Growing up I was never the world’s greatest lover of animals. I liked dogs because they were fun and horses because well... Zorro, but most of the rest of the animal kingdom tended to inspire fear more than awe. I remember as a kid going to the Cape Town museum and having nightmares of blue whales eating me. Later I developed a slightly irrational fear of birds and monkeys… So it was quite a surprise [...]
This is a much longer extract from the book 'Blood Brothers' by Elias Chacour, which i do encourage everyone to read. Both as a glimpse into the Israel/Palestine history and situation, but also as a much deeper journey of faith and wrestling with ideas of God and kingdom. This passage it helps to have read the rest of the book to understand the full story of, but a brief background is that Abu Mouhib is [...]
[i wrote this post a week ago because i wanted to get permission from Ray's wife Rhian before posting it, but am glad to be able to share it now] UGH, Cancer. i woke up this morning to the news that an insanely gifted man i had befriended on the Twitterer had succumbed to the brain tumour that had taken him hostage, and died a few days ago. His wife Rhian, had just shared the news [...]
This short extract from 'Blood Brothers: The Dramatic Story of a Palestinian Christian Working for Peace in Israel' really jumped out at me and i think speaks for itself: It was during our final spring days at Saint Sulpice that my kindly mentor, Father Longère, touched a deeply resonant note, like a voice out of eternity. I had come to value his wisdom, his remarkable way of challenging us, spurring us to deeper thought on [...]
My friend Dre, who shared some excellent feedback to Bob's first email over here, responded to his latest response in a comment but i asked her if i could rather share it as a post cos everyone should read this, especially but not solely, Bob. Dre for president!: Bob, you didn’t respond to MY post! *sniff sniff* I feel so left out! (kidding, I’ll be fine ;) But seriously, I do appreciate your response to the [...]
I don’t know about you but growing up I believed that old people and other people got cancer. My gran passed away from cancer when I was in my early teens. So I knew cancer existed. I just didn’t think that cancer would be part of the story of someone young, or of someone I love. I guess that’s the first thing I’ve learnt about cancer. It doesn’t discriminate. It will attack rich or poor, [...]
About two weeks ago i published an email from a friend of mine who is white, male, South African and presently living in the UK who had some thoughts, feelings, questions and frustrations about life in South Africa and some of the conversations we'd been having on here. i shared his email under the guise of 'Bob' and invited a few of my friends to respond, all of which you can catch up with over [...]
Another guest on Friday was our mate Portal Pete who has moved with his wife, Sarah, into Manenberg and is running a drug rehabilitation program among other things, and he had these words to say: Great food etc. It didn’t feel awkward to me. It felt OK. Living and working in what some call missional community in Manenberg, I feel and cause offence on a fairly regular basis. We’re learning that offence most often leads [...]
i just finished reading this incredible book that was recommended to me by my good friend, Steve Graybill, who has travelled to Israel on multiple occasions and i feel has a fairly good idea of what goes on over there. i was challenged on my blog a few months ago about not knowing what was going on with the whole Israeli/Palestinian conflict and it was totally true. It's one of those things, as when i was [...]
My lovely wife Val was of course the hostess for Friday's dinner and deep dive into Race, Boundary and Location conversation that i wrote about over here, and she shares some of her thoughts from the evening: The idea is simple: gather good people around good food and good discussion and see what happens. So we did. We turned off technology and tuned in to people. It was messy and it was chaotic, it was painful and it [...]