let it snow

It was 75 degrees in Texas today. I know I shouldn't complain, but this season doesn't feel complete without the combination of cold, darkness, and the deep brilliance of snow.

mystery

Well, the season of Advent is officially upon us. Today, mystery is on my mind. Yesterday, I read a delightful meditation by Kathleen Norris on the power of mystery and how impoverished faith becomes by our unwillingness to accept, prepare for, and anticipate mystery.

I woke up this morning wondering if I had lost my own capacity to imagine. It’s partly the season – winter is pure drudgery. We try to baptize it and call it waiting, but right now, I feel caught in a sea of endless boredom. Blues.

By all accounts, I live in a very religious city. And yet, this place feels like one of the most desolate places on earth. There is very little mystery here. Everyone is so attached to tradition, custom, routine. Christmas comes and passes with all the same old platitudes about the real meaning of the season. But do we really encounter mystery? Something that leaves us radically disoriented, shaken from our self-assuming foundations, shivering. Something akin to glory, awe, and terror.

I have to wonder –

Where are the dreamers?

Where are those waiting in sheer desperation?

And where are those beginning to ponder a life of unimaginable power growing inside them?

it's winter

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves ...
Don't search for the answers,
which could not be given to you now,
because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is, to live everything.

Live the questions now.

Perhaps then, someday far in the future,
you will gradually,
without even noticing it,
live your way into the answer.

rainer maria rilke

the world is watching

MDC statement on Obama’s victory
Barack Obama has been elected the 44th President of the United States of America. We congratulate Obama, his family, his campaign staff and indeed the whole of America.

To us, Obama’s victory is a victory of hope, faith, change, a restart, values and dreams which have underpinned our fight as a movement against dictatorship and the neo-fascism of Robert Mugabe.

Obama’s victory will hopefully usher in a departure from the politics of polarization, fear, unilateralism and arrogance that has defined the Bush doctrine in the last eight years. Indeed, we hope that Obama will open new avenues of dialogue of new interaction based on respect of all countries irrespective of the size of national budgets or the number of fighter jets owned.

We also associate ourselves with the clear messages “to those who would tear this world down”, and to those “who seek peace and security. Quite clearly, a full-stop has to be put to the years of plunder, dictatorship and corruption, civil wars, patronage and clientelism that has characterized many failed states particularly on the African continent.

We are mindful of the difficulties that lie ahead in Obama’s path and the fact that this is no El Dorado, a construct that Obama himself acknowledges in his acceptance speech. Indeed it is a task that may take more than his two terms of office. Perhaps the greatest thing we have learnt from this victory is that democracy can work and that there is no alternative to the same.

John MacCain’s speech was particularly humbling, instructive and inspiring. If in Africa, incumbents would accept defeat and would graciously depart from the seat of power, this would be a different continent, and indeed Zimbabwe would be a different place.
For those of us who are still in the trenches, fighting for change and democracy across the entire African continent, this is our victory.
One which for now we will savour and celebrate.

TENDAI BITI, MPMDC SECRETARY GENERAL

hope endures

This was pretty special for me ----

Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president, welcomed Mr Obama's victory as a sign of hope for everyone.

"Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place,"

Let us dare to dream!!

in one week...

So, I've been gone for quite some time. Life is moving at breakneck speed, and all my writing energies are going towards graduate school applications.

The election is in 6 days! I'm holding my breath.

This weekend I had the chance to visit Montgomery, Alabama. I stood in front of Dexter Ave. Church where Dr. King preached, and I could not hold back the tears. Even more stunning was the realization that the church which birthed the civil rights movement stands literally across the street from the center of white power --- the state capitol building (literally a giant white fortress) where both Gov. Wallace and the first Confederate presidency resided. Who could have predicted when the confederacy formed over 100 years later a prophet would rise up and begin to dismantle the legacy of slavery from the center of the beast? That little church stared directly up hill into the face of racism and power. Standing where so many others marched and walked, I was blown away by the irony and the sense that God always makes a way where there is no way if people are willing to follow and stand on the side of justice.

So, today, as we look ahead to the possibility of the first African American winning the presidential election, I am thankful and humbled by the sacrifice and blood that so many people shed for justice. Dr. King's dream of a beloved community and a nation repentant has not yet been fully realized, but we have the opportunity to move one step further.

I heard an African American man on NPR yesterday saying:

Rosa sat so Martin could walk
Martin walked so Obama could run
Obama ran so our children could fly

I will share with my children the stories of Rosa, Martin, and Obama because their history is inseparable with my own. Justice for them is justice for me because their courage is freeing me from the intolerable burden of privilege. There is still much more work to be done, but I'm thankful for how their courage. Their sacrifice has given me new courage.

If Obama wins, there will be more challenges to face. Ideology does not shift overnight, but it is impossible to deny that a new era requiring a new paradigm is here. We are living through a seismic shift in history, and it is exciting, nerve racking, and unknow. One thing is certain: change will come, whether we are prepared for it or now.

Those who hear the call of the Kingdom are uniquely prepared for this change. In this time of economic crisis and political crisis, we can proclaim our commitment to simplicity and love of neighbor, to justice and care for the poor. We can affirm our global brothers and sisters, and reject a politics of fear. I see new openings for truth and repentance, and I am hopeful.

From Obama's closing argument a few days ago:

"Don’t believe for a second this election is over. Don’t think for a minute that power concedes. We have to work like our future depends on it in this last week, because it does.

In one week, we can choose an economy that rewards work and creates new jobs and fuels prosperity from the bottom-up.

In one week, we can choose to invest in health care for our families, and education for our kids, and renewable energy for our future.

In one week, we can choose hope over fear, unity over division, the promise of change over the power of the status quo.

In one week, we can come together as one nation, and one people, and once more choose our better history"

Dr. King would be proud. But as he and all of us know: power does not concede easily, and the work for justice and tranformation is never over.