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I saw God the other day

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“I saw God the other day. He was a builder. I saw him plastering a wall at the coffee shop Nino’s in Rosebank, Johannesburg, at about eight thirty at night. I stopped for a good five minutes and watched him plaster. For that length of time, nothing mattered in the world. Not the conflict in the Congo. Not HIV/AIDS. Put it this way, if a truck came shuttling down on me at that very moment I would hardly have looked up, even if the driver were hooting. God was busy, you see? 


And I was watching him. It occurred to me there and then, as that white man’s image reminded me of my late black father, that there is no better way to make colour acceptable than to do what you do extremely well. There is no quicker way to shut down prejudice than to be an expert at what you do. There’s no quicker way to bring out the God in you than to do what you do with intense honesty, love, focus, passion, concentration and total spiritual commitment. You see, Mandingo, God exists in all of us. Bring him out to play.” 
                                                                        Eric Miyeni in: The only Black at a Dinner Party
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