Sunny Banana
YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/@sanibonani-y2g?si=09LymOLYjP7sE3cY
I am a school chaplain and the content is intended to encourage curiosity about Faith and it's impact on day to day life
The Sunny Banana, is a play upon the Zulu greeting, Sanibonani, meaning I see you.
As tech wrenches us from real life, we are not seeing each other. The Greek word 'idea' means to see. It is as if we have lost the idea of what it means to be human; social, communal, relational. The same word, to see, in Old English is 'seon' which has connotations of understanding.
Let's start seeing each other again, listening, respecting, and understanding each other and ourselves. After all, we are people through other people.
Sunny Banana
Black History Month | "Dig up the past and you will loose an eye. Forget the past and you will loose both"
Memory can either blind us or guide us. We open up a timely reflection on Black History Month by asking a hard question: how do we face what happened without turning the past into a weapon—or pretending it never happened? The answer, we argue, lives in the daily practice of humility and forgiveness, and in the choices we make about which stories we carry and how we carry them.
We ground the conversation in a vivid image from rugby: a rope woven from dyed strands marking wins, losses, and draws. That rope hung in a changing room as a living record and a map for what comes next. It’s a powerful way to think about personal and collective history. When we isolate one strand—only the victories or only the wounds—we weaken our grip on truth. When we braid them together, the rope gets stronger and points us forward. This is where forgiveness matters. It’s not erasure; it’s the courageous decision to stop repaying harm and start repairing trust.
The heart of the episode is a story about Archbishop Desmond Tutu. As a child under apartheid, he watched a white priest step aside, tip his hat to his mother, and offer simple respect that defied the law’s cruelty. That small act seeded a life of fearless leadership, public grace, and moral clarity. We reflect on how gestures like that can reshape a young imagination, and how remembering them can keep courage alive today. From Solzhenitsyn’s warning on memory to the practical steps of naming our past, seeking forgiveness, and refusing to weaponise history, we offer a path that honours truth while calling us to growth.
If this speaks to you, share it with someone who needs encouragement, subscribe for more thoughtful reflections, and leave a review to help others find the show. What strand will you add to your rope this week?
Sunny Bunani, my dear listeners, welcome to the Sunny Banana. I see you. In popular culture, at the moment, there is something happening in October called Black History Month. And as a minister to young people, this culture is in their face. And so I have a little reflection for those today, and for anybody really listening and tuning in today about Black History Month. There is a saying, and I first read it in a book, The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzenitzen, and the saying goes like this Dig up the past and you lose an eye. Forget the past and you lose both. I think and believe quite strongly that our history should be there to inform us and motivate and teach us lessons of how it is to be a human now. Granted, there were great, great mistakes and great tragedies still happening today by many, many people and cultures, and individually, we don't have to be reminded by anybody about the things that we may have done in our past that we're not quite proud of now. But that's the question, what now? What now? And in chapel this morning and this week I was talking about how forgiveness and humility plays a role in moving forward. If we're all about progression and growth and moving forward, well we need to deal with what's happened. We need to know where we've come from. I used an analogy from rugby. The New Zealand All Blacks rugby team got in a man called Gilbert Inoker, and Gilbert Inoker's job was to um resurrect the culture, restore the culture in the team, and remind them of why they play rugby. But the one of the things that he did was take a piece of string each rugby match, and whatever happened, he would dye it a specific colour, make it a different colour. So if they lost, he would dye a piece of string red. And if he lost if they won, he would dye it green, and if they drew brown, for example. And so this went on and on and on and on. And he hung, he eventually hung this collection of strings, made rope with it, and hung it in the changing room. And it was a physical visualization of where they had come from or their losses, their wins, and their draws. But what he said about the rope was if you look at a rope, it spirals forward and it spirals backwards. Dig up the past and you lose an eye. Forget the past and you lose both. Digging up the past means that we bring it up to strengthen our position or make people feel guilty. Perhaps digging up the past is not great. I'm married, and believe me, do not do it in relationships. But what we need to do is not forget our past and use our past as a stepping stone to a better life now, in this moment. And when I mentioned forgiveness and humility in the beginning, acknowledge where we've gone wrong and then seek the forgiveness. In the Christian faith, we are forgiven by God if we turn to Him and ask for forgiveness. But that takes humility because there's so many things in the way of that. Our pride, our own beliefs, culture pushing us away from this, humility and asking for forgiveness. So as a chaplain, my message is that you are forgiven. Trust in that. Forgive yourself. Go easy on yourself. Okay, because you are forgiven and accept that forgiveness. And use your past to make you stronger. Use your past to make you a better person today. Do not dig it up, but do not forget it. And lastly, I just want to leave you with the story of a black person who's a role model to me. And if there's anything for Black History Month, this is it. His name is Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Anglican, ex-Anglican Archbishop of South Africa. May his memory be eternal as he sleeps with the Lord now. But there's a story of when he was younger. He's walking down the street with his mother during the apartheid regime in South Africa. Now, the apartheid regime in South Africa meant that there were different laws for different races. Black people and colored people weren't allowed to be in certain places at certain times or at all. They weren't allowed to go to some places. There were curfews. And this was law in the apartheid regime. We think, oh, that's something in the past and the distance. But it's actually over 30 years ago, over 30 to 40 years ago. It wasn't long ago. And we should not forget this. But what happened with this uh young Desmond Tutu and his mother walking down the street in South Africa, approached them was a white man in the black cassock. Now the black cassock is a a clergy vestment, a clothing that you see people wear in church, flowing robe, black cassock, and he was wearing this and he walked up and he approached Mrs. Tutu and Junior Tutu. And it was expected in those days for the black person to move out the way for the white person. But what happened next changed, arguably changed the direction of our country in some way. This man, his name was Trevor Huddleston in the Black Cassock, he stepped out of the way, he stepped out of the path and tipped his hat and greeted Mrs. Tutu. Junior Tutu asked his mother, Who is that? And the mother explained, because he was a well-known priest. That's Trevor Huddleston, he's a priest. And he was from England. And Desmond Tutu said, I want to be like him. One day I want to be like him. To cut a long story short, Desmond Tutu does wear a black cassock, he stands in front of tanks, he's held at gunpoint, and he does not fear the evil that separates people. That was called the apartheid. And he was pivotal in bringing down the apartheid regime. And that's the kind of courage I would like to have today. So being Desmond Tutu as my role model, I sometimes put a cassock on. And by God, may I also stand up for what is good, true, and beautiful in the face of the evils that we see today. We should not stand for tyranny for things that want to control us. So here we go. I'll leave you with uh the two thoughts today. Dig up the past and you lose an eye. Forget the past and you lose both. And use. We need to use our history, know our history, accept our histories, so that it can inform us and mold us. Through forgiveness and through humility, let us move forward together with all our histories, entwined in that rope that Gilbert Inoker used, that imagery we can use as all our histories and experiences in one. And and the more we have together those strings of experience in that rope, the stronger that rope becomes. But if we own focus on one history, on one of those strings, that string won't be able to hold us all up. God bless you, and may peace, grace, and mercy fill your heart now and always. Amen.