Love’s Shades of Black and White Pt. 3: Relationships, Love and Unity

Relationships, love and unity

I overheard someone I respect say this on Twitter, (and I paraphrase): “Relationships and marriage are all about unity than they are about love [Period] Both only work under given principles and none of those principles are absolutely exclusive because love only works to make them efficient…”

Side note: Allow me to be absolutely sincere with you on this one…

The statement above made me (because I love being a-down-to-earth-kind-of-lad) sit down and look deeper into the words; while at the same time analyzing the causes of failed relationships. 

I remembered what my dad once taught me that: a man only gains sanity through using his mind to sail through his failures and picking out what went wrong together with what went right and [somehow] why it went wrong and how it went right… (well done , old man)...

I sat there thinking of all the possibilities there could ever that can make that statement true.  Things like “what really makes a relationship work?” and “Does love really matter, or is it just a catalyst to what already exists between two people!?” and “Do all relationships really fall apart due to lack of love, or is it caused by something else?”… ran through my mind.

As I sat there, I realized that what most people call “love” in relationships is never love at all. Okay, it may be love but I realized that it is normally but a mixture of so many things – many things that are in agreement in order to make sense to the other person and for that person to interpret them as “love”.

Side note: Last year’s blog post titled “Of Love and Falling in Love” may help you in understanding this.

Actions that show or constitute “love” (refer to the blog above) are what when denied of or when shown to someone tend to describe feelings of “not being loved”, “being loved”, "being loved a little" or "pretending to be in love"; and mostly when these actions intermarry/intermingle and are united by a person who is directing them consistently towards another, they can end up being interpreted as “love”. 

Okay, I will explain…

Affection, tenderness, respect, compliments, support, sex (to the married), gifts, romantic actions, financial support… bla bla bla… are some of the actions that a person will always think (and agree with me) that they deserve when in love, right? Okay. What if those actions are denied or transferred to another person in the conceived existence of the first party? Maybe the resulting notion will be that “I am not loved anymore!” or “I have been betrayed…!”, right?
Love, therefore, in such a scenario is not what is lacking but the actions thereof…the so-called consolidated actions that show love… But that is not my argument in total; and I’m neither being cynical nor impractical...

I don’t put away the necessity of love in a relationship. I don’t do that because love puts together too many things between two people that grew up in totally different contexts. I just argue that love can lack in a relationship and that relationship will still be good enough… it will still make sense…


I used to be of a view that Love, yeah that thing called love, is the main constituent in a working relationship and a later abounding marriage. I used to think so because I THOUGHT SO… but not justifiably so… 

I used to side with most ladies (and I am not saying that I now don’t) when it came to the fact that men are not emotional enough and that they don’t care enough… or that they don’t fall in love…This changed when I realized that men DO fall in love… but in a rather guttish way. Theirs is more of a mind and gut issue than it is a heart issue. I realized that I was wrong all along to expect men (not all men actually) to take love as the peg upon which ALL their relationships hang upon (this, I think, is the mistake most ladies make - thinking that relationships hang on love). 

So after realizing all this, it made me to say, "It is one thing to fall in love, while it is altogether another thing to keep on loving someone…” 

Think about that, just for a moment.

What is foundational is this: love will neither give you the respect you crave for in a relationship, nor all those things that add up to make a relationship work; but love, at any given time, will hold two different opinions together if those two opinions would wish for unity.

90% of people who have had genuine relationships will tell you that love was not what pulled them to each other, but rather a package of actions from the other person that made them appealing to their like. I don’t believe there is something like “love at first sight” but rather “attraction at first sight” (and attraction doesn’t have to be sexual... because sexual attraction is lust).

As a relationship grows, moving from one phase to another, (and this happens to every relationship that has a sense of direction) matters arise that call for action - real action and not “love action”… Disagreements, disrespect, violence and so on are some of the things that overwhelm the power of love… (so to say) and Love just somehow refuses to conquer over such! Love may help in tolerating a behavior in someone, but it never solves disagreement(s) or disrespect or financial issues or disease/sickness… It only helps to deal with these issues at hand in a more conscious and understanding way, but never solves any of them… 

Quote: People can love each other but fail to agree – and it can be as always as the sun rises from the East and sets in the West…

Love can be present in a relationship, but minus unity, it becomes weak and useless… And whenever this happens, a separation or a divorce or a breakup lingers in that partnership.

