We Have Arrived Safe

We have arrived safe and have been reunited with our SA family. We shared Eucharist this morning in the Botanical Gardens. We enjoyed our reunion at JL Zwane Presbyterian Church in Guguletu, a black township with a population of 460,000. Our day ended at local nursing home, and an opportunity to spend time with men and women that had experienced first hand the challenges of having lived through the years of apartheid. I knew that I was homesick after not being able to make this journey for the last couple of years as a result of the pandemic. Suffice it to say, it is unbelievably good to be home again with our South African cousins. The following words came to my mind as we shared time with the highly revered seniors.

“Blessed be the works of your hands, O Holy One. Blessed be these hands that have touched life. Blessed be these hands that have nurtured creativity. Blessed be these hands that have held pain. Blessed be these hands that have embraced with passion. Blessed be these hands that have tended gardens. Blessed be these hands that have closed in anger. Blessed be these hands that have planted new seeds. Blessed be these hands that have cleaned, washes, mopped, scrubbed.

Blessed be these hands that have become knotty with age. Blessed be these hands that are wrinkled and scarred from doing justice. Blessed be these hands that have reached out and been received. Blessed be these hands that hold the promise of the future. Blessed be the works of your hands, O Holy One….”

May we be willing to to learn from those in our midst that still claim hope…
James Cassidy