i have a tablet bible application called You Version where i am busy slowly working through the book of Isaiah [three chapters a day when i get to it] and today was Isaiah 58 which i absolutely love and i find this a helpful checklist for people who say they follow Jesus... This is just part of it: 6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and [...]
[Disclaimer: If you're a dog owner, try and read through this entire post without formulating a response - just read to understand and hear - and then let what you've read help inform what your response will be] i watched the most fascinating conversation unfold on Facebook yesterday, related to dog owners. Probably one of the most helpful aspects was this dialogue between two friends of mine, Lesego and Ashley, who started off a little [...]
'One day there were two boys, Tom and Bernard. Tom lived right opposite Bernard. One day Tom stole Bernard's bicycle and every day Bernard saw Tom cycling to school on it. After a year, Tom went up to Bernard, stretched out his hand and said, "Let us reconcile and put the past behind us." Bernard looked at Tom's hand. "And what about the bicycle?" Father Mxolisi Mpambani told this story during a lunch-hour panel discussion [...]
Two short pieces on racism that you might find very helpful: THREE LEVELS OF RACISM My friend Matt Talley, who i met in Americaland but who is currently living and working with his family in Spain, sent me this from a class he is doing. It's super simple but I don't think I had heard the three levels labeled this way before. Of course I've heard the labels of personal racism and institutional/structural racism. But [...]
i am busy reading Eusebius McKaiser's "Run Racist Run!" It has some great and helpful insights, but this piece on white people expecting people of colour to help us not be racist i found really helpful in terms of putting words to something i've started to understand for a while. Also as a helpful response to those people who have tried to understand things and get involved in the race conversation only to receive push back [...]
i am busy reading Douglas Adams 'So Long and Thanks for all the Fish' book which is the third part of the increasingly badly named Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy [which was five books long] and i came upon this gem of a passage which i think is so deeply profound. i also think that if you think it's deeply profound then it's probably no for you and if you don't then it probably is. [...]
i am busy working through a 'Seven Hebrew Words Every Believer Should Know' Bible plan on my tablet via YouVersion and this one by Dave Adamson really struck me: "Too often we pray when we need or want something from God - which is understandable considering the English word 'pray' means to 'ask or beg'. But the Hebrew word for prayer - tefillah - means to 'self evaluate'. So to the Jews of the Bible, prayer was [...]
The other day my Facebook friend Innocentia shared this X-Men related tweet with me; And i thought it was great because it really brought a strong point home. So i shared it on Facebook. My friend Craig jumped on and asked me if i thought black people would appreciate being compared to mutants. i told him since a black person had shared the picture with me in the first place that i thought it was okay. [...]
"How can i be a good ally?" Well one of the ways is to definitely do some work. Read, research, listen, watch, don't expect people [especially black people] to spoonfeed you all the answers. But i did come across this which was created for Americaland but has some strongly helpful overlaps for our present situation and context. This is from a list put together by an activism camp called 'Localise This' and it's a list [...]
A week ago i shared a piece from Sarah Bessey's new book 'Out of Sorts' on Justice and Shalom and so i want to share the second part of that with you. This is from Chapter 11 which is titled ‘Beautiful Facade’ and subtitled ‘On Justice and Shalom’: = = = = = = = = = = When I start getting mad at the facade, I peek behind it and guess who I find? The [...]
