Morgan Thomas
(shown with father)
South Africa
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South Africa: Beyond Cultural Boundaries
I think I may have had the best job in the world. Having initially headed up the Landmark office in South Africa and being trained as one of the people that lead Landmark programs, it is been my privilege to experience the magic this work makes available to people. Because of the remarkable people that I had the opportunity to meet every day, turning over the job of heading up the office to Tony Dallas was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do.
A few years ago The Landmark Forum was not available to people in South Africa. Now close to 2000 people have completed the program. Witnessing what’s happening in a place like South Africa, where historically cultural lines and boundaries have been so distinct, is a rare privilege.
People from all walks of life participate here. There are black executives, black merchants, black housekeepers, black students, white executives, white merchants, white housekeepers, white students, and people from many other walks of life. All of them come to The Landmark Forum as a result of hearing from their respective family members, colleagues, and friends who have recommended it to them. To be the meeting place where people come and take part in a three-day training program – with people that they would not normally talk to or associate with in their lives – really has you stand back and rethink what you had previously considered possible.
It’s not often that you get to see black and white people speaking openly with each other in the same room about how apartheid occurred for them. It’s not often that you see these two groups of people asking each other for forgiveness and each group taking responsibility for what occurred. I have never experienced something so moving. If 200 South Africans could operate that way together, what could be possible for the rest of South Africa?
Every time we have a Landmark Forum, I see and believe that South Africans can operate outside the paradigms that we’ve lived inside of for many years. I have led many introductions to this work in black townships, corporate environments, and individuals’ homes. I see the people here as hungry for what’s possible – this work provides not only for them and their families, and for the world on a much grander scale.
On a personal note, I want to share about my relationship with my father. For many years, I had made him wrong and was angry with him because of things that had happened in my childhood. I always felt that he was against me and I blamed him for my mother’s death several years earlier.
Shortly after my participation in The Landmark Forum, I came to see that actually I hadn’t been responsible in my life and had been assigning the cause to him. I’m not sure that the decisions I made and where I was heading in my life would ever have changed had I not taken The Landmark Forum.
Now I have a remarkable relationship with my father and see that the entire period growing up all he ever wanted to do was contribute to me and love me, but he didn’t have the skills or wherewithal to communicate that in a way that was recognizable to me. We now really enjoy each other’s company and enjoy an extraordinarily satisfying relationship.
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