Jesus is b(l)ack

(I actually had this experience a month ago, and even wrote a paper on "images of jesus" about it, but am only posting it now. It got lost for a bit. Now it is found)

I was reading an essay for class tomorrow, and had a bit of an epiphany! I realised why i haven't been 'liking' Jesus so much lately.
The essay was on African Christological terms (what titles Africans give to Christ). In Ghana, one of the names they call him is Nama which is chief/king/head of tribe. I thought that it was sad that people who have been freed from colonialism now choose themselves to make their 'super king' or 'head chief' the leader of the empire that suppressed them.
And then it hit me!
I was looking at Jesus through all the baggage of the church and Christendom (because he is the 'leader' of the church). I was picturing Jesus as a white, western, wealthy male, and it was sad to think of Africans with their wonderful heritages, gods and ancestors seemingly throwing it all away and making a 'coloniser' their king. They had just been emancipated from colonisation, and now were willingly re-colonising themselves - making a 'paleface' their head ancestor and chief.
I knew that Jesus wasn't white, yet i was looking at him as though he was a white Empire leader. i don't like Empires, much less their leaders. But Jesus was actually a wandering Arab mystic, and i really like Arab mystics (Rumi, Gibhran etc). So... Jesus was somewhat redeemed in my mind. He seems even stranger to me now, but more intriguing. Now that he has been cleared of the baggage of the church, i think we can be friends again!
Yay!

truth's last chance

Pilate asked Jesus 'what is truth?' and he got no answer. Who is able to say what is true or not? I was reminded on a comment on this blog that 'i am not God', so i am not able to. So who can? I have found some people who claim to have that power - the Wikipedia editors!

I'm a big fan of Wikipedia, but what happens to the entries that don't make the cut? That aren't 'true' enough? They get dumped! They are moved to the great big wikicememetry of the blogsphere. Luckily a few manage to survive and tell the tale. Here then are the Wikicemetry survivors: chilling out at the Wikipedia Knowledge Dump.

My favourite 'not true' entry is Kiwi!: (watch the YouTube here)
It's amazing what one will go to, to break the rules and pretend we can fly! According to the creator, the film has many similarites to the human condition. Do you believe him? The Wiki editors didn't. Off to the Wikidump with you!

bullet points

• The turkey tournament was great! I am really fortunate that I went - we had a great time. Won 3 of our 6 games, enjoyed it, and made great friends. There was a turkey shoot out on Sat night, a full thanksgiving dinner with loads of food, ultimate people, and a wonderful atmosphere. The 8 of us (and Marble the dog) shared a hotel room on Sat night!
• I wasn't the only active person this weekend - mat and graeme did the 94.7 Cycle challenge in Joburg on Sunday. They did 15okms training, shaved their legs, bought hot pants, and finished in under 4 hours! welldone!
• I guess Mat got the cycling skills - I managed to survive the frisbee weekend with only a few scrapes on my elbows, but then while cycling to class on monday I had an accident. My bike skidded out from under me, and i now have many more bruises! My bones are fine luckily, but my bike needs a bit of repair.
• I'm back in Huntsville again - this time for Thanksgiving. Staying at the Rass family until Sunday. Apparently Thanksgiving is about eating a LOT of food, and shopping at the sales on Friday. I can do that!
• A picture of the Wild Turkeys - what a team!:

l to r: Nat (Thailand), CB (computers, music - Atl), Jeannie (Captain), me, Diego (Columbia), Kevin (Decatur). Front: Sarah (aka Mom, via Britian), Laura (aka Wonderwoman), Marble (the dog).

shuffling G

I finally gave in and am now the proud new owner of a teeny-tiny music machine:

There aren't any Mugg&Beans, N1 traffic, Cinema Nouveaus or familiar skylines here to run to when i'm feeling displaced, so... i listen to music instead. The music i have here i brought from home, so it comes with comforting memories from South Africa. The support structures i associate with the songs help me feel more at home in this strange place.

Last night i lay listening to Damien Rice and it transported me back to winter mornings at Jono's house - 62 Sauvignon, Bromhof: the site of early morning squash games with Vaughn; Young Adult braais; fresh paninis with basil, mozarella and tomato; and my rocking chair in the afternoon sun.