You may ask, “What really breaks (or brings down) relationships or marriages that were once figured as 'unshakeable'? And I will answer back, “There is nothing that is unshakable except for the things that concern the Heaven of God. Putting that in mind, the lack of better and workable conflict management or resolution mechanisms mixed with pride from both or either of the concerned parties will make any 'stong' relationship to come to its knees…”

That is to tell you that unless people in a relationship (or a marriage) work on their differences and lack of unity, love will NEVER be enough to make them stand the test of time. If people can learn on how to amicably solve all their differences, love may not be needed for any relationship(s) or marriage(s) to survive. No wonder we have always heard most elderly people around us say, “I didn’t love them (referring to their spouse) by the time I was getting married to them, but along the way, I learnt to live with them and they learnt to live with me… and it has worked… to the point that I now have come to love them…”

It is weird, but it is true.

Quote: Love grows to maturity. Love grows to bring in unity in a relationship. Mature love unifies.

Quote: Lack of unity (or agreement) in a relationship(s) (and not majorly the lack of love) is the god of most separations, divorces and breakups…

And I am not saying that two separate people can always agree, no; but that they have to agree in order to make a relationship or a marriage work. That is why the Bible says that men should love and honor (or respect) their wives as Christ loves the Church (which means men should love their wives in a manner that makes the Head - who is Christ and in this case, the man - to be in unison or in unity or in agreement with the body - who is the Church and in this case, the wife); while the woman is to respect and submit to her husband…and respect together with submission have an accent and order of unity in them…

Issues that bring disagreements and conflict like finances/money (its availability, management and use), lack of support (commitment and responsiveness on the side of the man/husband; and encouragement and affirmation on the part of the woman/lady/wife), a solemnness to faithfulness and honesty (from both sides), children, education and career choice… can only be solved when that so-called love is proved through agreement…

Final quote: Minus unity, love is empty…

I hope you now get my point.

Bonface Morris.

The Portrait – Da’ T.R.U.T.H.’s Hip Hop Apologetic

Let me introduce you to a 2min 50sec song by one of my favorite Christian rappers - Da’ T.R.U.T.H. aka Emanuel Lee Lambert (Get more info on Da’ T.R.U.T.H. at rapzilla.com and NewReleaseTuesday.com). Also get information on his upcoming album Love Hope War to be officially released on January 29th, 2013 here. He is greatly associated with CMR (Cross Movement Records) as his record label. If you know that song “The Jesus Anthem” where he collaboed with guys from Cross Movement, you know what I am talking about...

He has several albums to his name but I will just pick out one song from an album done in 2005 - The Portrait from the album “The Faith”.

Here are the lyrics to the song;

The Portrait

By Da’ T.R.U.T.H.

Album: The Faith [2005]

Verse 1:
Was Christ really buried

Is there a chance that He really married Mary and fled over to France?
Did they really find His bones with a fine tooth comb or did He walk out of His tomb to His throne?
Was He God was He not, was He alive when they dropped Him in a tomb?

Did he swoon was He moved
Was He removed by delusional dudes that refused to believe in the truth were they fools?
Were the disciples hallucinating, was the truth evaded, ‘cause they wanted to boost His ratings
Did the Catholic church from the Vatican work at keeping the bag of dirt under the rug
(Was He God from above if He was do you blink, do you shrug, do you hate do you love?) x2
Hook:
Christ on the poster
Christ of the culture
Christ on the stain glass
Christ of the future
Christ on the video
Christ on the radio
The Christ of Da Vinci
What does he really know
Christ on award shows
Chris that Lord knows
Christ that's sure to come back in His war clothes
In which Christ do you believe?
You gotta know before you leave
Verse 2:
Yes he did arrive, yes He was alive
No-He wasn't married never had any wives
Yes-He did rise, days after He died
What can I say - yes He is God!
From the womb to the tomb to His throne nobody in Rome could hold on to His bones
'Cause there were no bones to be held though His bones were beheld
Who would have known it was Jehov on the DL,

Providing forgiveness, our lives are offensive, He dies to put you and I in a friendship

With himself pain is felt when the glorious gospel is exchanged for wealth
Forget about how the spades were dealt
And think about how you measure up when weighed on the scale
One Lord One faith I plug
One Lord, One Christ, one judge

Hook:
Christ on the poster
Christ of the culture
Christ on the stain glass
Christ of the future
Christ on the video
Christ on the radio
The Christ of Da Vinci
What does he really know?
Christ on award shows
Chris that Lord knows
Christ that's sure to come back in His war clothes
In which Christ do you believe?
You gotta know before you leave

Da’ T.R.U.T.H. delivers a powerful apologetic (a defense of what he believes in) in the song above. He does it unashamedly. The question is: do you (and I) have your (my) own apologetic of Christ? Can we defend what we believe in with all readiness and fervency, or we don’t even know or are not even sure of what we believe in?

