TRAVELER'S MIND

"Daddy,,mummy, I wanna be a....when I grow up....." I am sure we are all familiar with this phrase cause at some point or another we were wanna be this, wanna be thats. Its the norm in any ones life to look ahead of time and to imagine what life has in store for us.
I don't know exactly what you wanted to be neither do I remember for certain what my mind was up to at the very early stages of my life.

Life events can be equated with a traveler's mind with every character that comes out of the nine month hide out acting as a traveler. The journey commences and with or without our knowledge, we start emancipating the excitement and thrill that lies ahead but lack the slightest clue of what exactly it is. It then becomes trial and error cause we face all sorts of environments, nurturing and counsel, ideas that compete to shape who we are in one way or another. In the course of our living, we interact with our master source of our identity as we search for temporary and permanent stops along the way. Its a journey where by the master decides when we stop and for how long.

One  influential organ that determines who we really are is the mind. Last week on 10th November, I traveled to Nairobi from  Mbale Uganda. I aint going to write in detail about the entire trip in terms of what I saw or experienced along the way to Nairobi. But for the travel maniacs, I might as well say in summary that the journey was fabulous. Uganda being a great land fascinated my eyes which were glued steadily outside the window for a big part of the trip. So did the land of all beauty, my motherland Kenya.

I happened to have landed the cherished any traveler's sitting position; next to the window just behind the front seats. This means I was guaranteed of all the exciting scenarios along the way from my favorite Wanale hill as you leave Mbale to the Tororo landmark hill. It was a breath taking view owing to the fact that I did not have any obstruction from my sitting point. To cap it all, sleep not being my number one friend during the day, I was hyper alert. The cool blowing fresh wind was swiftly finding its way into my nostrils heading for the lungs through the slightly opened window. Serenity was at least a part of me for long and I was enjoying an environment completely opposite to the one I am used to. Unlike the urban setting where hooting motorcycles, cars and lorries was the norm, this one was characterized by a monotonous roaring engine acting as a lullaby, soothing Benga tunes (as she calls them) from the stereo and the spacious view outside the grand bus. The driver who was an old mzee must have been a mind reader. I am not a follower of yoga though I greatly respect the practice but this was an opportunity worth giving it a shot. I was on a journey to paradise, one would think from my narration.

I was enjoying a momentary near heavenly bliss and my mind was at peace. My eyes were BUSY SPOTTING NOTHING in particular.  It was a state of peacefully relaxed body verses a preoccupied optical sense and generally busy mind.

The  last paragraph completely explains the title of my article; TRAVELER'S MIND. I can as well stop here because I have met a writer's number one objecting of making sense of his title to the reader. But then my conscience will never forgive me and my itchy fingers will be held to account by the supreme commander of the me; my mind. Mr brain dictates.

As my mind meandered with the direction the Uganda Roads Authority board dictated, I found myself thinking and trying to make sense of what I was seeing. I believe we have all been in a fast moving vehicle because we are in the 21st century where donkeys have had a chance to rest for a while with the coming of faster automobiles. At least that one I am sure because speaking as an African, we want to reach to our destinations faster though no one wants to be by the bus station on time. Furthermore, the faster the driver spins the wheels, the higher the chances of his children making it to college in this economic times. This also means the corrupt traffic officer will have something to take to his/her demanding boss.

With an almost flying automotive, the traveler's eyes normally have a hard time noting things close to it in detail. Everything seems to fly backwards at an alarming speed. That is a normal thing which I would have explained in detailed and sensibly if I had made it to the American Wing as the founders of this college at the University of Nairobi decided to name it. You will have to  understand it in my artistic perspective because the Joint Admission Board(JAB) decided to sharpen my artistic skills at the college of humanities and social sciences at the expense of the scientist in me. At this point, a good reader should have sensed and thanked the gods that he/she is already ahead of me in the flow of my narrative events.

This state of mental relaxation and partial activity thus acted as the centre of my comparison between the way we grow up wanting this and that some of which we cant access. As I stared outside the window, a number of things were running through my mind as my eyes were not idle either. From my sitting position,  people, vehicles, trees, buildings, unploughed farms were some of the sights that caught my attention.

The mind is so powerful. It has unlimited potential. There are so many ideas crisscrossing our minds that prove our potential. Some come as ideas which take time to mature. Others come as flashes which we rarely even grasp. As these objects passed the traveler, some could be identified but some could not. What fascinated me is that items or objects from a far off distance were clearly identified.  I likened this to things that take time to mature in our minds and end up defining who we are. These could be the clear ideas which pop up and are build on with time thus giving us an identity. On the other hand, the unidentifiable close objects were to me the daily ideas that pop up but are never emphasized or built on. Its like the idea that comes to you;" I think I can sing" but with time you realize a croaking frog is in a better position to lure a child to sleep than you.

