Rage and repentance in the interpreter's booth

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Rage and repentance in the interpreter's booth

• with Gideon Strauss

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• Complex truth, fragile reconciliation
• Learning wonder, heartbreak and hope in South
  Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission

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Warning

• Phenomenological.
• Anecdotal.
• Melodramatic.

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The Interpreter (Nicole Kidman)
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Athlone
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Nelspruit
O
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Matisyahu, Jerusalem

• Chorus
• Jerusalem, if I forget you,
• fire not gonna come from me tongue.
• Jerusalem, if I forget you,
• let my right hand forget what its supposed to
  do.
• In the ancient days, we will return with no delay
• Picking up the bounty and the spoils on our way
• Weve been traveling from state to state
• And them dont understand what they say
• 3,000 years with no place to be
• And they want me to give up my milk and honey
• Dont you see, its not about the land or the sea
• Not the country but the dwelling of his majesty
• chorus
• Rebuild the temple and the crown of glory
• Years gone by, about sixty

• Erase the demons out of our memory
• Change your name and your identity
• Afraid of the truth and our dark history
• Why is everybody always chasing we
• Cut off the roots of your family tree
• Don't you know that's not the way to be
• chorus
• Caught up in these ways, and the worlds gone
  craze
• Dont you know its just a phase
• Case of the Simon says
• If I forget the truth then my words wont
  penetrate
• Babylon burning in the place, cant see through
  the haze
• Chop down all of them dirty ways,
• Thats the price that you pay for selling lies to
  the youth
• No way, not ok, oh no way, not ok, ey
• Aint no one gonna break my stride
• Aint no one gonna pull me down

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Psalm 137liturgy by Roy Berkenbosch (red all)

• Hear the sorrowful word of the Lord
• How can we sing the Lords song in a strange Land
• By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we
  remembered Zion.
• There on the weeping willows we hung our
  instruments of joy
• How can we sing the Lords song in a strange
  Land?
• Our captors asked us to sing songs of home,
• How can we sing the Lords song in a strange
  Land?
• Our oppressors demanded songs of joy
• How can we sing the Lords song in a strange
  Land?
• They said "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
• But How can we sing the Lords song in a strange
  Land?
• If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
• May my right hand forget its skill.
• If I lose hope and make peace with exile
• May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth.
• If I forget the Holy Center of Wonder and
  Heartbreak and Hope
• There will be no song to sing in a strange land
• Remember, O LORD, what happened the day Jerusalem
  fell.
• "Tear it down," our enemies cried, tear it down
  to its foundations!"

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Psalm 1379

• A reward awaits the one who denies a future to
  your cause.

• Blessed shall he be who takes your little
  onesand dashes them against the rock!

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• We are a naïve and sentimental people if we
  equate love with mere social grace and think that
  niceness will successfully confront the massive
  and intransigent evils of our day, individual and
  corporate. Redemptionpersonal, social, and
  cosmiccomes only through suffering. The paradox
  is that while we should not wish pain on anyone,
  it seems to be a perfectly loving and realistic
  act to pray for it.
• Mark Galli

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Psalm 88 (The Message) O

• 9-12 I call to you, GOD all day I call.
• I wring my hands, I plead for help.
• Are the dead a live audience for your
  miracles?
• Do ghosts ever join the choirs that praise
  you?
• Does your love make any difference in a
  graveyard?
• Is your faithful presence noticed in the
  corridors of hell?
• Are your marvelous wonders ever seen in the
  dark,
• your righteous ways noticed in the Land of
  No Memory?
• 13-18 Im standing my ground, GOD, shouting for
  help,
• at my prayers every morning, on my knees
  each daybreak.
• Why, GOD, do you turn a deaf ear?
• Why do you make yourself scarce?
• For as long as I remember Ive been hurting
• Ive taken the worst you can hand out, and
  Ive had it.
• Your wildfire anger has blazed through my
  life
• Im bleeding, black-and-blue.
• Youve attacked me fiercely from every side,
• raining down blows till Im nearly dead.

• 1-9 God, youre my last chance of the day. I
  spend the night on my knees before you.
• Put me on your salvation agenda
• take notes on the trouble Im in.
• Ive had my fill of trouble
• Im camped on the edge of hell.
• Im written off as a lost cause,
• one more statistic, a hopeless case.
• Abandoned as already dead,
• one more body in a stack of corpses,
• And not so much as a gravestone
• Im a black hole in oblivion.
• Youve dropped me into a bottomless pit,
• sunk me in a pitch-black abyss.
• Im battered senseless by your rage,
• relentlessly pounded by your waves of
  anger.
• You turned my friends against me,
• made me horrible to them.
• Im caught in a maze and cant find my way
  out,
• blinded by tears of pain and frustration.

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Psalm 51 (ESV)A Psalm of David, when Nathan the
prophet went to him, after he had gone in to
Bathsheba

• 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,and renew
  a right  spirit within me.11 Cast me not away
  from your presence,and take not your Holy Spirit
  from me.12 Restore to me the joy of your
  salvation,and uphold me with a willing spirit.
• 13 Then I will teach transgressors your
  ways,and sinners will return to you.14 Deliver
  me from bloodguiltiness, O God,O God of my
  salvation,and my tongue will sing aloud of your
  righteousness.15 O Lord, open my lips,and my
  mouth will declare your praise.16 For you will
  not delight in sacrifice, or I would give ityou
  will not be pleased with a burnt offering.17 The
  sacrifices of God are a broken spirita broken
  and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.