Father Michael Lapsley

The story of Father Michael Lapsley, Anglican priest and social justice activist, is a parable for people in need of hope and courage. As a young priest, originally from New Zealand, Father Michael was sent by his religious order to live in South Africa at the height of white supremacist repression. He joined the liberation struggle, went into exile in Lesotho and later in Zimbabwe and became a thorn in the side of the apartheid regime. Father Michael was sent a letter bomb that took away his hands and one eye – but it failed to kill him and his aspirations to fight the brutality of apartheid. Once he returned to South Africa, he became a healer of the nation. This interview and extracts of his book Redeeming the Past: My Journey from Freedom Fighter to Healer recount his journey from a freedom fighter for the liberation of South Africa to a wounded healer with a global mission.

Throughout your life, you have experienced a lot. How do you see yourself today?

I see myself as someone who is fully alive, celebrating life and seeking to contribute towards a kinder, gentler and more just world.

Now, I am a healer and work to free people from being prisoners of the past, prisoners of a moment in time. I want to allow them to become agents of history once again – free to create and shape our world.

“I see myself as someone who is fully alive, celebrating life and seeking to contribute towards a kinder, gentler and more just world.”

As a young priest, you were sent to South Africa at a turbulent time in its history. What struck you most when you arrived there?

When I arrived in Durban in 1973, a city that was to be my home for the next three years, by law I was required to live in a white suburb. The signs of apartheid confronted me everywhere. The day after I arrived, I went to the post office to send my mother a letter telling her that I had arrived safely. There were two entrances: one marked ‘Whites only’ and the other saying ‘Non-whites’. I then went to explore a nearby beach where I quickly realised that the sea was divided by race as well. There was a curfew. Africans couldn’t be in the city after a certain hour or the authorities arrested them. Africans had to carry a passbook at all times saying what area of the country they had permission to be in. If they violated it, they ended up in prison. I found this profoundly shocking. There was no escape; apartheid permeated every corner of ordinary life in South Africa, and it contradicted everything I knew to be the Christian message. In short, apartheid was always about political oppression, economic exploitation and denial of fundamental human dignity.

“There was no escape; apartheid permeated every corner of ordinary life in South Africa, and it contradicted everything I knew to be the Christian message.”

How did you become involved in advocating against the repression, racism and, above all, apartheid?

Following the Soweto uprising in 1976, which was a series of demonstrations led by black schoolchildren in South Africa, the annual conference of the Anglican Student Federation took place. It brought together Anglican students of all race and language groups, black and white, English- and Afrikaans-speaking. By that time, despite the government’s best efforts, stories of detention and torture were spreading in the student community. I had a rising profile among students because of my denunciation of the brutality of the government. Some of the student activists successfully mobilised an election campaign on my behalf, and I was elected national university chaplain. My outspokenness had increased my prominence at a crucial moment in the struggle, and the person who had previously held the position was quite taken aback to find his position taken over.

Using my newly acquired national platform, I immediately began travelling to other university campuses throughout the country speaking against the killing, torture and detention of students, and quite naturally I became much more visible.

The government was certainly unhappy about the noise I was making, and so, at the end of September 1976, I received unwelcome recognition in the form of a letter from the government informing me that my student visa would not be renewed and I had 14 days to leave the country. I responded by arranging to speak at as many mass meetings as I could, and during those two weeks I travelled to various campuses outside Durban denouncing the government’s policies. I came to the conclusion that I had to either go home or make South Africa my home, and I committed myself to the liberation struggle.

Why did you decide to fight the injustice of apartheid? What you have achieved takes a lot of courage, where did this strength come from?

At the age of four I could not decide if I wanted to be a priest in the church or a clown in the circus. When I became a priest, my brother sent me a message: ‘Now you have succeeded at both.’ (smiling) I think from an early age I was conscious of the relationship between faith and justice. I can recall that there was a petition in our local church called ‘No Māoris – No Tour’, which was launched in response to the South Africans wanting the New Zealand rugby team to come and play without selecting Māori players. This came from South Africa’s strict segregationist apartheid policies. That story was about faith and justice, race and racism in South Africa and New Zealand; however, I could never imagine my own life would become entwined with the lives of the people of South Africa.

