Christianity and Stoicism

He threatened me the very first time I met him. Fever and all that. Like an apple terrifies a tomato’s peace; or like iOS terrifies something Chinese… He was dumb. I don’t know the right word to use to describe my feeling of his quietness, but he was kind-a like mute. Passive. He tingled my mind to want to understand him. He was a subject of distorted realities. A motionless creature, maybe. I watched him sweep away pain and sensitivity to emotion like the sun peels away the gloom of dark in an amberly way. He threatened the truisms in existence with such ease – counter changeably – like it was a mistake for some things to really make sense, and in his case, any sense at all. I felt like my innermost being really wanted to understand him, it screamed so loud for discernment; yet the other side of me that is always in touch with reality wanted so much to question him… such a creature in mortality that was jumpy in every bit of description. He was beastly and unwitful. Yet at the top of it all, he was Christian…

“But was I less?” I wondered. “Should I have been less? Why should I have been less anyway? Who said I was less? Less Christian than he was, huh?”

Some Christianity lacks emoticons… I should say. I should say that some Christianity lacks emoticons… Some Christianity lacks fun. It lacks motion and fervency. It lacks laughter and easiness. It lacks the life-smile. It lacks joy and passion. It is flat to the ground. It is warped and dead (or dying if I have to be a little ‘fair’), and shriveled, and painful, and weird, and too sharp, and somehow cunning, and brief, and paradoxical and - according to G. K. Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy” - full of orthodoxy, and conventionalism, and blunt (although sharp in some way)… The terms of its existence are like a gas pump without oil…

But we meet it every day. We interact with it. We know it. Maybe sometimes we secretly admire it, and then most times we abhor it. Blunt stoic Christianity. It wants no pleasure, it knows no pain, it cries not, it laughs not, it cares less. Blunt stoic Christianity. It ties itself to spiritual plumpness. It denies pain. It carries with itself lots and lots of heaviness and uneasiness. Blunt stoic Christianity. It is what I have to talk about today.

The Christian life we live today has been overhauled into two extremes: either into a ‘radicalized’ sense of religion with taints of secularism or; into orthodox spirituality which grabs petty laws and converts them into dogmas of religion. In simple terms, you will meet as many Christians as you can’t count who subscribe to the notion that spirituality is being separate from any kind of physical pleasure (say as a result of money or prestige) and the ultimate pretence that pain, sickness and any form or displeasure is intolerable and should neither be existing nor be thought of. It is a life that most of us live - a life lacking the balance between genuine pleasure and materialistic pleasure. We have been taught to abhor pleasure – the whole lot of it – even good pleasure. We are desperate and struggling to live in the “now” that is today. We are struggling so much with the reality that is “now”. We abhor TV – even good TV, we deny the blend of fashion on us – even decent fashion. We don’t watch movies (or soaps). Some of us don’t watch news. We hate the internet and social media because ‘they are impure’. We hate good phones. We hate this and we hate that. We hate those who speak in tongues tagging them as ‘noise makers’ who should just do whatever they are doing in their privacy. We hate people who jump when they praise and worship. We are not friendly, not even to people of the Faith. We don’t even befriend people of the secular world in the name of them making us impure in one way or another (and I am not advocating for ‘befriending pagans’ but that it is important for a Christian to be social and suitable in his/her immediate environment). We are pathetic!

So I always wonder (about such people, like that guy up there and who may include myself) if God at all created pleasure for the secular world or for ‘the heathen’ as most of us love calling them. Were we created to be called to either evade pain or deny it all through our existence? Were we formed in the image of God so that our lives may be full of running away from things or people, even those we love; all in the name of acquiring the highest fonts of spirituality?

I am just wondering.  Am just wondering.

Of course we have been commanded (or instructed) not to engage in any kind of civilian life

(2 Timothy 2:3-4: Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs – he wants to please his commanding officer…) and therefore  should put our obedience in (and to) Christ above our own meager pleasures, remembering mostly where we are headed than where we are. But Christ Himself was in touch with His environment – He knew that he was going to the Father, but still wept when people died, and had compassion on some when they stayed hungry. He was angry and hungry countless times. He made friends - with his disciples and tax collectors, and Pharisees like Nicodemus – many friends, many kinds of friends. Christ was in touch with His immediate environment, although his lack of sin was (and still is) highly impeccable (Hebrews 4:15). This makes me wonder what say, His reaction(s) or behavior would be if he were to meet a guy like me today. I am sure that the Jesus I know would command me, “Don’t be a hypocrite like the Pharisees…!” then He would add some few statements here and there to confirm His allegations (as it would seem to me)… But again I may ask, “What would Jesus do today to remain Holy in such an imperfect and sinful world…?” The answer is simple: He would live a common and normally life without too much religious sophistication, but loving people and smiling at them, and being merciful and compassionate – He is the same Jesus, right? The one who doesn’t change, right? He will still do what He’s gotta do in order to achieve that which the Father sent Him to do – to offer help and redemption to mankind in any (and every) way possible…

Here is the endpoint: you don’t have to feel ‘fake’ or uneasy in the presence of one (or many) who glory in mortal piety and ‘spiritual strictness’, but rather feel inadequate before the One who demands that we obtain from Him immortal righteousness – that which He Himself has made us to become. For we are his righteousness, and not our own righteousness. We don’t have to be hard on ourselves in order to please God. We don’t have to pretend that pain or affection or love or desire does not exist, but learn and know how to channel all of them in a godly way to the rightful place until we achieve that which God has created us to become… his righteousness – and not blunt stoic self-righteous Christians!

Morris.

What Is More Important?

