I have been reading Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton for the last couple of weeks for my literature class. If you have read my profile, you will notice that this is on my list of favorite books. The reason it is there is because it is a simple story which, in its telling, gives you a broad and saddening view of apartheid South Africa. Paton was not an author by trade, but wrote this story based on what he knew of South Africa. He was born and lived there his whole life.Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.
Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton (1948, Schribner Press)
Chapter 12
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I wonder what Alan Paton was like. He was obviously a man of wisdom and had an ability to think plot-wise about life. I would tend to believe that God gifted him so that he could write this book to show others the state of the racism and inequality in South Africa. South Africa has changed a lot sense Paton wrote Cry, The Beloved Country, but I think that it is still far from being the nation it ought to be (neither is the United States of America, though).
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With these acknowledgements, I wonder what my role, as a Christian, is in this world of mine. Paton wrote a story, but he did much more than that: he ran schools and reformatories that helped the people like the unfortunate characters in his book. Just like Absalom Kumalo, who has chosen a wrong path in this story (and will eventually die because of it), I know of people who have tied themselves in knots; Knots that cannot be untied through their own effort. At one time I was such a person: addicted, sad and sinful, but unsure of what choices to make in order to be repaired. My situation was changed by God through people, perhaps I can now be such a person for another, one through whom God works.
For more information on Cry, The Beloved Country:
Wikipedia Article: Cry, The Beloved Country
1 comment:
I suppose one begins one person at a time. Maybe a man, wheelchair bound, struggling in the sand at the base of his driveway.
What's the starfish legend - the guy who tossed starfish from the beach into the sea after the tide went out.
Another man laughed, said "there are millions of starfish, you can't make a difference."
The tosser scooped up a dying creature and launched it into the ocean. "It made a different for this one."
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