Cock And Bull

• All Of God’s Creatures

  Posted: November 29, 2011, 11:33 am by Administrator

  My apartment is on the second floor and when I opened the door to the balcony after I got out of bed, I was greeted by a sunny morning spiced up with the fragrance of the fresh of a green earth after a week of heavy rain. While moving my head in order to harvest a great lungful of crisp air from all around the space on which I was standing, my eyes glanced on the wall and I say a slug. The slug had a shiny cream color and was extended full length as if it was about to make a huge lunge forward, making me think of a steeplechase runner in full stride whose pose has been frozen when the viewer pressed the pause button on the remote control. And as I waited for the slug to make a contraction to facilitate forward movement, I once again wondered about the journey of the slug.

  I wondered how much time it had taken the slug to move from the ground and climb the wall – all the way to the second floor. Given the slow speed at which a slug moves, and considering a slug’s life expectancy, I suppose that it must have invested a considerable chunk of its lifetime to accomplish this one task of climbing the wall. One might even conclude that climbing this particular wall is probably this slug’s lifetime achievement. Which then brings us to the next obvious question, “for what purpose?”

  I suppose this question brings us to our own predicament as human beings. When we do not understand the meaning of our lives, we feel like this slug, climbing a mundane wall all its life. And at that time, for all the work that we have engaged in, we look back and see the lack of color in our accomplishments and ask “for what purpose?”

  When I look at the slug, I cannot understand why it chose to climb this wall or why it had to leave the lush world of food and the companionship of other slugs down below. But then when I look a second time, I realize that this particular slug has touched my life: It caught my attention and has engaged my imagination for quite a considerable amount of time. In that time, it has enabled me to examine my own life and given me the words with which to write a story to share with you. Considering that this writing will affect you in some way, you can already see the chain reaction that the slug has set off?

  We can say in jest that this slug has accomplish in 30 minutes what my school English teacher tried to accomplish for years every day that she walked into my class. But in all seriousness it probably helps us to remember that it is indeed true that all God’s creatures – You and I included – have a reason to be.

  We Matter. Despite, all of our good intentions that seem too small to us and inconsequential to the universe, all the menial tasks that only seem to serve as placeholders for the existence that we hold, all the tumultuous experiences that do not seem to make any sense at all, all the places that we find ourselves so deeply buried in and that we can never seem to be able to retrace our steps from. We Matter.

• Gardening Love

  Posted: November 7, 2011, 2:49 pm by Administrator

  I heard someone talk about love over the weekend. He equated love to a seed that is planted in a garden. And he equated the work that goes into sustaining love into the labor that goes into nurturing a garden. For after the seed is put into the ground, it then has to be watered frequently, weeds have to be removed, it has to be pruned and taken care for in all other ways; until it flourishes and later blooms and produces seeds that can then produce more fruit of the same. What does that mean? That you can identify an act of love, but can never predict in the fullness of time, how powerful that single act will eventually be. Or in other words, you can count the number of seeds in an apple, but you can never count the number of apples in a seed.

• Cleaning Feet

  Posted: November 7, 2011, 12:20 pm by Administrator

  If you grew up in a village in Kenya, you probably remember the many games that you played with other children. You probably also remember that shoes used to be a Sunday affair, and so most of the time you were bare feet. And at the end of the day the feet would be dirty from trotting around all day – especially on rainy days. And the children would gather around their mother at the fireplace and start dozing on their tiny seats immediately after supper. However, it was a requirement that everyone had to wash their feet before going to bed. And the mother would warm the water and pour it in a plastic basin for each of her children to wash their feet. After each feet washing, the filthy water in the basin would be thrown out and the mother would pour more warm water for the next child to wash their feet.

  For anyone who would not wash their feet before going to bed, it was just a matter of time before they were attacked by jiggers. If they still didn’t clean up, the jiggers would multiply, so much so that the pain in the feet would make it impossible for a child to play with others.

  Now that we are grown up, we spend the whole day in our places of work, and when we go back home in the evening, our minds are muddied from all the negativity that we pick up and accumulate in the course of the day. After we eat our dinner and we start to feel drowsy, do we take a few moments to rid ourselves of all that negativity? A prayer will do, and so will some meditation. Journaling will do and so will some reading. Conversing with a loved one will do and so will listening to some soothing music.

  When the mind is not cleansed of negativity often, one is bound to develop conditions that prevent them from doing the things that they would otherwise enjoy to do. And just as that child who did not wash his feet will look at others longingly as they play and tell himself, “I cannot play with them, I don’t want to get hurt”, the grown up who did not rid themselves of negativity will say to themselves, “I cannot do that again, I don’t want to get hurt!”

  Any pain – physical or psychological – directs us to the parts of our selves that we have neglected – or that we should pay more care for. Like the feet of the little boy that played all day in the mud need to be washed every evening, this is the part of us that needs to be looked after often.

• Being A Witness

  Posted: November 5, 2011, 12:49 pm by Administrator

  This morning, I thought about playfulness and being serious. I realize that at some point in our existence, we become so focused in our work and in tweaking our lives that the many things that used to matter years before seem to just fade in the background. The appreciation of simple things like little walks in nature and silly laughter with friends just seem to take a back seat. Once in a while when we meet someone that makes us laugh out loud, we do not even seem to recognize that sound. It usually is such a long time since we laughed!

