By nature I’m not a deeply religious person. This
is in spite of the fact that my good old folks are among the dwindling flock of
devout Christians back in the sleepy plains of a village I call home, where
rain, when it does come, is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing because it
rids the dust-infested village of billowing plumes of dust that tornado across
dry maize fields during the dry spells, not to mention the belated respite it
bestows upon withered sprouting ‘maize-lings’
that strangers passing through our land always mistake for local green onions.
Curse because when it begins to rain, it does so in incessant torrents that
social joints and gatherings come to an abrupt grinding standstill, leaving in
its wake village financial meltdown as scarcity of consumers of local frothy
brews and potent concoctions hits hard. But that’s beside the point.
Now,
Back to matters religion. So after a year of Decembers of self-imposed absolute
abstinence from darkening the doorway of any house of the good Lord, I finally
received an impetus one fine Saturday morning – something of a miraculous
magnitude – to attend my local church. I might mention here well in advance
that the driving force had nothing to do with any sudden desire to atone for
the multitude of my seething black and red transgressions at the feet of the
begotten one. But that does not imply it had anything to do with the many ‘dark
forces’ that have pushed political horses to coalesce and mate with political
donkeys in the recent past, only to later turn around and denounce these
liaisons in a manner likely to bamboozle staunch divorce attorneys and judges.
Rather,
it was courtesy of an incessant nudge from a bosom buddy of mine, Mr. Boredom –
that Omni-present guy intimately acquainted to millions of lay-a-bouts and
people with nothing better to occupy their ‘rudderless’ lives except malinger
and shoot wind at jobless corners spewing forth ‘bonoko-speak’ and
chewing miraa in a manner that would lay goats to eternal shame in a cud
chewing contest. But I digress, yet again!
Anyway
this particular Saturday coincided with a casual suggestion from a fellow teetotaller
friend now turned social drinker – whom I will not name for reasons that would
jeopardize his standing with the madam of his house who knows nothing about his
blackout-chewing ways at a local watering hole. So my friend had suggested we
take a tour of the church ostensibly to admire ‘hot things’ that grace the
house of the Lord prancing and strutting around with the wild abandonment of
horses on heat. As you can guess, I had jumped with alacrity at the prospect of
taking a day off my not-so-busy-semblance of a life to give Mr. Boredom a few
hours of holiday away from my nagging self.
So I retrieved my torn and
dog-eared ‘Good Book’ from among a junk of books underneath my bed where it had
been unceremoniously banished, dutifully dusted it and off to church I went,
body awash with strange and unfamiliar sensation of holiness reserved for the
close kith and kin of Angel Gabriel – him of the miracle baby fame. Something
tells me the once beleaguered pastor G. Deya must have received his miracle
baby ‘copy-cat-ing’ inspiration from the Gabriel guy! Deya’s main
undoing was the subsequent failure to call on gift laden three wise stooges to
anoint his miracle babies with oil from the land of Turkana. Plus, the women
candidates he had chosen for his Miracle Baby Project Fame were nowhere near
virgin as Mary mother of Jesus.
To
get back on track though, once we had ferried ourselves to church on foot for
lack of coins to part with for transport, we strategically placed ourselves
near windows from where we could easily monitor the traffic of voluptuous
feminine worshippers trouping in and out of church. The routinely humdrum
services and discussions of the morning session painfully crawled by with my
not-so-retentive mind registering not even an iota of the lessons. My wondering
mind was instead focused on which of my few friends’ houses to get free lunch
after church. It’s hard to receive spiritual nourishment when the body is
literally afflicted from pangs of rumbling hunger, you know. My anonymous pal
on the other hand was pre-occupied with surveying a horde of smartly adorned
and bedecked hot-things – his covetous soul intent on identifying which one to
prey on at the toll of the bell signalling the end of church service.
Nonetheless,
when time to receive the soul food for the day finally arrived, I have to
concede here that the man of God agreeably made a lot of sense. Or at least the
sermon did. Or maybe I was the one too famished for the word of God, what with
the rest of the congregation literally ‘fishing’ dreams at the immense sea of
slumber.
