Create a better province: bishop

THE INDEPENDENT ON SATURDAY WISHES CHRISTIAN READERS A BLESSED EASTER AND JEWISH READERS HAPPY PESACH

ADDRESSING the loss, pain and disappointment caused by this week’s floods, retired Anglican Bishop of Natal Rubin Phillip urged people to turn despair, pain and disappointment into something “really positive”.

He told worshippers, who gathered at the Durban City Hall for the annual Good Friday dawn service that included a silent march, that “God is with us and will use you and me to create a better place, a better world and a better province”.

“Let’s not despair and become negative… find the courage and strength to take this challenge and build a new society.”

Phillip said South Africans were resilient people who had come through so much.

“We are still crossing that sea into the Promised Land. It’s a journey we need to continue. You and I have to be part of that transformation.”

The gathering of about 1 000 people, among them Premier Sihle Zikalala, walked around the inner city, returning to the City Hall, with participants taking turns to carry a huge wooden cross. Later, worshippers shuffled up to the steps of the City Hall to place flowers on it.

The event, organised by the Diakonia Council of Churches, took the theme “Living together with the alien in our midst”.

Introducing the proceedings,

Diakonia chairperson the Reverend Musa Zondi lamented that 2 000 years after the crucifixion of Christ, there was no peace in Palestine, and that there were wars between Russia and Ukraine, Sudan and South Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Rather than people taking up weapons against one another, they should live in peace and harmony, he said.

“There is no peace and harmony here in South Africa. There’s black against black, black against white, rich against poor and women against men. Even here in the land of Nelson Mandela.”