  I suppose we become serious for a good reason. Maybe we realize that life is too short and we need to put in more effort in getting to wherever our vision guides us. Or maybe we decide that for us to make a difference in the world, we need to become more focused in the things that we do. Of course that usually means more input in the office or even spending evenings with a laptop at home. Or maybe going back to school. Things like love and romance are forcefully forgotten and we get on with our busyness of life. This is despite the fact that we might already be in a relationship.

  But I suppose what we really want to know is that at the end of the day, we will leave our mark in the world and that our existence counts for something. I suppose everyone unconsciously wants to leave one of those big marks that people neatly carve in exotic places that they visit that say, “Bob was here!” And if we could be totally frank; on the day of our funeral, we would be glad to see a huge crowd of people that would pay glowing tribute to our lived life as they see us off fondly. While in the throes of these morbid fantasies, I suppose that makes us feel like we could then rest in peace.

  Once in a while, one comes across another person that they let into their lives. And as each day unfolds and is filled with the normal activity of life, the two people realize that they have become each others’ witness in life. If I tell my partner about my day and about my perspectives and about my aspirations without being afraid of being judged, and if I can listen to my partner in the same way, then we become witnesses to each other. In time we allow ourselves to be known by the other. So much so that if we were to be told something that is not true about the other, one would not hesitate to say, “That is not him” of “That is not her” Why? “Because I know him” or “Because I know her”. And if they were to learn about your deep secrets they would already have heard about them from you.

  With a witness to tell your story, you do not need to engrave “Bob was here!” in a far away land among strangers that are also looking for a blank space in which to make their personal “Bob was here!” – sometimes even writing over where others have already written. For you know that every day of your life matters. And through the eyes of another, perhaps you can truly see what they see in you, and understand that you are enough.

• Letting The Sun Shine

  Posted: November 4, 2011, 11:08 am by Administrator

  Do you remember the last time you saw a break in the clouds? I would describe it as that moment that when in the midst of a long period of gray skies, a tiny window opens from above and the sun shines through for just a little while. Each time that I have seen a break in the clouds, I always marvel at how much beauty can come through in a moment. It usually happens right before your eyes, just when it is least expected. Be you engrossed in busyness or not, you cannot ignore it. In fact it takes up all your attention.

  A break in the clouds makes it look like sunshine is raining from the skies. For once you look and the rays of the sun are golden yellow, just as they painted them in the kids story books. In such moments, I always think that this is how the glory of God would look like…like this is an appropriate staircase for Jesus to walk down to earth from heaven. If someone was to blow a trumpet loudly at that particular moment, I just might take off in panic! Other times, it feels like this was the exact moment that Elijah ascended into heaven on board a chariot of flaming horses. And I can almost hear the clatter of hooves and the neighs as the horses gallop upwards. But then I wonder, why would hooves make any sound if the horses are in the air?

  The thing about the break in the clouds is that it is fleeting…just for a moment, and then it is gone. It leaves us with a sigh of wonder and eyes that have seen something majestic. And even when the clouds close once again and we are back to the gray, we cannot feel the gloom, for we have been seduced by something heavenly. One cannot help but look forward to the day when the clouds clear and the sun comes shining through – not through a window, but from all of God’s great sky.

  Let the sun shine!

• Smell The Flowers

  Posted: November 3, 2011, 6:42 pm by Administrator

  I remember the day that I climbed the Ngong Hills. The Ngong Hills comprise of a series of peaks that make up the ridge. In order to go across, you have to climb each one of these individual hills. When you start off at the first one, you do not see the second hill until you get to the top of the first one. And you do not see the third hill until you get to the top of the second one. Each time you get to the top of each individual hill, you realize that the next one is even higher and steeper. And for you to climb the next hill, you have to go downhill to the bottom as if to start all over again!

  If going through life is like going across the Ngong Hills ridge, then the peaks are the highs that we experience in terms of achievement or success. On the other hand the troughs are the disappointments of failure and disillusionment that we encounter once in a while. But what does it all mean? It means that when you are at the trough of the 4th hill, you most probably are higher than if you were at the top of the first hill. It also means that when you are at a low, you are at the right place in order to taste your next victory; as they say, you can only go up.

  In life, we all are all ploughing through the hills. As you move across your Hills, take time to smell the flowers.

• Be Free

  Posted: November 1, 2011, 8:08 am by Administrator

  This morning on radio, a woman was telling a story about a man who walked into a wild animal sanctuary and witnessed a scene that puzzled him. There was a young elephant that was standing still in one spot oblivious to the fact that all the other elephants were frolicking around happily having a good old time. The man thought that the young elephant was sick or there was something wrong with it and so he enquired from the keeper about why the elephant was so deprived of joy in the land of merry.

  “Why does the young elephant look so miserable, stuck in the same spot, while all the others are free and seem so uninhibited?” He asked. To which the keeper told him that when elephants are very young, they are usually tethered to a short rope in order to keep them from wandering off and getting lost. But even though it had been a while since the tether was removed, the young elephant hadn’t recognized that it was now free and was still standing on the same spot and couldn’t make any moves.

  What is it that holds us back from the things that really add value into our lives? What is the string that holds me back from the things that are important to me? What is it that holds you back from making that step that will take you towards the things that you want? Probably ghosts of people that lost their positions of authority over us years ago or shadows of events that seemed so momentous at the time. If we take a second look and see these phantoms for what they really are, we might realize that the set of eyes that we use to look this time around is completely different from the one that we used the first time. And we will most likely see differently…probably start by illuminating through the haze with the light of truth.

  Be free.

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes