Two weeks ago, I attended the funeral of a man who had hanged himself in Johannesburg. The church to which the man had belonged was reluctant to conduct the funeral because of the controversial manner in which he had died.
Therefore, a fellowship (a loose grouping of believers from various churches) was called in to do the honours. Naturally, they turned out to be very good - loud, clear, logical, and I would hasten to add, spiritual. What I noticed, though, was that they went out of their way in their attempt to discredit the church that had refused to conduct the funeral service.
These enthusiastic young people said many things which I agreed with. Until, that is, they stated that training was not important for clergy. "You only need to be filled with the Holy Spirit," they asserted.
Then they went on to give the example of the Apostle Peter as somebody who faithfully and effectively proclaimed the gospel without any training, depending only on the Holy Spirit.
My own spirit said within me, "Wait a minute, the example given all but nullifies the assertion made."
First of all, Peter and his eleven compatriots spent three years with Jesus, training. They were actually called "disciples", which means "trainees". If they had lived in modern times, they would probably have been awarded diplomas.
Agreed, Peter was a man of little education. Before joining the "Jesus College", he probably receieved no education at all. Would anybody wonder why James, the brother of Jesus, and not Peter, became the head of the church in Jerusalem after Christ had left?
Does it come as a surprise that Peter and the much more learned Paul failed to click, so much so that the latter was once forced to say, "When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcission group."?
Interestingly, Peter alludes to the importance of education by acknowledging that Paul's material is difficult to understand and can easily be distorted by the uneducated (the "ignorant"). He says in 2 Peter 3:16, "His [Paul's] letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort." I dont think he meant the spiritually ignorant, but those with little or no education, otherwise his own material too would have been difficult to understand.
It is my considered view that Peter would have been a better and more effective leader if he had attained a higher level of education than he did.
True, you cannot be an effective leader in the church if the Holy Spirit does not dwell in you. But if you filled with the Holy Spirit and lack education, you will not be particularly helpful, either.
Wednesday 24 August 2011
Monday 22 August 2011
Encounter With Gule Wamkulu
Last week, my brothers-in-law, my sisters and I travelled together in one vehicle to Nambuma, north west of Lilongwe city, to attend the funeral of a close relative. We took the earth road from Kamuzu International Airport, heading westwards.
After we had covered a distance of about 5 kilometres from the airport, we came across a team of men and women in the company of zirombo (beasts). There were two "beasts" called kasiyamaliro and following close behind was a huge njobvu (elephant). Dotted around were six or seven smaller, masked characters.
We knew that we had to stop as a mark of respect to the on-coming "entourage". One gentleman dashed forward from the group to where we had parked and demanded that all the women in the car should hide their faces with pieces of cloth. All my sisters obliged, and consequently we had a safe "passage".
My first encounter with Gulewamkulu (The big dance) was at Kongwe mission back in the 1960s. I was four years old then. I heard strange noises outside our home, and as I got out to find out who was making these noises, I met almost face to face with one strange character. Petrified with fright, I ran back into the house. On enquiry I was told the charater I had come face to face with was a kapoli.
Another close encounter was in the late 1970s. My late brother and I went to our mother's village in Dowa district during school holiday time. One day, as we were chatting with relations close to a nkhokwe (granary), two characters came by, asking for maize cob covers to roll tobacco into (a way of improvising cigarettes). For the first time I heard gulewamkulu characters speak in an intelligible language. My brother and I did not move an inch. The characters realised that there were strangers around.
The following day, two more characters came by, brandishing panga knives. We hid ourselves in our cousin's house, but they came right in, pointing to us with the pangas. Another cousin of ours came along and pleaded with the characters to leave, saying "Tulukani chonde okang'wing'wi" (Please get out Mr Kang'wing'wi). They relented, and vanished. We were saved. We learnt that it was Chimalizeni and a collegue from a neighbouring village that had disguised themselves as akang'wing'wi to intimidate us.
Gule Wamkulu is an old age institution of the Chewa people of Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique. Because of its association with black magic and the use of profane language by itse adherents, it is incompatible with the Christian faith. It is, therefore, impossible to be a Christian and a practioner of Gulewamkulu at the same time.
That is as far as the negative aspects of Gulewamkulu go. On a positive note, one needs to mention that Gulewamkulu has been adopted by UNESCO as world heritage for oral tradition. The stylish dancing of its characters is hard to match, even by the likes of late Michael Jackson.
