"This time for Africa..."

"...Listen to your God,
this is our motto
Your time to shine,
don't wait in line...
Y vamos por todo.
People are raising their expectations,
go on and feel it.
This is your moment,
no hesitation.

Tsamina mina zangalewa.
Cause this is Africa.
Tsamina mina eh eh,
Waka waka eh eh
Tsamina mina zangalewa,
This time for Africa
This time for Africa..."

Have you seen this music video yet? 

Shakira's performance of the 2010 FIFA World Cup theme song, "Waka, Waka...This time for Africa," is amazing.  There is something so "in your face" alive about its message of: we are all here, but not just to root for our favorite teams and countries.  We are here to root for something even more powerful.  We are here to celebrate the power of forgiveness and redemption."

Or at least this is the message that comes through loud and clear to my heart.

Readers of this blog know how deeply the South African sun has seared my soul.  Her winds have burnished my cheeks coloring them with the soft red of a dusty bushveld sunset.  And her Indian Ocean blues wrap themselves around my shoulders like a soft pashmina.

Watching this video today, over,and over again, was wonderful.

I couldn't help but think that 21 years ago, my husband and I walked across the tarmac at Jan Smuts airport with our infant daughter in our arms, and her travel documents...and miraculously (I use this term very thoughtfully) acquired immigration visa and South African passport...tucked carefully under my clothing for safe-keeping.

International sanctions had been imposed on the South African government (and hence, their people) for  Apartheid-era human rights violations.  The city of Johannesburg was under a "state of emergency" and we, an American couple from the heart of the anti-apartheid western alliance, were adopting a white infant, and taking her from their country.  The very fact that we were crossing the tarmac and boarding a plane headed for the United States was...after weeks of navigating red tape, diplomatic brick walls, and outright refusals for assistance from every office of the South African government...shocking.  I held my breath with every step closer to boarding the jet that would take us to Frankfurt...an airport that still allowed South African flights.

As our flight took off, I turned to my husband and whispered that if we made it out of South African airspace, they...the pre-reconcilation governement...would have broken all of their own laws, since under apartheid, there was no legal basis for granting us the travel documents we were carrying, and letting us the country leave with our daughter.   But they did.

A year later, as our daughter sat eating applesauce from her highchair in our Colorado home,  Mandela would walk out of Robbins Island prison a free man...free to lead a nation out of oppression, free to inspire a tortured people to lay down their right to  retribution, free to seek reconciliation rather than redress...and free to begin the long road towards healing and international recognition as a leader in finding a peaceful resolution to civil schisms so deep that they threatened to swallow up the hopes of a nation once steeped in darkness and hatred.

Watching the "Waka, Waka..." video tonight and realizing how far this country...and her people...have come, I was reminded of Mandela's statement:

"It always seems impossible until its done."

This weekend, as South Africa opens her doors, her heart, and her beauty to the world, she will be hosting the very nations that once refused to trade goods with her, allow the export of their media across her borders, or admit entry into their ports of call by her ships and planes.  She will have done the impossible in the 21 short years (and as a mother, I know how fast those years flew for me) from that day we walked across the Jan Smuts airport tarmac, while South African army gunmen stood watching us with AK47s.  And while rebel militants smuggled the same automatic weapons down back alleys in small towship villages, and government tanks were aimed at rural school children on dusty playgrounds...a silent threat hoping to check potential civil unrest.

And now, the township of Soweto, one of the most devastatingly horrific slums I'd ever seen, in 1989, now holds one of the most beautiful World Cup soccer stadiums ever built. 

Last night, as I was driving home from church, NPR's Tom Ashbrook commented, during an On Point segment discussing Iran's relationship with the rest of the international community (and any hope of improved diplomacy) that it seemed not only counter-factual, but counter intuitive, to hope for a warming of relations with its neighbors.

I couldn't help but remember where our beloved South Africa was a mere 21 years ago...and how one man's example could turn the tide of vengence into a river of reconciliation. Something deeper than anger carved a path of hope through the hardness of hatred and fear.

"With God, all things are possible..."

I am so grateful to have lived to see this extraordinary day, when South Africa is reconciled, not only within her own borders, but with her global neighbors.  I am not a sports fan, but I will be watching the World Cup.  I haved already learned the words to "Waka, Waka..."  I will try to learn the dance...much to my daughters' horror!  And I know that when they play "...the time for Africa" I will feel something break wide-open in my soul as we all join in singing along with her...as her neighbors...and friends, "We are Africa, we are Africa..."

