The Only Gospel We Leave Behind

At every turn in my life, I have sought the oldest voices. I have asked them the same question: What is the one thing you know for certain?

Abdullah Ibrahim, who introduced me to Rumi, whose name now lives in my family, told me, “We don’t know anything.”

For many years, I carried his answer like a koan – half riddle, half truth – until I began to see its edges. Yes, we know nothing. And yet, we are here. Now.

I asked UBabomkhulu the same question. He is 80 years old. His instinct was to quote the Bible, and though I love him, I felt a sadness in that moment – not because of what he said, but because I sensed he has lived a life that never became its own religion, even though he and Mamkhulu share a love as old as I am.

And this is what I now know for certain: our life is our only testament.

Rumi said, “A candle is made to become entirely flame.” I say, we are made to become entirely sacred. Religion. Not bound to dogma, but lit by the fire of our own lived truth. Every decision, every joy, every heartbreak becomes a verse. Every person we encounter is a mirror, showing us the wants and needs we carry into the world. There is no good. There is no bad. There just is.

The grandeur of this understanding we have tried to capture in the word God. But perhaps God is nothing more – and nothing less – than the divine courage to let your life burn so brightly that others will gather around its heat.

Look at Jesus. His friends were so moved by the way he lived that they wrote stories about him, and a religion was born. Whether or not you believe the stories, you can feel the truth in the way his life lit fires in the lives of others.

And so I ask myself: is Marantu not just my work, but my works? My life and testament? My religion? If it is, then every story I tell, every fragment I set free into the world, is a scripture. Every person it touches is a disciple. And when my flame has burned through me entirely, perhaps Marantu will be the temple where my light continues.

Uzanenkosi

Torchbearer, Marantu