Journey to Robben Island: Part V – Man of the Soil

Some last reflections from our trip to Robben Island last weekend

[1]: Before i even look at my notes, what stands out to me was the depth of conversation – i barely knew anyone that we went with, so mostly new friends or people i had met once or twice before and yet we dived in to some deep conversations that happened so naturally. Probably because we all knew why we were there, but none of them felt forced or engineered. One lady who i met, Nicole, had been introduced to me on Facebook a couple of months ago and so we had had some interactions but we [her, me and tbV] spent most of the boat ride to Robben Island involved in deep conversation about race and the country and other things. I felt like once we’d arrived at the island, i could have been put straight back on the boat, sent home and the weekend would have felt worth it. And those conversations carried on throughout the weekend.

 
 

 
 

[2] The idea that if my aim in life is for a big house, a comfortable car and a happy family, that my vision is too small.

Each one of us should be dreaming of, hoping for and living towards a unified and reconciled South Africa. To suggest your vision is too small is not a pronouncement of judgement, but it is a blowing of the trumpet [or maybe in our case the sounding of the vuvuzela]. A call to freedom with the realisation that i am not free until everyone is free.
 
 

 
 

[3] That the duel dangers of Pride and Insignificance stem from the same root cause:

Pride = I’m good enough

Insignificance = I’m not good enough

Both start from the place of having all eyes on me. When God calls us to put Him above everything and then to look to others and ourselves.
 
 

 
 

[4] In Judges 6, we see an encounter between an angel sent from God and Gideon, and despite context telling us that Gideon was a scared and cowardly man, the greeting shows us something completely different:

¹¹ The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. ¹² When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”

The reminder that God views us both as we are and what we can be. He refuses to dwell on who we were.

 
 

[5] A reminder for me that i never wanted to go to Robben Island simply as a tourist activity. Take lots of pictures, see all the sights, okay i’m done, move on. The privilege of having a significant encounter and the time of a whole weekend to really appreciate and learn from what happened there and see how it informs the present and works towards affecting the future.

 
 

[6] The last significant thing i remember from the trip was a Franciscan Blessing, that Rene August shared with us, which was so profoundly deep and transformative and certainly something to revisit regularly:

May God bless you with a restless discomfort

about easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships,

so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

May God bless you with holy anger

at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,

so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears

to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish,

so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness

to believe that you really can make a difference in this world,

so that you are able, with God’s grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.

[“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  Micah 6:8]

 
 

[7] Although, after all the significance and meaning, and historical impact…

After all the tears and hugs and stories and prayers…

After prophetic acts and revelations and possibilities and moments of shared pain…

One of the images that will stand out for me about this most excellent adventure was that of my new friend, covered in tattoos including some showing affiliation with gangs while serving the thirteen year jail service he completed a few years ago… lying on his bed, late at night, once everyone was asleep, playing Plants vs Zombies on his tablet.

Or me humming the theme tune every time i saw him during the day and him responding with a guilty smile…

 
 

 
 

There was a lot more that words on a page or screen just cannot capture, but these past few posts have just contained some gems and some foundations for future growth and wrestling that needs to happen and is in the process of.

What a great and significant weekend with a number of really incredible people. If the future of South Africa lies in the hands, tongues and lives of people like these, we are looking good. There is a reason to be filled with hope.

For more information on Freedom Mantle, who organised the whole trip, check them out at http://freedommantle.org or join them on Facebook.

