Beloved Community

For years I have been haunted by a line from Alan Paton's novel Cry, the Beloved Country. The Reverend Msimangu, Anglican priest and guide and companion to the Reverend Stephen Kumalo, as he searches for his son Absalom in Johannesburg during the egregious years of apartheid, tries to explain to Kumalo what it is like in the city where the white man has power and the black man wants power. Msimangu says,

" But there is only one thing that has power completely, and that is love. I see only one hope for our country, and that is when white men and black me desiring neither power nor money, but desiring only the good of their country, come together to work for it."

and then Msimangu becomes grave and silent and says sombrely,

"I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find we are turned to hating."

This is the line that has haunted me...will it be too late when we finally are "turned to loving?" But last night with help from a clairvoyant friend, I met a man who has been haunted by this line as well but has found a way to prevent it from coming true.

Let me introduce you to Khalil Osiris. Read, mark and inwardly digest anything you can find about him or written by him, and know that he is a prophet who carries with him the torch for creating Beloved Community. Here is the back cover of his book to be published in April.