-         There is worship, and there is warship, and both belong to a soul…

The philosophy of materialism replies to the question of “What really matters in life?” with one answer, “Hedonism is the answer to every question that has satisfaction somewhere in the middle…” Such a philosophy declares to the entire world that mankind is a slave to his schemes of endlessly seeking for satisfaction. It openly confesses that he cannot save himself from the pleasure he indulges in or creates, nor can he redeem his soul from the influence of affluence; thus copying and pasting into our present times the timeless mentality theme of money being man’s main source of contentment – a driving force that keeps pushing him towards itself…

I don’t mind that money is important, because it is important. Money is special and important. I don’t question the power and potential it carries, because it is what it is – it has potential. And power. Even the Bible says so. Money has power – a power that increases with its accumulation; but a closer observation into the affairs of the present world – and the past ages too - forces us to understand (or misunderstand) the question of wealth (money), pleasure, intellectualism, meaning and satisfaction. The many things we may learn or might have learnt as life shoots before us may teach us (or might have taught us) facts on hedonism that have a broken tail and with no head in view; but if present, confused all through… The question of what I value most in my life today is wanting. I may not even know what I really want. Many accept and appreciate that without questioning. It is common nowadays. It seems normal not to know where I am coming from or where I am going to. I am excused not be sure of what really drives my life. I am allowed not even care to know. That is the life we experience in we people who live today – a life without meaning and direction – and we all seem so okayed with it; but eventually, we find out that life succumbs right before us and we sooner than later are drying and dying and diminishing and ending into frailty day by day, thanks to the lack of knowledge of what we are doing or why we are doing what we are doing.

Deeper within, the life fact is that something somewhere should more important than everything else in our lives, even if we can’t definitely speak out the to’s and fro’s of our deepest beings – even if it is so loudly unspoken… and that unspoken words speak loudest… - that very essence of such an existence screams so loud into our ears that we may end up being scared that it is us being addressed, thus destruct us from getting in touch with reality… Money haunts us most – the lack or presence of it. It haunts us most. Money loves us most – the pull and push of it. It is our conflict and our resolution. Somehow, every part of today’s world hovers around money. To get it. To have it. To use it. To maneuver through times with (and by) it. To just be moneyed… It may be true that the voiceless noises of poverty have killed our right view of how good money is or the search for it, and also deviated our optimism towards gaining it… Such a poor thing that makes people “rich”…

And schooling has just made it worse - meet a young man (or young woman in any case) and ask them why they go to school. They may (or may not) answer you back with the accent of superiority of learnedness to illiteracy. They may imply to you that it is constructive - and it is. We value education. It is good to be educated. Intellectualism has become our greatest ego booster. But neither education or shear intellectualism has the capacity to fill the vacuums created by lack of true knowledge and wisdom. They are only but fluff in the game of wisdom.

But get me right on this one. I am neither complaining (or hating) about education nor wealth nor pleasure; but about the vision thereof and the attitude compounded in such crimsons. I am not against intellectualism, because what you read here is a result of such strives. But I am just loudly wondering why we at all have to crown our educational abilities as the main source of a better status in life… I am just wondering why we should think that being educated makes us run into a “better” world… No wonder one Malcolm Muggeridge wrote and said, “We have educated ourselves into imbecility”. We live lives intertwined with philosophies. Philosophies of wealth and money. We live like philosophies. Philosophies of well-being and aptness. We think philosophies. We imagine philosophies. We create some and trash some, but always live many – empty philosophies. We are proud of intellectualism because education is a philosophy on its own – that which owns our minds and twists all rounds of our thinking. We were born into the present generation thinking of and knowing that education has all that we need for our future. We have become lazy in factualism and positive dialectics, but have adopted argument and “policy thinking” as our sources of what is right. Many of our lives somehow hang on one word or another breathed out of the mouths of gurus and nerds teaching us in the lone class of “respect-cum-honor bound fellas”.

Such lives as described above leave us with so many ‘if only’s’. We live in the ‘if-only’ era. An era that values words and thoughts of our own and of fellow men than those of a well intended source. We always will regret later. Yes we will. Our relationships are always held on the loose. Our relationship with God. And with fellow men. And with friends. And with our spouses. And with ourselves… they fade away slowly and we end up realizing that we can’t even meet ourselves anywhere – all at the expense of loving money and education. Broken relationships. Divorces. Emptiness. Broken selves. Forgotten selves. The price for highly regarding hedonism and intellectualism is quite expensive. Time has proved it thus. We will be heard crying, “If only I had known” or “If only I had done this or that…” We should not allow it to happen to us too late in the game of life, because those questions are always asked with a lot of bitterness in the heart and with fear and failure furiously staring us in the face… And we may never have the answers right then. We may never manage to deal with the reality of things…

I am not ashamed to confess that so many of us today can’t unblinkingly answer that question up there with confidence and without mentioning money or status somewhere between – just as the philosophy of materialism depicts. We tend to say, “My name is Bonface Morris Otunga, I studied (or study) bla bla bla, at bla bla bla with the likes of bla bla bla, I hold a bla bla bla in… I work at bla bla bla… I live at bla bla bla…” and the story is endless… That has inseparably become our definition of us. Titles. Names. Status. Power. Origin. Education. Ego. It has become who we are. They have become who we are. Right? Yeah, all those are cool. They should be there. They are meant to be there. But what carries most of the weight of our definition of us is who we remain to be to our families, friends, spouses (or boyfriend/girlfriend) and most important, to God. Having the titles and taking care of our relationships is what should be our goal- our ultimate goal. Striking the balance between all this is what determines how well we can define who we really are and what is really important to us; and if at all what we believe in is meaningful to all…

In Foundations of Achievement (A character development program by John E. Schrock), under the Management Principle of Debt, he writes and says, ”You cannot be happy by being independent. We were designed to be relational…” and C. S. Lewis once said, “Prosperity knits a man to the World. He feels that he is "finding his place in it," while really it is finding its place in him....