Christ wants us to believe in Him and be ready to say so for all to hear. He wants us never to be ashamed to tell people that the portrait Da Vinci Code (or in that matter the secular world) paints of Him is something else and not what He really is.

Dr. Ravi Zacharias (www.rzim.org) insists on every Christian being able to give an explanation [or defense] of what he/she believes in… He insists that every Christian is called to be an apologist (one who argues - read debates - to defend a faith) [WordWeb Dictionary] as written by the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 3:15-16 [NIV]: “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander…”

There is no excuse as to why you can’t use whatever tool you have at your disposal to make Jesus known unless you are a hypocrite hiding your real self behind the pious mask of Christianity.

Strive to become one who defends your faith in Jesus because He expects you to be one.

Know what you believe in and why; and above all, be ready to stand for it – show people around you that it matters that much to believe in what you believe in…

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

Bonface Morris.

The "Aki Woishee" Mentality

We live in an era and a world filled with colossal exposures.

In such a world, we have the freedom to see and judge as we please. We have the freedom to use our eyes and overblown antics to look around, smirk (if we are excused to), run wild with disgust over what we have seen (in others) and maybe, sometimes, talk about it.

We also have the freedom to like and dislike – especially the behaviour of the different people we meet daily. We can have different opinions of people as we interact with them – it is the nature of man – and may become over judgmental of their misdemeanours, their handling of life and their reaction to different seasons in life. So, with time, we get used to it and it (in one way or another) becomes our daily bread. It becomes stamped into our character – analyzing people on the basis of our varied observations.

I don’t excuse people who observe and judge others (including myself) especially in matters involving behaviour and personality, especially if they do it positively; I just think we have the right to do so – considering that there is always someone else doing the same to us. But we don’t justify our hawking and kiting abilities because others are likely to be doing the same of/to us. We do so because every society needs people like us (allow me to justify myself here) who make observations - even the most stupid ones – and help (but never force) others to see things the way they do...

Man’s ability to interact with other people effectively and in a well built and conscious social standing heightens in their teen age. By the time we are in our teen years, we realize that we need friends around us (maybe people to rely on or a people that may need our reliability) and we therefore start building our character basis. Our friends influence above 60% of our personality range. Side note: Spare me the need to quote any references, anthropological evidence and literature review here mun! This is a blog, and not a research website... But I may do it one day if need be...

So as we advance in age, there is a tendency to incline our behaviour towards one direction, and as I have mentioned above, towards and somewhere between what our social and relational standing depicts. Our environment invades the privacy of our behaviour and our reaction towards those near us. We then start seeing a lot in people and in their myriad of personalities somehow – just somehow- we begin formulating within our minds ways of interacting with them. This is because we are social beings and we just can’t avoid meeting and living with people. We can’t avoid the reality of impeding companionship and/or loneliness while in this world. Truth be told, and loud enough, we need people around us... people we will always have one or two things to say about them...

It is this view of the natural social relations we have with others that makes me conclude that there is a group of people called “the ‘aki woishee’ people”. You don’t have to get the outright translation of what that really means but according to me, what defines these kinds of people is vast.

The way the ‘aki woishee’ people see the world around them astonishes me. They see the world in bits of what other people can do [for them] rather than what they can do for the people around them. I tend to think they grow up relying on relief and philanthropy. They happen to do nothing on their own and accomplish it. They are niggards and empty braggarts... Maybe to help you get their view of life and mentality (and remember that they don’t have to use the phrase ‘aki woishee’ to claim for anything from you for them to qualify to fit in this group), I list below the symptoms of such a detestable personality;

1.       If they were (or are) one of your friends in high school, they;

o   Will always beg for pens, erasers, books, assignment help and stuff from you but will never have any to lend you – always

o   Will give you excuses when they are visited at school as to why they couldn’t give you any of the goods they were brought by their parents – always

o   Will ask for your hand in getting them money for fare back home and never remember to give it back to you – always

o   Will copy your homework but you may never copy theirs because they will always submit it before all others - even you – always… and the list is endless…

2.       If they were (or are) your friends at campus, they will;

o   Come to your cube (or the place you stay), spoil themselves with all your stuff – from cologne, to movies, TV and music, to food, to your clothing line… and brag about it to your immediate buddies but – yeah, but – you may never visit their place – always

o    Never care when you miss class, but will always be like, “Aki woishee Morris, kwa nini hukunicall uniambie kuna class!” Gheeeeest!

o   Always submit assignments ahead of you and pretend they are not through with them. Ukijiweka kwao, wololo! Shauri yako! Utakunywa soups kiasi kupita pipa!

o   Always be broke, as in, broooooooooooke the whole semester. That simply means that they’ll be avoiding supporting you in any way financially.

