Punctuality is not a virtue. It does not matter when it comes to worship, but why, as Jean-Félix Belinga-Belinga in Cameroon is experiencing.
What an hour is?
In Ndele, my Cameroonian native village, begins to worship officially at nine o’clock. But as I should keep on my last visit, together with the local pastor of a Church service, since I had completely forgotten about, which means nine o’clock in the context of life in Ndele. It made me antsy that I got my Breakfast at a quarter to nine. So I contented myself with a SIP of lemon tea, without the doughnuts would have remained dry. In a hurry, I went to Church, about a hundred meters from our home.
Although it was already nine o’clock, my eyes wandered through the still empty Church, in whose midst I stand now. Alone in the sacristy, it felt to me strange. So I found myself after a short time outside again, where not even the pastor was in sight. Three Sexton indoor arrived soon after. Their radiant faces gave me joy. But she realized immediately that I was very early, even early in the Church. Too early?
The first two drummers came at nine thirty-five, the third ten minutes later. Immediately you put your dynamic, strictly rhythmic, almost intoxicating drum game. Meanwhile, wobbled slowly a few women. Thin and timid to her vocal sound to the drum music. However, this swelled, the more visitor came to the inside of the Church. A few men joined in the meantime, but remained outside the Church, where they led a cheerful, gesticulating conversations. So it was actually ten o’clock twenty-two, as the choir, followed by the Church Board, and the two of us pastors began at last to enter the Church of the blue, a bouncy dance step.
Of worship as a special event
Of worship in Ndele is only one of many examples, where, in Cameroon, the time seems to be infinitely elastic concept. For the West European Sense of the patience can be put to an extremely severe test. And here you can feel those quickly confirmed, want to see in this handling of the at a certain backwardness of the Africans. The well-known proverb likes to be in comparable situations to quote, after sweeping the clock formulated by the Europeans, the time is attributed to the Africans. And the call “african time!” despite its brevity, a clearly derogatory views of the Thinking of the Africans.
In Ndele, worship is experienced as an event in the weekly rhythm, the gathered people. There he is, every Sunday as a Feast to celebrate. And how to each other, one of dance music with the drums. Particularly important is that the people be guided to a specified time. It is crucial to be able to say that you have been. The participation underscores the belonging to the community. As the community event of the God takes serves an important place in the life of the village, as it enables a meeting. He makes the Individual experience, the community, and contributes to his individual spiritual maturity. Because it is essential for the Individual to always be aware of the fact that he is a part of the community. And to experience this community allows him to at the same time, its own meaning for you to emotionally perceive.
Through the music, the dance, the passionate Talk of worship as a special event to a place of emotions. Rational expressions of human existence would emphasize its individuality. The magic of the community event, however, is that an event that is self-centered, but always is wirbezogen. It helps to organize life in the community, to restructure. The individual can be based within the community, and contribute to, the community works as such on its perfection and to grow.
The core of the action
The time in this context has no abstract meaning. You will be met by the event and experienced. This is real and empfindbar. Whether it is with this meaning on other habitats transferable, is more than questionable. But the consideration of this time understanding directs my gaze away from the clock, as they look rather to the God serves as an event and thus to the core of the action. The question as to the core but has a universal character.
Jean-Félix Belinga Belinga
In 1956, in Südkamerun born and raised
- Author, Journalist and pastor
- Married and the father of three children
- Study of Protestant theology in Erlangen (Bayern)
- Currently: lecturer for intercultural Learning in the centre for Ecumenism of the Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau, the Evangelical Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck.