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Showing posts from December, 2016

Merry Feast of St. Thomas

Lest we move too quickly to the NEXT season of the Church (which is still 4 days away!), we are given a wonderful opportunity in this last week of Advent to remember the apostle Thomas.  Unfortunately, he will be forever chained to the moniker “doubting,” which is true in so far as it goes, but doesn’t tell the entire story. Thomas only makes a name for himself in the Gospel of John.  He is mentioned in the other Gospels, but only in the list of disciples called by Jesus.  However, in John’s Gospel, he is the curious one, asking the questions no one else is brave enough to ask.  When Jesus is explaining to the disciples of what will happen after his death, and offhandedly states, “And you know the way to the place where I am going” (John 14:4), it is Thomas who confesses, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” (John 14:5).  I think that everyone in the room, except for Jesus, had the same question, but it was only Thomas who asked.  Jesus, I am su

Great Expectations

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It is right to conclude my musings about South Africa (at least for now) with the completely touristy game drives we did.  I will admit that when I learned that going on safari was part of this trip, I was thrilled.  Of course, I had somewhat of a stereotypical picture in my mind – pith helmet included – than what happened.  First of all, our accommodations were top-rate at a resort about 3 hours northeast of Johannesburg. Lush and modern, it had every amenity one could want, including a spa (which I did not use, but several of our group did).  It also had a “hide” build into a hill by the watering hole, which was also monitored by closed-circuit cameras and available to be view 24 hours a day on the TV in our rooms. I saw zebra, elephants and lots of birds enjoying the water. Back to my expectations of the safari.  I have a deep love for lions and I wanted to see a male lion in the wild.  I figured during the total of almost 8 hours we would be out, that would be an easy request.

Tourist and Pilgrim

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  South Africa is an amazing country with such diversity in people, language and culture.  It is hard to know where to begin.  Our trip really began on Thursday, when our group were tourists.  We were supposed to start on Table Mountain (see previous post) but the wind was so bad at the top of the mountain that the cable cars were not running.  So instead we went to see Seal Island and the Cape of Good Hope (obligatory photo on Facebook), and the African penguins at Boulders.   On Friday, we were both tourist and pilgrim as we started our day learning more about the reality of apartheid and how it effected the citizens of all races, particularly the Blacks and Colours (usually those not native Africans or of mixed heritage).  We went to the District 6 Museum, and infamous area in Cape Town where the white government forcibly removed the Black residents and moved them to a different location far away from their homes without any remuneration for their property. This happened in