Sunday, November 18, 2007

patient painter

sensitive fingertips guide the pathway of his eyes
drinks in the coloured contours of a body bared for his discerning
limbs arranged on standard white canvas planes
searching for the main theme
collecting the fundamentals

ancient observations create the spectrum of his palette
dedicated determination achieves confidence in his strokes
emotions temporarily restrained
seeking order from chaos
remembering exact proportions

skilful love heals souls inside broken vessels
restoring dignity to forgotten forms and functions
cast aside once the work is finished
passionate shades of red on green
once again life spilt and lived
your glorious beauty

(thanking God for creating you)

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

nie te min

ek is wie ek is
net myself
hier
nou

nie te min

is hulle wie hulle is
oor wie jy was
toe

nie te min

kan ons kies wie ons word
oor wie Hy is
vir altyd
genoeg

Sunday, October 07, 2007

die DIT van alles vir MY

die kuns van kuns lê opgesluit in harmonie
die harmonie van kuns lê opgesluit in balans
die balans van harmonie lê opgesluit in eenvoud
die eenvoud VAN ALLES IS DIE WEG
die weg bring mens tot skoonheid
skoonheid is kuns
tot waar kuns ophou
alles sal eendag ophou
as alles ophou, word alles nuut
ook skoonhei in eenvoud
skoonheid as eenvoud
verbeel dit NOU?!
verbeel JOU nou?!

deur Theodor Bredell
vir my Spring Poetry Evening
8 September 2007

Thursday, September 27, 2007

lente seën

September reën oor die droë Hoëveld
Meng skoon stof met gister se verbrande as
Jong broodboomblare rek ver agteroor
Glans groen glad soos warm bietjies was

Oostewind kielie-koek my hare teen my wang
Swaar palmtakke stamp kop teen die rand van my dak
Warm beker tee stoom keelaf op my lip
Mannetjies-kat liefie-liefie teen my trui en kennebak

Wie hou hierdie aardbol, skeef aan’t die draai in sy sagte omgee hand?
Wie roer die seegetye telkens klokslag met die maan?
Wie glimlag oor my drome in stil gedagtes elke aand?
Wie belowe hy’s langs my deur die seisoene van my toekoms - altyd saam.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Taantjie skat

Taantjie skat
Jou liewe kind
Blinkoog slim
Vol vrae en grappies

Taantjie skat
Jou liefste kind
Ligte lyfie vloei in my arms in
Sodra ek kniel of buk of sit

Taantjie skat
Jou pa se kind
Vol vlermuis streke
Sand en springtou slaap saam in jou bed

Taantjie skat
Jou ma se kind
My gebede vou om jou hele wese
Haar geloof en hoop en lewenslus

Taantjie skat
Jou liefling kind
Ons vriendskap sku
Skaars twee weke jonk

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Appelkoosbloeisel

Salomo sing sy liefde oor die wingerd uit,
haar songesoende hare wip in die wind
en laat hom aan sy spogmerrie dink.
antieke geure
gedink
gedroom
gefluister
gebloos
Sedert Adam se droom smag die mens na sy rib.

baba duifies kruip in die witstinkhoutboom se takke weg
winter volmaan loop leeg met elke swaarkry traan
eerste Afrika lente in dertigveertigmaande
lanternlig asem jasmyn en lelielug
kampvuur vlamme lek
klam houtstompe suis
rooiwyn herdenk
sterre skiet
Kaalvoet oor die koel kleiteëls.

beloofde nuwe lewe druk deur ou geharde bas
gebede smeek vir dapperheid teen bekende vrese:
maak ons naak voor U verkose keuses
opgebruikte hoop
gesteelde skaamte
gestorwe lywe
herstel in heerlikheid
keel nog vol rooi skaliestof
klam palms skraap steeds moed bymekaar
onverwags verras hy my
Mooiste wilde blom.

evolution

Entropy reigns on a cloudy Saturday morning.
Continuous question: will she make it to the toilet on time?
Latex gloves separate,
luke-warm water,
cold on mom’s receding nappy rash.
Late night conversations about men and sex and life.
Silent surrender: did I deny myself in vain?
Mom’s husband married a virgin and so will mine.
Natural selection has pre-destined that I will not.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

I don't understand the question

This was written for another blog in response to the following question:
"Where are the Christian hang out spots?"...


