Where does this stuff come from? It comes from sensory deprivation. It comes from turning down all the volume knobs to the one setting—or somewhere between zero and one—on everything, so I can actually hear myself think and I can actually poke around inside myself.

~ Jonathan Franzen in an interview with A.V Club

I’m trying to take that less travelled path – the one that takes Jesus seriously when he says things like:

Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?
And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you.

peoplemovin is an amazing website that visualises population movements throughout the world.

It’s written by Jamie Wright, who lives, works and raises a family in Costa Rica along with her husband Steve. Unlike the badly written, sugar coated pap of your average missionary website, her blog is funny, real, self depreciating, and sometimes even a little crass.

Read it here

For a long time I’ve wondered if the UK is really doing a good job at educating it’s young: the pressure is on from the age of 7 when they have their first exams; pupils are divided up based on performance (regardless of the fact that performance can ebb and flow throughout development); and there’s such a heavy emphasis on traditional subjects that may form a child’s academic understanding, but doesn’t prepare them for the multifaceted and fast-changing world of adulthood.

In the face of this, Finland appears to be doing something right:

• Kids don’t start school until they’re 7
• They’re not put through formal assessments for the first 6 years of school
• There’s less performance-based division
• Educational performance is among the highest in the world

Read more here

Here’s a trailer to a documentary, The Finland Phenomenon, that gives an overview of this intriguing school system…

Be warned, however, that it doesn’t offer any explanations for their dodgy death metal scene!

I might be hyper-sensitive, but it reminds me of the awful relationship that the people of South Africa have had with Europeans during the past 200 years. It upsets me that someone would feel the need to subjugate themselves, to not accept that they are equal to me.

Our interactions don’t have to have this awkward, undesired power structure built into them, but thanks to decades of inequality, of “putting them in their place,” I’m supposed to live with it.
Or I find myself getting angry at someone who also didn’t choose it.

All of these traits are admirable, but there are certain things about Mandela’s legacy that frustrate me. This dawned on me when I found myself in the Nelson Mandela section of a local book store. Martin Meredith had released another book, a biography of the great man. Being a fan of both Meredith’s writing and Mandela my first reaction was to pick it up, to thumb through it. At the same time I felt like I had to leave.

I reflected on this afterwards and realised why I felt repelled, and have come to a couple of conclusions:

I think it’s dangerous when we deify people

There’s no escaping that Mandela’s leadership is admirable. We should learn from him, practice loving our enemies, look for the path of peace. But often that’s not what we do. We look at Mandela as a god among men, a GREAT MAN, or Super Man, who has traits we could never live up to.

It’s the same thing that happens with Ghandi, Mother Theresa, or even Bono: we look at them and instead of deciding to take steps to follow in their footsteps, we become fans.

Don’t these people deserve fans?

Of course! But I don’t think that they would be content with a legacy of admirers observing: “wasn’t he a great man?”

Doing justice to their example is to adopt the things they stand for into our own lives.

It was fun listening as people passed by wondering what we were painting, and to help answer any questions they had.

By the end we had attracted a group of kids who took it in turns to exclaim “reech een lauve!”

Check out the photo set here.

Visit Andrew’s site here: www.selahmade.com

This is a beautiful video from Amnesty about the Power of Letters. Of course, they’re trying to encourage people to support their campaigns, but it reminded me of how much I love writing and receiving real, hand written messages myself. It’s far more pleasurable than opening an email.

Being back in Cape Town has reminded me of the letters I used to write Sofia when we were apart for 6 months during our courtship. I always felt like my letter writing did more justice to what I was thinking and feeling than did my emails or Skype conversations.