Home

The day James flew home and I flew north along the Pacific Coast to Portland, I stayed with friends who knew that I needed a bit more guidance through the geography of Washington than I had realized. I had arranged to spend Tuesday night at a cabin in the North Cascades, alright; but it turned out to be about 4½ hours from where I needed to be at 8:30 Wednesday morning. Like so many other times during our summer pilgrimage, I was given the better set of directions and sent on my way, not through Seattle as I had once thought, but through the Columbia River Gorge, north through Central Washington’s high mountain desert and to the foothills of the spectacular North Cascades.

That night in Wenatchee, I turned on the news and heard for the first time that there were forest fires raging in the mountains. That’s what all the forest service rangers were doing in the motel! I wondered, then, if I would need to change my plans and go to a different place. The next morning, after driving only 45 minutes, I arrived at the boat launch in Chelan. The fires were not in the Stehekin Valley, but I was to see the Domke Lake Fire, only 9 miles from the Stehekin Landing and spread to the shores of the lake by the time the Lady of the Lake Express passed by. Smoke that day had spread south to Chelan and filled the gorge that held the glacial lake upon which I sailed. Flames could be seen from the boat as we passed, and the smoke was thick in Stehekin Valley. I resigned myself to the likelihood that all I would see of the precipitous snow-capped mountains was the faint outline that appeared Wednesday afternoon. So I relaxed and read and wrote and prayed. I was also advised that the recommended climb for the area was McGregor Mountain, some 6,200 ft high from bottom to top with a seven mile trail that looked like it was drawn by a Geiger counter.

The sun rose to shine through clearing air and I felt more rested than I have for years. I was in a cabin with a canvass roof, a kerosene lantern for light and no electricity. I was covered with western blankets and just plain comfortable as a cool breeze passed across my face, welcoming me to the day with the aromas of sizzling bacon and cowboy coffee. How could I avoid dressing in hiking clothes and preparing my pack? After breakfast the shuttle bus came and delivered a few other hikers going various directions and me to High Bridge Camp, where a number of trails begin.

So I was off to reach toward a glaciered summit that placed majestically among others to compose some of the most rugged and awe-demanding land on the continent. A description of the day, with all its details deeply etched in my memory, would take thousands of megabytes to convey. What I will say about it, though, is that it was a physical challenge. The sites and my experiences exceeded my hopes. As I hiked higher and with each turn saw more of Creation’s raw beauty come to view I worried, “Well, this is it. The pilgrimage is almost over. This is supposed to be prayer time of my highest caliber; but is it? Will this take in all that Laura and I experienced through the summer as some kind of a gelling agent and somehow bring me closer to God?” You can’t program these things, you know. You just put yourself in the places where it might take place and then hope for the best.

I reached the trail’s end and went a bit higher above a snow field, just before a last scramble to the top which would have been a gamble to try because of the time it might take and the risk involved for a solo climber. After a lunch and some photos, I began the descent. I saw a column of smoke from the fire that still raged; it rose 33,000 ft. and created its own cumulus cloud. I descended further and stopped for some water and blueberries and drew in a deep breath of air. Then, in a song, I was overwhelmed with God’s presence. Just like that. It seemed the mountains, the small waterfalls and streams, the dancing clouds and all else before me shuddered in an act of praise. This is where the pilgrimage led.

The Heart of Restoration

Laura and I said, “Goodbye,” to the seminary community at John Wesley College on Monday, July 30, two weeks ago today. Then we watched the lights of Johannesburg from the sky as the South African Airways Airbus lifted from the earth; and after a middle-of-the-night refueling in Dakar, we rose again over the ocean and Africa was behind us. It felt to me as though I were leaving home.

That doesn’t mean that Africa had become my new home, or that I had decided to take up residence in South Africa. It rather means that my experience of home has expanded.

During the brief transition time between our return from South Africa and our pilgrimage to the West Coast I ran into two of our church members. I was afraid that my response to their question, “How was it?” would either be the trite “Incredible,” or an exercise of endless babble. There is so much to process. Yet, my more powerful awareness was of my inner joy of encountering members of my church family. I was home. It’s not that my world shrank back; but that here, too, is vital connection.

At the end of that week our daughter, Carrie arrived from Philadelphia with all her quick wit that can bring joy and challenge at the same time. I smiled inwardly as I watched the sister-brother banter resume and continue over the following week. Family time has been holy time. I posted a few pictures on the new “West Coast” public photo folder with a little concern that it might appear that the character of my sabbatical photo-journal might begin to appear as pictures of the family vacation. Never-the-less, family time has been sacred time; and brief as it was, it played on me for a reconstruction of the soul. Laura, Carrie, and James – the ones God placed in my life for dearest connection – came to make my heart recall itself. With them, I am home.

So we explored San Francisco, drove the winding roads up the Western Slope of the Sierra Nevada’s to Sequoia National Park, saw the big trees, and most importantly spent time together. Therein lay the adventure. And it was Sabbath, the heart of sabbatical, which is all about restoring wholeness and vitality. James and I climbed the heights to the High Sierra’s, to the pretty little Pear Lake tucked high in a cirque of towering summits. There we camped for two days in the wilderness and drank in God’s creation like the cool waters we filtered out of the lake. Sabbatical again – restoring the whole self again, as we connected with each other and together found connection with God.

