welcome to wherever you are

People know it. In their deep inner lives, they know what they ought to be doing. And they know it would improve the quality of life. The challenge is to develop the character and competence to listen to it and live by it - to act with integrity in the moment of choice.

DISCALIMER: Sorry about the sing-song font. Is Elani’s fault. Making my otherwise meh evening light up like Christmas lights from that street that Kevin used to live on in Home Alone.

Ah, there’s a certain joy in the Internet. And Wi-Fi. And YouTube. And a good sound system. And a new song. A new song that you love. And thus can’t stop listening to. I finally got round to Elani’s Kookoo, which I think is just the thing for a bland Monday evening with a large order from Martin my editor. The man doesn’t want me to have a life, and I keep having to remember the moolah is also nice to have…

I swear, I can’t stop listening to them, and I can’t stop smiling. This music is going to be the death of me. By the way Nancy and I are on the hunt for a star (or anyone really :)))))) who wants BGVs, so if you know any one, our numbers are 0723 XXX XXX and 0723 XXX XXX. Seriously, those are our numbers, and we’re looking for a guy. Does it hit you how much these afro urban stars love the word “kishua”, I swear it’s like every song. Ama it’s coz it’s easy to play around with… 

Also, when you listen to the lyrics of some of these songs it hits you just how uuuhhhmmm… nowhere-going some of the lines in the songs are. They just put them there coz they sound nice. But it’s hard, getting words with rhyme and rhythm and flow, and since I haven’t written a song, I’ll be quiet now. Before I too go Koo-koo.

Scatter-braininess. Where was I? Ah, yes indeed, home. I hadn’t begun talking about that yet, but no time like the present, si? My brother would probably say something wise and deep like don’t get too comfortable. But it’s hard not to, after you know years of temporarily nesting here, there and over yonder. The minute some semblance of settlement hits you grab it with both hands.

But I love how God works. I love how He pours one thing into the next, fits this piece to that one until you have one complete picture. I didn’t write this post on the day I should. I should wait for the call. But no, I’m writing it now. Before the call. Because I know in my heart the call will come. And my picture of home will be complete. For now.

I’m seriously going koo-koo-koooo so koo-koo right now… That song is something special. The transpose where Maureen comes in… It’s funny; I wouldn’t have noticed these things before. I would, I just wouldn’t say.

So call. I went to church yesterday. My new church. And I knew I was home. From the first song to the benediction. And the sermon about calling the things that be not as though they were. Hhhmmm…. And they sung a hymn I love, in Luhya!!!!!! Mouth>>agape>>silentscream>>clappyclapclap>>>doing my excited dance. Okay, it’s an uncoordinated series of jumps, but you know. It's just, this is a church in Westlands, singing a hymn in Luhya for special number. Where there's William McDowell and Sonnie Badu and Loyiso Bala and Joyous Celebration.

Anyhow, I love this because it’s an answered prayer. To find a home. Home church, home work, home live… That place I could just be for a while and know that this is exactly my space for the next while, until my next step comes up. So thank You Jesus.

Welcome Joy, to the rest of your life… Go koo-koo by all means. And then live. That’s the thing about novelty, it wears off fast, and then I won’t remember why I loved being here. It’s like having a new dress. After the excited dance and the debut and a couple of washes and wears, it’s just another dress. I hope I never forget why I loved the dress.

I will try to walk a blameless path, but how I need Your help, especially in my own home, where I long to act as I should.  ~The Bible~

The Starcherian before-meals prayer went something like “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful.” That’s my prayer. For what I am about to receive, may the Lord make me truly thankful.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in [their] hearts [of men], except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. ~The Bible~ 

Koo-koo-kooooo… sorry, I fixate on novelty  J J

there is no panic in heaven...

Human beings are very interesting. We all come with this sense of... of... of… entitlement. It’s really very interesting. I hadn’t thought much of it myself until I saw this update by one of my friends on Facebook.

