DANCING HIGHWAYS
A tangle of
dancing highways greets the visitor to Gqeberha. There is no orderly clover
leaf intersection but roads rising and falling in seemingly random fashion.
Urban architecture can have a beauty hidden unknowingly in the designer’s plan
which only emerges afterwards. Art is
always beyond even the artist who created it.
I have
spent a lifetime in Zimbabwe but only four weeks in South Africa. What
astonishes the visitor is the beauty of the mix. Besides the obvious difference
of colour ranging from black to white with every variety in between, there is
the difference of speech. Again, beside the difference of languages there is
the difference between those comfortable in one of the common languages,
English, and those who labour in it as something strange and foreign. And yet
again there is the way people draw on rich cultural heritages on how they
relate to you that defy description.
Then the
visitor steps back into history; the early people of this mostly dry
sub-continent, the disturbing arrival of settlers from Europe with their
differences and rivalries, the wars and politics that disrupted the lives of
the people and shifted them from place to lace and finally the climax towards
the end of the last century when the long struggle for freedom was finally
resolved and the people agreed to work together for a common future.
But the way
to that future keeps dancing before our eyes like conflicting roads swirling
around one another. One struggle has been resolved but another is now underway.
And this one is not unique to South Africa but common across the earth. How do
we make all these roads converge and build something just and good for all
people?
Driving in
the Eastern Cape this week, we met a man, a dog and a flock of sheep. We were
astonished to see the man instruct the dog to nudge the sheep to open a way for
us. The harmony between all three built on a shared knowledge and confidence,
however different, touched us for a moment. There is always a Sunday after
Easter when we celebrate the image in John, chapter ten, of Jesus as the
shepherd. From earliest times the Church has loved this image. It is so simple -
and grounded in our experience. The shepherd knows his sheep, each one; he
cares for them and opens a way for them. He will do anything for them – even to
losing his life. The sheep know his voice and follow him.
It is a
simple image. God know us, each one of us, and offers life ‘to the full’. He
calls us to take up the task because it is not just given. It calls for our
response. Our journey goes up and down and may seem to go nowhere. But in the
tangle, there is a purpose.
21 April
2024 Easter Sunday 4B Ac 4:8-12 1 Jn
3:1-2
Jn 10:11-18
