Hiatus Over

My mother is talking to me right now. She has this thing of going on and on about something. I tend to think she’s also assuring herself at the time.

Lately, its been like stuff has been against her, with some relatives cutting off trees from our upcountry home…something about a feud they want to start up. Her Ph.D thingy taking longer than she had anticipated.

So here we are, she’s on the sofa having tea, looking out the window, I’m on the dining table typing away half listening to what she’s saying. All I got, is “…what does not kill you makes you stronger…”

This weekend, I was tired. For those who met me on Sunday, I had slept only three hours and wanted to hang out, but did not really have the enthusiasm that was to come with that. Forgive me.

I need to assure myself of how good I have it. I woke up today. I am of sound mind. I have a super woman of a mother. I have siblings who I talk with everyday. I am not addicted to drugs.

Yes, people. Drug addiction is a serious problem.

So I have had a blues free Monday. It did not rain this afternoon, I was inspired by a friend. People, I was inspired by a friend, to write.

It has been forever since I last wrote. It reached a point that all I wrote resonated around one common theme, and the same character came up. That’s when I stopped till another came and swooped in, carry my mind away and take me to another way of thinking. Well, that did not happen. I waited. Had to carry myself to that place I had in mind.

I am most afraid of losing my mind. I think, my mind is the most beautiful thing about me. It is the one that has made me be..well, Chebet!! Thank God, right.

So when I am uninspired and just bluuuggghh like, I am frustrated. I am not sociable. I do not make. I do not eat. Then mother comes along, singing her motherly song, going on and on, about all she has knows and her sense of right and wrong.

I am out of the funk. I am back from my hiatus. I am on my almost five month (I will make it so) holiday and I am writing again. Still the same character appears, but who cares. Chebet is writing again.

Evolution (Edge of Sanity album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

All Is Vanity:Live With It

Reblogged from Pyro's Blog:

The previous post and this one were written in a blog long gone by without a doubt the wittiest, most fluid writer I ever met, most sharp minded and funny person I know to date and doubtless the smartest, most independent bright-eyed soul I ever sat down at a table with; and now reside in the annals of FeedBurner’s caches, floating about in the still of the Websphere – gone, but not forgotten.

Read more… 1,177 more words

No Other Goat

The evening before yesterday’s, I received a text from a dear friend. “Have u dne anythng today to defeat the cruel world?” Way to be trivial that late in the day, ey?

That day, 31st March, I had spent reflecting on my month endeavours. I am a March baby, and having ‘grown up’ a little, I was wondering how my mind set was.

Friend, I had done something that day. I had defeated a cruel world. I had defeated a cruel world I created.  
Hi. I’m Faith and just like many of us, I had a tendency of blaming other people, the equipment, that summer holiday… I find any scapegoat.

Recently I learned where that term came from.
Leviticus 16:7-10
A ceremony performed with two goats on the Hebrew day of Atonement. (Yom Kippur) The high priest would sacrifice one goat and symbolically place the sins of the people on the head of the other-the scapegoat-before it was sent into the wilderness carrying away the blame of the sin.

Everything else was my other goat. Placing my problems on another hoping it’ll go away.
On 31st March 2012, I took back my heart. I realised I had left my heart with my last and kinda blamed him coz I hadn’t completely moved on. I wanted to run as far away from him hoping my heart would follow, but it stayed, and I was tied. So end of March, I have grown up a little. I have my heart here with me, and I need no scapegoat because I am responsible for myself. I am responsible for heart, I am responsible for this life.

So friend, that is what I had done that day to defeat the cruel world I had created. The world is a beautiful place, especially when we let Jesus be our scapegoat. He offered himself up as a sacrifice to pay for the sins of the whole world.

Jesus takes our sin and gives us His salvation.         

Hello World

My goodness!!! It has been so many days since I had an argument. Nah. Not those silly back and forth type thingys that lead nowhere that empty debes pride themselves on. I’m talking about those arguments dealing with facts that just open up a whole new way of thinking and doing things and challenges you to brush up on your general knowledge. I want to be shut up by ‘Google it’. I want to be told that I need to read more. I want to be inspired by your way of thinking.