Thursday 18 August 2011
The Place Called HHI
The area west of the Chileka Road, stretching from Mwaiwathu Private Hospital to the fence demarcating the mission and G4 Security Company has within its borders may important institutions such as the Blantyre Synod Headquarters, St Michael & All Angels Church, Henry Henderson Institute Primary and Secondary Schools and Phoenix Nursery and Primary Schools. The entire land area is known by many people as HHI (Henry Henderson Institute).
This, at any rate, is innacurrate nomenclature. The more correct name is Blantyre Mission. It started off in 1876 as a mission station of the Church of Scotland, and was named after the birth place of Dr David Livingstone. The mission established a school thirty three years later and called it the Henry Henderson Institute (HHI). Initially it only catered for primary school goers but now has a secondary school as well.
Later the commercial town that developed close to the mission grew and merged with another town to the east called Limbe, the resulting metropolis being called Blantyre [City].
Perhaps the best known facility at the Blantyre Mission is the cemetery because it gets visited by people from all walks of life. In confusion, many people refer to it as the HHI Cemetery.
Even the church often gets referred to as HHI CCAP Church. For God's sake, no church meets at HHI premises (the school). The church in question is St Michael and All Angels Church, built by Rev David Clement Scott between 1888 and 1891, long before HHI came into being.
Christians at St Michael & All Angels Church have built a 3000 seater edifice known as the Multipurpose Church Hall. The facility hosts a whole range of activities, ranging from examinations through wedding receptions to musical concerts. I recently heard a radio advertisement stating that a certain function would take place at the HHI Multipurpose Hall. Wrong! Very wrong!
Once again, the name of the place is Blantyre Mission. Calling it HHI is like calling every Toyota a "Corolla".
This, at any rate, is innacurrate nomenclature. The more correct name is Blantyre Mission. It started off in 1876 as a mission station of the Church of Scotland, and was named after the birth place of Dr David Livingstone. The mission established a school thirty three years later and called it the Henry Henderson Institute (HHI). Initially it only catered for primary school goers but now has a secondary school as well.
Later the commercial town that developed close to the mission grew and merged with another town to the east called Limbe, the resulting metropolis being called Blantyre [City].
Perhaps the best known facility at the Blantyre Mission is the cemetery because it gets visited by people from all walks of life. In confusion, many people refer to it as the HHI Cemetery.
Even the church often gets referred to as HHI CCAP Church. For God's sake, no church meets at HHI premises (the school). The church in question is St Michael and All Angels Church, built by Rev David Clement Scott between 1888 and 1891, long before HHI came into being.
Christians at St Michael & All Angels Church have built a 3000 seater edifice known as the Multipurpose Church Hall. The facility hosts a whole range of activities, ranging from examinations through wedding receptions to musical concerts. I recently heard a radio advertisement stating that a certain function would take place at the HHI Multipurpose Hall. Wrong! Very wrong!
Once again, the name of the place is Blantyre Mission. Calling it HHI is like calling every Toyota a "Corolla".
Wednesday 17 August 2011
Oportunity For Peace
Driving through the streets of Blantyre this morning, I sensed some uneasiness in the atmosphere. There was practically nothing happening by way of people vandalising or looting property, but the streets looked deserted and the town looked sleepy. Today is the day the civil society had planned to hold demonstrtions throughout Malawi. At the eleventh hour, Tuesday morning, the demonstrations were called off.
The calling off of the demonstrations must be a relief to many people for more reasons than one. First and moremost, the prospect of more loss of life and/or property has been averted, at least for the time being.
One sincerely hopes that the 'truce' that has been reached will present a chance for the 'warring parties' to come together, reflect on the events of the recent past, reconcile, and map out a new path for Malawi. There are no winners or losers in this encounter. As it has turned out, all Malawians collectively are the winners.
I would sincerely urge the demonstration organisers on the one hand and the executive on the other to heed Apostle Paul's advice: "in humility, consider others better than yourself, each not looking to their own interests but also to the interests of others." I do not want to pretend that this advice is easy to follow. It certainly is not, but it is the basis for peaceful co-existence. The truth of the matter is that easy solutions are not durable, neither are they effective.
Conventional wisdom demands that leadership should assert itself strongl by being so much in control as to induce respect and submission from those being led. The problem is that history is replete with cases where conventional wisdom has led to mistrust, envy and indeed naked hatred.
I would be happy to see the leadership from both sides of the divide seek not so much to be respected as to respect, not so much to be understood as to understand, and indeed not so much to be served as to serve.
