What do our reactions to SONA and 50 Shades of Grey say?
This past week, two issues have been ruling social networks: the State of the Nation, and 50 Shades of Grey. Judging by what people have to say about these things, I am pretty sure people are worried. Worried about the political situation of our country. And worried that the minds of people (especially teenagers) will be polluted by unhealthy pictures of what sexuality is all about.
These fears are valid. We should be worried by the lack of moral fibre in society. The state of leadership in Africa is a clear indication that we have a whole lot of work ahead of us. We should also rightly be worried about the conflicting messages that young people receive when it comes to sex. I know, for instance, that the unhealthy sexual pictures that I got exposed to when I was a teenager, had a very toxic influence on my own sexual development. I had to walk a long and painful road of sexual re-discovery.
I am, however, not convinced that our reactions to the things that worry us, are always helping.
When we react to something, there is always an unwritten message that goes with the reaction. For instance, if someone tries to give me constructive criticism, and I am very quick to justify the criticism, the unwritten message that I am sending is that I am not open to criticism.
Many peoples’ reaction to the State of the Nation and the chaos that erupted, sends a clear message: our nation is going up in flames, and there is nothing that we can do about it. Although we have many serious issues, we cannot afford to start believing our own unwritten messages. Because these messages spell nothing but destruction. There is always hope.
I can remember when I was a young boy, the movie Basic Instinct was a big thing. I can still remember conversations between boys at school: “Dude, you can see everything! We have to find a way of watching it!” I am just wondering, if kids get a clear unwritten message from us that Fifty Shades of Grey is not something that they should be watching, might that not fuel their curiosity so much that they will do anything to feast their eyes on this piece of forbidden fruit.
In the midst of many worrying things happening around us, may we always be on the lookout for beauty. Beauty happens every day. All around us.
If a mom and dad shows their kids the beauty of love and respect in marriage, they have a much better chance of sending an unwritten message to their kids that what is often portrayed as love and healthy sexuality is anything but the case. If a beautiful couple talks to their kids about love and sex, the message is more likely to stick.
Don’t allow the worries of this world to blind your eyes to the beauty all around us.
Jesus’ Kingdom is alive and kicking. We are invited to share the beauty. It’s a pretty powerful message.
Stewardship of More or Less
About a week ago an informal settlement in Kya Sands, near Johannesburg, suffered a terrible blow when about 500 shacks caught fire. About 2000 people were left homeless. Unfortunately, because many shacks in informal settlements in South Africa are built very close to each other, occurrences like the recent fire in Kya Sands are quite common.
I met a man this week who started a Non-Profit Organization in Kya Sands. The aim of their organization is to give the children of this impoverished community a fair chance in life, by providing pre-school children a place of safety and development, where they are fed nutritious meals.
While this man was showing me their facilities, a young man walked past pushing a wheelbarrow. I asked him about the contents of the wheelbarrow. The few burnt steel objects were the only salvageable things left of his home after the fire. He lost everything. He was taking the steel to a scrap yard where he would use the money to start rebuilding his shack.
After hearing the story of this young man, I started wondering how I would have reacted if I had to lose everything. But to be honest, for those of us who are economically privileged, it’s highly unlikely that we will ever be in a situation where we lose everything. Most of us are insured. Most of us have some kind of medical aid. And even if we had to lose everything, I can think of many family members and friends who would lend (or even give) me money to start over again.
Maybe that is why Jesus didn’t have too many good things to say about the wealthy: the more we have, the less we realize that our very being depends on the providence of God. For a person with a healthy bank balance, it’s easy to say that you trust in God. But to trust in God when you don’t even have a bank account, is something totally different.
Another challenge for many economically privileged people, is that we isolate ourselves from the majority of the people around us. It’s easier to sleep sound at night when I claim not to be aware of the plight of many other people.
When I grew up, my idea of stewardship was something like this: whatever I own, I should look after properly. If God has “blessed” me to be able to drive a top of the range car, I have the responsibility to look after it. Maybe stewardship is something totally different. Stewardship reminds me to make the distinction between what I want and what I need.
May we not turn a blind eye to the needs of people around us. May we become responsible and thankful stewards.
