A Story of Dust: Christian Faith and the Paradox of Power
by Jonathan Reiber

We step out into the sun with wet clothes in our hands. A thin layer of red dust covers the paved driveway and the budding jacaranda trees that flank the veranda around the home. As she walks to the line I look out over the rolling sugarcane fields that surround the town of Tongaat; sugarcane that provides the region’s Indian and Zulu population with a flourishing industry, sugarcane that rolls past mud huts and informal settlements of tin, cardboard and wood, sugarcane that runs sweet in your mouth when bit. As I take a deep breath, I realize that the craziness of life is really only crazy when you are in it, and rather easy to handle when you are out of it. The question is how to get out of the fire when you are in it.

I dream that I am sitting on the veranda of a posh restaurant that looks over Ground Zero… All of a sudden, an I-beam falls from a crane… The reality of the destruction becomes real, and we are bound to it as survivors. I begin to sob; I puke on my stomach.

In moving back to Tongaat, located in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, I regain the strength that slowly trickled away from after the first weeks of September, and, to a certain degree, after my first four months in South Africa. Two nights before I return to Tongaat, while staying in the AIDS-ridden Zulu township of Sitebe, I dream that I am sitting on the veranda of a posh restaurant that looks over Ground Zero. In my dream I wear a tan suit of the highest quality, my hair is combed nicely, and I am eating far better than my economic means would normally allow. Around me a number of priests and diplomats make their ways in and out of otherwise irrelevant conversation. I gaze over my fish, chips, and wine and into the mammoth piles of rubble that rise up from the graveyard of people and buildings below. My dinner partner, with whom I am engaged in useless conversation, chews his steak with satisfied glee; as if it were perfectly normal to do so, I gaze absentmindedly at the cranes that lift the tons of rubble and debris up from the ground. I ask my waiter for some more wine, I think about my girlfriend, and what I will do tonight. All of a sudden, an I-beam falls from a crane, landing with a resounding crash, and a massive amount of ash and dust rise in a grotesquely putrid cloud. Someone vomits over the edge of the veranda, and then we are all doubled over in pain and anguish. The reality of the destruction becomes real, and we are bound to it as survivors. I begin to sob; I puke on my stomach.

In the waking world — as I have gone through these past months, that is — my faith has been my greatest defence against what has happened, and my only way of explaining the insanity of the powers of this world. As it is articulated by the Reality of the Cross, the reality of existence is that suffering and love are bound together in relationship; light and dark appear as opposites, but in the Cross they are bound as one; good and evil, joy and pain. Beyond the Cross, all is bound in the unity of God’s love as it is articulated by Christ’s death. The reality of God’s love transcends the constant flux of existence, but the flux remains nonetheless. It is when we are comfortable with the Reality of the Cross and the love of God, by faith, that we are free — free to act and free to love.

At the crux of mature Christian faith, and at the heart of the tradition, is a process of continued inquiry into life, a process of questioning and re-evaluation of human relationships. It is in this continued process of inquiry into the Reality of the Cross (the most powerful symbol of our fallen world) that we can learn to pay attention to tendencies of self-righteousness and abusive power that would rise up in us and in those around us; that we can learn to live with humble integrity. When we become lost in confusion, in anger, or any other afflictive emotion, than we have lost some of our freedom and are caught in the world of the Cross, having forgotten the bond of God’s love. It is during these times that we can succumb to our emotions, lose our ability to govern ourselves, and follow the powers of the self. We are bound to the Cross, like Christ; but, because of Christ, we are also bound to love. So we are bound to the two orders, one of the world, the other of the Divine.

It is the nature of the Fall that we are bound to both worlds. The wholeness and spiritual healing that I felt while in Tongaat stands in contrast to the abusive powers that I have seen in the last five months: the reality of violence in South African life; the political powers struggles of the World Conference Against Racism; and the bombings of the World Trade Center. In each of these circumstances the pains and angers of abusive power lashed out against the hopes and dreams of human life. In each of these circumstances, individuals or groups became lost in their own pains and, in their insecurities, lashed out at their enemies.

As I have seen in the last months, abusive power manifests itself across the global stage, and its multiplicity of forms bear a harvest of bitter fruits. In South Africa, the signs of abusive power are all too readily available to the curious foreigner.

Abusive power is that kind of action or ideological stance that denies the wholeness of being rather than affirming that wholeness, which negates the dignity and value of another culture, which subjects another race for the benefit of its own greed and imagined needs. These actions are based in the insecurities of the self and the society that is its conglomerate. As I have seen in the last months, abusive power manifests itself across the global stage, and its multiplicity of forms bear a harvest of bitter fruits. In South Africa, the signs of abusive power are all too readily available to the curious foreigner. As the scourge of HIV/AIDS decimates the population, so the nation suffers under its own feelings of insecurity, anger, and guilt. In Sitebe, about 40 minutes from Tongaat, where the rate of infection hovers around 90%, rape, theft, and murder run prevalent. In Louisvale, a township in the Northern Province, an infant was recently gang raped by a group of men because they believed that sex with a virgin child would rid them of the danger of the disease. As over 21,000 murders and 8,000 rapes were recorded in the last year, as corruption flourishes in the African National Congress government, so the disease weakens the hearts and minds of an already fearful nation — abusive power feeds off of itself and grows stronger. Despite these horrors, South Africa is transformed by the committed people that make up the Rainbow People of God.

