seethrough

when i was a pre-teen Pirates stories were the rage.  I still remember watching “The Princess Bride” for the first time.  All that sailing ships into misty fog…

One Monday - it was my day off - I wandered into Pirates of the Carribean and Capt. Jack Sparrow brought it all back.  Seems pirates are back!  (don’t bother with the sequels - just stick to the original Jack Sparrow movie: The curse of the Black Pearl.  or, find a copy of The Princes Bride and catch up on lost time…)

But there’s a new pirates story that is emerging on the west coast of Africa…

Have you asked yourself why are somalian pirates risking their lives taking hostages from ships passing the horn of africa?  Well, yesterday I discovered some stats that begin to answer the question.

Try compating the mortality rate of children under the age of 5 - in Somali, my home country South Africa and for comparitive sake, the United States:

Comparative mortality of under 5’s (per 1000):

Somalia - 143
South Africa - 59
USA - 8

Next, consider the  comaparative income of the average population GNI per capita (Gross National Income divided by the number of citizens in each country):

Comparative GNI per capita (2007):

Somalia - US$ 140
South Africa - US$ 5760
USA - US$ 46040

(Check the graph on the right to get the full effect of these numbers.)

stats courtesy of UNICEF (studies conducted in 2007)

Another  factor is presented in this articel from thefreelibrary.com:

The reasons behind piracy: piracy off the Somali coast has been headline news, but the media have neglected to say why the pirates do what they do. Massip Farid Ikken reports.

Of course, I could just be soft…  we can always send in the big guns…  Check out the alternative solutions as presetned by Grant Walliser on his High Voltage blog.

when last did you kneel?

i don’t often kneel, but on Monday night i next to a 49 year old man just after he had died from a heart attack.

it’s a strange experience to be at the bedside of a person who has died.  the death is so large and real and in your face.  and yet life is also real and intense.  time seems to slow down and every movement and every word seems to carry special significance.

his wife was near to his side and I was privileged to be able to kneel, and to pray for them.

i prayed a prayer of gratitude.  i was grateful that he had been able to express his love and appreciation for his loved ones so tangibly while he was still alive.  i was grateful that his courage had taken him well along the road toward wholeness.  of course, he wasn’t perfect, but he had walked the road of faith - facing the challenges that come with spiritual growth - and he had made so much ground.  i was grateful for having known him.

i pay tribute to George - a faithful and courageous man - who died suddenly this week.

because his family has shared in the life of our community of faith, we now share in their pain and mourn his loss with them.  somehow things just won’t be the same again.

so the Tempter says to a Searching hungry man “why don’t you turn these stones into bread?”

and the incredible thing is the temptation isn’t the satisfaction of bread filling a hungry stomach.  Ah, it’s much bigger than that…

hungry man has been thinking about people who are hungry.  more than that, he has been feeling - experiencing a little taste of life on the other side of the bread-line.

hunger has a way of stripping a person.

and there are thoughts of relief - the precious, powerful, popular relief of real bread in the hands of the needy.  A worthy project.  what a position to slip into - the One who brings bread for the hungry.

We know the story: social worker turned Politician.  and a land-slide Victory… and the rest is history

repeating itself.

because the only thing we learn from history
is that we don’t
(steve turner)

so i preach this bready sermon - practical, offering simple and hands-on advice for everyday living.  Cut the heavy theology.  Bring on the Hope.  Happy time are here again.  And everyone loves it.  one person reckons it’s my “best yet”…

and i wonder.  do i keep giving them the bread they want?

or do i try serve up the “living bread” - the one that gets broken…

it’s not the popular story.  not regular history,

repeating itself.

a wicked twist:  the hero gives himself up, and dies.

awkward.

no bread for the hungry.

failure.

but also peace… it’s like he thinks everything’s gonna be ok…

(i wrote this for my column in the church newsletter - but it didn’t fit in with this edition’s theme…  still, it is a reflection on an amazing staff meeting a few weeks ago where we - multi-lingual, multi-cultured, multi-racial and multi-aged team of colleagues - began to reflect together on the call to journey together down the perilous road toward real community, behind the masks, below the surface…)

I don’t believe that going to church can earn you a place in heaven. Church is sometimes not heavenly at all! So why do I pour myself into building Christ-following community?Every spiritual journey may be unique, but no spirituality is complete without the challenge to move from me to we - from a preoccupation with self to a new appreciation of self amongst others. And it’s not a simple or easy journey.