The ipod shuffle is great! It is really small and holds 250 songs. The palylist i've filled it up with for now has:

Arno Carstens, The Avett Bros, Ben Folds Five, Collective Soul, Counting Crows, The Cranberries, Damien Rice, David Gray, Freshlyground, Jack Johnson, Jamie Cullum, Jose Gonzalez, Matt Allison, The Narrow, REM, Simphiwe Dana, Sufjan Stevens, U2, White Lie and Yann Tiersen.

Yay for music!

Turkey Tournament

I'm leaving in an hour for Huntsville, AL to play for Sequence (a local team) in the annual Turkey Tournament! It is a savage 8 co-ed format (only 8 people in the team, and the same 8 play all the games), so it should be a good test for me - i can't hide on the sidelines! Be prepared for moanings on Monday.

Huntsville buddies - pop in and say hi - we're at the John Hunt soccer complex.

the silence that disturbs us

I haven't been too disciplined with my devotional life here yet, but on the rare occasion that i do stop and read something, it is meaningful to me. Such were Thomas Merton's words this morning:

We talk of God when God has gone far from us. (We are far from God and God's nearness remains to accuse us!) We live as if God exists for our sakes, figuring that we exist for God. We use grace as it if were matter handed over to form according to our purpose. We use the truth of God as material for the fabrication of idols...
The truth is formed in silence and work and suffering - with which we become true. But we interfere with God's work by talking too much about ourselves - even telling God what we ought to do - avising God how to make us perfect and listening for God's voice to answer us with approval. We soon grow impatient and turn aside from the silence that disturbs us (the silence in which God's work can best be done), and we invent the answer and the approval which will never come.
The Journals of Thomas Merton - Nov 12 1952, III. 24

I changed some of his divine pronouns, and am not sure about the 'approval which never comes', but the rest really resonated with me. The talk about 'silence in which God works' made me excited about my possible Christmas plans - spending a week or two in a monastery (Christ in the Desert) or hermitage (Norbertine Community) in New Mexico. Those plans are still being organised. Watch this space!

true love?

News just in:

CAPE TOWN Tue, 14 Nov 2006
Same-sex marriage bill approved

Parliament on Tuesday approved the controversial Civil Unions Bill, which provides for same-sex marriage, the first African country to do so and one of only a few in the world.

I'm sure there are many raised voices, in both joy and anger in SA. Whatever your personal view on the issue, I think we should be proud that we have one of the most liberal constitutions in the world, to make sure we never go back to what we had when no-one was free. It is nice to know now that even the courts follow our constitution. There are other constitutional rights (like food, water, employment) that we should make a noise about too!

As to this noise, a fellow student said they want to live in South Africa now. African Christian Democratic Party leader Kenneth Meshoe, however, said that with this bill Parliament would "cross the line" of God's patience with South Africa.

Does God's patience have an end? Why do we suppose to know which side God is or isn't on? I really enjoy this quote from a pastor's door:

God is not disillusioned with us,
God never had any illusions in the first place.

Good news indeed!

my hands are bananas

It's Friday night in Decatur, and a bunch of students are hanging out at our house. I think they are off to watch Stranger than Fiction later, but for now we are all decorating cookies. As light entertainment, we watched a few YouTube clips on Elizabeth's computer:

No 1. My hands are bananas
Really funny arb German music video - Criss you will love this. Beware the milky pirate! (just watched it again - it is rather disturbing actually - you have to love ze germans)

No 2. Charlie and the candy mountain.
"Candy mountain Charlie! Shun the non-believer."
I couldn't really see this, but it sounded funny (and disturbing again). I'll put it up here for the fun of it. Marc says he hated it the first time, but it is growing on him now. Sort of like Naploean Dynamite i guess.

Maybe my sense of humour has changed somewhat, and you are thinking - Gareth, are you crazy? I find them funny, though a bit wierd. Maybe i've been reading too much Terry Pratchett. The people here seem to enjoy them.
Now you can too!

take a risk

This came in an email today.