What I'm about to say must be seen in the perspective of one recently out and back in the world from three years at Seminary in lalaland in the southern districts of the North American Oilfields...where I had to sign a piece of paper promising not to use tobacco or liquor nor wear flip-flop sandals or jeans on campus while feeding on God's Word and centuries of male dominated church history...

To quote some popular wristbands and other fridge magnets:
"What would Jesus do?"

If you don't like smoke or intoxicated people, then the botanical gardens sound like an option. Personally, I welcome the patrons' original conversations and lack of pre-rehearsed excuses for their unbelief in the locations you've described above, precisely because their intellectual fears and need for social acceptance seems to be taken care of by beverages served in the hang-outs where they choose to go to...as a follower of Christ, I often enjoy being a fly against the wall with a whiskey on the rocks as I spy on the reality of those who I feel drawn to love for His sake.

As a non-smoker (ever) myself, I really start praying when my sinuses are protesting but generally the challenge of making friends in communities where saints fear to go over-ride my personal preferences for convenience. Ironically, every time I pull on my leather jacket and pick up the faint scent of last weekend it fires up my determination to be pleasantly surprised by a future conversation with a fellow mortal who doesn't know all the answers...

If the music is making me aggressive or too flirty, I leave.
If the guys enjoying their beers are singing rugby-songs, I don't even enter the building.
If I have to dodge balloon-swinging-face-painted-toddlers at the salad-bar or listen to non-stop bitchy comments about horrible office colleagues, I consider watching a movie instead.

I admit: I don't check before hand if I have sufficient shampoo/washing-powder/hot water to deal with the price of being alive/able to spend time and money on activities of leisure/whether I am determined to win a soul for Christ today.
I just dump my smelly clothes in the laundry bag and crash in my comfy bed.

With my ears still ringing from sternum-throbbing-music, I find my favourite position amidst an ocean of pillows and duvet-waves smelling like fabric-softener. As blood returns to my shoeless toes, I am dumb-founded by the fact that despite several layers of clothing, smoke can still find a way to the item of underwired underwear I planed to wear to church tomorrow...

Why do you want to hang out?

If you need a break from wherever the week's demands consume your energies - by all means hit the coffee bars' non-smoking section as Roger suggests...or go to the theatre for movies, dance or drama...or just have a milkshake at a nursery and enjoy the quiet beauty of God's creativity.

If you want to avoid offensive, lonely and often selfish people who need God, stay at home, take a bubble bath and read very selectively.

Like I say, I don't understand the question....

If we're serious about being what this blog/conference/conversation is about etc....we need to:
ask the right questions and be willing to adjust the parameters which determine our personal concepts of comfort when we find the answers.

My default-guide-to-wisdom-question as asked by a fellow traveler to Amahoro:
"...why were the prostitutes, tax-collectors...(fill in your preferred choice of outcast-demographic here)...so comfortable with Jesus?" - Bob Pyne -

...I am still trying to figure this one out...

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Easter Blessing

He made the stars
He measured the seas
He breathed his wind into man
and conquered death by his Love.
May you know the Hope
that Easter-morn brings,
who invites you to call on his Name
and live in his Light.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

TIK

I destroy homes,
I tear families apart,
take hold of your children, and that’s just the start.
I’m more costly than diamonds,
more precious than gold.
The sorrow I bring is a sight to behold.

If you need me, remember:
I’m easily found.
I live all around you – in schools and in town.
I live with the rich,
I live with the poor,
I live down the street, and maybe next door.

I’m made in a lab,
but not like you think,
I can be made under the kitchen sink.
In your child’s closet,
and even in the woods.
If it scares you to death, well it certainly should.

I have many names,
but there’s one you know best,
I’m sure you’ve heard of me,
my name is Crystal Meth.
My power is awesome,
try me you’ll see.
But if you do, you may never break free.

Just try me once,
and I might let you go,
but try me twice,
and I’ll own your soul.
When I possess you, you’ll steal and you’ll lie,
you'll do what you have to – just to get high.

The crimes you’ll commit from my narcotic charms
will be worth the pleasure you’ll feel in your arms,
- your lungs and your nose.
You’ll lie to your mother,
you'll steal from your dad,
when you see their tears, you should feel sad.

But you’ll forget your morals and how you were raised,
I’ll be your conscience,
I’ll teach you my ways.
I’ll take kids from their parents,
and parents from their kids.
I turn people from God, and separate friends.

I’ll take everything from you,
your looks and your pride.
I’ll be with you always
– right by your side.
You’ll give up everything;
– your family, your home, your friends, your money,
then you’ll be alone.