Someone, no doubt, will read this and will trash it as impractical or something akin to 'a pie in the sky'. It may sound like a strategy for the weak. Let me remind the reader that some of the stongest leaders the world has had have been people who have applied seemingly weak strategies to their struggle - people like Jesus Christ, Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King Junior.
In the event that this advice is not taken, will the last person to leave Malawi please remember to turn off the lights.
The calling off of the demonstrations must be a relief to many people for more reasons than one. First and moremost, the prospect of more loss of life and/or property has been averted, at least for the time being.
One sincerely hopes that the 'truce' that has been reached will present a chance for the 'warring parties' to come together, reflect on the events of the recent past, reconcile, and map out a new path for Malawi. There are no winners or losers in this encounter. As it has turned out, all Malawians collectively are the winners.
I would sincerely urge the demonstration organisers on the one hand and the executive on the other to heed Apostle Paul's advice: "in humility, consider others better than yourself, each not looking to their own interests but also to the interests of others." I do not want to pretend that this advice is easy to follow. It certainly is not, but it is the basis for peaceful co-existence. The truth of the matter is that easy solutions are not durable, neither are they effective.
Conventional wisdom demands that leadership should assert itself strongl by being so much in control as to induce respect and submission from those being led. The problem is that history is replete with cases where conventional wisdom has led to mistrust, envy and indeed naked hatred.
I would be happy to see the leadership from both sides of the divide seek not so much to be respected as to respect, not so much to be understood as to understand, and indeed not so much to be served as to serve.
Someone, no doubt, will read this and will trash it as impractical or something akin to 'a pie in the sky'. It may sound like a strategy for the weak. Let me remind the reader that some of the stongest leaders the world has had have been people who have applied seemingly weak strategies to their struggle - people like Jesus Christ, Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King Junior.
In the event that this advice is not taken, will the last person to leave Malawi please remember to turn off the lights.
Tuesday 16 August 2011
Is the Internet Official?
Last week I heard of a lady working for large Malawian organisation being less than enthusiastic to perform her duties as per her new job description. Reason? The job description had been communicated to her by email. "I got the job description by email," she challenged, adding, "Is that official?"
Whatever anybody may say about the Internet or its applications such as email, we cannot deny its dominance over traditional means of communication. Postal services are shrinking at an alarming rate the world over because of the Internet. Postal service providers are having to diversity into new areas such as financial services, stationery, courier, to mention but a few, as a survival strategy.
It is therefore alarming, to say the least, that anybody in this day and age can question the legtimacy of communication sent via email. It probably exposes some deep-rooted inflexibility on the part of those having doubts as to whether communication sent by email is official.
Some people have serious misgivings about tasks performed with the aid of a computer. I know of a seasoned accountant who spent his working life producing financial statements manually. A younger accountant once submitted computer generated statements to him. He literally spent many hours meticulously adding up all the figures all over again, just in case the machine, being inhuman, might have made a mistake.
Today, huge volumes of business are transacted over the Internet. You can conduct banking business, do some purchasing, conduct interviews, hire staff.... the list is endless, over the Internet. Recently I signed a contract with the University of Texas, USA, to do a certain job, proceeded to do the job, forwarded a report, and sent my invoice afterwards, all by email. If that is not official, what is?
Of course, the Internet is a free-for-all, anything-goes environment. One needs to carefully evaluate the information one gets via the Internet. The criteria for the evaluation would include, but would not be limited to, authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency and coverage.
By way of summary, while it is possible and indeed easy to get garbage from the Internet, if used correctly, this medium will yield very valuable, accurate and credible information. To carelessly trash it as unofficial is to throw out the baby with the bath water.
Whatever anybody may say about the Internet or its applications such as email, we cannot deny its dominance over traditional means of communication. Postal services are shrinking at an alarming rate the world over because of the Internet. Postal service providers are having to diversity into new areas such as financial services, stationery, courier, to mention but a few, as a survival strategy.
It is therefore alarming, to say the least, that anybody in this day and age can question the legtimacy of communication sent via email. It probably exposes some deep-rooted inflexibility on the part of those having doubts as to whether communication sent by email is official.
Some people have serious misgivings about tasks performed with the aid of a computer. I know of a seasoned accountant who spent his working life producing financial statements manually. A younger accountant once submitted computer generated statements to him. He literally spent many hours meticulously adding up all the figures all over again, just in case the machine, being inhuman, might have made a mistake.
