Of Eateries, Food and Talk

I hope you have never been to the place(s) I go to. I also hope that you don’t do the things I do in my seasons of convenience. I just hope that you won’t laugh at me either just because I do things differently – differently because you may never do them the way I do…

I have a small joint I love visiting in my seasons of convenience. I don’t know what you understand by the phrase ‘seasons of convenience’ but I hope you know (or dare to remember) those kind of moments when you don’t want to walk too far for a midday meal and you have this option of aka-pliace that is nearby but rather disturbing (read inconveniencing) to the mind? Yeah those ones. And I have such moments quite often. I have such aka-place. It is a cool place by the way, but it has no name - at least for the time being.

But let me give you yesterweek’s account of events while I was at that place.

So I match in. Into that aka-pliace. There are kids playing outside (kids always play in such places by the way). Naughty kids with big eyes who keep staring at you as if houseflies and bees have made homage (read a collabo) on your head. Scary tiny things, these kids. I chose to ignore them. I didn’t greet them either. I pretended not to look at them: “Should I greet kids? Small naughty kids?”, I asked myself, “Nope!”. *And that ‘nope’ word is said with swag.* Bad manners Morris. Those were bad manners. Whatever mun. I was hungry and I needed a meal. I needed a straight meal. A quick straight meal. So I entered dem pliace. Um in and I betcha tell me something else!

Hii ni place mi huenda na msee fulani mwenye style yake ya life ni interesting. First, yeye hu-boil mawaaru kabla kuzikaanga... hehe… Second, ye huanika towel nje kila day in the name of sisi kuamini ati ameoga lakini reality ni hapendi maji; na finally, ye ni msee wa swgga sana – huwezi taka ku-imagine ye hu-come hapa kukula, so kile kitu ye hufanya ni ku-pretend ati ananipeleka – ati yee hu-chill na ku-relax full time huku mi niki-dish… #PorojoNayo! Na ninajua huyu msee akisoma hii atanikamia kuninyonga… OMG! Hehehe…

There are normally two women here, sometimes more. But there are always at least two women I’m familiar with. One is the owner (at least from my silent mind scans) while the other is the one who serves. They always talk in their vernacular. Always. Mara moja moja wakinihurumia ndo wao hutumia Swa kidogo. I always feel bad. I don’t love people talking in vernacular all the time. I don’t like it, unasikia? Sipendi. I love people using their most local language sometimes, because I also DO use mine, but not always. Especially people talking in their vernacular and you are busy eating, munching and swallowing their food! It is like you are eating it with their language too. And that is bad. It is really bad, ama?

But when I entered that place last week, I met the commoner with another woman I don’t know. A woman I later gathered that although she fluently spoke ‘the other language’, she was from another part of this good planet of ours. That happens. So I silently sat down. She has seen me often (the owner) and so it went like;

“Kijana yangu, utakula nini leo?”

And I was like, “Maadhee, kuna chapoz?”. “Eee!” came the answer.

“Okay, niletee moja na githeri…”

“Githeri ya ngapi?” The other one asked while extending her head from the kitchen. “Ya kumi…”. And I chuckled. How dare she ask me that? Si alete tu!

So I sat down there waiting for my githeri ya shilingi kumi na chapo ya twenty bob. I sat there reading non-existent words on a dirty wall. I sat down there reading my mind more than that calendar over there that had been darkened with smoke. A calendar that was just flipped open the other day to reveal a new month, yet you would think it has already been there for a half a year… I sat there looking at myself and imagining what some crook would say or think about me if they found me here – relaxed and waiting. Just chilling out for a meal. OMG! Woreva mun…

But I really love this place. 30 bob is enough to get me a meal. A straight meal. A decent meal. The surroundings are pathetic, but the meals are decent. Didn’t even my Lord say that we should not look so much at what goes inside but what comes out (don’t fight me on that one either)? I always do that. I am told that you should also try to maintain that truism. It helps when dealing with and trying to solve the problem of food and hunger.

