YES WE CAN! CHANGE HAS COME! PRESIDENT OBAMA

Obama is President

I had no idea just how much it would affect me!
Not to this extent.

In the turn of the millennium many celebrities and politicians around the world were asked: "what will this millennium be about?"
They all individually said: "it's the African millennium" (African Americans including themselves in that)

and O boy were they correct!

May this inspire all Africans (please! no more corruption) let's get on with it and be inspired by how great we can be.

A part of me weeps for being favoured to be born in such a time as this while the ones before us suffered for the colour of their skin. Here we are celebrating and standing on their tears, their blood, their many prayers and songs - they looked forward to a time to come and we are that which they dreamt of.

May this teach every human being that no human being should be treated inferior to another no matter who and what they are - all human beings are equally superior. May this teach us to uphold one another and celebrate and encourage, inspire one another to be all that we were created to be. No human being is less than another.

I listened to one of Obama's speeches as he said to get all his voters revved up; "This campaign isn't about me." he paused there was a dramatic silence; "this is about you!" the crowd went wild.
I thought ya, he is very good. He knows just what to say to get people excited but this morning the effect it has had on me first as a black person, I was besides myself. I was so affirmed. I felt all affirmative action must be removed we don't need it anymore how much more can one be more affirmed!
…but on a serious note - I felt like I was worth far more that a million dollars. (of which it is true)

I went to the mirror and I screamed "I am black" "I am black" and it felt soooooo good though it pained me to think that I am the first generation after those who wondered why God made them black.

This is less about colour than it teaches us that no human being should ever be mistreated. We are all made in the image of God and that makes us equally great and equally special. May wars end.

Change has come. HALLELUAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DREAMS OF MANDELA (PERMISSION TO BE BRILLIANT) – Siki Dlanga

In a dream I wrote you a speech. I was important enough to be in the same room as you. No, I will be honest in the dream I was still not important. It was the fact that I only had my name which holds no weight that made me feel significantly more important to you in the midst of great names. In your presence was every reason to feel so much more significant because it was dreams of my freedom that kept you imprisoned for 27 years.

I looked at your face and it lit. Lit by dreams that have been fulfilled as you looked back at me. Your aspirations would be fulfilled through me, my friends and grow through our children. I would love to see you but I would rather I gave you rest so that you would greet one less person and have more rest so I visited you in a dream. I remained brilliant for at least 2 whole minutes. My heart spoke a fresh word because I had seen your face in the reality of my dream. I tried to read my speech but my words diminished because your person filled the room in a way that contrarily suddenly made me feel great.

What makes you so much greater is that our country is rich in resources and minerals. We have diamonds and mines rich with different kinds of gold as if it were all not enough, we have you. In that moment my heart realised your South Africanness makes us so much more affluent.

The name Mandela now robes the hills, the mountains, seas and islands of our country with a royal mantle of dignity and honours anyone who calls themselves South African. Your name adorns our many coloured flag with admiration. Your name is no lesser currency or wealth than the gold and minerals of our land.

The children covered by your 46664 campaign will benefit not only for themselves but their children’s children also. You gave us a future. By your life you lifted the lid that kept us in captivity in the land our predecessors had once freely grazed their cattle. By your carefully chosen words as you declared the new South Africa born you made us realise our own greatness. You challenged us to get out of our inferiority complexes’ and gave us permission to be brilliant.

I know there is a God because it had to take a superior-being to design such a master plan. We were a country that was so broken and desperate for a miracle. You are the perfect miracle at 90 you still amaze us.

Last year in the 90 minutes for Mandela, I wrote a poster hoping the camera man might put it on TV but decided to etch it in my dreams. It reads; “you have shown us how great we can be. My gift to you is that you will not be the last great South African because there is nothing enlightening about shrinking back.”

First published on mynews24.com

the promise is that the end is better than the beginning

“Better is the end of a thing than its beginning:
and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”

I can feel the year ending. There’s something exciting about the prospect of an end, even the year is already feeling different. Perhaps the promise of the end promises a new beginning.
It is possibly the reason I am excited about the idea of turning 30 and then eventually getting much older - now I understand why I find aged beings so appealing. They always seem to have it all together. There's this calming effect about them.

I happened to attend a music concert this past weekend and to my surprise there were a whole lot of grey heads. (We think life is only for the young don't we?)

I had the privilege to witness the sweetest deep love between an old couple that sat next to me. This was genuine love that had found it's security over many years. It was like a gold mine of love. Love was in the way they took turns in touching each other's hands gently, love was written in their slightest glance at one another as if they could read what the other felt or needed. Words were no longer necessary. There was no performance to impress. Beautiful rest reigned between them. Each moment they had with one another was thoroughly enjoyed as if they were aware that their bodies would soon expire any day now.

I took much pleasure in the music but those grey heads were quite a sight, Though others were 40, 50 etc. but there was this calm and rest that seemed to come with age and somehow I felt safe in that kind of environment. I didn’t know any of them and now to think of it the only person I knew in that entire room was the friend I’d come to watch as she performed. She obviously could not sit with me. However, I have never felt myself relax so quickly in a place full of strangers.

It came to mind that God did not just create a uniform generation where everyone is the same age. I concluded that the co-existence of different generations bring balance to each another.

Better is the END of a thing than it is beginning.