To Braai or Not to Braai (with them), that is the Question…
Many South Africans celebrated their heritage a few days ago. This national holiday is called Heritage Day, but I wouldn’t be surprised if many people (children especially) refer to this day as National Braai Day.
National Braai Day is an initiative where South Africans are encouraged to gather around fires, celebrate the heritage of people from different cultures, languages and backgrounds, and of course, share our common heritage: the fact that South Africans know how to braai!
But I wonder how many South Africans actually stood around the fire with people who share a different heritage from their own?
I was invited to spend Heritage Day with a crazy mix of people…and meat! There had to be at least seven kinds of meat that we could choose from. Some of the people are working for the British High Commission in Pretoria, there was a lady from Colombian descent, there was another guy working for National Treasury, and there was a Pedi couple who own a restaurant in the inner city of Pretoria, to mention a few. I really enjoyed meeting people from such diverse backgrounds. If I had to invite people to my own braai, we would probably have been a much more uniform group of people.
I think we sometimes lack depth in relationships and knowledge about the people that share this country with us, because we don’t get to know people from diverse backgrounds on a social level. And because we don’t really know each other, we sometimes live with huge perceptions that we struggle to break down.
Jesus was a great cultural analyst, and he often nudged his people (the Jews) to think differently about difference. The Jews had a pretty bad story to tell when it came to their history with the Samaritans (and vice versa). They didn’t get along at all. But Jesus not only spoke to his people about the Samaritans; he also chose to break the cultural boundaries and engage with the Samaritans. I can only imagine the bad things many Jews had to say about Jesus’ way of thinking and doing.
Jesus didn’t forsake his own heritage. He attended the religious festivals, and he was a partaker of his culture. However, when his people adopted a culture that wasn’t on par with the Kingdom of God, he used his countercultural voice.
As followers of Christ, we have a shared heritage, regardless of where we come from. I also believe that our heritage as Jesus followers should weigh much heavier than our earthly heritage. And this is one of the reasons why I believe we are called to break boundaries, and to be willing to climb into the skins of people who are different from us.
The next time you think about inviting people over for a meal or a braai, try to ask yourself the following question: “How is God inviting me to cross boundaries?”.
A Story about Sibu and Sam
Meet Sibu and Sam.
Sibu and Sam have been friends for as long as they can remember. Sibu’s parents were poor, and Sam’s were rich.
As a teenager, Sibu loved to listen to the stories that his grandfather would tell of his childhood. Sam would often try to lure Sibu out of these conversations. You see, Sam’s grandfather passed away long ago. And besides, he couldn’t really understand how all the time spent listening to old people would be beneficial to his future.
Sam was a very intelligent kid. Sibu not so much. But Sibu was an avid learner. He enjoyed gaining new insights. Sam made sure his marks were good enough so that he could further his studies. He saw school as a bit of a waste.
Sibu’s hard work paid off in the end. He received a bursary, finished his degree and started working his way up in a company. Sam also finished his degree. His father gave him a substantial amount of money to start his own business.
Sibu and Sam are successful. Sam makes a lot of money. But the people who work for his company aren’t really fond of him. They often feel like pawns in the game that Sam is playing. Sibu is a manager at a company. He isn’t earning loads of money. But the people that work with Sibu, love him. They feel like Sibu is imparting his knowledge into his team. Many are eager to learn from him.
How do we define success? Sibu and Sam are both successful, but success shouldn’t always be measured in numbers. For Sam, his success has come at a cost. Sam has built an empire, but he is a lonely man. Sibu may not have all the money in the world, but he is living a rich and meaningful life.
The relationship that Jesus modeled with his disciples reveals to us the good practices of learning, unlearning and relearning.
Go ask any successful leader, and they will tell you that we are never too old, too wise or too busy to learn. All of us need to intentionally tap into the wealth of knowledge, experience and life lessons of the people around us. Without this, we will end up like Sam.
Choose your circle of influence wisely. I have often made the mistake of listening to people that will only say what I want to hear. If your circle of influence always tells you that you are on the right track, and where there is conflict, you are not the one who needs to change, you have a bad circle of influence.
Without the willingness to learn and to listen to others, we have not yet earned the right for people to learn from us, and listen to our stories.
Watch Out for the Comparison Trap!
