating	Description
0	Exclusively heterosexual
1	Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual
2	Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual
3	Equally heterosexual and homosexual; bisexual.
4	Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual
5	Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual
6	Exclusively homosexual

Although the continuums’ seven orientations is a little more generous than Wikipedias’ four, I wonder if it is generous enough. A while back I saw the movie Imagine You and Me, in which a recently married woman finds herself falling in love with a girl friend. What I appreciated about this movie is that there was never a question about sexual orientation or identity. It was assumed that love happens as it happens. Love has been known to overcome the chasms of distance, race, culture, language, religion, physical and mental handicap, class, and so much more. Why not also gender? I reckon love is love and it often takes us by surprise. I’m not keen on placing myself in any kind of continuum or category. What do you think?

When my laptop was stolen

2009-05-20T04:04:00.000+02:00

On Monday afternoon my laptop was stolen out of my hand. I was walking into one of the schools where I work along with a colleague, each of us carrying our laptops in our hands, when I suddenly felt a tug on mine. Assuming someone was offering to help carry it, I turned to say thanks. Instead I saw an angry face, a flash of a knife and heard the words, "I'll kill you," as my laptop was wrenched out of my hand. Seconds later the man had jumped into a waiting car and had disappeared.

Within minutes the schools' security company had arrived and ten minutes later the police were there. With all of them and the schools' management, staff and some learners on the scene it seemed like a lot of attention for a laptop! But what affected the school was the idea that a man armed with a knife entered the school premises. Further, the man had jumped into a a number plate-less maroon Corsa Lite, which police say they have been tracking for some time.

Although people assume my reaction should have been shock and anger I felt two entirely unexpected emotions: calm and compassion. Since the moment of the event until now I feel an absolute calm and gratitude that the incident went off without anyone being hurt. But I also had a sense that perhaps some of my held beliefs, that nothing belongs to me and I have no rights, actually pan out in reality. I always say that kind of thing but have wondered if I'd really believe it when something happens. Although this incident is relatively small, I had a strong sense that indeed, neither my life nor my laptop are mine and I could hold both with open hands.

Although I only had a glimpse at the man's face, in his eyes I saw absolute desperation. My heart just went out to him, especially as my laptop is probably worth relatively little being rather old, and probably not worth the risk he took! My overriding thought was, what kind of society do we live in that allows for people to be so desperate? Of course there is personal responsibility, but as a friend said, some people have never heard the message of hope, or the possibility of an alternative way. I had no sense that this man was greedy or after a comfortable, wealthy life. I didn't even have the sense that he was malicious as such. I only had a sense of his utter desperation which was leading him to do crazy and hurtful things.

I ask that all of you who are prayers, to please take a moment to pray for this man and his two friends, that they would by some miracle find their lives transformed.

2009-05-12T17:06:00.000+02:00

"I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask,
Mother, what is war?"

~Eve Merriam, in Living Beyond War (2009)

Legalising Things

2009-05-04T08:54:00.000+02:00

There are two ways to respond to controversial moral issues in society. The one response is to stand against these issues and deny them their existence (although they stubbornly continue to exist) and the other is to legalise them in order to control them (although they seem to defy control!).

I’m thinking here of things such as homosexual marriage, drugs and prostitution. I guess homosexual marriage isn’t legalized in order to control it but similar kinds of reasoning takes place in terms of the position one takes on this issue as with the other two.

The reasoning on the one hand is that by legalising these things we’re somehow condoning them and thus building the wrong kind of society. Proponents of this side of the debate might say that by legalizing these things we’re giving the wrong sort of message about the kind of society we want to be.

But proponents of legalization are more concerned about protecting the rights and dignity of people rather than protecting socieites 'morality'. By legalizing prostitution, one can protect the rights and dignity of the prostitute, many of whom are in prostitution against their will. Once legalized, prostitutes can receive assistance on so many levels and the industry can be regulated. Once drug use is regulated one can know who is in danger of moving from soft to hard drugs, who to target in safe-drug-use campaigns, where the danger areas are and so on.

Neither side of the debate is indifferent to morality or the well-being of society. Both sides have a strong desire for what is best for all. This seems to me a good starting point in understanding one another: both want what is best based on hard won values. I guess for me, the value of human dignity is more important than the value of protecting a particular kind of moral image in society. What do you think?

Ursula Le Guins' Utopia

2009-05-04T08:47:00.000+02:00

Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed is one of the most fascinating books I have read in a long time. Its philosophies are of the magnitude of Ayn Rand’s and the worlds she creates in the complete series of which The Dispossessed is a part are comparable to that of Tolkien.

In The Dispossessed, she describes two world’s which her central character straddles. The one is much like our own earth, with its political and economic systems based on power, authority, possession and ownership. The other is a utopic world where no one holds power, there is no ownership of anything and everyone is truly equal. It is a form of anarchism with a strong nonviolent foundation.

Its hard to describe her utopic world in a simple paragraph, but Le Guin describes a society in which people are truly free. They have very little, there planet has little resources and its environment is demanding and exacting, but people are free from the anxiety of trying to scrape together a living and free from the fear and guilt that come from living alongside people that are either better or worse off than yourself.

What I like about The Dispossessed is that Le Guin honestly explores some of the potential pitfalls and weaknesses of her utopia. Power and greed seep into this equalitarian society. The struggles people endure are tough to the point of death. But as Le Guin writes, suffering is what unites their society in a tight brotherhood where they reach out to one another not out of altruism but out of necessity.

