Cradle of Humankind

Friday 11th September

Rustenburg

The news here over the last two days has been dominated by the announcement of the discovery of a new species of hominid fossil at the Cradle of Humankind, the UNESCO World Heritage Site where "Little Foot" and "Mrs Ples" were found.

 

Although back in the direction we've just come from, we decided that such a momentous announcement warranted a visit.  Beginning at Sterkfontein, the caves where Little Foot was found, we donned hard hats and headed underground.  Clearly not seasoned climbers, a lot of bum-shuffling over the rocks led us eventually to the lowest reaches of the cave.  The caves are so dark, it is believed they have never been inhabited, but rather that Little Foot fell to his death through an opening.

 

At the site of the discover of Mrs Ples, we discovered that "Mrs" was actually a "Mr", but the original name sticks - nice to know that our distant ancestors needn't have been gender binary.

 

At the exhibition centre, coach loads of school children arrives and showed great fascination and delight at the first glimpse of something they'd never seen before: not the ancient fossils, but the wonder that was an automatic hand dryer.  A queue of young boys dared each other to place a hand under it, then when it started, to run away giggling.

 

From here, we headed to Maropeng, a name meaning "returning to where you came from".  Here, an exhibition guides through the history of the earth and the evolution of life to its current stage.  Interestingly, if the history of the Earth were compressed into one day, human beings wouldn't appear until half a second before midnight.

 

Homo Naledi

At the end of the exhibition came what we were here for - sight of the new hominid fossil.

 

It showed a remarkably intact, very small person-like skeleton of a type never before discovered.  It has not yet been dated, but if it proves to be over 2million years old, this will be the oldest 'homo' species ever discovered.  If it proves younger than that, it will show that more than one species of 'homo' lives in southern Africa at the same time - either way, a remarkable find, and a privilege to be amongst the first to see.

 

The exit from this exhibition posed the great existential questions "What is life?" and "What do you believe?" Pondering these may while away a sleepless night, but a piece of wall art brought home a more stark reality: "We need to find ways to fight poverty and sustain the environment: over 800m people know what it feels like to go to bed hungry."

 



Elephants and Greedy Hornbills

Thursday 10th September

Rustenburg

We had planned to spend today in Rustenburg, but the call of the wild was just too irresistible, and we found ourselves heading to Pilanesberg for some animal spotting.  We hadn't planned on visiting here until later in the trip, but we thought it wouldn't do any harm to have a sneak preview today.

 

And I'm glad we did!  We were barely one kilometre into the National Park when we spotted some elephants by a water hole.  It was a herd of about twelve, mainly young, including some of the smallest babies I've seen.

 

Elephants, Pilanesberg

As we pulled the car down a small track to the edge of the water, a second herd, again about 12-strong, began to approach the water.  They spent quite some time sussing each other out, the leading adults from each herd going to meet first, with the others protecting their young and then an 'all-clear' signal was given and the two herds mixed, sniffing, feeling and playing with one another at the water.

 

As if this wasn't impressive enough, a mother and baby hippo joined the scene, plunging into the water beside the elephants, while a bearded jackal prowled around to complete the African picture.

 

Just as we were about to leave, yet another family of elephants arrived, coming round the opposite side of the water, right by where we were parked.  One adult female came right up to examine the cars, perhaps a little too close for comfort.

 

It's difficult to know when to leave a scene like this, but as two of the elephant families moved on, so did we.  Giraffes were the next encounter - a family of six parading along the road.

 

Pilanesberg has a number of small hides where it is possible to get out on foot.  At the first of these, Mankwe, we were greeted by a (very young looking) crocodile, some terrapins and all manner of birdlife, including a pied kingfisher and a fish eagle making a catch.

 

The Offending Hornbill

At lunchtime, we headed to Pilanesberg Centre, where a rather greedy hornbill finished off my boerewors before I had the chance.  There was a huge commotion as someone claimed to see a lion, though I remain sceptical.

 

After a lot of driving, we saw a herd of wildebeest chase off a small jackal.  There were plains game aplenty, including a comical scene of zebra crossing the road.

 

As the sun began to set, we returned to Pilanesberg Centre to see of there was any news of the alleged lion, but there wasn't.  There was, however, a solitary male elephant drinking from a pond just 10m away from where we were standing.  He had found something on the ground, which he proceeded to break into small pieces, and then using the finger on his trunk picked each up in turn to eat.  It always provides a special moment to stand so close to such a magnificent animal.

