MILLIONS KILLED BY STIGMA

Coming from a non-religious family and ‘modern’ social circle I did find some aspects of the Anglican Church decidedly weird. Not least the incredibly bitter debate about LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and trans gender) issues. But it was all rather arms-length and it worked for me that Archbishop Desmond Tutu was saying he would rather spend the afterlife in hell than go to a gay-hating heaven.



Looking back I am still amazed at the God-incidence that took me to that parish, several suburbs away from where I lived. A friend in my Wednesday morning Eucharist group where we bared our souls to each other ran HIV/AIDS workshops for an NGO and was the first activist I’d met (no he wasn’t infected, just deeply caring). When I asked advice on where I could do volunteer work he advised me to check with Jenny Marcus who led a volunteer group at the Charlotte Maxexe Hospital’s HIV clinic.



God's punishment
I’m not great at dates but it was about 1999. There were no anti-retrovirals in South Africa, the disease was largely viewed as God’s punishment for homosexuality and promiscuity. The stigma, nurtured in religious circles swirled and surged and would emerge as a major killer in Africa. As it still is today.

I was asked if I could help on Thursdays. It had for decades been the traditional day off for domestic helpers and infected men and women were using that precious little time off to visit the ward in secret. They would have been fired on the spot had their employers known about their status.

I allocated three hours each week, which was as much as I could manage while still keeping my clients content. Looking back it was also probably about as much as I could cope with emotionally. When I arrived and the ward sister realised that I was the chief executive of a major PR agency she felt I’d be most useful in an administrative capacity. But a God-incidence saved me in the nick of time. Jenny arrived.

She immediately steered me towards the folk in the packed waiting room. Although the clinic only officially opened at 8am, many had queued at the door from as early as 5am. My first and most important lesson, one that has stood me in great stead for many years, was to watch her hug those folk and kiss them on the lips. I watched faces light up. I saw holiness at work. I met good people living in a hell of secrecy and, in too many instances, shame. I got to know decent middle aged men. Grandmothers who had never been unfaithful. Young mothers anxious that their babies were infected.

The unbelievable joy, usually after two years, of finding that the HIV virus had not transmitted from a mother to her child.




The joy of knowing a child had not been infected at birth

There’s plenty more to tell about Jenny, heroic doctors and nurses and the hell of a pandemic in a country where the State President (Nelson Mandela’s successor) refused to believe that HIV is the precursor to AIDS. He was aided (pun intended) and abetted by a new Minister of Health who believed anti-retrovirals were poison. She was punting beetroot, sweet potatoes and garlic as alternatives.

Dropping like flies
South Africans were becoming infected and dying at a horrific rate.

Many Anglicans were opting to dip their Eucharist wafer in the chalice instead of sipping from the communal cup. Ignorance and fear ruled. Christians were fully into ‘love the sinner hate the sin’ mode. Church was the last place people who tested positive would turn to. To this day I have never had a person come to the altar rail to ask for public prayer because they have tested positive. Such is the power of religious bigotry surrounding what has become a manageable chronic disease.

Some of you may have noticed that I skipped a blog post last week. I’m tempted to say it was because I was frantically busy.

Superstition?
Fact is, I’d been asked to bless someone’s car and after years of doing this without question I found myself wondering where the sacred and superstition meet.



How holy is holy water?

I shared my concern on Facebook. To date there are 22 comments. They range from folk who tie the water to their baptism and view the blessing as giving thanks to God. Others say the practice is a hangover from Catholicism or that the people who use the car should be blessed instead.

There were jokes about the need for holy protection from our taxi drivers and, inevitably, the one about the rabbi who snips a bit off the end of the exhaust pipe.

I’d love your comments.

MADIBA ON THE LINE

One of several Twitter responses to my previous post was a suggestion from the blogger of ‘Afropomorphism’ http://t.co/C3wLGbjp7B that my deep sense of God as I watched a butterfly emerge from a cocoon had been triggered by my own bias.