I’m surprised this book and others by Le Guin have not become better known on the level of 1984 or other utopic fiction. I think her books give the reader deep insights into our society which leaves one imagining new and better ways of being human.

Why I would still vote ID

2009-04-25T18:00:00.002+02:00

So the results are out and the election hype is reaching its climax, and anticlimax. After all the fears and hopes we're now going to return to the day-to-day humdrum of life in South Africa and I'm guessing that the biggest surprise is that not much will change, either for the good or the bad. Those fearmongers who predicted the collapse of our country will be as dissapointed as our optimists expecting sudden change. As so much of the rhetoric going round has been saying, casting votes is only a small part of our democracy. Its what we as citizens put in every day that will make the difference.

The greatest dissapointment for me was that the Independent Democrats didn't fare better. Few of the people in my network seem very interested in the ID but its certainly the party that best represents my interests and here's why:

1 - They're the only party calling for a cut in government expenditure on arms and the nuclear industry in order to rechannel this wastefulness towards development. This is priority number one for those of us choosing a lifestyle of sustainability and nonviolence.

2 - They stand for Social Democracy which seems to me supportive of the most just form of governance and the most equalitarian economic system currently available to us.

3 - They don't just pay lip service to, but are fully committed in their system of governance, policy (especially economic), focus and philosophy to minority and at-risk groups.

4 - They fight for the consitution. ID leader, Patricia de Lille, has made it her personal vendetta to fight every threat to the constitution as well as any sign of corruption. She put her party on the map during her expose of the arms deal.

A radio commentator on 702 suggested that the smaller political parties, including the ID, fold and join larger ones to boost their numbers. This made little sense to me as the ID seems to uniquely stand for things no other party stands for, and I believe has a voice that urgently needs to be heard in the South African context.

Elections

2009-04-20T12:44:00.002+02:00

Our national elections are two days away and although on the one hand the results are almost a given, on the other South Africans wait with bated breath to see what the future holds for our young democracy.

A thought that stands foremost in my mind is that democracy, or the future of a country, depends not so much on the leaders as on the strength of civil society. Kevin has written something similar this weekend here. A truly successful democracy would manage to survive really bad leadership were its citizens to do their part (as the US is an example of, having survived the Bush legacy).

My study supervisor, Geoff Harris, often says that those in leadership can only do as much as the citizens of a country allow them to. This is the case even in a military dictatorship. The price may be high, but here are various historical instances where people enmasse peacefully protested against a dictatorship and succeeded inoverthrowing it. If every citizen in a country were to stand together and refuse to follow a particular leader, regardless of what punishment might be meted out against them, that leader would be rendered powerless. A leader only has as much power as we give them. Very often we give leaders power out of ignorance, apathy or fear.

As Kevin writes, we don't need to fear our future leaders. We need to fear our own apathy in terms of transforming our society. What prevents us from taking action is often a victim-attitude or a learned helplessness. We often feel powerless and thus believe ourselves to be. But groundswell movements have resulted in tremendously powerfully changes in our society throughout history and will continue to do so. The question, in terms of the success of our democracy, is not who will our future leaders be, but will we, the citizens of South Africa, pull up our sleeves and take action?

Spirituality Conference

2009-04-16T16:59:00.004+02:00

I'm currently attending a conference on Christian Spirituality hosted by the Spirituality Association of South Africa (SPIRASA). The topic is Mystical Readings of the Bible. It has been really interesting to be exposed to such an academic approach to spirituality, whereas until now my experience has been far more experiential and on the level of participator or practitioner. This conference, in contrast, has been highly academic with presentations from national and international scholars in the field.

Drawing from some of this mornings talks, especially those of Paul Decock and Kees Waaijman, I'd like to share a couple of thoughts with regards a mystical reading of the Bible. The first point is that a mystical reading of the Bible would take into account its historical context, but also its mystical context in terms of 'meaning' and 'becoming'. Meaning here refers to the meaning of the universe, which in Christian terms would be to love God more. And becoming refers to becoming more like God (or more like who we were created to be, which is in God's image). The goal of Scripture, from this perspective, is to move us towards a greater love of God. As this love grows, so we become more of who we were created to be; more towards God's image. If God is love, then we we would be growing towards being more LOVE.

A strong theme in spirituality circles is that the Bible is there not merely to be analysed or read, but to read us and in this, transform us. As we allow the Bible to read us, we begin to experience Scripture beyond our preconceived ideas.

A final interesting thought was Waaijman's response to someone asking about the danger of decontextualisation. Waaijman, in his heavy Dutch accent and with his ironic sense of humour, pointed out that to read Scripture contextually would require taking the entire Bible in context at every moment of reading, which is humanly impossible. Thus we are constantly in the process of decontextualising. The important thing is to acknowledge, both to ourselves and to others, that we are doing this and that what we say can never be the final word on a particular part of Scripture. I found this refreshing and humbling!

Easter Sunday

2009-04-12T09:57:00.000+02:00

After I had written Friday’s blog post, I went to our Good Friday service and our pastor began the service by reading from Acts 2, where Peter speaks with boldness to the crowds in Jerusalem. Is this the same fearful Peter who denied Jesus three times?

