The Mission

standing notably tall

above corrugated iron and tyres

the green head blows proud 

in this place of shade where my

children swing safely in branches

to and fro, to and fro, to and fro

when hungry I reach for low hanging fruit 

then climb branches for a view, 

away from my flat life 

to picnic with honest friends 

allowing ants crawl over ankles 

and bees balance on bottle rims

there I lean back on the trunk 

to make myself feel young

against seed planted years ago 

by missionaries who loved us

their roots far below 

stuck down firm in 

the mud of our lives 

soaking up our spirit 

into things earthy and eternal

here I taste the fruit of my ancestors 

they who dug the hole 

and danced with joy 

that I may lie here and hear my children 

sweetly swinging, sweetly swinging

* The mission brings health to a community once devastated by HIV/AIDS but now bearing stories of hope

My Rainbow - Frank Meintjies

I read a poem by a South African poet Frank Meintjies yesterday that gave me a haunting sense of where many of those I taught on Wednesday were at. There were 13 folks listening intently as I shared the hope we have in Christ and how this transforms ones living. All of them HIV/AIDS clients at Masibumbane mission. They were all on my mind when I read this poem. I will just quote it in parts as I don't think it is legit to copy it all:

" on better days

my rainbow is your smile

more

frequently, my rainbow bleeds...

my rainbow's sharp edges

cut

as i try to pick it up

deep patterning

its marks

on the palm of my heart

my rainbow is a purple bruise

slowy

sluggishly regaining

the colour of living flesh"

They are such lovely, smiling people, but I know as I try to encourage them and lift them up, their hurts and past wounds will cut me and make my heart bleed. But, when they smile it is my rainbow of hope.

Compassion Resurrected

“If we do our grieving deep and well, we become participants in a communal uprising, a resurrection in which the dead live on in the commitment of the survivors.” Parker J. Palmer

Without the thoroughness of loss we cannot experience the transition into resurrection. The log in the fire is transformed utterly into energy, heat and ash. Those who have died are energy if we gather around our loss of them and experience the fire of their lives. This pertains especially to the loss of those who have died through injustice. When we gather around their graves and mourn we are lifted up by their transcendent resurrection energy, our compassion grows and their hope becomes ours. The reverse is no doubt true when we avoid our grief and thus miss out on the resurrection fire. (Thoughts inspired by Parker J. Palmer & Latin American poem – ‘They have threatened us with resurrection’)

The truth is that our grieving with others attaches us with their cause, their lot, suffering and condition in a profound way. Teach me how to grieve God that compassion may flow abundantly.

Why don’t you commit suicide?

A question Vicktor Frankl would ask his tormented patients seeking psychological help. He would ascertain from their answer the reasons for their disturbed emotional and mental condition. He believed that if a patient could find meaning in whatever situation they faced they would be on the road to recovery.

Viktor Frankl having spent three years at Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps had learnt that even in the worst of humanitarian situations one could find meaning and redemption. The freedom you have to choose meaning for your life is the one freedom that cannot be taken from you. You could almost divided the camps into two kinds of inmates, those who lost hope and soon perished and those who chose to believe that their life had significance no matter how small and insignificance and survived their fate. It is not what life offers us that is important, for this is up the one day and down the next. It is more to do with what we can offer life and work within this greater and higher meaning of life.

May we strive to find meaning in everything we do this day.

A good place to start understanding Frankl's work is to read his book: "Man's search for meaning."

"God-be-with-ye" the real Goodbye

No, I am not saying goodbye! But, I had never actually appreciated the meaning of the word. Joyce Rupp has opened my eyes to the depth of the Christian goodbye whether that be at the airport, bus stop, or pouring tears over a casket. When we say goodbye, the Christian is declaring that although we will miss those we love we acknowledge that God will be with them and they will have the loving presence of God to help them through loneliness. I think we also need to be saying a "God-be-with-me" as we also affirm that God remains with us who grieve the loss of those we love.

"The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." Deut 31:8

Whirlwind People

Death, the inevitable party pooper is himself a real blight in coming to terms with the extremities of our life. Is the hope that singed hair on burning pyre, tore skin by pawing lion and sat in cold barred rooms alive today? The hope that sings of the other place an eternal dream that dies not here. The way we pray - our existence save, indicative of who we are, shallow, blind, a gust of wind, a whirlwind about to end.

Gone soft or what?

Again I am confronted with the thought that all that happens is the will of God. I realize that much of the pain that does happen is a learning curve for the Christian. However, I cannot imagine a God allowing certain atrocities to happen. God may not want it to happen, but allows it. No loving being who has the power to do something for his child would sit and watch that child burn to death, be raped by another, be tortured for a truth, or become senile. But, have we become soft? Have we got it into our minds that our lives should be easy and without conflict? Maybe that is what happens once the Christian achieves what they strive for in God. A community that is loving, caring, patient, kind, could become oblivious to the realities of life outside this domain. It settles into the dream forgetting the pains it took to achieve it. Liberty has been fought for not only by careful prayer and well considered word, but it has come by the sword. The dark forces of society have been resisted with armies and in battle fields to defend what it calls civilization, for some Christendom. But, again have we become soft? Jesus was not warrior of gun metal nor shell. Jesus took on the act of being betrayed to highlight the higher ideal, the greater reward that seeks no pleasures in this life but a hope that is beyond. Breaking the pattern of sword against sword he died to build a Kingdom not won by barbed wire or mortar but won by the few who hold the hope of a world just beyond.

Heaven’s garden

Turning points are important to recognize, register and rejoice over. God moves the impossible away for us. The disgraceful parts of ourselves are rolled away by mightier hands than ours. Disciplined hope depending on better places to live. New ground growing sweeter with thanksgiving charming the budding path . The stone once rolled sits there in view, a reminder of past lives that were lesser than now. Our garden with stones, some moss ridden once moved and others freshly chiseled and waiting to be rolled. Our gardens of worship growing from glory into glory.

Doors of intimacy

There is no way out, it is the way in. The way into the growth you desire. Grief and the emotions of sadness are not headaches to be exorcised with an aspirin. They are doorways of your cathedral, high arching, broad sided, thick wooded and with them on your shoulder you walk the path less traveled. Up and along the traitors hardened path between aisles towards the hill where black crows fly. The pain you feel splinters deep but when you reach the alter and collapse prostrate with grief's too heavy from doors so damn difficult. The cry of reason will echo in hallowed halls, repeating themselves from statues, martyrs, crosses and hard scrubbed floors. “I feel you, I cry with you, I am with you.”

Never lost

Nature can hold a lesson or two for us. Sitting quietly in prayerful reflection I caught sight of two flying geese in the thick wet fog of the morning. I drove in that fog last night. Not even my car lights could penetrate the mass of water that blankets the hill. The geese flew with such confidence and speed through this fog, their long necks stretched to full capacity and their gliding flight as straight as a line. An astonishing feat considering the visibility. How I wish I could fly with such confidence in the foggy parts of my life. When our weather is foggy we tend to fear the worst and land up going nowhere. The faithful learn to stretch their necks out and beat the air with a confidence that bleeps on another radar system. A confidence that is bred from within and not without. The faith that rests the fear of being lost in the hands of its creator. The faith that knows that wherever it is, it cannot be outside of where God intended it to be. If the heart is with God there are a thousand places to go and no place called lost. We are so funny we are, there seems only to be a right and wrong way. In God, all ways are Gods.