like the sea and its waters...

In my high school days, or rather in my mother's high school days (coincidentally, it was the same school) there was this man who would come to adjudicate during their music festivals and events and what-nots. In my days one of his poems, about my favourite, was part of our coursework. His name's Samuel Waigwa Wachira (yeah, that was to avoid using the tense, I have no idea whether he is still alive given his age when  mum was in high school). In and around 1998 I watched 'My Best Friend's Wedding' (and loooooooooooooooved it!!!) and that was the first time i heard the song "You fill up my senses", just a few lines, but it stuck with me till I was redoing the movie last year and i finally got it for real (thank God for the Internet, though it still took me forever). It was during those witch-hunts, armed with only the last line and a tune distorted by time that ma told me about Waigwa Wachira, that the only time she heard that song was when he sang it at their school back then, i was actually really surprised that she knew the lyrics still, especially cause all i knew was that last line, 'come love me again...'

But I digress, this afternoon I've been thinking and remembering that poem, and I just thought I'd share it. The ladies will probably swoon, the men will probably be amused (guy told me when something makes ladies swoon, it'll probably just amuse them). Nonetheless, any lover of poetry will truly appreciate the candour and simplicity with which this most incredible piece is written. Mr. Wachira, wherever you may be, I wish I had met you, you inspire me...

I have seen the sun rise and set

with a volcanic passion of flaming orange,

And I have thought of a love that once rose and set

like the sun in the sky

I have watched the trees at sunset

And mountains at dusk with purple blankets

And soft clouds of ink,

and softly, I have thought of you.

I have stood on the ferry in the Indian Ocean

And have breathed the sweet scented air

that God gave to the sea

And I have thought of the fragrance of a love that shone so brightly

like the stars in the sky

I have sat barefoot on the rocks by the lake

Wondering what went wrong

Wishing I could hold you

Knowing that I have lost you

Feeling my thoughts fly

 like a bird across the sea

On the lonely wings of love, far…

Far away from home and you

And as I walk the sands of a shore

that out feet used to know

My eyes hurt with unshed tears

My soul turning as the wind calls your name

For I miss you desperately

And I long for you with every breath I take

If I could touch and hold the sun

I’d give it to you

If I could plant flowers in the sand and make them grow

I’d plant them just for you

For I have kissed you when you cried

and tasted the salty blue turbulence of your soul

And if in my turn

I should give up and die

or simply break down and cry

Forgive me lady dear

and help me dry my tears

For it is the cry of the fisherman

After the sea is gone

You are like the sea

and its waters to me

and I have loved you dearly

more dearly than the spoken word can tell…

Like the  sea and its waters - Samuel Waigwa Wachira

time to say goodbye

'Friends are nature's way of apologizing for our family'. it's been said quite a few times. so i found out a friend of mine's gonna be going away, too soon if you ask me. i was just getting used to having you around, you know... Sometimes as you walk life's road there are just places you can't walk alone, and thank God for people like you who just make it all easier. I've never written a whole blog post thing to one person before, its weird telling you all this here, but this way unless the Internet crashes my words will stay forever.
I can't begin to say how much your absence will be felt, but I'm grateful for what few moments the Lord gave us to share. i don't know what people do in situations like this, usually I'm the one leaving, but I figure it would be a nice gesture to give you something to remember me by. Something thought out and honest, something you'd never lose. It was a tall order. i thought of all my prized possessions, but there wasn't anything wonderful enough, nothing that would tell you everything I think.
So then dear friend, I give you my most prized possession: I give you Jesus. I pray that He shall watch over you, and bear you up in His arms. I pray for you with every word in the 20th Psalm. I give you the Friend who sticks closer than a brother, the One whom no ocean can keep away. i place you in the hands of Him who loves you more than I ever could. So long my friend, we shall meet again I know, should it so please the King.
One of my favourite rock bands are the Sidewalk Prophets, and they  sang a song just for a time like this. i pray over you the words of this song

Three in the morning,
And I'm still awake,
So I picked up a pen and a page,
And I started writing,
Just what I'd say,
If we were face to face,
I'd tell you just what you mean to me,
I'd tell you these simple truths,

Be strong in the Lord and,
Never give up hope,
You're going to do great things,
I already know,
God's got His hand on you so,
Don't live life in fear,
Forgive and forget,
But don't forget why you're here,
Take your time and pray,
These are the words I would say,


From one simple life to another,
I will say,
Come find peace in the Father,

Five years from now, hope you'll still remember me ;))))))))))

a tribute to Faith Nancy, aka Sweetie, gone too soon

Death and grief are little things. They are transient. Life must be before death and joy before grief, else there are no such things as death or grief. These are only negatives, life is positive. Death is only the absence of life, just as night is the absence of day, and if this is so, there is no such thing as death. 