I have now begun the last segment of this pilgrimage. This morning James flew east to Detroit; I flew north to Portland. Now comes a personal moment to take up a short hermitage and drink in the Spirit in the way I have found to be the most effective for me. I’ll pray and think long over the questions, of all the places we’ve seen and that which we’ve seen and heard, what is God saying? What does this mean for me? How does it refashion my soul? What implications might it have for the people I serve and the ministry of the Gospel we do? What do I now understand to be God’s vision for the world? How is this coming about and how do I – and we – either get with it or get in its way?

This is a day of solitude (a pair of airports and another new city to drive through in yet another rental to drive through it with, not-withstanding). Already, a realization has come to me. Perhaps I had it before and perhaps I could have come to it without thousands of miles in air travel and a good dose of a culture that was new to me. Yet, now I have it this way, and I’m certain that the realization means something more and deeper than it would have before.

The quest has been to take a pilgrimage to understand restorative justice. That’s something that is different from retributive justice, the kind with which most of us are most familiar. We think about justice and we automatically think only about proper punishment meted out for proper crimes. We think about injury and penalty. That’s retributive; an eye-for-an-eye, and all that. Retributive justice has its place; its necessary; but it isn't the only kind of justice and it isn't always the most appropriate or helpfull.

With the help of saints like Nelson Mandela and Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu, South Africa realized that retribution for hundreds of years of oppression and violence would only lead to years more of violence and oppression, only with opposing groups of people exchanging places. If the nation were to be healed, there had to be forgiveness. There had to be truth told, so that perpetrators could say, I’m sorry” and in that find their humanity restored and victims could find healing. There had to be a restoration of God’s love between peoples to the point that the riches of political power and the riches of the land would be shared and the liberty and sacred worth of all the tribes – African, European, and Asian – would be embraced and protected. Tutu says, “There is no future without forgiveness;” without forgiveness there is only continued strife. Restorative justice is this kind of justice.

South Africa is not done with the work. There is a long way to go in addressing the poverty and sharing the wealth and healing the brokenness of the nation. Yet, what they have accomplished so far has astounded the world. Having been among them for a while, it has astounded Laura and me.

In that astonishment is the insight: the heart of restoration is in relationship – when people who didn’t know each other before, only identified each other by categories before, make a connection with each other. It is when we are at home with each other – when we listen to each other and when we see each other as blessed ones, then our own souls are mended, and this world moves closer to the restoration of God’s undisputed realm.

Hope is Hope Once it has Flesh

HIV/AIDS is the scourge of the African Continent. An estimated 30 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa were infected with the disease by 2005. South Africa’s “share” of this crisis was 6.29 million, with 370,000 deaths. Those official figures translate into 30% of South Africa’s population; and since there has been widespread resistance to testing, some suggest that the actual figures could be far worse. In addition, T.B. has become the sister disease of AIDS, and has to be treated before AIDS is directly addressed, compounding the dilemma much further. All this has left South Africa with 1,500,000 orphans in 2005; according to projections, the figure will rise to about 2.5 million children left without a living parent by the year 2010.

The new government of South Africa had promised the people a new day of healing and justice, the lifting of the people from poverty: a new day of hope. Making good on those promises in short order would have been daunting, enough, given the task of undoing over 300 years of suppression, segregation, and injustice. In the face of that, new, very modest-but-livable housing (called, Mandela Houses) are being erected by the government. Electricity, water and sewage are being made accessible to an increasing portion of the population. The effort continues. Yet, HIV/AIDS compounds everything. The extent of illness and death works to generate overwhelming despair. One leader told us that a pastor’s time is essentially consumed by two demands: organizational meetings and conducting funerals. We have heard the concern of parents who recognize the vulnerability of their children. Adolescent experimentation with sex nowadays easily may result in death. The mushrooming number of child-led households threatens to block a generation of South Africans from options they might have had to gain a different life; it can become a lock to the door that would have led them out of poverty.

Overwhelming.

We discovered that the people of The Methodist Church of Southern Africa are not overwhelmed. Instead, they have a great resolve to address the needs with faithfulness and unrelenting determination. Their mission is clear: “God calls the Methodist people to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ for healing and transformation.” Their vision is equally focused: “A Christ-healed Africa for the healing of the nations.” The enormity of poverty and deadly disease does not discourage them; it presents the context in which they become a witness of God’s redemptive love and roll up their sleeves and get to work. They know what they have to do. They have developed a vigorous response to the HIV/AIDS crisis, calling for all active clergy to take continuing education which will provide the understandings and tools needed to minister to people for prevention, treatment, spiritual care and losses associated with the disease. A class on AIDS and ministry is now a required part of each ministerial candidate’s seminary education.