The
man charged with the heavenly task of nourishing the souls of the sleeping
flock with the Holy Spirit however seemed remotely aware of this transgression
and went on undeterred nonetheless. He introduced himself as Dr.
Something-I-Can’t-Remember and a lecturer at a local university. No wonder he
was blessed with a deep, clear resonating voice developed in lecture halls. As
I half-listened and half-drifted to sleep, I found myself developing a liking
for him for the simple reason that he was not angling to cajole yours truly
into forced salvation by threatening to summon and consequently unleash
tsunamis of hellfire and brimstone upon our collective sinning and unrepentant
souls as is the wont of many a wannabe prophets of doom crawling the streets of
our towns nowadays. But I blaspheme.
Anyway,
the topic of the sermon was the ‘insatiability of life’ or something to that
effect. In his preaching, the pastor fluidly elaborated the impossibility of
fulfilling the numerous desires and wants of the human heart exacerbated
(finally, I get to use this word) by his undying hunger and subsequent quest
for more. He could not have been more right considering that the highest level
of education attainable has never satisfied man’s appetite for knowledge. The
colossal amounts of wealth we amass have never put an end to our greed for
more. Winning the heart of a beautiful partner does not stop most of us from
glancing over our shoulder at our neighbours’ spouse. Discontentment reigns
supreme and the feeling of grass being greener on the other side spoils an
otherwise good life. Even after giving in to our delusions and encroaching on
the seemingly greener grass on the other side of the fence, our inherent greed
has never allowed us to stop there.
But,
the saddening part of this charade of a life is the realization that all the
achievements and acquisitions are like the blowing wind – here now, gone the
next minute – never lasting. Knowledge fades as the hands of time
steadily ticks towards old age. Jobs are faced with imminent risks of
retrenchment, downsizing, sacking or redundancy. Material possessions disappear
like water under the bridge if spared from the itchy fingers of ‘Nai-robbers’.
Relationships likewise are not spared from the double edged swords of misery
arising from heart breaks and disappointments as partners stray from the
marital bed or divorce. Even life itself is never eternal. Nothing is
guaranteed except for the inevitability of change. But even then, the quest for
satisfaction and fulfilment continues unabated. It brought to mind a quote from
the renowned novelist, Grace Ogot’s River and the Source that pretty
summed up it all up – that ‘life is a mystery and a puzzle and the living human
mind spends it in yearning for what it knows not but search it must.’
There
is nothing wrong however with pursuing possessions and fulfilment in life; it
is an inherent human right and inclination. But the question is, when does
contentment come in? How many of us have truly enjoyed our object of fancy once
we have succeeded in acquiring it? Are we always going to be held hostage by
greed? Never showing appreciation for what we have? Never stopping, always on
the move in the pursuit of the ever elusive happiness? Do we ever challenge
ourselves to just pause and enjoy that which we have been blessed with? The human
heart is an enigma that few of us have learnt to master. For the rest of us
though, we are lost in the dense maze of ceaseless race to nowhere.
As
a by the way, being a someone who has never made any resolution for any new
year and seeing that 2013 is already dangerously skidding around the corner to
March, I’m seriously contemplating making becoming a regular at my church as my
new year resolution. Just to be in talking terms with the Omni-potent resident
of the heavens above. Regular here implies that whenever the forces of darkness
are too preoccupied with the lascivious strip-tease stunts of my neighbours’
succulent house-manager to notice me sneaking off for a tweet with God.
Disclaimer:
This
piece was written way back when I was still a carefree wifeless and jobless
rascal. You’re the one late in reading it! If you purport to report the alleged
roving ways of my eyes to the madam of my house, you have yourself to blame for
any bodily harm you’re likely to sustain. In my kingdom, bearers of bad tidings
are always shot by the Queen. If you survive, my trigger happy son will shoot
you again!
