eighteen till i die

I was seventeen years old the first time I started seriously writing. Before that I knew I had a lot to say, I just didn't want to say it to anyone. I used to love writing compositions in primary school, even though no matter how good it got the teacher never gave me any more than 28 out of 40 "so as not to make any of us vain and complacent". It worked, I read anything and everything I could, I got new words and I applied them and got better. Then I cleared high school and went to college to pass time before I was due to go to campus, and I began to write seriously. That year my work was published  for the first time ever. It was just a small mag read by a few people but still, it was a huge deal for me. I began to write in earnest, about everything. Back then (like 5 years ago) we had one of those off-white unbranded comps with 256MB RAMs and 60GB hard disk space. I was doing IT so everyone agreed that the comp should come to school with me. I sat in front of that machine every night till late, I wrote and wrote and wrote. Eighteen years' worth. I still have most of the stuff I wrote back then, I read them once in a long while, and it's like I don't even who that girl is. I went and became that person I used to passionately dislike -  the conformist. It took me such a short time too.
Theodore Roosevelt said once:

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

Maybe that 'Eighteen till I die' guy had a point.Of all the years of my life, I miss being 18 the most. I only hope that Joy-18 is not lost to me for good, she was maybe the best version of me yet: passionately confused, stubborn, starry-eyed and naive. I hope to meet her someday soon. When I was younger I thought in black and white. It was either wrong, or it was right. Then I started to grow up, and all that gray set in. Problem is, now I see no black or white anymore, only a darker or lighter shade of gray. I can see the letter past Joy wrote to future Joy: Every song ends but that's no reason not to enjoy the music. Past Joy wanted to become an interior designer slash wedding planner slash fashion designer slash outside caterer, present Joy's a biochemist with great fashion sense. Playing it safe. Where did past Joy go, and who is this I have become? Yeah, I was a bit starry-eyed, and I believed in too many movies, but at what point did the cynicism become so deep-seated that it's my reflex response? If sixteen year old Joy met me, would she even know me? Am I wiser, or am I just more scared of risk?

i want a heart that forgives

I had a friend once, one of those people you just know are supposed to be your friend forever. She was as good as they came. Maybe she didn't have it all figured out, who does anyhow, but she always tried. Most of the time she didn't make it, but she would try again. All the odds were stacked against her, that one, and I mean every single one of them. She is perhaps one of the greatest people I know. Then one day we had a misunderstanding. I may not have been all right, but she was wrong, so anyhow we stopped talking. She was one of those people, I know she had a few friends, but almost none of them were available when she neeeded them to be, so almost always I was worried about her, with little I could do. I think about her, more often than I'd like,because I still worry. Love is not a switch you can just turn off. At the time we stopped talking I was so convinced that I was right, that I was justified, but now I'm just thinking, "Does it really matter?" 
Last Sunday in church we were learning about Jesus Christ's death, and the things He went through just before He died. He was betrayed by Peter, and before I just looked at that at face value, so I learnt something new. Of all His disciples, only Peter was over 30, like Him. In their time, anyone under 30 could not have inherited property, didn't pay tax and was not allowed to testify in court. So when Jesus was arrested, only Peter could have spoken out on His behalf. Imagine that, being denied by one of your best friends, the only one who could save your hide. I cannot imagine the extent of such pain, my disagreement with my friend dims a millionfold in comparison.
I ran into Kevin LeVar's song by chance, but it has got such powerful words that song. I want a heart that forgives:

I want a heart that forgives
A heart full of love
One with compassion just like Yours above
One that overcomes evil with goodness and love
Like it never happened, never holding a grudge
I want a heart that forgives that lives and lets live
One that keeps loving over and over again
One that men can’t offend
Because Your Word is within
One that loves without price, like You Lord Jesus Christ
I want a heart that loves everybody....even my enemies

I want to love like You, be like You, just like You did
I want a heart that forgives,

I want a heart that forgives!
When the ones that are closest, that I’ve known the longest, hurt me the most;
I still wanna love them just like You love me
Even though I’m hurting
I want a heart that forgives
When the pain is so deep, it’s so hard to speak, about it to anyone
Just like Your Son, I give up my right to hold it against them with hatred inside
I want a heart that loves everybody....even my enemies...

Those cliched people say that those who are closest to you more often hurt you the most. And betryal isn't easy to forget. But that pain, Jesus felt it too. And He gave up His right to hold it against them. I should too. Maybe she was wrong, maybe I was right, but the heart that loves like Jesus, it doesn't really care about that. Jesus didn't. And because He didn't neither should I. I should call her, my friend, I should call her.

i cannot love you

I love you,

In your eyes I see your soul

And the love in their depths astounds me

Your smile, it makes my heart skip

It skips and skips and skips

I love you, though I must not love you

But my palms sweat in anticipation

Every time you walk into a room

Of its own volition, heart runs to you

And I stop breathing…

For a moment I stand, frozen in time…

I’m lost in your gaze

I love you, yet I should not love you

Lila na fila havitangamani

Miye lila, nawe fila

Itakuaje kwenda njia moja?

