Grace and Peace to you …
On Monday two weeks back I was in Hermanus. Just about where the crowds stand scanning the waters for whales there is this amazing sculpture. It is called “Seemingly Peaceful”.
The old woman – Ouma Sarah – is made mostly out of metal cable. She is sitting on whalebones. A bronze bird joins her. A book is open to a single page of poetry. The sea crashes into the old harbour just beyond her limited gaze.
With her hat pulled down to her eyes and her body folded over her walking stick I was immediately drawn to Ouma Sarah. I had a desire to sit next to her and listen to her story.
Her story given to us through the poetry alongside her should be compulsory reading for everyone. The poem opens our ears to the questions that our great-great grandchildren will ask us.
In the future will our great-great grandchildren witness wondrous creatures at play or will there only be bones for them to sit on?
As Joanna Macy writes: “Life on our planet is in trouble. It is hard to go anywhere without being confronted by the wounding of our world, the tearing of the very fabric of life… Our planet is sending us signals of distress that are so continual now they seem almost normal… These are warning signals that we live in a world that can end, at least as a home for conscious life. This is not to say that it will end, but it can end. That very possibility changes everything for us… With isolated exceptions, every generation prior to ours lived with the assumption that other generations would follow… Now we have lost certainty that there will be a future for humans.” (From her book: World as Lover World as Self).
The day after Hermanus I was in Malmesbury where they are experiencing a terrible drought. And yet sadly very few houses seemed to have JoJo tanks attached to their roof drainpipe systems. All of us will have to do this at some stage in the near future. (We are exploring how to do this even here at CMM.) Treasuring every drop of water so that our great-great grandchildren may not die of thirst should be our task.
So I invite you to take a seat next to Ouma Sarah and listen to her story…
Listening, Alan
Today on All Saints’ Day we remember those in our community who died in 2015 as well as all loved ones through time:
Kate Brown, Dianne Hilderbrand, Clement Johnson,
Reginald Johnson, Gwen Kruger, Isabelle Martheze,
Gwen Abrahams, Roy Smith & Elizabeth Storey.