That brought me up short. Here I was sharing my Damascus moment and the suggestion was that the experience was about wishful thinking! The again, my post had been how we shape God to our own purposes. I began to respond to my challenger with ‘possibly’ but changed that to ‘probably’.

The ultimate bias
Any atheist worth her salt will tell you that personal experience is the ultimate bias. As such it is the hardest to overcome. If something is real to you, and you feel you’ve experienced it directly, it can be more persuasive than a million scientific studies. Of course there’s always Gerard Hughes’ sage comment that God is not explainable, an enigma. That we find God through experience not Church dogma.

His theory was that, instead of God asking us why we had committed certain sins, the first question when we arrived at heaven would be; ‘Did you enjoy my creation?’



Fr Gerry also said too many spiritual books were destructive and an easy way to make money: ‘There are lots of beautiful words. God is here ......., so all will be well. Just trust, they [readers] are told. Trust in what? Just trust in what I am telling you is the message. There is very little attempt to encourage people to listen to their own experience, to discover things for themselves.’

Whatever it was, that experience in my garden meditation triggered a deep awe. In an inexplicable way I had sensed a Creator with a capital C as opposed to ‘a greater impersonal force’, ‘the super being’. Architects will tell you God is in the details. I agree.

There I was, more attuned to shopping malls than nature. One who chose to stay at the holiday cottage and read a book while others walked along the beach.



I identified birds as brown, white or black jobs and confused Egyptian Geese with ducks.



My bias in those days would have leaned towards an epiphany with more drama. At the very least a lightning bolt.

Ah well, I’ve since learned to take my miracles, my God incidences, where I find them.

Yin and yang
That retreat was all about taking time out to allow my yin and my yang to connect, slowly edging towards a semblance of spiritual balance. No. I wasn’t ‘reborn’ or filled with mystical joy. But I left the convent in the beginnings of a relationship with my Creator.

Even if you are not all that keen on God I can recommend a couple of days in a monastery or a convent to busy executives. It’s a lot cheaper than a health spa. Besides, there’s no TV, cell phones, no one to impress. You’ll be left to your own devices if that’s what you want. It’s a little like being on a desert island.

The convent I visited is in Rosettenville, Johannesburg, an oasis in a not very posh suburb. The nuns have since either died or returned to their mother House in Whitby, England, but it is still an Anglican retreat house.

Back in my day, as grandmother used to say, it was much favoured by bishops and archbishops for their retreats, including our beloved Desmond Tutu. 

There’s a lovely story about one of his stays. The nuns had gone out to dinner and Jackie, a tiny ferociously Anglican housekeeper, saw no need to answer the phone. After all, the guests, including The Arch, were all on silent retreat and not taking calls.

When a monk from the monastery across the road came across to tell her that State President Nelson Mandela was desperately trying to get hold of the archbishop Jackie was adamant. “No. He is in silence.” Eventually the monk persuaded her to leave the decision to The Arch and to ask him to be close to the phone when Madiba’s office called.



The phone was just off the kitchen and as The Arch waited Jackie showed her disapproval, as was her wont, by scrubbing the floor around his feet.

The following day the monk gently suggested that the Sister in Charge should explain to Jackie that the State President was very important. This she duly did but wasn’t sure if Jackie fully understood. So she asked, “Do you understand how important Mr Mandela is?’’

“No he’s not,” Jackie retorted, "he’s just a Methodist!”

Speaking of The Arch, he is in hospital for a persistent infection but the family assures that he is improving. You may want to pray for him and them.

IS GOD A FACEBOOK HOAX?

If there is one thing we Christians excel at it’s shaping God to our own purposes. 

We did it in the Crusades as we pillaged Asian cities, massacred Jews and Muslims and appropriated foreign property. We did it when we colonised ‘heathen’ lands, carrying a bible in one hand and a gun in the other. We did it when we kept quiet as our Jewish friends were sent to concentration camps and we did it when racial discrimination was legalised in South Africa.  

We manufacture a God who sees it all from our point of view and, when everything goes pear-shaped, we remould him, assuming our right to redemption and forgiveness. But we seldom make amends. 

