idelette

It’s 11:34pm and, thankfully, still Mandela Day in Vancouver. After pouring out 67 minutes repeatedly over the course of the day, trying to instill love and peace in three young ones, It seems fitting that I would reflect on former-President Nelson Mandela’s humanity.

Here’s the thing: I was rather surprized recently when I watched a conversation between three editors on lessons in leadership from Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama.

Rick Stengel, author of Mandela’s Way and Managing Editor of TIME magazine commented that people often said to him they couldn’t believe Mandela was not bitter or angry. Stengel responded: “He’s incredibly bitter and angry but he realized he could not show that.” Instead, Mandela as leader chose to embody forgiveness, peace and reconciliation. (Stengel’s comments come around the 4-minute mark.)

I didn’t want to hear that about a hero. Somehow bitterness and anger did not fit my picture of this superhuman.

Maybe it’s forcing me to come to grips with the fact that leaders, too, are human. (Hello!) More than that, though, I’m thinking about the calibre of leadership that has actually shown: A man who could rise above even his own emotions to do what his country and his people needed at the time.

I could take some lessons.

Thoughts?

Question: What will you do with your 67 Mandela minutes to make this world a better place?

Photo credit: I found the Mandela picture (above) here.

He’s photographed Britney Spears, Pres. Barack Obama and Switchfoot. When the earthquake hit Haiti, Jeremy Cowart headed to the devastated nation to capture the stories of a suffering, but courageous people through his lens. Now he’s posting these images–one per day for 60 days–on his website Voices of Haiti, and selling the prints. All proceeds go to A Home in Haiti.org

Jeremy asked each person he photographed a very simple question: What do you have to say about all this?

They scribbled answers with black marker on cardboard paper. One man wrote his response on a piece of plywood. They didn’t get a say in having their lives shaken to the core, but Cowart has given them a voice in expressing what is on their hearts. Needless to say, the responses are powerful.

“Where will I go when it rains?” writes a man standing on a pile of rubble where once there might have been a house with a roof. The quake destroyed over 250,000 houses and people fear the pending rainy season. That’s where A Home in Haiti comes in, an action created by Shaun King, pastor of Courageous Church. A Home in Haiti is working to get 200,000 quality, waterproof tents to Haiti as soon as possible. Hurricane season, according to their website, is 58 days away.

Cowart’s images capture a range of realities for the people in Haiti. A man, sitting on a bed with a bandaged, amputated leg holds up his piece of paper: “Having my leg chopped off is nothing. What troubles me is my country’s government.” Cowart comments: “Haitians can get through injury and suffering. But they still need leadership.“

A grateful young mother, holding her two children close writes: “The fact that I’m still alive does not mean I’m better than the others. It’s just a gift from God.” Mathieu, who lost two siblings in the quake, is a voice for hope. He writes, even while standing in the rubble: “The earth can shake but Haiti remains in my heart.”

Again, Cowart has proven himself as photographer, as he puts it, “to the stars and the suffering.” I am just so grateful for someone like him who is offering his talents towards this great cause.

Idelette’s note: I didn’t buy one of Cowart’s prints today, but I did just purchase a Eureka Tetragon 5 Adventure 7-Foot by 5-Foot Two-Person Tent for someone in Haiti and had Amazon.com ship it to Shaun King’s Courageous Church. I did my little bit. I hope you will too.

Here are three ways you can make a difference in the lives of the people in Haiti today:

1. Purchase one of Jeremy Cowart’s prints here.

2. Buy a tent to shelter people from the rain.

3. Donate cash to A Home in Haiti.

Today is Human Trafficking Awareness Day.

Some facts about Human Trafficking or modern-day slavery:
27 million people are enslaved on the earth today.
80 percent are women.
50 percent are children.

What is Human Trafficking?
According to the United Nations, human trafficking is the illegal movement of people, within national or across international borders for the purposes of exploitation in the form of commercial sex, domestic service or manual labour.

Human trafficking is an illegal industry that generates between US$7-32 billion annually. It is now the second largest criminal industry.

Taking Action

Here are some great websites and organizations who are bringing justice and freedom to slaves, locally and around the world:

Local (Vancouver, BC)
Resist Exploitation, Embrace Dignity (REED)

Global:

“ I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. That is the way Jesus came to reveal God’s love.”
–Henri Nouwen, In The Name Of Jesus (Via Blaine Hogan)

I like this quote for the vulnerability it calls out. The willingness to lay down our ideas about what we can offer a world. It takes off some of the obnoxious, the know-it-all, the expert.

I like barefoot.

But I do think Jesus was relevant to His community and to His world. Jesus was relevant to the woman at the well. Jesus was relevant to Jairus’ daughter. Jesus was relevant to Mary.

Jesus is very relevant to me today, whether I’m a mommy under a pile of laundry or a woman looking for answers.

Whether relevant or not, today I stand, with nothing to offer but my own vulnerable self on a journey. I’m thankful Jesus meets me here.

Fun can obviously change our behavior for the better.
(Via Leonard Sweet)

A Prayer
by Joe Seramane

“You asked for my hands
that you might use them for your purposes
I gave them for a moment then withdrew them
for the work was hard.

You asked for my mouth
to speak out against injustice.
I gave you a whisper that I might not be accused.

You asked for my eyes
to see the pain of poverty.
I closed them for I did not want to see.