Early in life, I thought I would be a doctor. Not that this was my dream career. It was what every other kid at least wanted to be when they came of age. This was more so emphasized by the little priviledge of acting the family doctor when my parents were away. Coming from a BIG family, my parents had entrusted me with the key to the pain killers cabinet. Thus I could prescribe the basic dose for a head ache, cough and a bruised knee. That was a young lad whose environment wanted a doctor our of him.
But was I at my end? No. I was only beginning the traveler's mind safaris. Am I a doctor now, NO. The journey had just started.

We all have our own stories to tell. A good majority of us are not doing what they had  thought they will ever be doing. Some had been into courses they never practiced latter in life. Some joined careers to please their parents. Life is a journey we travel trying to find who we really are and what we were meant to be. Our purpose. Our destiny. Our mind is our guide. We think of so many ideas which only serves to guide our search but does not necessarily guarantee our destiny. After all life is one long journey. Others landed job offers totally opposite what they studied for and this became their life. They found themselves. Their found destiny accidentally.

At the teenage and the early adult hood stage of life, the mind does not go to sleep. Music, theatre and performing arts excite us. We aspire to perform physical wonders and be the greatest athletes. Although the likes of Maurice Green, Marion Jones, Paul Tergat, Rudisha, Jelimo, Lebron James,  among others made it in this industry and some how found a worth while stop, others have to move on. Some opt for music. These get carried away by rock bands, the likes of Linkin Park. Reggae fans like me loved and still love Bob Marley, while the benga fans like Ole fall for the DRC land. Hip hop and RnB does not spare others. Tupac, DMX, Scarface, Nas, T.I become our icons at some point in life. Soul, classical and the Hollywood movie idols; Brad Pit, Denzel, the Angelinas pull us making us think we are the next big thing in the celebrity world.This is normal at that point in life. After all we are only traveling as we are a traveler's mind.

Then enter Daddy, Mummy and their lecturers before the real college lectures. " Son, I want you to be this and that" " Honey I want you to be a doctor/nurse/teacher/social worker/ lawyer name it,,, because of this and that" We might do as they say but then we have our own minds which latter catches up with us. You will run but eventually your destiny is catches up with you. It might take forever, some unnecessary stops as you travel the road. Keep traveling.

I am not writing my autobiography because I am yet to make an impact in this big world. Did I get it wrong? I don't know. I thought only the big, the great and the mighty who have seen and conquered, been there done it and have testimonies to share with the world write their life stories. I could be wrong because a young ambitious man walked into GNPI Mbale studios the other day with an intention of putting his life story in the limelight through media. So I can as well go ahead and talk about my journey trying to find myself.

Just to save you the positive pain of laughing to the tales of another interesting Muturi life travels in search of a ME, God helped me make it to college where I did arts. It has been a long journey. Many interesting stops came my way. Mark you I never planned to take Arts in college though I latter realized this is the best stop I could have ever made. But that's me. You have your own journey. This was one of the best experiences in my journey. My brief four year stop is coming to an end and on 3rd Dec, I will be taking what God has enabled me achieve. I don't have any regrets whatsoever and it clearly appears to me that it was a worth stopover.

In case you have forgotten, I am still a traveler. My mind is still busy looking around for the next thing to do. I fancy sitting by the bus stop cause that is where I belong. My favourite book is in my hand. I have already said my prayers. God knows where I am headed next.  I am sure when the time is right, the next bus that comes to a halt will be the one to take me there and just in case you have forgotten, I AM A TRAVELER.

After all life is one big journey where we travel blindly with the mind serving as a walking stick.
Dear traveler, you have just boarded Mind Airways flight number....Welcome aboard. Its the traveler's mind.

WHICH GOD?

The word God has been equated by the majority of human beings, Christians in my case to a singular being who is either the sole, one and only deity in monotheism. God is most often conceived of as the supernatural creator of the heavens and earth, the creator of both the living and the unliving.

The other day, i heard my brother spelling our his dreams and aspiration for life. What left me smiling is his emphasis of which God He was talking about. Not that i even asked him or that he read my mind. No. He just said.." I pray that the God who made the heavens and Earth may answer the desires of my heart" Not that i am praising him or making him seem the best of Christians. No. This just left me wondering how many times people call on god who may not necessarily be the Supreme.

In various contexts, the use of the word may not necessarily mean the God you think of as a Christian. This is especially so owing to the inability to pronounce a capital letter different from a small letter. What does this mean to me as an individual? One can say " Praise God" but mean " Praise god" I am certain that the two phrases sound more of the same if said unconsciously without emphasizing one more than the other.