God bless her...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet..."

"...I will not forget,
your love for me and yet,
my heart's forever wandering...

...Nothing will I fear,
as long as you are near,
please be near me to the end.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
and a light unto my path.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet
and a light unto my path."

I was listening to Krista Tippett's provocative interview with South Africa's Nobel Prize winning Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, last Sunday, and had one of those "driveway moments" when getting out of the car, to go into church, was like prying a clinging abalone shell from a coral reef...and I was the one doing the prying. 

I had to remind myself that the very message that had me clinging to the dashboard like a bi-valve, to hear just one more minute of the interview, was the exact reason I needed to get out of the car...the Bible, the living, breathing, palpating, life-transforming and empowering Word of God. 

If you weren't able to catch "Speaking of Faith" last Sunday, I highly recommend listening to the podcast of Krista's interview.   But I digress...ever so slightly, but a digression nonetheless.

Just to set the stage. We were well ahead of the game on Sunday morning.  I was scheduled to conduct our Sunday service that week, and we were on the road in plenty of time to get to church, lay out my books, write the hymn numbers on the white boards, and settle into my chair so that I could say "howdy" to well-loved friends, while we greeted visitors coming through the door.

But, I made the mistake I make every Sunday.  I turned on NPR and I was hooked.  When Krista introduced her guest, I knew this would be an especially difficult "driveway moment."  As regular readers know, I am smitten by all things related to the spiritual lives, and stories, of those who lived through South Africa's apartheid era of attempted minority rule, racial domination, the suppression of a aboriginal "voice", and the oppression of basic human rights.  My relationship to South Africa goes very deep.

For me, the lives of men and women like Steven Biko, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and my dear friend Dorothy Maubane continue to be an inspiration of spiritual poise, unconditional love, a faith that can move mountains of hate, and a sense of forgiveness that has the power to dissolve vengeance.

When I heard Tutu's unmistakable voice I felt a great knot of emotion fill my throat, and knew this was going to be a difficult morning of getting Kate out of the car and into "Sunday School"...

His interview was barely out of the gate, when, in talking about the role of the Bible in his life as an Apartheid era South African he replied:

"If these people had wanted to keep us oppressed,
they shouldn't have given us the Bible." 

He went on to relate how the Bible is the quintessential guidebook for emancipation, freedom, and liberty.  How the Bible is packed full of stories about "a people" who were oppressed, broken and enslaved, finding freedom through an understanding of their intrinsic worth as the image and likeness of God.   He said, "Discovering that the Bible could be such dynamite....The many parts of the Bible that were so germaine, so utterly to the point for us.  When you discover that Apartheid sought to mislead people into believing that what gave value to human beings was a biological irrelevance,  really, skin color or ethnicity.  And you saw how the Scriptures say it is because we are ceated in the image of God,  that each one of us is a God-carrier.  No matter what our physical circumstances may be, no matter how awful or deprived you may be, it doesn't take away from you this intrinsic worth as the image of God."

He went on to help me see,  that the very "apartheid laws" that said one popluation was of less worth...based on race...laws that were the basis for allowing "whites" to exercise dominance over tribal southern Africans, those "laws" of genetic predisposition to racial dominance, are, when exercised spiritually, are the basis for emancipation under the law of God that say that man (all men, women, and children) are "heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ."

He told us, as listeners, about women in his small Soweto congregation...housekeepers, launderers, maids, and cooks...who had been deprived of their given names by their employers, tribal names that were deemed too difficult to pronounce, and had been renamed "Annie," or, in the case of most men, "boy."   These women were his parishioners, but they were also women whose very spirits seemed broken, heavy-burdenened, and tired with labor.  In his sermons and in private conversations, He would say to them:

"When they ask you 'who are you?'  Say, 'Me, I am a God-carrier.  I am God's partner.  I am created in the image of God."

Tutu went on to say that these women would walk out of church on cloud nine, with their backs slightly straighter.  "Each one of us," he said,  "is a God-carrier."  It was exhilerating to see...it was amazing. 

The Bible.  The Word.  The very thing that the early sub-African British and European missionaries came to disseminate, the very religiously superior reasoning for oppression, the very thing that "Christian Europeans" felt gave them the upper spiritual hand in suppressing the traditions, cultures, lives of native populations...calling them infidels and savages...was the very key to their true, and lasting, authoritative emancipation from oppression.  

Amy Grant and Micahel W. Smith sing "The Word is a Lamp unto My Feet" with a new message for me this morning as I write this.  

