Some of the Things He Said on Good Friday

vipslit@yahoo.ca / vipadhiambo@gmail.com

My Ringed Fingers

“What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?“
Jesus Christ in Mark 8:36-37

This evening, I was distractedly looking at my fingers contemplating the two rings that I wear very rarely these days. Gold. Yes. I have two golden rings. One a broken circle with four stones on my ‘wedding finger’, the other on my ‘God finger’ – same finger on my right hand – a beautiful delicate piece graced with a heart at its center. I once tried to sell them…during dire times, but the lady who I had been told buys gold would not buy them. She said what she could give me for them would not be worth the effort. Besides. she had already gone over her limit for buying used jewelry for the day. I was looking at those rings today, or rather last night, against the very soft light at Southfield Mall and just thinking how beautiful they were – in this light.

My thoughts wandered off, and I remembered some really valuable loops I once owned. Gold. Pure gold. Very high quality. One of the only two pairs of real gold earrings I have ever owned. My favorite – the other pair broke where it cannot be worn again, and a piece of it got lost during the myriad house evictions my household has lived through. I wore them all the time, everywhere, so much that I forget how valuable they were, and how dangerous wearing some of those things in some of ‘these places’ could be. So, one day, I was on the way to a place that I had never been, for the wedding of one of my brothers in Love. I think that was the day I tried to sell my rings. I dont know what happened to me when I left that shop but I was not as alert as I usually am while walking. I notice EVERYTHING without lifting my head or seeming to look around. My friend and current walk partner Ps. Anne likes to joke about me, that I should be FBI or some high-level spy. I laugh nervously when she says that…I actually see more than most people would be comfortable with my noticing. But thankfully, I forget quickly…or to be more accurate, forgive with alacrity. Life is too short to carry EVERYTHING you find with you all the way. But…back to what I was really saying. I got a little distracted after leaving that lady’s shop. I wanted to sell the rings so I could get a present for my in-law, as well as transport to and from the wedding and still feed my household when I got home. So, when I found I could not, I tucked them into my handbag and walked about a really densely populated portion of Kenya, praying for a miracle.

Suddenly, it felt as though a friend was hugging me from behind while tugging playfully at my ears. Then there was a sudden release and in the two or so seconds it took me to turn around, I saw a young boy, about 10 years old at most running away from me. I realized that he had been tugging at my earrings and had managed to get one off and that it was in his hands. I thought about screaming for help from the public…but at the same time I remembered my own very difficult pregnancy journeys, and my own pain in the labor wards. I looked at his fleeing back and wondered if I would ever wear that earring, if I had to pick it up from a pool of his blood after the public had dealt with him. I wondered about his mother…and her own labor pains. So, I stood and watched him run from death, from danger, from consequences, from me – his victim. I absentmindedly took off the other earring and a witness who had been standing near me as though he had NOT noticed the whole thing, stepped up to me and informed me that there were shops near there that bought gold to melt and resell. He suspected that that was where the young lad was headed, and I could try to trace his steps and buy my earring back before it was melted. My feet followed his advice. I forgot that even if I found that earring, I had no money to buy it back. I did not even have money at that time to get back home. At the end of my footsteps, I managed to sell my remaining loop for about 3,000/. Kenya shillings. Almost a hundred times less than it was worth in cash and incomparably less than it meant to me overall.

I am thinking about this today because it just occurred to me how much we take for granted what is truly precious, because it’s always there for us, with us. Until the day we loose a portion of it, and have to negotiate with God in public, over the cost of getting it back versus letting it belong to someone else. Someone to whom it may not mean much beyond a few thrills, and who would discard what was attached to your life for a set of pebbles…in less than a heartbeat. What’s your story so far in this regard. Let’s not loose anymore…what we will still mourn over, decades later. Look at who/what you have in the soft and True Light of Who God is. Perhaps, and I hope, He will birth in you a renewed appreciation of what He has given you, that is RIGHTLY UNLIKE WHAT HE HAS GIVEN ANOTHER.

Shalom. Do have a blessed week.

vipslit@yahoo.ca / vipadhiambo@gmail.com

God…Seemingly

Sometimes…we look down on a person because of our seemingly elevated positions above them…and God remains seemingly silent…unmoved by their pain even.