Laura and I spent a day with the professor of that course. Rev. Dr. Dimitris Palos was an activist in the anti-apartheid movement, having served on the South Africa Council of Churches while Archbishop Desmond Tutu was General Secretary. He became the architect of the denomination’s HIV/AIDS ministry initiative during the last several years. Now that the ministry is in place, he is focusing his work more locally through Bryanston Methodist Church in Johannesburg in addition to his teaching responsibilities. His experience and expertise, along with the warmth of his compassion would have filled the day with inspiration and learning for us if we had simply stayed in his office.

Dimitris is not, however, one to stay in an office. He soon had us in his car, driving to Diepsloot, a township that has developed in more recent years on the City’s northwest side. Townships can spring up, almost virtually over-night. People without homes may find room on a vacant field, build a shack out of any material that can be found, then register for squatter’s rights and become established. Then, as communities develop, the government begins to address permanent housing needs, delivers services such as electricity, water, and sewage. Dimitris drove us a bit through the township, which is nestled in a valley surrounded by hills and mountains of the High Veldt, which looks like the terrain in parts of Montana or the American Southwest. It now has over 100,000 residents, half of whom are unemployed and many have AIDS

He turned into the Dieplsoot Community Project, a ministry in which Bryanston Methodist Church has a share. We entered a large new structure. Most of the space was open area designed for children’s ministry programs: after school, play-production, etc. To the outside was an expansive field being developed for sporting activities such as soccer and field hockey. Inside, we entered a partitioned area filled with sewing tables, machines and several women at work. This was Themba (a Zulu word meaning hope and trust), a “hope in action” ministry designed to enable people in Dieplsoot to become self-sufficient through skills training and assistance with equipment to start up businesses. They produce beautiful work made available for sale: quilted textiles; beaded ornaments, jewelry, and tableware; and other sewn items. So much volunteer time and effort is invested in the work.

Perhaps it’s better to say that the people of the church are becoming invested in the people of the community. They are changing life. They are changing the world. They are the presence of hope in Christ that has been made present in the flesh.

This is also what we discovered when, a week before, we visited the Methodist City Mission in Tshwane (Pretoria). Like Dimitris’ work, this HIV/AIDS ministry is employed in a comprehensive manner. A clinic operates in partnership with other organizations (and receives some The United States funding). It is staffed by a medical doctor-director and nurses who assess persons infected with the AIDS virus and then treat them with appropriate medication. Additionally, they are taught to care for themselves to maintain health through proper nutrition and other life style practices. Many who come to the Center are also infected with tuberculosis, which in Africa is a usual “opportunistic disease” which needs to be treated before medications that address the AIDS can be employed. This clinic is a part of a larger system the Center has put in place, which offers: spiritual care for AIDS patients and their families; social services; assistance in becoming registered with personal identification required to receive government assistance; testing for AIDS; and residential care for those who have been discharged from the hospital, yet need special attention before returning to home.

A church leader told me that South Africa is to the rest of Africa what the United States is to the world: a beacon of hope for freedom and equality. There are significant obstacles that could well discourage the people away from living out that role. Yet, I look at the lively worship, filled with joy expressed in song, dance, and fervent prayer. I see the dedication of such people as Dimitris Palos and the many pastors and pastors-in-training and educators and lay volunteers who work day-in and day-out to love the people. Then, I see that Methodists in Southern Africa have chosen not to hide under the covers. Instead, they are on the front line of ministry. As a result, I have seen them embody the hope which they proclaim.

Hope that is simply spoken is only a wish. Hope that indwells the flesh through vision, focused mission and effort is hope. When you apply that, person-to-person: that is love.

Kwa Thema

When you hear the word, Township’ associated with South Africa images of poverty and danger can easily come to mind. Laura and I have already experienced so much more during our visits to Langa and Guguletho in Cape Town and Soweto in Johannesburg. We have found communities of people coping with need, hopeful, grateful for gains that have been made, feeling some impatience for improvements promised but not-yet-delivered, caring for one another, finding ways to be industrious. They can be vibrant; with markets In Soweto we discovered that townships are not only places of extreme poverty, but can be communities of mixed economic levels and standards of housing. Now in Kwa Thema we have discovered how the Township may also be a place of rich spirit.

We found our way to Plain Field Methodist Church (where Trevor Hudson serves) in Benoni, a West-side suburb of Johannesburg where we met Rev. Phidian (Smadz) Matsepe. Smadz led us from there through the busy streets of the suburb to the equally busy streets of the Township to Kwa Thema Central Methodist Church, where we met Zolela (Zoli) Ngewabe, who be our host for the weekend. We discovered later that Zoli is a medical doctor and is the chief administrator of a government hospital. She lives with her daughters, son, and several grandchildren in nearby Sharon Park. Zoli loves to exercise her gift of hospitality. Before we left her house to return to the college, we had experienced such a range of activity: we had become friends with her family, including her sister, Thembakazi (Thembi); we were taken to eat with a group of leaders from the church; we enjoyed recreation together with her family; and we were served an authentic African dinner.