I suspect that the worst shaping of God is not in cataclysmic historical events but in the daily detail of our lives. In what the nuns used to call our “besetting sins.”  It is also in the way we use religion.

Looking back on my previous blogs I realise I seem to have hurtled down the Anglican path at a great and fairly uncomplicated pace. Alpha, a spiritual director, an Open Door Retreat, Eucharist on Wednesdays and Sundays, two modules towards a theology degree, new Christian friends. (There must be a Brownie badge for all this). 

They should have put me on a TV so I could declare “I’ve found Jesus.” 

Fact is, I hadn’t really.

As an A type personality I am very competitive and self-critical. I’m always setting goals, my life lacks balance and I have to watch my blood pressure. Besides, you may remember, I’d emerged as an ENTJ on the Enneagram scale – a not so likeable ‘Commander’.

What I was doing, to a large extent, was jumping though the hoops and revelling in the spiritual and intellectual exercises - striving for A’s in my assignments.  I was also finding comfort in the close to Catholic ritual – my childhood comfort blanket and the God I was shaping was a mirror image of me and my opinions.

There was also my other life: my clients as well as a social and family circle that just wasn’t into religion.

There must have been a whole choir of angels groaning on my behalf.

Yes, I’d incorporated a spiritual dimension into my life. Much as I would have had I taken yoga seriously but I kid you and myself if I lay claim to a personal relationship with God at that stage. I was far more tuned into the adage “God helps those who help themselves”, than to total submission.

I still thank God for my exceptional Spiritual Director.  Trained by Fr Gerard Hughes, author of God of Surprises, she, never criticised, always gently questioned and very wisely suggested a three day retreat at a local Anglican Convent.  

My retreat director was a wonderful monk, Father Andrew Norton. He belonged to the Community of the Resurrection monastery across the road. 

Besides being wise and practical, he was a diabetic who loved to gobble the fluffy jam scones the sisters served for tea.

Deeply committed to the training and the supervision of Spiritual Directors, he was also responsible for introducing the Open Door Retreat in South African Anglican circles.  He was just what I needed at that stage.  Instead of gentle encouraging pats on the back he got me to take a long hard look at myself and at the Church. Fr Andrew was a realist not a romantic.  It was he who warned how deeply Church can hurt. He was right.

One of the exercises he gave me is one I still value and slip into today. I was directed to slowly walk around the beautiful convent garden five times. Each time focusing on one of my five senses – sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste.  Thanking God for what they had meant to me since birth and using them to appreciate the garden. It is a great way to meditate on the Creator and Creation.

The gateway to the beautiful convent garden

My Damascus Road moment was my meditation on my sense of sight – what it had meant to me since birth. On the walk I inspected an old tree, its shape, its leaves rustling in the breeze. Becoming aware of birds among its top branches, the sunlight peeping through. The bark was rough. I moved closer, the tiniest insects came into focus. And then it happened. As I peeped behind a fairly loose piece of bark I spotted a cocoon and watched spell-bound as a butterfly slowly emerged.

Now decades later, I can still draw on that wondrous image when I’m stressed or distressed. It draws me into the mystery of God the power of faith. That moment when you choose red or black and place your bet on a roulette table. You don’t have all the answers but you are willing to take a chance. It was the day I met the ‘God of Surprises’.

I wish I could tell you that I’ve never had a moments doubt since that meditation in the convent garden. But it is a compass point for me when I feel lost, in those moments when I wonder if God isn’t on a par with those awful Facebook hoaxes.

Have you had a defining moment in your faith journey?

IS GOD WHITE?

I was doing Morning Prayer and found in incredibly boring (still do most times). The best part was the daily Scripture readings. I often went way past the allocated verses, simply because I’d never read the Bible and wondered what came next.  Trust me, the juiciest parts are seldom in the lectionary.

The Open Door Retreat had drawn me into the dual discipline of praying and meditating. Moreover, we’d formed such strong bonds that we decided to meet for a 6.30am Eucharist on Wednesday mornings and to continue our sharing.

