birthdays are strange things

Birthdays are strange things.  I don’t recall asking for mine, planning for it to happen, or even being there when it happened.  All I really have to show for it is the sincere opinion of the mother and father who claim to be my parents and a piece of faded official paper with what appears to be my name on it witnessed only by the scrawled signature of some official faceless stranger who has never met me nor whom I will most probably ever meet and who would obviously not recall me or my name even if we did actually bump into each other one day.

Yet faithfully each and every year, this day is celebrated.  Even distant acquaintances who hardly ever make contact join in and take the time to send celebratory wishes.

Birthdays are strange things!  Indeed, to my mind they are one of the universes great and mysterious little illusions.

Also, this is possibly the only real fact I have about my life and my future … – that when I leave this world, of which I have no recollection of participating in any plan to decide where or when this will happen, someone else shall on my behalf receive yet another certificate which will mean nor matter not one little bit to me at all after I have left.

This grand forthcoming event too will be officially commemorated and witnessed by the scrawled signature of some official stranger whom I will have most probably never met and who would never even recall me or my name even if we did actually bump into each other in some other place somewhere out on another leg of the journey I’m not really so sure I’m even having now.

The funniest thing is that most of us are delighted when this day is celebrated and profoundly hacked off by any who forget to celebrate it for any reason whatsoever.

So, may I end off by wishing once and for all a most sincere and wonderfully happy birthday to you.

the wind is calling the rain to come

We’ve had a few ultra glorious days in the Nelson Mandela Bay area and this morning, after days of wonderfully warm winter stillness the wind picked up and was suddenly gusting at about 30km/h.

 

An elderly Xhosa man and I were chatting this morning and in the course of our conversation he remarked on the sudden turn in the weather saying,

 

“the wind is calling the rain to come.”

 

moneyvangelism

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moneyvangelism – the great commission

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the mirror in the monkey

Once there was a monkey who happened on a marvellous thing.  A small mirror lay before him at the foot of a great tree in the center of the forest.  Of course he had never seen a mirror before so at first he was quite startled and somewhat fearful of the strange but familiar monkey that kept staring back fearfully at him and copying his every move.  However, soon he came to be totally fascinated by how the monkey seemed to know him so well.  It would mimic his every move, confirming each action, each and every intimate intent was magically guessed by this mysterious monkey.  It was as if this strange, flat and almost ‘other worldly’ monkey could actually read his mind and even seemed to know exactly what he was thinking or even planning, even down to the most random moods and facial expressions.  Slowly it dawned on him that this was a friend indeed.  A friend for life even who could bring great comfort and significant meaning.  After some time it also became apparent that this was also a wonderful way for the monkey to get in touch with himself and he soon began to learn many new things about his own facial expressions and how these led to express the feelings he had so deep inside of him.

The monkey was so enamoured by the perfect purity of the reflection directly before his eyes that he simply could not let go of the piece of mirror that was now firmly in his hand.  He would drift off and stare at it for hours on end, seeing new facets and wonders every time he looked at the mirror (although of course, he never knew it was a mirror or what even a mirror was).  It was such a comforting presence in his life, so much so that soon he refused to move away from it in any way.  He would sleep with it clutched firmly to his heart and he would even dream about all he had seen in it.  It was indeed an enlightening find.

Now our monkey was not totally selfish and eventually he did want others to see his new discovery as well.  After all it had made him quite the celebrity in his troop as he strutted about, clutching his strange, treasured discovery for all it was worth.  It was indeed a sensational find and he eventually tried to share it with the others but even when he did excitedly show his wonderful new possession to the other monkey’s in the troop he would hold it so closely to his own face that the other monkeys would mainly see his reflection in the mirror even when trying desperately to see themselves or whatever else was in the mirror.  To them it almost seemed as if the mirror only reflected our friend the monkey.  This communal activity wasn’t all plain sailing though as the monkey in the mirror also tended to cause some troublesome division in the troop and even at times some serious pain especially when the other monkey’s out of frustration perhaps, or just playfully, tried to grab the mirror away from him.  Sadly, when this happened the only result was that it cut deep into the hands of the other monkey’s as well as his as the tussle for possession and control of the reflected image ensued.

The mirror soon began to absorb godlike qualities to the monkey as well as the troop and all of life increasingly began to be determined and reflected through this small, shiny piece of mysterious, reflective glass.

Very soon the monkey became so intoxicated by the perceived power and stability of the immediate reflection before him that he was unable to disengage with this reflection at all.  To add to this dilemma he was now also unable to understand that the only way to really explore truth and reality in all it’s fullness in and around him was to take the risk of moving away from the immediate reflection he held so close to him, loosing his hold on his immediate reflective perception and taking a few short steps back to see what might possibly lie directly behind, and to either side of the small piece of flat, two-dimensional reflective glass  …  the same glass which he had now placed directly before his own eyes … so close in fact that the very image he had first seen was now somewhat blurred and vague.  Indeed, it took great imagination and not a small amount of speculation to recreate what images of the original reflection he could recall when he had first picked up the small piece of mirror found at the base of the great tree in the middle of the forest.

searching for the light switch

 

If I walked into a totally darkened lounge area and stumbled into sharp edged coffee tables and fell crashing over chairs and couches, it would not serve me in any way to raise my voice in anger and curse the darkness. The best I could do might be to spend my efforts on finding the light switch and simply flick it on. Yes, this might well expose all manner of dangerous obstacles perhaps but it would surely enable me to navigate my way through the room far less painfully.
What I am trying to explore as a possibility for discussion here is to suggest that darkness could be seen merely as a realm without light (illumination, revelation, perspective, whatever sounds better to you), rather than exclusively an evil realm that is out to destroy us.  And that perhaps if we are really battling to shift in our thinking in this it could well be an indication of just how strong these culturally agreed constructs can really be.  To try shed a bit more light on this it might be interesting to cast our minds on the multitudes of nocturnal creatures on earth who thrive in life in the same darkness that was mentioned in the genesis story.

However, in keeping with the chronology of the Genesis narrative, darkness was in a sense exposed when light was introduced. The narrative then seems to suggest that these two contrasting realms were moved away from each other, or separated. Perhaps this was done by them being actively pulled apart (personally by God, perhaps) or maybe it happened naturally as both realms struggled to maintain their own integrity in the presence of each other and naturally moved somewhat forcefully away like two positive (north)  terminals of two separate magnets being held together?

Or maybe the entrance of light simply chased the dark space away, making it much less relevant or powerful?

So, again, at least to my mind, it is worth considering the possibility that darkness does not necessarily need to be ‘evil’ or ‘bad’. Darkness could perhaps be dark merely because it is inaccessible or undisclosed – in part or in total.

What shall we say, then? Is the darkness evil? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what darkness was had it not been for the commandment, “Let there be light”… and … so perhaps we find that the very commandment (“Let there be light”) that was intended to bring light, actually brought darkness (or at least our painful awareness of it).

Could it be that the biblical narrative of the creation account could also be a direct metaphor of the dynamics of the human dilemma and condition?

Is it possible that God could be a whole lot more clever than we ever thought?

And if so, what might this suggest for us?

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