Frank Norris - The Octopus: A Story of California

I don't know exactly who that Frank fella is, I'd like to know where he was coming from when he said those things, if he was just speaking theory or if he really did know true grief, that caused by the loss of someone close. An old school mate, Faith Nancy, passed away on Saturday in a car accident, they lay her to rest on Friday. Death is not something I have met often, thank God, but every time it comes around I find myself asking the very basic questions.

In a copy of True Love, about three years ago I read Carole Mandi's story. She was the then editor of True Love, now she's a publisher of that group of magazines: True Love, Adam and a few others i don't know. So anyway, Carole's daughter died when she was five, after some long complicated illness, I even remember her name, Misuka (and was she pretty!!!). I still remember Carole's words as she spoke of her, "A mother should never have to bury her child". If ever there was a scale of pain, I think this ranks way up there. And I don't think it matters how old they were, even if they were just a few months old, even if it was a miscarriage. One of my aunts lost her daughter when she was three years old, more than thirty years ago, and even to-date, whenever she speaks of her she says that not a day goes by that she does not think of her daughter: how old she'd be now, what she'd be like, who she'd be married to... No mother should ever have to bury their daughter.

As I think of Sweetie, I feel sad, for her mother greater than anyone else. I love how Mary Morand 'Sofine', puts it in her Motherhood - It will change your life. See, I have known the Lord, I know that God is love, and that in all things He is working for our good, everything He does is driven by His love. It doesn't make processing this any easier. She had a two year old chubby angel called Lasoi, and Faith's passing is supposed to be for her good. It's for her mother's good as well... I really want to question, I really want to ask why, I really want to know how it could possibly be for Lasoi's good, this her mum's passing. Frank Norris isn't helping. And if I feel this way, how must her mother feel? How will Lasoi feel when she's old enough to understand?

We make all our plans as though we hold the future, can we do anything but? But when all out of nowhere death calls, when the Lord calls home someone we thought would live forever, what does that say about our mortality?

...and you learn to build all your roads on today,

Because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans

and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight

...and you learn that you really can endure-

that you really are strong

and you really do have worth

and you learn and learn...

With every goodbye you learn.

Veronica Shoffstall - After a While

Farewell Sweetie, I believe there is a plan bigger than all of us. I don't know the plan, but I do know the Planner, and I may not understand His ways, but I trust Him to do the best for all of us. I trust the love that He commended toward us, Christ dying for us while we were yet sinners. In His time, He shall cause all these things to be beautiful...

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom

Psalms 90:12

death by hunger in this age?

