My word for 2021 is Curiosity! Every year i pick a word or phrase for the year. Looking back to 2019 i can see that my word for that year was Stewardship and as i read through the list of attached goals and hopes i can see that most of them were achieved. But then we entered 2020... i remember last year tbV and i were nearing the end of our two month trip [...]
i just finished reading The Art of Possibility by Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander. While a lot of the work in this book echoes the "Yes, Let's!" principles of Improv that i have been playing around with for 20 plus years, i found the principles and story-telling to be quite inspiring. This is definitely a book i would recommend. No surprise really that the short stories - and there are many of them [...]
Have you considered making anti-racist disciples? This is something we don't hear too much about. When we hear the term 'disciples' we might think religious context and christianity in particular. The last recorded command we have from Jesus was: 'Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them... and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.' But there is definitely something in there worth paying attention to, even if you are [...]
How does one go about creating Eden? Especially when the story starts something like: Once upon a time there was a wasteland, a dry and barren verge of ugliness in a small corner of Diep River. Well, the first step is to have a dream and my wife Valerie [aka tbV or The Beautiful Val, to me!] and i had been wanting to do something creative and gardeny in our community since we moved [...]
Yes, yes, i know what you're thinking - "Sharing is CARING, Brett!" - and that's true. Teaching kids to share can be one of the greatest lessons we can give them - actually teaching adults to share would be an amazing accomplishment and sort out many of the world's problems. But i want to suggest a new way of thinking about this, especially when it comes to the internet. Sharing is Blaring. Blare: to [...]
Describe to me how the world would look to you if everything was working for everyone the way it was meant to. i imagine for a lot of people this might look like a list of negatives: No more racism No more sexism No more zenophobia No more hatred of any groups or people who are different in any way. No more wars No more rape No more violence And so on... What is [...]
"But what can I do?" asked the white person. Who had just about gotten to the point of realisation that things were not white right in the world with regards to race and that something needed to be done. Which is where a lot of white people tend to stall out. "Yes, i get that there's a problem, but tell me what can I do?" as if with any other problem they faced they [...]
To move forward in South Africa, and, let's be honest, the world, we have to learn to own it. Making a mistake is not the end of the world. Getting it wrong sucks but it doesn't have to be the end. Messing up horribly or completely putting your foot in it in the very worst of ways can also be recovered from. BUT you absolutely have to own it! This means humility, honesty, vulnerability, [...]
We do it for the audience! i spend a lot of time in online conversations, often around topics involving Justice. Looking at race or poverty or gender discrimination and more. There are times when i really get into it with someone and there is a back-and-forth and it becomes pretty obvious quite early on that neither of us are going to change our mind. In those situations, people often ask me, "Why do you [...]
It is hard to be a South African sometimes. As a white South African, i sit with the heavy injustices of colonialism and apartheid in my rear view mirror all the time. As a black, coloured or indian South African, they live in the consequences of colonialism and apartheid as well as a worldwide uplifting of whiteness to the detriment of everything else. As a male, we sit with a horrific pandemic of violence [...]
