MattAndJojang's Blog

Painting: Pi-Shan Lan

Run to the mountain;

Shed those scales on your eyes

That hinder you from seeing God.

~ Dante

The spiritual journey is not about fabricating something that is alien to ourselves. It is not about adding something that we do not already have (whether it is “wisdom,” “holiness,” “goodness.” “virtue,” or some other thing).

All we need  to do is to remove the layers of ego-stuff that we have accumulated  through the years, and unmask the illusions we have created about ourselves so that the presence of God within us could shine through our lives.

We already have what we are seeking. The only thing we need to do is to realize this. To quote T.S. Eliot:

We shall not cease from our exploration

And at the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time

 ~ Matt

Photo: Giovanni/Flickr

I CAME to Africa with one purpose: I wanted to see the world outside the perspective of European egocentricity. I could have chosen Asia or South America. I ended up in Africa because the plane ticket there was cheapest.

I came and I stayed. For nearly 25 years I’ve lived off and on in Mozambique. Time has passed, and I’m no longer young; in fact, I’m approaching old age. But my motive for living this straddled existence, with one foot in African sand and the other in European snow, in the melancholy region of Norrland in Sweden where I grew up, has to do with wanting to see clearly, to understand.

The simplest way to explain what I’ve learned from my life in Africa is through a parable about why human beings have two ears but only one tongue. Why is this? Probably so that we have to listen twice as much as we speak.

In Africa listening is a guiding principle. It’s a principle that’s been lost in the constant chatter of the Western world, where no one seems to have the time or even the desire to listen to anyone else. From my own experience, I’ve noticed how much faster I have to answer a question during a TV interview than I did 10, maybe even 5, years ago. It’s as if we have completely lost the ability to listen. We talk and talk, and we end up frightened by silence, the refuge of those who are at a loss for an answer.

I’m old enough to remember when South American literature emerged in popular consciousness and changed forever our view of the human condition and what it means to be human. Now, I think it’s Africa’s turn.

Everywhere, people on the African continent write and tell stories. Soon, African literature seems likely to burst onto the world scene — much as South American literature did some years ago when Gabriel García Márquez and others led a tumultuous and highly emotional revolt against ingrained truth. Soon an African literary outpouring will offer a new perspective on the human condition. The Mozambican author Mia Couto has, for example, created an African magic realism that mixes written language with the great oral traditions of Africa.

If we are capable of listening, we’re going to discover that many African narratives have completely different structures than we’re used to. I over-simplify, of course. Yet everybody knows that there is truth in what I’m saying: Western literature is normally linear; it proceeds from beginning to end without major digressions in space or time.

That’s not the case in Africa. Here, instead of linear narrative, there is unrestrained and exuberant storytelling that skips back and forth in time and blends together past and present. Someone who may have died long ago can intervene without any fuss in a conversation between two people who are very much alive. Just as an example.

The nomads who still inhabit the Kalahari Desert are said to tell one another stories on their daylong wanderings, during which they search for edible roots and animals to hunt. Often they have more than one story going at the same time. Sometimes they have three or four stories running in parallel. But before they return to the spot where they will spend the night, they manage either to intertwine the stories or split them apart for good, giving each its own ending.

A number of years ago I sat down on a stone bench outside the Teatro Avenida in Maputo, Mozambique, where I work as an artistic consultant. It was a hot day, and we were taking a break from rehearsals so we fled outside, hoping that a cool breeze would drift past. The theater’s air-conditioning system had long since stopped functioning. It must have been over 100 degrees inside while we were working.

Two old African men were sitting on that bench, but there was room for me, too. In Africa people share more than just water in a brotherly or sisterly fashion. Even when it comes to shade, people are generous.

I heard the two men talking about a third old man who had recently died. One of them said, “I was visiting him at his home. He started to tell me an amazing story about something that had happened to him when he was young. But it was a long story. Night came, and we decided that I should come back the next day to hear the rest. But when I arrived, he was dead.”

The man fell silent. I decided not to leave that bench until I heard how the other man would respond to what he’d heard. I had an instinctive feeling that it would prove to be important.