Sometimes we betray them, [and because they are spirit too they know it] because we sit in forums where it seems okay to break their confidences and twist what we know about them in the worst ways possible…and God remains seemingly silent…seemingly unmoved by their pain even.

Sometimes…we reward their smiles with scorn because something happened in our lives and another in theirs that sets us up as seemingly superior. Sometimes…we are privileged to see their need…even of us…and we gleefully walk away…because that is the plan with those that we know hate them…and it seems that we are LOVED BECAUSE THEY ARE HATED…like we are RICHER BECAUSE THEY ARE POORER… like we are IN BETTER BECAUSE THEY ARE AT THE BOTTOM…where we believe they will stay forever. We keep our ties with them…because we are determined to do ALL WE CAN to keep them at a disadvantage, because we SINCERELY ARE CONVICTED that their DOOM IS FOR OUR GLORY…

And God remains seemingly silent…seemingly approving by this posture, of our antiques…seemingly unmoved by their pain and our relentless onslaught over them.

I wonder sometimes…why we waste our energies, beating at those that we are TRULY CONVICTED CAN NEVER RISE FROM THE POSITION IN WHICH THEY ARE BURIED. Us and our company. Are we really convinced of what we tell ourselves over them…or is our back and forth, to collect information by which they can be kept down, also a sign that we don’t TRULY BELIEVE that ANYTHING can keep them down permanently, and we hope that they are fooled enough by our smiles, and fake geniality towards them, that in their EVENTUAL rising and TRANSFIGURATION, we would have carved ourselves a position as their ONLY FRIEND?

They know…. they know…from their position beneath us…they are better placed to see our nakedness…and it’s probably the filth they see…and smell, or the fact that God lies there with them…holding them still…that they too remain silent…and allow us to go as far as we believe we can…as we stand over them.

God seems silent, unmoved, uncommunicative, powerless, unloving…far removed today…

But CAN HE REALLY BE?

Shalom.

vipslit@yahoo.ca / vipadhiambo@gmail.com

AFTER I AM WORN OUT – THE FALLACY OF ASSOCIATING INCREASED AGE WITH DECREASED BEAUTY

I want to start this with a disclaimer: Although in my youthful days, I may have felt, and perhaps honestly looked like a full-stop in the company of…about all my female friends, I don’t think I was that bad to behold. In fact, I think I was beautiful too. At the end of the sentence/line, but beautiful too. Don’t protest – I know who my friends were and how they looked. Exquisite. The truth though, is that I did not feel beautiful. Not really. I was going through a lot then as well, that did not really affirm me – and although I thankfully, took many, many photographs…it was mainly because I believed I looked far better in them than I did in real life. I am extremely photogenic. Without filters. Extremely…so when you look at a photo of me, especially on a ‘good day’, and you are perhaps thinking, if you are male, of directing our association another way, please…ask God to lend you His ALL-SEEING EYES for a minute . Ahem. I actually look much better from His perspective.

I will be back to me, but let me talk about a lady that has totally inspired me. Sarah Abraham – the matriarch of Israel. Both the half-sister and wife of Abraham. A beautiful woman. Barren in the days when she was considered a great beauty…until perhaps past her 70s. A woman who kings could kill to try elevate to the role of their Queen. Today though, God led me to her story in Genesis 17-18. Just before her story changed. I don’t know if in her youth, despite being constantly reminded of just how exquisite she was by her fearful husband, Sarah ever felt beautiful. She fell short in perhaps the perceptively key role of a woman in her day – that of being a mother. She elevated another woman into her marriage; a young, probably not as beautiful woman to surrogate her divine role in the foundations of her nation, and this woman and later her offspring, mocked her for being infertile. She must have known she was beautiful…and fearfully loved by the most important male, pre-Isaac, in her life. I don’t know if post-Hagar, Abraham lost his vigor and awe at the beauty of Sarah…the passion by which he had placed her in a pedestal from which he would knock her off and hide her identity at the whiff of a threat (O…Abraham and I will probably have to have a candid conversation over this one in eternity. This is one of the stories that absolutely traumatizes me in the scriptures…but well…let me not stray here.) Sarah thinks something here [Genesis 18:12] that just broke my heart today…and probably God’s in her day: ““AFTER I AM WORN OUT and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?” [NIV] HOW NOW? How could she think God Who had just changed her name to put it in Caps would be limited in fulfilling His promises to her, because of some human standard….? BECAUSE GOD – she did get that pleasure AGAIN. In spite of looking worn out, to herself. God You Are Good!