It comes so easy to us, giving each other ultimatums, and all those sistahs telling you that you deserve better and more and all manner of feminist speeches. It’s all good I guess, because yes, you must know who you are and what you can and cannot take from another person. It is intrinsic to your self-worth and survival It’s all good. 

Until you carry that to God.

Giving Him a list of unlesses and pouring out questions about “Why would a good God allow this’ or ‘Why me’ or like my friend and I have been musing recently “Surely God, a break has got to be caught!” That’s easy, it’s natural, it’s human. And I am human. But the greater part of being human is the ability to know when what you’re doing isn't up to par. And giving it up.

I’ve wanted to write some post since that last post I wrote, I’ve been musing over whether to or not to, but well, I can do half and half right? I made a good friend recently, happened to show literally out of the blue at the very right time, and stuck around long enough to see me through a not-so-great patch. I know all the blah about seasonal friends et al, but it’s hard to understand that someone can just, you know, go just like that. I’ve added this particular one to the list of things I will never understand, but hopefully I’ll be okay with it someday.

It wasn’t messy, it wasn’t hateful, it wasn’t laced with passive aggressive nuances. Maybe some parts of me are still reeling in the wake, I think we’re all just wondering how we could have missed it. And why God doesn’t want me to be happy. That’s not exactly false, He just wants me to be holy more than.  I dunno, I’m just throwing out various lines here.

But the best thing I learnt from it was the magic of the ordinary. I don’t have memories of grandiose gestures and expensive measures. I have memories of the oddest things. The oddest things. The oddest, oddest things. They were simple, they were real and I miss those the most. I am grateful. I wouldn’t take it back. The ride, the good and not-as and sometimes silly. I found out that some of those things I used to hear and think, broken science, they were actually true. And I think back with a smile. Because I became slightly better.

Anyway, which is why you know, I so wanted to WTH God. It’s not a pretty thing to admit, but yeah. I was absolutely unamused by that turn of events. I still am, a little. But you know, resilience, all this will fade away someday. But then, I’m looking at it all wrong. Technically that’s not true, I know the right outlook, I just wanted to whine, we all do sometimes. But the hard truth is, God owes me nothing. He does not owe me a break, a happy life, everything I want when I want it, the right to always have my loved ones around until I’m old and gray.

Nothing I have is anything I deserve. Anything I have is gift I’m given. Including the time I spent with him. It was a gift He gave me. My family, my friends, everyone who’s around in my life now, it’s not for my purposes or my comfort, it’s for His. So when He takes any of it away, like when He called Flo, it is within His perfect will. And He knows everything. I imagine I can choose to cling  and cry and whine and be sad, but the truth is, no good thing will He withhold…

You know, I’ve found many times in my walk that I have so much clarity regarding what I need to do. I know, and I know it with unshakable certainty, but it’s like, transforming that knowledge to executables, I draw blanks. Like when I’m speaking now, it’s so clear. Everything is so clear, but I guess it is as Oswald Chambers said, "we must bring our everyday life up to the standard revealed to us on the mountaintop when we were there".

So here in my room everything is clear, and theoretically all is well. But the real stuff is when I get up from this bed and go out to meet life. Faith is easy when everything is okay, because the mountain resembles the reality. But when it’s all a mass of things you don’t understand, hitting one after another, that’s where the real stuff is. Oswald lived in the 19th Century, but his devotions are just timeless. You must read this one and this one.

So get up Joy, get up and get on with it.

Cornelia’s was one of the families that were sheltering Jews during the Holocaust. When they got caught, they suffered a similar fate – they were sent to a concentration camp. Her sister died, and then her father. And life was probably just as bad as you can imagine. But she was there, tending to the sick, the elderly, sharing her little rations with the other people in the camp. At some point, shortly before the war was to end, Cornelia was set free in what turned out to be a clerical error. Shortly after that, all the women her age in that camp were killed. God has no problems, only plans…

It’s easy to see that now because that entire story took me 100 words and three minutes to narrate. Took you even less to read. But between the capture and the clerical error, there were months of suffering and unending pain. Watching her family die. We are not made for the mountain, it’s to walk down here with the knowledge of the mountain. God has no problems, only plans…

Only plans…

peace, I leave with you...

