Editor’s note: This article is part of Satirically Speaking series, by Maverick Life.

For most of my adult life I have managed to maintain spiritual enlightenment through the guiding light of two gurus: the rapper, songwriter, designer and reality TV star Lil’ Kim, and multi-award-winning actress, author and founder of Goop Gwyneth Paltrow. There are very few problems that I have encountered in life that I haven’t been able to overcome by simply asking: What would Lil’ Kim/Gwyneth do?

As 2021 got off to a sober start I found within me a deep spiritual longing for a new guru, and just like that, news of Public Protector Busisiwe MKhwebane’s sabbatical made headlines. I promise you, it really is true that the universe will always send you the teachers you need just when you need them. As those who believe in prayer often say during the long wait for answers to their prayers: Delayed, but not denied.

So I got googling, I got lost down a rabbit hole of Busisiwe MKhwebane headlines from the past few years. I couldn’t get enough, I laughed, I cried; how had I missed her? My third eye chakra opened up, I had found my third guru, my G3, the holy trinity was complete.

Increasingly in my spiritual journey I have found myself at odds with the laws of men, feeling that I should not be bound by them, but at the same time understanding that I must remain steadfast and fight. And in this regard she has been nothing short of exemplary. Even as her findings, one after the other, have been thrown out by judges operating at a lower vibration to hers, she fights for a more imaginative understanding of the law and the Constitution.

Then newly appointed Public Protector Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane during an interview on October 08, 2016 (Photo by Gallo Images / Sunday Times / Moeletsi Mabe)

“At any given time we weather one storm after another. We are perpetually in the eye of storms. Perhaps it comes with the territory. But at what cost?” I read somewhere that this is what she told her staff in December 2020. What a way to begin the festive season? In those words, I felt seen, I felt heard, nay, I felt privately and publicly protected. “We are perpetually in the eye of the storms.” Phew. “But at what cost?” Goosebumps.

Unlike many modern would-be spiritual gurus and Bushiris, this woman has intimate knowledge of storms. Nay, she IS The Storm whose coming was long prophesied…

Her light hit me like a warm glow of the divine touch wrapped in a soft glove… there she was.. My #MKAnon… Busisiwe MKhwebane… The one who I was waiting for…

Eight of her findings have already been overturned, I read. “The Storm” in the eye of the storm she is, always…

One that stood out for me was back in 2018, when she ordered the Special Investigating Unit to recover more than R1-billion on behalf of the central bank from ABSA? Something about money given to Bankorp by the apartheid government back in the 80s? And then Bankorp was absorbed into ABSA at some point. So like, in 2017, Sis’ Busi was like, “dudes, pay back the money”, and the high court was like… nah, and then they went on to say she should pay like 15% of the other party’s legal fees, which are estimated to be 900k. I know, it’s confusing to me too.

Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane during a media briefing to mark 100 days in office on February 02, 2017. (Photo by Gallo Images / Beeld / Deaan Vivier)

Anyway, when she challenged their findings at the ConCourt, the judges sided with the High Court and upheld their findings. And to add insult to injury, they said: “The Public Protector’s conduct in the high court warranted a de bonis propriis (personal) costs order against her because she acted in bad faith and in a grossly unreasonable manner… This type of conduct falls far short of the high standards required of her office.”

It is quite obvious to anyone who is spiritually woke that she was responding to a higher source, seeking to cleanse the country’s karma, as it were. She is deep in spiritual warfare on our behalf. Thankfully, she came prepared, she knew the forces of darkness would attack. She knew her storm already:

“I hope and pray that God will grant me strength and the power to carry this responsibility. I know it’s a very huge responsibility,” she told us back in 2016 when she took on this task. What a legend! A queen, a guru, a woman who grabs life and law by the neck and squeezes until both bow to her will. Long may she squeeze.

