This story of race, family, and other “ties that bind” is a product of its environment – South Africa around the end of apartheid – as much as it is a story of universal human nature. Told from multiple perspectives, it represents the hard work of reconciliation in a culture divided by so many ephemeral things like ethnicity or skin color. It is also a story about real horrors also dividing us like sexual abuse,…
Gandhi’s name sticks out in bold in twentieth-century history. Words associated with this great include India, non-violence, independence, integrity, and freedom. Yet those (like me) who have been schooled in a different religious tradition (for me, Protestant Christianity) might not be aware of the depth of Gandhi’s greatness because of differing idioms. That’s why I originally picked up this book, and that’s why I suggest that your reading of this book is important, too. Gandhi…
I read this book as a part of a book study led by McRay (the author himself). These stories, mostly from Israel-Palestine but also from Northern Ireland and South Africa, chronicle the difficulties we humans have in securing peace among each other. They tell of how each side of really difficult conflicts can come to live peacefully and non-violently with the other. McRay is not the subject here. Rather, he is the interviewer. He has…