Guest Writer: Vivian Nyambura

I’ve known Vi for a couple of years now. I honestly can’t remember how we became friends but it’s just one of those things that happen.
Back when my ‘creative space’ was a diary, she would squiggle ( let the records show that her squiggling looked better than mine did) her ‘response’ or ‘continuation’ to my ‘post’ . I found it in my heart to forgive her. Time after time. After time after time.

Anyway, I invited her to be my first guest blogger and without further verbosity….

John 18:37-38
…so the other night I was reading the
Bible… What me reading the Bible!!?
Yes, Catholics are notorious for laxity in individual Bible reading…as much as some of us may do the structured readings…(structured readings: bible
verses from old testament, new
testament and psalm assigned to each day. Depending on the time of year there could be no old testament reading, but instead one from the writings of the early Christians, basically anything after the Gospel..ESP Acts and
the Epistles) No, excuses people…Read
your Bible and pray everyday, if you
want to grow! (Sunday school 101….for those of us who actually stayed in class and didn’t run away to look see what people are doing in Big church)

…so I was reading through the period
when Jesus was presented to Pilate and
made a few footnotes I’d like to share.
*let’s all get our Bibles’ out…chapter 18…we’ll start from verse 28…* The scene starts early in the morning…if we kumbuka…Jesus was arrested usiku
while praying…now the priests brought Jesus to the palace but did not want to get in for fear of making themselves
unclean before the Passover…

Footnote one: ROUTINE
If you’ve ever gotten so used to routine you do it on auto pilot and eventually get bored with it. The same thing over and over. It’s like eating mbosho everyday mpaka you can no longer stand the sight or scent of it without
throwing up. Some of these routines we imposed on ourselves…others are built on tradition.
During a sermon a
priest asked, “____why bother with
traditions you don’t believe in?” his point was not that we give up those traditions all together but to reexamine our reasons for doing them. In this way we know which to keep and which to get rid of. When we remember why we do things and what
they stand for, we become renewed. The routined life seems like something new. When we find ourselves in that dull moment in our faith, we become
like the priests following a tradition of purification while in our hearts our souls are decaying in the filth of our morality and/or lack of faith. We need to reinvent ourselves. Find out where our heart is and how to get it moving
back on track.

…so Pilate asks them what fault Christ had committed and they don’t state outright but allude to the fact that he did something punishable by death.
Pilate knows that this is an internal matter and questions their unwillingness to try Him themselves.
This is when they state that they are not allowed to put anyone to death.

Footnote two: BY-STANDER

Have you ever been in those situations where you know you should speak up but you quietly pretend that nothing is wrong and console yourself that you probably couldn’t have done much?
SHAME ON ME! I am the
Chair of that camp. How do I get myself kicked out of the club? I SPEAK UP…the BY-STANDER dilemma is that if you speak up you’ll be rubbing people you
don’t want to mess with the wrong
way…but if you don’t you are part of the injustice. You are the one hurting that person. If you watch enough cop shows…then you know who an accessory is…(accessory is a person
who aided in the injustice
conducted)…if you want the injustice to end, you’ve got to do sometinng aboutit.
Martin Luther said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of their enemies but the silence of their friends”
…but be careful with your
words….don’t get into a verbal war.
Your aim is to stop the injustice not prove that you are an aggressive arguer (yes, it’s a word)!Also, do not wait for someone to come and get things done for you. Be the conductor of your life.
THIS THING IS GETTING LONG TO
SOMA…we take a break here for all non-readers like myself and resumelater!

We resume, Pilate is in this fix where he’s been given someone to kill and he doesn’t know why this man needs to die. So he
asks “are you king of the Jews?” Jesus replies with a question (my fam hates when I do that)whether Pilate wants to know AMA he heard it from people.Pilate goes all like he is not a Jew, the Jewish leaders are the ones who letad Him yet he doesn’t know what His guilty of! Jesus talks about His
kingdom being not earthly. So Pilate isconfident that he must be a king then.
Jesus then answers him that Pilate calls him a king yet He came here on earth only to speak about the TRUTH…whoever belongs to this truth listens to Him!
And now we get to the reason of this 1000-paged blogost. “And what is truth?”

Footnote last: TRUTH HURTS

What is the truth about you? The
spiritual you, that is? Where do you stand in your faith? What Is keeping you from being fully committed to God?
What are you going to do about it?
These are really hard questions, huh?(they were hard for me at least) the truth HURTS. No one likes to hear it! We want to hear that God will give us big
bucks, and it will be raining milk and honey ( I’ve never gotten the buzz about milk and honey)! We don’t want to imagine that our whole lives could be baptism by fire. That we should embrace suffering. I won’t lie, teachings
tend to be harsh and seemingly gloomy when you don’t get them. No one wants to hear that you won’t get to heaven because of ABC…but we NEED to hear it. Once we know the truth, we
know the way forward!
The cool part is that we are not alone in this (God throws in amazing people in your lives to help transform you and answer your billions of questions…) We
take a stand. Are we for life in Christ or not?(not may be seemingly easier..but
its really the suckiest life) We just needto trust God that it won’t be an empty lonely battle. He will be there until the end (with all His love, mercy, patience..everything you’ll need) cz that’s how He
rolls!