Good Lord!!! I feel like my intelligence is wasting away a little. I’m not one to brag, but if I don’t put myself on that pedestal, who will?? Except my God, obviously.

Hello world!! My mind has not been focussed of late. That’s my excuse for ignoring your calls and not replying your messages. I just knew I did not know how to answer when y’all asked how I was doing…and I did not want to lie. Well here goes, world.
Thank God, my spiritual life is on track. I am eating healthy. I am reading my stories. I am rushing through the crossword puzzles and closing the page when I meet an idiom I cannot fill out. I am using my words wrong. I am not asking why.

Well, world, I have gone through the past few days trying to understand the role I am to play, here, where I am. I have been going through my lines, acting out things as they come. I have been more caught up in the emotions of who said what, how their tone seemed like this and how I have let myself get into that…past love loss and heartbreaks. I see you, world. You always hit the heart, huh?  

World, you almost succeeded in sucking me into your mediocre cycle, webbed by shallow speak and shallow show and shallow love. You must have known I would catch on, no?? Your plan… #epicfail

Dearest world, I am well. Seeking help, I asked another how I should go about my dilemma and I was met with a ‘Yeeeaaahh’. Seriously??? I just knew I wasn’t where I should be.
I thank my Lord for the real love he’s showing me. You know, the kind where he let his only son die on the cross for my salvation. So, with love like that, I am to love myself enough not to let my life turn mediocre. You hear that, world.

Now, world, I am 1up (the extra life from the video games) you!!! In a way, I grew a little in the past few days…armed with what my father in heaven says I am.

Then, world, what are you bringing my way next???      

To Be Or Not To Be

To be or not to be-that is the question!
Yes, I know Shakespeare. Just a little though, his only book I have read from start to finish is Merchant of Venice. Solely because it was in our high school curriculum.
I use this statement many times though, when I’m conflicted. Get out of bed or miss that morning class, cut my hair or let it grow all cave woman style even talk to that boy or just all schoolgirl like giggle at his dry remarks waiting for his question I’ll answer. Mm-hmm, I wasn’t always this confident little lady.
I was using that statement for light issues, stuff I could as easily made…well, not a conflict.
Then I found out that “To be or not to be…” was as heavy as sentences could get. Shakespeare’s character, Hamlet, who said these words, was a kinda melancholy prince. He learns that his uncle has killed his father and married his mother. The horror!!! He contemplates suicide and asks himself, “To be” –to continue living or “not to be” –to take his own life.
I have scars on my legs. Not easily noticeable coz of my dark skin, but I have scars on my legs. There was a time I was looking for a ‘scar removal’ cream, not naming any brands, but one that would return my legs to their previous six year old glory. I can remember getting scars from when I was as young as six. Getting out of the house and forcing myself through barbed wire fences and to the highest branch of a tree and through the neighbour’s thorn bushes have always been my thing. I love the childhood I had, kinda reinforced this, no fence or tall tree or thorn bush can hold me back from where/what I want to be.
That said, I wanted to get rid of all these tiny reminders of what I can do. The songs in my heart that reassure me ‘I can’. And..And!! I had left this decision to “To be or not to be…” Uh-huh! It was that big.
Looking at my legs right now, I have stories. I have good stories. I have stories of turn off the telly and get out of the house, of challenge the playground bully, of man is not an island, of how Kalenjin in your blood is awesome.
I do not remember why I wanted to let go of all this. Maybe coz, again, I was not always this confident little lady.
When we focus on ‘Me’, more often than not, we blow things way out of proportion. The somewhat insensitive remark becomes why we are not friends anymore. The much deserved A the lecturer took from me becomes why I gave up on education. The scars on my legs become why I do not wear skirts and dresses.
I thank God everyday I invited Him into my life. I thank God He opened up my eyes to more than just ‘Me’. I thank God that I am less hasty in my decisions now. I thank God that He makes my little self made conflicts that I want to put up as despair seems so small and laughable even. I thank God for His relentless grace. I thank God.
Now, I have set down my “To be or not to be…” banner, and put up my “Let God” one.
So, let God. The tiny space we limit ourselves to, God has a universe of possibilities for us planned, just as long as we let Him.

