The Lyndi Tree. JA Ginn Fourie
out as fast as I can with much cursing, but this time I make sure that it is really under my breath.
One night when I am in Junior High School, I overhear Mommy and Daddy talking,
“Ginny is becoming more and more rebellious,” Mommy says. “She swears and wants to play tennis on the Sabbath. She has also been invited to a boys’ hostel dance next Friday night, and now Mum (Granny) tells me that Kendrew visited her on his motorbike.”
“Oh! Perhaps we should think about sending her to Sedaven with the boys?”
I can hear the seriousness in Daddys’ voice mixed with a grin. We often visit with the Macaskills, where Kendrews’ Dad, Cyril and my Dad argue for hours about whether we need to keep the Sabbath day holy on Saturday. Cyril maintains that salvation is by grace alone, the law was done away with at the cross. Daddy insists that it is crucial to keep the Sabbath day holy, as the fourth commandment requires, because although salvation is by grace, the law informs the behaviour of grace! They never reach an agreement and must have eventually agreed to disagree on the topic. Kendrew is their youngest son, about four years my senior and while our fathers argue, and mothers make tea, generously mixed with their conversations, we have our fun outside at the cattle kraal or listening to music in Kendrew and his brother Albans’ rondavel.
Daddy now continues,
“Cyril tells me that Mum was rude to Kendrew, and he wanted to know from me if we don’t trust Kendrew? I was quite embarrassed.”
I feel myself blushing at the memory, even though no one can see me. Kendrew is a tease and like a big brother to me when John and Ian are away at boarding school. Why was Granny making a fuss? Was it because Kendrew came while I was playing the piano? She heard the playing stop and came to find us sitting outside chatting,
“Go home. It is not right to be visiting Jeanette she should be practising the piano. She is just a schoolgirl and make sure that you don’t come back again,” she barks at him. He must have told his parents. Why haven’t I shared with mine and complained about this unfairness I wonder? C’est la vie - whatever will be will be, rings in my ears.
One rainy, windswept afternoon we set off with the Macaskills to Emanual Mission in Basutoland (now called Lesotho), to a Seventh Day Adventist Mission and Leper Colony. Cyril has bought the latest in movie projectors and has a film about the life of Christ. He wants to show to the Adventists that salvation is by Grace alone and so worshipping on the Lord’s day (which is Sunday) is best. I think he particularly wants Daddy, of all Adventists, to understand that he is wrong to worship on Saturday! I sit in the back of the car with Kendrew and want to talk to him about the scene with Granny, months before. Somehow the words won’t come. He is teasing me. He had put clothes pegs on my skirt, and I didn’t even know until I nearly tripped. He seems so light-hearted and full of fun, but I also know he is now dating my friend Sylvia, and for some strange reason that hurts. Besides which, it is as though Granny is in the car with us, frowning about our seemingly casual friendship.
The Life of Christ is graphically portrayed in the movie. His betrayal and crucifixion are so violent and heartrending, with his Mother Mary watching and weeping. I feel as though my heart is swelling in my chest. The tears are streaming down my cheeks. The sadness and guilt; for swearing and stealing and telling lies is welling up to overflowing. Then Uncle Cyril and Aunty Olive sing a duet; their voices blend in serene harmony. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. That saved a wretch like me. I am so moved by the singing that all the way home I am grateful for the darkness and pretend sleep to keep the spell unbroken. I remain deeply grateful to John Newton for penning these magnificent words and appreciate finding more about him after seeing the movie ‘Amazing Grace’ in which John Newton talks to William Wilberforce about his encounter with amazing grace.
Amazing Grace how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I’m found, Was blind, but now I see.
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear? The hour I first believed!
The Lord has promised good to me, His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be. As long as life endures.
Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come;
‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home.
When we’ve been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise. Than when we’d first begun.
[Newton was born in 1725 in London to a Puritan mother who died two weeks before his seventh birthday, and a stern sea-captain father who took him to sea at age 11. After many voyages and a reckless youth of drinking, Newton was pressed into the British navy. After attempting to desert, he received eight dozen lashes and was reduced to the rank of common seaman.
While later serving on the Pegasus, a slave ship, Newton did not get along with the crew who left him in West Africa with Amos Clowe, a slave trader. Clowe gave Newton to his wife Princess Peye, an African royal who treated him vilely as she did her other slaves. On stage, Newton’s African adventures and enslavement are a bit flashier with the ship going down, a thrilling underwater rescue of Newton by his loyal retainer Thomas, and an implied love affair between Newton and the Princess.
The stage version has John’s father leading a rescue party to save his son from the calculating Princess, but in actuality, the enterprise was undertaken by a sea captain asked by Newton senior to look for the missing John.
During the voyage home, the ship was caught in a horrendous storm off the coast of Ireland and almost sank. Newton prayed to God, and the cargo miraculously shifted to fill a hole in the ship’s hull, and the vessel drifted to safety. Newton took this as a sign from the Almighty and marked it as his conversion to Christianity. He did not radically change his ways at once; his total reformation was more gradual.
“I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards,” he later wrote. He did begin reading the Bible at this point and began to view his captives with a more sympathetic view.
In the musical, John abjures slavery immediately after his shipboard epiphany and sails to Barbados to search for and buy the freedom of Thomas. After returning to England, Newton and his sweetheart Mary Catlett dramatically confront the Prince of Wales and urge him to abolish the cruel practice. In real life, Newton continued to sell his fellow human beings, making three voyages as the captain of two different slave vessels, The Duke of Argyle and the African. He suffered a stroke in 1754 and retired but continued to invest in the business. In 1764, he was ordained as an Anglican priest and wrote 280 hymns to accompany his services. He wrote the words for “Amazing Grace” in 1772. In 1835, William Walker put the words to the popular tune “New Britain”.
It was not until 1788, 34 years after leaving it that he renounced his former slaving profession by publishing a blazing pamphlet called “Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade.” The tract described the horrific conditions on slave ships, and Newton apologised for making a public statement so many years after participating in the trade: “It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that, I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.” The pamphlet was reprinted several times and sent to every member of Parliament. Under the leadership of MP William Wilberforce, the English civil government outlawed slavery in Great Britain in 1807 and Newton lived to see it, dying in December of that year. The passage of the Slave Trade Act is depicted in the 2006 film, also called Amazing Grace, starring Albert Finney as Newton and Ioan Gruffud as Wilberforce.]5
1959-1967 Awakening
One wearisome day at