It might be an old one but definitely one of my favorites!
Showing posts with label 2013. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2013. Show all posts
Wednesday, 1 October 2014
Thursday, 9 January 2014
At the Gates of the Year
I have been trying to put my year in words but have failed miserably to capture it all until i found the poem below by Minnie Louise Haskins (1875-1957):
GOD KNOWS
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.
So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low,
God hideth His intention.
God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.
Then rest: until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life’s stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God’s thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.
So as my journey into 2014 begins, i am humbled by the year i leave behind. It has been a year that has seen me shed more tears than laughter, a year that has taught me great lessons on loss, life and faith. A year of revelations and one of sincere appreciation for things like life and death.
I don't know what this new year holds but God knows!
GOD KNOWS
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.
So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low,
God hideth His intention.
God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.
Then rest: until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life’s stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God’s thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.
So as my journey into 2014 begins, i am humbled by the year i leave behind. It has been a year that has seen me shed more tears than laughter, a year that has taught me great lessons on loss, life and faith. A year of revelations and one of sincere appreciation for things like life and death.
I don't know what this new year holds but God knows!
Saturday, 22 June 2013
Friday, 21 June 2013
Beyond the Noise
I do not care how many government officials and “important people” try and deny it; RAPE is a real problem in this country and the women who have been placed in that position NEVER forget it or get over it.
Statistics vary and sadly many cases are not reported but most agree that South Africa is the rape capital of the world. Police crime statistics released in September 2012 state that in 2011/2012 there were a total of 9 193 sexual offences reported to the South African Police Services (SAPS) in the Western Cape, almost 27 cases per day.
One Medical Research Council study among men from the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal showed a devastatingly casual familiarity with rape – more than 25% of the men questioned admitted to raping someone. A poll in 1999 among 1500 schoolboys in Soweto showed most thought "jackrolling", or gang rape, was "fun".
I am no expert but when we have a 13 year old in school being raped, stabbed and left for dead we know we have a problem that is bigger than we think. We know we have entered questioning times when we have victims like Anene Booysen whose tragedies are sensationalised by political parties but forgotten by communities.
With less than 10 percent of cases resulting in conviction the victims are being made to feel like perpetrators because of the length of the skirts they wear, the pictures they might have taken or the party they attended.
Enough is enough, the time has come for us to start giving a voice to the voiceless victims in this country!
Statistics vary and sadly many cases are not reported but most agree that South Africa is the rape capital of the world. Police crime statistics released in September 2012 state that in 2011/2012 there were a total of 9 193 sexual offences reported to the South African Police Services (SAPS) in the Western Cape, almost 27 cases per day.
One Medical Research Council study among men from the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal showed a devastatingly casual familiarity with rape – more than 25% of the men questioned admitted to raping someone. A poll in 1999 among 1500 schoolboys in Soweto showed most thought "jackrolling", or gang rape, was "fun".
I am no expert but when we have a 13 year old in school being raped, stabbed and left for dead we know we have a problem that is bigger than we think. We know we have entered questioning times when we have victims like Anene Booysen whose tragedies are sensationalised by political parties but forgotten by communities.
With less than 10 percent of cases resulting in conviction the victims are being made to feel like perpetrators because of the length of the skirts they wear, the pictures they might have taken or the party they attended.
Enough is enough, the time has come for us to start giving a voice to the voiceless victims in this country!
Thursday, 30 May 2013
"To this day" by Shane Koyczan
Stumbled across this video and i personally found it to be profound. So take the 12 or so minutes to really listen to what he says.
Friday, 24 May 2013
Things i wish i knew back THEN!
My niece is entering her teen phase and she asked me a very interesting question recently about things i wish i knew when i was a teen. This made me sit and ponder on lessons learnt from that very testing time when i was a little miss know it all.
I wished someone had informed me:
That i can do or be anything - That there wasn't limitations set by the world for my dreams as long as i worked hard. Oh and that 9-5 was overrated if i got stuck in something that i wasn't passionate about and that didn't get me excited.
The choice is always yours - Life doesn't randomly happen, in the end we choose what and who you keep in it. In the end you need to take responsibility for your choices, the earlier to start the sooner you will see different perspectives.
Be different - Conforming to the norm is boring, don't try to be who you are not. Be the original you, not a carbon copy of someone else. So many young people try to be other people and in the process loose themselves to the ills of the world.
