DStilled

From the depths to the heights

January 12, 2009 on 6:26 pm | In Blog |

I left you before the weekend had hit and we were on our way to one of the oldest and most interesting townships in South Africa.  It’s name is Gugelethu but often goes by Googs.  For those of you unsure of what I mean by township, it’s a shantytown.  It’s an area of “informal settlement” where people are forced to live due to political or economic circumstances.  There are sometimes actual houses but even they would fail any construction inspector’s code in the states.  It’s a place of desparate poverty, trash, overpopulation, occasional epidemic or fire, and yet hope is not lost.  Like many experiences I had in similar situations in Guatemala, the people are still people and as a whole, people are resilient.  These Africans are no different.

One other quick thing I wanted to share is that race is an obivious and overt thing to these people down here.  For the past 100 years race has been at the forefront of discrimination and power in South Africa.  The Afrikaaners are the remnants of the white Dutch colonists from the 15th and 16th centuries.  The term ”whites” includes both them and other people of pale skin, often Europeans.  The term “blacks” only refers to native Africans of dark skin.  Everyone else is “colored.”  Yes, you will find colored people that are physically darker than blacks but that’s not the point.  It’s a continuum of power and privilege.  It’s a way to place value on people like things that are not made in the image of God. 

Because blacks were discriminated against even before aparthied, they already had townships established.  In Cape Town there wer three reserved for blacks and Googs is one of them.  We arrived knowing we were going to spend the night but other than that, didn’t really have a clue.  It ended up being a home/hotel sorta.  Not the worst place I’ve ever slept by any stretch of the imagination.  We were treated with amazing hospitality and incorporated into their family.  The best part was when after dinner we all stood around in a garage with other people from the township and sang songs.  The blessing of music transcends all barriers.

The next morning was Sunday so we decided to stay and go to a local worship service.  The one we picked was a tent church with one of the loudest church environments I’ve ever been exposed to.  It was small and the energy was reserved but present.  One of the most interesting parts of the church was that people kept coming in from 30 minutes before service “started” to just up until the service “ended.”  The rest of my group I think really enjoyed it and saw what worship was happening was genuine and powerful (albeit too loud).  I have a little beef with this. 

Logically there’s no way to tell authenticity on one visit to any church.  You have to assume what you observe is average unless told otherwise.  We come from mostly quiet, reformed, reverent churches that have different values when it comes to worship style.  That’s right, I said that we place morality on aspects of HOW we worship God.  I do it all the time and I can almost guarentee you do as well.  Generally believers want or allow their worship style to reflect who they are and their theology.  When we are in our own churches, we can tell when authenticity is acheived and when people are simply going through the motions.  I argue that we should not romanicize the little known people and ways of living because they are different, quaint, novel, or whatever.  If we are to truly to become citizens of God’s Kingdom and of this planet of humanity as a whole, romaniticizing the “other” trivializes them.  It is by nature a stance of power viewing from on high to “understand” the other.  My perspective, or more accurately the perspective I seek to ascertain, is to learn through humility and logic.  Humility keeps us in our place and logic makes sense of our world.  Humility creates understanding through empathy and compassion while logic creates understanding through order and reasoning.  This worldview facilitates growth for both my right and left brain.  It allows me to connect with anyone and everyone.  It makes me see the detail and the big picture at the same time.  I have been on a journey since CPE two years ago towards this Christ-like growth and get excited simply thinking about how even this part of my identity is evolving.

After church we came back to the “nice” part of town and went out to the beach.  It was the arguably the Indian ocean but I don’t count it.  I won’t say I’ve been to the Indian until I’m on my own and travel past the most southern tip of Africa, about 100 miles southeast of here.  Today we went to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point.  I got to climb around and do some running and it was great.  I miss physical activity so much and look forward to getting back into it when I return.  I will also return with a nice winter tan.