Eccl 7:8
I will be a very cool old person. I know ;)

beautiful piece of dirt

Hey you…

Hey you beautiful piece of dirt
Aren’t you fascinated by that image starring back at you
Lines on your hands
Blood flowing through your veins
You are alive but are you living
How long did it take to carve you
Heart pumping and you’re not even aware
You’re sacred art

Hey you beautiful piece of dirt
That’s what I sometimes want to say when I see me-you
next time I see you don’t take offense
if I say ‘Hey you beautiful piece of dirt’
and don’t steal my line to pick up a girl

I am subtle sculpture made of the first clay
No that’s Adam’s sons
I’m made of the glittering glowing rib
Refined twice thrice by the Spirit
I am sacred art given a permanent voice

I am because He is
My brokenness can be traced back to the garden
My perfection to the death and the resurrection of the last Adam
My life is as short as delicate as a flower
My existence is meant to be forever
What will it cause it to blossom
Path’s been destined
Free unblemished glorious forever

God soooooo loved!

so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him.
He who believes on Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.

as I read this and I am compelled to sing.

What love. What kindness.

What good news. O What a Kind generous God!

He so loved. sooooo loved - He soooo loved the world that He did it!

He gave His only begotten Son that anyone who believes - anyone!

I'm most certainly anyone this is good news so I can BE SAVED IF I WILL BELIEVE!

OOOO shall i sing or shall I dance!

He did not do this to condemn but specifically to save.

what hope. what life. what a mighty God!

At 90 still we say: “VIVA Mandela!”

I heard some phenominal things this morning.

you know this whole talk about Obama – how South Africans keep saying where is our Obama? it annoys me because we have Mandela and great as Obama is he is not Nelson. maybe because he is old and Obama is the new. i don't care...we still have Madiba.

there is nothing stopping anyone of ourselves from being brilliant, great or gorgeous. "who are we not to be?"

anyway, i was watching Morning Live this morning and i heard the most phenominal things about Mandela. the most powerful thing that seems to strike people is who he is rather than what he is has done. the amazing thing about this for me is that not all of us are exceptionally gifted with all sorts of gifts. our gifts vary and that for me doesn't make the greatest singer or athlete or politician a great person - they are simply doing what they have been gifted with. however character you choose. a gift i don't thing is something to boast about. you don't make yourself a brilliant individual you are born with the gift. God-given. but character is something everyone of us can choose. we can choose to be incredible human beings in how we conduct ourselves and treat others. that to me is the most powerful aspect of humanity and being alive.

anyway Sipho Hot-Stick Mabuza (a South African musician) said of Mandela; "What struck me the most about being in the presence of Mandela was that in his presence suddenly everyone was equal. There were all kinds of celebrities, Will Smith, Ophra, Bill Clinton and all of a sudden you felt like you could just go up to Bill Clinton and talk to him. Everyone was equal."

i think that is the most phenominal thing ever said of any human being. It is almost godlike. in fact it is. we are all equal and that is the truth. all human beings are equal before God. and what is amazing is that - that is what he stood for and was imprisoned for he is what he stood for.

Viva Mandela!

South Africa vs the soccer pitch

by siki dlanga

Our eyes are glued to the television as Euro 2008 commences. We are addicted to watching men (lately women too) kicking the circular bouncy object around a field and get paid lots of money for it. We want to see goals. We scream at our television sets when they do or do not do something we can not even do ourselves. We demand delivery and are intolerant when we are failed.

This year Cristiano Ronaldo was voted the most handsome football player by women in Europe. I personally think the only handsome thing about the man is the way he plays and of course as the old Xhosa proverb says the beauty of a man is in the number of his cattle. In Ronaldo’s case it is his pounds. According to these measurements I agree with those women who voted for him but we know that is not the case. If you fail like Beckham did before the goal posts just a few times suddenly the votes go out the window. His beauty forgotten, betrayed by the very green pitch that had made him great and a favourite of women.

Then we move on to another not so bouncy sphere but faster than any other ball on earth, that old planet called earth. I am certain from a distant it looks like a peaceful tiny ball orbiting the sun like the rest of the other balls in the vast infinite pitch. Not unlike the other planets the earth never misses a turn. I have not lived for millions of years but I have never been more tempted to believe that earthly beings have never been found spinning with the earth to this degree. Of course we must spin with the earth but there is another kind that causes confusion. I am no expert in the matters of science or anything else I am a citizen of this earth for now and I can see my fellow earthlings spinning around like a ball without direction. We seem to be spinning and unable to find the net like Bafana Bafana when it really counts.

We watch the television set looking for someone who will score for us. We want a hero. A superhuman, someone who will make us feel like we have done it. We seem to be unable to live without it because the minute we step outside the screen, we are confronted with ourselves spinning around our pitch without direction. We keep coming back to the screen for some more because at least we think we have this figured out. If you fail us we will find another. But first we will let you know what a dismal failure you have been and how we cannot forgive you. We quickly throw you to the nearest bin and forget about you.

Now Mbeki is not playing the game the way we want him to. He is not saying the things we want to hear. He is not even listening let alone do we see a change in his facial expression when he says something. We forget the beautiful dream he painted and keeps inviting us to by his words. We forget how as women we have been given back our rightful place. We forget the good. We desperately look for another. Others vote for Zuma perhaps he will get us a goal we want. Others think surely this one or that. Change is good but change does not need to be accompanied by negativity.

Others opt to think there is no way out of this mess. We let our minds escape across the sea and find another hero somewhat linked to Africa. He impresses us with his speeches. We say we need our own forgetting we have already had one. As I watch all this happening I can not stop feeling like what we are actually looking for is a saviour. A ruthless thing to ask of any human being. The world is no soccer match even though we still treat it is as thus. When we are unhappy we make signs on the sidelines of the pitch demanding a substitution. We cast our vote. But maybe we are all on the pitch. The position played by the crowned men and woman is as important as our own if we will take it as seriously. Perhaps, we have the same coach but we will not listen instead we pretend to be because we do not know our roles. We are displaced and therefore frustrated. The sphere spins. The wonderful thing about a time of crisis is that it has the ability to reveal the most extraordinary human beings. Please be kind to them when their humanity fails them at some point.