### **A Spade, a Seed, and a WhatsApp Group**
Let me tell you about the day I nearly cursed out a municipal worker in Akasia. It was a Tuesday—load-shedding stage 6, no coffee, and my neighbor’s dog had dug up my spinach seedlings. As I stood fuming in my driveway, a city truck rolled by, its driver waving cheerfully. My tongue coiled, ready to spit venom. But then I remembered Mama Lerato.
Mama Lerato runs a *spaza* shop in Soshanguve. Last month, during protests over water cuts, I watched her disarm a crowd of angry youths with three words: *“TTaangmo pele, bana baka”* (“Come inside first, my children”). She fed them *vetkoek* and spoke of her son, jailed for looting during the 2021 riots. “Words are like *mielie* seeds,” she said. “You can’t unplant them. Ask yourself: Will this grow a harvest or a thornveld?”
Her wisdom stuck. In South Africa, where every tweet, protest song, and family WhatsApp group debate feels like a battleground, we’ve forgotten the ancient truth: **Speech is a divine technology**. God spoke light into chaos (Genesis 1:3). Jesus’s *“Talitha koum”* resurrected a girl (Mark 5:41). Yet we wield our tongues like pangas, not plows.
### **The Theology of the Tongue: From Genesis to Load-Shedding**
The Bible is clear: Words aren’t just sounds—they’re *creative acts*. John 1:1 declares Christ Himself as *the Word*. When God speaks, galaxies spin. When we speak, we partner in His ongoing creation—or sabotage it. Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard called speech “the mirror of the soul,” a sacred responsibility.
But here’s the rub: In Tshwane’s potholed streets, where corruption scandals and xenophobic rhetoric flood our newsfeeds, how do we speak life? Consider our national obsession: Eskom’s load-shedding. We rant about “darkness,” yet miss the metaphor. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). What if, instead of sharing another meme about incompetent ministers, we WhatsApp: *“Let’s fix my neighbor’s solar geyser this weekend”*?
### **Baobabs and Babel: A South African Parable**
Last week, I drove past the Centurion Mall—a shrine to consumerism—and noticed a baobab stump. Someone had chainsawed it for “blocking the view.” Yet baobabs teach us: **Roots matter**. These trees survive droughts by storing water in their trunks. Similarly, our words must draw from deeper wells.
The Karoo’s *kokerboom* trees, though, warn us: Absorb poison (like gossip or racial slurs), and you’ll petrify. Nietzsche wrote, “Beware the abyss staring back,” but Christ flips it: *“Out of the heart, the mouth speaks”* (Luke 6:45). Check your roots. Are you nourished by Living Water (John 4:14) or the bitter springs of resentment?
Don’t curse yourself when things do not go your way because not everything is meant to go your way”
### **Springboks, Hashtags, and the Art of Resurrection**
Amid our fractures, hope sprouts. When the Springboks won the 2023 Rugby World Cup, Siya Kolisi’s tears and the slogan *“Stronger Together”* became a national prayer. Contrast this with the toxic hashtags that trended during July’s riots. Both are speech-acts. Both shape reality.
In my Pretoria church, we’ve started a “Word Clinic.” Every Sunday, we dissect a toxic phrase we uttered (“You’ll never change!”) and rewrite it biblically (“Christ in you *is* changing you!”). One member, a teacher in Mamelodi, replaced scolding learners with: *“I see greatness in you.”* Grades rose. Miracles? No—theology in overalls.
Don’t curse yourself when things do not go your way because not everything is meant to go your way”
### **Your Turn: The Akasia Experiment**
Friends, let’s run a test. For 24 hours, speak *as if* your words mold eternity (because they do). When the traffic light beggar asks for change, say his name (Thabo, not “broer”). When your aunt shares fake news, reply: *“Let’s fact-check with Psalm 15:2-3.”*
Proverbs 18:21 isn’t a platitude—it’s physics. Sow death (“This country is doomed”), reap despair. Sow life (“Let’s build a park here”), reap hope. Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper wrote, “No single piece of our mental world is to be walled off from Christ.” That includes your Twitter fingers.
### **Final Word: Stitching Syllables**
Last month, I visited the Apartheid Museum. In the “Words That Wounded” exhibit, I saw the *Dompas* laws and hate speech. But downstairs, the “Ubuntu Wall” glowed with healing quotes: Tutu, Mandela, a child’s letter to Cyril Ramaphosa.
Your tongue is a needle. Every sentence stitches heaven’s kingdom into earth’s fabric—or unravels it. So, Akasia, let’s talk like baobabs. Let’s be the weirdos who bless Eskom technicians, who WhatsApp Psalms during blackouts, who turn braais into revival meetings.
After all, if God used a donkey’s mouth (Numbers 22:28), imagine what He’ll do with yours.
*Author’s note: This essay was drafted by candlelight during load-shedding. Thanks, Eskom, for the ambiance.*
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