Finding the man

There are two Christian women who do not know each other whom I both respect who have both fallen in love with unlikely gentlemen. They carry God's presence and God's love like few can boast. I love being around them. They are both getting married to lovely men. Both stories are unconventional. One of these women said to me "sometimes you must love these men into Christ". These words would of course been seen as a complete heresy. Quite frankly I myself have been radically impacted by this woman's tangible love for Christ that it changed me. So I know without a doubt when she told me those words that she is not someone who is simply following her lust; nor is she driven by an unmet need or someone who will take scrapes of any left over pieces of love from any man who will offer. These are women who are overflowing with love, who find their satisfaction in God and this is precisely why their stories inspired me. In fact I think they may have inspired me into desiring a relationship that is that different or rather they have inspired me to see the folly of my own ways in having little interest in matters of love.

Unlike others who may see single hood as some kind of disease that God dishes out to those less favoured, I have been fairly proud of being single. I might have appeared humble about it, if I could have engraved it on my grave stone one day I would have written it there for all the world to see how single I was, and how great I was at it. I saw it as some kind of crown for the strong. It was my pride quite frankly and perhaps the last residue of a dying Christian feminist who does not even believe in feminism but thinks like one but would never ever admit to it. Having heard of these relationships has even brought that lie to light. It has inspired me to lay down even my most prestigious and rare "never-been-kissed-and-proud-of-it" crown. It took love like that to enable me to see myself clearly in the mirror and see the truth no one will tell me. Perhaps I was so good at disguising it that not only was it hidden from me but it was way too hidden for others to see it.


The reason I watch sport is because I love adrenaline. While they say that adrenaline is bad for you because it is like caffeine, it takes you up and then drops you. The experience of adrenaline charged moments are wonderful and memorable. In fact you can feed off them whenever you think of that moment again. I love watching people who are passionate about what they do, people who would give anything to win. While some people are stable and their relationships are stable and solid, that is good and necessary. One hopes for that, however, one hopes for passion too. As in the film "Shakespeare in Love" my favourite line of the film among many is "I want a love that overthrows life". When Jesus walked the earth it was not just another ordinary year on the year He was crucified. His words did overthrow life and the response towards Him was either extreme love and worship or extreme hatred that they nailed Him to the cross. This is why I love stories that are out of the ordinary. Unfortunately on the one hand I have been a great fan of love. I would cheer on anyone who embarks on this road and say "go ahead and do it for us too". I would give all the advice and scream on the sidelines like a fanatical sport fan and then when someone gets married I will walk away happy and I will say "yes, we won". I distinctly remember two moments of elation where I was most probably even on a higher cloud of euphoria than the people who actually got married. I remember the night Mthi and Lite got married, I was ecstatic and the night Nats and Craig got married I was too happy for someone who is not married. I was crazy happy. Like a fanatical sports fan who goes out to drink beers to celebrate a game they only watched but did not play. No one told me what I was doing all these years! This has all been brought about by these stories of these women I respect who dared to allow themselves to be led by love. I did not even go to these weddings I merely heard their stories and my world was rocked by just the shadows of their stories.

I will no longer brag about my singleness. I will do all I can to lay it down so that I can meet that strong gentleman. My pride has kept me from seeing him. My arrogance has wanted me to not even give him the possibility of a chance. My love for my own time and my own space has caused me not to create space for my dreams to yield for someone else's too. I have worshiped my unfulfilled dreams and this too must die, which must happen before I meet anyone. I want to tell myself to go and get a life! My self-sufficiency has caused me not to let another human being that close. My fears have caused me not to desire to be that vulnerable in case he is not there or he leaves me and that will bruise me as though I were the first human being in the planet that would have ever experienced that. But I do hope for someone who will love me both supernaturally and naturally, who will kiss my hand as though it were an extension of himself, but the part he loves the most about himself.


These stories also show us how deeply impactful each of our lives are. Your decisions are not your own, they have a ripple effect, sometimes it depends on how influential you are. These are the kind of women I aspire to be like in the impact of their lives in their love of God, in their wisdom and pursuit of God. This is not a story about rewriting verses so that you can date non-believers because these are believers. This is about love with a double impact, both natural and spiritual love. It is dynamic love that forces you to see with more than your natural eye but with eyes opened into the spirit in order to see what God is doing. For whatever is not of faith is sin, faith is being mindful of what God is doing or saying and then doing that or else it is not faith but dead religion. Religion is prescriptive without a brain but faith is active it responds to a living God in a particular moment. It is not about doing something wrong and hoping that God will bless your mess. Faith is pure at all times. It is truthful, it knows the voice of the One it follows.

