Romans 8

You say that nothing can keep me from your love

But today as I

Spat on Harold’s ugly pimply face

Stole mother’s cakes and put on a chase

Sat on Tom to have life at my pace

I could not feel any further from your love.

You say that you see beyond sin

To a God who became man, who

Trotted the dusty, worldly streets

And slept in many a barn.

He who washed his follower’s feet

And preached salvation at every feast

So that you could call me son

You say that when this God-like Man

Hang himself on a tree

He rescued me

That when he declared, ‘It is finished!’

Indeed, it was finished.

And I, slave of the do’s and don’ts

Of the society

I, carrier of the yoke of shame and guilt,

Of frustration and betrayal,

Of the past, present and future,

I am free.

Yes, nothing can keep me from you,

Neither angels nor demons,

Neither the past nor the future,

Neither death nor life,

Nothing in all creation

Can separate us from the love

That is in Christ Jesus.

Love, Religion and Confusion

About a month ago my sister asked me whether I would date a man who didn't share the same religious beliefs as I did even if they had the same core values. I was completely certain that I couldn't. I argued that he couldn't have the same core values as I did if he wasn't a Christian. My sister was disappointed. My family has boasted to being the most open-minded family in Nairobi county, with the traveling and what-not, so this notion of mine seemed conservative and ridiculous. I just thought she couldn't get it because she doesn't subscribe to any religion.

Then I read The Obscure Logic Of The Heart. It's a story about a girl's struggle to reconcile her religious beliefs with her love for a man who doesn't share similar beliefs. I was taken on a journey where the couple had to make so many sacrifices and compromises in order to be together. The girl had to lie to her parents and was almost disowned by them, the guy had to tolerate the girl's indecisiveness. What mostly caught my attention was how the girl had to reconcile her beliefs (what her God thought of unbelievers- she was Muslim by the way) and her love for the 'heathen'. In a lot of ways she went against some of her principles, which I found a bit sad.

As I read the book I could help but ask whether I'd date boyfriend were he not a Christian. This was a tough question to answer after I put into perspective the depth of my feelings for him. I really do care about boyfriend and he is an great guy. But is it the religion that has made him who he is? Is it religion that has attracted me to boyfriend? I cannot say that it is religion that has fully attracted him to be. If that was the case, I would be attracted to many Christian boys. But there is an extent as to his love for God that has made me like him. I don't think I'll ever know. I will have to be in that situation to understand it. 

Anyway, I do love how the book ends:

Every conquest, loss or rejection leaves its trace. We love according to what the heart has been taught. We love in the shadow- sometimes benign, sometimes malevolent- of every disappointment, betrayal or fulfillment. We love- and no god can control the feeling or mitigate the consequences.

I guess the one thing that cuts across all of humanity is love. After objectively reading what I've just typed, it does make me squirm a but primarily because I believe that God is love and there is no way God would be against anyone loving another. That has been His mission since He created the world. And Paul in Romans 8:38-39 says it wonderfully:

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nothing To Call Our Own

At thirty seven we didn't have much.

Not even a baby was under our name.

Nyayo!

Njeri holds him. He sobs and cries out in pain like his limbs are being torn off his body, one by one. She holds him as he weeps in regret, as he shouts.  If there was sackcloth and ash nearby, she thinks, he would have worn it. He always was dramatic.

Nyayo! he had always said with a sort of manic passion; his fist hitting the table with force. Then he'd laugh uncontrollably. She had never understood why he had such a passion for that word. Maybe it reminded him of his father. Maybe he had gotten tired of hearing the children at school say it so many times, like it was their second name. But there had always been a strange fire in his eyes when he said nyayo. And Njeri had thought, hoped, that he'd join the Mwakenya group that she had heard Karanja had joined. They were her salvation, her only way to freedom.

She strokes his head, comforts him, and soothes him. She tries to tell him that it wasn't his fault, that all will be well. She tries to bring herself to say that they could escape to Tanzania, like all other exiles. But she can't. She holds him with her head turned away, holding back the bitterness and disgust that is ripping up a storm within her, that rocks them back and forth. All she wants is to turn off the broken record that is his voice, repeating the one word she couldn't stand him say: sorry.

Njeri looks at the man crying on her lap, streams of tears and mucus fall from his face to her once clean white dress. She wants to spit on his face. She wants to move him away and tell him to quit dirtying her dress, just as he has dirtied the nation. She wants to call him what he truly is: a monster. The grinch of independent Kenya! He was no longer her husband or the father of her children. He stopped being human the moment he confessed to being a torturer. He stopped being human when he became a murderer.

She never understood why he came home so late. Surely a headteacher at a primary school did not have so much work On many nights he would arrive and dash to the bathroom. Njeri would hear him retching his bowels out. He used to say that he was making room for Njeri's good cooking. At times she'd laugh, delighted that he loved her cooking. Other times she'd consider spiking his food with deworming medicine. Right now, as he sobbed uncontrollably, she thought that maybe it wasn't the cries of mourners that were the sound of death; maybe it was retching.

She had promised never to leave him. He had promised to follow in the footsteps of God and his father. Those had been their vows. Like Moses breaking the stone tablet, Njeri realised that they were breaking their vows, him holding one side of the stone and she the other. All because he has chosen to follow a different kind of nyayo.

Submission

He was always told that it was not in the beating of a woman that made her subservient; it was in the manipulation. Manipulation came in many forms, one just had to know which made a particular woman bend over backwards for you. He had chosen love- affirmation might be a better word- as his strategy.

And it worked. 

Christian

Dear Judgemental Freaks who don't think they're judgemental freaks just because they are 'open minded',

Christianity does not make me perfect. It is not some magic wand that instantly transforms me into the 'ideal Christian' you hear I should be.

It is patience. God holding my hand, gradually steering and moulding me into what He wants me to be.

I will make my fair share of mistakes. Please do not judge God by my flaws. He is everything but imperfect and evil.

God is neither male nor female. He is a being. God is good. He is Love. He is so much more than we can fathom.

I wish we could focus on this God.

PS I am sorry for calling you a judgemental freak. I feel bad about it now.

Yes, I will say it over and over again before I agree with anything you say. Or admit to your being right. Because, like you have said may times before, I have commitment issues. Answering in the affirmative is committing to doing as asked and saying whatever is needed and being whatever is demanded. It might also be losing to you.

It is also opening up. It is in a sense vulnerability.