Two songs I do wish you would listen to:

“Identity” by Lecrae (ft. Da’ T.R.U.T.H. & JR) and “Fantasy” by Da’ T.R.U.T.H. (ft. JR)…

So once again, “What is really important… to you?”

Morris.

Baby, You're A Star - Deitrick Haddon (A Review)

As of tonight, I had already decided to go to bed. In fact I had shut down this machine and was going to have that reflection bit of time just before bedtime. But I got reminded to encourage someone. Yeah, I got reminded that someone needs me tonight – or tomorrow morning. Someone somewhere. It is so much in me tonight. So all I am going to write down in this post is going to be for someone who needs it – if it is not for you, just know that it is not – let it remain at that.

When I first heard this song, it struck me as one of those songs D Haddy does in an album just for me – like “One Blood” in Revealed (a 2008 album). It is one of those songs I’d rather sing along to alone than in a congregation. That which I sing to without a keyboard. The one I sing to with my voice raised out so loud – with passion. With a passion so deep that after yelling out loud, I rarely will understand what I just did… By the way, have you ever sung a song with passion? Have you ever tagged passion in song? This is one of those songs you passionately clap somewhere (like that line… “but let me encourage you…”) and feel like it is blowing you away... because it speaks a message to your soul – something about what God says we are… what God ultimately says that I am…

But let me reduce too much story telling on this one.

The song is in a 2011 Album “Church On The Moon” by Deitrick Haddon. It is a great project. One featuring greats like his wife, Damita Haddon and J Moss. It is a D Haddy project but you can always be sure there is Voices of Unity (his singing team) somewhere in the album.

The theme of this song is simple: you are a star, and it doesn’t matter what somebody else says you are. You are a star. You are star material… That’s who you are!

Just to add a little meat, the last time I heard such a message in a song; it was Juanita Bynum singing “It’s Inside of You” from My Passion album (2010) and from Jonathan Butler singing “It’s Already There” from The Worship Project – a 2004 album.

This song says it all: all that we can ever want or need is right here with us no matter what we may think we have ended up to become or what people tend to say (or think) we are. The everlasting God says so many things about us His children, but what we need to be absolutely sure of is that He has said that we are like stars in the sky...shining forth His glory for the whole world to see and know… God is present. He is present. He is our Peace. He is our provider. He is our Healer. He is our God. I believe He is the main light that keeps the hope of brilliance in a dark night that is the present world. If at all God says we are beautiful, we should always believe we are. If He says that we are more than conquerors, we should believe without doubt that we TRULY are. If He says that no weapon formed against us shall prosper, we are in that position if we DO believe. We are protected - because He depends on us to shine forth His light – to extend His glory into the dark world. My friend, it doesn’t matter where you are from (your origin or the far you have come), or where you are. It only matters that he is your God, my God, our God, and ever present help in times of trouble (Psalm 46:1) because if He has been faithful to keep you (read, ‘us’) up to today, He will keep you (read, ‘us’) tonight, tomorrow, the day after and right over the dark gloom that you (read, ‘we’)  cannot see! He is a God who sees beyond our today and tomorrow - He sees the Big Picture (just as Da’ T.R.U.T.H. says). Just believe that you are a star. Don’t you know who you are? And don’t let nobody tell you nothing different from what you already know – you’re a star!

"Baby, You're A Star"

Deitrick Haddon

Album: Church On the Moon (2011)

[Intro:]
Somebody's out there listening right now.
So please turn your radio oh oh oh. Yeah.

[Verse 1:]
She planned to finish school and get a degree.
Start a business and make her own money.
But somehow her dreams didn't work out that way.
She fell in love at the age of sixteen.
Had two babies and she couldn't believe that the boy she loved is now gone away.
But because you've had some setbacks in ya life.
It doesn't mean you shouldn't let, just let your dreams die.

[Chorus:]
Baby you're a star
Don't cha know who you are
Don't chu let anybody tell you nothin' different, but you know what's in ya heart
But baby you're a star
Don't cha know who ya are
If you could only see what I see, but first you must believe oh you're a star

[Verse 2:]
He graduated at the top of the class
Had everything he needed and more.
And like eagle he was made to soar.
But at the wrong place, at the wrong time
Introduced to a drug that messed up his mind.
Lost so many years now he's makin up for lost time
And you may have fallen on your journey my friend
But let me encourage you to get back up and try again

[Chorus:]
Baby you're a star
Don't cha know who you are
Don't let nobody tell you nothin' different, but then cha know that's in ya heart.
But baby you're a star
That's you ya are
If you could only see what I see, you first must believe baby you're a star

[Bridge:]
You are only human, you're born to make mistakes along the way
And God has blessed you with something that is so pure.
You just need some motivation, and need a little push
To get up off floor and walk through the dark

[Chorus:]
Baby you're a star ooh.
Don't let her tell ya nothin' different, than what ya know what's in your heart
Baby, baby, baby you're a star
You still can read to go, you got to take control
Baby you're a star ohh.
Ah oh. Ah oh.
I know, I know baby you're a star.
That's who you are.
Just make up in your mind that you were meant to shine.
Baby... You're a star
That's who ya are. [Fade]

Lyrics courtesy of http://www.azlyrics.com

Remain encouraged,

Morris.