But Sunday morning, when I heard the authority of voice, the confidence of spirit, the inspired cry to rise against oppression, with which Desmond Tutu spoke of the Bible's promise, I could no longer sit in the car. 

I felt that moment's calling.  The weary bridge-builder, the peace marcher, the human rights advocate, the spiritual "feminist," the environmental activist in me absolutely flew out of that car.  Nothing was going to stop me from sharing The Word with anyone who was willing to hear its pure, clear, refreshing, revitalizing, restorative, recuperative, invigorating, rallying cry of spiritual self-governance, emancipation, and freedom from oppression, victimization, or discouragement.

I will repeat what, for me, was Desmond Tutu's gift to a world confused about what to do next.  How to respond, spiritually, to a world at war, in financial crisis, afraid of its neighbors, and feeling victimized by natural disasters and corporate greed:

"If 'these people' had wanted to keep us oppressed,
then they should never have given us the Bible."

It's really never about oppressive people, it's about oppressive beliefs, suggestions, concepts that would demoralize, stratify, and separate us into haves and have nots, good and bad, right and wrong...or even, right and left.  But when we can rip off the mask of it being about different kinds of people and take up arms against the beliefs that are causing us to take sides against one another's freedom, success, and peace of mind, we are can truly live as "joint heirs with Christ" and eliminate the apartheid, apartness, that is always at the heart of what will steal our freedom and oppress our spiritual right to live as brothers and sisters with one Father-Mother, God. 

Mary Baker Eddy writes:

"Citizens of the world, accept the glorious liberty
of the children of God, and be free, this is your divine right."

Today I am singing a new protest song with Michael, and Amy, and anyone else who loves this message of hope and freedom:

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
and a light unto my path..."

And it is. The Bible (which is the Scripture of my faith tradition, but certainly not the only scripture filled with inspiration for anyone longing for a spiritual path to freedom) is full of stories of promise and encouragement. The Israelites at the edge of the Red Sea, Joseph held in Pharoah's prison, Job convicted by opinion, David enslaved by the shackles of regret and remorse, Jesus walking through the angry crowds untouched, Peter finding freedom...through Christ's precious love...from the chains of guilt and self-doubt. Stories of hope and deliverance. It chronicles the accounts of women, and men who, like Jesus, remembered what was "written," and stood on the promise of what "could not God do."

Thank you Krista, Desmond, and all who have knowingly, or perhaps even unwittingly, shared "the Word" through your life, your witness, your mission...you have given someone a window on their God-bestowed and God-defended freedom...the key to their own emancipation.

with loving hope,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Look inside you and be strong..."

"There's a hero if you look inside your heart
You don't have to be afraid of what you are.
There's an answer if you reach into your soul
and the sorrow that you know will melt away

And then a hero comes along
with the strength to carry on
and you cast your fears aside
and you know you can survive.

So, when you feel like hope is gone
look inside you and be strong
and you'll finally see the truth
that a hero lies in you..."
- Mariah Carey
"A Hero Lies in You"

His given name, Rolihlahla, meant "troublemaker", but who would have guessed that this boy whose father died when young Rolihlahla was nine years old, would go on to become a "Hero," not only to his tribesmen, but to  millions of fellow Africans, world leaders, the poor, oppressed and imprisoned...and to one young mother 10,000 miles away...among countless others.

Rolihlahla, re-named Nelson as a child by his teacher, would later quote, in his Inaugural address this passage from Marianne Williamson's "A Return to Love":

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

This could be a long story about my journey to South Africa, finding my way through the labyrinth of apartheid-based sanctions, bureaucracy, and red-tape...while adopting our daughter...and finally emerging, having somehow fallen in love with a country gripped in sadness, civil war, and fear...but I will leave that for previous and future posts.

This is a tribute to a man who was once a boy called "troublemaker." A man whose dignity in the face of humiliation, courage in the midst of danger, and love in spite of hatred, changed the world we live in and gave us another hero to refer our children to when encouraging them to "play big".  I often wonder who inspired those have continued, through their humble persistent humanity, to inspire millions.

The following "backstory," by journalist Faye Bowers,  appeared in last week's Christian Science Monitor:

Running Into Mandela at the Monitor: On June 24, 1990, I emerged from the underground parking garage at the Christian Science Center in Boston to find three tall black men circling the reflecting pool. I stood completely still. As he saw me recognize him, Nelson Mandela broke into the most gracious smile and waved at me. He was on his first, historic trip to America. The day before, hundreds of thousands of people had turned out to see him on the Esplanade, along the Charles River, to celebrate his recent release from a South African prison. Now he said he wanted to see the place where that famous lady (Mary Baker Eddy) started her own religion as well as newspaper.

