A couple of weeks ago we had our Spaghetti conversation about race, location and boundary, which you can catch up on over here. Our friend Babs, was one of the guests who joined us and she had this reflection to add:
A conversation about where you live becomes a conversation about your life, and in South Africa, becomes a picture of what the past means to different people and how it affects how we live everyday.
What I valued was how different conversations I have had with different people separately, became one conversation. It gave a better bigger-picture than the conversations I’ve had in isolation with similar people in the same age groups or contexts. It’s not less heated or more compassionate, it’s just real! The diversity in the people in the room was extraordinary!
I don’t know how to strike the balance between all the thoughts, the realities, the truths and the stories. I loved meeting every single person there and it left me with a lot to think about. It also gave some peace, understanding and inspiration in some areas. I walked away feeling like, ‘finally, I’m so glad that some of that finally happened in my life’. It was what I needed and it made bigger room in my heart for everyday issues that are very complex to me.
It was a great space to see the work of God in all our lives. Nothing is more important than God, yet the issues we face can seem far from spiritual when we talk about them truthfully and practically and I pray God will guide, guard and give wisdom as we navigate these things.
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So there you have it – five different reflections on the same dinner. And there are going to be more. In my head i have been calling them Deep Dive Conversation Dinners as that is really what they are. Invite some people around for a meal who have different experiences and thoughts about a particular topic and then create a space for us to really dive a little deeply into one aspect of that conversation. The next one we are planning is likely going to be around Economics and how we spend our money and what we do with our stuff and will most likely take place sometime soon after we get back from our trip to Americaland in July.
Another part of the thinking is of this is if we have friends who on Facebook have strong disagreement on some topic we are both passionate about, to say “I’m not going to go further with this online. Sit face to face with me and let us break bread together and let us talk with all the tone and emotion and heart that a live conversation adds to the debate.” We don’t have to all leave the evening thinking the same thing, but the hope is that we will all leave challenged or changed in some way.
How about you? What topic would have you interested to meal with us?
Irresistibly Fish 
“The next one we are planning is likely going to be around Economics and how we spend our money and what we do with our stuff and will most likely take place sometime soon after we get back from our trip to Americaland in July.”
Nice to have strong salary, I as a janitor or guard earn about R230 day an R320 for night shift. So its only 5 days so about R4000-5000 in a month, a good salary i cant afford trips to america like you wealthy white guy. How much is this tickets? Let me suggest you use this to help poor? It is hard to take you serious when you jetset. You have white privlage and it shows here with holidays to usa. What work you do? What work your wife do? Please state your net income. How much would be needed economically? Some trip I only dream about.
Why claim of African man? HUh? but then you go to USA ? Please I;m not with you man.
Hi Zweli, thanks for stopping by. My name is Brett, not white guy. My ticket for this particular trip has been paid for by a youth camp that I will be speaking at in Americaland. So it is not money I have here that I can choose to spend differently. I am wealthy though, I totally get that and I do try use a bunch of what we have to help others in different ways sponsoring some people and some programs and I imagine we can always do more. We are trying to figure out living more simply and more effectively but there are a lot of things in play. I think we all have our own hypocrisies if we dig deep enough and living well is about trying to live honestly and being real and authentic as well as seeing how best we can help those around us. I have no doubt we could be doing it better but we do wrestle with those questions a lot of the time. And will continue to.
Zwele numbers.. I earn R27k per month working 5 days per week. After tax that is. I give R2700 to my church and I donate to the poor. Probably about R1000 per month in areas my church doesn’t go to. The rest goes to a bond and to car and insurances. After that it’s r3000 saved.
Thankx Norman. We certainly don’t bring in anything like that, probably closer to half that. And we support some individuals and some projects for more than 10% of our income plus see everything else we have as needing to be used well with others in our life. We typically prefer our giving to be relational so people and projects that we know and have been personally involved with.
Sorry for R100 you can feed 5 family soup or a meal. You against white privlege but you show it all the time. For this tickets from here to New York you might pay R20 000 or more? So how many families you can feed now? I am nt with you. Why you hypocrite.