Untitled by Kgebetli Moele Page A

thirty-something-year-old man, one afternoon on my way home from church. The service had been pretty boring, long (as usual), and immediately after it we’d had three different meetings and I’d had to attend two of them. He said:
    â€œCan I please walk with you?”
    â€œIf you do not intend to harm me, I do not mind at all.”
    He said what people called him and asked what they called me.
    â€œThey call me Mokgethi.”
    I could tell by the way he was smiling that he liked the way I was talking and thought that because I had allowed him to walk with me this meant ... He was very wrong.
    â€œI could talk to you until forever ends, you know.”
    â€œNo, I cannot talk to you until forever ends.”
    He smiled, his unsureness and dwindling self-confidence written all over his face. I like his kind, the unsure ones, because with them I know that even if I were to be left all alone with them on mother earth, there is nothing they can do to me unless I allow it. I give them my time, smile and listen to all the lies that they have to tell until they run out of words, thank me for being such a great listener, put their tails between their legs and turn back.
    This one was no different. He just gave up very early in the game:
    â€œHope you find someone who loves you.”
    I gave him a mocking smile because even at that point he was dangerous – once his confidence rose again I knew that I would feel that he was a man like all men.
    The best I ever came across was Kevin. He took his time to get into my heart, not with sweet talk and trying to impress but by making me think about things that I had never thought about before. He asked me questions and made me aware that I had limited myself to considering only the things that I was interested in.
    â€œWhat is the difference between making love to an individual and loving an individual?”
    At first I thought that they were the same thing, but making love is having sex and loving is not sex, so I said:
    â€œMaking love is sex and love is not sex, but I cannot tell you what love is because I have never been in love.”
    I said the last part because I thought he was going to ask me if I had ever been in love.
    â€œThank you for the honesty. Many people think that having sex or making love is love, which it is not.”
    â€œI thought you were going to tell me the difference.”
    â€œSex is an act and it ends, while love is a process that never ends. Love is eternal and God is love – He was, He is and He will be. Love was, love is and love will be.”
    For the first time in my whole life I was charmed by words that were coming out of a male mouth.
    â€œI have reason to lie to you, but I am not lying. We men lie too much; we always say that we love girls but only so that we can have sex with them. So, yes, I have reason to lie to you but I am not lying.”
    I wished I could have given him a hug and a kiss; the honesty with which he spoke was overwhelming.
    â€œCan you define love for me?”
    â€œI cannot because I have never been in love ...”
    â€œWell, let me tell you, love is God. God was, God is and God will always be.”
    Then we got to speaking about God and life in general but we were not really speaking, he was telling me what he thought about life.
    â€œWhat do you fear the most in your life and why do you fear it?”
    â€œFailure.”
    â€œCan you tell me why you fear it?”
    â€œBecause if I fail I will have wasted my time, the time I invested in whatever it was.”
    â€œDo you know that I fear nothing? Why? Not because I am a man and not because I am strong but because I trust in God. And if He can feed the birds, He will feed me. It says so in the Scriptures. Because He loves me.”
    â€œSo, what are you saying?”
    â€œYou should banish fear from your life. ‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil’.”
    â€œKevin,