Love’s Shades of Black and White Pt. 2

-         Bit by bit and beat by beat; the best life always treads in bitty beats – Bonface Morris

-         Nothing corrodes the soul more than doubt; an ounce of every step in such a world treads mankind into a dying world – Bonface Morris

This week begun with me being too busy – somehow too busy for writing. In fact I am writing this post from a certain hole-place in the farthest part of this country. But because I have to write, let me just do this…

We continue with what I started off last week – Love’s Shades of Black and White…

In life, there always comes a time when one doubts their abilities (if at all one has realized that they DO possess any – or an ability). I think it is a normal thing. It is normal to have doubt over some things in life; but it is never normal to think that doubting is (or to make doubting) an impossibility. I think that people who doubt take the best options in life so far – the best verified options. This is majorly because that which is the reason for doubt, on which such a person’s instincts mount and shine on so much is amplified by questioning and criticism, and if it at all has to meet an answer, that answer would have to face thorough vetting before any kind of mutual inception into such a person’s fact-world…

So doubting is healthy. It is natural. What you do with it is what matters most… because during such moment(s), when one is forced to doubt their ability to care, to know, to understand, to make things right, to have lasting relationships, and worse still their ability to love selflessly; and with equal measure tend to doubt another person’s abilities in the same line, answers have to be met. Such answers pin point reason and doubt to this post.

Doubt in the art of love always comes in because we feel insufficient and absolutely out of range with some aspects in the lives of our significant others. We don’t understand some things, so we choose to wrestle against them. We don’t want some things about these people, that is why we choose to dig them out and use them against the very people we felt so close to. We don’t like some things about these people, so we are choosing a way out of our agony of lack of knowledge…

“We don’t have to love some things about other people”, we tell ourselves. “We only have to love some…”  “We don’t have to have some things, but some come out to be naturally essential…” “We don’t have to know all things about people” “We only have to know the most essential, the most reasonable about those we love…” are statements we often use to make a defense of our doubts of others.

You don’t have to have been in a relationship for so long to generate doubt. A relationship of just one day may have as many problems as that of 10 years (if such exists). If two people have agreed to be in a relationship, building it and growing it with absolute trust in each other is a process that may take one day or forever. So putting that in mind, consider the following doubt zones that are common in any relationship after two have tango-ed even though we all can swear to our best knowledge that love should be selfless, impartial and unconditional;

1. I doubt if he/she will be consistent in their loving me (or their show of affection towards me).

This is majorly because you have insecurity problems and you either feel they are too good and  you do not count to who they are or the feeling that they may just be playing you. Maybe they have shown a weakness of inconsistency in one way or another. Maybe they have said so indirectly. Maybe they have shown it to you is some way. So you ended up feeling soooo inadequate. It may be true or a fad. But anyway, who never feels unloved sometimes even after experiencing the most romantic relationship ever…!? Test yourself over time and see if you are being fair to judge someone like you are doing.

2. I doubt if he/she will be consistent in the way they give themselves to me (say in their money or time…) I normally say that moderation is father of consistency. If at all you want to breed consistency in your relationship, control what you do for each other. Anything overdone means, something not consistently done. I cannot afford to call you for 1 hour in each day all the days of my life. So, I will only call you for a few minutes which are manageable – and I will maintain that for a very long time – because it is manageable. I will take you out to an ambient place which I can always afford. I won’t take you out to great places just because I had some cash to put away or spend, but if I can manage to do so always, then I should. I will spend time with you – only in a way that I can always manage – why fool you with a whole week spent together only to disappear after that? Why should I force you to doubt my spending lots of time with you? The rule is this simple: only do what you two can always manage to do and do it to your best – you will enjoy your relationship.

3. I doubt if their ‘bad’ will someday  outweigh their ‘good’

To say but the truth, everyone has their ‘good’ and ‘bad’ side. Just live to relate well with that fact. Nobody is always so good and if someone is ‘bad’, make your choices fast enough before it is too late. You may never change anyone, so live with the reality of their ‘good’ and the menace of their ‘bad’. If you are the spiritual kind like myself, telling your fears about your significant other to God will be of great help. He will help you understand that we are all different. And that appreciating each other’s flaws is the best part of unconditional and true love that He talks about in 1 Corinthians 13.

4. I doubt if they DO have a mpango wa kando or not, and if they will always be passionate and committed to this relationship…to fight for it, to protect it…

Ladies please, not all men are advocates of the mpango wa kando thing. And guys, not all dudes who talk to your chic are potential rivals. Give each other some breathing space.

I have  a friend whose boyfy is that kind of dude who always is peeping into every part of her life scrutinizing who she talked to, and why, and where… bla bla bla… She always ends up really exhausted and although she may never say it out loud, only love keeps her in that relationship – love is such a miracle… So, even if you puts guards around someone, it is never a reality that you can be the only person in their lives! Everyone needs an extra friend (whether a guy or a chic) – just a friend – please allow them this freedom and don’t suffocate them!

Commitment and passion in a relationship is something two people cultivate. You have to build your own, and in your own way! If I wanna be committed, I have to see the future of this thing I am committing to, and if I have to see its future, I have to strive to. Things don’t just happen – they are made to happen! I know that we guys are commitmentphobes but it is majorly because maybe ladies never give us something to look forward to – something to make us feel to be part of  such a relationship… something to develop passion towards…

The above factors show that doubt makes us condemn and drive away people even before our relationships mature or start existing. It is such a dark shade. Trust on the other side, and being the good oil that balms a relationship can’t be bought on the streets. Trust is build. If we have to undo the black shade of doubt (at least to reasonable level because it happens to recur) we have to work on painting out so loud the white shade of trust.

Can we talk about how to build trust in our next post?

See ya…

Morris.