While Laura and Zoli went to shop at a few markets for Sunday’s dinner items, I had an opportunity to spend time with Smadz. Over breakfast, he had shared the story about his experiences of activism, imprisonment, and faith during the struggle against Apartheid. During our time together he expanded to discuss his ministry and dream for the church. Smadz has a two-fold quest. First, he wants his church to be relevant to the emerging needs and expectations of young people. He expects the church to grow, so he and other leaders of the church are making ground-breaking changes – introducing contemporary worship, emphasizing youth ministry and planning for building programs in the near future. Expecting continued growth, he hopes that Kwa Thema Central will become a model for the rest of The Methodist Church in South Africa, especially Black churches.

Smadz’s second quest is that mission will be central to the church’s character. They are already shining in this respect. He talked about ministries that are already in place: meals for school children; food for indigents; ministry to child-led families. The latter is emphasized by the church’s youth minister, responding to an urgent need: the AIDS pandemic has resulted in a very large number of families left with no adults. The oldest children of a family are left to care for themselves and the little ones, a desperate situation which can leave the children with few options to climb out of poverty in the future. The church is striving to intervene with a ministry of hope and substance to give them better care today and a future with brighter options.

Sunday’s worship revealed the life of this congregation. For an hour this congregation of many young families and youth, a youthful praise band/choir, and people of all ages, some who had come from throughout the Township and beyond sang in indigenous languages, danced and whooped in praise, prayed and gave testimony. I had been advised that if I preached any less than 30 minutes, the congregation would be disappointed: that came after the first hour of worship. I was able not to be a disappointment. Then there were announcements and celebrations of birthdays and anniversaries: including Laura’s and mine.

Worship is the heart of the congregation. Smadz told me, he so looks forward to Sunday. To be with the people, praise and worship together, to spend time as God’s sacred community of brothers and sisters together is real blessing. The church proved him right. The mission to change the world by the power of Christ through their faith, as well as the endeavor to be the church for the people who are not yet there are given life through the rhythm of their praise.

They know about God’s love: they practice it. And they share it: they said as much when they waved their greeting to their Northville: First United Methodist brothers and sisters in Christ through the lens of our camera. They are a people of God’s love; and having been with them, I know that Laura and I have been to the heart of Africa.

Experiencing Africa

It’s been nearly two weeks since we’ve had Internet access to be al to post an entry. We have seen and experienced so much. I wonder if I can capture the essence of this pilgrimage of the last two-and-a-half weeks through the words of a blog which would be brief enough to hold the interest.

I remember the sky of the Northern Hemisphere on a clear night with the constellations clearly defined: Ursa Major and Ursa Minor with Draco winding in-between; Cassiopeia and Orion and Polaris, the North Star, to guide me. All so familiar. Looking up to the night sky as I did in Kruger Park last week, it seems as though someone took a big spoon and stirred the heavens, stars coming to rest in all strange, yet beautiful arrangement. We have had little difficulty communicating, yet we hear the music of several different languages at once. Now at John Wesley College, we discovered today that the students, when engaged in informal chat, will speak in one mother tongue and hear a response in another’s. Within a group discussion Zulu, Tswana, Xhosa, and Shona may all be used at once, with a little English or Afrikaans mixed in. This, indeed, has been a considerable step into a new world.

And it is a beautiful world. Look at the photographs and you can glimpse what it and you can glimpse what it is like to stand atop the Knysna Heads and see the Indian Ocean pound at mountainous shores that reach their fingers back into the sea. You can almost sense the lush green sugar cane caress the sky along the winding roads of KwaZulu Natal. The sudden speed of the leopard seems to promise a leap from photograph to your lap (yet you’d better hope it doesn’t). The depths of Blyde River Canyon reach up to embrace you. The frenzied dance of the Zulu and the Gospel song of the Pilgrims’ Rest cooks are difficult to record in two dimensions. Rush hour in Johannesburg notwithstanding, the people here are a hopeful, beautiful, struggling, hurting, persevering lot.

I love my homeland; and I have seen God’s hand in another. We are among those who were strangers, many of whom have become friends and, as brothers and sisters in the one Body of Christ, family. I have discovered that we in America have a stake in Soweto. This has impressed upon me how I also have a stake in the Detroit City neighborhood and what happens to a family in Baghdad. As strange as the night sky is in another part of the world, we are bound together; we cannot escape it; it is God’s given.

We've now been driving back and forth from Pretoria to Jo'Burg, and negotiating the traffic through rush hour. The day before yesterday we went to Soweto for a tour. Interesting, and after our interactive tour of the Cape Town townships which were all "informal hosing" - intense poverty, Soweto was surprising. Much of it is developed and some is even up-scale property. There are some informal sections, but not like Guguletho or Langa and many others we've seen on town outskirts through the country. Langa and Guguletho are startling and go on and on as far as you can see. Soweto is especially important for its history as one of the centers of resistance and sites of violent confrontation and suppression in the resistance to apartheid. Yesterday we went back in that direction on our own and toured the Apartheid Museum. It was very sobering, comprehensively marking the whole 350 year history that led up to the severe oppression and segregation, and the events that led to the establishment of democracy. Today I led a class in the seminary after Laura and I accompanied some of the seminarians to their introduction to pastoral care in a hospital setting at Pretoria University Hospital. Tomorrow I will preach during morning chapel, and then we will go to Central Methodist Church to visit an AIDS ministry. Friday we will join Rev. Phidian Matsepe to stay with his family in Kwa Thema Township and will preach at his church on Sunday. Phidian was a prominent leader in the struggle against apartheid, and we expect to learn much from him as well as from our stay in his community.

I will look at the sky again tonight. It will still be new and strange, yet becoming to my eye more familiar and ordered. With someone’s help, I may even find out will look at the sky again tonight. It will still be new and strange, yet becoming to my eye more familiar and ordered. With someone’s help, I may even find the Southern Cross and know all the more that though America is my home, I am also connected to Africa.

To the Center and Out

Laura and I have discovered how cyber-spoiled we have been. Almost two weeks at a Cape Town hotel that had excellent, albeit expensive, wireless Internet access, and all of a sudden we have had several days without workable coverage, at all. I’m writing this “in reserve” and will post it as soon as I can.

Today was a beautiful day. We left Cape Town after two weeks, and discovered we were leaving some friends behind who are certain to be of the life-long variety. In particular, Mark and Arlene Stephenson have vowed to keep in touch with us; and Mark was already figuring out how he could find a way to visit Laura and me as well as the church. Mark is a fourth-generation Methodist minister who leads a courageous ministry in the inner city of Cape Town. He has developed a way to provide jobs for the poor in a printing venture called Salty Print. Mark was the one who made most certain that Laura and I were getting along well while in Cape Town, and we had a few occasions to share quality time together.

Back when we visited Salty Print, Mark and I were already discussing his mission and comparing notes with Northville missions and the needs of Greater Detroit when Tami (pronounced Tommy) stopped in to ask if we wanted tea. While she was in the room, Mark asked her to go to a huge world map on the wall and point to the wall and point to the place where she lives. She walked up to the map and pointed to Cape Town. Then he asked me to do the same for Tami. She smiled as I traced my finger from Cape Town along the general route of our flight and finally stopped west of Detroit. Mark noted that at this moment there was a new connection made in the world between Detroit and Cape Town.

He likes to emphasize that point. Laura and I attended his church, a wonderful little congregation located nearby. He delighted in asking Laura and me describe our congregation and setting for ministry, and explain why we were in South Africa. He seized the moment to drive home the significance of the global ties we have, that when we are in ministry, anywhere in the world, we are connected together in a powerful mission of God: participating in global redemption.

Global friends. Global ministry. Global God.

This outward journey is also inward. We did some research and found there is a Reconciliation Labyrinth at the Slingkop Lighthouse at Kommetjie, along the Southwest Coast of Cape Peninsula. Not only did we find the lighthouse, but we located the designer: Clare Wilson, whose husband Rory had recently retired as the managing editor of the English-speaking newspapers in Cape Town, and had been Managing Editor of the Soweto Newspaper during the turbulent ‘80’s, when that township had been one of the centers of resistance to apartheid. They invited us to their home and carried on a conversation over tea before taking us to the labyrinth.

Clare explained that, for her, the labyrinth is a tool. It is a way a person can connect with that which is going on within, connect with the universe, connect with God. She talked about how, in South Africa, there is still a disconnect between people. Most Whites have never been to a township and, unless they have kids in school where they are apt to meet parents who live in townships, they may never cross paths. Without meeting, people who are intended to live in community with each other will never know each other; they will never understand; the relationships between Black and White may never heal. She said, “We have to have meeting places.”

The Reconciliation Labyrinth is a meeting place. She designed it so there are two entrances; and when at least two people use it they will walk along the course for a ways in a very personal experience. They have opportunity to visit their personal center. Yet, at some point their paths will cross. They will meet each other; and the experience also becomes communal. Then, each walks where the other has walked. Their paths, now, become common as well as private. Each continues along the course until they could reach one another in the center. It isn’t rigged, though; even entering the center of the labyrinth is a decision that the walker makes. In either case, there is one way from the labyrinth out into the world.

Global connections, lasting friendships bound in the Spirit of Christ, excursions to the inner self, meeting places where there is healing and new community given birth because of people awakening to say, “I am beginning to know you beginning to know me:” these all bear the mark of the reconciling work of God. They are ingredients to Beloved Community.

Umntu, umgumntu, ngabantu: “A person is a person through other people.” God made us for each other – to the center and out.

Contrasts

We continue to see a wondrous mixture of beauty, courage, and pain. Today, Laura and I obeyed the encouragemen1t our friend, here, Mark Stephenson gave us to drive along the West Coast to a place called Blouberstrand and saw Table View, one of most photographed and celebrated sights of Table Mountain. I added to the mass of pictures by at least a dozen. The addition of the pounding Atlantic surf gave power to the sight. This is truly a land of vast beauty.

Right up against this, even with expensive housing in sight, is the presence of people who struggle to live. Earlier today Laura and I visited Dr. Denise Ackermann, a theology professor whose husband was appointed by President Nelson Mandela to serve as a justice on South Africa’s Supreme Court. Both Denise and her husband Laurie were activists in opposition to apartheid and paid dearly for it, at one point losing position and nearly all they had because of their convictions.