This place is cool. Really cool. (And cool as in, kul…) All food/meal/menu impossibilities are made possible here. By the way, did you know that you can get a meal that costs you 300 bob in town for only 50 bob here… Wacha nisiende huko… hehe…

So my food came. I asked for water – no I asked for a cup (not a glass, dude!) There was all this time I had been glaring at the emptiness, a 3 liters capacity jug before me. Blue in color. And over time etiquette has taught me that when you meet such jugs (or see them on a table) you don’t ask for ‘glasses’ but ‘cups’, umesikia? Hakunaga glasses kwa places kama hizi… Eish!

It is here I pretend to be less talkative. So I kept mum as my hosts kept chatting themselves away. It is here I use my mind more than my mouth to talk – always obeying a certain code I use;

a)      Take spoonfuls of food. Don’t take out spoonfuls of words...

b)     Use more water when you want to look at who is talking (because water makes you to look up from your food) – and keep drinking until you can remember them faces off-head

c)      Look at the gestures and eye-talk to understand what is being said – gestures and eyes never ever lie – 99.9% proven (just like my Dettol… hehe…)

d)     Don’t ask questions because they will realize you are listening… and therefore deny you the right of poking into their conversation – remain incognito as far as talk is concerned…

Maybe niendelee na hii storo baadaye. So as they were chatting, in came a “doctor”. Si uongo. Daktari wa huyo mama (owner of dem pliace) ali-come. He too was a man of porojo nyingi… maswali mengi yenye hayana maana… But I realized – even though he was using their vernacular to address them – that alikuwa anabahatisha huo udaktari wake na kufanya huyo maadhee kama experiment. Dude! How can a doctor ask you, “Wee mama, kati ya ile dawa ya kwanza na hiyo ya pili, gani ilifanya kazi?” Na “Hebu nione vile ulipika ile dawa nilikupatia…” Eish! Huo si udaktari! Fake doctor indeed. Na amekulia hiyo kazi kwa muda mrefu, coz badala ya yee kuitisha kama mimi (with specificity) alisema tu, “Niletee…!” Na ika-come. Haiya! But my meal was done so singeendelea kukaa hapo to listen to more of the “doctor’s” prescriptions. Aki wamama huumia… iPaid my 30 bob. Then iLeft…

I don’t want this post to be too long. That is enough. Maybe I’ll need to make it longer by writing another. Cheers!

Have a great weekend people.

Morris.

Lessons: “The Old in the New” Pt. 1

Maybe the finest lessons in life can only be learnt before learning them. And life always has so many lessons to teach you (and us) as compared to what you may teach it. In fact, you may never teach life a lesson at all. It always is smarter, wiser, unpredictable, flauntier, name it... But life is not so much of ‘a mystery of a kind’ but rather a revealable one. It only depends on where you are in the concern of your spirituality and ability to learn... If you are spiritually alert - and with your reverence in the right direction – life is never a mystery at all. Life just becomes commonness ready to be explored. It becomes a kawaida thing. It becomes the business of God and His mandate. It becomes none of your business somehow, but all of your business anyhow... All you’d have to do is listen well and follow. It is that simple my friend.

That is why I am of the view that we only become wiser not through too much experience but through identifying others’ mistakes and running away from them. Life is that simple – running away from what you see can cause trouble. Life is as simple as identifying what weaknesses those who went before you had and picking up your mart, throwing it away, avoiding the way to their doom and finally embracing a new path and way. A way of following a leader who only has travelled the path you are going - following Christ who knows where you should go – because He already has gone there. Life is that simple... You may be called a coward in the meantime (because we will call you one even if you “stand your ground” in all you do anyway), but making that choice is the best thing you can ever do to your life.

I am told that everything on earth is just the same. We breathe the same air from year to year. We live on the same earth - we may change places, but it is still the same earth. We make friends in almost the same way. We may change our behaviours and friends, but we are just the same old people – the same changed people... We have the same same families even though we may choose to adopt new ones. Even the Bible says there are no new lessons to learn; just the old ones reinvented and reintroduced... (Read Ecclesiastes 1:4-10; “The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again. All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time…)

My view is that experience may never be a ‘good’ teacher at all, but an avenue by which a man may pride if given chance… Experience to me is a bad teacher. Experience makes you a victim to a situation you should have conquered. It makes you a fool trying to find your way. And many fools who try to find their way almost always end up not finding their way…

I’ll make this (what I’ll be talking about) the first part of a two part inspection of the lives of those who lived before us. I’ll begin with the ladies’ part. I don’t know why but that’s just the way it is...

