REDEEMED PIONEER

Today, on Human Rights Day, my heart aches for all the hidden violations of human rights… My heart, filled with sorrow Some can see, others not Almost none can understand Iceberg made of tears Careless crashes  Countless shatters  Callous people Condescending control The world we live in So cold, so clinical Yottabytes* of information Yoctobytes** of insight Entitled fat cats with loud mouths Who furiously campaign in public But relentlessly abuse in private Violators of human rights Warm tears frozen hard in Raging oceans of indifference Revealing a mere tiny tip Concealing the true depth I saw it in her eyes I felt it in my being I felt it in my heart I felt it where it hurt Who hurt you, sweetheart? Who violated the sanctity Of your inner being? Who maimed your soul? Who so selfishly took That which you did not offer? And who so boldly offered a sacrifice You can never take back? Sweet precious child, nevermind I don’t need to know who it was I know it happened, I sure do I...

Thirty years ago a toddler at the top of a staircase spotted his daddy standing at the bottom of the stairs.    He grinned from ear to ear, because down there was his daddy - the strongest, smartest, bestest best daddy in the whole wide world.     He was absolutely certain that nothing could harm him when he was in his daddy’s arms, so he proceeded to leap with open arms from up high.     The little boy was also equally certain that his daddy would always catch him and he was blissfully unconcerned with minor details, such as his off-guard-unaware daddy downstairs facing the opposite direction while in conversation with friends.     An alarming crisis was thwarted when, during the chortling toddler’s mid-air flight, his mommy swung his daddy around and shouted CATCH OUR SON!     The daddy caught his son in what appeared to be a beautifully choreographed slow motion action within a nanoseconds-to-disaster timeframe.     Despite ...

  One of my dear friends recently made a visual representation of his own life in a grid of 7x10 blocks, which depicts a rough rounding of the estimated life expectancy of 70 years in South Africa.  With each birthday, a block is coloured in while the remaining blocks stay blank.  At my friend’s age, and with his birthday around the corner, at least 81% of the blocks on his life grid are coloured in.  Within the exact same constraints, the part of coloured blocks on my own life grid, at 76%, is only marginally “better” than his.  That got me thinking…. What does it even mean?  I have other dear friends who already have at least 114% of their life grids coloured in and my darling daughter-in-love lost her life when only 37% of her life grid was coloured in. The longer I live, the more I realise that we live in a world which is hellbent on getting us to focus on and fret about things we cannot change and miss opportunities to bring about real change in places...