Atticus’s Skin

 

I don’t think many of us would have foreseen, a week ago, the sudden need to potty train our two year olds because we may run out of nappies. Or that lunch time would become a very real battle ground where if your kids don’t eat their lunch that’s it, no special top ups. Or that the litres of milk our children seem to mainline throughout the day would suddenly run dry. 

This week we’ve had to climb into the skin of many South Africans. 

I’ve never gone to sleep to the sound of gunshots and the smell of burning rubber. 

Not only have I climbed into my bed, I’ve climbed into the skin. 

There have been very few times when I’ve really had to ponder the future of my children in this country. Their prospects - both emotionally and financially. 

I’ve climbed into the skin of the insomniacs who have to accept whatever education is offered to their children.

When people queue in their vehicles for countless hours to get their share of fuel - climb into the skin of the millions who have to rely solely on others to get from A to B, from places that aren’t safe to places that are.

This week when we have gone to bed earnestly praying that tomorrow will be safer and that food will arrive and that the fear will stop we say the daily prayer of most South Africans who don’t have food and who live in fear and who have no hope that it will end.

Guys this week we’ve been given the hugest gift. We have, for the shortest moment ever, had a glimpse of how most South Africans live. We have come to appreciate every bread crust and every tin of beans. It will be short lived but I pray that we never forget that it is through empathy that we change the world.

And let us also realise that leadership comes in many different forms. Jesus taught us that. You don’t need to be a president to change the way a country operates. In fact, if anything, this country will change in spite of its leaders. But it has to change for everyone. 

Now that we who are privileged have had a moment under the skin of those who aren’t we cannot possibly pretend that it didn’t happen and that we didn’t feel as desperate and frightened as the millions of disenfranchised  in this country.

I don’t know where we start but my God (and here I am not blaspheming) I have seen some leaders rise from the chaos. Let’s start identifying them in our communities, invest in them, build them up, encourage them and believe in them. 

It shouldn’t take 27 years on a prison island to make a true president of this country. All it takes is for each of us, in whatever capacity we serve this beautiful country, to step into the skin of others and understand that unless it improves for everyone then we will live in the shadow of this week forever.