3.      If they are your friends in the real world;

o   They will always borrow mkwanja from you and never pay back because they have this mentality that you own a bank or that your dad is a tycoon who lends air to some town dwellers somewhere

o   They will (if they are religious) con you in the name of Jesus. Petty people with petty business these ones – and they will forever think that the blood of Jesus somehow prevents you from realizing their conniving ways thus  misusing its value

o   They will only flash, beep and text you but still never finish conversations they begun after you call them. They will beep you for you to call so that they may just say, “Hi!”

o   Woe to you if they become your visitors. They will;

-   Never assist in paying the monthly bills they help to escalate

-   Ask you for credit and petty things like “transport to go to town” and when you won’t be giving them in the name of “I don’t have money for now”, they will give you a silence treatment for a week or so…

-   Do nothing but expect everything to be done for them,

-   Complain and demand to be treated like you treat your family or someone close to you

And lastly…

4.      If they are your boyfriend/girlfriend, fiancé/fiancée, you will be in big trouble, because they will;

o   Demand that you buy them a heaven, but never even appreciate it even after you have struggled to give them one

o   Feed on your sacrificing power, exploit your kindness and smile away at your endless perspiration to meet their emotional, social (and maybe financial) needs

o   Assume that you are a god of some kind and therefore refuse to support you and show you affection, thus leaving you drained and exhausted as you struggle to make them feel safe and good.

o   Lie to you and can become unfaithful and dishonest. Their reaction to your protests against their bad behavior will always be a dense cloud of silence or a blame game. Pathetic people these ones.

o   They refuse to grow up and move the relationship into the next level while blaming it on you as the unprogressive one.

My plea to you if you are one of their many friends is simple: help them learn about life the hard way. Refuse to be too good to them. Refuse to be taken for granted. Refuse to be their puppet. Refuse to follow their governmental orders. Refuse to do things their way. Yeah, help them learn the way of life the hard way. You will be helping their next victim. Refuse to be empathetic. Refuse to give them a second chance. Refuse to give them favors. I know you may be a Christian and wanting to be extremely good and sympathetic, but let no one take your kindness and meekness for granted or as a weakness. Refuse to compromise your joy, peace and happiness. Refuse to be the devil in the relationship. Refuse to be the lesser part of the deal. Refuse it all. Help them learn about life the hard way by denying them the undeserved pleasures of life. Of course you must be gracious and merciful, loving and kind, but give people limits as to where they should step – and always in a civilized way. It may just help them switch away from their agonizing mentality…

Bonface Morris.

He Walks on Water

He Walks on Water

Yeah, He walks on water

They fear His body’s wreathe

And stare in amazement

On how they can’t and won’t gulp His stature

And I, fixing my eyes on Him unlike the waters,

Can’t and won’t sink…

Yeah, with Him, we walk on waters…

Yeah, He stills the winds

Whenceforth they move from unknown yonder to another

With a deep want to blow my embers away

With a want to disguise my way

There He stands in their cruel midst to resist their move

And I, joined to His unmoving ground beneath,

Can’t and won’t be moved…

Yeah, with Him, we still the winds…

Yeah, he moves the mountains

Those naturals that stand above my knowings and my might

Yet with a whisper of His voice, with a still thunder,

He melts them down… He pulls them down

And I, with Him stare at what He created closely and assuredly

Then with a swoosh…

We sway all of them… ALL of the mountains…

So I can’t and won’t be overwhelmed…

Yeah, because I am with Him, we move the mountains…

Yeah, He knows my name

And He hideth not His knowledge of me

Verily, He whispers it to me all day and all night long

Of how He has affectionately loved me

Of how He has endlessly, passionately, caringly,

Gloriously and generously loved me

I so fall for Him – for His Love…

So I can’t and won’t doubt it at all…

Yeah, because I know His Name…

Yeah, He draws to you

I wish You could see Him now

How He stretches His hands, His heart and His Love to you

So that you may know that He is in Love with you too

He has done everything… He will do anything…

Even die for you… even abide with you…

So that you may know that He loves you too

Do you love Him so? And can you boldly say,

“ I can’t,  and I won’t look behind me anymore,

I will draw to Him… and Love him so…!?”

Yeah, He has eternally drawn to us…

His Name is Jesus.


Song: "Walk on Water" by Mali Music 


 

Bonface Morris.