So while watching such a movie as “One Night with the King”, it had me trying to figure out how it felt living in Esther’s time. You see (as painted correctly in the Biblical Book of Esther), Esther was a pretty, beautiful young woman, orphaned at an early age living with her ‘uncle’ (he was a distant uncle by the way) and who by all means possible was trying to find her way in a capricious society full of great viles... Mordecai had adopted her as his own daughter and the young woman was somehow totally oblivious of the happenings around her. Her name Esther (a Persian name) means ‘a star’ while her real Hebrew name Hadassah means myrtle - an evergreen shrub or tree of the genus Myrtus (WordWeb Dictionary). You find a woman of great virtue in her. You see an all round queen in her. You see a lady who knew just when and how to place her feet in things. You see substance and gentleness, and toughness and discernment. And it is one day that Esther finds herself (not accidentally but per the plan of God) in the capital of the Persian Empire, Susa, and not as a slave, but as a queen. Just One Night with the King (if you have never watched that movie, I’m not talking about sex, tafadhali) was enough for the King to realize He needed to search no more for Vashti’s replacement... he had found what he was looking for...

On the other side, and before her entrance into the Persian capital as queen, there is Vashti – a queen who was eager to prove to herself, to the King and to others that she was queen. Vashti’s name in Persian language sounds like “Beautiful Woman” while in Hebrew it means “When drinking that's what you get!” - whatever that means... Vashti shows you a woman with stamina to rule over herself regardless of their being her husband and a king. In her you see pride, and dishonour, and a think exploration of power, and arrogance, and rudeness... and a man like King Xerxes knew that He couldn’t live with another man in the same house; pardon, he couldn’t live with another King n the same kingdom and still be expected to rule over Persia diligently so – he threw her out!

In the Book of Esther, you become intrigued by the unravelling of an old story that always amazes me, but that which although so common with many, uniquely has the finger of God painting itself across the horizon of lives in it, and time after time loudly declaring, “Life is never an accident, life is planned and ordained by God… He knows all that happens all over the earth, and He vindicates the course of the righteous...” No wonder the Psalmist writes and says, (Psalm 139:1-3) – O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways…

Here we see Vashti in her arrogance and pride, her cunning behaviour and inclination towards greatness… her desire to show her man (read, husband and King) that she also had a say and was not directly accountable to him… and Vashti fails badly. She fails so badly that the last time we hear of her is when the King and his chamber-men are deciding to throw her out.

Esther unlike Vashti, was/is a woman who sees opportunity and does not just smile at it but grasps it and uses it diligently to her good and the good of her people. She navigates herself into queenship not by might or greatness (read, status and class – or what we love calling swag) but by humility and simplicity. Let me be straight here. I’m not saying that women should be simple, or that they should be wimps. No. But I’m saying that women should know when to be simple and when not to be simple. They should know how to balance both. I’m not saying that greatness comes only to those with humble backgrounds, but I’m saying that greatness should be looked at with an eye of God. I’m not saying that life is highly predictable, but I’m saying that life is not in the hands of men – it is in the Hands of God. I’m saying that life is a story that only God can tell well. I’m saying that everything in that life of yours happens with a reason if you look at it with an eye of understanding and wanting to know what God is up to. I’m saying that you can become whatever you choose to become if you lay your foundational standards right. I’m saying that you are the only one who can make you when you believe in God… I’m saying that lessons from the character(s) of people who lived before us are just as important as lessons from the people we live with today. Yesterday is gone, but yesterday had dawn and dusk. Yesterday went away, but yesterday ate food that will need to be disposed off today, or tomorrow – right before our eyes...

There are things that we learn from the story of Esther which are very relevant today:

a)      A man is to be honoured. A man is to be respected. Period!

b)     A woman is stronger than a man only if she uses her strengths well. A woman is the most powerful being on earth if she allows wisdom to become her portion and discernment her security. My mom taught me that a wise woman knows when to attack and when to pretend not to have seen nor heard.

c)      A woman’s beauty should be both on the inside and on the outside – her man needs to see and experience both… and she can use both to conquer over him…

d)     Beauty makes a woman a queen, but character, humility and a good personality make her a great and likeable queen

e)      You only live once. Use the once knowing it is just once.

f)       God is central. Man is peripheral. You are their meeting place. Neglect nor abandon neither.

g)     You are accountable to someone. The first someone is you. The next someone is us. The other someone is God. Your actions speak for you better than that mouth of yours.