Finally he, too, spoke.

“That’s not a good way to die — before you’ve told the end of your story.”

It struck me as I listened to those two men that a truer nomination for our species than Homo sapiens might be Homo narrans, the storytelling person. What differentiates us from animals is the fact that we can listen to other people’s dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires and defeats — and they in turn can listen to ours.

Many people make the mistake of confusing information with knowledge. They are not the same thing. Knowledge involves the interpretation of information. Knowledge involves listening.

So if I am right that we are storytelling creatures, and as long as we permit ourselves to be quiet for a while now and then, the eternal narrative will continue.

Many words will be written on the wind and the sand, or end up in some obscure digital vault. But the storytelling will go on until the last human being stops listening. Then we can send the great chronicle of humanity out into the endless universe.

Who knows? Maybe someone is out there, willing to listen …

~ Henning Mankell

Photo: The Canadien/Flickr

We are each made for goodness, love and compassion. Our lives are transformed as much as the world is when we live with these truths… The world needs your acts and compassionate loving goodness.

In the darkest days of the struggle to end apartheid, it was possible for some to succumb to the endless bad news of violence and torture systematically directed against people because of the color of their skin or those who had a vision of our oneness as people. But we were always upheld and strengthened by the good news of those whose actions reminded us that we are each God’s partners in a love and justice that includes all.

The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated. You do this as you respond to the invitation found in the news of the day to make a difference. Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value.

Everywhere around us, there are examples of people who are doing just that — who are celebrating the oneness of the human family.

Atlanta’s Derreck Kayongo noticed that bars of soap in hotels in the United States were going to waste. He knew that over two million children a year die of diarrheal illness often caused because people cannot afford to buy soap to wash their hands and prevent the spread of illness. Kayongo and his parents had fled Uganda 30 years ago to avoid the torture and killings of Idi Amin. From his experience of refugee camps he knew that people struggled to survive without basic necessities like soap.

Out of his dismay about wasted soap an idea was hatched. What if the soap could be cleaned and recycled? With the advice of his father, a soap maker from Uganda, he began the Global Soap Project, to collect, recycle and then distribute soaps to nine countries including Haiti, Uganda and Swaziland. More than just preventing the spread of diarrheal diseases and saving the lives of children, Kayongo has brought people and organizations together from around the world in this project of hope.

Like Derreck Kayongo, our own stories, experiences and gifts are the incubators of good news. When we allow our imagination to be engaged with the needs of the world around us, we actively participate in expanding love and compassion. When we do so, God is tickled pink!

Patricia from Seattle says that her struggles with “the blues” are changed by her volunteering, despite her own physical limitations, in a nursing home and in a program where she reads stories to young children. Patricia chooses to work with such divergent age groups because the combination of youthful enthusiasm and the wisdom of elders keep her balanced and appreciative of life.

Patricia may not know the impact of her goodness in the lives of others but her experience is that goodness in action is transformative. She reminds me that every seemingly small thing we do becomes like a drop of water flowing into an ocean of hope and compassion. Opportunities abound in our local communities for being people of hope and good news.

I think also of Bruno Serato… who is revered for the fine cuisine served to the rich and famous in his California restaurant. Bruno has never forgotten his humble beginnings as an immigrant who started out washing dishes. When Bruno saw a homeless child sheltered in a motel eating potato chips for dinner he wondered how to respond to the heart-breaking sadness of homeless children living in motels. Using the skills of his professional life he began delivering evening meals and has now served over 250,000 meals to children who live in motels.

Derreck, Patricia and Bruno are the tip of the iceberg among people across the world engaging in goodness, love and compassion. Their stories invite each of us to consider how we participate in making good news every day.

In becoming part of the good news of the human story, you remind us all that we are made for oneness as a human family. You become a birth-giver of hope. God smiles on you with every piece of good news that you contribute to.

~ Desmond Tutu

Illustration: Thomas Merton

I have only one desire, and that is the desire for solitude—to disappear into God, to be submerged in His peace, to be lost in the secret of His Face.

~ Thomas Merton

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 52,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 19 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.