My reflections on honour

True honour is the ability to show honour even to someone who disses honour.
(i.e.dishonour).


A story is told of a gentleman who once offered a seat to a lady. The lady refused the seat upset at the gentleman for giving her a seat she shouted: "I am not a lady!". To which he responded: "well I am a gentleman".

Perhaps there is no finer example of my thoughts on this matter.

Take your freedom and smoke it

Take your freedom and smoke it
You can take your freedom and smoke it
If your freedom means that I can only vote for your party
Where is that offer of freedom of choice
You can take your freedom and smoke it
Because you are not offering me a choice at all

Sometimes I like what Zuma is like
Sometimes I understand what Zille says
Sometimes I agree with what Malema represents
Yet if I cheer for Lindiwe
Do not tell me I am supporting a white party
If she does not get black support
How is it ever going to become a multiracial party
So if I am free let me support Lindiwe Mazibuko
Or you can take your freedom and smoke it
Because if I can’t choose I am not free anyway

First of all you do not own my freedom
My own grandfather died fighting for my own freedom
He died in the hands of a white government
My other grandfather’s brother was jailed for no reason
So he decided to give them a reason
Though the regime said a man of his colour could not be free
He gave himself the freedom to fight for his own freedom
Totally disregarding the powers that be even though it was really costly
So don’t you dare try to remote control my own freedom

My other grandfather’s house was raided by the apartheid government
They wanted to take all weapons from black people in case they were part of upoqo
My grandfather’s brother beaten bitterly for not complying with the white system
Am I now forced to comply with a new system?
I thought this was not a black system
I thought this was a rainbow nation
Where it no longer matters if I am black or white

I know you are going to tell me about economic freedom
I know the colour of poverty has been black for too long now
I am not proposing Desmond Tutu’s white tax
But the new government has been in charge for seventeen years
Surely by now there is no excuse to address poverty
So that poverty will no longer have a colour

Even Mandela was free of bitterness against the white man
So do not try to imprison me in your cell of hatred
I am free to love the white man who killed my grandfather
For fighting for black freedom
If you want to know why I stopped hating
I quickly learnt that hating is for the powerless
It deceives you with feelings of false power
Yet in truth the other man holds the remote control
Pressing whenever he wants to make you angry
And you live in His cell forever
And yet you never live
You never live
Freedom is the absence of hatred
It is the belief that you can do anything
You can vote for anyone you chose
Even if you find yourself in a system of bondage
You are powerful beyond measure
Because your freedom is within you
So you can take your freedom and smoke it

You can take your freedom and smoke it
If you want to imprison me in your system
Steve Biko’s blood is still speaking
Reminding me of the importance of a conscience
If I stop thinking and reasoning independently
Then I let his death be only in vain

O.R. Tambo’s voice is still speaking
Sisulu’s wisdom is still calling
Men we respected till the day of their death
Maybe we will never know true freedom
Till the day we mourn Stompie’s death
Till the day we apologise to all the families
Whose sons and daughters were necklaced
All in the name of freedom
All the shame and blood that bought us this freedom
Was not all glorious and pretty
On the day we quit covering it all up
Quit making excuses for what we suffered
Taking responsibilities for the pain we caused
If we will not
We can take our freedom and smoke it
It is not real until there is forgiveness and healing
It is not real until there is true forgiveness and healing

Then we can lay all our gold on Table Mountain
We can sprinkle it over a thousand hills
We can crown our children with it
When their mother’s minds are empowered
And no longer imprisoned and impoverished

