THE MEMORIAL LECTURE THAT NEVER WAS

Recently I have been thinking back to last year’s Chaplain General’s Conference in Pretoria, and specifically to the inaugural memorial lecture that was held at that Conference. One of our Reserve Force colleagues had passed away suddenly after our previous Conference and that was deemed the reason we from henceforth would hold a Memorial Lecture in her honour and memory at all our Conferences. We were not told why she specifically was afforded this honour. I had reservations about why she and not another more prominent and senior chaplain had been honoured in this way, but the decision had already been made.
 
To my understanding, a memorial lecture commemorates the life and work of a person who made a profound and important contribution to society through his or her academic field or professional life. A memorial lecture, again to my understanding, explores academically how the life and work of the person being commemorated continues to make an impact on society and how we are continuing the work of that person in ways that are relevant and meaningful.

We assembled dutifully for the memorial lecture, and were informed that the chaplain’s previous Commanding Officer would present the lecture, but no title for the lecture was given. The family of the deceased chaplain was present at the front of the auditorium. In spite of my reservations, I was looking forward to something more academic and substantial in our otherwise rather mundane conference. I was disappointed. The lecture was nothing more than a glowing tribute, a eulogy to the chaplain who had passed away. It was a tribute that would have fitted in perfectly at the funeral or memorial service of the deceased. It felt like this for the family too: they were moved emotionally by what was being said. The lecture was concise and to the point – the speaker had made his point about the chaplain. There was a brief vote of thanks to the speaker and then the most bizarre part of the lecture that never was, happened. A Scottish piper played the hymn Amazing Grace on the bagpipes! It jarred in its glaring inappropriateness for the occasion as did its shocking insensitivity to the family, but more about that in a moment. The memorial lecture had come to an end and the family was excused. There was some self-congratulatory hubris after that, but then it was back to the business of the conference. I was left feeling incredulous and angry.

I trained for the ministry during the tumultuous 1980s. During those times, every now and again, I would find myself in the home of a young black activist who had been killed by the police. Most of the time I was the only white person in the home, feeling frightened and intimidated, naively hoping that the presence of my black colleague whom I always accompanied and my white clerical collar would be enough protection. I remember the scene vividly: the mother of the victim and the other women huddled under blankets; the room dimly lit by candles or a smelly paraffin lamp; the palpable pain; the quiet murmurings of the men; and the young black men on the periphery with that brief flash of anger when they saw me there, but mostly their faces were vacant in the knowledge that it would probably be one of them who would be killed next. Then the singing would start, sometimes loud and angry, at other times mournful and heart-wrenching, and at other times quiet and contemplative. In between the singing would be the loud, staccato prayers, prayers that raced from the heart and tumbled out of the mouth leaving both the one praying and the listeners out of breath. The singing and the prayers would be punctuated with the wails of the female mourners, cutting like a knife into the air and into the heart. I remember the hymns and the freedom songs, especially the haunting Senzeni na? I remember the prayerful, lilting rendition of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika. But most of all I remember the feeling. I did not understand the words being spoken but I knew I was on holy ground. The singing and the prayers were bringing hope into a hopeless situation, healing into the pain, applying a soothing balm onto the wound. In that moment there was a vision of a new South Africa, a new world where there would be peace, love and unity. Together we were able to catch a glimpse of it, together we yearned for it. The singing and the prayers put that which we yearned for momentarily in our grasp. In that moment my whiteness, my otherness and my fear disappeared: we were the same and we shared the same pain and the same hope.

I learnt a valuable lesson from those times that will stay with me forever. In Africa when we grieve, we sing and we pray. We sing and we pray in a way that expresses the grief fully, but also in a way that we find healing and hope.

Let’s return to our memorial lecture. A moving tribute was given and the family was in tears. We did not offer one prayer and we did not sing one hymn. What we did was to impose foreign, colonial style music on the family, telling them that it would make them feel better and then congratulating ourselves for what we had done! Instead of a soothing balm we had applied an astringent ointment, instead of healing we inflicted more pain, instead of hope we brought despair. To me it felt as if we had roughly ripped off the old bandage on the wound and clumsily slapped on an old discarded bandage from someone else’s suppurating ulcer. 

Senzeni na?

CHAPLAIN ANDREW TREU