Back to me as I cease tearing down at Sarah and Abraham. Last Sunday, God dressed me up to attend Service at one of our local assemblies. I looked resplendent in Ivory. [Ok, some would say I was in white…but strictly speaking I was in a light ivory]. We had a prayer meeting to pre-dedicate our church sanctuary in the afternoon. After this powerful assembling of God’s people, I passed by our ‘local grocery’ to pick milk and bread and just browse through the aisles and plan for ‘next time I had money to shop’. An ‘old, old man’ [my extremely wounded perspective] approached me smiling as though we knew each other from somewhere. With my memory these days, it is possible we did. Anyway, when he was close to me he said to me with a dark smile “You are my agemate. Yes, you, you. You are my real agemate and we shall soon retire together.” I was…many things…at that exact moment…none of them good…but I probably presented him with a blank but calm look that belied the sudden increased turmoil inside me, and simultaneously decided that his drama could not afford to finance and heal me from the effects of a sudden hypertensive crisis. I walked away. Bemused. When I got to the cashier, a very young girl I asked her “Do I look old?” She was astounded and asked me “Why?” I told her about the ‘old, old man’ I had encountered along the aisles…she did not even smile. She looked at me and said to me. “No. You are beautiful. And you do not look old. That man probably was dealing with his own issues, so forget him.” I cant say I was sufficiently comforted by her words…because his words still rang louder in my mind. And…just…the…wondering why anyone could be that cruel to a stranger… Then I decided he must have been a demon made manifest to move me from the beautiful day I had just had. This comforted me as my thoughts went back to how God had showed up for us.

Still, every time I have seen myself since, particularly through the lenses of my phone camera, I have wondered why I look so old. Perhaps I met with a wizard who cast a spell on me. Not nice. Perhaps, it’s because this year begun, and has prevailed for me with a thoroughly broken heart and it’s probably showing on my face, though it [the heartache] has become for me, one of my closest companions. I don’t know…rejection can cloud one’s lenses, right? But I have been extra critical of myself, even more, since. Not very honoring to God The Artist Who created me. Right? I repent.

Suddenly it hit me – just a few minutes ago: So what? Why would it bother me whether I looked young or old? What would God want for me, that I would be barred from, based on how I or others assessed me with regard to my looks? Why have I associated youth with beauty and age with…errr…less beauty (let’s not even think that word please )? I think I look better now, to be honest, than I have ever looked. Maybe it’s the shackles that anchored the thick veils over my eyes on ‘Ugly Bay’ that have fallen off…but I feel lighter inside…even in spite of the things happening that should make me otherwise. I have no immediate answers to this complex question that plagues my oft inquiring mind. This post is actually more for me to consider five years from today, when I have come to my fullness of true beauty and need to testify to God’s Goodness. But also, for you. Be beautiful/handsome at whatever age you are. However you look. Even if someone foolishly puts ‘old, old’ before your definition because you rubbed them rather roughly upon your first meeting . You ARE BEAUTIFUL. And whether or not you feel it or look it, WILL NOT LIMIT GOD FOR BLESSING YOU AS EXTRAVAGANTLY AS HE LONGS TO DO.

Shalom my friend.

PS: I shared this post with my daughter and my 8-year old grandson. When I came back to the room they watched me awhile, smiling then:

Gio: Dani is not old. Sindiyo Mami? She is young.

Shukri: No Baba…Dani is not young.

Gio: I actually meant that her youth has been renewed, isn’t that right Mami?

Shukri: Yes, yes, yes Papa. That is accurate.

Dani (me) opens her arms and Gio rushes into them with a huge hug. We hold onto each other for about a minute. I dont know if its just me, but there is something about the hug of a child you love, that…strengthens one. Gio does that for me.

Shukri: Dani. You are beautiful. But you also look really sad these days. Dont worry about it though…it will pass. It will be well. It will be okay. Soon.

Dani: (holding back my tears) Amen dear. Amen. This too shall pass.

vipslit@yahoo.ca / vipadhiambo@gmail.com

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