Many of us are involved in groups, but things can be largely superficial. The group has never faced a difficult conflict or ventured beyond the safety of superficial topics and conversations. M. Scott Peck, in his book A different Drum reflects on the stages of community building. He suggests that an event – planned or unplanned – usually throws the group into Chaos. This is potentially painful or frustrating. People are tempted to withdraw from the group. Many people move to other churches when a church community goes through a difficult time. Chaos can be hurtful and disorientating. And yet it is also a necessary stage leading to the next important stage: Emptiness.

Peck uses the word Emptiness to refer to the Jesus call to sacrifice. Before real community can be born, all of us will need to let go of something. Peck invites everyone in the group to ask themselves: “what do I need to empty myself of?” Before real community can be born, we will need to carefully navigate through the difficult waters of Chaos and Emptiness…

The good news for those of us who long for real, safe, healing, generous, meaningful community is… it’s possible. It isn’t just an idealistic dream. Real Community may not be as “pretty” as we hoped… getting there is arduous. But it is real. And in a world of superficial facades and masks and pretence… something real is valuable. Like an old worn pair of jeans: not the smartest pants in the cupboard, but always our favourite! St John’s continues to call people from the safety (and loneliness) of our self-ish ways into the challenges and complexities and joys and benefits of community – from “me” into a real expression of “we”.

[ref. Peck, M.S.  The Different Drum  Touchstone:NewYork, 1987]

i am slow to learn.  most of the people i bump heads with are probably not actually that far away from me (in the sense that we probably live out of very similar values and choices).  the way we choose to express our convictions leads to conflict…

what has become clearer to me is that certainty produces bad fruit.  good fruit does not grow from the tree of certainty.  the spiritual quest for truth (if that is in fact the heart of the spiritual quest) is not a quest for certainty.

it’s a quest for righteousness.  it’s a quest for the good.

“everything you know is wrong” is a provocative claim that U2 uses at their live concerts.  it’s a statement that denies certainty.  but it’s so certain about it’s claim that it ends up denying itself.  but of course, the opposite can’t be true: that everything you know is right!

it’s a fantastic example of a statement that doesn’t have to be true to do it’s work. it’s precisely because it’s false, that it expresses the truth…  that certainty, the quest for certainty, and all (ignorant and arrogant) claims of certainty are not only false, but they cause pain.

recently i stumbled on the bible’s alternative to certainty.

conviction

certainty is like perfection - it’s all encompassing conclusiveness is static.  nothing more to be said, nothing more to be learned, nothing more…

conviction is attractive.  it’s motivating.  it’s energy.  it’s the Spirit of God moving us out of our static complacency.  we don’t have to know it all.  we don’t have to nail it all down before we act.  we act because we sense a conviction.  we don’t even know that we are right about or conviction.  we test our motive.  we share the conviction with friends who care.  we wait and we pray.

but in the end, without 100% clarity, without complete knowledge of the implications of the journey, without a clear picture of the road ahead…

…conviction takes a first step

how do we face a tragedy?  I say we need to engage our hearts - allow ourselves to feel the tragedy and weep before the bodies lying in the streets - or hanging from a cross…  (see tragedy part 1 below)

So how do we survive a tragedy?

Our natural survival instinct suggests run - run away from any danger, threat or potential difficulty.  We assume hope is found at the top of the mountain - where the outlook is great and the view inspiring.  But experience - painful experience - teaches that hope is born in the valley.

In the valley of the shadow of death we learn how to trust.  “Into your hands I commit my spirit”.  It’s in the darkest place that we learn to surrender and we start the most profound season of our faith-life journey.  Perhaps that what is meant when U2 sing:

“midnight is where the day begins” (from Lemon)

Rather than running from the place of our pain, we may find we have to return there - not to be retraumatised - but so that we can begin the journey of hope, which begins in the valley.

a friend and I were speaking yesterday about money and generosity - and we concluded that the practice of generosity has to be learned when you have very little.  Somehow having a lot, more than enough, makes it more difficult to learn generosity!  is it the same with hope?