“At the age of four I could not decide if I wanted to be a priest in the church or a clown in the circus.”

For me, the key thing in life was discipleship – following Jesus. This had a lot of influence on my decision to go to a monastery at the age of 17. In addition, I had also read a famous book called Naught for your comfort by Trevor Huddleston, who was a priest in South Africa, and his story set a good example for me. The book was about the nature of apartheid, so early on I was conscious there was something in South Africa that concerned the opposite of my Christian beliefs. When I was training to be a priest, the Vietnam war was happening, and Australia and New Zealand were both involved in it supporting the United States. The head of my community was involved in campaigns for peace in Vietnam. So again, I was seeing the relationship between being a disciple of Jesus and an advocate for oppressed people, and being on the side of peace rather than war. From my early childhood I was sensitive to the issues of race and racism.

Seeking justice was very much inspired by my faith, which was teaching me that we are all God’s children, equally valuable regardless of our skin colour, religion or anything else. That has shaped my consciousness, but, of course, I didn’t choose to go and fight in South Africa. What I chose to do was join a religious order, and they made the choice to send me to South Africa.

April 28, 1990 was the day that changed your life forever. Tell us what happened.

I was at home in Harare, Zimbabwe, where I had been staying after being forced to leave South Africa. Going about my day, I reached over to a neglected pile of unopened mail and picked up a large manila envelope that had arrived from South Africa. There were a couple of religious magazines wrapped in plastic, which I removed. I opened one of the magazines, thereby completing the circuit. The force of the blast struck me full on. I felt myself hurtling backwards as if I were falling into unending darkness. If my eardrums hadn’t been shattered, I would have heard the crash of the ceiling falling all around me; if my eyes hadn’t been blinded, I might have made out what remained of my living room amid the rubble; but, as it was, I entered a world of silence, darkness and excruciating pain. Instinctively I knew that I had been bombed by the apartheid regime.

“I opened one of the magazines, thereby completing the circuit. The force of the blast struck me full on. Instinctively I knew that I had been bombed by the apartheid regime.”

A few days later my right eye was removed, as my sight could not be recovered. While the sight in my remaining eye gradually returned, I lost both my hands. However, I was alive and I suppose my work over the months and years since that day has been about appropriating that victory. The people who sent the letter bomb would no doubt have viewed what they did as a political act – an attempt to eliminate someone who was a danger to the state. I will always remember when Zimbabwean intelligence agents told me that I had been on the South African government’s hit list. Regardless of the reason, the attack on me was a straw in the wind, because in the following years all hell broke loose in South Africa. The government was killing defenceless people on an unprecedented scale, while at the same time negotiations between the African National Congress (ANC) and democratic forces, continued and eventually led to full democracy.

As for me, the apartheid regime failed twice over. Not only did it fail to kill me, but I sustained no major internal injuries and my mind was as clear as ever. And my tongue was intact. That, after all, had been my only weapon.

“As for me, the apartheid regime failed twice over. Not only did it fail to kill me, but I sustained no major internal injuries and my mind was as clear as ever. And my tongue was intact. That, after all, had been my only weapon.”

I began to realise that if I were consumed by hatred, bitterness and a desire for revenge, I would be a victim forever. The contrary happened: the bomb deepened my faith, my compassion, my wholeness and my commitment to the cause of justice and liberation in South Africa and Southern Africa. The outpouring of love and support I received enabled me to walk a journey from a victim, to a survivor, to finally a victor.

“I began to realise that if I were consumed by hatred, bitterness and a desire for revenge, I would be a victim forever.”

How has the bombing changed you?

People sometimes ask me this question, and then they provide their own answers. Most people say they find me softer and gentler, less contentious and easier to get along with.

There are reasons why others saw me as a bit combative in the past. Surviving in the liberation struggle meant toughening up. Because I am white, some other white people thought of me as a race traitor and resented me because they saw my choices as a judgment on those they failed to make. I had to endure their animosity and the vicious things some of them wrote and said about me. Then there were occasions when black people weren’t quite sure if I was for real. That meant that, at times, I had to prove myself to the very people I was risking my life for, including those I had grown to love and care about. In order to survive, I had to put aside some of my feelings, and my life then was something of a ‘head journey’. Whereas after the bombing, it’s been more of a ‘heart journey’ – a project to reclaim the gentleness that I had to leave behind.