I’ll take and take, till you have nothing more to give.
When I’m finished with you,
you'll be lucky to live.
If you try me – be warned – this is no game,
if given the chance, I’ll drive you insane.

I’ll ravish your body,
I’ll control your mind,
I’ll own you completely, your soul will be mine.
The nightmares I’ll give you while you’re lying in bed,
the voices you’ll hear, from inside your head.
The sweats, the shakes, the visions you’ll see,
I want you to know – they are all gifts from me.

But then it’s too late,
and you’ll know in your heart,
that you are mine, and we shall not part.
You’ll regret that you tried me,
they always do, but you came to me, not I to you.
You knew this would happen,
many times you were told,
but you challenged my powers, and chose to be bold.

You could have said no,
and just walked away,
if you could live that day over,
now, what would you say?

I’ll be your master
You will be my slave
I’ll even go with you,
when you go to your grave.

Now that you’ve met me, what will you do?
Will you try me or not?
It’s all up to you.
I can bring you more misery than words can tell,
come,
take my hand,
let me lead you to hell!

(this poem was written by a young girl who was arrested for possession of illegal drugs - she was freed from jail but as her vivid words reveal, she was still a captive to this deadly substance)

I found it in the Christmas edition of our church's monthly magazine without any names to accredit. As a community, we've lost several young people to suicides resulting from the hopelessness they reach from their drug-addictions.

These families are our responsibility and God has provided us with his church to live in authentic vulnerability among one another:
to be honest about your child's alcohol problem and admit your sense of failure as a parent,
to ask for help when your wife is slipping into depression and you don't know how to fix her any more,
to confess your obsession with pornography to a caring brother that can help you carry your burdens toward recovery,
to admit your fledgling affair to your confronting sister who can pray for a new job away from your tempting colleague.

Real Christianity involves more than believing the true doctrine, living the moral lifestyle and staying busy with holy activities:
it is about showing non-judgemental love toward those of us who make it hard for you to stand our sad company,
it is about loving those immoral people around you who have messed up our own chances through our unwise decisions,
it is about having time to befriend the hopeless loved ones of such relational hemorrhage.

True Christianity demands that we look at other human beings through the eyes of Jesus Christ:
who drank wine with materialistic government officials,
befriended lonely sex-workers
and hugged repugnant HIV/AIDS patients.

To help those humiliated creatures feel as comfortable in your gracious presence as we do in His.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Mission Impossible

“What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” – Micha 6:8

God-willing, I will join twenty-five fellow South Africans from over ten different denominations on our way to Uganda for the first international conversation Towards a Post-Colonial Church in Africa in May 2007. Dr. Bob Pyne told me about Amahoro*-Africa while I was finishing my last semester on American soil. This is why I continue to go where Hummers fear to tread:

“12/7/2006: Well, this is my second-last day in Africa, and I’m actually sad to be leaving the country...I have had a phenomenal experience in Moz (Mozambique), primarily thanks to you. You were the first person to tell me about Africa, nonetheless to invite me to come. You were the first to make me aware of the hunger and needs of Christians in Africa – and I will always remember you for this outstanding gifts.
On the outreach itself, I felt like you prepared me as best you could, and I was somewhat comfortable from the start because of the things you told us. I don’t want you to think you failed us at all. While I’ve been here I’ve learned so much from you and your dad. Not just facts, stats and history about Africa – which you know are very important to me, but also about emphasizing what REALLY matters and putting down what is not important.
You and the rest of the group were good at focusing on the essentials – Christ and leaning on Him. Also I think you were a great example of being sensitive to cultural differences and making me aware of them. I appreciate your investment in me very much.
I also think I’ve learned a little about what Evangelism is and about not being pushy and colonial or arrogant on the whole, the entire process of coming and voyaging north with your church has been a wonderful growth experience. I haven’t even said anything about how the people there impacted me. I will miss you very much in the future. Thank you again. Very sincerely, Jesse “

Two years ago in September of 2004, when I first came to Dallas to start my studies at DTS, I taught Jesse and his youth group with a fellow DTSer, Jonathan at a Skillman Bible Church. He is still a mentor to this phenomenal young man.

Jesse was one of the brightest teenagers, always concentrating and asking intelligent questions about life beyond his own world. In 2005, Jonathan and two other Americans joined me in South Africa on a few reconnaissance trips into two other African countries, Namibia and Mozambique.