But against all reason,

Defying all sentiment

You light a fire under my feet,

And with just one touch

I lose every train of thought

I forget everything but you

I love you, but I cannot love you

Because I love you too much

I cannot love you even though

Every time my feet set to walking

They’re going towards you

Every time my lips are parted

It’s your name they continually utter

I cannot love you

I have to leave you

Though I know I will die without you

I know my life is meaningless apart from you

And my love, I hope you understand

I hope one day you will forgive me

For walking away without turning

Even though every step I take is one mile long

Forgive me my love

Because I had to go

How can I tell them my child is white?

How can I explain this... what we have?

Believe me love, it was the only way

If they had killed my child, our child,

They would have killed me as well

I pay my dues everyday,

I die for my sins everyday,

My heart aches for you

My tears have run dry

For though I cannot love you, my heart won’t listen

So love, still love, I love you…

My first complete poem in over a year. It is, for the record,, not based on a true story. ;))) It just reminds me of my younger days in more ways than one

if the foundations be destroyed...

If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

Ps 11:3

Earlier this evening I set out to do some sudoku puzzle, that very involving logic puzzle. So I was just about done, and was feeling very proud, when I discovered I had just input the same digit twice in one line, all logic leading until that point had seemed rock solid,  I could not see why the math was not coming together , so I had to erase the whole thing and start from scratch. Of course I decided that my life does not really depend on this here one puzzle, and I lay it aside for more constructive self-driven activities.

Nevertheless it got me thinking about this whole state I found myself in – the whole being stuck in the middle. The resemblance to the puzzle I was doing was astounding. The game, for those unfamiliar, is a 9 by 9 square puzzle, so it has 9 rows, 9 columns and nine 3 by 3 smaller squares. The objective is to fill up those squares with the numbers 1 to 9 such that all digits appear once in every row, every column and every 3 by 3 square. It’s purely a game of logic. So back to my earlier point, I discovered that maybe when I started out, I may have been logically sound in my reasoning, following the clues I’d been given -  in the puzzle they give you a few numbers to get you going. But somewhere along the way, and I don’t know where exactly, some flawed logic found its way in. And so, from that point, no matter  how correct the inferences may have been, the answers, the decisions made, the conclusions drawn, none of them could have been correct, because they were based on wrong data in the first place. And when that happens, it’s easier to just erase it all and take it up from the start, moving once again from what’s known to the unknown, this time with the advantage of hindsight.

If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? So it turns out that the solution to all my dilemmas is really very simple: take it from the top. It’s always the simple commands that are the hardest to obey though. But like a wise man I have come to greatly rely on in recent times said:

The Lord will not go after you, He will not plead, but every time He meets you on that point He will simply repeat, “If you really mean what you say, those are the conditions, sell all you have. Turn it all over to me.” Undress yourself before God of everything that might be a possession, until you are a mere conscious human being, then give God that.

It turns out it isn’t as much an issue of “How close can I get to my surrender without losing all control” as much as it is an issue of how yielded I’m willing to be, how capable I am of losing all control, how willing I am to give up my right to own myself (which is indeed rightfully mine) for the “goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”. It’s the ability to say, like Paul, everything is permissible, everything is lawful, but not everything is beneficial, not everything is expedient, I will not be brought under the power of any. Others may, but I can’t. Now, that right there, that is the real foundation. That is where the math must begin.

somewhere in the middle you'll find me

Many times, like every other writer I've got a lot to say, so much that sometimes I don't even know how to begin. That is usually the way of it. So I sit here tonight, buried in the midst of all that usual mumbo jumbo... but maybe today I can sift through it and try and make sense of this non-sense.

Casting crowns sang that 'Somewhere in the middle' song, and right now sioni how else I can describe the state I'm in, because their words just seem to fit the bill so perfectly, I wonder how many people out there understand this:

Somewhere between the hot and the cold
Somewhere between the new and the old
Somewhere between who I am and who I used to be
Somewhere in the middle, You'll find me


Somewhere between the wrong and the right
Somewhere between the darkness and the light
Somewhere between who I was and who You're making me
Somewhere in the middle, You'll find me


Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender without losing all control...

 There are times I'm sure I've got a little bit of it  figured out, but over the past few weeks I've started to feel like I'm drowning under all the pressure of who my friends think I should be, what I should be putting on my head, what I should be listening to... It's all so jumbled up... Should I just conform without conviction, is God using them maybe and I'm just too stubborn to listen, what is it that everyone wants of me? I don't want to pretend that I don't care what people think, I do, certain people can shutter me with just one sentence. I'm probably a little more liberal than your average Christian, especially with stuff like clothes, music,, the works. And I feel stuck in the middle of both ends: extreme conformation (but I'm still in the world, aren't I?) or being lukewarm (that doesn't get me very far)... It's all so very confusing!! Like them, I find myself stuck somewhere in the middle, and with all my heart I wish things were just a little bit clearer. Maybe it's all wrong, all of it. Maybe all my foundations,the basis of all my arguments are wrong... But if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?