In A Bus

In a bus.
In a rickety old school bus.
In a rickety old school bus, in the back bench crowd.
Yes, Ma. I am one of the cool kids. Then again, we all are in our own way.

From where I am, there’s that loud boy with spectacles. Our self appointed tour guide, telling us what’s on our left and what kind of people you’re likely to find here. He reminds me of my youngest brother, the loud observer.

We are on a school field trip. Yes, mining students get to go out a lot.

Still fixated on the announcer boy, I want to know where we are and what song is currently in his head. We’re having our own morning show, also with a supposed weather expert.
So it’s not as cold as I’ve dressed. Good to know.

Well, we are different people in a bus now. We have our one man show who seems to be going through a lingala thing in his head, the next to the driver kid, that walking up and down the isle boy and me…listening to them all.

I like that we are different, I like that we are bringing different things to the bus. With these different shades of green. I don’t know I usually refer to things with the colour green, I just do.

I love what my God did, making things uniquely diverse. Makes things exciting. I’m excited right.   

My Small Place

Image via Wikipedia

I often dream, I am a super hero.
A cape crusader, a wearing underwear on the inside, super hero.
Swooshing through the crowds, watched by my eager masses
‘Is it a bird? Is it a plane?’
No, it is the unnamed lady.
Coming down from my penthouse apartment to save the environment! Save the rain forest and the whales or that endangered frog?!
Put out fires that are consuming whole buildings!

Think about the people around me, that brought me up, the unnamed super hero, to be an upright world on her shoulders gal. The Sunday school teacher who taught me about God’s love, the primary school teacher who taught me that I should wear my underwear on the inside. The little they did DOES count. I would probably have been a low self esteemed little minx with her underwear on the outside. Who would have saved the world then?
Well, this is all in my dreams.

One thing I know about myself, and mother tells me all the time, is that I am an extremists. I like going to the extreme possibilities of things. The possible results, disregarding the work of the Sunday and primary school teacher.

So when I am given a small skill like writing, I want to Clark Kent<without glasses> it all. I want to write papers and challenge people and start a riot and live on a tree and run with the wildebeests.

I want to do it all. I want to do so much, that most times I end up doing nothing. Letting the books collect dust and the ideas get lost at the nerve endings of my brain. That is taking my skill for granted. My God given, with which I am to praise and bless His name…stretched out through all I am putting myself into, worn so thin that the material is not there.

I value more the size of the outcome, than the substance. Many are like me, especially in a society where size is a measure of success, bigger is better, where my pot belly is because I am climbing my career ladder. Might be I am not taking good care of my body.

Few people resist this trend. We consider laboring in a small place as a “No” from God to your prayers. This small place might be where I am to be.
This small place might be the Paris to my dream to write.
This small place might be the source of all material I need to write those papers and challenge people and start a riot and live on a tree and to run with the wildebeests.

I choose to exhaust this small place with all my heart. Pray, love and praise with all my heart. After all, this little that I sometimes take for granted, is a lot when God is in it.

“Your little place is not a stepping stone to greatness. It is greatness.”

If You Didn’t Know, Now You Know.

It is Valentine’s day already.
Sitting on my bed doing my usual internet searches for nights when I have nothing interesting to watch. I wanted to search on a ‘How to…’ Lord knows how much I love these. But the Google doodle has a boy holding a pink somewhat box. These doodles that tell me when some Russian scientist is turning 200 and that he did a bunch of stuff. Yes doodle, I read what you represent. I’m guessing the boy’s box has a scarf, or chocolates. Would really love chocolates right about now. Those with different types in one box…yes!! Now I’m straggling with its foil wrapping in my head.

I click on the boy with his box…”Happy Valentine’s Day”
Really?? This day that yesterday was tomorrow, is now today. It is right now.
It is past midnight. I am not ready. Then again, I have other plans.

I am just starting my second month of this semester. I am to have my first tests tomorrow today. Two tests that I have read little about as I try to stay awake till late filling my internet usage hours. I will study…eventually.

So it is Valentine’s Day. The anniversary of Christian martyrs commonly named Valentine. I Wikipedia a lot too.

I cannot wait for it to be light out, so I can do a little reading. I am looking around my room hoping that anything would turn into sheep, jump over a fence and get me to sleep. Anything?