Love’s Shades of Black and White Pt. 1

- Life is like a pyramid. A pyramid that keeps on being uprightly upright and then 
  down rightly inverted, somehow… – Bonface Morris
- Learning the art of love requires justice both to self and to the object… - Bonface Morris

To begin with, I guess that’s the worst point to start off this post – with a twisted fact. A twisted fact, yeah. But it is the best way I think. You just have to start it off with agreeing with me that life is a puzzle that many of us fail to fathom and fully comprehend. A puzzle we only love imagining that we can solve, but we many times don’t want to unbridle. Many of us never even try to. We always feel that we don’t have to - or whenever we keep trying, that we won’t anyway, and therefore we fail trying to before we even try trying to… We always come out feeling that life is a mystery, a bad nightmare that we wish never occurs (or will never occur or try to occur) – a mystery which has legs that keep on being wounded, then getting healed, but sometimes ailing forever; that it is a mixture of multiplicities and a simple but altogether dogma of sorts.

You will agree with me that the greatest minds have only had ways of interpreting life and getting it undone – but the undoing is always wanting. Minds keep on thinking of solutions, but times keep on making the solutions a problem… It is like the questioner who asks too much, then his/her recipient turns the questions around against them, or answers all of them, but only to ask more questions… and the cycle becomes endless… questioning that answers and questions itself all at the same time…

And there are those who always feel that life is unfair. Yeah. That it should not treat them like thus… They should be right to think so. [I am saying that they should be right to, but not they are right to…] But that makes me wonder if life is an object and they, the subject of its course(s) so that it tyrannically keeps on impeding their way with its clawy mannerisms and with queer mercilessness leaving them in a pathetic status… That it carries with itself a portion of unfairness for them… a portion of high allotment…

Then there are those in love life (read, relationships) who always wonder why the love affair has been so unfair to them. Mine being one of them, the truth is that love and loving another person is costly. It needs sacrifice. And it somehow is unfair that such a sweet thing as love (a shade of white) should have so many bumps ahead (shades of black.)

Love forces you to want to learn so many unnecessary things about one person that you somehow feel choked. You need to understand why they behave like they DO behave, why they love this and not that, and not the other, and keep on remembering those likes and dislikes; why they are impatient (or patient) while you can’t tolerate such thickness (or thinness); why in the whole world full of people like them, they should qualify to be the ones – the true ones that you love… You have to understand why they become angry at stupid things, why they love you, if they are pretending or not… A life full of shades…

So let me dig deeper into the shades of that part of life – where people think that they should be having partners (read boyfriends or girlfriends, fiancés or fiancées) to fall in love with… Woreva…

Whoever taught me about love (and I am not saying that I was taught by anyone) did a very bad job. They failed. So, all the advice you will get in this post is strictly mine. Yeah.  I don’t evn know if it is advice. It doesn’t have to be anyway. Did you employ me to advice you on anything? Nope. Did you tell me to be writing to give you advice? Nope. Am I your ticha? Nope. So judge me not when I tell you what I feel about shades in love.

I love the beauty in zebras. Mainly because their skin color beautifully alternates. A friend of mine was asking me, “Hey Morris, are those black stripes on white or white stripes on black that make the color code of a zebra’s skin?” I didn’t know. So I never answered. Compared to the question on zebras, I may not also be having any answers to your many love questions. I don’t have to have any. I am not obligated to have your answers, ama?

But look at this scenario (and I don’t plan to write A LOVE BOOK): a man meets a lady – or a lady meets a man - and they happen to tango. Whether it is on Day 1 or day later… woreva it may be, they agree to be meeting (those things/moments my generation calls dates) over I don’t know what or where – si ni wao huwa wanakubaliana ni wapi watakuwa wanakutana? So hapo jijazie… But anyway, they DO meet. That is point number 1 – if you have to say you are in a relationship, (not necessarily a love relationship), you should be meeting with your significant other. It doesn’t matter whether it is via phone or sms or Facebook, or twirra or Google Talk/+/Hangout or Skype… woreva… you should be meeting. Without a meeting (or communication), there is no relationship, sawa? That may also be shade number 1 for some guys – that you guys never meet, never talk, never ever just chat, meaning, it is a shade of black. But if you DO meet, even for a while and you make time for each other, it is a white one (at least, and maybe)…

Point number 2 – you may be meeting, but you talk a lot of clutter – you keep on telling each other about how the other’s lips look yummy, and how she look hawt; or how his biceps (or six pack) look greyt…  and how his hands drive you crayzy… That is kul, but it is clutter my friend. It is clutter if you want that relationship to go somewhere. Anywhere. I always say that compliments are good – they show affection, but compliments made just to please someone are stupid... OMG! You can hit me if you want. Dates (and I am referring to such dates that are just daytes) make two people pretend to something else whenever they meet. They always will be found pretending to be really guuud. That is why I hate dates. 90% of dates people go to today are clumsy shows of a non-existing relationship. They are places of “judging if that guy (or chic) is guuud enuff” Woreva that is, they always fail. They always come out with black shades and dark unrealistic wounded hearts. But if you DO meet and  build each other, and you don’t pick up a pretentious profile when you are together, and you are just you, then my friend, you are whiting right there… It is a good shade. You are on the right track. But if you fear ati watakujua, you are in big trouble…

My last point for today is this one: so two people have tango-ed and they agree, the next thing that will make you start knowing that it is you who makes your love life fair or unfair is, know this person – get acquainted with their life shades. Only this will enable you to get anywhere.

You see my friend, strangers can’t be comrades until familiarity is developed. Do you get it? Comrades cannot exist until openness is grown. So, are you open enough? Lack of honesty and openness makes you a monkey in a baboon population – no tangoism… If one (or both of you) keep on hiding stuff about yourselves in your so-called dates, while you know very well that this should be a relationship to count on, you better just sit at home watching movies, drinking yoghurt, or woreva,  so that you may not be heard saying, “Men are clumsy and stupid” or “Women are niggards and rude…”

The question is, “Are you ready to make those shades in your relationship as beautiful as those on a zebra or as ugly as those on the hyena, because it too has hideous shades…?