God bless.

Morris.

Free (2011 Album) & Indescribable (Kierra “Kiki” Sheard) – A Review

If you know “Ki” as many love calling her, born Kierra Valencia Sheard, you can only imagine what she did in her latest 2011 album “Free!”, which by the way was the first live recording made my her brother J. Drew Sheard (and probably herself?) in Chicago under her family’s Gospel label “Karew Records”.

Ki's vocals are some of the most powerful I've ever heard; and that daughter of God knows how to use her voice as an instrument that always will communicate straight to your heart. Sincerely speaking, her whole family is a home of great vocalists; considering that she is the daughter of the great Karen Clark-Sheard and therefore part of a family of The Clark Sisters, related to the legend Gospel musician Mattie Moss Clark (the Father to J Moss and Bill Moss), thus making her one who belongs to - if you’ve been listening to contemporary Gospel Music for a while - one of the most famous black American Gospel Music families maybe just behind The Winans…

Ki was only 24 when "Free" was recorded last year. She has featured in several successful projects both musically and in the theaters. I saw her in Deitrick Haddon’s movie “Blessed and Cursed” acting as his sister and she also played a role in “The Preacher’s Kid” (a 2010 movie). You know her if you know her early 2000s Gospel jam “You Don’t Know” which she presented in a 2005 CeCe Winans concert and is also on WoW Gospel 2005 track listing. She is a niece to J Moss (James Moss) of PAJAM. You know PAJAM if you know and love the production behind such great songs as “Give You More” by J Moss, “We Love You” (J Moss and Byron Cage) and songs like “U Got Me Through” (by 21:03 featuring J Moss); and some like Cover Me (Featuring Fred Hammond and J Moss). J Moss has mentored 21:03 since youthhood and are about to release their latest album, “From Boys to Men”)… BTW, have you listened to their song “The Prayer” featuring J Moss? If you have not, then I wonder what kind of music you listen to, mun!

Oh how I love J! “J” is just soooo lollidopous! His vocals will blow anybody away (including myself). He is one of those guys/servants I say they preach the Gospel in the best way possible and with swagga. BTW, he’ll be releasing his latest CD, “V4... The Other Side” on July 31, 2012 having my favourites like ‘Good and Bad’ which has received massive airplay already on most American Gospel radio stations. I just can’t miss that! iCan’t!...
So “J” being Ki’s uncle (because Karen Clark-Sheard her mother, is his cousin), you can all tell that she has been in good hands in terms of music mentoring... She has been surrounded by stars all the way, making you expect stardom from her... Please allow me not to go into all that...  
Now let’s talk about “Free” and that song up there, “Indescribable.”

“Free” was released on October 18, 2011. It is an album I’ll recommend to all young people (like me) out there.  
The flow of the music and the composition in this album is just beyond what I can fully define on paper. It is a wonderfully planned project that begins so well with a prelude to "Free", waving itself into great jams like “War” – a song which had been done before in one of her past albums - then matching right into beautiful sounds of “Mighty” and “You Are”, then an Interlude… (some bit of great noise there). Such arrangement for an album into means two things: first, it is a real project and second, it is anointed project. I call those first five tracks "part one" of the album. You start feeling the dominance of Ki’s voice, her brother's beautiful production and great backing-up from the BRL (the Bold Right Life Choir) in this first part of the album. 
In “part two”, the album then just escalates the atmosphere giving you a taste of deep worship where she hits high keys mixed with her melodic voice and some bits of emotion. Let me stop here. You have to imagine Kierra “Kiki” Sheard, and her great vocals turning emotional… Impeccable! The string of songs in this second "part" of the album “Desire”, “Free” and “Indescribable”, give you such an atmosphere of deep devotion that somehow gives you a break from the jammy first "part" of the album... Relaxes you but also inspires you to speak your heart out to God...
Those three songs bond and blend really well if played back to back… The truth is that when you listen to those three songs back to back, you can’t imagine it is a 24 year old doing the worship. It is great stuff right there! You will have a feeling and an admiration of the way she has radically changed, showing that she has grown a lot both vocally and spiritually as painted in the album's musical transitions.

