On the Shoulders of the Saints.

I was browsing through my status updates I had posted when I first joined Facebook (yes, I was a little bored at the time!) and I saw that I had shared this... and I fell in love with the quote all over again:

Then I saw this shared by Brian McLaren on Facebook today, and it comes from here originally. 

I just love it.  

These are my meditations for this week.

Defending Mr President

I find myself in a position of sympathy and wanting to defend our President. This is SUCH a foreign feeling since we all have an abundant of information at our fingertips that affirms that he has said and done MANY foolish things in the past that make us ashamed of him. (I am NOT defending his presidency, because we all know that he is an ongoing source of constant embarrassment to us as a nation).

However, this clip does not make me ashamed of him... my heart actually feels sympathy, and even empathy for the man.  Firstly  people, this has nothing to do counting, and everything to do with translating a language that is not his mother tongue!!  My guess is that the figure is in numbers for him to read out - and this is why I feel for him:

• Can you read a number, written in digits, in Zulu (in the millions)?  I can't, not even in the tens. 
• I am learning French and when we got to counting, it completely did my head in. I still am not able to give my year of birth without considering for about a minute what it is before I allow the words to tentatively escape my lips - and even then I make mistakes. Even worse in front of a class (or a crowd) when you make a mistake, and the nerves kick in....

So, in this instance - I want to be a little gracious to the man. I know there will be times again in the future when he will make me want to swear with frustration... but for now Mr President, I am sorry for your humiliation.

*Update:  A year later, and I just watched Trevor Noah back up this blogpost. Thank you Trevor.