Calling a Spade a Spade

There is a custom in some churches to read out the Ten Commandments every Sunday in Lent as a way of calling to mind our sins. When you read these “Ten Words” as they are sometimes called in Hebrew, there is no doubt that they call a spade a spade! There is no beating around the bush with some generalized statement about sin. On the contrary the whole gamut is named, from idolatry to adultery, from blasphemy to covetousness, from stealing to murder, from respecting parents to lying. In the same way, our prayer for Reconciliation here at Volmoed that we use as a confession of sins every Friday together with other Communities of the Cross of Nails around the world, is quite specific about the sins that need to be dealt with whether in private or public life. In confessing our sins and in seeking to overcome them we need to call a spade a spade.

Evidently the first person to “call a spade a spade” was Robert Burton, an Anglican priest moreover, who lived in Oxford in the 16th century. Burton is famous for his book The Anatomy of Melancholy which is still a favourite text amongst some famous writers of our own day. Melancholy, or what we call depression, has always been a subject that has interested people simply because we all get depressed at some time or other, even if we do not end up clinically depressed. Burton insisted that the greatest cause of the depression was idleness and the best cure is becoming busy! Whether that is so, I leave to those better qualified to say, but as an Anglican priest he must have known a thing or two about the human condition. Yet Burton described himself as “a loose, plain, rude writer” who calls “a spade a spade.” In other words, he was telling the reader, let’s not beat about the bush in trying to deal with our human foibles and failures, let’s name them. But naming them is only the beginning of trying to deal with them.

In his book At Home, Bill Bryson informs us that it was only in the nineteenth century that gentle women in the Anglo-Saxon world became interested in gardening. In fact in the first manual on gardening for such women, which was a sell-out, the first chapter instructs gentle women on how to use a spade, starting with knowing which end goes into the ground, how to hold the handle and where to put your foot when you begin digging! It’s all very well calling a spade a spade, but how do we shovel? How do we actually deal with what is wrong in our lives and in society?

A few weeks ago I led a retreat in Grahamstown. One evening we broke silence and had a braaivleis at a public hall next to the Bowling Club. When I arrived there I discovered to my surprise that all the bowlers who were playing that late afternoon happened to be young and black, and, what is more, some of them were very good. Why should I have been surprised? Well, I grew up with a father who was an avid bowler and on occasions I would go and watch him play at his bowling club. The picture I have of bowlers from that day until my recent visit to Grahamstown is that they are all middle-aged, white, and dressed in smart white outfits and brown bowling shoes. That image of bowlers has now been dealt a severe blow. In fact, it was dealt an even greater blow as the early evening wore on. For soon the three bowling greens were full of teams competing with each other comprised of white and black, men and women, young and old! I had never seen anything like it before on a bowling green and not even in most churches! It all got me thinking about racial stereotypes or, to call a spade a spade, the sin of racism.

I had been brought up and culturally conditioned in such a way, that I did not expect that black people could or did play bowls. So my surprise was in a sense understandable. But isn’t it true that many white people including some of us relate to black people on the basis of stereotypes that have been embedded in our consciousness over the years? Racism arises out of deeply ingrained prejudices – that is, judgments we make of people before we really know them. We pre-judge them and are somewhat taken aback when they turn out to be different to what we assumed. So it is very important that we learn to call a spade a spade and acknowledge that all of us relate to people different from ourselves in terms of inherited stereotypes and prejudices. That means accepting the uncomfortable truth that there is a racist streak in most of us even if we don’t acknowledge it. Just as we acknowledge other sins by name, let us name this one and work hard to overcome our inherent stereotypes and prejudices.

Another thought that arose out of reflecting on that remarkable bowling tournament was this. What a wonderful picture it presented of people of all races mixing together in a common pursuit, and obviously enjoying doing so. What was happening on the bowling green was an example or what can be done to break down barriers, explode stereotypes and, without much preaching or political rhetoric, get on with dealing with the problem of racism in our land. For racism, let us acknowledge is a sin that we need to deal with urgently. So let’s call a spade a spade, acknowledge racism in our own lives, and learn to see and respect people of other races as human beings like ourselves. This takes effort and alertness, for racism can be very subtle. But if we learn with St. Paul “from now on” to “regard no one from a human point of view,” that is on the basis of prejudice and stereotype, but from the viewpoint of Christ, we will help heal a cancer that eats away at the well-being of our lives and society. So, let’s call a spade a spade, and hats off to the bowlers in Grahamstown! And as we pray each Friday: “Father forgive the hatred that divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class.”

(John W. de Gruchy is Emeritus Professor of Christian Studies, University of Cape Town and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch. This is a weekly meditation given at the Eucharist service at Volmoed Christian Community Centre, Hermanus.)