{"id":23024,"date":"2023-10-17T09:45:25","date_gmt":"2023-10-17T13:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=23024"},"modified":"2023-10-17T10:01:08","modified_gmt":"2023-10-17T14:01:08","slug":"23024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=23024","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Egypt - Cory Asbury (Lyric Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/73LcyqtJ61w?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Responding to the Gaps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>One of the most striking examples of mending a breach is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) set up in South Africa to deal with human rights violations during apartheid. The TRC was headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1931\u20132021) whose leadership embodied forgiveness, love, and justice.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has drawn enormous attention, and people around the world are seeking to replicate it. But the <strong>unique gift of the TRC is not that it unveiled the truth about historic injustices, but that it did so within an atmosphere of mercy and forgiveness<\/strong>. This was possible only because <strong>Tutu had already been transformed into a man who could not envision the future without forgiveness<\/strong>. In other words, if a new South Africa is not possible without the unique gifts of its TRC, the TRC was not possible without the forgiveness of Tutu. [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice describe how leaders like Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela (1918\u20132013) respond to breaches, which they refer to as \u201cgaps,\u201d and how each of us may respond as well.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Responding to a gap is not about starting everywhere but about starting&nbsp;<em>somewhere<\/em><\/strong><em>.<\/em>&nbsp;Wherever we find ourselves, there are gaps. The gap <strong>can be as small and near as people in our own family, town or congregation. The challenge is for each of us to be faithful to discern and respond to the gap God puts before us\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Leaders respond to a gap without knowing the way. They belong to the gap to such an extent that they share in its suffering. <\/strong>This is as far as some leaders take the journey. But this is not far enough. While many leaders bear the signs of the world\u2019s death and suffering in their body, engaging the world\u2019s suffering does not necessarily lead us into redemption. We are just as likely to be transformed into bitterness as into new life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are many casualties in the journey of responding to the gaps of the world.<strong> Many leaders end up bitter and angry. They become despairing and sometimes even destructive\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many warriors for justice become steeped in the skills of protest and resistance. <strong>Yet they never learn the equally critical skills of pursuing new life in the gap. One of the distinguishing marks of the gentleness that communion requires is this:&nbsp;<em>leaders are ones who learn to absorb pain without passing it on to others or to themselves.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is what is so remarkable about the spirit of leaders like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, who are undoubtedly skilled at protest and resistance. While they carried a great burden about gaps of injustice, <strong>they radiated conviction and not condemnation, redemption and not final judgment, embrace and not rejection. <\/strong>The truly prophetic nature of their work in South Africa was <strong>pursuing justice with a quality of mercy that shaped a quest for communion with enemies and strangers. <\/strong>[2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This is exactly what we need today in American Politics (DJR)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-7-486x500.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-23025\" width=\"761\" height=\"783\" srcset=\"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-7-486x500.png 486w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-7-292x300.png 292w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-7-768x790.png 768w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-7.png 1036w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 761px) 100vw, 761px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Creation. <\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/poets.org\/poet\/james-weldon-johnson\">James Weldon Johnson<\/a>.   (Black preacher-poet during Reconstruction, KKK, and Jim Crow.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>1871 \u2013\u00a01938<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And God stepped out on space,<br>And he looked around and said:<br>I&#8217;m lonely\u2014<br>I&#8217;ll make me a world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And far as the eye of God could see<br>Darkness covered everything,<br>Blacker than a hundred midnights<br>Down in a cypress swamp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then God smiled,<br>And the light broke,<br>And the darkness rolled up on one side,<br>And the light stood shining on the other,<br>And God said: That&#8217;s good!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then God reached out and took the light in his hands,<br>And God rolled the light around in his hands<br>Until he made the sun;<br>And he set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.<br>And the light that was left from making the sun<br>God gathered it up in a shining ball<br>And flung it against the darkness,<br>Spangling the night with the moon and stars.<br>Then down between<br>The darkness and the light<br>He hurled the world;<br>And God said: That&#8217;s good!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then God himself stepped down\u2014<br>And the sun was on his right hand,<br>And the moon was on his left;<br>The stars were clustered about his head,<br>And the earth was under his feet.<br>And God walked, and where he trod<br>His footsteps hollowed the valleys out<br>And bulged the mountains up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then he stopped and looked and saw<br>That the earth was hot and barren.<br>So God stepped over to the edge of the world<br>And he spat out the seven seas\u2014<br>He batted his eyes, and the lightnings flashed\u2014<br>He clapped his hands, and the thunders rolled\u2014<br>And the waters above the earth came down,<br>The cooling waters came down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then the green grass sprouted,<br>And the little red flowers blossomed,<br>The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,<br>And the oak spread out his arms,<br>The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,<br>And the rivers ran down to the sea;<br>And God smiled again,<br>And the rainbow appeared,<br>And curled itself around his shoulder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then God raised his arm and he waved his hand<br>Over the sea and over the land,<br>And he said: Bring forth! Bring forth!<br>And quicker than God could drop his hand,<br>Fishes and fowls<br>And beasts and birds<br>Swam the rivers and the seas,<br>Roamed the forests and the woods,<br>And split the air with their wings.<br>And God said: That&#8217;s good!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then God walked around,<br>And God looked around<br>On all that he had made.<br>He looked at his sun,<br>And he looked at his moon,<br>And he looked at his little stars;<br>He looked on his world<br>With all its living things,<br>And God said: I&#8217;m lonely still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then God sat down\u2014<br>On the side of a hill where he could think;<br>By a deep, wide river he sat down;<br>With his head in his hands,<br>God thought and thought,<br>Till he thought: I&#8217;ll make me a man!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Up from the bed of the river<br>God scooped the clay;<br>And by the bank of the river<br>He kneeled him down;<br>And there the great God Almighty<br>Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,<br>Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,<br>Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;<br>This great God,<br>Like a mammy bending over her baby,<br>Kneeled down in the dust<br>Toiling over a lump of clay<br>Till he shaped it in is his own image;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then into it he blew the breath of life,<br>And man became a living soul.<br>Amen.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Responding to the Gaps One of the most striking examples of mending a breach is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) set up in South Africa to deal with human rights violations during apartheid. The TRC was headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1931\u20132021) whose leadership embodied forgiveness, love, and justice. The South African Truth and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23024"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23024"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23030,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23024\/revisions\/23030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}