Sometimes I lie in bed and have to pinch myself (well, i don't really, but it is just something you say) as I think: Wow this is real! I am in America studying a Masters! It is something i wanted to do for ages and it amazingly happened. What a brave mouse I am. Studying further in a funny country.

I'm not too sure what I expected, but I seem to have acclimatised well. So, at other times i feel - Hey this is easy! Let me find something more challenging - what's next? Let's go to a two-thirds world country with challenges.

Then, i look at the bookmark i have with de Chardin's words on, and relax. Time to be present here, with the risks and easiness, and to wait and learn and to share. I'm trying.

~

~

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

Yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability and that may take a very long time.

.

And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.

Let them shape themselves without undue haste.

Do not try to force them on as though you could be today

what time - that is to say, grace - and circumstances

acting on your own good will, will make you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new Spirit

gradually forming in you will be.

~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

he Gareth for you

I saw this church sign on Oak Island last week when we were at the beach. I had to take a picture. It is 100% real - give or take a few pixels!

procrastinators are the leaders of tomorrow

As you may have seen (i hope), i spent a LOT of time fiddling around with the intricacies of Blogger Beta and editing pictures and changing fonts etc. It is great when it works, but a real fristration when it doesn't. I'm still having issues trying to comment on friends posts, but I seem to have a plan worked out.
Technology is great at keeping us entertained and in touch.

But - i found another very useful role it can play: procrastination accomplice! I skipped church to write a sermon due for today. I sat down to write and 4 hours later had nothing. What happened? The (dumdumdum...) internet (eeeeek) sucked me in and didn't let me go.
I read all the latest news on Ted Haggard's fall, Africa-China relations, updated my facebook, cleared out my email inbox, and made this site more user-friendly and appealing.
Constructive? I don't think my prof will buy that - so let me get to that sermon again!

The last king of Scotland

I've just returned from watching The Last King of Scotland - a movie about Idi Amin and his reign in Uganda.

Wow. It's movies and experiences like this that make me wonder if there is hope. I'm still trying to work out who to be angry at; why the richest continent is the poorest; and why Africa seems to be shackled and unable to stand?

It is a harrowing film - but, as learnt in Men in Ministry yesterday: harrowing comes from harrow - plough, and is a positive word associated with harvest. Hopefully telling these dark stories can be cathartic for Africa and humanity in some way. Hopefully.

Have a look at the website, and watch it when it gets to SA.


~ it was good to see the sights and sounds of dancing, veld, dark skins, kids running and waving again. The movie also made me realise the racism I carry inside (and might never get rid of) and that i just don't like Empires and their leaders, no matter which colour.

monoculturalism

Statue of Liberty?

Whats wrong with the picture? I've been doing some thinking lately on how 'colonised' my mind (and picture of Jesus) is. Funny how we see us imposing (or even just sharing) our religion, worldview and dress code on the rest of the world as 'liberating' for them, yet if anyone were to tell us how to dress, think and vote, we would see it as highly oppressive and biased. (thanks for the pic Bron)

I have used this George Orwell quote often, and it is still true:

'All animals are equal, yet some are more equal than others'.

Here's one i read this week:

'Every viewpoint is just a view from a point'

~ Richard Rohr

One of the gifts i see the international students bringing to CTS is the ability to give the 'other side' of the picture. Most of my picture is very Western and colonised, but living in Africa with the life-giving tensions of the differing worlds has rubbed off on me.

Newsflash:

I'm still on the fence about Mugabe, but I saw a great example in the iafrica.com news today: China are hosting over 40 African heads of state to a HUGE Africa-China convention. Included among the list are controversial figures Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir and Zimbabwean Presidebt Robert Mugabe. Responding to criticism, China's foreign ministry made no apologies for inviting them:

"Our principle when handling our relations with other countries is to never try to impose our social system, development mode, values and ideology upon other countries" ~ foreign ministry Liu Jianchao.

Is this the equality and 'non-judgmentalism Paul and Jesus mentioned, or helping precipitate human rights abuses? Whatever it was, it is a great quote, very different to others we hear!

http://business.iafrica.com/news/373040.htm

Talking of multiculturalism, be sure to see the Elephant seals at the Georgia Aquarium. (thanks for the pic farmer Gwen)