
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, May 9, 1994                   TAG: 9405110074
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By THOMAS P. O'DELL
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SOUTH AFRICA

A DECADE ago, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa received the Nobel Prize for Peace. The announcement came as he sat in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd at General Theological Seminary in New York City, where he was spending a sabbatical year as visiting professor. As a student at the seminary, I was privileged to study under the archbishop, and to be present with him in the chapel at the time the prize was announced.

On the day of the announcement, the chapel bells pealed across Manhattan for what seemed like an hour, and a standing ovation interrupted the solemn worship of the seminary community as the Norwegian charge d'affaires entered with a colossal bouquet of yellow roses and the official announcement. It was a phenomenal moment!

The very privilege of knowing Archbishop Tutu was a phenomenal experience. In the months in which we lived with him at General Seminary, my entire family was deeply touched and transformed by this humble, prayerful man of powerful and passionate faith.

On one occasion when we organized a seminary-wide celebration dinner for him, he refused to sit at the head table where the seminary dean and other dignitaries were gathered. Instead, he moved to a table filled with squirming seminary children (two of whom were my sons, Ben and Andy), and he led them in an "insurrection" as they danced around the seminary refectory carrying helium-filled balloons.

My wife, my sons and I will never forget the spontaneous joy and love that the archbishop carries with him as a tangible expression of his faith.

He never missed a chapel service, and he was always the last to leave. He knelt in prayer long after the services ended - deep, personal prayer for his homeland and its people. He believed that the most important thing he could do for the people of his country was to pray for them. So he prayed. He prayed for justice, freedom and change. He also prayed for reconciliation, healing and peace.

Personal prayer for the people of South Africa is something I've been engaged in ever since I had the privilege of studying with Archbishop Tutu. He taught me that South Africa is not a concept, a cause, or an idea. It is a land filled with persons - people struggling for freedom and justice, people sometimes filled with fear. The archbishop worked tirelessly for an end to the evil of apartheid, but he also sympathized with the fears of whites for what might follow.

Since my friendship with the archbishop, I've come to know and care for many white South Africans. And I've heard their hopes and prayers for their homeland.

Now, as the world marvels at the historic developments that are sweeping across South Africa, my prayers for its people are more fervent than ever. The single greatest gift we can give them is our personal prayer - a personal prayer for the people of South Africa.

Thomas P. O'Dell is rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in Roanoke.

by CNB