Denise explained to us that though there was a miracle in 1994, with the ending of apartheid and a transition to full democracy without major bloodshed, it is frustrating that more has not been done since that time to bring the realities of justice to the people. Laura and I have seen very graphically what she is talking about: millions living in townships with barely a roof over their heads or food for their stomachs. Denise is concerned that if their plight is not considered and dealt with over the next 6-8 years, there could well be a major upheaval with which to contend. There is suffering that continues here.

This made me wonder how much headway we have made in the United States. There is suffering that continues at home.

And there is courage. Yesterday, Laura and I visited the District 6 Museum. District 6 was a poor yet vibrant and diverse community in Cape Town that thrived as the heart of South Africa in the face of apartheid. Then, the government declared it a “White District”, displaced all its residents and bulldozed all its buildings except for the churches. The Museum is housed in what used to be the Methodist Church. I peered through the banners hanging in the main part of the room and saw that they covered the old chancel, and I saw the pulpit where Dr. Peter Storey once preached.

We have met with Peter Storey as well as John de Gruchy and, now, Denise Ackerman – all who were brave enough to take a stand against a White society that did not want to give up its privilege for the sake of those they disenfranchised. We have become fast friends with Mark and Arlene Stephenson who act boldly in mission. In addition to them, we have seen the suffering that refuse to be called, “victim,” but would rather be considered victorious in surviving with oft-thriving spirit through oppression and poverty.

These stand as examples of courage. They are people whose witness in word and action becomes inspiration to the world for the prophetic voice to be raised and the human will to hope, that the kind of contrasts we have seen here and can also, in our way, at home will fade and the human experience become one with the beauty and joy of the land.

Risky Business

I completed the last entry of the journal sounding as if adjusting to “the British system of driving” was easily done. If so, it was a prevarication. There is something about getting into a car on the “wrong” side and driving on the “wrong” side of the road that seems terribly unnatural. When we picked up the car, I accepted the fact that the gear shift would be operated by my left hand, not my right and I thanked my lucky stars that the arrangement of the pedals on the floor were in the “right” order. I told myself that under no circumstances was I to pull out of the parking space and drive on the right side of the road; it had to be the left. I started the car, pulled out and automatically swung to the right. Some tolerant guy turned around the corner to face me head-on, stopped and let me swing over to the left as though I was just going through some extra maneuvers to get out of my spot. It was unnatural. We were downtown, so we moved through the city traffic and onto the freeway and I thought I had it all figured out. I went to change lanes, flipped the turn signal like I am supposed to and the windshield wipers began to flap.

The next day, we drove up Table Mountain to the Cable Car station. I will spare you the details.

Two insights come out of this. The first has to do with my experience of the unnatural. Driving on the right side of the road is, every American knows, the right way of doing things. Somehow, when driving started back when, the British either wanted to do things opposite “the American Way” just for spite, or they didn’t get the memo, right? That’s what we tend to think. Everything in my fiber tells me how to drive correctly. But the truth is, the British and their motoring heirs are not wrong, and we are not right, or vice-versa. What is embraced by me as natural has much more to do with what I have been taught thoroughly, and then I have practiced and has become familiar. Now that I have nearly a week of driving under my belt the unnatural is becoming more familiar and acceptable and predictable and even comfortable.

There are still surprises. Today Laura and I motored about 100 km to Hermanus, a sea coast town along the Indian Ocean east of Cape Town. The mountains dropping off into the sea were beautiful. We went there to have discussion with Dr. John de Gruchy, a retired theology professor who was active in the movement to end apartheid and helped to set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It was a fascinating discussion. We ate lunch afterward in a little place looking out on the bay and saw whale surfacing and blowing and leaping out on the water. We drove back along the coast - a very beautiful part of our world. Out on the two-lanes, going the speed limit sometimes as fast as 120 km/hr., we discovered that passing is done differently here. The slower car moves onto the paved shoulder to let the faster car behind pass. But the adjustment I had to make was acceptable because I had accepted accepting the difference. And I wonder, “What does that have to say about the way we handle diversity?”

Peter Storey filled the hour and a half we spent with him on Saturday with a lot of profound reflection from his experience in the resistance to apartheid and work of healing the nation of South Africa after 1994. He also has a very hard expectation (and a right one, I think), that if the church wants to be where Jesus is, we the church need to be with the poor. In the midst of the conversation he emphasized the way sensitive people of privilege who want to care for the oppressed are inclined to work up the formula to fix the situation for them rather than listening to them first, learning from them and asking how they can help.

Engaging transformative work requires you to step into the place where you will become transformed yourself, where the unnatural becomes acceptable and the unfamiliar becomes familiar. Dr. John de Gruchy, whom we saw today, would add that, from a Christian stance, this is not an option we can take or leave. It is necessary for our own salvation – reconciliation with God which is the heart of the Gospel also wraps into it reconciliation with others at interpersonal, tribal/national and international levels. You have to step into the re-learning mode, be re-formed yourself again and again, if you want to truly experience the new-life generated by God’s Holy Spirit.