I have always been a big rugby fan. I can recall some Saturdays where my brother, my father and I would watch rugby games from 9 in the morning until 9 in the evening (I really wouldn’t recommend this to anyone!).
I loved playing rugby. But I wasn’t too good at it. After a game, the best advice that my family would give me was that I should try to look less like a ballerina when I run with the ball! When I was in the 5th grade, my rugby coach had a peculiar style of motivating his team. After every practice, he would target a different boy with the same line: “You are on thin ice, young man…thin ice…”. It worked like a charm! We won the league that year. All jokes aside, I don’t think our success had anything to do with his motivation or lack thereof. But people who work with people in this way, enforce the notion that we should always compare ourselves with others.
In the networks that I am a part of, I regularly rub shoulders with some pretty awesome people. People who embody the Kingdom of God in beautiful ways. People who have the craziest stories to tell. When I hear the stories that some people tell, sometimes it’s tempting not to start thinking: “You are on thin ice, young man…thin ice…” or “I wish I could be doing what she/he is doing…”
There is such a thin line between being inspired by others, and getting caught in the comparison trap.
Case in point: Ananias and Sapphira (in Acts 5). This husband and wife rubbed shoulders with a community that understood the value of sharing. People were selling some of their stuff and shared with their friends, so that everyone had enough, and no one had too much. Ananias and Sapphira also wanted to find the approval of the people. So they sold a piece of land and pretended to give all the money to their friends. But they kept some. They lost their lives because of this (scary stuff!).
The problem with the comparison trap is this: we focus too much on the things we should be doing (especially the things other people are nailing, but we are not). And we do not care enough about being the kind of person that God is forming us to become, and calling us to be for others.
People who get stuck in the comparison trap, struggle to be open and honest about who they are. If I hide my faults, my doubts and shortcomings at all cost, and only show people my nice (often fake) side, it’s likely that I will coax other people into the same trap. And so the toxic cycle continues.
Followers of Jesus are not supposed to be in the comparing business. We are in the business of inspiration. If our story, with all the cracks and bumps and bruises, serve to inspire people, then we can be grateful for that.
What happens when our Rules in Life starts weighing heavier than our Rule of Life?
The world is mourning the loss of a legend. Most of us can recall a few movie scenes where Robin Williams captured our imagination.
But you don’t have to search very far to find some blogger or organization who felt the need to use his death as a reminder that Robin Williams is going straight to hell because of his suicide. It’s so unfortunate.
I have a rule of thumb for the way I view difficult issues: if I can’t speak out of my experience with real people, I’ll rather keep my beliefs to myself.
Many people who believe that people who commit suicide are going to hell, have never shared life with someone who is suffering from depression. Often, Christians who fight the hardest against homosexuality are people who have no relationship with a person who has been struggling with her/his sexuality for so many years.
We often do really well at figuring out the rights and wrongs of this world. And once we have determined the rules that we live by, come hell or high water, we will not seek to understand other people’s views or experiences.
I don’t think that we can really have a meaningful influence in the lives of people if we don’t make an intentional effort to try and climb into their skins. We will never be able to understand fully, but we can at least try.
It’s so easy to call the beggar on the street corner a lazy person. You see, once I’ve distinguished the flaw in his character, I have no responsibility to do anything other than calling him lazy.
A few weeks ago, many people in South Africa were talking about the students from Pretoria who dressed up as domestic workers for a 21st birthday. Some people were enraged, and called it outright racism. Others were laughing it off and saying that people will do anything to call everything racism these days.
Jonathan Jansen, rector at the University of the Free State, had the following to say on Facebook about the #Blackface issue: “I applaud the UP Management for taking a strong stand on blackface episode. The sad thing is that these kids probably wonder what all the fuss is about.”
I cannot agree more with Prof. Jansen. I am just a bit disillusioned after the whole incident. I don’t think many people’s minds have been changed. I hoped that people would have been given the opportunity to really listen to the views of people whose opinions differ from their own. That is the beauty of dialogue. Without true dialogue, we will never really help each other to climb into the skins of people whose ideas and ideologies differ so much from our own.
When our rules of life weigh heavier than the rule of life that we choose (the way we do life), we lose the ability make a connection with the lives of people.