While it’s true that others often see us more clearly than we see ourselves, I do sometimes want to say, ‘Well actually, I am still the same person.’ I don’t find the changes in my personality quite as remarkable as other people do. Still, it is true that I have been maimed, I have escaped death by a hair’s breadth and I live with a serious disability. Being through something like that leaves nothing untouched. It is true that if I hadn’t been bombed, my life would be immeasurably easier in some ways. But while I am the same person I have always been, it is impossible to overstate the gifts that have come my way through the Healing of Memories work I do – and it was the bombing that made that possible.

Che Guevara once said that revolutionaries have to learn how to endure without losing tenderness, and that is an idea I cling to. So, I am sure I have softened since I was bombed, and I identify with other people’s brokenness in a way I could not possibly have done had I not been broken myself.

After the bomb attack and being expelled from South Africa, have you ever considered going back to your native New Zealand to live a peaceful life?

After I had come to South Africa, I realised that if I was to have the right to participate in a life and death struggle that I committed myself to, I had to stay in the country as long as it takes to achieve my primary purpose. So, in a way, after my attack, I never really entertained the idea of going back to New Zealand but rather decided to continue the struggle, which later transformed into a path of healing.

In more recent years, I’ve been describing myself as a New Zealand-born, South African internationalist with a global role of walking beside others across the world on their own journeys, seeking to heal wounds of the past. It has been always about continuing to be a participant in the struggle to transform a country.

“I’ve been describing myself as a New Zealand-born, South African internationalist with a global role of walking beside others across the world on their own journeys, seeking to heal wounds of the past.”

Why did you decide to return to South Africa, considering all that had happened to you there?

I had mixed feelings about returning, not having set foot in South Africa since 1976. Although it would have been good to go back, it would not have been easy at a time when the country was being torn by violence. I had no idea who had sent me the letter bomb; perhaps they would be lying in wait when I returned. Despite my own doubts, I knew I was in Zimbabwe only because of the struggle. The time had come to take part in building a new country. Because of how I had been able to respond to the bombing, I thought I had a part to play in healing the nation. It was time to go home.

When I returned to South Africa, the thing that struck me on my return was that we were a damaged nation – damaged by what we had done to one another, damaged by what had been done to us, and damaged by what we had failed to do. Everyone had a story to tell about their own experience of the apartheid years. It seemed to me that if we didn’t deal with what we had inside of us, we wouldn’t be able to create a very nice society. I came to the conclusion that we needed to proceed into the future based on two pillars. One pillar was dealing with the social and economic legacy of apartheid: the need for water and electricity, shelter, education, jobs and health care. The other pillar was dealing with the psychological and spiritual effects of the journey the nation had travelled. These two pillars were interconnected and intertwined, so even if basic needs were met, people would still be angry, frustrated and bitter unless we dealt with what was going on inside us.

Listening to experiences of trauma survivors – and being a survivor myself – helped me realise that I had rich resources of my own, and over the next few months a plan gradually took shape that eventually became a Healing of Memories workshop.

Could you elaborate on what a Healing of Memories workshop is? How does it heal people?

This is not a magic workshop and we don’t issue a certificate that says ‘healed’ when it is over. What we do offer you is the opportunity to take one step at a time. But it can be a giant step, and in some cases, it may even be life-changing. We undertake two and a half days of intense emotional work and reflective storytelling, during which people are often astonished at the strength of the bond they develop with others on the journey that transcends race, culture and nationality.

“This is not a magic workshop and we don’t issue a certificate that says ‘healed’ when it is over. What we do offer you is the opportunity to take one step at a time and in some cases a step may even be life-changing.”

Healing is leaving behind the poison of the past and reclaiming the ability to once again build and shape the world. That resonates with human beings whether they are religious or secular.

“Healing is leaving behind the poison of the past and reclaiming the ability to once again build and shape the world.”

In my own reflection, I came to believe that, while there are indeed cultural differences among people, human beings are human beings everywhere in the world. People know when they are being treated with the love and respect accorded a child of God, whether it is articulated in those words or not. The workshop is a sort of open container into which people are free to place their unique and valued personal and cultural contributions.