Come 25 March, Sis Busi will have to take a sabbatical from her sabbatical, to go in front a judge and answer for a case of perjury against her honourable self, because she is accused of having “unlawfully and intentionally” lied under oath in court documents in 2017 and 2018 about the number of times she met with the YouTube star of Zooming with the Zumas (and former president) Jacob Zuma during the abovementioned investigation into the SA Reserve Bank, and the purpose of those meetings. Personally I have no doubt that she was offering him spiritual counsel – a private matter in my opinion – but she will weather this storm too. In the centre she is, remember?

Sis’ Busi, my guru, my g, if I may address you directly in these trying times, and hopefully return the favour by giving you the light and inspiration which you have given me.

First, may you find strength in these words from Lil’ Kim’s 2005 poem, Shut up B****: “Everybody talkin’, all these haters hawkin’… Paparazzi stalkin’ takin’ pictures while I’m walkin’… Damn, can’t a b**** breathe, gimme room please… I’m in the paper everyday day if I piss or sneeze.”

When I read the news that you would be taking a two-month sabbatical, not to study, not to travel, not to explore some as yet unearthed passion, but simply “to rest”, I felt led, #self-care. You need this rest, my g, spiritual warfare is no joke. See, since the first time I heard the word “sabbatical” used outside of academia, and in reference to one’s occupation, which was back in my very corporate early 20s when the organisation I worked for announced that one of the executive directors would be going on a six-month sabbatical, I too have dreamt of one day taking a sabbatical.

But without the guidance of spiritual leaders such as yourself, I googled the dictionary definition of a sabbatical to better understand it, I searched several websites to see how I could successfully apply for one. Repeatedly, dictionary website after dictionary website defined it as a period of “paid leave” (#yay) to “study or travel” (#nay).

I went beyond #mdw (mainstream dictionary websites), and visited a certain Wikidiff, who even did a side-by-side comparison of a holiday vs sabbatical, eventually settling on holiday as “a period taken off work or study for travel or leisure”, and the sabbatical as “an extended period of leave… taken by an employee in order to carry out projects not otherwise associated with the employee’s job.”

“To carry out projects”? I found that definition rather unenlightened at best.

Where is the part about rest?

I searched on, I cast the net wide and looked to academia. I found out that the UKZN’s division of human resources defined it as “prolonged absence from work in the career of an academic employee granted for the purposes of approved scholarly or creative activity for professional development or research purposes. It provides a means for academic employees to increase their knowledge, further their research, stimulate intellectual interests and strengthen networks with the global community of scholars, thus enhancing their contribution to the University on their return.”

That one was particularly upsetting; who does this bunch think they are? WT actual F? Do they really think it OK to maintain more rigorous standards than the office of the PP?

Where is the part about rest?

Thankfully, my search was not in vain. Eventually, I came upon a brief history of the word “sabbatical” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, and suddenly everything made spiritual sense. Says the MW dictionary: “We tend to think of sabbatical in academic terms, as a school year free from teaching duties that can be devoted to research, travel and writing. Traditionally, this occurs every seventh year. Because of this scholarly context, we may easily miss what is hiding in plain sight: that sabbatical is related to Sabbath, which refers to the Biblical day of rest, or the seventh day. We trace the origins of both sabbatical and Sabbath to the Greek word sabbaton. Sabbaton itself traces to the Hebrew word shabbāth, meaning ‘rest’. The Old Testament refers to God’s ‘day of rest’ most famously in Genesis, but Sabbath referring to an entire year of rest is mentioned in Leviticus.”

It was in that moment Sis’ Busi, that I knew, I could not doubt that you were the guru sent to me in my moment of need. You exist in a place above the laws of men. You understand the world as the gods understand it, and it will always go over their heads, which remain buried in the Constitution and the law books. You, on the other hand, seek a return to the age of miracles.

While others have failed, you bring The Storm.

How silly of them to expect you to work within the framework of their laws and Constitution. They say incompetent, reckless, grossly unreasonable; I say transcendent. Namaste, Sis’ Busi, namaste my g, my light, my inspiration, my very own MKAnon. The fight in me sees the fight in you. DM/ML

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper which is available for free to Pick n Pay Smart Shoppers at these Pick n Pay stores.