The Bible records a story, in the ninth chapter of John’s gospel of a blind man who had trouble seeing life for what it really was. He begged Jesus to heal his eyes. God restored his sight and everybody in the region knew that a miracle had occurred. The educated, high society of the day had many explanations.

These skeptics argued that his disability was just consequence of his parents and/or his own sins. Jesus disagreed. When asked to explain the reason for this poor man’s suffering, humiliation and pain during all of his life, the God-man responded: “No, it was not because of anybody’s sins but allowed into his life with the purpose to be set free from it, for the sake of God’s glory…”

On the last Sunday before I left South Africa in August 2004, this passage was branded upon my soul. It defined the unspoken question confronting me as an African leaving for a foreign land in search of greater understanding.
Is Africa poor, hungry and left desolate to suffer alone because of her own sins or those perpetrated by her colonial parents?

I believe Jesus’ reply would be the same: “No, but that the glorious power of the Living God might be revealed to all the earth.”
How will I respond to this challenge?
May each day of my life tell His story of sacrificial love.
May I never cease to inspire every mortal He sends across my path to put their trust in Him.
May I grow in skillfulness and influence to mobilize more souls as part of His supernatural solution to the need of Africa!

“Sixty-five hundred Africans are dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease. And it is not a priority for the West: two 9/11s a day, eighteen jumbo jets of fathers, mothers, families falling out of the sky. No tears, no letters of condolence, no fifty-one-gun salutes. Why? Because we don’t put the same value on African life as we put on a European or American life. God will not let us get away with this, history certainly won’t let us get away with our excuses.
We say we can’t get these antiretroviral drugs to the farthest reaches of Africa, but we can get them our cold fizzy drinks. The tiniest little village, you can find a bottle of Coke.
Look, if we really thought that an African life was equal in value to an English, a French, or an Irish life, we wouldn’t let two and a half million Africans die every year for the stupidest reasons: money. We just wouldn’t.
And a very prominent head of state said to me: “It’s true. If these people weren’t Africans, we just couldn’t let it happen.” We don’t really deep down believe in their equality. I can’t say...but it was a head of state who was ashamed. It actually scandalized him. We have written off Africans. So the next step in the journey of equality is to get to a place where we accept that you cannot choose your neighbor.
In the Global Village, distance no longer decides who is your neighbor, and “Love thy neighbor” is not advice, it’s a command.”
– Bono, November 2002 –

Mission impossible?

In the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Mary responds to a supernatural challenge proposed to her by the angel of the Lord: “ For nothing will be impossible with God.”

In Africa we have a saying:
“If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together”.

The church in Africa needs the church in America to become informed about how their country and her decisions affect African lives and become godly stewards of that responsibility.

Do you have the faith in our God to become personally involved in revealing God’s glory to the entire world, right where you are―in the land of the free?

* means peace in many Bantu languages. When Africans from different tribes greet one another with a hand shake, hug or kiss and say “amahoro”, they are professing their hope for a better future.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Mentor memo one: Saint Paul from Ireland

BONO IN CONVERSATION:
Introducing another Saint Paul (Hewson aka Bono) [1]:

Born: May 10, 1960 in Dublin, Ireland, second and youngest son to their Protestant mother and Roman Catholic father. He lost his mom at age fourteen when she collapsed after coming home from her own father’s funeral. He attended an Ecumenical school, the first of its kind in Dublin.

Family: Bono married his high school sweetheart, Alison Steward in 1982 in an Anglican ceremony. They have four children: two girls: Jordan (1989), Memphis Eve (1991) and two boys: Elijah Bob Patricus Guggi Q (1999), and John Abraham (2001) and they are based in Killiney in south County Dublin and spend their ‘family month’ in Eze, France each year.

Occupations: Bono became the lead vocalist and song-writer for the rock band U2 started in 1976 (two years after the death of his mom). They believed that Rock ‘n Roll could change the world and they set out to do just that.

World changing mechanisms started by Bono and his team:
...2002: establishes DATA (debt AIDS trade Africa) with Bobby Shriver and other Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt Campaign activists
What does DATA do?
[www.data.org] DATA publishes international policies affecting Africa and hold the world leaders who make them accountable to their promises regarding;
1)Debt,
2)AIDS, TB and Malaria,
3)Trade,
4)Development Assistance and Millennium Challenge,
5)The Global Fund,
6)US Federal Budget,
7)Commission for Africa,
8)G8 ,
9)the IMF World Bank and
10)the World Summit

...2005: joining in a venture with his wife and a New York based Irish fashion designer began EDUN (‘nude’ spelt backwards)
What does EDUN do?
[www.edun.ie] EDUN shifts the focus of the international world on Africa from aid to trade.
EDUN aims to create/highlight existing factories in Africa, South America and India that serve as examples for employment to developing countries by practicing fair wages, good business ethics which will encourage investment in those and other countries.

