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Katherine Marshall is a Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, where she leads the Center's program on Religion and Global Development. After a long career in...
Faith in Action tracks the activities of people of faith across the globe and across religious traditions, with a focus on development issues. Posts are originally published by the Huffington Post. Older blog posts appeared on the Washington Post's Georgetown/On Faith site.
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Religious Leaders Itching For A Fight On Guns
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Let the Sun Shine in
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Energy for All: A Challenge of Faith
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Sex Trafficking: President Obama's Challenge Of Faith
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Review of Donald Harman Akenson, God's Peoples. Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster
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RELATED RESOURCES ON SOUTH AFRICA
Thabo Mbeki on the Danish Cartoon of Muhammad in His Response to the State of the Nation Debate
Quote
Quote
Soccer and the soul
June 14, 2010
South Africa already was at fever pitch when I visited 10 days ago, more than a week before the 2010 World Cup began. It reminded me of the extraordinary spirit of South Africa in June 1995 when the Springboks won the rugby World Cup and the country went wild. The tension leading up to the match and the outburst of excitement when their team won against all odds were unforgettable.
So it's not surprising that Clint Eastwood's 2009 film "Invictus, about Nelson Mandela and that great rugby victory, is playing on airplanes going in many directions. It is an inspiring story of powerful leadership, both Mandela's and Francois Pienaar's, the Springbok captain. The real history and the film highlight the power of determination and inspiration, and how South Africa's national success in sports helped to overcome huge barriers among South Africans, almost in an instant. It is a real story of hope.
Invictus is a Latin word meaning 'unconquered.' The film's title is taken from a Victorian poem by William Ernest Henley. Mandela tells Pienaar that the poem gave him courage to persist in the toughest times, during his long years in prison on Robben Island. Pienaar in turn takes inspiration from Mandela's message.
The message that Mandela takes from the poem is that no matter how dark the pit, the soul is unconquerable. "My head is bloody but unbowed . . . The menace of the years finds, and shall find, me unafraid . . . I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul."
The message that "I am the master of my fate" has a strong echo in Michelle Obama's graduation speech in Washington last week, as she urged the graduates not to let fatalism grip them: master your own life.
Mandela is one of our era's most inspirational figures, a person tested beyond our imagination, an living example of courage, persistence and belief in the unconquerable power of the spirit.
Comparisons between religion and sports are generally made in a frivolous tone, or in a vein that denigrates the passions and convictions of both. But inspiration and leadership are at the heart of the best in both sports and religion.
In the film, Mandela asks the captain, how can you lead in ways that make your team more than they believe they can be? His question for himself is how he can inspire the people of his divided nation to see themselves both as one and as masters of their fate.
That's the central question we face in our country too, and we would do well to follow Mandela's wise example and his counsel.
Invictus is a Latin word meaning 'unconquered.' The film's title is taken from a Victorian poem by William Ernest Henley. Mandela tells Pienaar that the poem gave him courage to persist in the toughest times, during his long years in prison on Robben Island. Pienaar in turn takes inspiration from Mandela's message.
The message that Mandela takes from the poem is that no matter how dark the pit, the soul is unconquerable. "My head is bloody but unbowed . . . The menace of the years finds, and shall find, me unafraid . . . I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul."
The message that "I am the master of my fate" has a strong echo in Michelle Obama's graduation speech in Washington last week, as she urged the graduates not to let fatalism grip them: master your own life.
Mandela is one of our era's most inspirational figures, a person tested beyond our imagination, an living example of courage, persistence and belief in the unconquerable power of the spirit.
Comparisons between religion and sports are generally made in a frivolous tone, or in a vein that denigrates the passions and convictions of both. But inspiration and leadership are at the heart of the best in both sports and religion.
In the film, Mandela asks the captain, how can you lead in ways that make your team more than they believe they can be? His question for himself is how he can inspire the people of his divided nation to see themselves both as one and as masters of their fate.
That's the central question we face in our country too, and we would do well to follow Mandela's wise example and his counsel.