The Other Paper Game

So there is the OTHER paper game… you know the one i mean? One of the best big group games, four rounds, Pictionary then One Word clues then Actionary then hiding-behind-the-couch-with-just-your-hands-over-the-top-giving-the-clues raucous LOLlified comedy?

Well THIS is the other one to that. And it’s not technically a game, but more of a How To Enhance A Mealtime or Hangout That Otherwise Might Have Been Somewhat Random or Less Significant.

Day of Reconciliation 2015

Today is known as the Day of Reconciliation. Although for most South Africans i imagine it is just seen as a public holiday.

Someone’s status caught my attention this morning and got me thinking, ‘Imagine if in South Africa we started celebrating Day of Reconciliation in the way Americalanders celebrated Thanksgiving?’ – now, as always, any analogy is as strong as the point it is trying to make so let’s just ignore all the negative aspects linked to Thanksgiving for a moment and focus on the idea of sitting around a table together and looking back and giving thanks.

DAY OF RECONCILING

This would be an amazing day to grab hold of for families. Sitting with children and explaining to them the significance of reconciliation and then modelling it to them.

But take a minute right now. Is there anyone that comes to mind who you are holding unforgiveness towards at this moment? Maybe it was something that someone said or did to you this week? Maybe earlier this year? Or perhaps something a little more deeper and more painful that happened a few years ago that you have not been able to let go of?

Is there anyone that comes to mind who you are holding unforgiveness towards at this moment?

Alternatively, it might be someone who is holding on to unforgiveness against you. Jesus had some crazy unconventional teaching to give to that scenario, which turns the whole thing on its head.

Is there someone like that who comes to mind for you? You can’t make anyone forgive you, but you can open the door to reconciliation and invite them inside. Do whatever you can do to create the bridge and perhaps give them a nudge to step over? What is radical about Jesus’ statement is that He invites us to interrupt worship to go and do it. “Don’t pretend you are all close to God and stuff if there is broken relationship with you and someone else. Fix that and then come and hang with Me.”

START AT THE MIRROR

It’s often easier to see fault in the other person. You’d think Mandela might have been someone who would have been justified being pissed off with a lot of people, but he chose to look inwardly and make sure he was right inside, for the greater good of the nation.

Each of us need to stand in front of the mirror and ask where we need to change. This is something that should be happening on a more regular basis for sure, but imagine if on one day every year, every person in the country took this seriously and did a self-reflection and reached out to those who had hurt them and who they have offended.

Now this won’t obviously magically happen overnight, but how about you start as one person, as one family, as a group of friends, as a community to make something more significant of this day. Maybe today you just do something by yourself as it’s quite short notice, but plan to set aside The Day of Reconciliation in 2016 as something more significant?

As much as Jesus’ words were powerful, His example was more so. Regardless of who you might think He really was or what you believe about Him, much of His life and actions have been captured. One of the final statements He shouted out from the cross where he was being crucified in the most horrible way known to man at the time was the following:

If an innocent man who is being tortured and killed can have the attitude of Reconciliation for those doing the killing, then how much more can we do for those who have hurt us in smaller ways? Who have said things that caused offence? Or done things – or possibly not done things – which made us sad or angry or frustrated?

How about we claim the Day of Reconciliation as an actual thing we celebrate both in not having to go to work, but also in reaching out towards those where distance has been created?

Who is one person you need to begin this with? Please come back and let me know how it goes…

Writken Word: Cowbell

This will be my second attempt:

i had this idea for a stream of consciousness kind of Spoken Word vibe but written down with no edits and so what i am going to do in a moment is ask Facebook for a word to get me started – i will pick the seventh word suggested, whatever it is, and then come back here, write down that word as the heading and then flow a written piece with whatever comes into my mind

2015: A glance back

2015 has been quite a complicated year. It has contained some of the best of times and some of the worst of times. And there is no way i will do it justice in one blog post here. But i thought it was worth looking back and mentioning some of what it held, even if just for me…

Writken Word: Take 1

i had this idea for a stream of consciousness kind of Spoken Word vibe but written down with no edits and so what i am going to do in a moment is ask Facebook for a word to get me started – i will pick the third word suggested, whatever it is, and then come back here, write down that word as the heading and then flow a written piece with whatever comes into my mind and try and catch the rhythm of a spoken word piece and publish whatever comes out. No pauses. No edits. You’ll have to take me at my word on that, but here goes with Writken Word, first attempt:

CHEESE

Consider this if you will, as you open up the refrigerator of your soul and realise that there right at the back somewhere far in the distance, in places that you cannot even see any more there is the smell of something slowly and softly making its way towards you. As you peer more deeply in you are suddenly hit in the face by a giant wave of pungent odour that knocks you down, leaving you bruised and breathless as you lie there pondering what just happened on the floor. Could that strong smell be emanating from me you ask yourself but before you can reply there is the sound of a reverberation that begins within and threatens to force out the very expansions of every tendency within you to want to make sense of what just happened. You decide to wait, knowing that waiting brings with it the anticipation of the opportunity to try and make some kind of sense, find some meaning stop the dreaming that this must be. This can’t be real but yet you start to see the congeal that is setting in around the edges of your mind and you start to know, this is real. This is happening, this is now. And you are powerless to stop it or even to contain and so you let out a refrain with every process in your brain scrambling to undo that which has already been done so long ago and cannot be stopped now. You stop. And wait. And think. And listen. And suddenly the smallest smile appears at the edge of your mouth as you realise that this is not a powerless state of being, this is simply the past and it is vast and it stretches seemingly infinitely out, but as you turn around you see that the space in front of you is empty and ready and waiting for you to act, to live, to breathe, to create, to do. And so so leaving what is past and what may have been a disaster and what is trying to drag you back with its stenchy smell you set out anew on a new journey which is undiscovered country waiting to be a road less walked upon but by you. This is not a story that has already been written and is waiting to be rewritten. This is a new opportunity to paint to climb to fly to breathe. To be. And so you will be. And you will NOT be held back by what has already been not matter how badly it smells to you. No, you are going to seek out new smells, create new fragrances, be new perfumes to those you encounter from here on out. You will not forget the past, but you will NOT be contained by it.

[Word supplied by Jamie Rogers Gibson randomly on Facebook]

To fully appreciate it, i think it might help to speak out the words or at least mouth them silently to yourself as everyone in your office is starting to stare…

[For the next one i did titled COWBELL,  click here]

 

Highlight Moment from my life #8: There’s a Guy!

This is my mate Mark Baker:

And this is taken on Lion’s Head [which is a part of Table Mountain]:

And a number of the classic highlight moments of my life include a combination of the two of these…

I spider with my little eye…

Just a few moments ago, crawling up my wall.

And my initial instinct was not to grab a book and smoosh him. And to be honest, it hasn’t been that for a while.