Getting In or Getting Out The Way...

There is a story about a man in the bible called Moses. Moses gets a vision from God of a land where the Israelite people are to live. This land is where they will thrive and put down roots. Moses is told that he has to lead these people to this land. At the end of the story there Moses is told he may not enter the land. So he climbs up a mountain and surveys the land from afar. Once he has seen it, he dies, and the Israelite people are taken into the land by someone else.

I always thought this story was unfair. Moses had journeyed with these people, put up with their crap and yet he cannot go into the land. What is God playing at?

I think the story revolves around a simple principle. Sometimes for things to thrive, we need to get involved, but at other points we need to get out the way. Our life attests to this dilemma. Birth is getting into the story and death is exiting the story.

I grew up in a country divided by race. In the last couple of years I have lived in Scotland and have watched the country develop and morph itself into where it is today. For good and bad this has been a journey I have not been part of.

In the past couple of years there has been a movement within the black communities of South Africa to redefine what it means to be black post 1994. What does education, politics, economic etc look like from a nonwhite perspective? A massive question is how do the current systems continue to perpetuated an unequal society? These are hard questions.

The big question for me is: do I become involved or do I set aside? Does the country need me or do I need to take a backseat?

I don't know the answer. However, what I know is that this principle of getting in the way or out the way follows us through life. Our words/presence/existence all speak to this tension within human psyche.

Maybe this is what the serenity prayer is at its heart. Maybe a new prayer for me is "Lord teach me when to get out the way"
.