See you next time for part two…

Morris.   

Lessons: 'The Old in the New' Pt. 2

Of late, I have been keenly looking into the lives of Kings in the Bible and making a few observations. In this second part of I don’t know how many parts series, I’ll compare, or rather closely look into the lives of two kings; Solomon and Xerxes (also known as Ahasuerus).

It may mainly be because I somehow want to decipher myself into the minds of ladies who may be thinking that I am a conniving sexist hiding in the overt realities and teachings of Christendom – one who vivaciously attacks them in order to satisfy his unpopular and chauvinistic ways. I am not. I may be a guy who so much talks about issues affecting women, but that does not mean that I think men are perfect and therefore are not subject to mortification. I don’t think so. Everyone is a sexist at some point in their life. It s true. There are times when you think “men are weird” or that “women are prudes”; and to some extend – either consciously or unconsciously. Everyone is a sexist except God. And that is why ladies and gentlemen, dudes and dudettes *while tapping microphone* I allow myself to howl at my loudest voice some basic lessons from these two kings that may just help us guys (and ladies too…). But mainly for the guys.

But before I move to such, I have to make myself clear to you - I am not a teacher. I’m not anybody’s teacher. Not even yours. I’m neither a teacher nor a ticha. I am just a common boy who loves talking about things he observes. I’m just a boy who intrudes people’s privacy without asking for their permission. One who talks too much on social media, and then here. I guess you also do. But the difference between the two of us is that I write a lot about what I see and feel, while you may be doing the same or you just lull them off somehow…

So back to the point… To begin with, let’s understand why the Bible so much talks about kings and once in a while, their queens;

When you look at God, (that is if you mind doing so), you will find out that He has a way that He has been using to convey His message(s) right from the time of creation. Even looking at the first words He spoke to the first man and woman after displaying them as a couple, you realize that this is the first mission He had for them - one which according to what He said, was to be their eternal mission - to have ruling authority over all that He had created... kings over all the earth… Not only man, but also woman, because these words were said to both; (Genesis 1:27-28 – “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created THEM. God blessed THEM and said to THEM, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”) The “THEM” put in caps is just to bring out my point that leadership authority was given to both man and woman – at creation.

The words above simplify our understanding of God and are foundational in wanting to use Scripture as a means of knowing His Ways. It also leaves us wondering why we sometimes don’t get what He has been saying to us all along while it has openly been revealed to us. He shows that He really had man in mind as the one to take over the work He had begun in creation. He had a Kingdom in mind. He also had ruling and regimes in mind. It shows us that God had subjectivity in mind and man’s adherence to some rules – because kings don’t rule unless there are laws and terms to be followed by his (or their) subjects; which means, man was to formulate some laws in order to get things moving. And if at all man had to ‘multiply and fill the earth’, that man had to be having HIMSELF rule over himself and the rest of creation…

To God, kingdoms exist as regimes of power and stamps of authority. To Him, only kings exist as objects of power and as leaders who should take charge in every situation that may arise. To Him, presidents and whoever is in authority, right from the family unit to the place where someone is in charge, kingship rings itself out so loud. Anyone in authority is a king (God et al). And that, from the beginning is what Adam never understood, and maybe what some of us never understand – that we are supposed to be in charge and to get things moving God’s Way… That is our duty…   

I won’t introduce King Solomon. You know him. I won’t start elaborating the basics on king Xerxes – you already know that he ruled over Persia and that he was Queen Esther’s husband. Most of us learnt that in kindergarten (OK, there was no kindergarten in the days nilisoma) and in “Sunday School”, so why repeat and go through things you already know, huh? Let’s get to business. Come on let’s just do this…;

Lessons from Solomon as King

1. Don’t be too wise until you don’t do what you say. That makes you a wise fool. A desperate wise fool that we all will laugh at. This dude’s behaviour of favouring variety (when dealing with women) over specificity was and is a big problem. He should have learnt from what King Lemuel’s mom (who was Lemuel anyway?) used to tell him (Proverbs 31:2-3: “O my son, O son of my womb, O son of my vows, do not spend your strength on women, your vigor on those who ruin kings…”). Does that really need explanation guys? Concentrating on women (and I am saying, women) ruins your life. Period.
2. Riches are life’s best fouler so far. Riches fool wise men. Riches make a king (you and I) think that we own the whole world, and that we can buy everyone – even wisdom. If we allow riches to foul our Wisdom, nothing can really save us. We will end up thinking that wealth brought us where we are and that only it can take us where we should be – then we will be wrong! Really wrong.
3. Wisdom is cool. Wisdom is protection. Wisdom is life. Wisdom is a shelter; but Wisdom less application is never dope. So don’t take God for granted. Just don’t take God for granted. As Solomon had earlier taught, it is true that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom, but the continued fear of the Lord is what ensures that our Wisdom is not stolen away by foolish mistakes and that our prosperity becomes the real prosperity… (He should have learnt from his father David who had a broken Spirit in the presence of sin or compromise).