I am writing this post for two reasons: The first is that I want to (I mean, duh! Right?) No, not duh! I’ve found myself running towards this blog every time I am sad, or tired, or generally exasperated with the world. Or when I have a thousand articles to present before my boss tomorrow and I don’t know where to start. Incidentally today is one such day.

I had overcome this feeling of all-encompassing tiredness, because I was sure that finally things were moving in the right direction, and my set of variables was about to be altered. But it seems again as though we’re going back to the beginning. For a little while longer I shall have to contend with this uncertainty. So I feel tired. More in my mind through my body than vice versa. I promise in my head that makes sense.

The second reason I’m writing is that I gave Mukiri the link to this blog last night, and I don’t want the last two unhappy posts to be the ones she sees first. She’s a luminescent ball of optimism in my life, still sounding gracious even when she’s bone tired. She’s also a brilliant writer, her blog is here.

I was trolling through Facebook while trying to convince myself to get started with the working, rather than blogging, when I saw her glowing tribute to our Flo, the one I have to thank for my friendship with Muki and Dinah and a bunch of other girls who mean a lot to me. And I finally found the photo I’ve been hoping someone would put up so you can finally attach a face to this Flo I’m piping about every two seconds.

I’m sharing Mukiri’s sentiments through this screenshot, because she so aptly describes it for us. I was the youngest at her wedding party meaning I wasn't quite close to the older girls,  I got a lot closer to Dinah and by some magical design Muki herself. By the time I got to campus Ng’eno and Mary were done. Flo was in the middle of us, so she was a lot closer to the older girls. I knew her from interaction with this fourth former Joy Mwende who had made a prayer group out of us. So when I got to campus, and behold a familiar face, I clung to Flo. And her arms were always wide open.

They are laying her body to rest tomorrow. Such finality. Today, I’m praying for my friends Muki and Ng’eno and Mary and Dee, for whom she was more like a sister. And who shared the bulk of Flo’s final journey. For them I pray comfort and peace, true peace. It is our Lord who heals, and it is our Lord who restores. He will do in perfect time too.

I recall the words of Cornelia Ten Boom, the lady whose family sheltered Jews during the Holocaust and got caught. They were taken to the same concentration camps preserved for the Jews, and there she watched her father slowly suffer to death. Later on, a soldier who was particularly cruel within the camp came to ask for her forgiveness, and this is when she confessed:

Even as the angry vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him....Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness....And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives along with the command, the love itself.” 
― Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place

He makes all things beautiful in His time. So simple, but so true. It is well…. It is well…

my hometown...

I should stop this wanting to blog on holidays thing. It makes me seem like I write for special occasions. But I guess writing is like a bathroom break, you gotta go when you gotta go. Well, I may not have the gene encoding excitement over the calendar, but 1^st Jan is one of those days even I consider. Consider, not go bananas… I used to think it was another chance at a fresh start, until I discovered it was also just another set of 24 hours, much like my birthday and all else in between. You start anywhere, where you are at the time you decide to start. And the millions of corny forwards!!! Anyway, I’m taking these genes back where I got them. I need feelings.

There’s a baby in our house today. That happens every once in never, so I guess it’s special in a way. Until it’s nightfall and the little bundle of gladness would rather cry than sleep… with a headache the size of Russia, it’s the last thing I need… but then we recall, children are a heritage from the Lord, and blessed in he who has a quiver full of them. Though I’m certainly glad tonight our quiver is full of just the one :)

 

It rained too, after sweltering heat these past weeks, and the coolness is definitely something I enjoy… May it multiply in the new year, that, and the lovely sunsets, you gotta love the sunsets in Mumias. I haven’t seen anything quite like them. Except maybe the full moon rising from the basketball court in high school. Every full moon we stole away after prep to just go see it rise, so close you could just touch it... Maybe it was that much more priceless because we were where we shouldn’t have been, but whatever… Yes, that far back. Yes, I still remember… Good times!

