A wise man introduced me to a book called “Dedicated” by Pete Davis. I got the audiobook version and listened to it this morning on my way to work. I am captivated already! He zooms in on something he sees as a defining characteristic of our day and age: Keeping one’s options open. It comes down to a refusal to commit. He describes it as a “liquid modernity” we all seems to suffer from. Especially younger people don’t want to be tied down by a career. They therefore hop from job to job…but also from partner to partner and place to place. Everybody seems to seek out a big adventure to live rather than what they consider the ordinary, run-of-the-mill kind of life.

And yet…the people we admire most seem to be the people that did the very opposite. Our heart warms when we read about a couple that stayed married for 70 years. We erect statues of people that committed their lives to causes and communities (and yes tear them down if something comes to light that shows they were not as committed as they seemed to be). The less people believe and refrain from committing to a local and organized form of religion, the more they seem to want there to be people that still really believe and practice faith. I have experienced this firsthand. When I occasionally wear my clerical collar out in public, the most admiration and respect I get is from people like atheists and those unaffiliated with a church. Even though they do not know the content of my faith (or perhaps disagree with its truth claims), they respect the commitment involved in identifying with a faith tradition publicly.

I most certainly recognize myself in what he is describing. Especially in my younger years, I moved around a lot. The idea of sticking with one group of people in one place for a full life time scared me beyond words. I would nitpick examples of people in communities that are stuck and resentful and use them to justify me having to move on. I feared stagnation. Stagnation is a real possibility when one stays put but so is growth, relational depth and reward. I turned a blind eye to all those.

Now entering the second half of my life (arrogantly and hopefully assuming I have half of my life left) what I once avoided has become what I aspire to. “Fabulous last words”, I can hear my wife say who bravely and sometimes reluctantly jumped places and even a continent with me. But I am going to try. I don’t want to go to the other extreme. A commitment to stay at all costs is too simplistic and problematic. Sometimes circumstances beyond our control can make the current places we find ourselves at dangerous ones to stay put in. Sometimes a commitment to a singe cause or organization requires you to move to different places.  A commitment to stay must be complimented by a second one: to grow. I have met people who stayed but ceased to grow and I secretly wished they moved so that they could grow. I have also met people who grew but never rooted that growth in a community where it could bear real fruit and benefit those around them. The best people I have met were people that stayed put but grew as strongly as they were anchored. I want to be ambitious, or fool hearted enough to strive for both anchors and growth.

A Rolling Stone might gather some fans, but a rolling stone does not gather moss. Moss is good. Moss grow, cools and makes beautiful. To what place, cause, trade, people do you commit to? What do you do to stint liquid modernity?

Gabriel J Snyman

June 18^th 2021

Psychiatry has for a very long time been a kind of pet hobby to me. Apart form theology and biographies, psychiatry and sociology must be the fields I read up on most. I am especially interested in child trauma and how it distorts early brain development in a way that has a huge influence on a person’s life. If such a person is not recognized and helped, it could have a life long detrimental impact on everything from job security to relationships. I find case studies especially interesting in this regard. Some children lived through unspeakable horrors, things that would be hard to manage for even the most resilient adult. Although these case studies are extreme examples it helps one to see how similar, though different in scale experiences explains traits you notice in yourself and the people around you every day.

In a book called: “The Boy who was raised as a dog” by Bruce Perry one story in particular touched my heart and gave me hope for humankind, a hope I want to share by retelling the gist of it. Perry’s work in this field is brilliant. I like his approach of instead of focusing on the question: “What is wrong with this child?”, he rather focuses on a different one: “What happened to this child?”So, he tells the story of a boy he calls Peter. Peter spend the first 3 years of his life in a Russian orphanage. Babies here were kept in a huge room in cots stacked side to side. Caregivers came buy doing the basic chores of changing diapers and feeding. Cuddling, nurturing and cooing so crucial in brain development and socialization skills were kept to a bare minimum. Children here basically adapted to parent one another through their cots. So much so that they developed their own unique language similar to what one sometimes find with twins.

Peter was lucky in that he got adopted by an American family that were loving, committed and devoted. They knew they were going to face challenges because of Peter’s deprived history in care. They could not know how great it was going to be. See Peter was intelligent. Cognitively he functioned appropriate to his age but socially and in some other ways he functioned below his age levels. It was like having a seven year old (the age DR. Perry got to work with him) and then having a baby and the next moment a toddler when it came to socialization and communication. The mother simply treated him on the level he represented with each facet. This lead to marital strain as the father felt that she meeting him on his level stinted his development to an appropriate level whilst she felt given his past, she did exactly what he needed.

Dr. Perry did proper brain scanning to pinpoint the child strengths and weaknesses more exactly. This helped the parents to know when to entertain his needs and when to rather challenge him in his development by refusing to “baby” him. It went much better but one big problem remained…Peter was a total social outcast at school. You could not really blame his peers for that because he did behave in ways that send messages that he want to be left alone. He was after all far behind them in the basic foundations of socialization.

