I am a political junkie.

I am a political junkie. I get caught up in the news, in the debates, arguments, the policies and the people. I love passion, dialogue, making a difference. I love the idea of a grassroots campaign, making something from nothing. I believe in politics. Many people do not but I do.

I have battled in my head over and over again the significance of politics and the role it plays in my own life and my faith. Politics carries with it a hefty array of derogatory and uncomfortable associations. When in reality the word originates from polis, the Greek representation for city. It speaks to our role as citizens. Citizens of this country and of this earth. Politics, to many has become a game of manipulation. The thought of marrying the concept of politics to faith and the role of church is dangerous and to many individuals treacherous territory. The separation of church and state is something that is strongly upheld in this country both for the protection of the church and the state. However, for the few words I have to offer here I would like to understand the role of the church in state.

People have given up on the Earth. I hear the call ascension and death from the voices of many Christians. So many faces are pointed upward with no appreciation for the beautiful gift of life and Earth God has given us. We are stewards of this Earth and should treat it fairly. People are scared. This world is full of turmoil, strife, and disarray. This country is failing: rising gas prices, recessing economy, violence in schools, hurricanes, floods, health care, social security and education. Nothing is behaving, as it should. However, I do not think this is cause to give up. As Christians we are followers of Jesus Christ. His greatest mission was on Earth. He came to spread the message of his love, forgiveness and our own reconciliation with God. He came to teach us. He taught us that the Kingdom of God is among us. He asked us to pray for God’s will to persevere on Earth as it does on heaven, for his Kingdom to come. We are living manifestations of Jesus Christ. We are God’s citizens, God's creations on Earth. It is our responsibility to take care of this place and the people residing within it.

This responsibility rainbows through every human need: emotional, physical, spiritual, mental, prayer, food, shelter, preservation of the environment, welfare, education, healthcare, childcare. I am not a citizen of the United States; I was born in the United Kingdom. I have no political voice in this country. I was raised in this country but have no option to vote; I can only partake in the dialogue. I am, however, a citizen of this Earth. The politicians of this country are as corrupt as the rest of humanity. However, when we move along with motivation of procuring God’s kingdom on Earth we cannot help but do some good.

Just outside of Pretoria, South Africa exists a beautiful stretch of land with mountains that run along the horizon. Each morning and each night the sun rises and sets. As the sun ascends and descends the amber glow hits the dew of the land’s grass and a distinct smell of dawn and dusk permeates. This planet is beautiful. We have all experienced those moments of lying in our back yard, looking at the stars that float through the atmosphere. I cannot and will not give up on this place and the people that live in it.


For me, the role of the church in state is for the church to be an example of love, justice, kindness, goodness, peace and joy. The church needs to take care of the poor and take responsibility for every human need. Politics is not the resounding answer. However, as Christians we need to start taking responsibility as citizens.

dirt

For all the green that surfaces in Africa, when I think back to my nine months the only color that permeates through is amber, a dark orange that rainbows through to brown. I miss Africa's dirt.


I took every moment for granted.

I don't know if this world is ever going to change. I will prayerfully try until I die. Even if it doesn't, all I want is to sit with my children and love them. Everyday at Mohau, I would watch the clock slowly approach four o'clock because I knew I could leave and go home to rest. I am riddled with guilt. I wish I could hold them for longer. I wish I hadn't taken every moment for granted. I wish I had loved faster.


Everyday I became dirtier and dirtier. I was never clean. I never wanted to be. I would wash the grease, the oils but the dirt remained. The dust settles and never leaves you. I really do not intend the dirt to be metaphorical. I literally want to sit in the dirt. I want to be blanketed by the familiarity of the dust. I long for the moments of sitting along side my children attempting to learn a foreign childhood game, crouching beneath the trees as they read to me.


I miss the moments of mischief. I have never been a very good discipliner perhaps because I love to watch children misbehave. I remember vividly singing with Ernie as I watched several of the children, instigated by Praisewell, filling pales with sand and peeing into them to make the sand moist. I remember watching as they turned the faucet on that they were strictly not allowed anywhere near. Or drinking from the juice that was allotted specifically for the Mamas.

I loved to watch as they would climb too high. I loved when too high became just right. I took every moment and every child for granted. How do you say goodbye to children that become your own? I want to sit in the dirt of Mohau's playground once again.

Busiswe. Xolani. Enest. Golden. Dimakatso. Tshepong. Nthabiseng. Thlasani. Letabho. lebo. Thabo. Xolani. Praisewell. Thulani. Offentse. Lebo. Dipuo. Refentse. Nonthlanthla. Siyabonga. Gontse. Stanley. Solly. Rose. Mpho. Thomas. Sphupmelelo. Zizibele. Dimakatso. Koketso. David. Erik. Koketso. Matome. Refilwe. Gethmedse. Sammy. Reba. Andreis.

the fortune cookie

You know those moments that you just cannot explain. I just had one.

I have a board. Some of my friends made it for me before I left for college. It is full of memories. Pictures, concert tickets. Tokens that force you to reminisce. Something appeared on that board today that was never there before. The fortune from a cookie. Perhaps my brother, a friend, my parents placed it there, perhaps it is a simple mystery.