Lessons from Xerxes as King

1. If you are a man (or a woman in leadership), take charge. Don’t wait for your subjects or those you lead to lead you so that you may come out to lead them
2. Make decisions based on Wisdom, not impulse. Ephesians 5:18: Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit… Wine reduced king Xerxes to a wimp, and caused him to chase away his rightfully wedded wife, a queen (Vashti), all in the name of disrespect – divorce on empty terms!
3. Wine is dangerous.   I think this guy should have learnt something very important from Solomon’s proverbs: Proverbs 31:4-5: “It is not for kings, O Lemuel - not for kings to drink wine, not for rulers to crave beer, lest they drink and forget what the law decrees, and deprive all the oppressed of their rights…” A king is expected to give legitimate judgment and sound advice at all times – wine makes him loose both the sense of good reasoning and that of good discernment.
4. We have authority, yeah. That is fine. We also have power in that mix. Good. And we probably have influence too. Wow, that is even better! We may be privileged to be in positions of power (say at home, at work, at school or just somewhere), but we must inclusively remember that power without sound judgement is as dangerous as fire without control – the outcome is always bad enough to be visible to all – and always with bad results (as in the case of Haman being given authority to destroy the Jews without the consent of most of his kingdom’s top leaders).  

Take the advice. Apply it. I am trying to.

Morris.

Personal Growth & Christian Living: It Is Just Me

Please allow me to explain myself on this one. I write it with a flawless pen.

It is neither poetry no prose. It is just Morris writing his heart out.

It is me speaking out what I feel today. The pourings of my heart.

They are the utterings of my soul. The clinch-fists of my mind.

Many people think that I am so good. Many think that I am an epitome of perfection.

Some mistake me for a flawless person. Maybe because of all they see me do, or achieve.

But there are so many times that I am ashamed of myself. Like right now.

Like right now because you have no idea of what I have done and how I feel.

These are moments when I start searching out myself only to find out that I have been here all the time; the only problem being I have not been so keen to know…

There are numerous times I don’t even understand myself. Unless I sit down like I am doing right now. And try to think through things. The uselessness and usefulness of things.

I guess God should be ashamed of me also. He should be. He should be so ashamed of me. He should be because He has the right to. He has the right to judge me. God my Father has all the right to put all my actions to question. He also has the right to send me to prison (if there is any). He has the right to judge me in the presence of His Word and throw me into a den of lions. It is not a “maybe” kind-of a thing. It is a “sure” kind-of…

Because I have let Him down so many times. I can’t even count them. I cannot count the number of times I have stepped over the boundaries set for me and run into prohibited lands. Just like today. I can never get the sum total of my flaws. They are so many. And they always go before me – unless I deal with them like I am doing now. And it is only today that I choose to write it out for you to read it. How I feel. How I really feel.

There is no doubt to God‘s Justice. In fact, there should not be. Who can judge God anyway? Who wants to? Who wants to try? Who will begin it? Who then will be the prosecutor and who the judge? And which court will that be? Who will be the audience? Where will that be? Ridiculous. You can’t take God to court. And He won’t take you to any court either. He will only show you your flaws – like He is showing me right now – in His own court, where He is His own Judge and prosecutor… He is God. God is God. You can’t take God anywhere. He is everywhere. The ‘anywhere’ you know is the ‘everywhere’ He commands… He is God.

So I am reminded tonight to just confess my wrongs and sins; my weaknesses and so-called punditries; my wraths and darks; my slings of contempt. My filthiness smells really bad. I am some paradoxical metaphor in real existence. On the outside I really look good, but on the inside, I am a mess. God in His court knows that Morris is strictly a bad mess on the inside, so I don’t try to hide away from realities engulfing my ego and the bad smell of my actions. I don’t hide and I won’t hide. I won’t even try to. Why should I? Who can hide from reality anyway? Reality is such a common-place thing that you can’t just miss it. The only thing that wins against it is Faith. Only Faith puts reality down on its knees. Confessions don’t battle reality to win. Nope. They only fight against it to hide it. Confessions hide reality. An example is if after sinning I say, “There is now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 8:1), but I still don’t believe in what I am saying nor have repented of my many many sins, this is what will happen: I will remain to be the same person I was but with a hidden guilt. My conscience will try to fool me that I am OK, that Jesus washed me somehow, but deep down I’ll realize that I am a slave to the conflicts that my heart and mind have with (or against) the Spirit of God…

So I will confess my sins. Not to you, but to God. But I will also confess them to the person I have wronged. I don’t have to confess them to the whole world. That may sound a lil’ bit brag-gish. That sounds like gibberish. So I will confess them to a small world. Such a world includes me, God and the person I have wronged (if they do exist). I will tell them to me first. Then to the person I have wronged. Then to the Lord. But first, I will tell you why I am doing it, and why you too should do it often;

1. I don’t have to keep feeling bad. And guilty and out-of-place. I have to sort it out. Not by hiding away from the point of conflict, but by facing it. I will solve this by facing the problem. That’s why I am confessing my wrongs to God and to the person I have wronged. That makes me more like Jesus and less like Adam…
2. I have to be accountable to God because I am His. This body, this mind, this heart, this life belongs to Him. So, if I have let Him down in any of these things, I should go back to Him and inform Him (although He already knows) that I have misbehaved or misused or mis-woreva somewhere. Accountability means I still desire to belong to His house – unless I wanna join the other house where nobody is accountable to nobody for anything…
3. It is good enough. Yeah, it is good enough. It is good and healthy. Period!

There we are. It takes a lot of guts to do some things. And it also takes a very strong will to say that you are weak sometimes. I know I am not always strong or good or righteous… name them… but there is one thing I know: if I sin and confess my sin(s), He is faithful to forgive(1 John1:8-10). So dude (or whoever you are) stop and come around – do what you gotta do to be right with your neighbor and with God… It always counts. Just like it is doing for me right now…

Morris.

What Happened?

What happened to you?

What happened to your countenance?

What happened to your profile of courage and boldness?

What happened to your lilies in the garden and to the fire in your parlour?

Huh? What happened?