In order for a society, a community, or an individual to transform from a mental and spiritual state of abusive power to a state that fosters wholeness and growth — as South Africa has done and will continue to do — it must learn to act from a position of openness, an openness that comes from true security. False security is based in ideological dependency that is incapable of improvisation or dialogue; true security is that which is comfortable with the difficult and fallen nature of human life. The power that one finds in mature Christian faith, in the story of the Fall, in the Reality of the Cross, and in the love of God as it is seen in Christ’s death, is a religious worldview of love that empowers human beings.

The opposite of a worldview that promotes openness, that denies the weak power of compassion, is a worldview based on the hungry needs of the human self. Of these there are far too many ideologies and fanatical religions to name or count, large sections of Christianity included, but the consequences are certainly the same. Blind adherence to an ideology that negates all other beliefs and creeds, which denies the constant flux of life and the inherent imperfection of the human being, is abusive power. It puts false power in human hands and turns from a process of continued questioning. Life becomes unexamined; actions then proceed from ignorance and fear, for when the self is based on a doctrine of fanatical belief its development is frozen.

This frozen development can make life very difficult. In my work I have noticed that the process of inquiry and dialogue is difficult for grassroots activists, certain political leaders, certain religious peace and justice workers, and many who would work to improve the social order (all groups of which I am associated). The reason that humility and inquiry are difficult for these groups is simple. In the hearts and minds of the oppressed or marginalized, and those who would speak on their behalf, one thing is certain: there is pain today, and that pain must end; there is injustice today, and that injustice must end. In this regard, political action to liberate the oppressed is a necessity.

The only problem is that for a nation or a people that suffer, lashing out with violence or uncontrolled anger becomes a simple step when the pain is great and long endured. Regardless of the question of armed struggle, in order to live in hard times, which are every time, one must first liberate oneself. If one is not liberated from one’s own needs and angers, then blaming the oppressor or perpetrator, no matter what the truth, will be less successful than if one was free of one’s anger. Before the oppressor can be challenged (and before one can even engage the question of armed struggle), one must first challenge the deepest beliefs of the self. It is, to be sure, an incredibly difficult and demanding task (and one that I have only begun to understand).

The Racism Conference allowed us to see how the suffering peoples of the world can lose all credibility when they lash out in anger. In order for the oppressed to find peace, they must first liberate themselves of their anger, for anger only leads to aggression, and aggression supersedes both intelligent inquiry and careful engagement.

In the moment that one lashes out from a place of anger or guilt, then the consequences will only be the same. Peace, then, is the first step in good action; not the consequence.

In the moment that one lashes out from a place of anger or guilt, then the consequences will only be the same. Peace, then, is the first step in good action; not the consequence. A peaceful society will only be grown out of good governance that is first grounded in peace, out of actions that are grounded in love. Only when love is done for love’s sake, and love’s sake alone, does it become real.

After the attacks on September 11th, I was lost in the Reality of the Cross; my state of peace was completely disrupted. Today, I have been able to come to Tongaat, to be with the people that I love, and it has become my sanctuary. Over the red of the driveway, down the hill, past the crowded area of palm trees, dirt road, and the encroaching informal settlement of Mozambican refugees and impoverished Zulu cane workers, past the mango trees and up onto the rising hills and towards the valley of the Crocodile River, my eyes find their resting place on a line of palm trees that stand at the horizon. Beyond these trees, beyond the sweating valley of flamboyantly green trees, sugarcane, donkeys, and the laughter of children, the roar of the Indian Ocean resounds — the tide, the sun, and moon rotate in celestial cycle, their forces, like the forces of human power, push and pull on each other.

As we go through these days, we must make choices about how we will govern ourselves in the face of the forces that exert themselves upon us. Surely we can see that the world is in pain, that suffering is a reality of human life. The reality of Christ’s death on the Cross is the bond between suffering and true joy, abusive power and the power of openness, darkness and light. These forces work in constant flux, both within and without each and every one of us.

Recognizing that the forces have nothing on us when we are grounded in love, we stand and look out over the fields of sugarcane as the laundry waves in the wind, and prepare, again, to engage the world.

Jonarthan L.K. Reiber is a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont, USA. Upon his graduation in 2001, he was awarded a Watson Fellowship to spend one year travelling around the world researching themes related to religion and reconciliation. Jonathan may be reached by email at reiber@middlebury.edu