When dying is better…

Driving to work today and listening to news, there was a report of continuous killing of young men in the NE county of Mandera, Kenya, bordering Somalia. It was focused on a village that was burying their 47^th young man killed in 2016. The journalist was curious to know why young people still choose to travel to Mandera with the risk of being killed by terrorist and he was told by one interviewee that people go out there because they make more money in a day in Mandera than they would have in four months in their village. ‘When living takes the second seat’, I thought.

I know in one of my articles I wrote about living and being alive – it’s a recurrent comparison in my head I must have written about it. Anyway, that is not the point here. The point is people have been subjected to a state of depravity and desperation dying becomes more important than living. Immigration to Europe has become an EU problem – immigration through dangerous routes. People who have never seen a stream going across the sea; people who can’t imagine how wide the Sahara Desert is decide to attempt to traverse it into Europe, even on Camels; young girls with or without degrees scorn at articles about abuse of their kind in SE Asian countries and the Middle East and still stake their families’ wealth in order to travel to these places and join the others living in sub-human conditions.

Just like so many things happening in my country these days, there are a lot of situations you can’t understand unless you live them. How can the risk of dying be more important than life? Why do these young people go through all these, with good knowledge of the dangers in a-yonder? I’ve obviously never been in that state, never felt that way, but I know one thing – for me to live is Christ and to die is gain!

2 Corinth 3:17 – ‘Where the Lord is there is the Spirit and where there is the Spirit there is Freedom.’ Freedom will not make troubles go away, it will not put food on the table, but it will give life a meaning. If you find freedom in these dangerous adventures in search of daily bread, by all means forge ahead. If you find freedom in staying back in your village, you got my respect as well. Just be free! It is challenging to talk about these things to people who can’t even have bread for today, let alone think about bread for tomorrow… to whom posterity is like trying to reach the horizon… but the Word of God is real for everyone in every circumstance – trust God, the God who opened the heavens and rained down manna to a people who were already complaining and losing trust. Shalom Peace has nothing to do with physical peace, just sleep through the turmoil. Jesus slept through a storm that threatened their boat. I’m not saying all will be dandy and cool, but things will be better.

My heart bleeds at these news reports, it’s sad and it’s real. The future is dying in search of better lives. God created this world with enough for everyone but greed has eaten up the very core of humanity. While others live lavishly, their neighbors are dying in search of better lives. God’s ultimate command is the solution to the world’s problems – ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ – Love yourself, dying can’t be better than life, unless it is dying in gain because you lived in Christ. To the rest of the world Love Everyone!

Shalom!

Being to Doing...

Why haven’t I written for so long when I have such wonderful thoughts to share? Why do I give in to excuses – ‘I’m tired’; ‘I’ll write later’; …? Or maybe I’m scared by my very own thoughts?

I want to write about how my son’s personality is so independent, how I learn so much from him about living with no limits and not being embarrassed by the craziness of my thoughts and not having to apologize for being me.

My entire life I always desired to ‘be me’, and in a way I guess I always have been because like my son (funny how I’m comparing myself to him and not the other way round) I grew up with a mind of my own. Mind! Most of the time my thoughts were unadulterated – for example I wasn’t one to be influenced by friends and I rarely ever was the average of my friends. I was me.

Many people tell me they admire my freewill and independence – and it’s been hard to fully accept the praises because I knew something was off – a disconnect between my thoughts and my actions.

I’m sure if my friends read this they’ll think I’m under-rating myself, but I know I possess far more than they ever see or hear. They don’t know the internal struggles I’m having with myself – the longing of translating ‘being’ myself to ‘doing’ myself.

‘Doing’ myself is my new internal voice (maybe not new… but let’s just assume it is) – it is more than just having an independent ‘mind’ to actually saying and doing what is good for me. This seems nuanced but stop and think – there is a separation line as thick as dreaming and living a dream. Am I losing you?

If you are like me there are those moments when you wish you said exactly what you were thinking instead of that diplomatic answer you gave; wish you persevered on an idea you had – how different the outcome would have been!

I strive for honesty, and if you’ve been reading my articles and know me, you’ll know I’ve been doing an okay job. Now I want to give more meaning to the honesty by saying and doing what my mind is saying. I’m guessing you’ll be reading more about this in future blogs.

But this is not a process for the feeble minded. I’ve come a long way, I’ve worked on my mind… my thoughts… and I’m still on that journey. I’m at a point where my mind has been cultured in a way that I can trust my mind enough to take the risk… are you?

My Brain Won't Function

What’s the date of today? My brain just can’t remember. To know I have to count back from my return date, the only information my brain can give me now. So I’ll return home next Monday 24^th… today is the Monday before which means today is the 17^th.

Although I work out every day, I still develop a feeling of exhaustion (sounds like its deliberate but it’s not). My body doesn’t feel tired but my brain feels tortured! My brain cells seem to have gone to sleep. Why do I feel this way? Why do I feel like I just want to sit outside and stare far into the horizon than sit here? Is it a consequence of eating three meals a day?

Breakfast is good… I take a couple slices of slightly toasted brown bread (and fool my brain it’s whole wheat bread, or is it?), a couple spoons of baked beans (and I wonder why it has to be sweet – the manufacturers must have poured a good quantity of sugar in the mix… why can’t people just do homemade beans?), some mushroom (again looks like one that was grown in an hour and I wonder why it doesn’t taste like mushroom I buy from the local market), fruits (I literally have to drain out sweet water from the fruits – granted fruits are sweet but the taste of that liquid tells me some sugar missed its way into that bowl) a cup of tea (no sugar added – happy I’m in control of this one), and a glass of juice with no sugar added (but I’m still suspicious the manufacturers added some sweetening even if not sugar). That’s exactly what I took this morning and I wonder why I’m feeling awful.

Maybe it’s the sessions (yes I’m at a training in another country)… maybe the facilitation doesn’t tie in with my learning style – read read read – something I love to do on my own and not necessarily listen to someone doing it during sessions when I have the material in front of me. Or maybe it’s the duration of the workshop – two weeks is a long time for any kind of in-service training. This is the 8^th day – dawn to dusk. Or maybe it’s the content – been there, done it… now redoing it just sounds a little over-dosed?

Maybe it’s other people in the room – or maybe not. Everyone has been fabulous and I can bet myself (don’t want to get anyone involved) that >70% participants feel like me but everyone’s hanging in there – kind of solidarity in torture. Haha! Shhhh… did I laugh out loud or my weary brain is playing tricks on me? Sigh of relieve, no one seems to be noticing, or maybe not, not sure of anything now. Look at them waiting for lunch time and dinner to strongly vocalize their feelings at the table, and that’s when I feel better knowing people are in a worse place than me. Those discussions make great deserts after eating same kinds of foods every day for both meals.