What happened to you?

What happened to your cracks of laughter?

What happened to your life of hope and enthusiasm?

What happened to your loving gestures of care and tenderness?

What happened to your arms of love and to your head held up high?

Huh? What happened?

What happened to you?

What happened to your life?

What happened to your walk of style?

What happened to your self-drive and self-assurance?

What happened to your peaceable mode and humble conduct?

What happened to the flags of white with stripes of green?

Huh? What happened?

I know the world has not time to garden flowers

And I know that it has no understanding of beauty and flowers

I know that the world is a monster of a kind

And that it knows no mercy or mankind

But you should not become a shadow of yourself

That is not you my friend

You should not become an example of yourself

That is not what you are my friend

Your wings can still fly even though they’ve grown weak

You can still jump even if your limbs feel like a flick

You still can become you

I used to admire you my friend

Please don’t give up on you

I’ll be waiting for you...

Sincerely,

Your friend Morris.

Hunting for Shadows of Freedom

Essentials in life are tantalizing if they are obtained freely. Nothing impresses the mind more than freedom. Nothing hallows desire more than freedom. And yet still, nothing steals the body more than freedom. There is even a saying that goes that, “Freedom is a cheap thing, but it is the hardest thing to obtain.” Freedom is reality in a shadow.

In the common place that is the heart and the mind, one always wants a loop hole of escape – maybe always into a world of impracticalness. Into a world of tidy impracticalness perhaps because he/she seeks to run away, away from things that are haunting the heart and/or the mind. I have realized that mankind has perfected the art of running away from things. We have become too good at having our own freedom. Freedom from things that we love and things that we don’t. We all love running away from nothing, from exiting snares and from invincible adversities. We all run because we choose to – which also means that we may choose not to. We run because walking is clumsy when such situations occur. We run to ease the urge brought about when the drums of fear keep beating for too long. We run. We just run. We all run somehow… We run into our own freedom. Into a world we know.

The choice to run or not to run towards (or away from) things is ours; but at some point in our lives, the choice of what we will always be running away from (or what we run away from) is not. Do you get it? I may not fully dissolve this into your mind, but there is one truth that I need to be well defined in our minds: you can’t understand freedom and a little more about freebies unless you understand that we can’t get anywhere near freedom until we acknowledge that the search for it is a struggle – even a chase after, a run to (or away from)… That is what there is about freedom. Yeah, freedom is cheap and easily found, but it is not easily gotten.

C. S. Lewis defines his redemption as a matter of a struggle. This is what he says in Surprised by Joy - "You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape?"  

The talk about freedom, deliverance, salvation and redemption applies to every creature on this planet. Those terms are so closely linked with Christianity that we all think their T & C only apply to such spheres. It doesn’t matter (and to me it never matters) what we are or where we are, what we believe in or don’t, what we spend our time thinking about or not – all men need freedom from one thing or another. Freedom is a universal thing.

While talking to another freethinker friend of mine, she had an assertion that there is nothing that mankind really needs to be saved from, maybe only himself; and that there is no such savior who can wholly save men from nothing… That is debatable, but let me not go into that…

Up there, we see C. S Lewis struggling to meet with God. He didn’t want to, but he knew he needed to. The power of choice was on his side –to deny that he needed freedom or to accept that he needed it. He knew he needed something he had never found in his atheistic ways, something that was a shadow he always walked with but was not part of, something that laid him desperate yet could not easily reach it until he accepted some help from that shadowy guest of his… He knew that he so desperately desired to overcome this fear, and yet he was afraid of what it will make of him. So day after day when the shadow of desperation fell on him, he tried to sneak away, until that night that he had to admit he needed freedom and he came towards it screaming (read, he ran to it not wanting to…)

Lewis’ story is just a picture of what most of us face from day to day -  an inner struggle with self in trying to convince ourselves that we are too expensive for freebies or that our relationships, marriages, spiritual lives, children, parents, families, jobs, education (name them…) can do without a bit of pampering from the Master above. We pretend that God is not there or that He doesn’t exist: all in the name of not wanting to do that which we so definitely know He wants us to do. We want to stretch our lives to the limit of ourselves, but when it comes to stretching further, we pretend that all is well and continue living with the agony and pain of self denial. And the series goes on and on, and on, until life becomes faded and tasteless. But most of us even after reaching this point rarely come back to our sense to say, “I need to take care of this shadow and emptiness…”  So we keep on losing and therefore making excuses about why things are so tough within us, why we can’t breathe that much and feel free, why life is suffocating, why our relationships are not working, why our lives are not getting better, why our friends treat us like they treat us, why we feel abandoned, why we are poor and feel cursed, why our families are a den of liars and psychopaths, why we can’t get jobs or marriages, why we need to visit psychiatrists and psychologists and not God, why our spiritual lives and retarded, why we keep losing and never win, why we need to start yoga lessons, why we can’t find peace at all, why we feel as miserable as starving pigs, why my sickness is not getting away or why his/herr sickness is not diminishing, why, bla bla bla…

But the solution to this endless chase is always simple: we need to take time and allow ourselves to be hauled into the world of the unknown. To allow God to transpose us into the beauty of His unknowns, because only the unknown that is good is effective enough to set us free. The angst and anxiety in our search for freedom will end when we stop denying that we need help and yell out to God for help. Psychologists may help, but only for a while – they only offer human solutions to human problems. God offers eternal freedom in all ways of life: right from sin to that petty thing that is pestering you. Why should they use on you the same comments that Jeremiah used on the Israelites in Jeremiah 2:13-14?: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water…”

Run to your freedom today. Run to God. Stop chasing for freedom in life’s shadows, because it is never found there…

Morris.