In the small town of Stilfontein, some 90 miles from the city of Johannesburg, South Africa, hundreds, possibly thousands, of illegal miners have been underground in an abandoned mine shaft for more than a month.

After another disputed election, street protests wrack Mozambique. while a northern province, Cabo Delgado, endures a deadly Islamist insurrection.

One South African theologian described “a deep sense of disillusionment that the church, on the one hand, is saying we need to be a synodal listening church, and has yet again taken the diaconate for women off the table.”

“If women are doing practically everything that a deacon is doing ... [why] do we want to draw women into clericalism when we are having so many problems with it?”

When public servants when they show us a glimpse of something that points the way toward “more perfect union,” we ought to pay close and grateful attention.

Polls abound, and the political ground keeps shifting, but one thing is sure: South Africa is likely to experience a significant political realignment on May 29.