The word is used by nearly every religious gathering to mean some deity believed to be their head.
What interests me is the knowledge that our words alone cannot take us to Heaven. The bible says not everyone who calls my name will inherit the kingdom. Thus christians are known by the kind of fruits they produce.

Yes we are saved by the grace of God and i also agree that not by our might or actions do we redeem ourselves but by confessing that Jesus is Lord and Saviour, Son of the Living God and the atonement for our sins.
I thank God because its like He knew how the word "God" may be misused thus He sends His son Jesus to be our way to the father.

I have heard of testimonies of people who have joined churches, religious groups and gatherings thinking that these were the true Godly groupings only to be surprised when called upon to sacrifice their loved ones or partake in some weird rituals. Their are millions of religious faiths with not so  clear beliefs, rituals, doctrines but still they claim to be followers of the one "God/god"

Test the fruits before its too late. The bible is the sieve through which we know truth which sets us free.

FAITH, TRUST AND MIRACLES

Disclaimer; this is not a sermon but an article inspired by an incident that happened lately. Not that my trust or faith can move mountains but I picked my lost item (sim card/line) from a busy road somewhere I did not expect weeks after it had got lost. That to me was an odd event which latter I classified as a miracle. Although I trust God to do wonders as He has always done, the incident got me thinking. Others may call that fate or coincidence but I attributed it to God.

I have been planning to write on faith/trust for quite some time. I did have the skeleton but for some time the flesh was missing until recently. Some incidences that happen in our lives offer an excellent platform to communicate and hear from God. This only happens when we are open in the inside to hearing His somehow faint voice that can be heard by only a few. 

 I don’t expect it to be easy hearing God’s faint voice when our life is bombarded by all sorts of hustles, struggles, trials, hardships, sounds, voices, sites and echoes. But even in such environments, God still talks to us in various ways when we get out of, beat or grow above our hustles and meditate. This explains why the ancient prophets and gurus would leave the society and exclude themselves in search of the divine voice. It is faint. God does not stand on the tallest building in town and talk loudly to us. He whispers.

Miracles are all over for those who see them. God speaks to us more often than we can imagine. The question is do we understand His language? 

I have not been very sure on whether to tackle my article from the faith point of view or the trust perspective. The two have been close to synonyms as far as I am concerned. But then I realize that wisdom demands that we bite what we can chew which means I must narrow down to manageable quantities. I still want to go against the grains and force faith and trust to be twin brothers and for the gender sensitive reader, twin sisters from the same mother. I again want to link them to miracles. One may be asking how Faith, Trust and Miracles are related.

What is faith and what is trust anyway? While in high school, one of my friends would encourage me after sitting a tough exam paper that faith is putting all your eggs (read- answer booklets) in God’s basket and counting the blessings (read A’s) before they hatch (read- before they are marked) The little understanding I had then of the word was that faith implied total surrender of my fate to a powerful being who would make things work out.

I can’t tell if I was wrong in my belief then but I can attest that miracles did happen when the going was tougher than I could manage. I remember relatively “good” grades coming from nowhere. Was that faith moving mountains or was I just being optimistic and hoping for the best which pulled the grades my way? The latter might not be true cause we all hope for the best though not everyone have their hopes actualizing or materialize. I at the same time don’t imply that I am a modern day father of faith. All the same, I strongly believe God sends a miracle once in a while with a precondition that we first trust His ability to pull one from the blues.

Going by some online definitions, faith involves a concept of future events or outcomes, and is used for something not resting on logical evidence. This is the confident belief, trust or expectancy of good things to happen in the near or distant future. Informally the word faith may be used in place of trustbelief. One of my childhood favorite pastor would put it in Swahili;   “ Imani ni baina ya matendo yasiowezekana kwa wanadamu bali kwa Mungu yanawezekana.” Translation-  “Faith works in things/situations that are beyond human beings but possible with God”

Trust on the other hand connotes a transparent communication as a foundation for building relationships. A sense of safety and a comfort is present in the interpersonal interaction. Trust is sufficient in God –Man vertical relationship. Man trusts God to cater for his needs and ensure all is well. Trust means I delegate everything to you because I know you are better placed to handle things my way than another I do not trust.

My next assignment will be to define a miracle. Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy defines a miracle (from the Latin mirari, to wonder), an event that is not explicable by natural causes alone. It can also be something beyond the reach of human action and natural causes. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature.