Today, huge volumes of business are transacted over the Internet. You can conduct banking business, do some purchasing, conduct interviews, hire staff.... the list is endless, over the Internet. Recently I signed a contract with the University of Texas, USA, to do a certain job, proceeded to do the job, forwarded a report, and sent my invoice afterwards, all by email. If that is not official, what is?
Of course, the Internet is a free-for-all, anything-goes environment. One needs to carefully evaluate the information one gets via the Internet. The criteria for the evaluation would include, but would not be limited to, authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency and coverage.
By way of summary, while it is possible and indeed easy to get garbage from the Internet, if used correctly, this medium will yield very valuable, accurate and credible information. To carelessly trash it as unofficial is to throw out the baby with the bath water.
Monday 15 August 2011
Lessons from Football
I must confess at the outset that I am not an active sports person. The closest I have come to participating in competetive sports was when I played on a volleyball team at school three decades ago.
This notwithstanding, I get fascinated with sports, especialyl football. In 1985, when I was a student in England, a colleague of mine, Marcus Johnson, introduced me to Liverpool Football Club. Then Liverpool was a true world class team, with very few teams that could match its achievements. The following season, the new Liverpool trio of John Aldridge, Peter Beardsley and John Barnes was pure delight to watch on the pitch.
Whenever opportunity presents itself, I watch English football on TV. My sympathies still lie with Liverpool, but I do not feel out of place watching the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspurs and practically the rest of the Premiership clubs. What I find particularly intriguing is the the total commitment with which the players approach their matches. They literally throw themselves into the game. A player will occasionally pick up a yellow, or even a red, card not necessarily because he is a bully but, more often than not, because he has applied himself fully to the game and in the process finds himself in a situation where he poses danger to another player.
When a player gets injured - and they often will - a team of medical officials may be called onto the pitch to administer "first aid" treatment to him. It is not uncommon to see a player who, a minute previously, was visibly in excruciating agony, rise up, jump around, and continue to play. A great attitude indeed. If the same injury happened to some of us, we would literally spend weeks in bed and suspend all our activity.
This attitude of players contrasts sharply with what I often see in Malawian organisations. If an employee lands on an opportunity to stay away from work, they will seize that opportunity with great zeal and will often play all manner of trickery to maximise their stay away. Whereas a footballer thinks he belongs to the play field and will, at the slightest opportunity, return to it, a Malawian worker thinks he/she does not belong to his/her employment environment and will utilise the slightest opportunity to stay away. God help us.
Thankfully, this generalisation does not apply to all and sundry; there are some who are committed, very committed indeed, to their work. It is these individuals who will propel Malawi to greater prosperity.
This notwithstanding, I get fascinated with sports, especialyl football. In 1985, when I was a student in England, a colleague of mine, Marcus Johnson, introduced me to Liverpool Football Club. Then Liverpool was a true world class team, with very few teams that could match its achievements. The following season, the new Liverpool trio of John Aldridge, Peter Beardsley and John Barnes was pure delight to watch on the pitch.
Whenever opportunity presents itself, I watch English football on TV. My sympathies still lie with Liverpool, but I do not feel out of place watching the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspurs and practically the rest of the Premiership clubs. What I find particularly intriguing is the the total commitment with which the players approach their matches. They literally throw themselves into the game. A player will occasionally pick up a yellow, or even a red, card not necessarily because he is a bully but, more often than not, because he has applied himself fully to the game and in the process finds himself in a situation where he poses danger to another player.
When a player gets injured - and they often will - a team of medical officials may be called onto the pitch to administer "first aid" treatment to him. It is not uncommon to see a player who, a minute previously, was visibly in excruciating agony, rise up, jump around, and continue to play. A great attitude indeed. If the same injury happened to some of us, we would literally spend weeks in bed and suspend all our activity.
This attitude of players contrasts sharply with what I often see in Malawian organisations. If an employee lands on an opportunity to stay away from work, they will seize that opportunity with great zeal and will often play all manner of trickery to maximise their stay away. Whereas a footballer thinks he belongs to the play field and will, at the slightest opportunity, return to it, a Malawian worker thinks he/she does not belong to his/her employment environment and will utilise the slightest opportunity to stay away. God help us.
Thankfully, this generalisation does not apply to all and sundry; there are some who are committed, very committed indeed, to their work. It is these individuals who will propel Malawi to greater prosperity.
The Power of Observation
Taking an excursion through life and experiencing its many twists and turns is, in my view, great education. Agreed, going to the university gives you an opportunity to undergo intensive, formal education and, of course, you end up a qualified individual in a particular field of learning. But observing the numerous events in life and reflecting on them is equally a valuable learning experience.
