Divorce and the Community

Divorce is often looked down upon.  One
of the reasons is that it is seen as a sign of failure! Of course one has to be
candid about that human relationships do fail, an example of that is our failed
relationship with God;  When Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree. 
So the Garden of Eden represents our first example of a failed
relationship.  When divorce does takes place the whole community has failed the couple. What? You may be
saying!  When people divorce at
some level it shows how the community has been supporting the couple since the
first day of marriage. Do we put our hands in the pocket and say the couple
should get on with it? Or do we call on them to ask, how are you doing? Divorce
reflects how a couple were pastorally supported by the community. 
In African in the old days at the first sign of trouble an Aunt or Uncle
would be sent in to resolve the issues. Now with a nucleus families and urban
life this has ceased.  This has put  immense pressure on married couples to cope with raising children and the rat
race of urban life.
If a community raises its children to be violent and to rule with a knobkerrie it cannot hope
to have relationships that are honest, loving, and caring. 
For such is never encouraged, children who are raised in the environment
in which a father is feared make it difficult for love to be expressed.  Many adults have never been told by a
parent,“I love you.”   To be told I love you, helps us to have sense of belonging and to have high
self-esteem, high value of self and to be emotionally secure. On the other hand
when we see a couple in a loving relationship at some point it reflects the
community they have been raised. The first community which we are raised is the
community of father and mother. Depending how these two people manage us as
babies’ right up to our adult life can sometimes determine how we turn out to be
in the community and how we relate to people. Of course our childhood does not
hold us at ransom we have the power to change direction.  If we are raised in a home that loving, caring and honesty then we have chance to make it. Yes sometimes even those raised in these homes can turn out to be a
poor reflection of this back ground.   But it is imperative that children
are raised in way that will promote them to thrive as adults. Whether in a
single parent, divorced and marriage environment. This helps lessen divorce, or
difficult in relationships later in life. 
We may not stop divorce because human life is complex and complicated,
but we lessen the chance of it happening. However one has to always remember
that human emotions are messy.   So divorce can be seen in many
different angles and this is one of the many ways. We are all involved when a
marriage takes place we are equally all involved when a divorce takes place.
This stops us from looking down at divorced people for the scars these carry
originate in the community, which we are part off. 
Remember parents are responsible to God in how children are raised.  For God in his wisdom taught that teach
the child in the ways he should go so that when he is an adult he will bring
honour to the family, in this case the whole community. Remember that it takes a
whole village to raise a child; we will do well if we took heed of this
teaching.  


Fr. Barnabas Nqindi