Themba's Story

My life is full of stories.

Stories full of sadness and longing, stories of redemption and salvation, stories of forgiveness and hopelessness, healing and wonder.

But this story is a story of violence.

It used to happen when I was five. It makes me shudder to think of it, let alone tell it again.

I have lived in rough areas for almost my entire life. I have lived near bars and pubs, heard the screams and shouts of anger and hurt at night. I have felt terror before sleep, and I have known mindless violence for no reason.

It was when I lived a bit further out that it happened though. One of my chores was to go and buy bread each morning. Lots of children hate chores, but this one chore made me hate bread.

I used to step out of the house to walk to the shop, and as I walked I would notice a trail on the ground. I remember the first time I saw it. I was quite excited – I didn’t know it was blood. I followed it eagerly, a dark trail of brown drips, wondering what could leave such a trail. The first time it led to a house, and I dared not enter there. But I soon saw a similar trail again, and once, it didn’t lead to a house. Instead, it led to a man. Covered in blood and contorted into the strange shape that the agony of death brings to a person, hands clutching, desperate for something his now unseeing eyes must have hoped was there. I don’t know how many times I saw a body when I went to get bread in the morning when I was five years old. I don’t know how often blood spattered the way there. I know only that it wasn’t good. That it isn’t right for children to see this. It cries out of me that it cannot be so.

I use this story of violence and sadness as a springboard. A motivation to see my country and this world changed. A world where violence is no longer present is, I believe, possible, and I strive for it each day. I wonder, would you strive with me?

 

 

 

Based on a true story.

New Year Restoration

Yesterday at least 130 Palestinians were murdered, most of them children, in the name of God. The day before three people died in Sydney, also in the name of God. On the same day threats to the lives of gay people in Russia were made, in the name of God.
I perceive God to be a God of restoration. What God made was good; he said so. What we have now shows we have wrecked it.

I think God might be fed up with his name being associated with such atrocities. Instead, I think God wants justice.

In my view justice is not about punishment, justice is about restoring. Justice is about restoring humanity both to victims and to offenders. Justice is about restoring the world to something God can look upon and call good. Justice is what Jesus is about.

So, I pray fervently that those who seek to maim and kill others in the name of their God will instead be restored. I pray fervently that they will be restored to humanity, to a place where love is the highest virtue and forgiveness the vengeance sought. I pray that justice will come through healing for survivors, for the families of those targeted and killed, and through change in the hearts of perpetrators and their guides.

I pray also that I may be restored to humanity; that I may be completely human, seeking love as the highest virtue and having willingness and ability to forgive those who wrong me.

Instead of making new year resolutions this year I am seeking new year restoration. Would anyone like to join me?

Love Wins

Greatness aspires to humility

In the eyes of the wise,

Yet foolishly we seek not to love, but to be loved.

Our yearning, power hungry minds cannot capture that the meek will inherit the earth.

So we stride ahead, rather than hobbling with the broken,

Ever demanding, ever wanting, never satisfied.

Confusion follows as we look behind, and see those at the back of the line,

Laughing, dirty but smiling.

Envious we frown our disapproval. Happiness is not allowed without power, without possessions, without promotion!

Understanding how the weak could ever be made strong, pah! Ridiculous.

The cycle goes on, always seeking riches, never realising we have them in our hearts.

Perhaps one day we’ll realise, perhaps one day we’ll see, perhaps one day we’ll get it.

Love wins.

Three Word Wednesday in a Tweet #7

Calm yourself. You know you can do it, no matter how your nerves rattle. Be yourself; none are so good at it as you.

Follow @jonnymasters89

Let's make them beautiful

My heart lies in a place unknown.

As I have been reading a little bit about St Francis I have rediscovered some of what I am passionate about. I have relearnt that God cares for the poor, the sick, the destitute, the broken. I have recalled why I wept over these things once upon a time. And yesterday I wept once more.


Chasing Francis has been a challenging book for me. Wonderfully written and brilliantly told the story unfolds in a majestic challenge to the Christian who has forgotten the way is Jesus. As mentioned in an earlier post the book explores pilgrimage. As the main character, Chase, is coming to the end of his pilgrimage he tells his guide that he must leave in two days. In response his guide says,


"Let's make them beautiful."

 These four words brought me to tears. I had forgotten what it is like to call a day beautiful. I used to drive to work singing, "This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." I lost something of this joy recently. It ebbed away as I carried on working in my own strength, trusting to my own skills and my own knowledge. Instead, I need to turn to Christ, to kneel at his feet and find joy in supplication once more. I need to remember that each day can be beautiful, that each moment is as beautiful as I make it. As I step into tomorrow and the day after I am thinking to myself, "Let's make them beautiful."
 

Choices

A new year is upon us all. Approximately 2012 years since the birth of Jesus Christ.

2012 years of war, famine, injustice, persecution and abuse caused by the Church.

Yet we are still left with choices. Where do we invest our money? Who do we spend time with? What do I give my life to?

Choices make a person. When we make the right choice in small things often we make the right choice in big things. (That wisdom is 2000 years old.)

I have been at my parents house for Christmas with my two younger sisters who attend secondary school. My littlest sister refused to go to school today. She feared the teachers.

Aside: What kind of school is it that thinks learning happens best through fear? How does that motivate a child to continue learning at home?

So petrified was she that she had stomach cramps in the night, that her normally bright and joyful nature turned to anger and frustration.

She had refused to go to school by the time I got up.

I thought it would be an idea to give her a choice.

'You can go to school for last period if you want. I'll go with you.'

Rather than pressure, rather than autocratic orders with promises of punishment if obedience was not immediate I provided choice.

After some deliberation and tears my sister decided to go to school. I went with her to sign her in.

She has made the right choice, and hopefully will be able to face school tomorrow. As we step into the new year ahead choices will befall us. Our decisions will decide our future; as individuals, families, communities and as a Church. Let's try to make the right ones.

3WW Resolutions

A new year's resolution; demolition of the old me so that I may transform into the new and true me.