Never hand over your power or take things too personally - If you hand it over now chances are you will go through your entire life doing it too. Walk away from the arguments that you don't see fit to be in and fight for the ones you believe passionately in.
Have faith and start believing while you young - The older you get the more you realise God is actually very real and that if you believed a little more in His plan and a little less in your wants, things may have turned out pretty different.
In the end i think life teaches you what you need to know on the journey!
I wished someone had informed me:
That i can do or be anything - That there wasn't limitations set by the world for my dreams as long as i worked hard. Oh and that 9-5 was overrated if i got stuck in something that i wasn't passionate about and that didn't get me excited.
The choice is always yours - Life doesn't randomly happen, in the end we choose what and who you keep in it. In the end you need to take responsibility for your choices, the earlier to start the sooner you will see different perspectives.
Be different - Conforming to the norm is boring, don't try to be who you are not. Be the original you, not a carbon copy of someone else. So many young people try to be other people and in the process loose themselves to the ills of the world.
Never hand over your power or take things too personally - If you hand it over now chances are you will go through your entire life doing it too. Walk away from the arguments that you don't see fit to be in and fight for the ones you believe passionately in.
Have faith and start believing while you young - The older you get the more you realise God is actually very real and that if you believed a little more in His plan and a little less in your wants, things may have turned out pretty different.
In the end i think life teaches you what you need to know on the journey!
Wednesday, 6 March 2013
Tuesday, 19 February 2013
OUR GRANDMOTHERS
She lay, skin down on the moist dirt,
the canebrake rustling
with the whispers of leaves, and
loud longing of hounds and
the ransack of hunters crackling the near
branches.
She muttered, lifting her head a nod toward
freedom,
I shall not, I shall not be moved.
She gathered her babies,
their tears slick as oil on black faces,
their young eyes canvassing mornings of madness.
Momma, is Master going to sell you
from us tomorrow?
Yes.
Unless you keep walking more
and talking less.
Yes.
Unless the keeper of our lives
releases me from all commandments.
Yes.
And your lives,
never mine to live,
will be executed upon the killing floor of
innocents.
Unless you match my heart and words,
saying with me,
I shall not be moved.
In Virginia tobacco fields,
leaning into the curve
of Steinway
pianos, along Arkansas roads,
in the red hills of Georgia,
into the palms of her chained hands, she
cried against calamity,
You have tried to destroy me
and though I perish daily,
I shall not be moved.
Her universe, often
summarized into one black body
falling finally from the tree to her feet,
made her cry each time in a new voice.
All my past hastens to defeat,
and strangers claim the glory of my love,
Iniquity has bound me to his bed,
yet, I must not be moved.
She heard the names,
swirling ribbons in the wind of history:
nigger, nigger bitch, heifer,
mammy, property, creature, ape, baboon,
whore, hot tail, thing, it.
She said, But my description cannot
fit your tongue, for
I have a certain way of being in this world,
and I shall not, I shall not be moved.
No angel stretched protecting wings
above the heads of her children,
fluttering and urging the winds of reason
into the confusion of their lives.
They sprouted like young weeds,
but she could not shield their growth
from the grinding blades of ignorance, nor
shape them into symbolic topiaries.
She sent them away,
underground, overland, in coaches and
shoeless.
When you learn, teach.
When you get, give.
As for me,
I shall not be moved.
She stood in midocean, seeking dry land.
She searched God's face.
Assured,
she placed her fire of service
on the altar, and though
clothed in the finery of faith,
when she appeared at the temple door,
no sign welcomed
Black Grandmother. Enter here.
Into the crashing sound,
into wickedness, she cried,
No one, no, nor no one million
ones dare deny me God. I go forth
alone, and stand as ten thousand.
The Divine upon my right
impels me to pull forever
at the latch on Freedom's gate.
The Holy Spirit upon my left leads my
feet without ceasing into the camp of the
righteous and into the tents of the free.
These momma faces, lemon-yellow, plum-purple,
honey-brown, have grimaced and twisted
down a pyramid of years.
She is Sheba and Sojourner,
Harriet and Zora,
Mary Bethune and Angela,
Annie to Zenobia.
She stands
before the abortion clinic,
confounded by the lack of choices.
In the Welfare line,
reduced to the pity of handouts.
