The gate

As are many days in Durban, the day I will describe was a day of laughter and tears. I'm beginning to realize (sad, it's taken me so long) that this is inevitably the nature of life and ministry. The morning was stunningly beautiful and filled with preparations for Manning Road's multi-sensory, multi-media Faith and Science extravaganza. Nothing gives me a greater chuckle than seeing the senior pastor of a Methodist Church on video wearing snorkelling gear to interview people such as me (dressed up as Celine Dion), Darth Vader, and the church deacon (as the world's greatest Moses impersonator). It is truly a joy to work in a congregation where the pastors have such fantastic funny bones. On a broader level, it is truly poignant to live in a place where people have experienced and continue to feel immense communal pain and yet often display such profound hope and joy. Since my first night in South Africa, I have been overwhelmed by the hospitality and overtly shared joy of the people I have met here – the open smiles of people from all backgrounds. In hearing many of their stories and feeling the insidious stress that can creep into life here through the daily observance of and conversation about crime and related racial, political, and economic tensions, the smiles I see carry something deeper than our American, generally shallow understanding of “happiness.” The joy in many people here seems to have a great sense of rebellion, rebellion against being weighed down by pain and fear.

Such pain and fear, however, still does seem common in conversation and in daily living here. On this particular day, I finished my lunch of leftover fish, prepared and packed for my spoiled self by my doting host-mother and journeyed with our church secretary, Phelo, to Cato Manor, an enormous informal settlement just fifteen minutes away from our fairly wealthy church. There is no electricity in most parts of Cato Manor. There is no preparation for a multi-media extravaganza. On the edge of the settlement, there is, however, a school and a fortress-like library, wherein I found about fifty small boys out of school because of the strikes and watching a DVD. If not for the facts that a young man asked for my number in isiZulu on the steps outside, that inside the library several shelves are labelled "Zulu," that every face but mine is black, and that every poster on the notice board warns against HIV/AIDS and STIs, a visitor might think they had wandered overseas into a library in Durham, North Carolina. And actually, apart from the Zulu, such a scene could absolutely be found in Durham.

And yet, if you walk back outside, down the steps of the concrete fortress library, and turn right, you see what seems to me, the epitome of vulnerability. Cato Manor is one of the places where I am not supposed to go by myself. A debate in the office that morning between pastors even mulled over whether it was alright for me to go alone with Phelo without a man escorting us. Cato Manor is a place where I am told it is not safe to wear jewellery or carry my cell phone. As you look out over the hill, your eyes scan a horizon of shacks made out of cardboard and scrap metal, leaning on the Durban hills, planted among weeds and dirt paths. More small children run around, gawking at me confusedly. If you walk down the road a little ways, you see government construction being done on several cement block homes, creating a brighter "good" section of this largely displaced community. Taxi vans zigzag up and down the potholed road, stopping at unexpected moments to pick up men, women, and children, waiting on the side of the road to go into downtown Durban.

Downtown Durban and the Berea, where I live, are areas where children do not run around unless they are street children. Durban is a city where no yards adjoin and where every building has walls or a gate, an electric fence or barbed wire. When I ask people from Manning Road when all the walls went up and why, they inevitably sigh and begin to talk about the days before 1994 when people had gardens in their front yards and you could go into downtown Durban without being afraid of having your car hijacked.

I have so many security buttons and keys on my keychain that I actually have to divide my keys into three in order to create room for my hand to put my car key into the ignition. With one of those security buttons, I have the power to let people of my choosing in and out of the church gate, and I exercise that power in the church office every day, attempting to decipher between “legitimate” beggars and bishops. In that neighbourhood, people tell me often that they feel very vulnerable, and seemingly thousands of fortresses have been created to protect against the threat. And, it seems on many levels that the threat is real – within my first week here, two people were killed in a restaurant robbery at the end of my block, three other robberies took place in my neighbourhood, and someone had their car hijacked on the road of the church. I am sure many devastating things similar to these and worse happen in Cato Manor where there are no gates or even any real walls. So, I struggle with what it means to be vulnerable. I am continually asking myself and others from what, exactly, are we seeking protection? The Durban Children’s Home where I work has a high wall and gate, but that did not prevent two of the girls from running away two weeks ago. What is it that we are trying to protect or keep out with the walls (both physical and spiritual) that we put up? Is it our lives, or our fears, or our prejudices, or something entirely different?

Now, I do not want to die, and there have been many moments (particularly when learning better how to drive) when I seriously have been more afraid of that than ever before in my life. But, I do want to live, and I find that while I’ve been here, I have prayed more and relied more deeply on God for daily sustenance – for manna. I have found that life in general seems more outside the realm of my control here than it does at home, but it seems that this is really just helping me live into the reality that I was never in control in the first place. Over the past few weeks, the Scripture, Galatians 2:20, has emerged frequently. “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (NASB). I have used this Scripture to discuss with the youth at Manning Road the meaning of having a unique, beloved identity in Christ. This Scripture came up at a staff meeting, when discussing possible security threats to the church premises. And it is a Scripture that I grapple with daily, whether I am walking on the dirt paths of Cato Manor or down the sidewalk from my house to the mall. It is a Scripture that I struggle with whether I am laughing uncontrollably at a goofy joke with my colleagues or wiping away tears when a homeless man that I love comes to the communion rail for prayer. And, I hope that I will continue to struggle with the meaning of being crucified with Christ, along with all my fears and vulnerabilities, and being transformed into a new creation.

I hope I will continue to ask myself, other people, and God, about what it means to be vulnerable to humanity and to God. What does it mean to be safe? When I spoke to Gareth about my concerns and thoughts about remaining wisely vulnerable during my time here, he mentioned to me that Jesus said we are to be cunning as snakes and innocent as doves. It is true that we are given cunning brains, intuition, senses, and protective relationships with others for good reason. These things all make me aware of my environment so that I can attempt to live in wisdom and in rebellion against a life overrun with fear instead of succumbing to fear’s crippling effects. I do not yet know how the walls and gates, how the cardboard and scrap metal shacks, fit into this vision of life. But, in the midst of all of the chaos of a life that is beautifully and thankfully out of my control, I will continue to seek after the joy and the privilege that is this life in this place at this time. I will continue to seek manna in conversation with those who have much bread and those who beg for it daily. In that sense, I can only hope to be labelled a beggar, and I can only hope to be let in the gate.