The fortune read: Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. Well said fortune cookie. Since I have been home my heart was been ruined by how little I can provide. I am so inadequate. What do I have to offer? My words? The LORD takes our simplicities and multiplies them into righteous grandiosities.


The fortune cookie was a simple reminder of God's vocation in our lives. Where he wants to take us and how he wants to use us stands strong against where we fall short.

9 months

three degrees of separation

Three Degrees of Separation from Speaking of Faith on Vimeo.


an interesting panel discussion on the relationship between faith and politics. it is long but well worth the time.

Africa

No one ever comes away from Africa the same. You cannot leave that continent unchanged. It could be the simplest shift in worldview or the heart shattering realization of your place in this world. More often than not it is the latter. It is something about the people, the faces, the smells, the atmosphere of a place that sits so far from home. It is infectious. For me it was the children. I fell in love over and over again. I have never loved the sound of my name more than when it came from their little voices. I was a mother and a sister to thirty-five children for nine months. Not a day went by that I did not want to adopt each one of them. But I didn't; I couldn't. Each day they capture your heart and each night you leave. I cried harder for those children than I have for anyone else.

They made me laugh though, oh how they made me laugh. Africa will destroy you, wreck you. I do not know what kind of person could go to that continent and not let the children break her heart. It will hurt but the joy you will feel is innumerable. When a child is loved, they laugh. The tears will break you but it is the laughter, the smiles that will envelope you. I wish with all my heart that right now as I sit writing this on my bed, I could sit each child next to me. Xolani in my lap, Suphemelelo on my shoulders, Busi on my knee, Ernie sitting next to me singing ‘if you’re happy and you know it.’ I miss them. I hate not knowing how they are, how they feel. I miss not knowing if they are crying or laughing.

No one ever comes away from Africa the same. I am still a wreck, a melodramatic wreck. Do not ever go to Africa expecting to change the world because you cannot. We are all part of something much bigger, together in God's love. I did not have enough love in my heart to offer a single child at Mohau Children Home let alone thirty-five. I offered nothing more than nine months. God's love offers immeasurably more.

Experience

Hundreds of thousands of people travel to Africa, to India, to the hard places to change this world. They go to find themselves, to escape a dead world that keeps feasting on its own insecurities. People leave home, leave the United States in search of something better; they leave for the experience.

I am not sure which is better. To sit at home roasting in the comforts of home, fueling money into nations that need it or to get up and do something for three weeks in your life, see something that will forever change your life, your perspective. Wreck you, so that maybe, just maybe you will go home and tell people what you saw. No one should leave for the experience. I have my apprehensions towards short term trips but who I am to say that a person should not be sent. I know nothing. I have seen miracles and yet I still question whether people should go. We should all go. No matter how long, how short.

If I had it my way, we would sell everything. Everyone would sell everything. We would feast together as one community. The neighborhood of your closest friends that you dream of would be. We would all sit in the dirt. Experience would hurdle over the temporal and become eternal. We would always be encountering, always growing. Comfort would vanish and love would abound.

Snapshots

God keeps giving me snapshots of people. I never intended for my life to be as transient as it is. These past few months I have encountered individual after individual who has poured her heart, her truth and her knowledge into me. Even if it was for a moment. As quickly as God has thrown these people into my life, he has pulled them out. Snapshots.

Pictures never seem to fully capture the moment. They represent an instantaneous second of something that was unequivocally timeless and precious. I hold onto pictures; I frame them, finger through the boxes every time I need to be reminded. Pictures, however, are never enough. Snapshots of people are never enough. I want more from these friendships. I do not want to have to keep saying goodbye.

Snapshots leave you dissatisfied. Yearning for something more. We should never settle. Snapshots make you go deeper faster. We cannot hide behind sarcasm and humor when all you have is a moment. I have become vulnerable. It is in our vulnerability that we see who we truly are.

I am sure the snapshots will keep coming but nothing will ever defeat the strength of a story, the depth that rides on the pages of a friendship.

Opinion

At what point does it become okay to share your words? To have the tenacity it takes to believe that the thoughts, the ideas, the truth that you hold have some worth to another. Opinion is irrelevant, truth is eternal. Yet countless books, essays, papers, theses, articles have been written, have been asked to be written entirely based upon opinion. We can publish opinion. People believe in opinion; people die for opinion. One man believed that an entire race of individuals was unworthy, inferior. Millions died because the other millions advocated an opinion. Sound familiar?

Where do you separate the truth from opinion? Is there an absolute truth? Absolutely. Is that simply my opinion though? If our years on this earth were simply just a series of opinions, which it has scarily come to be, we would have nothing on which to hold. No moral basis. No good, no bad. No right, no wrong. No abundance, no suffering. Life would be a multitude of thoughts floating above our heads from which we could grab a few and latch onto our bodies. Nothing would be lasting, everything would be temporary. I refuse to accept and exist in a temporary world, a world with a foundation of opinion. I want a foundation of truth.

Maybe all this blog will be is a series of opinions, lies, concepts dreamed up in my head. But maybe, just maybe some truth will surface.