I'm thankful to be reading this again.
The main character Stephen Kumalo is a parson in a small South African tribe where the men and women are leaving in droves for the bigger cities to find their spouses and children, never to return themselves. Stephen and his wife receive a letter that his sister Gertrude, who left years earlier for Johannesburg to find her husband, is sick. He finally decides to take the train to Johannesburg to find her and his son Absalom to bring them home and "rebuild the tribe." He finds his sister in the slums; she has become a prostitute and has a young son. Ashamed but desperate to leave, she goes with Stephen and they travel together to find Absalom.
"While Kumalo was waiting for Msimangu to take him to Shantytown, he spent the time with Gertrude and her child...He could not expect her to talk with him about the deep things that were here in Johannesburg; for it was amongst these very things that saddened and perplexed him, that she had found her life and occupation. Here were heavy things again...never again did they speak of the things that had made her fall on the floor with crying and weeping.
He had bought the child some cheap wooden blocks, and with these the little one played endlessly and intently, with a purpose obscure to the adult mind but completely absorbing. Kumalo would pick the child up, and put his hand under the shirt to feel the small warm back, and tickle and poke him, till the serious face relaxed into smiles, and the smiles grew into uncontrollable laughter. Or he would tell him of the great valley where he was born, and the names of hills and rivers, and the school that he would go to, and the tops above the Ndotsheni. Of this the child understood nothing; yet something he did understand, for he would listen solemnly to the deep melodious names, and gaze at his uncle out of wide and serious eyes....
Sometimes Gertrude would hear him and come to the door and stand shyly there, and listen to the tale of the beauties of the land where she was born. This enriched his pleasure, and sometimes he would say to her, do you remember, and she would answer, yes, I remember, and be pleased that he asked her."
I asked my students "Have you ever been in a situation with a close friend or a family member where the one thing you feel the need to talk about is the one thing that is off limits?"
*nods*
"What often happens to that relationship if you can't get past that barrier?"
"It dissolves."
To be willing to endure the silence because you know it's the only way to keep them near - that is the sacrifice. I felt it deeply when I read this passage.
How can we help to fill the void left by sin and fear? This books challenges me to mend in small ways, for instance, when I observe conflict between two students in study hall and know that one is assaulting the worth of another. And in big ways, when someone I love doesn't know how to love herself and she needs the committed celebration of her place in my life.
"The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that they are not mended again."