One day Dr. Perry asked him if he remembered Russia. He drew a huge map resembling the shape of Russia and then made a tiny spot in the middle of it. “This is Russia, and this is me”, he said pointing to the dot. In a heart breaking way he expressed with this drawing how immensely lonely and isolated he felt. The thing was going to school now made him feel some of that again. Perry knew he had to make a plan. Dr. Perry got permission to speak to Peter’s class. He explained to them the dynamics of brain development in an accessible way. Then he told them Peter’s history and basically related how all Peter’s problematic behaviors is explained by his developmental delays. The class was mesmerized…

Which bring me to the hopeful part. We often here that kids could be cruel and sure enough we have all witnessed bullying and blunt rejection by them. But kids can also be very kind. Sometimes, maybe always, we fear and shove aside anything we do not understand properly. It is a way to deal with the challenge such things pose simply and effectively: Label it and flee from it. This is what the children did with Peter. But now that they knew why he behaved like he did, they embraced him. It was especially the strong leaders that was now attracted to Peter and protected him. There was even fights for who would get the privilege of sitting next to him.

Peter thrived. He made progress much faster and further than expected.

May this be a reminder to all of us, not just of the immense importance and healing power of acceptance, understanding and embrace but also as a warning not to label and dismiss what we do not readily understand.

Gabriel J Snyman

May 3rd 2021

Headlines are not uplifting reading

They tell about murder and threats and hateful things

But headlines became headlines

Because they are about things that is not the norm

Love and care and good things are abound

So much so that they don’t make the headlines no more

So read the headlines, weep, and pray

But live a life that writes the common stories

Of love and gratitude, of care and hope

Beauty isn’t found in the headlines

It is found by the kindness and care bestowed upon

Those at the back of the lines

Gabriel J Snyman

April 8^th 2021

Churches follow what they call a liturgical calendar. Big events of Jesus’s life are reflected on and celebrated through ritual, teaching discussions and prayer at specific times of the year. This week is what is called “Holy Week”. It is the week stretching from Palm Sunday to Good Friday and then Easter Sunday. This all falls in a time we call Easter and Lent, a time where Jesus’s suffering, death and resurrection and its meaning and implications are reflected upon.

The last week or so has been tough on me. When it comes to preaching and liturgy, I have an extra work load as most pastors do during this time. Easter is what makes a Christian a Christian. Easter Sunday is the Sunday where not only regular congregants but the curious and the seekers usually pop in. It is an event you want to give your very best to explain and demonstrate the content of your faith. That is pressure. Every preacher will testify how grossly inadequate one feels to speak about something you believe is everything and determines the fate and reality of all humankind. During such stressful times bicycling to me is a great de-stressor but last week by bicycle went in for repairs. I went for a run instead and enjoyed it and was quite impressed with my time. But I forgot that I have shortened calf muscles that when I run does a number on my achillies tendon… so much so that I cannot walk the next day. This time turned out to be no exception and on top of it I also slept my neck into a spasm. So over the weekend I limped around with a stiff neck groaning and the seemingly inevitable and final decline of my body. My wonderful wife is a physiotherapist and she treated me into a slightly better shape, but I still felt 82 and grumpy.

Also, we had this spike in drug abuse in our community so every morning when I got to work, I was met by a sad scene of somebody desperately high on whatever drug the devil cooked up for them, highly aggressive and noncompliant. There is not a bodily fluid I haven’t cleaned up this week. This morning there was a bunch of no less that 12 drug disciples at church. For a change they were very apologetic and compliant when I told them to pack up, clean and not do drugs on the premises. They moved very slow because all of them were in various stages of being high but at least they were moving in the right direction. I went inside and started to work. My first appointment was coincidentally somebody who fell in the claws of drugs but decided to make an about turn. She had a heart-breaking slip recently and we are working through it. There is hope.

After my conversation with her I went outside and suddenly there were RCMP vehicles all over ( In Canada the police aren’t underfunded so they sent about seventy vehicles out to every call). The ladies of the disabled group stood there talking with officers looking traumatized. It turns out a taxi came while the drug group were packing up. A guy got out with a baseball bat and started mercilessly hitting the men in the group. He went back and got out an axe. The group fled, he got back in and the taxi drove off. I have seen some crazy stuff as a police reservist in South Africa and all this almost made me miss home. By 9:00 am when the food project volunteers arrive you cannot even tell that there was drama. All is at peace.

I talked to the officers and went inside. I get called to go down to the shelter to get vaccinated. I am grateful for that. I have to wait in a line. It gives me time to reflect on everything. As I get back to my office my stomach growls. Right after a huge growl one of the sisters preparing meals for the homeless comes into my office and asked: “Gabriel, can I bring you a sandwich”. Wow. My stomach did not growl loud enough for her to hear it but her timing was perfect. Or maybe the God’s timing she served.