First, we might be forced to examine the ingredients behind the occurrence of a miracle. One of these is the magician or miracle performer. The second component is the recipient or beneficiary of the miracle. Another important thing to note in our analysis is the relationship between the two. You will realize that the two have a vertical relation. This in simple terms is that one is above the other. The magician is considered more powerful and the recipient looks up to him/her for wonders he himself/herself cannot do or perform. Thus their relation is somehow trust oriented. One is powerful and can do what the other cannot. The weaker party surrenders to the one thought to be sturdy.

How does the miracle occur? This is my assumption; In the secular setting, one may be forced to pay for the miracle thus on his part, the magician responds appropriately. On the other hand, God responds to those who trust in his ability to do the unexpected. This in relative terms, prayer, faith and trust acts as the currency for a miracle to come ones way. ie to the believer.

Up to that point, it’s clear beyond doubt that miracles thrive in an environment where trust (read faith/ belief) and ability are present. This is the case both in the secular and religious world. The only difference is the level of trust and the ability of the powerful character to perform wonders.

Biblically speaking the writer of the book of Hebrews dedicates the 11^th chapter to covering this topic of FAITH. This shows how important faith is. The chapter celebrates the great men of faith. In the introductory verse, faith is defined as knowing something to be real even if we don’t see it. It is a belief that the world was created by a Supreme omnipotent God and thus hoping for solutions from this powerful being.

These great men mentioned in the chapter did the unexpected. They knew the secret to pleasing God; Faith.  Abraham left his home in Haran and headed for the unknown where the Lord was leading him. Even in old age, Abraham believed in God’s promise of a son. Abraham was 100 years while his wife Sarah was 90 years, way past menopause in “civilized” modern man’s terms. I just imagine such a promise in modern times.

 Faith means we are ready to trust the unknown future to a known God. It’s like going out on a journey whose destiny is uncertain but the traveler has a strong confidence in the guide, the compass, the atlas and the map. These tools in our journey with God equates faith.

Imagine the extent of trust people have for fellow mortals like magicians, witchdoctors or practicing trained doctors. It best suite me to ask my reader; How powerful is your magician aka miracle worker. What level of trust do you bestow him? What are your reasons for the kind of trust, belief or faith in your miracle worker?

The writer of this article is a Christian but I can’t measure the level of my trust in God. I don’t know for real if God considers me a traveler in the already trodden ways of trust by the greats like Abraham. As much as I claim to be a Christian, I am subject to failure when it comes to trusting God. 

Being the critic you are, I am expecting questions such as “Now that life to many is an obvious miracle, does it really require faith or trust in God?” I believe many people regardless of their religious inclination believe in some powerful being beyond them. The names can differ but there could be a similarity in the beliefs narrowing down to the same God. But this is my assumption. That’s one angle of looking at it. The other approach is that God is a just and fair God. Unlike human beings, He wants everyone to have a feel of His powers. Human beings charge for the little wonders they perform some of which are possible via twisted means. But God loves us all and wants us to benefit from His overflowing free grace thus life is given to all. To live is by grace. There is nothing we contribute towards our being alive. Life thus in itself is a free miracle for all.

Life as many will agree has many challenges. It can be a bumpy ride as well as a load. All the same, miracles are expected. We struggle and do everything we can but sometimes things just don’t work out. Especially in modern economic times, depression, stress, despair prompting suicide as the easy escape route is “normal” to many people. But does that mean life has to stop? We don’t stop the hustle just because one door has closed. When you reach the end of the rope, tie a knot and hang on there. Note: The event leading to this article happened exactly after all means of trying to get the mobile phone line back had been exhausted. I learnt that God finds us at our points of total surrender. We push on both in actions and in faith which we do knowingly or unknowingly. 

One of my all time favourite quotes is that hope is the only common good to all people. We may not be religious parse but still we expect a solution to come by in the long run. Our rewards come when our relation with God entails trust and we have faith in His ability to do the odds. To a religious man, this is a miracle if we were at the end of the rope.

One Congolese gospel musician and pastor gives an illustration in his song of children playing that excites my desire to learn to trust God. One child is thrown up by the others and held before falling. That is an amazing display of trust in each other by children in their play. Parents also throw their children up and hold them as they come down. Have you wondered why the infant smiles even when this can lead to death if the infant drops. Do you think the little one does not fear heights or know the dangers involved? It does know. But it TRUSTS that all will be well since DADDY or MUMMY is in charge.

Trust is that important. With total surrender of our lives, fate, issues, problems, hustles and unknown future to a known God, the unexpected happens. He leads us to greener pastures and cool waters even when our environment is harsher than a desert. 

That’s a miracle right there; a product of letting go of the steering wheel, sitting back and taking a chill mode knowing all is well. That is the beauty of TRUSTING GOD.