Fresh eyes on Southern Africa

Over Easter this year I spent several weeks alongside the Indian Ocean, enjoying those pounding waves on the beaches of the Dolphin Coast, and resting from the late-summer sun among pink and purple tibouchinas and bursts of Sheena’s Gold.

Within days of setting foot in the green hills of KwaZulu-Natal, after a break of two years, I was greeted at the door of a tree-lined brick bungalow by a longstanding Zimbabwean friend of mine.

Instead of the traditional Shona greeting Makadini (“How are you?”), she simply proclaimed in a loud voice, in English, “Psalms 18, Verse 2.” Her voice trembled just a little, but her eyes blazed with conviction, and her smile was as broad as the azure sky above us.

Our reunion was buttressed by the New Living Translation which we spoke aloud together: “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.”

Seldom have I heard a more affirmative declaration of a Bible truth that I felt we were applying at that very moment to our ever-stirring political environments. Her home country, Zimbabwe, is adjusting, like South Africa, to a new president, and the call for rocklike stability resounds through every crevice in the rugged landscapes of two breathtakingly beautiful countries.

Soon, the traditional hellos and good mornings, and even the local Zulu sawubona (“I see you”), had been replaced by inspiring Bible citations in several different versions. We were having a ball, and at the same time establishing a wall of protection from anything human existence might be temped to throw at us.

For example, like many countries across the world, South Africa has had its share of unpredictable, damaging extremes of weather. In June of last year fires devastated thousands of hectares of the Western Province, and over the past summer, Cape Town suffered its worst drought in 134 years.

Yet, as so often happens, people of all races were drawn together in a heartwarming drive to preserve what little water they had in the dry hot closing weeks of summer, and this shared effort spilled over into new ways of meeting many of the challenges—societal and political—that linger 19 years after the reign of Nelson Mandela.

Some solutions were offered by an Easter editorial in the Mercury newspaper that lay beside us on the table. It acknowledged that it may take time, but that once South Africans were prepared to forgive, and racism was no longer an issue, a love for one another’s strengths and even weaknesses would emerge. What is needed, the paper said, is a non-sentimental, all-encompassing love that appreciates the good in each of us.  

During my informal reunion with my Zimbabwean friend, we delighted in the knowledge that despite our different backgrounds, we could freely share our gratitude for the infinite blessings of the all-powerful God who fathers and mothers us and our families.

We told one another how, since we had last met, we believed we had grown spiritually and come closer to a “place of safety.” How Bible truths had increasingly gilded and guided every day’s activities, and how we had witnessed more goodness in other people than we would have believed possible two years ago.

Together we tried to identify some key figures in our national landscapes who might help find solutions.

We discussed a column in which Harvard professor  Stephanie Paulsell pointed out that what divided countries need urgently is “spiritual leaders who can gather communities of real depth, seers who can teach [people] to be present to the sacred in [their] midst, [and] healers who can interrupt cycles of violence and address individual and societal trauma” (The Christian Century, April 27, 2018).

After my friend and I had chatted for several hours and shared hot-cross-buns and many cups of tea, I realized how right the Century’s executive editor, David Heim, had been when he wrote: “Often the people who don’t belong to our own fold and hear Jesus’ voice in unfamiliar ways are the ones best able to help us hear it and understand it afresh.”

Within that fresh understanding, we agreed, the rainbow colors of South Africa and Zimbabwe would eventually blend as musically as the call of a bulbul in a nearby flame tree and the murmur of the Indian Ocean.

As we parted, my friend shared just three words rich in love and caring: Mwari vakukomborerei vakuchengetei  (“God bless you and keep you”) (Num. 6:24).

Not even the bulbul could have put that more sweetly!