“Part three” of the album includes song numbers 9 to 14 (in the listing: “People”, “Victory”, “Believers Evolved”, “Back to Earth”, “Lane” and “Since I Found Christ” which bring you back to some really groovy jams. You will like it, I promise...

My favorite song “Indescribable” which is Track no. 8 in the album was originally done by Chris Tomlin. To show her musical prowess and ability to be creative, the song is redone so a-may-zingly, with addition of a third part to the original chorus and lots of action (action I mean the Tye Tribbett style... - like in when he is doing his song "Good"). Really. This makes the message of the song (which is at the center of the album) point! The song colorfully describes how God’s power, love and deeds are simply indescribable. Indescribable indeed... Her vocals are so WoW, her emotion so dope, and it’s just a-may-zin… It is a must listen to guys! Here are the lyrics;

Verse 1
From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea 
Creations revealing Your Majesty 
From the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring 
Every creature unique in the song that it sings 
All exclaiming… 

Chorus:
Indescribable, uncontainable, You place the stars in the sky and You know them by name..You are amazing G-od 
All powerful, untameable, awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim…

You are amazing God… 

Verse 2
Who sees lightning bolts and tells them where they should go or 
Sees heavenly store houses laden in snow 
Who imagined the sun and gave source to it's light 
Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night 
None can fathom 
Repeat Chorus +

Part 3:
Incomparable, unchangeable, You've seen the depths of my heart and You love me the same…You are amazing God 
You are amazing God… 

 Repeat Chorus with part 3

Vamp

(You are amazing God) ×5

God bless.

References from www.groovspot.com.com and www.lyricsmode.com and www.allmusic.com.

Morris.

Generation XYZi

I always sit down to wonder at how life was when my dad was my age. Not that I really desire or want to go back there into the realms of time and unearth myself as a 'Morris being' in a classic 50s age, with an odd old school profile and that kind-of old stuff, but because wondering is just right, ama? iWonder because I love thinking. Sometimes you just have to think beyond the normal for life to sound a lil bit more interesting than it was in the morning… or yesterday…

I always wonder how they (akina my dad) used to do their swagga thing or how they used to roam the streets in utter youthfulness with eyes on their “goals” and minds on their “talls”; with a mission on their “toes”, and pride to kill their flaws… I always wonder how they used to walk around, talk around and swear around (hakukuwa na words kama “nkt”, ama “damn”, ama “Geez!” or the *f* word…) iWonder if their walk was bouncy or ouncy. I don’t know. That is one thing I really need to ask that old man next time I meet him coz, yeah, I really need to know… I need to know if they lied to their parents, if they ever sneaked out just to go and have a stolen kiss (Geez!)… I need to know if they ever were teenagers or they just grew up being old, (hehehe), and if they ever were rebels or veeeeeery, veeeeeery obedient kids. Kama atanienjoy nitajua tu… But nimegundua I need to know so many things about how they used to run life. Things that may prove to me why their generation (generation “X”) was (and still is) so different from ours....

OK. Let’s look at some other comparatives… I always wonder if there was lipstick or mascara or iP (don’t mind how I spell it) or pencils, or supras or tights or sagging or 3 kwenjes… or stillettos, or gladiators just swagga, you know. iWonder how they used to do their hair – wachana na hizo picha wao hutuonyesha, nataka vitu solid and real… iWonder kama kulikuwa na Mohawkers hizo siku zao… iWonder kama walivaaga some revealing tops kama zetu ama I don’t know what… iWonder if they ever were lazy or forgetful, or slow or bad at school or ‘badly influenced by their friends and peers’. iWonder if they ever sinned or got pregnant before marriage… mavitu kama hizo, unacheky?! iWonder if there came times when they felt wamejamia mapaaro wao juu ya storo moja ama nyingine… Of course there were no phones (so no Facebook or Twirra or baba Gooooogle). *Sigh.* Bless the Lord there were no computers no TV, no radios, *sigh again*… iWonder if their parents used to get mad at them (maybe around 19-fifty-something), *oh my*… What was their definition of swagga, anyway? What made life so gorgeous and interesting in those clumsy times? What was reaaaaallly that interesting-in-thing hizo siku? iWonder. I just wonder. Did they have surprises? OK, wacha tusiende huko…