I've never been politically inclined, the first vote I cast was last year during the referundum for a new constitution, and at next year's general election I don't even have an idea about who I'm going to vote for. But of late, thanks to my adamant-about-news-hour peers I've began to watch news, and the things that are going on!!!
It's a most painful death, dying of hunger, and today I saw people literally dying of hunger, and here we are making ugali and discarding whatever's left of it without a second thought. It's a wonder just how much we have been taught to ignore, to miss, how we can walk past that man sitting with a bowl on the street, how we can watch the news, blame our politicians and then go to bed and sleep sound. Now, I'm new into this having-a-political-opinion thing, but I think those people in government have always been, forgive me not, douchebags, they've always looked out for themselves and, but for divine intervention, shall continue to do so for a while. But like my good friend Iddi says, we're just as self-seeking. A nation is its people, we elect those douchebags, we gnash our teeth at them but then give them our vote next time they come back to ask for it, because the other candidate doesn't belong to the right gender, or tribe, or party. Once in a while, a new kid moves to the block, all fiesty, as Ababu Namwamba did, then the older kids threaten and/or buy their silence, and the vicious cycle begins. And secretly, we all wish for our chance to "eat". Because, as the Bible says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, no one can truly know it except the Lord Himself. You may want to say that if you went there you wouldn't do that, but I don't think that's really true. It's hard to turn down a bribe when everything's falling apart and you know your next month's payslip's going to read some negative value. Even if, like me, your greatest need as yet is a pair of shoes in every colour imaginable (especially pink). It's human, and we do need to be saved from ourselves.
Well, that we need salvation was not the point I was going to make, it's my point every time, but anyway, I don't think counting on our leaders to sort our country out may not bear fruit now, especially with elections coming up in a year. It's gotta start with me. I'm not particularly crazy about Bob Collymore, but what they've done with the Kenyans4Kenya, giving us an opportunity to help with whatever little we can, they've done well. I only wish I was able to do more. But I can do more, I can pray, because this country really needs healing that only the Lord can give.
So I'm going to take a stand, I'm going to stand in the gap on behalf of this nation. Christ made the vilest men clean, there is no situation so grave that His blood didn't already cover it. God will heal our land, He will restore our soil, He will send rain and the awesome part is that He doesn't really need the government to be on His side. Especially now that the government spokeman claims that this whole people dying of hunger thing is "the media exaggerating" gava haijui vitu kaa hizo (the govt is not aware). Jehovah sees, Jehovah knows. And so, with the words of David I pray

 ¹ Unto You I lift up my eyes,
         O You who dwell in the heavens.
 ² Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters,
         As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,
         So our eyes look to the LORD our God,
         Until He has mercy on us.         
 ³ Have mercy on us, O LORD, have mercy on us!
         For we are exceedingly filled with contempt.

Psalm 123, NKJV

a little ways down the road

There's this couple I saw on telly a few days back. They were really old (87 and 83), and get this, they had been married for 66 years!! Sixty six, imagine that! Even more impressive, she was enrolled in college taking some course or other, seriously HOW COOL IS THAT?!! But I got to thinking about my own marriage, something that in recent days happens more often than I'd like. These two looked beautiful, it's that picture we all want to be when we're eighty-some, sitting on the couch reminiscing about back in the day or even just saying nothing at all, just being.
Anyhow, Lady got married at 17, and as it stands I'm already five years behind her clock if ever I wanted to get to my 66th weding anniversary while still in full control of my cranial faculties ;) and even as we speak my prospects don't (yet) look too good ;)) Still, it don't stop me from dreaming, and hoping. After all, the Bible does say that hope does not disappoint, no?
I'd like to be 85 and taking a college course in something or other, still upright (literally and otherwise), still fiesty (Bless the Lord that He desires a meek and quiet spirit in a woman, but not necessarily a meek and quiet mouth!! ;)) And should it so please the King, still married to the same man I married in my youth. I'd love to  be going around the world with him, preaching  the love of Christ to those still unreached, being a mother to many sons and daughters in the faith, speaking words of grace unto those whose souls have been worn out by the storms of life.
If it pleases the King, I'd like, at the end of the day,  when tired from all the action, to retire to our home and rest with my husband,  listening to that boy go on and on passionately speaking of his dreams and ideas like he's 30 all over again, and to tell him that while they're the craziest ideas ever thought up, I still believe in him!! I'd like us to attend our great-grandchild's wedding, and to dance with him to some sweet old country number like "Love has been a friend to me" by Julio Eglesias. I'd like to still be flexible enough to get on my knees and pray for them; my children, and grandchildren and even their future generations.
And yes, should the Lord tarry in coming, and our time comes to enter into His rest, if the King so desires, I hope we go home together. Barring that, much as I may want to swallow these words come the day, I hope the Lord calls him home first. Knowing how clueless men can be, the picture of him trying to find out where I used to keep everything, trying to fix himself a meal or do his own laundry, sew a button.... well, I'd just wish he never has to. So, if the Lord so pleases, this is my desire. He says to delight in Him, and He shall give me the desires of my heart (Ps 37:4) and to commit my way unto Him with trust and He shall bring it to pass (vs 5)
So, yeah, dear Lord, these are my desires, insofar as they are Your will for me. Look upon them with many kindnesses (and also, I suppose, much much patience!!!)