 

Having found our way to Pilanesberg so easily, we hadn't expected such a difficult journey home.  We took a wrong turn somewhere and before we knew it, were completely lost.  With the help of one of the roadside sellers who can be found at every set of robots, we managed to find our way back to Rustenburg and from there to our accommodation at Woodridge Palms in Millvale, though if I never have to drive through Rustenburg in the dark again, I'll be a very happy man.

Home is where the Harties

Wednesday 9th September

Rustenburg

We're back!  We hadn't planned on returning so soon, but South Africa takes a grip on the heart strings that makes it incredibly difficult to stay away.

The strange thing is, I couldn't say what it is - it's difficult to identify anything in particular that draws me here, but it only takes a few minutes of Jacaranda FM, four way stops and boerewors before it feels like coming home.

It's rather fitting that this trip starts exactly where our last one finished - Hartebeespoortdam.  After collecting our car from OR Tambo Airport, we took a rather long and winding road to Harties, very nearly ending up in Diepsloot on the way.  (Don't ask...)

Hartebeespoortdam

We ascended the Harties Aerial Cableway to the top of one of the Magaliesberg mountains - a frighteningly steep cable car to a very high summit, but with vistas worth every second!  As well as the magnificent view across the dam, there was a reasonable amount of small wildlife to see - lizards, bearded dragons and even an elephant shrew.  Admiring the variety of landscapes around us, it suddenly felt like we'd never been away.

A drive over the dam itself is a rather special experience, though it was much quieter and less eventful than our last visit here.  Hartebeespoort lies incredibly close to the 'Cradle of Humankind' and certainly has a feeling of Eden about it.  If I could choose one place on earth to live, the little cottages along the side of the dam would be in with a good chance.

We'll be returning to this area in a couple of weeks, but for now we're in Rustenburg and heading through North West as Botswana is calling.

I may have just done something foolish...

If the commentariat are to be believed, the upper echelons of the Labour Party have gone into panic mode as the possibility of Jeremy Corbyn being elected their next leader increases.  The accepted wisdom seems to be that a "left-wing" candidate like Corbyn would be "unelectable" and would be, according to the Spectator, a "coup for the Tories".  The Telegraph suggests that were Corbyn to become leader, Labour would face "20 years in the wilderness".  Cue countless comparisons to Michael Foot.

This view is predicated on an analysis of Labour's election defeat which concludes that the electorate did not trust Labour to manage the economy well, that Labour appealed too narrowly, that Labour did not occupy enough of the central ground, that Labour did not have enough to say to the "aspirational classes", whatever that means.  Many have claimed that Ed Milliband was "too left-wing" - "Red Ed" they dubbed him.

There seems to be an unchallenged assumption that in order to become electable, Labour needs to occupy more of the traditionally Conservative ground.  Over the course of the last parliament, and especially since the election, Labour has adopted the policy of austerity and largely accepted the economic argument put forward by Osborne and company.  They even happily adopted the Conservative line that Labour had spent too much, despite the fact that until the banking crisis, Labour had run a smaller deficit than Thatcher did.  And yet, the Labour front bench were falling over themselves to say they'd spent too much and to distance themselves from everything to do with the previous Labour government.  I was even more astounded on Sunday to see Labour's acting leader say that they would not oppose the changes to social security and tax credits in last week's budget.

If this analysis is correct, then yes, Jeremy Corbyn would be an electoral disaster.  However, I just don't buy this narrative.  While the reasons for the Conservative election victory are many and complex (for example, the Tories successfully played on the fear some parts of the English electorate had of what a Labour-SNP coalition might look like), I would like to suggest that the reason for Labour's defeat was much more straight-forward... they were just the same as all the others.

During the election campaign, I chuckled as the suggestions on Twitter read "Similar to Ed Milliband: David Cameron, Nick Clegg".  It told a truth that few were willing to admit.  Reading the manifestos of the Conservative and Labour parties, I struggled to work out where the difference was, especially on economic policy.  Both offered cuts and austerity, both offered little to the most vulnerable in society, both tried so much to occupy the so-called "centre ground" that they stood for very little.  George Osborne's budget last week could have been lifted straight from the Labour manifesto, and that is very telling.

When the Labour Party stops standing up for the poorest and most needy in our society, is it any wonder that Scotland opted for the (more "left-wing") SNP and that England agreed better the devil you know?

Perhaps Labour's key to electoral success might not come in another carbon-copy leader and more of the same austerity narrative.  Perhaps Labour's best chance lies in returning to its founding values, in a leader who stands up for the poorest, in... dare I say it... socialism.