We know from history that the formal university first appeared in the 11th century. I am sure many people must have wondered who at that time had the credentials to teach at the first university. It must have been people who had themselves graduated from the "University of Life", who had through observation built up specific knowledge in various areas of life and were "qualified" to pass on that knowledge to others.
Of course semi formal delivery of education had been in existence for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years, particulary in religious institutions. In the times of Jesus, it was usual for anybody with some special knowledge to gather around himself a team of trainees called "disciples". Such an educator was called a Rabbi. Gamaliel was one prominent Rabbi, who graduated the likes of the Apostle Paul. This form of learning was characterised more by observation than formal teaching/lecturing as the vehicle for learning. There were no formal examinations, either.
In any society, there has been a "build-up" of some knowledge purely by observation. We know, for example, which plants are edible and which are not because of the knowledge that has over the years been gathered by observation and passed on from one generation to another. Similarly, society puts together some knowledge regarding which social systems work and which do not, purely by observation.
Tradition has it that one day Isaac Newton, sitting close to an apple tree, saw one apple getting detatched from the tree and falling perpendicularly to the ground. Observing this event with an inquisitive mind, Newton wondered why the apple did not fall sideways or upwards and noticed that it must have fallen towards the centre of the Earth. From this observation came the theory, and later, the laws of gravitation.
In another tradition, one of the most celebrated Mathematicians in history, Archimedes, was vexed with the problem of calculating the density of a King's crown. The King had asked him to verify whether the craftsman who had fashioned the crown had not cheated by replacing portions of gold with silver. It occured to Archimedes that the answer to this querry lay in the determination of the crown's density with a view to comparing it with the known density of pure gold. His problem was coming up with a methodology for measuring the volume of the crown, an irregular object.
One day, while taking a bath, Archimedes observed that the water level rose as he got into the bath tub. He quickly figured out that the volume of the displaced water must have been equivalent to the volume of the submerged part of his body. Excited, he jumped out of the bath tub and, without bothering to put on any clothes, ran through the streets of Syracuse naked, shouting,"Eureka!" (I have found it!)
These stories may never have happened, or may be true but probably heavily embelished. Whatever the case, what I know is that these men (and many others) employed observation in order to come up with invaluable contributions to science and mathematics.
We know from history that the formal university first appeared in the 11th century. I am sure many people must have wondered who at that time had the credentials to teach at the first university. It must have been people who had themselves graduated from the "University of Life", who had through observation built up specific knowledge in various areas of life and were "qualified" to pass on that knowledge to others.
Of course semi formal delivery of education had been in existence for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years, particulary in religious institutions. In the times of Jesus, it was usual for anybody with some special knowledge to gather around himself a team of trainees called "disciples". Such an educator was called a Rabbi. Gamaliel was one prominent Rabbi, who graduated the likes of the Apostle Paul. This form of learning was characterised more by observation than formal teaching/lecturing as the vehicle for learning. There were no formal examinations, either.
In any society, there has been a "build-up" of some knowledge purely by observation. We know, for example, which plants are edible and which are not because of the knowledge that has over the years been gathered by observation and passed on from one generation to another. Similarly, society puts together some knowledge regarding which social systems work and which do not, purely by observation.
Tradition has it that one day Isaac Newton, sitting close to an apple tree, saw one apple getting detatched from the tree and falling perpendicularly to the ground. Observing this event with an inquisitive mind, Newton wondered why the apple did not fall sideways or upwards and noticed that it must have fallen towards the centre of the Earth. From this observation came the theory, and later, the laws of gravitation.
In another tradition, one of the most celebrated Mathematicians in history, Archimedes, was vexed with the problem of calculating the density of a King's crown. The King had asked him to verify whether the craftsman who had fashioned the crown had not cheated by replacing portions of gold with silver. It occured to Archimedes that the answer to this querry lay in the determination of the crown's density with a view to comparing it with the known density of pure gold. His problem was coming up with a methodology for measuring the volume of the crown, an irregular object.
One day, while taking a bath, Archimedes observed that the water level rose as he got into the bath tub. He quickly figured out that the volume of the displaced water must have been equivalent to the volume of the submerged part of his body. Excited, he jumped out of the bath tub and, without bothering to put on any clothes, ran through the streets of Syracuse naked, shouting,"Eureka!" (I have found it!)
These stories may never have happened, or may be true but probably heavily embelished. Whatever the case, what I know is that these men (and many others) employed observation in order to come up with invaluable contributions to science and mathematics.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)