In 2005 we started offering Healing of Memories workshops to prison inmates. Despite having done terrible things to others, most inmates have themselves been victims of serious abuse. The public sees only the present-day perpetrator, but deep inside these people there are early wounds that had festered and eventually emerged in the criminal behaviour that brought them to prison. Healing of Memories workshops seek to break the chain of victim becoming perpetrator by acknowledging the pain of the past and helping inmates to see the connection between their own mistreatment and their victimisation of others. In our experience it is not uncommon for inmates to report in follow-up interviews that they have contacted those they have harmed to make an apology or amends. On the occasions when our Healing of Memories workshop has been offered as a part of a course on restorative justice, this outcome has been even more evident.

Unless we bind up the wounds of the broken-hearted, we cannot hope to create a just society where everyone has a place under the sun, for the victims of the past too easily become the victimisers of the future. As the world prayed for me on my healing journey and supported the struggle of South Africa’s people, the Institute for Healing of Memories, which I set up as a vehicle to run workshops, now attempts to return the compliment by offering healing in other countries recovering from wars and conflicts.

We work with people experiencing discrimination and injustice in its many forms: victims of violence (whether domestic, criminal or political), war veterans and prison inmates, many of whom are deeply traumatised themselves and who may also need to face the burden of culpability and guilt in order to heal. We also work with members of the faith community, especially those engaged in social justice issues, who carry their own burdens. I believe that spiritually grounded, culturally sensitive, community-based methods of healing like ours are the way of the future.

Do you consider yourself to be a role model?

People tend to say very kind things about me and hold me up as a role model. Part of it is appropriate and part of it, although well meant, is dehumanizing. I couldn’t be who I am now without the support of the many, many people who have loved and cared about me. So it was not only my victory but also theirs. I think we often do that to people whom we admire. We turn them into unrealistic plastic figures. But I am not a plastic saint. If you asked someone living with me, they would say that there is nothing saintly about me. I can be more of an example to others with my many human weaknesses than as a plastic saint who has overcome it all, free of distortions and contradictions.

Why has fighting for injustice been important to you?

First and foremost, I have been shaped by my faith, specifically my Christian faith, although I have a deep commitment to interfaith work and the wisdom of other faiths. Similarly, fighting for justice has been important to me because of the journey I underwent and the experiences I faced, which substantially contributed to my life mission.

I have been profoundly affected by the experience of coming to South Africa, living in this society during the years of apartheid, and then being expelled from South Africa and becoming part of the liberation movement. And, of course, since 1990 my life journey has been changed irreversibly by the letter bomb I received. After I was attacked, I said to myself that the struggle for me now is the struggle to get well. Then, the struggle to live my life as fully, joyfully and completely as possible and walk with others on their journey towards healing – this would be part of my victory.

Beyond your global mission, what else are you currently involved in?

I was the director of the South African programme at the Institute for Healing of Memories, based in Cape Town, until the end of 2019, but now I’ve become the President of the Healing of Memories Global Network. I came to the conclusion it was time to step aside from running the institute in South Africa and start focusing on training and international work across the world, which is what I currently do. Together with the like-minded people we are step by step setting up a global structure for healing, which I primarily focus on. We have launched an annual introduction to Healing of Memories, which received participants from many countries. During 2019, I was doing healing of memories workshops in Lebanon, Germany, Luxemburg, Belgium, Myanmar, Thailand and Timor-Leste (East Timor) in a variety of contexts. A great number of people who came to those sessions were refugees.

I hope that I can enable the institute and my colleagues to continue doing the work in creative and effective ways, so I could support them in ensuring economic sustainability for this work in the long term.

When you visit other countries, what kind of people come to your workshops?

Most people who are drawn to healing work have their own pain and trauma as part of their lives. Often it has to do with what happened to them in the past and they seek to heal from it, which results in them becoming the healers of others. In my own experience, people do not tend to think ‘I would like to be a healer’ but end up on this path after going through the healing process.

What are the most important things or values for you in your life?

I think the most important thing is the sense of the divine in all of us. I am becoming more and more conscious that the divine is not only in human beings but in mother nature as well, so even when it comes to healing, I’m conscious that not only the human family needs healing but mother Earth is also crying out for healing.

Is there any fear that you still have?