Our pastor, Ian Stuart, spoke about what happened between Friday and Sunday, on that forgotten middle Saturday. On Friday his followers were a group of fearful, desperate, pathetic people. One takes his own life. Others run away. They are weak and without hope. On Sunday, there is an invitation to new life. Those same broken people become bold leaders in their society, and the initiators of one of the most influential movements of our time.

What happens between Friday and Sunday, the act of the cross, is to call us to the fullness of our identity, to call us to the fullness of all we are created to be. The act of the cross is not a guilt-ridden message to manipulate us into little replicas of Jesus. The act of the cross is a call to be all we are and can be. I see a picture in my mind of a phoenix. Out of something messy and insignificant comes this glorious, powerful, life changing creature. I believe each one of us is called to become phoenix’s of our own – beyond our fears and brokenness towards something powerful and influential and world changing.

After the cross, through the initiative of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, that motley crew of followers changed the world. Something radical took place. I’m mostly in John 18; I’m mostly with Peter, denying the fullness of all I was created to be as I hide in my fear and shame. But how Jesus is transforming that! He is shining his light into all my darkness (Psalm 139) and I grow in the courage to be unashamedly and unapologetically the beloved child of God, ready to step into my calling with a boldness that takes my breath away.

Easter Sunday is the message of new life. Fullness of life. The abundant life!

Good Friday

2009-04-10T09:56:00.000+02:00

I’ve been sitting with Peter’s denial of Jesus as described in John 18 for some months now. The past month my attention shifted to Jesus affirmation of Peter in John 21. The question that has stayed with me is, what was Peter’s sin in John 18? What was so devastating about denying Jesus to those strangers?

I had always thought the answer was that he was not bold enough in ‘witnessing’ to others and that it was a lesson to us to witness to strangers boldly. As I’ve become less interested in ‘witnessing’ in the old-fashioned evangelical sense of the word, Peter’s denial started to become meaningless. But as I sat with it these past few months what came to me is that Peter did not just fail to witness, or verbally deny the one he followed; he denied himself.

At the moment he denied Jesus, he denied his self. He denied the fullness of his own identity. He denied being the one he was created to be. He denied his calling. He denied becoming all he was intended to become. The denial of Jesus is not devastating because Jesus is some sort of self-centred being demanding all our attention. The denial of Jesus is devastating because it is the denial of self; the denial of wholeness, the denial of integration, the denial of life.

What is so powerful in John 21 is that Jesus affirms Peter. After Peter denied Jesus, Jesus affirmed Peter. He affirmed his identity and his calling. He reintegrated him and made him whole again so that he could fully be himself, all that he was created to be. Is that not part of the message of the cross? We deny our true or full selves; that is our sinand it leads to death. Jesus comes to us to reaffirm us and call us to wholeness. That is salvation, and it leads to life.

Zuma

2009-04-06T18:56:00.002+02:00

The news all over our media today is the charges that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has dropped against Jacob Zuma. It's important to note that he hasn't been acquitted but nor can the NPA take him to court in relation to the arms deal corruption allegations.

While listening to people phoning in to thw 702 talk radio show today a few things emerged. One was the comment by an American journalist which had a few South Africans on edge. Apparently this journalist said that South Africa is now becoming Africanised and just one more African country. As South African callers stated, what else could we be becoming than Africanised (Europonised??) and are we not another African country? It's time we start being proud to be African!

A few callers felt anxious about the NPA losing its credibility and the necessary checks and balances in the South African judiciary system being compromised. But the vast majority were confident in our judiciary and the NPA as it seemed as if the process of law was taking precendence over any political wrangling, which counts for a lot.

An apparently top notch British journalist had some things to say about the International world having little confidence in Zuma and seeing him as 'just another African leader'. As unimpressed as I am with Zuma, I'm starting to find such comments from outsiders a little tiresome. As one caller commented, the world stood by and accepted Bush as president even though Gore had the majority of votes; Blair joined Bush in some sort of bizarre witch hunt; does the west really have any credibility left to criticize us?

All this aside, I remain confident of South Africa's future not so much because I trust our leaders but because we have a strong and active civil society and this is the true backbone of a good and stable democracy.

Parting ways with Emerging

2009-04-01T05:23:00.000+02:00

For the past four years or so I've had an interest in the emerging conversation in South Africa and abroad. The writings of Brian MacLaren and Tony Jones were very significant for me a few years ago. They opened a space for me to engage God, the Bible and Christianity in new and refreshing ways that may well have saved my faith.

I've been interested to follow the conversation on Steve Hayes and Cobus van Wyngaard's blogs around the emerging conversation in South Africa. Something Steve wrote here, and more specifically what Matt Stone said in a comment to this post made me realise where I may part ways with the emerging conversation. Steve wrote that one of the streams of the emerging conversation was 'those looking for spirituality rather than religion'. Matt's comment to this was: "And those looking for ’spirituality’ versus religion tend to bow out of Christianity altogether or go for some sort of split-level syncretism. That’s not to say we’re not interested in mysticism, many are, but we wouldn’t see that as making up a distinct stream."

I think my own interest in the emerging conversation was a search for spirituality rather than religion, and unlike Matt suggests, this did not lead me to bowing out of Christianity altogether or a split-level syncretism (whatever that might be) but rather to my journey into Ignatian Spirituality. This has led me to a deeper integration of the various parts of my faith which I was struggling to hold together. For the first time I am beginning to integrate my intelectual engagement with my faith (theology, if you like) with my experiences of God (mysticism?) with my engagement with the people of God (church).