This takes risk, which is the second insight driving here has given me. Last night I caught up on writing my journal and reflected on this venture. Driving on the left side of the road might be the first truly foreign venture, completely outside my box in years. The stakes are high. Coming to South Africa, too, was a risk. We have never been in a different part of the world before, and so far without a guide. Yet risking has taken us somewhere and given us gifts we never would have experienced otherwise. Likewise, whether it is an individual or a congregation, the venture of ministry involves risk-taking. You necessarily become vulnerable, sometimes clueless, and sometimes anxious and forced to depend solely on God. And when you do that…you discover that you are being held by a hand that you may never have otherwise have noticed. That’s what it’s like here.

I realize that others have already done these kinds of things. We are not the first. That is not the point. The point is that it is the first time for us, and we are being blessed in ways we never would have imagined. More doors keep on opening. We are meeting people from so many varieties of life situations who are telling their amazing stories and gifting us with their gems of insight. In the midst of the sometimes risky unfamiliar we are discovering the kind of insight and inspiration that reshapes us and prepares us for enhanced ministry to come.

African Doors

I wrote in Connections, our church’s newsletter that doors seem to keep opening before I notice they have appeared.

Laura and I had a brief stay in Northville between our return and flight to South Africa. This was (almost) time enough to clean clothes, pack and gather the information materials we would need for the African leg of the trip. I am now discovering the consequences of forgetting things I need. It’s a good thing James (our son) is home to rescue me and that e-mail and internet-phoning exists to transfer information quickly.

Before we left, we managed to see my mother, a few church friends who happened to be downtown Northville while we were there briefly, and attend church where my college roommate and long-time friend is pastor.

I now have a new appreciation for Chevy Chase (and the National Lampoon Vacation movies). It’s quite an experience entering a very different culture than I am accustomed; and I know that I must be quite humorous to behold at times. Outside the hotel, I held my camera while Ebrahim, a hotel staff person, smiled at me as he pointed to Table Mountain and said, “You know that the mountain keeps getting smaller – all the foreigners who photograph it and take piece of it away.” “Do I look like a tourist?” I asked. He just smiled and nodded his head.

Then he told me about being born in District 6, the poor Cape Town neighborhood that had been dispersed and bulldozed by the apartheid government in the 1960’s. This was a little community that, despite its poverty, represented all of South Africa. Here lived Black Africans and Coloureds, Indians, Moslems and Whites in a unique place of acceptance in diversity. Ebrahim said that some of the people who were removed simply died. “They didn’t know how to live anywhere else.” A door opened, so I could see something I would never, otherwise had known.

The flights from Detroit to Cape Town added up to about 21 hours in the air. Landing in Johannesburg, we felt foreign and vulnerable and…clueless. We got through customs, exchanged our money, rechecked our baggage and just got on our flight to Cape Town. I sat next to Laura, and on the other side of me was a man named Mr. Joy Rathebe, grandson of a famous South African Methodist pastor, Rev. E. E. Mahabane. He works for Rev. Frank Chikane, Director General in the Presidency of South Africa. Joy gave me all kinds of good advise, from amounts to tip, to a description of the challenges facing President Mbeke and the new government as it continues its transition from apartheid to democracy and works for economic justice for all. He recommended additional people for me to speak with and offered to help make the contacts. Another door had opened, even during my serious jet-lag.

This morning we woke much refreshed and ready (or not) to fetch a rental car. With the help of Devon, who works at Salty Print Mission, we were coached more on customs, wildlife, driving and attractions. Devon drove us downtown to pick up the rental, and we were off. We made it straight back to the hotel while I got used to the British driving system. It appears that we have fully walked though the door to South Africa and we are really here!

The Carving Element

We spent the last several days in the mountains of Western North Carolina. A few thunderstorms danced their way through the Blue Ridge as we drove up Grandfather Mountain on Tuesday and Wednesday. While Laura read and took more advantage of the mountain top (such as her excursions across the Mile-High Swinging Bridge), I spent time with Tom Wolfe, a nationally acclaimed caricature wood carver.

This was one of my dreams to be lived-out during this sabbatical. Wood carving has long been opportunity for me to relax, move my mental process from the left brain (where I tend usually to live) to my right brain, where I can simply become creative. We spent the day carving, with Tom expounding his lessons, interspersed by down-home, practical observations and opinions on politics, religion, and other matters of the world. A few jokes happened, also, to be bantered back-and-forth.

On the practical side, as it pertains to carving, I learned some valuable lessons. There is need for good tools; and though I have upgraded my supply by purchase and inheritance, I need to acquire some much better knives and gouges, as well as a quality power sharpening wheel. Second, good carving require good, well-researched plans. Third, listen well to the masters, then practice lots and find out what works best for you. Finally, make clean cuts and end up with a carving that isn’t busy with too much detail, but is clean and not raggedy. The carving, especially if it is caricature carving, does not have to be absolutely accurate. It only needs to look believable. Like Tom, I hope my carvings are able to bring about a smile.