And so I may have just done something foolish... I've just registered as a Labour supporter (it only costs £3) so that I can vote for Jeremy Corbyn as leader.  I'm not doing this because I admire Corbyn's leadership skills or agree with everything he says.  I'm not doing this because I believe he is the solution to all Labour's problems.  I'm doing this because this country needs a Labour Party which is prepared to stand up for the most disadvantaged.  This country needs an effective party of opposition.  We've already got a Conservative Party - we need a party which offers an alternative vision.

Maybe thinking that Corbyn could be electable is foolish, maybe those who say Labour should seek "power rather than purity" are wiser, but then again, maybe the "foolishness" of wealth re-distribution is just the sort of foolishness we need to become a fairer society.

And they'll whisper to you, "socialism's dying...  

you cannae sell it at the supermarket till."   

But while there's fifty left like me,  

we'll make bloody sure they see  

that ideals are the hardest thing to kill. 

For everyone born a place at the table

In July, the children of our church will be leading all of the services, so last week I sat down with a few of them to begin planning.  "You're in charge," I said, "What would you like to do?"  I couldn't possibly have expected the answer that would come:

"Can we have Communion?" asked a seven year-old excitedly, then all the others started joining in.  "Oh, can we, can we?" 

As we talked, it became clear that for many of these children, sharing in the Lord's Supper is a way they experience the living God and has played a major part in their faith development.

This caused me to reflect on my changing experience of Communion.  When I was the age of the children I was talking to, Communion was a mystery to me - not in a "holy use and mystery" way, I just had no idea what it was.  When Communion Sunday came round, the children were all sent out into the hall.  All I knew was if I arrived at church to see a cloth over the table, we'd be going out to do some colouring-in.

When I reached about 11 or 12, we were allowed onto the church balcony to watch the spectacle of Communion taking place, but it was made very clear that we were not welcome to participate.

A few months after my 15th birthday, I participated Communion for the first time.  I found the whole experience a bit strange: lots of silver and pewter, a sombre silence and a procession of strangely-dressed elders distributing the elements with military precision using some secret code of imperceptible nods and winks to ensure that each side of the church progressed at the same rate.  Of my peer group (which was quite large in those days), I was one of only three who stuck around the church long enough to share in this bread and wine.

Over the last few years, my experience of Communion has been hugely different.  Within the context of our all-age worship service, we have shared bread and wine in many and varied ways, and each has been a moment I will cherish.

Typically, I've found myself sat on the floor, surrounded by children and people of all ages as we share the story of the institution by asking and answering questions.  There's no sombre silence - stories of faith are shared and explored and challenged, as adult and child learn from one another.

Far from a procession of suited elders, the elements tend to be shared round by young children.  On one occasion, a three year old girl was handing out glasses of wine and as she handed each one to its recipient, she pulled her skirt over her head, danced in a twirl and shouted 'Hooray!'  Surely to such as these belongs the Kingdom.

Rather than everyone taking a very prim and proper square of bread, my experience of Communion is more of a buffet with the bread and wine shared until all are satisfied.  As one four year old boy likes to shout as he eats the bread, "God is good!"

The presence, questioning, sharing, joy and challenge that children have brought have transformed my understanding of the sacrament and have made this celebration a place of encounter with the risen Christ.  Clearly, these are proving to be formative and transformative experiences for the children too.

And yet, statistics show that only a tiny percentage of children in our churches participate in Communion and there are still relatively few churches who routinely welcome children at the Lord's Table.  Fewer still will break with traditions in order to create a space where children and adults together can meet God through the sharing of bread, wine and story.

To deny a child a place at the table is to deny their place as a disciple.  Is it any wonder, then, that most of them don't stick around?  If Communion is the meal of the family of God, what does it say about that family if we do not make room for all to be present and participate fully?

I am convinced that removing children from the celebration of the sacrament has contributed to the decline the church has seen, and that embracing the gifts that children can uniquely bring to the celebration of the Eucharist would transform the church.  The time has come to embrace the vision of Shirley Erena Murray's hymn:

For young and for old, a place at the table, 

a voice to be heard, a part in the song.  

The hands of a child in hands kind and wrinkled:  

for young and for old, the right to belong.  

And God will delight...

On the Eve of Assembly

On the eve of this year's General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, I share an experience of the GA which will remain with me all the days of my life - when Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, addressed the Assembly.