...2006: most recently Bobby Shriver and Bono teamed up again to launch another initiative called Product Red
What does Product Red do?
[www.joinred.com] PRODUCT RED raises money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
They have collaborated with companies such as American Express, Apple Computer, Converse, Motorola, The Gap and Georgio Armani who have created products with the Product Red logo and so channeling a percentage of their profits to buying medicine for Africa.

Most recent recognitions:
• nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, 2005 and 2006
• awarded the Pablo Neruda International Presidential Medal of Honour from the Government of Chile in 2004
• named by Time as one of the “100 Most Influential People” in their May 2004 special issue
• named by Time as a Person of the Year along with Bill and Melinda Gates in 2005
• named in the annual honours list as an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2006 as he could not be knighted because he is Irish.

A bird’s eye view through this dialogue between Bono and Michka Assayas and how it reveals Bono's leadership style:

This book tells the story of a young boy who grew up with a frustrated father who lost his wife too early. They lived in a country torn by religion and politics enforced by a colonial regime in poverty which drove most men to alcoholism. This boy joined a band at the age of sixteen and expressed his frustrations through music and art.

One day their band played in a concert that collected money to pay for food needed in Ethiopia. Bono and his wife of three years decided to visit this foreign country and worked in an orphanage together for a month. They discovered that this poor country paid back double of the money their concert generated in old debt to the First World while their citizens were starving.
This experience changed their lives and they started investing their subsequent celebrity status (which they call ‘currency’) to get the reality of Africa into the hearts of the rest of the world.

Bono uses his fame on two basic levels: first on the least spectacular level through all the various groups and organizations they support, they empower individuals by educating them and giving them opportunities to get involved on a personal level. Secondly on the public stage, he works through the various public figures he has come to know through his ‘rock-star-status’ to gain access to world leaders on all the different tiers involved in solving the wide spectrum of challenges that Africa face by introducing them to Africa first-hand and encounter the realities he wants them to help him with.

Bono on his passion: “ You become a single-issue protagonist. You represent a constituency that has no power, no vote, in the West, but whose lives are hugely affected by our body politic. Our clients are the people who are not in the president’s ear. My mouth, because of it, belongs to them.” (p104)

Bono about changing attitudes: “It turns out that a lot of things that you learn from being in a band are analogous to politics, even the so-called nasty old world of commerce, anywhere you’ve got to get your message across. I know much more than you’d expect about these things, just from trying to keep on top of U2’s business. We like to say our band is a gang of four, but a corporation of five. I understand economics. This is not all so difficult. U2 was art school, business school. It’s always the same attitude that wins the day: faith over fear. Know your subject, know your opponent. Don’t have an argument you can’t win. On the African stuff we can’t lose, because we’re putting our shoulder to a door God Almighty has already opened. We carry with us—this is something that’s important—the moral weight of an argument. That’s much bigger than the personalities having the debate. I might walk into an important office and people are looking at me as though I’m some sort of an exotic plant. But after a few minutes, they don’t see me. All they’re hearing is the argument, and the argument has some sort of moral force that they cannot deny. It’s bigger than you, and it’s bigger than them. And history has God on its side.” (p105-6)

Bono about himself: "I'm not saying I'm not good at the penthouse life--but I'm also good at the pavement. That's a source of pride for me, that I'm good at both. I'm good at the high life, I'm good at the low life. It's that middle where I lose it...No, I'm not a celebrity. I'm a scribbling, cigar-smoking, wine-drinking, Bible-reading band man. A show-off [laughs]...who loves to paint pictures of what I can't see. A husband, father, friend of the poor and sometimes the rich. An activist traveling salesman of ideas. Chess player, part-time rock-star, opera singer, in the loudest folk group in the world."

[1] Information assimilated from Kevin Byrne’s biography available at www.atu2.com, Wikipedea and the relevant biography by Mischka Assayas entitled 'Bono in conversation with Mischka Assayas', published by Riverhead Books (2006), 388 pages.

Dear Mr. Assayas and Mr. Hewson:
thank you for speaking this book into life,
it has changed mine forever,
for better.
Leani