not cheese but hope

This article first appeared in The Mercury on 27 June 2011 [and arrived in my inbox this morning]

Hope n. the feeling that events will turn out for the best.

I recently attended a small birthday party and Hope showed up. I wasn’t necessarily expecting her to be there, but that’s Hope for you; she always arrives when you least expect her.

She appeared suddenly and silently. It was almost as if she ‘spirited’ into being – like a character from a science fiction movie. She was very beautiful – radiant in fact – but some might have missed her arrival because here in South Africa we’re not that good at spotting Hope. Like beauty, she exists in the eyes of the beholder.

And this is the conundrum with Hope. On the one hand, she is a lady that would never force herself on anyone. On the other hand, we need her in order to survive. Without her, we quickly slip into despair and hopelessness and insightful thought, empathy and creative energy disappear. Hope is as essential to human life as oxygen. Starved of Hope we wither and die.

Hope presents herself in all kinds of situations. Sometimes she shows up at the simplest of events; the scene of a kind word spoken or a helping hand given. On this day, she arrived at a kid’s birthday party at a family home in Glenwood, Durban. A little girl was turning one and family and friends had been invited to join the celebration.

As with most first birthday parties, it came complete with balloons, decorations, juice and a sibling who was stung by a bee just as the cake arrived. It was all fairly typical children’s party fare – except for one or two things.

The little girl celebrating her first 12 months on earth didn’t begin life in this lovely Glenwood home, or even at nearby St. Augustine’s Hospital. She began life on a dirt road behind a clinic in Mayville. The parents hosting the party were her adoptive parents. The sibling who was stung by a bee was their first child – a biological son. The couple had decided when they married to have one child and adopt a second; a true vision of Hope for South Africa.

As I stood on a sunny balcony overlooking the festivities, I saw Hope working the crowd. She clapped and laughed as the once abandoned baby girl excitedly tore open her birthday gifts. She beamed at the cameras along with the Mum and Dad who proudly held their son and daughters hands. She spoke at length with couples both gay and straight, and sat cross-legged on a picnic blanket eating bowls of different colored sweets with different colored friends.

And as I stood there, I wondered if Hope would have felt as comfortable at the closing of the ANC Youth League’s elective conference as she did at this one year olds birthday party.

I wondered if she would agree with the popular view that the World Cup – also just one year old – was of no lasting benefit to our nation. I wondered if she was currently the house guest of nearly 50 million South Africans, or perhaps just a temporary lodger in a few homes. I wondered if she had chosen to come to this birthday party because she was tired of having the door slammed in her face at other South African homes.

And then I wondered; if Hope is essential for life, how do we live with Hope permanently? How do we make Hope the centre of the dialogue and not the peripheral side show? How do we ensure that she is not just wheeled out for special occasions like the 2010 World Cup and then put back in her box when life returns to normal? Is it possible that in the face of Apartheid style racism, xenophobic attacks, the ‘corrective rape’ of lesbian women, militaristic policing, poverty and rampant unemployment, Hope can survive – even triumph?

I believe it is, but as individuals we have to decide to welcome Hope into our homes, our offices, our places of worship and our community groups. We have to decide to seat her at the head of our family table, and make her the chairman of the board. We have to place her in the pulpit and behind the microphone and in front of the TV news cameras. She must become the starring act.

It was wonderful to see Hope again. She reminded me that South Africa is in fact working and that cohesion, tolerance and peace are being created; if not by politicians – certainly by citizens.

Flipside tip of the week:

Where there is Hope there is life. We must choose to foster Hope so that such parties become more common and those parties wishing to destroy Hope are brought down.

who i voted for…

i am busy trying to get inspired to write some more of my book which looks like it is heading towards the end quadrant of it’s being writtenment [just for you, Lisa!] and i have half an eye on Twitter where @sharnefinn and @mattnixonjames are keeping me well upto date on how well the DA is doing most places… my other half eye and click finger keep bouncing to the game of http://www.news24.com/maps which has a map of election results which shows you who is doing what where in terms of winning different wards and cities and provinces.

[my best at the moment is Amahlati [Stutterheim] where in the middle of these regions where 74000 votes have been counted and 36870 votes have been counted, it says “The ANC is leading in Amahlati with 48.72%” which sounds really impressive until you carry on “of the 312 votes counted thus far.” – is it a tiny region peoplewise or are they just counting really, really slowly i wonder?]

and then i decided to get properly inspired by picking up my purple Bible and reading on where i’ve been reading in John. i have been reading more recently than i have for a while which is great cos i went through a bit of a not-getting-round-to-it patch and then was quite inspired recently by a bunch of big name Christ-following writers who have been talking about working through one of the gospels in their time with God and so i decided to go for John and try read a few chapters at a time and it’s been great.

and also contained the answer to who i voted for, which is why i assume you were reading this in the first place.

John 13 must be one of the most powerful pieces of Scripture in the Bible and the kind of passage that backs up the authenticity of the Bible to me – if you were going to be making up or fabricating a religion to try and con a bunch of people into following you, you wouldn’t write John 13.

This is what got my vote: ‘Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power, and that He had come from God and was returning to God; so He got up from the meal, took off His outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around His waist. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciples feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around Him.’ Before that, it describes the actions that are about to happen by saying, ‘Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love.’

The passage continues with this command from Jesus: “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”

And a little bit later: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. BY THIS SHALL ALL MEN KNOW THAT YOU ARE MY DISCIPLES, if you love one another.”

In John 14 Jesus makes His party statement, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” But He has already set up His party ethos and strategy and it is an enticing one.

And so Jesus gets my cross. Fitting, really, since that’s the call He makes on my life and yours – “If anyone would follow Me, He must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Me.” [Luke 9.23]