I wasn't a member of the Assembly that year, but sat in the public gallery to listen to the words of one of my all-time heroes, words which are as relevant now as they were when they were spoken in 2009.

If you followed the actions of Tutu during the apartheid era, you will have seen the way he can walk into an environment of conflict, rouse the crowd up into a frenzy and then create a turning point when he channels the emotion of the crowd into something constructive rather than destructive.  "Rabble Rouser for Peace" is the appropriate title of his authorised biography.

On this day, he performed a similar theatrical effect, first rousing the Assembly with the tales of what the Kirk achieved in South Africa for the anti-apartheid movement.  As people were feeling good, their emotions stirred, the turning point came: Tutu closed his eyes and spoke like a prophet these words:

What invests people - all people, without exception - invests them with a worth that is infinite is not this or that biological irrelevance, but it is the staggering fact that all of us, without exception, is created in God's image.  Each one of us, staggeringly, is a God-carrier.  Each one of us is a God viceroy, a stand-in for God...

We are the servant of one who declared that Isaiah's words had found fulfilment in him: "The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me to speak good news, not just to any and everybody, but especially to the poor."  Ours is a God who is notoriously biased towards the poor, the hungry, the downtrodden, those who smell to high heaven, those begging in our streets, who sleep rough, prostitutes, drug addicts - those who are at the edges of our society.  Those are our God's favourites.

"Would you want acceptance, even of your worship, then go and wash you hands clean for they are full of blood, and then go and do justice, not just to anyone... go and do justice to the widow, the orphan and the alien," representative of the most impotent of societies in those days.

The church of God is one that must proclaim, "Thus said the Lord..."  Thus said the Lord that, hey, we are family, we are family.  We have only one whom we call 'Father' and this one who is our Lord, speaking about his coming elevation on the cross, said, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw - not some - will draw all, all."   

An incredible, revolutionary, radical, radical, radical assertion!  Will draw all, all, all into an embrace which not let us go, for in this family, there are no outsiders - all, all are insiders, all are children of our heavenly Father: the rich, the poor, the lame, the blind, the clever, the not-so-clever, the white, the black, the red, the yellow - all, all, all!  The Palestinian, the Israeli, Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, George Bush - all, all, I will draw all, all into this embrace which will not let you go.  All, all, all, all, all, all!  Lesbian, gay, so-called straight - all, all, all, I will draw all!

We are family, we are family, we are sisters and brothers!  How, in the name of everything that is good, can we justify going on spending obscene amounts on budgets of death and destruction when we know that just a minute fraction of those so-called defence budgets would ensure that God's children everywhere - our sisters and brothers - would have clean water to drink, would have enough food to eat, would have a decent home, would have affordable healthcare?  How can it be that we representing this God can look on can look on when there are those who go to bed hungry, who can spend only one dollar a day?  How can we, how can we, how can we?

 And our God says, "I have no one, I have no-one except you.  Help me, help me, help me to make this a more compassionate world.  Help me please, help me so we can make it more generous, caring.  Help me, I have no one except you.  Help me, help me, help me."

You can watch the speech here:  (If you only have time to watch one, go for part 3.)

 

I stood for election once...

...well, kind of. It was about a week before the 1997 election, Blair's Babes were on the march, John Major's underpants were the subject of much speculation and Alex Salmond was having his first crack as SNP leader. I was in primary 5 and the classes on the top floor decided to hold a mock election, with each of the four classes putting up one candidate. I was chosen as our candidate and with the three others, we drew lots to see which party we would represent.


This was 1997, the height of Blair mania, things can only get better, so naturally I hoped to be the Labour candidate. Besides, I'd met Donald Dewar that week in Greggs and he gave me a New Labour balloon, so what was not to like?


Alas, it was not to be - with the lots drawn, I was to represent Paddy Ashdown's Lib Dems. I set to work learning about their policies, which included such vote-winners as raising income tax by 1p.


A few days later, things got into full swing. Hustings were held across all the classes, ballot boxes were made from shoe boxes and Mrs Walker's classroom was turned into a polling station, with painting easels forming makeshift booths.


At the hustings, the Labour and Conservative candidates kept trying to out-do one another with more and more made up populist policies and when asked how they'd pay for them replied, "print more money". Meanwhile, I sat there as the sensible Lib Dem, offering well thought-through, fully costed but unspectacular policies. I got two votes, one of them cast by myself.


In the end, Labour and the Conservatives ended up neck and neck, the SNP put in quite a good showing while the Lib Dems were all but wiped out. I wonder why this springs to mind today?