Ordained in the pulpit, shielded
by the mysteries.
In the operating room,
husbanding life.
In the choir loft,
holding God in her throat.
On lonely street corners,
hawking her body.
In the classroom, loving the
children to understanding.
Centered on the world's stage,
she sings to her loves and beloveds,
to her foes and detractors:
However I am perceived and deceived,
however my ignorance and conceits,
lay aside your fears that I will be undone,
for I shall not be moved.
By: Maya Angelou
(out of the book a Heart of a Woman)
the canebrake rustling
with the whispers of leaves, and
loud longing of hounds and
the ransack of hunters crackling the near
branches.
She muttered, lifting her head a nod toward
freedom,
I shall not, I shall not be moved.
She gathered her babies,
their tears slick as oil on black faces,
their young eyes canvassing mornings of madness.
Momma, is Master going to sell you
from us tomorrow?
Yes.
Unless you keep walking more
and talking less.
Yes.
Unless the keeper of our lives
releases me from all commandments.
Yes.
And your lives,
never mine to live,
will be executed upon the killing floor of
innocents.
Unless you match my heart and words,
saying with me,
I shall not be moved.
In Virginia tobacco fields,
leaning into the curve
of Steinway
pianos, along Arkansas roads,
in the red hills of Georgia,
into the palms of her chained hands, she
cried against calamity,
You have tried to destroy me
and though I perish daily,
I shall not be moved.
Her universe, often
summarized into one black body
falling finally from the tree to her feet,
made her cry each time in a new voice.
All my past hastens to defeat,
and strangers claim the glory of my love,
Iniquity has bound me to his bed,
yet, I must not be moved.
She heard the names,
swirling ribbons in the wind of history:
nigger, nigger bitch, heifer,
mammy, property, creature, ape, baboon,
whore, hot tail, thing, it.
She said, But my description cannot
fit your tongue, for
I have a certain way of being in this world,
and I shall not, I shall not be moved.
No angel stretched protecting wings
above the heads of her children,
fluttering and urging the winds of reason
into the confusion of their lives.
They sprouted like young weeds,
but she could not shield their growth
from the grinding blades of ignorance, nor
shape them into symbolic topiaries.
She sent them away,
underground, overland, in coaches and
shoeless.
When you learn, teach.
When you get, give.
As for me,
I shall not be moved.
She stood in midocean, seeking dry land.
She searched God's face.
Assured,
she placed her fire of service
on the altar, and though
clothed in the finery of faith,
when she appeared at the temple door,
no sign welcomed
Black Grandmother. Enter here.
Into the crashing sound,
into wickedness, she cried,
No one, no, nor no one million
ones dare deny me God. I go forth
alone, and stand as ten thousand.
The Divine upon my right
impels me to pull forever
at the latch on Freedom's gate.
The Holy Spirit upon my left leads my
feet without ceasing into the camp of the
righteous and into the tents of the free.
These momma faces, lemon-yellow, plum-purple,
honey-brown, have grimaced and twisted
down a pyramid of years.
She is Sheba and Sojourner,
Harriet and Zora,
Mary Bethune and Angela,
Annie to Zenobia.
She stands
before the abortion clinic,
confounded by the lack of choices.
In the Welfare line,
reduced to the pity of handouts.
Ordained in the pulpit, shielded
by the mysteries.
In the operating room,
husbanding life.
In the choir loft,
holding God in her throat.
On lonely street corners,
hawking her body.
In the classroom, loving the
children to understanding.
Centered on the world's stage,
she sings to her loves and beloveds,
to her foes and detractors:
However I am perceived and deceived,
however my ignorance and conceits,
lay aside your fears that I will be undone,
for I shall not be moved.
By: Maya Angelou
(out of the book a Heart of a Woman)
Friday, 15 February 2013
When it gets Crazy..
It feels like overnight life just got crazy busy and i am doing my best to catch up and keep up. I am not complaining, it is a good kind of busy. The kind that keeps me on my toes and has me making direct future plans. It’s been a bit of an adjustment, but I think I've found my new rhythm or at least i am definitely getting there.
Funny how the pace of life changes from time to time and how it is up to us to move with it and not against it.
It is a challenge but I am learning:
Funny how the pace of life changes from time to time and how it is up to us to move with it and not against it.