I know the truth and reconciliation commission
Did not even scratch the surface
For all the atrocities done to our people
Secrets hidden in every corner of this nation
Where people died without being acknowledged
But maybe it will take every family
Having their own truth and reconciliation
One step closer to healing
If we do not take time to confess our pain and let it go
We can take our freedom and smoke it
There is no such thing as reconciliation without true justice
That is the kind of freedom I believe in
That is the kind of freedom I want to be called upon

by Siki Dlanga
29 Oct 2011


This poem has been waiting to be written but it was specifically pushed by the conversation I had on facebook when I congratulated Lindiwe Mazibuko on her becoming DA party leader in Parliament. Other fellow young blacks (mid 20's and early 30's) like myself also congratulated her however a brave black lady a bit older than us decided that we had lost the plot. Do we not remember what the whites did to blacks in the past, so how can we endorse a white party? I truly honour sis Thami for her open challenge. I myself know very little about the DA I could never speak extensively to defend the DA, having lived in Cape Town I have always been on the cautious side unsure if I could trust the DA or if the DA cared for me a black person in Cape Town. However when I saw Lindiwe rise perhaps because she is a young black woman I naturally wanted to support her and naturally thought let us watch and see. We need some change after all while others may argue that there is no change since Joe Seremane once occupied that very same post before. I must say that I was never convinced about Mr Seremane. I am certain that he is the additional reason why I never believed in the DA because I felt as though they were using him as a black face.
Which is quite insulting if you ask me. I was also mad at him for allowing that to be done to him. Perhaps my view was incorrect however I was not convinced at all, the whole thing to me seemed wrong. I am however convinced that Lindiwe knows what she wants and she is there to get it. Whether it will bring transformation or whatever else but what she certainly has done so far is stir the old black-white debate to the surface again, not that it is ever at rest. Her appointment is forcing questions of identity and transformation to be addressed in the nation's heart, either blatant resistance to the possibility of a happy co-existance of whites and blacks in this nation or a belief that perhaps we can live together and that party politics can cross racial lines. Once again I want to thank sis'Thami from facebook who thinks the ANC is the only party for black people in South Africa even at its worst. I thank her for her honesty because it is a necessary debate which many have spoken of time and time again. I myself have sold my soul to no party and I pray that it may remain so, because the day I sell my soul is the day I will lose all objectivity and for me that will be losing my very freedom. I am loyal to God and may that be so forever, thus far I have never voted for the DA. I don't know if I ever will or whether Lindiwe can inspire that or not. Like many have posted on facebook "now we will watch and see". All I know is that I am absolutely free individual, no one owns me but God and even Him I have freely given myself to Him because He has first freely given Himself to me. No party can ever achieve that.

Love again

I tell you the more I think,

the more I feel that.....

there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
- Vincent van Gogh



One of my favourite, favourite quotes ever....

100 Thousand Poets

100 Thousand poets all over the globe speaking in different cities declaring matters that have been in the heart of the world in listenable form. Their tongue sharp therefore hitting the mark unlike just another headline. They spoke giving meaning and feelings and faces to the world headlines. They gave it substance unnumbing the world, giving the real perspective speaking for the victims, speaking on behalf of the earth. They were heavily beaded in African beads and dressed in bright coloured outfits. They were heavily spiritual their faces painted like monuments. They were a story and a tale if you would but only look at them. They were a 100 thousand poets and these were at the tip of Africa, in Cape Town meeting where the world is most likely to gather in Africa, in the popular Long street. They said, they spoke and I was left without words for they had said all that was to be said in the world in one day.


‎100 Thousand Poets

100 thousand poets
Gathered
Scattered
...
In every corner of the globe
Speaking
Releasing
Power in their tongue
Melody in their words

100 thousand poets
Spattering rhymes
Whispering world cries
Wailing over human issues
Causing solutions

100 thousand pleas
100 thousand loves
100 thousand poets
speaking for all the world

In the end
Though only an audience
I had no words left to say
For they spoke all
That had to be said
In the world
In one day

© siki dlanga
26 Sept 2011

Living is Believing

You need to believe in yourself very strongly incase you find yourself in a place where no one else does.

You need people who believe in you strongly incase you lose faith in yourself because sometimes you do.

You need to believe that you were made by a Genius and that Genius wants you to shine more than you would ever want to, because He does.

You need to shine because you were made to shine and glorify God.

The fullness of life that is yours and my inheritance demands faith from us or else we shall surely die.

We will be breathing but we will not be alive if we do not believe.

It is essential to check your faith levels because that is a test of whether you are dead or alive.

Living: Beyond Breathing

I will not stop living because there are people dying.

I will not stop celebrating children because someone else is destroying them.

I will not stop loving because of betrayal.

I will not stop attempting great things because of failure.

I will love. I will live. I will believe as though it were my first day because that is my full inheritance.

No, I will not stop.

I will not stop being fully alive to life because of fear.

I will not be defined by disappointment.

This is my new day, every day.