No pressure this day, don’t even have my ‘Sunday’s best’ with me. Good thing about being away from the city. Little outside influence on your days. I wonder what Nairobi looks like today. Have they painted flowers on window shopper’s windows? Made everything red with wings?

Well, that’s their problem. I will give myself long enough to cram for my tests. At this point, I just read to do well in my papers.

Gotta go. My reading chair is threatening to turn into my first sheep. Sleeping soon. Lovely day lovelies.   

The Door

There is a door in our minds. A simple door in our intangible intelligence. Hidden to the simple, and it will be revealed to you if you look for it. The door does exist, but one can choose if they want to go through it. Stay at the shallow impossibilities or go deep into possibilities. Black or blue, brass or rotten wood…whatever appears to you. There is a door.
This door separates the sad and the happy.
The having and the having not.
The optimistic and the pessimistic.
Fear and faith.

At least this is what my wierdly creative friend tells me.
He gives an example of Bill Gates. “He must have found his door, right? Gone through it and made possible WINDOWS!!!! What simple mind can come up with such.”

My wierdly creative friend says he went through his door end of last year. His was hidden right infront of him. A somewhat gate. Yah!! I had questions too. As far as I know, he has since been aggressively getting paint and sketch ideas, writing faithfully and Lord knows what else.

Get through your door already, woman!!! I would urge myself. Guess what, I have been long through my door. I am on the other side. Mine was just a decision. The best decision I ever made…To follow Christ, accept Jesus as my Lord and saviour and believe that I am saved.

The most notable ‘I am through the door’ things I have done… well…

I wear skirts and dresses now. I do not know what I was afraid of before, these pieces are hella comfortable. In one right now…wink!wink!

I am more patient with my dreams and ideas. There was a time when, if I don’t get immediate results…that deal is done. Unnecessary frustrations. Now, I stay the course. It is a marathon, not a sprint. Plus, things do happen at the right time, God’s time, not our time.

I can say, what holds most people back from their ‘Bill Gates’ accomplishments, is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of what the future holds…the worst kind there is coz it prevents one from living. Knowing God, our future is secure. Keep your head up and be confident and joyful. God is with you. Your future is secure.

Romans 8:38-39
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.       

Making It My Business

I watched Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) last week. I just needed a good laugh. Came across this short clip on Plan B‘s site. Hadn’t put much thought to this bit from a man known for his silent films. Goes to show one has a lot to say, they just need an audience.

A lot happens in our world. Good and bad, none in between. A whole lot!!
I’ve heard many statistics of children dying every ten minute, five minutes and some every minute…because of hunger, AIDS, mosquitoes. Imagine that…something as preventable as malaria is killing millions every year.

I live in a world my parents made for me. My parents did their best to shelter me from the evils around. With a paranoid gullible mother and an over protective father, I was kept away from relatives that were somewhat sketchy. I know parents are afraid of how their kids would turn out; I think I turned out great. They did their job. Now its my turn.

At an age when I’m nearly leaving the nest, I am afraid of what the world out there is like. My paranoid mother has and still is telling me stories…mostly horror stories. My larger than life father did his best to keep the world at bay, but now that he is gone…his spirit still lives on in how I view the world.

I think I have little experience on what evils are in the world. That’s just what I think.
When a tsunami hits Japan, doesn’t that hit me too? When a child goes hungry in Northern Kenya, doesn’t it affect me too? When my neighbour gets paralysed because of a drunk driver, shouldn’t that make me want to speak against drinking and driving?

I’ve found myself more often than not brushing off these stories. “That’s just how their world is.” ‘Their world’, as if I don’t live near them and might be the next to go through the same.
Most are like me. Saying, ‘That’s their business, not mine.’ A time will come when we will be proven wrong. A time will come when we will be shown that what happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all.

I do not want it to reach that time when I’ll be like…
‘I had a house.’
‘I had a son.’
‘I had a friend.’
‘I had beautiful legs.’

I want to make it my business now, because essentially, IT IS MY BUSINESS!

Leviticus 19:18 calls us to “…love your neighbour as you love yourself.”
Make another person’s concerns my own. Make their persecution, injustice and suffering my own.

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