As this deeper integration takes place I find myself less interested in the emerging conversation as it seems less relevant to where I am at. This leaves me feeling a little guilty as I was quite stuck in with it all only a short while ago and it was at one stage so helpful to me! And I do believe that the kind of thinking that people like Cobus, Steve and others are busy with is very important for the future of the church and Christianity in South Africa. But somehow, it's no longer the journey I find myself on. I guess this may change in the future but for now I am so grateful to be on the journey I am on, and am grateful to the emerging conversation in all its many forms for the role it has played in creating new spaces for me and others to have new life breathed into our faith.

A Challange from Burundi

2009-03-28T17:02:00.000+02:00

I met Simon, founder of the Great Lakes Outreach, during my various trips to Burundi. His latest news update really challenged me deeply and I thought to put it verbatim on my blog.

"I’ve just seen Sam again…

Two weeks ago she showed up, eight months pregnant, and confirmed the worst news – tests revealed she was HIV+. The following Sunday, our baby Grace was very sick and so I stayed at home to look after her. That’s the only Sunday in many months that I was at home, and I think it was providential, as Sam rang. She’d been hit by a car and given birth to a dead baby. She wouldn’t be released from hospital unless she paid her bills, which needed paying immediately (unpaid bills here means imprisonment). So I was able to help get her out of hospital and avoid jail.

Sam, 28-years-old, is at the bottom of the world’s pile. Her system is slowly shutting down. Her leg is oozing puss. She has nobody in the world to look out for her.

And she came back to see me just now.

She is ‘one of the least of these’ that Jesus was talking about (Matthew 25); and so what I do for her, Jesus says, I’m doing for him. Somehow she is Jesus for me today. And what should I do with this Jesus sat in front of me…? She’s in pain. Her leg wound stinks. Her bleeding post-miscarriage is continuing. Her hands are trembling. She picks nervously and aggressively at her long grimy fingernails.

“Simon, can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“I don’t want to beg. I want to work. I need to earn enough money for food and medicine. Can you give me enough to start a business?” I’m so glad she’s not begging, that she has the will to work, that she still has some form of bent hope.
“How much do you need?”
“$100 is enough to buy a phone and some units to sell to people who can’t afford their own phone.” I’m aching inside. I’m challenged. You see, I’m all about the big picture and strategic involvement. Sam, however, is very small picture, and not strategic at all. To be blunt, she’ll probably be dead in the next few years.

But God doesn’t see her that way.

So neither can I.

I give her $110, the bit extra to treat her leg wound. I squeeze her, in an attempt to show her some real, pure, non-sexual fatherly love.

And as soon as she walks out of my office, three of my colleagues run up to me and warn me about her. She’s a thief! She’s a loose woman! She’s a liar!

Angry tears well in my eyes.

Come on, guys! She may have been all three of those things, but she also bears the imprint of Christ! And hopefully she’s changing. She’s definitely not lying about her repulsive stinking wound, her HIV status, her lost baby. She’s messed up - that’s as clear as can be - but please, who are we to judge? First take the plank out of your own eye and deal with your own Pharisaic yeast infection!

Although I’m angry, I realise that my judgmental anger towards them risks worsening my own Pharisaic yeast infection…
________________________________________________________________________

Did Jesus come to you today, in whatever guise?

I think he did. I think he does, every day, sometimes very ‘inconveniently’. So when he came, what did you do? What did you say?

If you didn’t recognise him, don’t worry, he’ll be back; and now maybe you can choose to get ready. So when he comes, what will you do? What will you say? Because Jesus tells us what he will say in those awe-full words in Matthew 25: “Whatever you did (not do) for one of the least of these, you did (not do) for me.”

Thank you, Lord, for sending Sam into my life to challenge my selfishness, my business, my hard heart and my abstract theology."

Pretoria North

2009-03-25T12:30:00.008+02:00

I really love living in Pretoria North. When we first moved here I could not imagine why we would be here of all places but I had an odd sense of it being 'right'. It's a conservative area, most people are Afrikaans (and we're English!), it's far from the city centre or any highway and many people see it as being backward in one way or another. But I have found it to be pleasant, green, friendly and welcoming. I have found a community here with whom I belong.

The suburbs are restful and pretty. Children play on the streets, people walk their dogs and teenagers cycle by on their bikes. The shops are in walking distance from our home. Also in walking distance is a retreat centre where I spend a lot of time and Nieu Comm u nities where I go on a weekly basis for a morning of 'spiritual formation'. Here are some photos I took from the window of our complex and while walking around our neighbourhood.

Some more on morality

2009-03-14T07:44:00.001+02:00

The question of morality continues to plague me. P3T3RK3Y5, in his 200th blog post, wrote something about this that resonated with me.

Let me say it again, you're not being uniquely christian by opposing: gay marriage, abortion, or evolution. so if you're not being uniquely christian - you're being something else. what is that?

He goes on to suggest that you're being fearful and that this package of morality is shared with fundamentalists from other religions (sorry to paraphrase this far less elegantly than you, Pete!). Read more about this here.

200th Blog Post!

2009-03-11T08:41:00.001+02:00

This is my 200th blog post! My first blog post was written in October, 2005. When I look back at my earlier posting I am amazed at where I have come from and how my thoughts and ideas have changed. Through the comments left over time I’m reminded of people who walked a journey with me through my blog. Most of these people I have never met. Some of have come and gone. Others, like P3T3Rk3Y5 and Paul have been interacting with me for several years. I’ve struggled with the concept of blogging. At times I stopped blogging altogether. Yet I always find myself coming back to it as a place where I can make sense of some of my ideas, think through things with others, and be challenged, not only by comments left but also by following others blogs.