The title of this sabbatical is “Carving Out Beloved Community.” Laura has been figuring out how I came up with this title. When you think about carving, it’s easy to picture the shavings that are left on the floor. But as Tom points out, putting a knife to the wood merely to make the shavings; carving is making something. When you wind up with a figure, “What do you call it?” he asks; “You don’t call it a whittling, you call it a carving.” So carving out beloved community is a matter of making something of our relationships. John de Gruchy says in his book, Reconciliation: Restoring Justice, that restorative justice is “…the justice that rebuilds God’s intended network of relationships.” That is what I believe we, as God’s reconciled children, are called to carve into a masterpiece reflective of God’s perfected Holy City.

There is a relation between the art of carving and the art of restorative justice. You live with a vision; you can even draw it out. Then, in hope of the finished product you proceed with the creative work. As you go along your way there will be unforeseen difficulties. In carving, it would be a missed stroke of a knife, a knot in the wood, a time you carve away too much wood. In the work of restorative justice the unexpected turn could be an incident of unexpected violence, an unforeseen economic downturn, an accident that interrupts the momentum of the work. With each surprise, it is important not to give up the work, for that would amount to giving up the vision and giving up hope. You just know that you remain, as a creator, in relationship with the wood or the relationships that need healing; these are the stuff of the finished product. Then, you adjust – you amend the vision a bit. You reposition an arm of the wooden figure; you engage in an act of public apology or forgiveness – and then you “see where you go from there.”

Meeting A Pilgrim on the Same Journey

Laura and I experienced a great blessing today. We attended an engaging worship service at Thrasher Memorial United Methodist Church in Roanoke, VA. We then made our way to the Hotel Roanoke where we found Trevor Hudson, South African Methodist pastor and author of A Mile in My Shoes, standing on the porch, watching for our arrival. We spent the next four hours over lunch and the hotel lobby talking about South Africa, reconciliation and justice, and our families.

Trevor shared so much wisdom with us. He has a gentle, deep, and courageous spirit and easily moves acquaintance into friendship. He speaks of being present and listening to another as one who experiences a pilgrimage into others’ experience. He naturally puts that to practice.

Among the notable reflections he shared, he reflected on the middle class white South African situation during the days of apartheid. He said they were genuinely nice people and that it was natural for them to be largely unaware of the injustices that were taking place; but even more, it was easy to let the government and police to do their sinning for them. This reality is the same that exists everywhere and today among most people of privilege. As a pastor, it was apparent that the oppression could not simply be addressed through the spoken word; that would be like hitting them. It would be more effective to invite them into experiences, to hear the stories of those who were suffering, and let them reflect and be transformed within. This was the realization that led Trevor to develop the Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope immersion experiences. This principle also tends to be effective as people are led to transformation, becoming transformative for the social community as well.

Trevor shared much more about people he wanted to encourage us to see when we are in South Africa. He also advised that we mix some play with the heavy experiences of learning we are sure to confront. He gave us guidance, so we could be savvy and more “street wise” while there: all good advice. He said that we will be overwhelmed by the beauty of the country.

Finally, Trevor reflected amazement that his writing should reach as far as Northville, Michigan, USA and bring the enrichment and insight we described. We concluded our time in prayer, asking God to bless one another through the journeys we were on, and thanking God for the time our paths could join. As we departed I considered how this brother in Christ, “on the same journey,” as he puts it, is one who embraces great peace and great courage at once. It seems to be a transforming experience merely to be in his presence. That is blessing.

Settling In to the Pilgrim Mode

June 5, 2007

It's the second day of my sabbatical time, and I am slowly adjusting to a life without many meetings and deadlines. The main focus of my first week of the leave is simply to become prepared for that which is to come. Laura and I visited our travel agent yesterday and received all of our travel documents that apply to our South Africa pilgrimage. We've done a little shopping. I have been busy making important contacts with people in Detroit, South Africa and New York. Especially, I have begun reading in more earnest.

The book that had been strategically placed on the top of the stack is Reconciliation: Restoring Justice, by Dr. John de Gruchy, a professor at Cape Town University who is world-renowned for his work in restorative justice. This book is considered his "signal contribution" to public theology. It's very challenging and rewarding reading, helping me to recognize the centrality of reconciliation in Christian faith, world view, and practice. Restorative justice is not an option for the Christian, reconciliation with God casts the believer to seek reconciliation with other persons, reconciliation between social groups, and reconciliation to be realized politically, as the quest of the nations. All this is a process or journey toward which God is leading the world. Thus, the vision which has driven my interest for this pilgrimage is central to my faith and ministry.

Tomorrow I am to meet with Dave Law, Rev. Charles Boayue, and others at the Joy-Southfield Community Development Corporation's Health and Education Center. This is a ministry that was begun by Second Grace United Methodist Church and in which First United Methodist Church of Northville has been very much involved in developing. I have hoped to spend some time there while it is in operation. It seems like the perfect place to start my experiential pilgrimage. I expect that my global pilgrimage will lead me back there after the sabbatical is over.

So, the sabbatical has begun! As it turns out, these days are not simply a time of preparation. Through the reading and the conversations I am already having, a personal transformation has already begun.