Sasa wacha tuendelee na hii storo… When I was younger and rowdy, I used to overhear my old chap talk about life in his time and age (that is when he was exactly the age I was then) to be flowery and angelic - that somehow inspires me to write another post which I may call “Flowers and Angels”, hehe… - he really got into my nerves! And it sometimes caused me to want to say back at him, "Heey, mzee, si uende uishi kwa hizo siku zenyu poa poa zenye hazikuwa na taabu na matatizo, eeeiiiish!" But I neither had the grace nor the guts; point being, you can’t talk to your old man like that. You can’t do that if you still need a roof on your head and free food and some chum in your torn pockets… So you swallow his noise, pretend it is ‘really cool’, praise him a lil bit, bring him water to drink, ask him if he needs his legs washed, warm some water for him, (and even) offer to wash them as he rants, and move on… but always with a wounded ego… with a judgmental atmosphere hanging all around you two for the rest of that evening, or morning, or whatever…

You see, guys of my dad’s generation make our times seem reeeeaaaally diabolic, really demonic. They always paint this age (generation “Y”) as reaaally satanic and reaaally out of place. But I don’t think we are all that. I don’t think so. I don’t think these generation “X” people have much to offer in the name of righteousness. I don’t think so.  I don’t think they can hail the ‘holier than thou’ tagline and win. This to me ain’t no win-win situation. It is a two way thing. We have differences which we should learn to embrace. We are good at one thing they ain’t. They are good at some things we ain’t. That is the point. We are both good but at different things. Yeah. We love doing things one way (because this is 2012, ladies and gentlemen) while they loved doing things another way (because that was the 20^th Century, o good people). We-are-di-ffer-re-nt! Eiiish! We can’t run our game like they used to. They can’t run their game like they used to either. Eiiish! Times have changed. We can’t run the game the same way. Oh my good Lord, I need more Grace…

Fact has it that two generations are always at conflict and miles apart in terms of value systems, conflict resolution, vision building, thought perception, spiritual upbringing and general likes and dislikes in life. Like it or not that’s just the way it is. But mystery of mysteries is that when a third generation comes in, the first one becomes laid back, as the second generation takes over to blame or criticize the next generation. And the cycle goes on and on… So these are some of the things we can stumble on and learn to live with or conquer;

No. 1 - They are old. We are young. Old is old. Young is young. Young may love some few aspects of old, but it is still young, and vice versa – that’s where the game should always begin whether in natural aspects or in spiritual matters…

No. 2 - They were young, and now they are old. We are young, and we-are-still-young! Hehe! This question of “What happened to the good old days?”, that they love asking daily should stop. Even the Bible in Ecclesiastes 7:10 (NIV) says “Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’

For it is not wise to ask such questions...” Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it-is-not-wise-to-ask-such-questions! Really. *While making sign of the cross – Amen!* And reality has it that we soon will be asking the same question to the next generation (which I choose to call “Z”). I guess it will be more weird than we are today – I think we’ll kick those kids really hard too shape them in the ways of the Lord… hehe… Let’s go on…

No. 3 – A lot has changed. Technology has changed. The dressing code has changed. Speech has changed. Linguistic orientations have changed. People have changed. Smiles have changed. Desires have changed. Motivators have changed. Love has somehow changed. Value systems have changed. They may have changed for the good or for the worse, but they have changed anyway. Parenting has changed - so has “kidding”. We should just embrace today as it is, and learn to deal with it just as it is. No blame games. No ‘good old day’ tags. No ‘watoto wa siku hizi’ tags. Things have changed bwana – no need to say too much on this, buddies...