Vivian Nyambura

Two Idiots

“I knew it from the moment I met you. I had always hated how people would say that and chalked it off as total nonsense. Until it happened to me. I thought I was never going to meet someone I could… connect with. I was going to be the girl who couldn’t commit and I had come to terms with it. Almost, anyway. Then you happened and messed everything up!
I had never felt anything like that before. You were … the guy I had been waiting for and I was insanely happy. For all the two minutes it took before I met her, I was living the dream! Then it turned into a nightmare. You were happy with her. I saw it as clear as day and I knew we were never going to happen. I convinced myself that I had imagined it all; the chemistry. So what if we lived next door to each other?!  We could be friends. Neighbourly friends. I didn’t even know you! All I knew was that your smile drove me crazy, your eyes were the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen.( Yes, beautiful. I know guys hate that but its true! Like a cows eyes.) and you saw me for who I really was.
You would probably end up being an egotistical jerk anyway.

How I wish you had been an egotistical jerk cause then we wouldn’t be where we are today!  Why did you have to perfect?? Why couldn’t you have been a disappointment like all the others?? Why? Why? Why did you make me fall in love with you?!

I really wish I hadn’t met you. Because then I wouldn’t be feeling the pain I feel right now. No, I’m not blaming you. How could I? Its not like I’ve been the most upfront about my feelings in the last year that I’ve know you.
All I’m saying is that I’m happy for you -and her. I hope you have a lovely marriage. But please understand that I can’t do this anymore. I’m your best friend and I know I’m hurting you, but understand this.; My staying and watching you start a life with her would kill me. I now how selfish that sounds! Believe me, I do. But this is goodbye.”
Tears had trailed down her flaming cheeks and down her neck to wet the front of her shirt. But she couldn’t take her eyes off him. He sat at the chair behind the desk, his eyes never meeting hers. She knew she’d probably made a huge mess of it all but she had said what she’d come to say.
She picked her coat and bag from the seat in front of her and made for the door.
She heard him stand up and she paused, her hand on the door handle.
“Why?”
She felt her defenses rise and was just about to explode when he said, ” Why didn’t you say this sooner? “

Perfectly Imperfect

Perfection. We scour the earth in its wake. Each of us yearning for just a glimpse of it, thinking that its sight would quench the quivering thirst we bury within. But it doesn’t. Instead, it leads to another journey, the hunger having grown, it drives us to the edge of sanity. Reality fades into a hazy existence and in our dreams, we come alive.
‘If we only had that perfect thing’… ‘If we only had that perfect thing’…

The perfect job, the perfect house,
The perfect moment, the perfect boss,
The perfect girl, the perfect guy,
The perfect cake, the perfect flower,
The perfect body, the perfect hair,
The perfect skin tone, the perfect smile,
The perfect score, the perfect words at the perfect moment, 
‘If we only had that perfect thing, our lives would be …perfect? ‘

There is no such thing as a perfect life. Perfection is a mirage and can never truly be achieved. Chasing the wind is all it is.

There’s no such thing as a perfect life, but there is such a thing as a happy life. Your best memories won’t be of times when things went exactly as planned. They’ll be when everything went terribly wrong but you couldn’t seem to gasp for air as you laughed.

Hospital Blues

I’m sitting in a hospital waiting room waiting for my blood test results. They have the AC cranked up so high, I’m wondering why I didn’t carry a sweater. Oh yeah! Maybe its that tiny fact that this is Mombasa, known for its sweltering temperatures.
I’m not big on hospitals. Never have been. I’ve been here now and again for the occasional flu and then there was the time I landed on a glass. No, not glass as you have thought to be grammatically correct. A Glass. In a sentence, ‘a glass of water’.
Long story short, I jumped from the second bunk and crushed a glass under my foot.

I remember sobbing in the waiting room and having folks hold me down as the pieces of glass were being removed. To date, I get a sick feeling in my stomach every time I enter that wing.

I can literally count the number of times I have gone to see a doctor alone ( this clocks 2). My mum actually asked my dad if I’m still young enough to see a paediatrician….. no Mum, I’m not. I suppose I should feel all grown up now with neither of my parents flanking my side, but I don’t. I just feel cold and hungry.