My pops has been sick for some time, it was bad, and then good and then bad, and now it’s somewhere in between, good health taking it’s sweet time showing up…  What that has done over time is put us in a kind of time warp, moving from one day to the next, praying and monitoring. Most days are good days :) In a way I’m thinking my circadian rhythm is way off course, when is today? (It’s against the law to drug babies who are not sick, no? Drat!!!) I keep thinking Tuesday, I was sure this year Christmas was on Tuesday, which means I went a whole week a day behind. It probably doesn’t help that we’re watching soccer at 9pm… those news guys tell us the day and time, though much good that does with only 3 hours left to the day I guess… Anyway, mum’s been a dynamo of strength and calm, even though we know she feels all things but… More than anything, I want him to be back on his feet… My lips to Your ears Lord…

Replaying Bruce Springsteen’s “My Hometown”. Seems apt to play Tree Hill music when narrating one’s life, walking down the trodden paths… Well, it’s a new year… I won’t have the flu for the rest of the year (thank God the baby slept!!)… But it’s gonna be awesome…

w00p w00p!!! Happy New Year!!!

Forever starts today...

I was gonna go to sleep, because I lost all need for sentimentalism and much ado about calendar dates. And as I sifted through my in-tray to make sure nothing was pending, I decided to write this poem. And I had to do it today. Because I haven't blogged in almost a year. In that time, I've had plenty of starts, plenty of drafts and unfinished thoughts, but never a complete post. So when I wanted to write right now, I wrote right then, and for the first time since the last time, I wrote in less than 20 minutes. maybe I was just lucky, maybe I was truly inspired, but hey, for whatever reason, I wrote a poem! A poem! A poem!

So I'll share my cliches and platitudes, because I have always believed that writing is evidence. And I must have this up before midnight, because I needed to finish it today. And no, it's got nothing to do with the calendar date. to me, it's just, well, TODAY.... :) :)

I PICK TODAY

Today is a new day,

Well, not so new, it’s almost completely done

But it just seems like today is as good as I’m ever gonna get

So I pick today

Yesterday was laden with self-doubt and questions

Standing before my those of my age set

And seeming to lag way behind

So I worried, and hid, and acted like it was all fine

When every night I cried out for a miracle

I hoped that He would see beyond this doubt and selfish ambition

And give me a story of my own to write

Sometimes when tears failed, I took matters into my own hands

But it never quite worked out how I hoped

Because, in the grander scheme of things

Nobody paints a Picasso better than Picasso

But even Picasso began somewhere

So I pick today

I pick my own beginning,

And I pick the end written out for my story

I pick trust and faith in Him who’s Word is true

Has He not said, and will He not do it?

Is there anything too hard for Him?

I pick my pages, and His truth

And I write out a new beginning for me
You say

Tomorrow is coming soon enough

So maybe I ought to wait for tomorrow

But look how much has been lost,

Waiting for the soon enough that never is

I don’t want any part in that

So I pick today

I pick my own journey of faith

I pick the people I shall chance to meet upon the way

I pick intercession for every one of them

I pick out-pouring of my spirit for the needs of my friends

I’ll start today, even though tomorrow’s a breath away

Because in that breath I can

Make someone smile, ease their burden

I can pray, even just two whispered pleas

So that when tomorrow is here,

I’ll have started yesterday

And all I’ll need to do is keep moving ahead
Occupy till He returns

 Just like I did yesterday

Because I picked today

Tomorrow is not mine to have,

So I pick today,

I pick today

I PICK NOW!!!