[One caution: some people are so overwhelmed by their pain or trauma that to “return” or to face the pain and acknowledge the grief will be too much.  perhaps it is important to recognise that sometimes our survival may require a period of “numb-ness” - a time of denial - just to survive the overwhelming emotions that threaten to wash over and drown us.]

i dunno why i do it.  but i get drawn into debate with colleagues who are strongly opposed to same-sex relationships in the church.  anyway, sometimes the writing stimulates thought which i do appreciate.  a few days ago, in conclusion to a response to a particularly feisty person in the debate i wrote the following:

tomorrow… we celebrate the marriage of two women who have sought God’s heart, allowed the scriptures to shape their characters, served the faith community with giftedness and our country in self-sacrificing ways in their secular work…  and have shown their faithful commitment to loving each other well.  the witness of their lives has done much to help many of us reconsider our unkind dogma and will allow us to acknowledge (whether we like it or not) God’s Kind and Tender Presence in the ceremony tomorrow… far more Kindness than we ever seem to be able to muster ourselves…
and so we did!!!  we toasted to Love and to Life and we celebrated the marriage of phillipa and natasha.  and i think God smiled…

(hopefully there will be photos soon and we’ll post a link…)

every now and then someone asks a REALLY GOOD QUESTION… the question may not seem significant if it doesn’t search within you… but if it hits the spot, if it turns you inside our and won’t leave you alone, then it’s a really good one!

a few days ago i came across one of those questions:

Who am I when no one knows what I do, what my name, or nationality are? Who am I when I am just a face in the crowd? Who am I then?

When I am not… Who am I?

This question hasn’t left me alone the past few days. When one surrenders the things you do as a basis for determining and defining one’s identity, what’s left? Is my identity primarily and finally determined by the roles I assume and the functions that I take on? And is there a person under the pile of roles and robes, that’s actually quite… quiet? gentle? patient?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one…

henry is “critical but stable”. over the next few weeks i will probably spend some time paying tribute to this remarkable man. if he survives this ordeal I will still be glad to have said these things… I often think we wait too long before we pay tribute to people we love and/or respect…

I have enjoyed my lessons in Narrative Therapy and Counselling. I am not an expert - well, as Narrative practitioners will tell you “the client is the expert” - but I mean that I do not consider myself to have mastered the art of working with the stories and streams of people’s lives in the creative and helpful way that some are able to…  I am constantly challenged by this way of working - and inspired by watching and speaking with people who are more masterful than i.

a (the?) big challenge for a Narrative Therapist is to assist a person to tell the forgotten or neglected (but valued and hopeful) stories of a person’ life. Another way of talking about this is to listen for the Silenced Voices, the marginalised voices in your life.

Certain very Dominant Voices and Stories have a way of taking over a person’s life and trying to strangle and subdue other opposing stories and voices that are not so forceful or well-established. For instance, I may have grown up as a sensitive boy who was able to feel compassion easily and cried often. A Dominant Story of male strength and bravery might come along and subdue the story of sensitivity and compassion, encouraging me to embrace a very different way of being, not necessarily because I really want to, but perhaps for other reasons, like not wanting to be rejected or embarrassed by peers…

The good news is that these subdued voices/stories don’t seem to die. they hide. Sometimes they are hard to find again. but they are there. and with gentle encouragement, they often make a wonderful reappearance offering us new choices for our lives and our futures.

Henry Botha, elaine’s father, had a difficult upbringing. his family was poor and life was hard. He has worked hard and made a life for himself and for his family, who he loves in very practical ways. In some ways, the fear of his past (poverty, i think) has haunted him and made him quite driven in his work. But the thing that I find so commendable is his sensitivity to the underdog. he has never (it seems) forgotten the humble beginnings - where he came from. Henry has an incorrigible love of the underdog. he goes out of his way to help a person who is working hard, but struggling. I think Henry has an ability to see an “underdog” much quicker than the rest of us. He possesses a great sensitivity when it comes to people who are struggling. Even across the racial barrier, Henry is often quietly but generously helping people without seeking recognition.

I have spent so much time trying to learn the theory of sensitivity to the Voice of the Marginalised but tonight I pay tribute to a great man who is so powerfully conscious of the small people, the lowly people… a great quality!