There is a prayer that I say to myself frequently for guidance, wisdom and courage. For courage particularly, I ask to follow my conscience. And where I have acted contrary to my conscience, I ask to be able to face that and change it. During the struggle, when I found out that I was on a hit list and would feel fear, I would say a prayer for myself not to be controlled by my fear but be led by my deepest beliefs.

What was the biggest risk that you have ever taken?

I suppose, in retrospect, the biggest risk I took was to join the liberation movement at a time when we were in a life and death struggle, and recognising that it could cost me my life. But I have no regrets about that. So if I could turn time back, I would do exactly the same. Although perhaps I would be slightly cleverer and recognise it was a letter bomb and not open it (smiling).

“The biggest risk I took was to join the liberation movement at a time when we were in a life and death struggle, and recognising that it could cost me my life.”

What inspires you?

There are people I meet across the world – some of them well known and some not at all – who are leading beautiful lives of courage, kindness, generosity and compassion. I am always struck by stories in the media about people of all ages who are helping to make the world a better place. They are to be found in good times and bad times, but I think we need each other to continue our journeys. In down times we need to reach out to people who can give us support and encouragement, who can pick us up when we are down. Not people who will tell us how to live our lives, but people who will walk beside us and give us the hugs we need, and we can give the hugs to them as well. For me that is very important.

For those who don’t feel they have such people around them – how do you find someone to support you?

There always are those who are willing to walk beside us and give us encouragement and support, but sometimes, when we are wounded, we aren’t able to see them. If you have open hearts and open eyes, you’ll find them. I always pray, ‘Please, God, keep my eyes open so I can see where those people are and respond to them.’ In our institute we say all people have a story to tell and every story needs a listener. So, I think if we have open hearts to hear the pain of others and give them encouragement and support, others will help us deal with our pain too.

What matters to you most on a global scale?

It is healing the wounds of the past. The healing of the planet that will enable us to create a better, kinder and more just world. Healing is not just for its own sake, it helps us be freed to create the world of our dreams, a world where we all have dignity and respect and a place under the sun.

“The healing of the planet that will enable us to create a better, kinder and more just world. Healing helps us be freed to create the world of our dreams, a world where we all have dignity and respect and a place under the sun.”

How do you achieve this? What we see now is a world that seems to be repeating its previous mistakes.

I think it is important to listen to each other not just with our ears but also with our hearts. When we are able to listen to the stories of others with the heart, then we are able to help them heal as well as experience our common humanity. Creating spaces where people are able to hear each other’s pain is important.

“It is important to listen to each other not just with our ears but also with our hearts. Creating spaces where people are able to hear each other’s pain is important.”

I think it is a dark time in history in terms of which people are being elected to positions of power. A growing number of leaders appeal to the darkest side of all of us, our meanest, narrowest selfishness. In this climate, it is easy to become self-righteous rather than thinking about what each one of us can do for justice, for healing in our families and communities.

One of the things we learned during the campaign for peace in Vietnam is that one and one and one make a million. So we either chose to be part of the solution or part of the problem. Not in a self-righteous way, but in a humble way. With our hearts and minds open, we are always able to learn new things, get different understanding and perspective, including the frustration and the anger of others, which often comes from their own unhealed wounds.

What can we do not to repeat the history of South Africa?

In every part of history there are always those who have been prepared to listen to another drum beat and respond to it, and that sometimes can help avert disaster. We should raise our voices against prejudice and injustice and seek to be role models in this respect. We need a range of different role models who can encourage us in this journey of resistance. It’s not simply following what other people have chosen to do. It’s about thinking, ‘What can I do, given who I am?’

What have you learnt from your life journey so far?

One of the lessons I have learned from traveling the globe is the uniqueness of every context. But equally importantly, I have experienced again and again the commonality that we all share, whether in its ugliness or its beauty. Disability has taught me that we need one another to be fully human, and we can be healers of one another. I draw strength from extraordinary human beings who dare to live heroic and beautiful lives through their gentleness, kindness and compassion.

This interview used and adapted some text extracts from the book Redeeming the Past: My Journey from Freedom Fighter to Healer by Father Michael Lapsley with Stephen Karakashian, with all rights reserved to the authors. Published by Orbis.