There was also those Old Testament and New Testament classes. They turned out to be official modules for a theology degree so my journey into Anglicanism had assumed a new dimension.

What a relief to learn that the Bible was not a direct dictation by God to various obliging scribes. There was no way I was ever going to take Jonah and the Whale literally. 

I would also quickly learn two more words to drop at cocktail parties – exegesis and eisegesis. The first is what brought the Scriptures and, eventually, Jesus sharply into focus for me. The second is what I believe makes it so easy for us Christians to be judgemental, self-righteous and downright cruel.

Exegesis literally means ‘to lead out of”. It requires careful and objective analysis of the Scriptures.  Who was the author? Why did he feel compelled to write? Who was his audience? What was the writer’s agenda? What was the social and cultural context in which it was written?

In short, exegesis requires careful, objective analysis that leads to a conclusion.

Eisegesis literally means ‘to lead into’. It involves subjective non analytical reading. It’s what enables us to make the Scriptures mean whatever suits us. Frightening stuff!  It has been used to justify, among other things, homophobia, gender discrimination, apartheid and slavery.

As we learned to exegete texts there was a natural progression to liberation theology and black theology. That’s when I knew I’d hit a home run. This stuff was really working for me. It was also when I realised that no matter how weird Anglicanism seemed at times it was also wonderful.

I’d also been taught Lectio Divina. A Latin term for ‘divine reading’ it is a way of reading the Scriptures whereby we gradually let go of our own agenda and open ourselves to what God wants to say to us. It is a wonderful way of listening with the heart and can be very calming when life is hectic. 

But let’s get back to exegesis and eisegesis. I am still gobsmacked at how a Church that claims ‘reason’ as one of its main pillars has allowed itself to be so divided by varying degrees of the two conflicting approaches to Scripture.  

Part of the problem in Southern Africa anyway is that we Anglicans dropped the ball on theological education. This is now being taken very seriously and technology is playing an increasing role. But we did have a very dry spell and too many of our preachers resort to eisegesis to make their point.

I digress. Back to my journey.  

I was living in three worlds. My ANC comrades used the term ‘liberal’ like a swearword. My upmarket suburban parish was primarily white and feeling unappreciated in our new political dispensation. My clients were over eager to capitalise on what they perceived as my political connections.

On the religious front I was increasingly bothered by how ‘European’ the Anglican Church in Southern Africa was. Yes we’d had Desmond Tutu as archbishop. His successor, Njongonkulu Ndungane, was also black but it was still a very long way to meaningful transformation.  Worship in the suburbs was worlds apart from the vibrant township services. Black Anglicans who relocated to the formerly ‘white’ suburbs, felt like foreigners.

But even in the townships I found a very white God and a Jesus who looked as if he’d been born in England. Clearly our early Christian missionaries - convinced that white was right and superior – had branded their product accordingly and imposed it on Africa. For them conversion involved Westernisation.

Years later, when I was ministering in Soweto I would ask kids in Confirmation class to give me a word picture of the holy threesome. This was invariably an old white man with a long beard seated next to a younger version of himself.  The Holy Spirit ranged between a bird and a white angel.  

(I’ve just carried out the same test on my Xhosa builder, my Malawian gardener and a black friend who manages properties and all in their late twenties, early thirties. It yielded almost the same result.)

 

 But.......

The BBC commissioned a picture of what the historical Jesus probably looked like

Back to exegesis. 

It was in those classes that I had my first inkling of how liberation theologians had used it to reinterpret the sacred texts in order to give preference to the poor, the marginalised and the oppressed. They had brought new meaning to sacred texts that had for too long been used to justify slavery, apartheid and gender discrimination.

It is an ongoing challenge.

  

Congratulations! Vivian Boyack, age 91, and Alice “Nonie” Dubes, age 90, who have been together for 72 years. They tied the knot shortly after same sex marriage was legalised throughout America. How sad they had to wait so long.!  http://bit.ly/1pI0wvE