Spring 2010 Snippet

I was flipping through an old journal the other day and ran across this. It was flanked by reflections on how our South African preparations were coming along so far. With issues of race, class, religion, war, peace, humanity, violence, and justice dripping from every pre-departure reading I was just kicking around a few thoughts involving serious "buzz words" like justice and grace.

Journal Entry Snippet

8 March 2010

... Justice is good. Grace is better. God is both.

What would happen if people began to buy into the fact that there is no person who is more important or less important than someone else? What if people began to believe that they are inherently valuable and worthy? period. They were before they achieved one thing and they will be equally precious ever after a billion failures. That God has loved us 1st, reconciled us to Himself, and through the greatest demonstration of love ever displayed He justified us through FAITH, through our BELIEF, through our "buying in" to the fact that what we do, how we strive, and our petty attempts to be good enough... or at least better than the next guy ... won't actually get us anywhere.

Our momentary successes achieve us nothing more than one more thing to dust. Once we begin to grasp this concept we are entertaining the idea of grace and justification. Can we humble ourselves enough to see our striving for perfection can only lead to 2 things: failure &/or self loathing. We will NEVER maintain "good enough" for long enough. But since we are continually trying to justify our worth through external pursuits, we must constantly PROVE that we are better than other people. Thus,

we criticize where we could encourage,

we reject where we could embrace,

we distance when we could draw near.

Our fear of inadequacy blends with our disbelief and insecurities, to manifest itself in self-centered, prideful, greedy thoughts, which turn into behaviors, which turn into norms, which we accept and subtly intoxicate generations of people and entire nations with. Our disbelief in the gospel is raping ourselves, our humanity, and our world.

Love manifested in public is viewed as justice.

God wants lovers, not workers.

...

Ubuntu Documentary: part 3

Last night the team got together for a Documentary Screening party and it was so much fun! For the most part, this was the first time I'd seen everyone since I was a little ball of tears at the Joburg airport in July, so it was so much fun to see people, hang out, catch up, and watch the short documentaries we recently completed.

Originally, we had "three days" (aka 1.5) to brainstorm, storyboard, interview, shoot, edit, polish, and complete the documentary while in Cape Town. This is an insane request, especially when each group of five students only had one camera and one computer for editing! Needless to say, we were all on edge and INCREDIBLY STRESSED. Honestly, those 2 days were more stressful than all three years of finals combined. We knew the documentaries had to be quality because we received grants and funding from national sources, our directors reputations would be affected by what we produced, from a content standpoint they had amazing potential, and because these would be plastered all over different parts of Arizona State's website. But, in our ridiculously stressed attempts to create something worthwhile we were running around with our heads cut off, forsaking the very essence of Ubuntu, the topic of our documentaries. Luckily, our directors realized this, called a meeting the night before they're due (which was our 2nd to last night in South Africa), and we all listened to each other's concerns.

I had been all over the Western Cape shooting footage that day, didn't even make it back in time for dinner, and was not happy they called a meeting because it was stealing precious time I desperately needed if we were going to start and finish this film in the next 16 hours.

to complete our documentary I was not happy they were cutting into my time. Out of no where I started crying because I saw myself putting the completion of this task over maintaining great relationships and saying goodbye to South Africa in a meaningful way. ...

Our directors ended up extending our deadline, at the expense of their professional reputation with the foundations that sponsored the projects. This was merely another show of their great compassion and belief in living a whole hearted, connected life above all else.

A (singular) result of our time focusing on understanding, dialogues, transitional justice, ubuntu, and the beauty of South Africa were a series of three documentaries, each with a slightly different slant:

Creative- looked to use symbolic and artistic elements to portray ubuntu
Educational- looked to summarize and explain ubuntu

Difficult Dialogues- looked to capture and showcase the charged and sensative discussions between races, ethnic groups, sexes, cultures, and ages in Cape Town

Below you will find the one I helped create:

This is a short documentary that looks into the meaning of Ubuntu.

Created by five undergraduate students during a summer program in South Africa and funded by grants from the Ford Foundation and Arizona State University's The Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, this is one clip from a three part series.