You asked for my life
that you might work through me .
I gave you a small part that I might not get “too involved.”

Lord, forgive me for calculated efforts to serve you
only when it is convenient for me to do so, and
only in those places where it is safe to do so,
and only with those who make it easy to do so.

Father, forgive me
renew me
send me out
as a usable instrument,
that I may take seriously the meaning of your cross.”

© Joe Seramane, South Africa, from Lifelines, Christian Aid, 1987
(Thanks, Danielle, one of the most awake women on the planet.)

Who knew what bloody mess I was letting myself into when I pushed that first eight pound four ounces of human being into the world? She came out crying, like they’re supposed to, and she was beautiful and the whole motherhood thing was all too surreal.

I, who had changed one diaper before in my life, was now a mother. My life’s ambitions had been so different, but I had tasted lots of Adventure and was ready for this one. Or so I thought. When seed met sperm, I was just thankful that my little human responsibility didn’t arrive by courier overnight, but that I became expanded, slowly at first, over those nine months of waiting.

Then she arrived and I held her to my breast and we started figuring things out together. I began an adventure into stretching that even my expanded belly couldn’t have imagined.

That first daughter was born a pioneer, always conquering new frontiers. And like on that first day she showed up, she keeps birthing me into these new places.

She was there with me through my first few months of surrender. She pushed me into it. Whenever I wanted to do what I wanted to do, she insisted that we do what she wanted to do. She was not even a few months old and, of course, being the adult, I relented. Finally, when she was about six months old, I laid it all down. I laid down my expectations of what life was meant to look like now. I laid down my dreams, because it had become clear that our lives were now inextricably linked and it wasn’t about to change. My life no longer belonged to myself, but my responsibilities and dependencies crawled around outside of me.

I couldn’t imagine life without her anymore and I didn’t have time to do much else, so I had to change. I had to lay down pretty much every piece of certainty I had carved out about myself in the previous years. What I needed? It didn’t matter. I had to learn to function at the level of absolute necessity. She pushed me to become clear about what was really important in my life and helped me get my priorities straight. I was finally beginning to grow up.

On that day she moved through me and out of me, I had started off on a journey I had absolutely no clue about. I wasn’t a girl who had given much thought to motherhood. I just imagined it would work well with the life of a writer, because I could be at home and the kids would be at home too. So I thought we’d be ok.

As the months passed, I finally began finding my feet beyond diapers, naptimes, feedtimes and laundry. I began adjusting to my new responsible, mothering life. Then, when she was nine months old, we were getting ready to fly off to South Africa—to introduce our daughter to family and friends there—including a ten-day stopover in the south of France first.

Two days before we flew off to the vineyards of Pézenas, Beziers and eventually Stellenbosch, two days before I could taste the brie and every round of unpasteurized cheese that existed in the Languedoc-Roussillon region, I took a pregnancy test.

As the positivity surfaced and became a bold red line across the pee stick, I realized I had more expanding to do. Apparently there was more I needed to learn and still more I needed to lay down, starting with the world’s best red wines and, yes, all that cheese in France.

The question I wrote in my journal this morning was: What will change on this earth if you rise up today?

This question came out of the words in Judges 5: 7
[Life changed dramatically in Israel (my words)]
because you arose, Deborah,
arose as a mother in Israel.”

Today, my “rise up” comes out of a piece of information I have been carrying this past week.

Last week, while sitting comfortably in the stylist chair, catching up on some magazine time, I found this article in Elle Canada of August 2009 called “Out of Africa,” with the subhead: “In East Africa women are paying for a horrific war with their bodies. Can they fight back” (Unfortunately no copy of it available online. So glad I unashamedly asked to take their copy home.)

The horrendous story of what is going on with women in the Congo (DRC) is not new to me. What is new, is this little bit of information that I had somehow not caught onto before and stirs up the warrior in me.

“In 2005, the United Nations passed the Responsibility to Protect, which stipulates that governments must ensure the safety of its citizens and protect them from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. If they fail to do so, the international community can intervene.”

The international community can intervene. The international community can intervene.

“So far, no foreign government has made an effort to stop the rapes in the DRC.”

Why not? I know many answers. Blah-blah-blah. I am so done with the control and greed, the silence and apathy. I am ready for change in the Congo. I am just not satisfied with apathy.

May the righteous anger today and the prayers I am seriously crying out with every part of my being right now, birth change into this injustice. Come on, world. I know Heaven is crying out for change in this story of women in the Congo. And change can only come through us.

As a daughter of Apartheid, I know that pressure from the international community can availeth much. As a daughter of the King, I know the prayers of a righteous person availeth even more.

Our prayers alone are also not enough either, but it is what I can do today. Please pray with me. Stand with me. Rise up with me today. I will not be satisfied until Kingdom comes in the Congo as it is in heaven.

My Amen today is a, Come On!

Lord, hear our cries.
Earth, hear the cries of your women.
Women, hear the cries of our sisters.

Note on the photo: I found the image of the woman fleeing the violence in Eastern Congo here, but it refers to it being accessed at z.about.com I couldn’t find it there, but I couldn’t get this image out of my consciousness, so I decided to use it anyway. I hope that’s okay.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of selfishness. But in that casket–safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable … “
–C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, as quoted in Mending the Soul by Steven R. Tracy.