John W. de Gruchy's blog

If my memory serves me correctly, I have now given eight Ascension Day meditations here at Volmoed. So let me confess that the thought of having to give another, and find something fresh to say, bothered me all week. What more is there to be said, I asked myself?

All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually as the Spirit chooses…and all the members of the body, though many, are one body.
 
I Corinthians 12:4-13
 

As you know, I have just come home from a conference at Assisi in Italy. The opening lecture was given by a distinguished professor from Northern Ireland whose specialty is conflict resolution. He was one of those instrumental in bringing about the end of the conflict in his own country, has visited South Africa several times, and has also been involved in the Palestine-Israel situation. The person who introduced him at the conference said that there was one embarrassing story he could tell about him, but would leave that to the speaker to tell if he felt so inclined. He did not!

I am reading Michael Moore’s autobiography aptly titled Here Comes Trouble. Moore, as you may know, is an Oscar-winning film maker and bestselling author, he is also a rather zany, off-the-wall kind of bloke. Moore was brought up a devout Catholic, thought of becoming a priest, but dropped out early along the way.

During the weeks of Lent we have been meditating on Jesus’ seven last words from the cross. We have heard him forgive those who put him to death, how he committed his mother Mary into the care of his beloved disciple John, assured the penitent brigand that he would be with him in paradise, heard his cry of thirst and of desolation. Next week we will think about his final words, but the words before the last are our focus today: “It is finished” (John 19:28-30).

The lead story on SAFM news I heard as I travelled into Stellenbosch this week was that South Africa faced a water crisis! This is not news, I said to myself! George Ellis the UCT scientist told me that twenty years ago when we were discussing the problems facing a rapidly growing Western Cape. And now, as we sadly know, the Bos Dam above Volmoed is less that 30 percent full and the ruins of an old house that was there before the dam was constructed and the land flooded in the 1970’s is eerily visible. It is a sad sight, as is the Onrus River that flows from the dam through Volmoed.

Jesus’ relationship to his mother was complex. On several occasions he treated her with an abruptness that seems completely out of character. Troubling as these might be to some, they resonate with our own experience of parenting if we have been blessed with children. There comes that moment when little Johnny is little no more, but has imperceptibly or more abruptly grown up and moved beyond our sphere of control. In doing so our children may develop in ways that we find puzzling or unacceptable.

When I get two e-mails from different people both commenting on the same subject, I know that this has got to have something to do with the week’s meditation. First, my daughter Jeanelle sent me a one liner which read: “Atheism is a non-prophet organization.” I had to read it a few times before I got the point, for “profit” was spelt “prophet.” But I did not quite get the significance of this until the second e-mail arrived from my friend Michael Savage who often sends me great material culled from the web.

“For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed;
nor is anything secret except to come to light” (Mark 4:21-25)

There has been a raging controversy in the letters column of the Cape Times over the past few weeks about science and religion. You can be sure that this hoary debate will resurface several times a year in the newspapers, and that the same old arguments will recur on both sides. The endless repetition of clichés is tiresome but the heated discussion demonstrates a passionate interest in either denying or defending the existence of God. A comment in one of the letters struck me as a worthy introduction to this meditation.