I remember how fascinating Kevin and I found the concept of blogs when we discovered them back in 2005. Then, it was our first open engagement with like-minded people around Kevin’s journey out of Christianity, our atheist-Christian marriage and my own journey around rethinking church and theology (largely, then, through the Emerging conversation). We had few people we could talk about this with in our everyday life and blogging opened a whole world for us where we felt we could breathe! Through blogging we met a stack of people right in Pretoria that we could then start having face to face conversations with about the same things. How exciting that was!

The blogging community I move in has become very special to me. Although we don’t interact in each others lives deeply, I love the interactions there have been on Kevin and my blogs, and on the numerous blogs I visit. I have grown in my thinking and engagement with the world around me through this slightly bizarre world online world. I thank each one of you who interact with my blog and I thank all of you who have blogs for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences with the rest of us. May we continue to grow and learn together as we walk on this shared journey.

To have and to hold?

2009-03-07T08:30:00.000+02:00

There has always been something about the traditional marriage vows that hasn’t sat well with me and over these past few months it has become clearer what that is. It’s the idea that the other person is mine ‘to have and to hold’. Regardless of what this phrase is intended to mean, to me it smacks of possession and ownership.

I’ve become increasingly convinced that no person in any context is mine but they are a gift that I hold with open hands. They are their own, and perhaps God’s, but certainly don’t belong to me in the sense that I own them.

Ownership implies control. Out of an attitude of ownership may easily develop jealousy. And for some reason, jealousy over the one we love in our society is perceived positively. I read somewhere recently that when you have an anger problem you go on an anger management course. The article similarly suggested that if you have a jealousy problem, rather than thinking that you have a right to be jealous, perhaps you need a jealousy management course to start dealing with it.

We believe ourselves to have a right to another person; a right to be jealous over them; a right to influence them or control them in a particular way. What if we received our husband or wife, or any person in our lives, as someone we had no rights over? Instead, we would stand with gratitude at the gift of who they are without demanding or wanting anything more or less from then.

It’s a new way of thinking for me and one that makes far more sense to me in the context of love. We talk of loving someone to death, and so often our love is deathly in its possessiveness and demand. What if love is a letting go, rather than a holding on; a giving rather than a having? Perhaps then the marriage vows, instead of including the phrase ‘to have and to hold’ would include the phrase ‘to give and let go’.

Different Medical Approaches

2009-03-02T08:01:00.000+02:00

I haven’t blogged about my health for about two years now, which is probably also the last time I had a significant health challenge. I now have periodic sharp pains in my right lower abdomen, which one would think might be related to the appendix, although if it were acute appendicitis apparently the pain would rapidly increase until it was unbearable and diagnosis would be straightforward. In my case the pain comes and goes which may indicate chronic appendicitis or a range of other things, making it much harder to diagnose.

While at my medical doctor, a wonderful lady called Mia, I found myself comparing her approach to that of a previous homeopath, Dr Rouen Bruni. Dr Bruni is the most incredible health practitioner I have ever encountered and has never failed to bring me to full health using only natural alternatives, even in the case where the Medical Encyclopedia insisted a certain bacteria could only be healed using antibiotics. Unfortunately, Dr Bruni practices down in KZN and I live up in Gauteng (a six hour car drive) and I have not been able to find a homeopath I trust here in Pretoria.

As far as doctors go, I have really appreciated Dr Mia in that she takes me seriously and really answers all my questions, giving me a lot of information and engaging me in the diagnosis process. But what really stood out to me yesterday is the difference in her approach compared with Dr Bruni. Where Dr Bruni would diagnose on the basis of a very lengthy and detailed description of the symptoms, Dr Mia diagnoses through the use of multiple tests. On the basis of only a very brief description of the symptoms, Dr Mia would be making a list of all the possible causes and then put me through a battery of tests (urine, blood, ultrasound and more) to go through a process of elimination. Generally this is quite effective but it’s also quite an expensive route to take.

I really trust Dr Mia’s judgment and would follow her advice. However, I definitely prefer the symptom-intensive route because it is more holistic and it involves me more directly. With Dr Mia’s approach, only medical causes are considered and the process of diagnosis is in her power as it sits solely in the medical domain. With Dr Bruni, more of the power lies with me in that it comes down to how I experience my health and body and how I choose to communicate that to him. It’s a lot more subjective but also more empowering. Causes for bad health, especially in cases like mine where much of it is chronic, are not relegated to the purely medical. In my case the greater cause of bad health is most likely to do with what is happening in my life in general than merely what is happening medically, on a biological level.

Both approaches have their pros and cons. What they signify, though, is an entirely different philosophical bases or frame of reference. The one is skeptical of personal experience, preferring a series of ‘objective’ tests, whereas the other relies almost solely on personal testimony. I can see a lot of parallel here between the way Kevin and I approach knowledge and truth. I base a lot of what I believe on my personal experience whereas Kevin would prefer a series of objective tests on which to base his beliefs. And as with the medical approaches, I guess both have their place!

Nonreligious Morality

2009-02-25T17:37:00.000+02:00

At a recent talk I attended the premise was put forward that morality is not derived from the Word of God but from human beings and their world. God does not need moral laws but people by their nature do and thus morality has been derived from people, universally (as opposed to only from or for Christians acting from a Christian worldview).

