Naked Africa

Constancy

There are days I ache for constancy. This thing that seems just out of reach. As I walk in the shadow and abiding presence of the Cape mountains which appear to be so eternal; so consistent in their very being; unchanging; constant, I’m reminded that even they are changing almost daily. 

But Dan Simmons, the well known American author writes:

“Mountaineers know that all mountains are in a constant state of collapse – their verticality being inescapably and inevitably worn down every moment by wind, water, weather, and gravity – but.” 

As I contemplate this profound statement, I allow it to change my perspective. It has to. I am forced to accept the inevitability of change. I have no choice in the matter and this disturbs me.

I don’t want things to change: I don’t want my children to grow older; It makes me very uncomfortable seeing a beautiful heritage building demolished only to be replaced by some bleak monstrosity: the result of overly progressive urban planning. I certainly don’t want to contemplate the changes our world; our country; my own belovéd neighbourhood is being beaten into because of the current tragic pandemic gripping our beautiful blue planet and squeezing the very life from its lungs.

 I don’t want a jab. 

I don’t want to keep looking over my shoulder; be vigilant and take steps to “protect myself” against members of my own human race who see me as a potential “victim” to mug, rape or murder, neither do I wake up every morning and wonder what I will do today that I never knew was a crime but suddenly, overnight, became one.

 

The freedoms I thought I had were taken in an instant. I never knew I would begin to start thinking seriously about smoking in solidarity with those for whom it was never a crime, quite unhealthy, but nonetheless, not a crime, (unless you were underage and smoking at the back of the school during break times) until The Notalloweds decided it was.

 

I never dreamt that in my lifetime I would see a family arrested on a beach; their only crime: Walking on the sand. A family which was later torn apart as the young mother decided to take her child back to her own country, away from the madness of made up crimes, where REAL crimes are swept under the carpet.

 

Constancy.

 

The well known South African satirist, Pieter Dirk Uys reminded us many years ago that we should “Adapt or Dye” I remember nodding my head as I sat in the Sydney Opera House as he reminded us that the rest of the world had turned its back on South Africa now that we had a new rainbow nation and a shiny new government that would unite our country and put us back on the international stage. Oh the irony.

While researching the meaning of certain words for this piece, a few interesting definitions came up: 

Evolve: defined as: to develop gradually or slowly often into a better or more advanced state. 

The other word was metamorphism which, with my very limited understanding of science and things biological and geological, I somehow always managed to confine to nunus (great little South African word for tiny creatures and an adjective for anything delightful) like butterflies. This obviously doesn’t say much for my diligence during natural science classes during my own secondary school education, but can these ethereal creatures that many regard as lesser, flitting, flighty beings which delight us for merely a few days have something in common with something as seemingly constant or unchanging as a mountain?

Which got me thinking about mountains.

What are mountains?

Are they, for many, as for myself that huge presence which, even in the dark, black of night stands firm and immoveable? Looking up at the mountains as I have the privilege to do every day, having been born on Table Mountain, the brooding presence of the mountain is probably one of my earliest memories. For a number of years I lived away from my mountains and for many years I sought in every high building, every built up city that same enfolding presence one feels when one lives at the foot of a mountain or mountain range. 

It got me thinking. Who are the mountains? Who are my mountains: my immoveable, solid as a rock people, my tribe, my person and why did I need those mountains?

It got me thinking. What would happen when MY mountains started crumbling? When their verticality became “inescapably and inevitably worn down?”  

Where would I turn when that happened? 

Who would I turn to when that happened?

And then I looked around and saw, one by one, the mountains were being worn down.

People I thought were solid as a rock started saying things like: “I’m done. I am so done.”

I saw the stress  and the cracks which began to show on the faces of the mountains of our society. I saw the shadow fall across the rock faces of leaders and pillars of our society as yet another shard came crashing away from the rock face and plummeted into the abyss. 

And even as we watched the mountains, they started changing. They mountains started moving. They started crumbling. 

And were we not told that if we had faith like a mustard seed we could tell a mountain to move and it would? (Matt 17 v 20)