SPEAKING OF HOPE

Last week, Gavin said to me – Oh Gillian, won’t you talk to the congregation on Sunday, instead of a sermon. Just tell your usual stories. Just talk about hope. So here I am, to tell you some of my usual stories, and talk about hope.

 Two weeks ago, Anele tweeted to her friend Zukiswa“Another world is possible”. Zukiswa responded “she is surely on her way” Anele Nzimande and Zukiswa White are two of the young women who led the Wits student protests, in the belief that “Another world is possible, and she is surely on her way”

I can’t think of a better definition of hope than that. And it’s come, mind you, out of a student protest that’s had quite a mixed press.

Perhaps that’s the first characteristic of hope. Hope hides. It hangs out in unexpected places.

We need to keep looking.

Looking further at the student protests, the aspect that delighted me the most – and maybe delight is a close cousin of hope – was the close and respectful relationship between the student protesters at Wits, and the workers they campaigned with and for and who campaigned for them. The students occupied Solomon House, studied in the evenings, cleaned up after themselves in the mornings, wielding harpic, broom, toilet brush and mop. When the cleaning ladies came in to clean, the students said – “No Mama. We are protesting for you. Let us clean for you too. Just this small space.”

Both cleaners and students at UJ were arrested, and spent the night in the cells at Brixton Police station. They were not people who expected to spend time in jail, and when they came out the next day, the cleaners were crying. The students who had not been arrested, had waited there all night for them “don’t cry, mama” they sang to them.

These stories, perhaps a different view of the protest, I have from my daughters, who are all three studying at Wits this year. They are my major, constant, ongoing source of hope, as they show me things I would not otherwise have seen, and persuade me to see things I am already looking at, quite differently. Perhaps seeing familiar things differently, is another component of hope.

Two other sources of hope in my life are the post-graduate students I teach at the Wits School of Governance, and the guests I interview on my community radio programme.

Most of our students we teach at the Wits School of Governance are in government, some very senior, but most the lower tiers of management. When I was teaching a Masters course this year, I asked the students what they were doing there – what they wanted from this course. A tall, elegant young woman stood up “I want you to give me the tools to make this democracy work better” Well, one part of my heart sank into my boots. Am I up to this challenge I wondered. But another part of my heart sang. That is exactly why young government officials should be studying further. To make our young democracy work better.

I think one of the things that robs us of our hope, that blocks the delight and the light is when we see a category, not individuals. The phrase “the government” makes our hearts sink, but when we separate it out into the good teachers we know, dedicated state doctors, this director-general who does really well, that good department, we make space for the light to come through. And hope, to me, is about this. Letting the light through. Sometimes just a chink. Sometimes a whole new dawn.

There is no doubt in my mind that people want hope. When I tell the positive stories I know of, not rose-tinted spectacle stuff, but the real McCoy I get such a warm, strong response. Stories like the fact that in the Open Budget Index survey in 2015, South Africa was ranked third in the world for transparency of budgeting, being beaten only by New Zealand and Sweden. Since 2008 we have been in the top 3 countries. In 2006, the first time this two-yearly survey was done, we weren’t quite there yet. We only came fourth, out of 132 countries.

Although we yearn, in some very deep part of our being, for hope, we soak up, and sometimes seek out, and often retell, the bad news. Like someone who can’t tolerate sugar, but can’t resist that box of chocolates that will make her so ill, and so angry.

For Christians in particular, hope is not a “nice to have” an optional extra that we can take or leave. It’s right up there with faith and charity: obligatory.

So how can we go about increasing our meagre stock of hope? Years ago I read something by the Christian writer Scott Peck, which made a great impression on me. Peck explained that the opposite of love is not hatred. The opposite of love is apathy. In the same way, I think the opposite of hope is not despair. What crowds hope out of our hearts is contempt. If we feel contempt for the people in our city, the institutions we work in, the country we live in, how can we feel hope for anything?

My radio programme, Jozi Today, is a positive one, about all those people working under the radar, making a difference, mainly in Johannesburg, but sometimes further afield. And do you know what? I never, ever, run out of positive guests.

This week I had a group of Johannesburg entrepreneurs, young and old, in my studio. People making and selling cakes, beads, shoes – and even church vestments . All hard-working, all hopeful – they believe the sky is the limit, and Joburg is a wonderful place to live and do business. Two of them regularly walk downtown Johannesburg to get ideas for new fashions, new fabric, new food. One such excursion resulted in a terrine made of of chickens feet. Their excitement about being alive now, about living and working here, was totally infectious.

Two weeks ago my guests were the Damietta Project, run by the Franciscans with the not small hope of ending violence in Africa; bottom up, rather than top down. Have they reached their goal? No. Have they notched up small victories on the way? Absolutely. They told many stories of how they have helped ordinary people, at grassroots level – op voetsoolvlak – bridge chasms.  Stories of individual courage, compassion, and hope. My favourite story was about a group of Franciscan nuns in Nigeria, who had just received money from Damietta to start a peace project. Then local Christians murdered many hundreds of Muslims in the area. The nuns found out where the Muslim Council was meeting, to plan their revenge. They spent all the Damietta money on food and cool-drinks, which they sent to the council with a letter explaining who they were and saying that they would keep the Council supplied with all they needed, for as long as it took to come up with a right decision. The letter explained that the nuns would not like a wrong decision to be made because people were hungry or thirsty or tired. The Council was so amazed that they invited the sisters to join their deliberations.

 But hope doesn’t only reside in the high places, with breathtaking initiatives like Damietta. Often it’s the guests who make me laugh the most, who bring me the most hope. Last year I had a group called Hikers for Change, a group of young black men recommended to me by the woman who runs Melville Koppies, who said they were the nicest people she had ever guided round the Koppies. The story of how they started hiking was hilarious. They went off to Suikerbosrand for a weekend hike. They were all friends of friends – no-one actually knew anyone else. Nor did they know anything whatsoever about hiking. They arrived in thin fancy long-toed shoes, carrying a cooler bag full of alcohol and a pappot full of porridge, which they then had to carry up hill and down for three days. And it rained for the whole weekend. Somehow this experience engendered in them an absolute love for and delight in hiking, and they now do serious hikes like the otter trail. And to spread the joy they feel, they have, just along the way, adopted an orphanage and started a support group for entrepreneurs. What a good outcome from a wet, but clearly not miserable, weekend. What a privilege to be sharing a country with such citizens. What great hope I have for the future, in the hands of young people like these.

 The Jerusalem Bible translation of today’s Old Testament reading describes ruling in the fear of God as “Like the morning light at sunrise on a cloudless morning, making the grass of the earth sparkle after rain.”

Hope is the sparkle after the rain. But we have to go out there – into the sunrise, into the city, to find it.

Talk by Gillian Godsell at St Paul’s church, Parkhurst, 22 November 2015