I see you, my son. On being worthy.
I am writing too many things at once and simultaneously reading too many books and because reading is breathing in and writing is breathing out,...
Thoughts
Know your worth, then add tax.
A few weeks ago, I posed the below statement/question on various social media platforms and was stunned by the volume of responses.
A kind of sermon, but a violent one
I have read about two concepts, (astonishingly, both in the memoirs/novels of Elizabeth Gilbert), which (together with the more familiar concept...
The opposite of Faith is not doubt, its certainty
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind, at the same time, and still retain the ability to...
Every day is Africa Day for me.
My ancestors were a rather motley crew of German peasants, French Huguenots, some rather odd British folk and who knows what else. My paternal...
Love takes many unorthodox forms
My mother will be 87 in just over a week. She is old and frail and dangerously unsteady on her pins. She is occasionally rather otherwise. She...
Barefoot along the footpaths of my childhood.
One shouldn’t wait until one’s friends are dead to document admiration for them. With this in mind I thought I would schedule some praise singing...
Make it count!
I am struggling to articulate exactly what it is that is so enormously hope-inducing about this extraordinary victory that we all feel part of....
Op die Groen Kant!
Dear Siya, Bongi, Rassie, Jacques and the Amabokoboko family I come from the rural areas of the Eastern Cape, near Qonce in the territory of the...
Continental Imposter syndrome vibes
Why do we persist in feeling astonished every time an uncommonly brilliant innovation, solution, creation emerges from an African brain on the...
A kind of fierce grace
Last week I had the opportunity to speak at Queens College, Komani. It’s an extraordinary school and I’m still trying to put my finger on...
Born to Run. Really.
A note to all the misguided folk who insist they don’t/won’t/can’t run:I had already been running for more than half my life...
Mbashe Seahorse
“Take notice, be astonished, write it down.” Mary Oliver Trekking home from the wide mouth of the mystical Mbashe, it’s valley rising...
I am as outraged as you are
When I heard the news of the violent death of Uyinene Mrwetyana in September last year, the heartbreak and the anguish felt physically...
Hope is not a substitute for action, it’s a basis for action
Because Easter is the best illustration of Hope, action and sacrifice: A revised piece on Hope – “Hope is not a substitute for action, it’s...
Who can speak these words in a way that will make them count
AntjieKrog, internationally acclaimed poet, author, journalist and academic, was quoted in an interview this week saying: “Every South...
Good Grief
As a rule I have no problem with speaking, in fact I make a living from doing so. I love words, I love connecting and I love humans, so talking...