No. 4 – Let me make this one my last one on this one. Guys, guys, guys, stomp! We disagree a lot with those people from generation “X”. Can’t we just sit down and understand one another? OK. I understand peroos are kind-a like, “We are de say in dis pliace,” but if we sit down just a lil bit everyday and look each other in the eye, and be concerned with what our peroos feel about us and what we feel about them, we can understand one another. I think so. I think step by step, day by day, we can understand each other if we choose to listen to each other. We can reach a consensus. So if you are a parent and you read this blog and you too are a young person reading it, make it a choice to create a platform where there can be understanding between you and your child/parent.

Generational gaps should not be a hindrance to our unity as children and parents. We should seek to agree even if it seems impossible. Let’s not make it harder to join these generations. Of course they will never be uniformly united, but they can agree in the most essential parts of living. It is for this reason that when the next generation comes in, it can find a solid ground to build on from – somewhere to begin. Somewhere where people talk to one another and agree even when things have (or are) really blown or are blowing apart. The generation that is to come, generation “Z”, (whatever that means), should not grow apart from us but should grow at par with us…

So, go out there and make it count!

Blessings.

Morris.

Reading Scripture

Scripture, which is the word of God may not be the simplest thing to study and capture because of the many obstacles and hindrances to attaining it and applying it in our lives. But because God requires us to hide it in our hearts, it is good enough to strive to do so; and always for our own good.

Even Christ knew the Word, and that’s why He was able to conquer over the devil at the moment He was tempted. So Scripture is essential to every Christian that desires to grow and follow Christ while living effectively and productively for His Kingdom.

Here are some questions and/or facts that will guide you in reading Scripture effectively and enable you to love it as you ask the Lord to help you apply it are;

1. Have uninterrupted time of reading so that you may practically understand what you are reading – this happens after having a deep desire to know God’s Word – determination is key in knowing and applying scripture directly into our lives
2. Read it just as it is (just like you read books) – let the spiritual implications come in after reading (while meditating) and see if those words make sense…
3. Identify the passage with the context in which it was written – if it is Jewish or Samaritan/Gentile, post-exile or pre-exile, during the time of Jesus or after his death – this helps us have a ‘picture’ (or create mind pictures) of how life was or how things were…
4. Ask yourself questions (in view of the passage) like;

a)      Why did he/she do that? Or Why did God do that? (Whether good or bad).

b)     How could/would they have done it better?

c)      Why was God angry or pleased with them?

d)     If I was in their place would I have done it better or worse? And why do you think so?

e)      Why did those around them react like they did (whether positive or negative) And if you were there, how would you have reacted to the message or their actions?

f)       Was God justified to treat them like that?

g)     In view of today and now (this generation), do you think that passage is relevant? And why do you think it is (or is not) relevant?

h)     Do you entirely understand what you are reading? If ‘no’, why? Do you think you can understand the passage with a little help? Which help is that?

5. Calm down and think through what you have been reading (which simply means it may not be that possible with big junks of scripture so I prefer you read just a few) – this is what we call meditation. The following happens during meditation (mainly application);

a)      What does what I have read teach me about God?

b)     What does it teach me about this person (or these) people’s relationship with God

c)      What does it teach me about this person (or these) people’s relationship with one another (or with others)

d)     How can I change (or what can I do to become better) in line with what I have read?

e)      Conclusively, what have I learnt from this portion of scripture today?

f)       What is my prayer for today?

6. In order to hold and memorize what you have read, think about it in the course of the day – paraphrasing the piece of scripture in the whole passage that spoke to you directly – with this, you’ll have so many ‘memory verses’ that you can practically apply daily in your life!
7. Desire to tell someone about what you read – post it on Facebook or Twitter or Google+ or post pictures of it on Pinterest or Instagram or Flickr (that’s why I’m frequently on social media anyway) or SMS it to someone… by sharing we are transformed more – it is the reason why this blog exists.
8. Remember God’s Word is not all about cramming but knowing and applying it in our lives so that we become Christ-like.

Above all, there is one thing about the Spirit of God helping you read Scripture. Because it is him who inspired it, only He knows those hidden things in it. Why don’t you ask Him just for that before you begin? He is always willing to assist and help us understand God, others and even ourselves. Use of some Bible Study reference material like this website (inclusive of maps, concordance and literature) will also be helpful – but don’t entirely depend on this to understand what you are reading.

Then your (and my) life will begin to change as Scripture transforms us… God bless.

Bonface Morris.