Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

Yesterday was Nelson Mandela’s 95th birthday. I wrote about him two Fridays ago when it wasn’t looking good for him healthwise. Now the reports are looking up. People around the world celebrated his birthday by giving 67 minutes of service in his name.  I prayed to be more like Nelson Mandela, braver, kinder, thinking more of others than myself, willing to make sacrifices. But this was done by a white woman in the safety of her own home. Let’s face it, I’ve never been the object of racial discrimination. Well, there was that one time. Right out of college, I decided I wanted to travel and learn about other religions and cultures. I wanted to leave America behind and see what other countries were like. Sure, I’d been to Mexico and to Canada, but never for more than a few hours or days. I decided to teach English in Japan for a year. Japan is a safe place, right? Not for me. Let’s just say it was a year to remember. I got hit by a car on my bike. My house w...

Nelson Mandela lays in a hospital bed in South Africa waiting. I wonder if it reminds him of his 27 years in prison. He may not reach his 95 th birthday, which is less than two weeks away on the 18 th of June. It’s a day set aside as a call to action for people everywhere to make the world a better place. For Mandela Day, the Nelson Mandela Foundation asks people to set aside 67 minutes for service, one minute for each year of his service to his country. Although there are organized events, one of the easiest things to do is post something on Facebook that celebrates, or brings awareness to a human rights issue for the 67 days starting with his birthday. That may sound like a lot of days to write about human rights, until you start looking for human rights issues. There’s no shortage of them. Humanrights.com, Amnesty International and other sources report that individuals are: Tortured or abused in at least 81 countries Face unfair trials in at least 54 countries...

Do you have 67 minutes?   It’s just a bit over an hour but it represents so much more.   Sixty seven years is how long Nelson Mandela gave to fighting for the rights of humanity.   Next Wednesday, July 18 th is Mandela’s birthday which is becoming known as Mandela Day, a day to devote yourself for 67 minutes to making the world a better place. I have been around for the destruction of the Berlin Wall, for the ending of the Cold War, but for some reason, the election of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa in 1994 just seems to me to surpass all of these other events. Thirty six of the 67 years were spent in prison by Mandela and I have a hard time relating to that.   How could someone keep the faith while in prison for almost as long as I have been alive?   He must have had more conviction than I could ever muster. Of course the greater oppression against you, the greater you must be to overcome it. But not only did he overcome it, he create...