A poem: On Point

On Point

“I didn’t do it,” she said, as she pointed at someone else’s  parent’s parents.

“I didn’t do it, “he said, “and I have NEVER used that word.”

“We didn’t do it,” they loudly declared, as they counted out the coins to pay the lady who was busy raising their children.

 

“I didn’t do it,” she said as she gestured towards her black boyfriend who she had decided

to name ‘Justice’ because it was such a strong, regal sounding name, and rolled so easily

off the tongue.

 

“I didn’t do it,” he said as he spoke sadly of his inability to find work,

and how a system of structured “reverse racism” was now working viciously against him,

stopping him from B.E.E.ing able to find any employment at all.

 

“We didn’t do it”, they chorused as they hung another banner together,

calling for an “Off with his head” sentence for the president who couldn’t pronounce all

of  the numbers in the language of their choosing.

 

“I didn’t do it,” she said as she quickly looked away from the scene happening in front of her in the restaurant and crossed over to the other side of the street.

“I didn’t do it,” he said as he quickly logged off of his social media account because it was getting a little uncomfortable now that she had been caught saying that thing.

“We didn’t do it,” they whispered as they grabbed their last bag off the conveyor belt at the airport and set out to begin their new sparkly lives.

 

Then one day, without warning, they all suddenly ran out of fingers to point and as they stood in front of the mirror, they watched as a thin trickle of blood slowly dripped out of their left nostril and ran quickly down their face, settling in a tiny little growing puddle on the floor.

A Sparrow by any other name…

It has been a heart-breaking day…

i’ve known Sindile for close to a year and a half now i think. Known as in i’ve never met him in real life [yet – hopefully remedy that in the next ten days!] but he has guest posted on my blog a number of times and he has this way of blogging within his Facebook status which inspires and challenge and calls to action and pauses and so much more on so many occasions. 

The Deep Dive South Africa needs.

i crawled into bed sometime after 2 this morning… Exhausted, challenged, frustrated, reflective, inspired, hopeful. It had been a long, packed day.

The night before had seen 11 of us sharing a meal and then sitting outside in our tiny courtyard, wrestling with the idea of what it means to Live Simply.

Can we stop saying it is about race?

 

That is the refrain i hear quite a lot from many white people when it comes to issues of reconciliation and marches and freedom and South Africa:

Can we just please stop saying it’s about race?

So i thought let’s give that a try. And the way i want to do that is by telling a few stories. Now try and not get distracted by the kind of message you think i want to suggest with each story. First read it and respond just as a story. And then we’ll examine the responses.

Reblog: Craig Stewart Audacious Hope speech

Yesterday at the Cape Town #ZumaMustFall march, my friend Craig Stewart, who helps lead the Warehouse in Wetton, gave an excellent speech and here, with his permission, is the transcript of what he said, along with the video link if you would like to see him saying it:

This is the draft of a speech I gave at a Unite Against Corruption event in the Company Gardens on Dec 16 2015. The gathering was in response to the actions of President Zuma over the past two weeks and many of the people there had organised around #Zumamustfall. I do think President Zuma is a dangerous liability for SA but the tone of much of the conversation around this has been racist.

#ZumaMustFall: The jury is out…

So today was The Day of Reconciliation in South Africa and as long as you stayed off the comments sections of anyone posting anything about any of the marches it felt a little bit just like that.

This was my Facebook status at the beginning of the day:

Prosperity as a Blessing from God

Continuing with a read through of this chapter from Ron Sider’s ‘Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger’ starting where we left off:

Possessions are highly dangerous. They lead to a multitude of sins, including idolatry. Western Christians today desperately need to turn away from their covetous civilisation’s grasping materialism.

= = = = =

THE RING AND THE BELOVED

Possessions are dangerous. But they are not innately evil. Biblical revelation begins with creation. And created things, God said, are very very good (Genesis 1).