 
 

[For a return to the start of this series and some more reflections, click here]

if God doesn’t pitch up…

one of my favourite freaky stories in the bible [and there’s lots of them – 2 kings 2.23 story of elisha and the baldyhead bear-mauling incident] is the story of elijah found in 1 kings 17.

now a bunch of things happen here – there is elijah being fed miraculously by ravens, there is the miracle of the flour and oil of the widow not running out and then the widow’s son mysteriously dies.

it is one of those crisis of faith moment stories many of us have experienced – having just witnessed this crazy miracle of the continuing food supply, the widow is now accusing the prophet [and God by association] of having it in for her.

what comes next is incredibly dangerous and as with so many bible stories, we have lost the edge of the danger because we know how it ends – shadrach, meshach and abednego risking being tossed in the fiery furnace, daniel risking the lion’s den, david heading out to take on the giant goliath armed with a slingshot, gideon with his muchly reduced army taking on an army whose tents were described as ‘swarms of locusts’ [judges 6.5] armed with torches and musical instruments and peter stepping out of the boat on to the water…

we know how they end so we read them and get excited by God and what He has done, but i think it is important to go back and read this stories as the person really desperately hoping that God is going to make a dramatic appearance…

so you have this widow and her dead son and elijah is taken to the room with the dead son and in 1 kings 17.21 it says this, ‘Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him.”

why is that a cool story? because it worked. God heard elijah’s prayer and resurrects the boy and he lives again. yay God, well done elijah.

but what if he hadn’t? if God didn’t pitch up then you have a grown man, climbing on to and lying on top of the body of a dead boy… now i’m not sure we can tell from the story if he did that twice with no results and then the third time God answered because that would add in a whole other dimension, but from elijah’s point of view it has to be coming from a point of ‘i really believe this is what God wants me to do and i am going to risk reputation and possibly life to be faith-full and obedient to what i have heard God say.’

“yeah, but it’s elijah”

the same elijah who goes on to witness another robe-wetting moment on top of mount carmel where if God doesn’t show up with the sacrifice then he will lose reputation and life for sure… but also the same elijah who shortly after that incident runs away because a woman threatens him and ends up moping to God that he is the only one left [when God secretly has thousands of other faithful followers stashed away in a cave] and so clearly there were times when ‘but it’s elijah’ was not good enough to guarantee success and bravery in the face of consequences.

there are so many others like this – noah builds a giant boat in the desert, Jesus spits into a blind man’s eye, peter and john tell a crippled man to get up and walk… so many miracle stories that only took place because someone was faithful and obedient to what they heard God calling them to do… if you have known me long enuff then you will have probly heard the story of the safe house for kids in cape town that was birthed out of a worship meeting [http://www.uthandolenkosi.co.za] – a lot of people called them crazy, even some pastors took action to try and protect them from the foolish thing they were going to do… and yet because God said it, and because people responded faithfully it happened.

i think it is important to finish off by saying that the point is not to go out and do stupid things… if you go to the local swimming pool and step out on the water you will sink. why? because God did not invite you to. the key here is listening out for what God is saying to you and acting on it regardless of whether it makes sense or not to those around you. [altho seeking good counsel from strong Jesus-following people around you to make sure it is God’s thing He is calling you to and not just a hare-brained scheme is worth doing]

but if God does call you to lie on top of a dead kid and call out to Him three times, and you’re sure it’s God speaking, then you had better act on that and you will only know whether God is going to show up or not the moment it is too late if He doesn’t…

trust God but have a, um no don’t.

so me and tbV have been in a place of really trusting God for the future and for just general every day life and i haven’t wanted to blog about a lot of it because when you start mentioning stuff and people start responding to ‘save you from the crises’ then it kinda cancels out a lot of the trust element…

but i will say this. when you are trusting God and not having a backup plan, then when things are going well and it appears that you are fine and sorted and when the provision arrives and so on, then it is an amazing place to be.

when it doesn’t or it hasn’t yet or it looks like it might not, then it’s not so much fun. in fact, it can get kinda scary and you know, i think that’s the point.

i just don’t want people to get all romanticised by the idea of trusting God without a backup plan – as i like to say I’m pretty sure that, when David got back from killing Goliath, when Gideon got back from slaying all those Midianites and when Daniel was let out of the lion’s den, they all three had to go and change their pants, or robes, or something.

i would imagine you can trust God but still crap yourself at the same time. possibly cos trusting God, like Love and Forgiveness is not a feeling but a choice and an action linked to that choice. But maybe that’s just me.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.” Proverbs 3.5,6