Following this, there are two basic approaches to morality:

1 – The static approach: God has written into nature the norms and behaviours which are intended for humans to adopt. By observing how nature works we discover how God wants us to live. This revelation of God’s will is complete and unchanging.

2 – The dynamic approach: Through reason we discover what it is to be human. We use our God-given intelligence to develop our understanding of the purpose of humanity and what promotes human well-being and integration. This understanding will always be incomplete and open to change,

I appreciate the initial position put forward that morality is universal as opposed to specifically Christian. I’m drawn to the second approach to morality which suggests that it is dynamic and changing. This would be in line with the argument that morality, even within Christianity, has already been changing, as can be seen with the shift in thinking around violence, war, slavery, the role of women and most currently, homosexuality.

However, as the speaker pointed out, a dynamic approach to morality has a lot of difficult and challenging implications. One of my favourite spiritual writers, Margaret Silf, suggests that human society is evolving towards becoming ever more humane. As we evolve or grow towards a fuller sense of what it means to be human, we also grow in our understanding of what it means to interact with one another in a moral way.

I love this idea and it makes a lot of sense to me as I observe the changing world around me. Are there negative implications to this that I haven’t thought of? What are the weaknesses of this position? It’s certainly a frightening place to be as it means everything is open, nothing is certain. But just because it is scary that doesn’t mean it is wrong. Sometimes we need courage to face the truth!

I'm a Lollipop!

2009-02-21T15:46:00.000+02:00

Over the last few months I've been exposed to a number of personality tests and other means of getting to know myself better. The latest I've encountered is in a book I bought for my god daughters parents titled 'Growing Kids with Character'. Here Hettie Brittz describes both children and adults in terms of four tree types and then makes parenting suggestions.

According to Brittz's description I think I best fit the Lollipop (as opposed to the Rose, Pine and Palm trees). A lollipop is described as being hard working and giving, but also emotional and in need of a lot of affirmation. They are often servants or helpers but need to feel appreciated for what they do. But what clinched it for me that I really am a lollipop is this description: "People who disturb the order in a lollipop's surroundings, for example by moving their possessions around, messing up their house, returning their car without fuel, or leaving the kitchen door open will be amazed at how angry a lollipop can get!" This really had me laughing as I have been extremely angry as a result of each of these examples!

A far deeper personality test I was exposed to earlier in the year is the Enneagram, which I'll discuss in a blog post sometime in the future (I'm a type 2!). Although I have some hesitations about personality tests, I found the Enneagram went further than most and its descriptions have been immensely helpful for understanding myself and others.

In terms of tree types, I think Kevin is a Pine. A pine is steady and stable, not expressing emotions strongly, but with an unexpected, sharp sense of humour. Pine's need a lot of time on their own but really appreciate sharing the simple things in life with those they love. For them, to spend time doing ordinary things with a loved one means more than some major romantic event (don't I know it!). This latter came out as a strong difference between Kevin and I during a Marriage Course we're attending at our church. We had such a laugh at how Kevin said that doing things together is one of his highest priorities. I was stumped with amazement, turned to him and said, "What things? We never do anything exciting together!" And he then began listing how much he loved doing the dishes together, cooking together, and watching DVD's together. Sigh. And how I love doing exciting, romantic, daring, adventurous things!

What these personality tests do for me the most though, is to help me to deeply accept and engage people for who they are without wanting or needing them to be more like me. I like being a lollipop and I'm happy Kevin is a pine, even if it's sometimes frustrating. If we were all lollipop's we'd be a very boring forest!

Alison Des Forges

2009-02-16T16:38:00.004+02:00

One of the most respected academics and human rights activists in the Rwandan context is Alison Des Forges. Hers was the first account of the genocide I read, and I soon found out that the 900-page report was probably also the most well-researched account written so far. I discovered today that she was one of the passengers who died on Flight 3407, the flight that crashed between Newark and Buffaloin the US last week. I had half dreamed of perhaps meeting Des Forges one day by chance during one of my trips to Rwanda and am sad that will no longer be possible.

Not only did she write a 900-page report that had a significant impact on our understanding of the genocide, Rwanda's history and its unique context, she continued to write articles pertinent to the current situation and stood boldly for what she believed was right in situations of extreme political pressure. One such controversial stand was her insistance that the current Rwandan government be held accountable for their crimes against humanity which (along with other controversies) resulted in her being banned from the country.

The Human Rights Watch Obituary reads: "Alison's loss is a devastating blow not only to Human Rights Watch but also to the people of Rwanda and the Great Lakes region," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "She was truly wonderful, the epitome of the human rights activist - principled, dispassionate, committed to the truth and to using that truth to protect ordinary people. She was among the first to highlight the ethnic tensions that led to the genocide, and when it happened and the world stood by and watched, Alison did everything humanly possible to save people. Then she wrote the definitive account. There was no one who knew more and did more to document the genocide and to help bring the perpetrators to justice."

Since reading her work, her approach to the Great Lakes region and research of this kind has guided my own work. In terms of academics, research, and my involvement in conflict resolution and peace I hope I can emulate just a little of Alison Des Forges passion and professionality and the tremendous contribution she made to the Great Lakes region.

Leaning into the Light

2009-02-10T08:08:00.000+02:00

I'm not sure if I posted this quote from Barry Lopez before but if so, it's worth posting again!