"Wait right here," I said, too loudly. "I'm going to get the editor of the Monitor. He needs to meet you." I sprinted to the newsroom and told Dick Cattani to come downstairs, come meet Mandela. He insisted on putting on a jacket. It was Sunday, and he was dressed casually. I pulled him by the arm as he slipped into his blue and white pinstriped seersucker jacket. He gave Mandela a tour of The Mother Church, as well as a copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (by Eddy), which Mandela insisted he sign. He mentioned during the visit that the Monitor was the only international paper he had been allowed to read in prison, although major parts were redacted. He marveled that a woman not only started this paper but this religion, noting it could only happen in the US.
-     Faye Bowers

  I remember hearing this story related by Dick Cattani,  just after it happened.  I rejoiced in the role Mary Baker Eddy's vision for international journalism that "injures no man, but blesses all mankind" would play in the life of my hero.  I was moved that he would seek out her "homeland".

In actuality, it was her paper that led me to South Africa 21 years ago...it is her paper that continues to remind me that we are not alone in lighting our one candle and cursing the darkness.

In referring to Mandela's extraordinary courage, my friend Susan Dane writes in her compelling, "When All Systems Fail":

"A man is imprisoned in South Africa for the color of his skin and for his attempts to bring racial equality to his country.  His is seen as a threat by one side of the political debate, and as a liberator by the other side.  While the two sides come to blows, burning and killing each other in mutual hatred, the man dedicates twenty-seven years of his life to not being what everything in him and outside him are encouraging him to be.  He chooses instead to undertake the journey of unreasonable freedom.  He dedicates all his time and energy to getting rid of (in his own words) 'the poison of hatred in my own bloodstream.'

This is a big task since he lives with and within the narrow concrete walls that hatred itself has constructed for him.  Everywhere he turns he is reminded of the power of oppression, and the power of evil to triumph over good.

Did he make the hatred?  Did he deserve it?  Did his bad Karma destine him to a life of suffering, to spend what could have been a full and happy life hopelessly condemned instead?

This man was smart.  He chose to focus on different concerns:

He worked to see that he was not his circumstances, and he worked to not react to them.

He fought to not become entangled by questions like "why" and "why me?"

He fought instead to make sure that no matter what happened around him, it could not happen to him.

And he refused to buy into the propaganda that he could change,if only something else or someone else would change first."

As we strive to live heroic lives in small ways, what can we learn from this man's decision about where he chose to align his focus.  How can we make choices that will inspire others to dream big and live lives of courage and grace.

Could being a hero in one's own life...and the lives of those we love...be as simple as the next choice?

Dane goes on to say:

"Here was a man who was not allowed to read a newspaper for sixteen years, who was not allowed to have a family member visit, and who did hard labor during that time. And yet in spite of this oppressive environment, he dedicated himself to being king in the one place where he could still be king, the one place no oppression could reach him...in the desires of his heart and the intention of his will.  And to do this he had to not be what everything in him and around him argued he must be - a victim...

The result was that this man could not be hurt.  Could not be bent.  Could not be pushed or broken.  Not in any real sense.  Because the Chooser in him was inviolable.  The Chooser in him, the king and kingdom of his self, was Truth [God or Spirit] having its way...His circumstances could not define him, because he had decided to define himself instead.  An entire oppressive government could not bend him to its will.  In fact, the oppressive government succumbed to him."

This is just one very powerful example of how our seemingly small, moment-by-moment choices can become the substance of heroism and nobility, and leadership.

"It's a long road when you face the world alone;
No one reaches out a hand for you to hold.
You can find love if you search within your self
and the emptiness you felt will disappear.

And then a hero comes along
with the strength to carry on
and you cast your fears aside
and you know you can survive.

So, when you feel like hope is gone
look inside you and be strong
and you'll finally see the truth
that a hero lies in you
that a hero lies in ... you
that a hero lies in.....you."

It all starts with small choices...or as Mother Teresa would one day say:

"We can do no great things, only small things with great love."

There is greatness in each small thing...each small choice...made with great love.  What choices will you make today...and in doing so, what will you discover about your own potential for greatness?   A hero lies in each of us...a hero lies in...you.

With Love,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS