My whole life changed on a trip to South Africa in 2007 when I was recovering from breast cancer. It was then that I met Archbishop Desmond Tutu for the first time. I wrote a memoir which included details about the trip and my book jacket says: “But it wasn’t until I traveled to South Africa in 2007 that I learned about forgiveness and love after meeting Archbishop Desmond Tutu. When I returned to Nashville, TN, I started living a life of freedom and rest.”
I was saddened to hear of his passing yesterday morning as the world has lost a great light. I met him three other times on mission trips to South Africa. He graciously signed an Anglican Prayer Book (1989) for me on my trip in 2010. I blog frequently from the prayer book as well as books he authored. His words are inspiring and often challenging:
“If we could but recognize our common humanity, that we do belong together, that our destinies are bound up in one another’s, that we can be free only together, that we can survive only together, that we can be human only together, then a glorious world would come into being where all of us lived harmoniously together as members of one family, the human family.”
Desmond Tutu wrote in the foreword to Rowan William’s book, Where God Happens: “…we want to be helped, all of us…to find our way back home to our true rest…our hearts will remain forever restless until we find our true rest only in God.”
In a writer’s conference in 2011, I was asked to name four people I most admire. Three were personal friends, and the fourth was Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The conference then asked us to write a few sentences that are a composite of who we admire so can recognize what God’s purpose is for our lives. As I re-read it now, I realize the impact that Archbishop Tutu had on my faith:
"I want to become a…steadfast Christian who lives in the world but exhibits Jesus’ love and faithfulness in day-to-day life by loving others, even strangers, recognizing that all my time and monies belong to God and to trust God in all things, even the painful seasons of life, forgiving all wrongs and praying only, “Thy will be done.”
In his book, Believe, Desmond Tutu wrote:
Nothing is too much trouble for love.
May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
Blessings, my friend
Agatha