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

Why does morality matter so much?

2009-02-02T08:23:00.001+02:00

I’ve been thinking of a person’s engagement with the church in terms of three major areas: spirituality, theology and morality. In most churches, your spirituality is almost a non-issue. You can have a non-existent relationship with God but as long as you give the right answers at a Bible study and live an upright life, no one is too interested. Theology is a bit more of an issue, but again, as long as you don’t stir things up to much you can quite easily continue being actively involved in church life with a pretty incoherent or irreverent theology. But morality is what it is all about. Were you to smoke or dance every night in a night club, it wouldn’t matter how deep your spirituality or how profound your theology, your participation in church life would be severely at risk.

So why does morality matter so much? This is a question that deeply disturbs me as it seems that the criteria for belonging or not belonging in a church community (especially in terms of taking up a leadership position) has far more to do with your morals than anything else. Perhaps this is a little cynical but I wonder why your connection with God would be seen as so much less important than whether you play by the rules.

Of course, a healthy spirituality and theology would most likely lead to a healthy morality. But it frightens me that playing by the rules is more important than being in relationship with God (and self and others). I can think of so many examples of people who have been in spiritual crises with almost no intervention from the church but when in morally questionable situations have seen immediate action from the church.

Of course, I'm not saying morality doesn't matter. I'm just curious as to why it holds the position it does in relation to spirituality and theology. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Perhaps someone can shed some light on the matter for me.

Rupert Everett

2009-01-28T07:59:00.001+02:00

I don't usually get fixated with celebreties but Rupert Everett has always held a certain fascination for me. I first encountered him in the film rendition of Oscar Wildes' An Ideal Husband (released in 1999). I loved his dry humour juxtaposed with his absolute intensity. He was mischevious, devious even, yet completely sincere and somehow terribly 'good'. Of course, he was playing a role but as I've followed his interviews on-line and as I read his autobiography this seems to be characteristic of him.

In Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins Everett describes the most outrageous stories in an almost off-hand way. His lifestyle, at least in his younger years (I am only a third of the way through the book), is in some ways appalling. He works as a gay prostitute for a period, is perpetually drunk and sleeps with the widest variety of people, both men and women, rich and poor, famous and infamous. And yet that sense of him being absolutely likeable, sincere and somehow completely himself is carried through all his stories.

For those of you less familiar with this actor, Everett is known for playing the voice of Prince Charming in Shrek, acted opposte Madonna in The Next Best Thing and had a role alongside Julia Roberts in My Best Friends Wedding. He also played in Shakespeare in Love, A Midummer Nights Dream and in another Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest. Apart from the autobiography, he authored two books, released a music CD, and worked as a model.

From his autobiography one gets the sense of someone who generously embraces life, holding back nothing of himself. He seems to fearlessly receive from life all the crazy and over the top experiences and relationships it holds for him. There is something utterly honest and almost naive about his engagement with everything. As I read his own account of it, I have to keep reminding myself that his lifestyle really is reprehensible. And yet this is easy to forget in the intensity and abundance with which he relates to the people and events of his life.

Another interesting aspect of his story is the changes in the gay scene over the 70s, 80s and 90s. He writes of an atmosphere of absolute abandonment in the gay community in the 70s which quickly changes in the ealr 80s with the onslaught of HIV and Aids. He also describes the change in public opinion during this time and the effect of being gay in the Hollywood world.

Banana Skins is an absolutely fascinating read which has opened my eyes to the world of British theatre, American film, being gay, being famous and being Rupert Everett. Everett is an actor worth following up on. With his dry sense of humour, sharp intelligence and disarming honesty, his interviews and books make for a really satisfying read and every one of his films is worth watching.

Being Baptist

2009-01-23T08:36:00.001+02:00

I was at a course last week where it was suggested that every denomination has a gift or ‘charism’ that it offers the Church. The Anglican Church, for example, was cited as having the gift of tolerance; the Methodist Church the gift of good works in the community. I thought for a long time about what the gift of the Baptist Church might be. It came to me that the gift might be ‘the pursuit of truth’.

In the Baptist Church pursuing the truth of Scripture is one of its highest ideals. And in the entire form and structure of the service, there is a complete absence of anything that may distract from the stark truth. There are no bells and whistles; no additional frills or padding. What you see is what you get and everything is stripped to the bare essentials.

Every charism or gift has its positive and negative potential. On the negative side, the Baptists charism of the pursuit of truth could lead to self-righteousness. I have seen Baptist churches which have developed the belief that they are the sole gatekeepers of the truth and that all other churches have strayed from the straight and narrow.

But on the positive, it can lead to a remarkable and deep authenticity. I think it is that which draws me. At its best, the pursuit of truth would lead people to say things as they are, to be all they are without pretences and to allow the gospel to be what it is without an agenda.

The reality of any charism is that the good and bad get mixed up and so in the average Baptist church you’ll get a dose of self righteousness and a dose of authenticity thrown in together. Although the self righteousness angers me in its hypocrisy, the authenticity is wonderful – engaging, inviting and liberating.

Although I struggle with the idea of identifying myself as Baptist (I was not brought up Baptist and attended a variety of denominations before joining this church) due to all the baggage that carries, I’m open to the idea that every church, including my own, has a weakness and a gift and I would like to help whatever church I find myself in to work towards transforming that weakness more and more into a gift.