It is a challenge but I am learning:
- To bask in the moment - even if there are very few; i am allowing myself the pleasure of enjoying it and pausing here and there so i can reflect and share the moment.
- To do the me things first before i extend myself to the outside world. Like the Beatles said " And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make"; you have to receive something first before you know how to give it. So before i share my space and my experiences, i am taking the time to receive and in the end to give completely.
- To commit to things and see them through, even if i hate it or it challenges me and my comfort zones. I want to be fully engaged in the now and consciously move on to the next chapter or cycle.
I have come to realise that life does not stay stagnant; it is always moving, always shifting, and evolving onto the next sequence of chapters. When life is slow, let it be (you will look back and miss those days) and when it is rapid put on those dancing shoes and get moving.
Life is not as long as we might think so when it gets crazy (like mine) enjoy it, have fun and learn the lessons.
Wednesday, 30 January 2013
Remembering...
My uncle was a remarkable man, he lived his life with such vigour and ease. He was a silent man most of the time yet when he walked into a room you would know that he is there.
He was sometimes hard headed and cocky but he loved being the only uncle we had; he relished being the big brother to his 4 bossy sisters (my mom and aunts), a husband and a father to his sons. As a teenager he use to knock down my room door just to check if i am alive, he is one of the few that never saw my eccentric nature as weird. He literally just let me go with it and i loved him dearly for that.
Knowing his really gone is harder than we all thought it would be, even though we have had months to prepare for it and say our "goodbyes" there still feels like a decade has been left unsaid.
His wife will miss him most as she watches their grand kids grow up and their sons marry off and start their own lives. My mom and her sisters will also miss their steadfast brother, even though they have years of memories he won't be a phone call away anymore. He won't be there anymore.
In all this sadness i take heart in knowing that God called him home at the right time and He has my uncle safely nestled against His side watching us all as we continue to soldier on. I pray his soul has found peace and that he knows he was loved and will always be missed.
“It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” ― Rose Kennedy
In loving memory of my Uncle Greg
26 January 2013
He was sometimes hard headed and cocky but he loved being the only uncle we had; he relished being the big brother to his 4 bossy sisters (my mom and aunts), a husband and a father to his sons. As a teenager he use to knock down my room door just to check if i am alive, he is one of the few that never saw my eccentric nature as weird. He literally just let me go with it and i loved him dearly for that.
Knowing his really gone is harder than we all thought it would be, even though we have had months to prepare for it and say our "goodbyes" there still feels like a decade has been left unsaid.
His wife will miss him most as she watches their grand kids grow up and their sons marry off and start their own lives. My mom and her sisters will also miss their steadfast brother, even though they have years of memories he won't be a phone call away anymore. He won't be there anymore.
In all this sadness i take heart in knowing that God called him home at the right time and He has my uncle safely nestled against His side watching us all as we continue to soldier on. I pray his soul has found peace and that he knows he was loved and will always be missed.
“It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” ― Rose Kennedy
In loving memory of my Uncle Greg
26 January 2013
Wednesday, 23 January 2013
Thursday, 17 January 2013
"New Things"
Before i delve into this new years list of goals I'd like to reflect on the year i have left behind. It was not the easiest of years to begin with, dealing with sick parents, hospitalisation and some curve balls that in essence led to some incredible revelations.
It was a year of closing chapters, leaving things behind, finishing projects and moving on.
It was one of those years you couldn't help but grow in. One of deep thought about life, love, loss and the world (in my head i think i have probably gone over solutions on world peace more times than most).
Reflecting back 2012 i realise it was a year of finding more of myself, the stressful bits and all.
For 2013 there is NO RESOLUTION for my goals are simple:
I am looking forward to the nail biting challenge of getting through this one still intact.
It was a year of closing chapters, leaving things behind, finishing projects and moving on.
It was one of those years you couldn't help but grow in. One of deep thought about life, love, loss and the world (in my head i think i have probably gone over solutions on world peace more times than most).
Reflecting back 2012 i realise it was a year of finding more of myself, the stressful bits and all.
For 2013 there is NO RESOLUTION for my goals are simple:
- Good Health
- To nurture great relationships
- To learn and keep grounded - life would be boring if i wasn't learning a thing or two from it.
- To love
I am looking forward to the nail biting challenge of getting through this one still intact.
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