I finally get to open the book from a theologian on the resurrection. I finished my message for Good Friday yesterday. I need to dig into the hopeful climax of the Easter story. The theologian really knows his game. He says the resurrection means that there is a human destiny and that the world really can change. Christians are the people who from conviction can tell others: There is more to you than you realize, the people with real hope that there are other ways of being together than tribal, violent, exclusive or anxious ones. The resurrection means that death is real yet conquerable. That God cares for all creation and that everything has sacramental potential-they can like the bread and wine at communion become important conveyers of God’s love and purposes for creation. That God is with us.

I drink all this in thirstily. I love this. I need this.  And I realize something. I have passed a threshold long ago. There are two things I cannot be anymore: 1) A Christian that just “Jesus, Jesus” and  teach theology and proclaim grace eloquently but in a way that side step the ugly parts of reality. In myself and others. That is not what Jesus did. He embraced lepers and outcasts. He bowed down with a woman shamed and about to be stoned. He put Himself in at the center of human ugliness on the cross. That is why I felt (and often feel) this strange calm when I am dealing with depravity and violence and chaos here in our neighborhood. Jesus is alive and He is with me and with us here. 2) A humanitarian hero that face and fight all these social ills without holding on to a Jesus that is Lord over all and will make and is making all things new. Someone full of vocal opinions for (or against) BLM and Gay rights and whatever cause is the flavour of the month to be perceived as a virtuous person without even really having one deep cross cultural friendship, interaction with gay people or engagement with real people affected by a cause.

I am exactly where Jesus calls me to be. In a place where I can only engage hopefully by clinging on to Jesus to dear life (or rather by reminding myself that He is holding on to me because my life is dear to Him). A place where helping, serving and patiently attending with love is rooted in and sourced by a resurrected Lord that lives in me and is working around me. One never scared away by the ugly the world can show.

As a child I often took some things too seriously. My academic goals. My 10 km time. My popularity and social standing. My looks. My calves. Quite unnecessary. But there is one thing I also took seriously that I will never regret. The fact that if Jesus is real and has truly risen from the dead, it changes everything. This has transformed me into a better man. One that shows up and appreciate a sandwich as a gift from God. One who believes Jesus is alive, and one that believes He rose from the dead and raises the dead everyday. Also, me with my broken body and all.

 This conviction has come to define who I am and what I do. There is no turning back and no cowering away. Just joy and the peace that surpasses all understanding. Just the hope that He is making all things new. That is enough. That is all I will ever need.

Gabriel J Snyman

March 30th 2021

Dear Pilgrims,

Somebody recently shared a map of meaning with me that I found very helpful. I want to extend this person’s generosity with you. We were talking about a congregation in trouble. The call has to be made on whether to end it or whether to salvage it. He suggested we make that decision with the help of a diamond grid with four points. If a congregation (or person) does not have all four points of this diamond it will crumble and trying to salvage it despite it not having these four things working together would be a waste of time. I thought to myself that it applies to individuals and other teams as well. They are:

Vision. A person or a group must dream. There are few things as depressing as a person just carrying on from day to day without a vision for how things could be better that pulls him or her forward in the right direction. We must dream to truly stay alive.

Reality. If I dream of winning an Olympic gold medal with a bad back at the age of 80, I have a dream that doesn’t take into account the concrete reality before me. Some of us are pessimists and others are optimist but all of us, to some extent, need to be realists. We cannot be blind to realities, good or bad and expect to live well. Our dreams need to be shaped by the reality we find ourselves in and our ability to look it in the eye honestly.

Courage. Let’s say I am blessed with the bodily ability and age to be a great gymnast and want to go for gold because of that. I then dream based on a reality. But that alone won’t make me a gold medalist. Courage needs to be added to the mix. I need to get out there, rise and shine early and put in the hours of practice needed. It is extremely popular in our time to vocally advocate for lofty ideals and not lifting a finger to pursue them. We have turned into a bunch of Facebook warriors that lack courageous action while our forefathers have stormed the beaches of Normandy at age 19. We need to walk the talk bravely.

Community. If we dream big, look reality straight in the eye and put our ideals into action we will find that it’s simply not something we can achieve alone. A gymnast needs a community of scientists, sports coaches, supporters and friends to make it big. Even when it comes to simpler goals, we can execute them better with others than we can going at it alone. Like the African saying goes; A (wo)man is a (wo)man between other (wo)men.

Don’t fool yourself by leaving on of the points of the diamond out of the equation that is your life and think you will succeed. Pursue all four. Don’t be impressed by someone who only excels at one or more of these and neglecting one of them grossly. Be careful to invest in anybody that shows no interest in engaging in all 4 of these aspects. Seek, look out for and emulate people who shows a track record of embracing all of them.  

I look at the garden project we just kicked off. I see a project that dared to dream, kept in mind where we are placed and what happens in our current reality, made the courageous sacrifices to incarnate the dream into reality, and now involves our community in it. Maybe this doesn’t guarantee its success, but it sure gives it a fighting chance and makes it a worthwhile endeavour regardless of the outcome.

What is your strong and weak hands when it comes to these four diamond points? What do you do to challenge yourself and improve on the one you tend to neglect?

Pondering on these questions could change your life for the better!

Gabriel J Snyman

March 22^nd 2021