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.