Church Sex Myths

2009-01-16T07:37:00.002+02:00

In this blog post I’d like to explore some myths I was taught in church about sex. I gained a lot of great and important insights related to sex and relationships from the church but there was also stuff that I now question or know not to be true. I reckon that if the church is to have anything meaningful to say on this topic it will have to be as real and honest as possible instead of repeating ideas that don’t play out in reality.

Myth #1: If you get physically involved with your boyfriend the break-up will be harder.
I know friends who were never physically intimate with their boyfriends who had devastating break-ups and I know friends who did have sex with their boyfriends who had relatively easy break-ups (and vice-versa). The factor that seems to influence whether a break-up is hard or not is the depth of emotional attachment and level of expectation for the future (“I thought we would spend the rest of our lives together” versus “It was fun but he was never going to be my life partner”).

Myth #2: Having sexual partners before marriage will negatively affect sex within marriage.
I’m not advocating sex before marriage here but I am saying that friends of mine that were sexually active before marriage have not found this to negatively affect their marriage. On the contrary, some have found that due to experimentation with various people before marriage, they now know what they want and find it easier to settle down with one person for the rest of their lives.

Myth #3: Men have a higher libido than women.
This myth is very dangerous as it feeds the idea that men have a harder time controlling their sex drive and have a right to be sexually satisfied whatever the cost. Having lived with sexually active women during my student days, and from my own experience, I can confidently say that women have as high a libido as men! (Or perhaps that ones libido differs from person to person rather than between genders).

Myth #4: Sex means something different to men than it does to women.
According to this myth sex for women is emotional and for men is physical. I’m pretty sure though that most men prefer sex with someone they feel safe and loved with. I also know that there are times both with myself and my women friends that you just want sex to satisfy a physical need. And to take this up a level, perhaps we shouldn’t even speak of the physical and emotional as two separate and unrelated things.

Myth #5: You will never be attracted to anyone else apart from your husband or wife.
This myth has caused Christian friends of mine a lot of stress, as they are wracked with guilt about finding someone else attractive, and it has caused a lot of secrets between Christian couples I know who don’t speak about others they feel attracted to. Kevin and I take great enjoyment in talking (and laughing and teasing each other) about the people we are attracted to. This takes a lot of the power out of the whole thing and has deepened the trust and honesty between us.

I often think we get caught up in these myths not because we find them to be true but because we find them to be safe as they support and confirm an entire approach to sexuality that is in-line not necessarily with the Bible but with Victorian sexuality. This latter has become equated with Biblical sexuality but nothing could be further from the truth. Over the next few years I’m going to research the question of what Biblical sexuality really is. I think it is both far from Victorian sexuality and far from contemporary ideas (that we see portrayed by Hollywood and the media). To fall for either would be to fall short of God’s best for us.

Life is a Verb

2009-01-10T07:35:00.003+02:00

Around this time of the year people often seem to be making new years resolutions. I’m reading William Young’s controversial bestseller The Shack and was taken by a conversation between the main character, Mack, as he talks with the Holy Spirit who is represented by an Asian woman called Sarayu. In this conversation Sarayu explains to Mack that God is a verb, not a noun (I AM who I AM), and the life we are called to when following Christ is also verb, not noun.

What does this mean? She uses the example of two words: expectation and responsibility. These two words are often seen as very positive: we often feel it right that people should have certain expectations of us and that we need to be responsible husbands, wives, parents, employees or whatever. But what if we ‘verbed’ these words? Sarayu describes this as living life with expectancy (as opposed to being burdened with expectations) and being responsive to whatever life brings (as opposed to being responsible).

Living with expectancy and being responsive to what life brings – what an exciting and vibrant way to approach life! It immediately feels creative and energizing, where the words ‘expectation’ and ‘responsibility’ sound demanding and exhausting. We can never live up to expectations and can never fulfill our responsibilities as well as we should. But we can live with expectancy and with a responsiveness to all that happens around us, and is this not a better, deeper way of engaging life?

When I hear people’s new years resolutions I often hear phrases loaded with responsibility and expectation. “I need to do this” or “I should change that.” My new years resolution for 2009 is to embrace life with an expectancy and to be responsive to everything around me. May I live 2009 as a verb!

Our presents, their death?

2008-12-28T08:02:00.003+02:00

"Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms," said Ex-British Parliament Member Oona King (quote taken from this site).

I just finished reading John Le Carre's latest novel The Mission Song which highlights the 'blood coltan' crises. Coltan forms an essential component of mobile phones, compters, DVD players and Play Station 2. Le Carre describes in his novel how Play Station 2 production plumetted in 2000, at which the media cried out how Play Station 2 manufacturers were ruining children's Christmas's as what would they play with now? What they didn't mention was that reason for the slow down in production was the violent conflict in Eastern DRC.

Coltan is mined in the Eastern DRC area and has become a contentious struggle area as super powers fight for control. According to Le Carre's novel (which I find very believable) the US and the UK are amongst the highest 'bidders' for this area, with the US making use of a coaltition with Rwanda and the UK with Congolese politicians.

Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, has created a special Wiki entry just to highlight this 'blood coltan' crises. He mentions how some manufacturers have refused to use Eastern DRC coltan, prefering the more expensive coltan sources, such as those in Australia.

As we enjoy our mobile phones, computers and play stations this Christmas, let's give a thought to what they may have cost in terms of human lives. Of course we can't stop using technology altogether but perhaps we can become more conscious and responsible users.