Circle of Hope

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Steve Biko, in his essay White Racism and Black Consciousness wrote “In time, we shall be in a position to bestow on South Africa the greatest possible gift—a more human face.”  His idea was not limited to just showing South Africa-but restoring to the rest of people on the planet the important worldview more communitarian and a more people-before-stuff way to live.

I’m grateful that we have lots of opportunities to not only learn about Biko, but about the larger context of people that he spoke from.  One of those is the upcoming West African Drumming Classes

In getting ready for the next round of classes, some friends and I spent a few hours last night building drums (photo set here).
It takes a lot of hard work and a long time to just put a djembe together, before you can even play it (and play many together).  It is not a very rapid process, and we had some great conversations last night about how easier it would be to use a fiberglass drum and throw a synthetic head on it (rather than having to stretch an African goatskin across hand-carved wood).

How often we face a similar temptation with our spirituality.  Do we really have to be a community?  Do we really need to pull 100′ of rope just to be able to play a drum?  Does it have to stink like a dead goat from Guinea?  Isn’t there an easier way to get transformation?  Isn’t there a way that requires less time or effort to follow Jesus.

I’m reminded of the old African proverb that goes something like “if you want to go fast, go alone.  If you want to go far, go together.”  I guess you could try to find an easier way, or attempt to invent some trick to “get there” quicker with Jesus.  Even if you could, would you really want to?