Dance with my Father

It was during one of those ordinary Sunday afternoons. Home, unwinding after church, preparing lunch and thinking ahead to plan what I might as well also prepare and cook for the week ahead. Having decided on what lunch would be, I settled on just baking some fish for the week ahead – anything else just seemed too complicated at that moment in time. Yes, that was it. Fish would be the main source of protein. So there it was. Keeping it simple.

Crushed Garlic
Out came the slabs of fish, olive oil, herbs, lemon, salt and garlic. I was taught that the best baked fish is minimally seasoned, so keeping it simple was the key. So we began the process of preparing the marinade that would be soaked in by the fish, infuse with the flavour of the fish itself, and voila.

I chose two fat chunks of garlic cloves, peeled off the skin and brought out the garlic crusher. Within seconds out came that familiar aroma. Reassuringly familiar. The other ingredients where added and stirred. Suddenly the whole kitchen was overpowered with the marinade, with the odour of garlic firmly, strongly and potently in the lead.

And I began to ponder on the potency of this bulb. In peeling it of its skin, I removed the seeming innocence of this powerful and potent flavour enhancer and natural health remedy; for truly the garlic cloves before being crushed had just laid there as innocent unassuming bystanders in the vegetable basket. And I considered how such a tiny item could embody such potency.

Somehow, somewhere, the parallel with our own lives came to mind. And I began to have this conversation with myself.

A Conversation with me, myself and I
As the garlic clove did, it may not be so bad then to withstand the pressures of existence so that the fullness of our potency and riches could be released. Those ever present pressures, experiences and maybe even disappointments that we seem to meet day in day out. Might we find therein our potency, our interests, our calling, our strengths, our weakness, our values?

It was a few days afterwards that I purchased a copy of Nelson Mandela’s book, Conversations with Myself. The ‘conversation’ that he himself starts with in the book is that which was in a letter he wrote to his wife Winnie in 1975:

All copyrights etc to Madiba, of course

In judging our progress as individuals we tend to concentrate on external factors such as one’s social position, influence and popularity, wealth and standard of education. These are of course important in measuring one’s success in material matters....but internal factors may be even more crucial in assessing one’s development as a human being. Honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, pure generosity, absence of vanity, readiness to serve others – qualities which are within easy reach of every soul are the foundation of one’s spiritual life. Development in matters of this nature is inconceivable without serious introspection, without knowing yourself, your weakness and mistakes. At least, if for nothing else, the cell gives you the opportunity to look daily into your entire conduct to overcome the bad and develop whatever is good in you.

Madiba’s garlic crusher, that which developed his potency, his unique character and that which shaped the formidable individual which he has come to be, was his prison cell. Locked up in a prison cell for decades, he purposefully introspected. Thought and deliberated deeply. We know too well the outcome.

In the same letter he concluded:

Regular meditation, say about 15 minutes a day before you turn in, can be very fruitful in this regard. You may find it difficult at first to pinpoint the negative features in your life, but the 10th attempt may yield rich rewards. Never forget that a saint is a sinner who keeps in trying.
Awaken joy
Each new dawn, even with its crush and squash, can be the morning of our lives. Each new day may well awaken joy.