Simon's Nairobi Diary - Archive 26

2 June 2006 7:36pm

I’ve never begun to comprehend the mustard seed and yeast parables till now. From Matthew's gospel.

He [Jesus] told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.

He told them still another parable: The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough."

The kingdom of heaven is a tiny seed it says. Or yeast. It is a shred of paper with a secret. A cirrus cloud before a hurricane. The Way and harmony of living in Jesus is like a beautiful fiercely whispered poem. It is tiny, inscrutable, quiet, and feather light. But when it falls into the frame of a ready person, the kingdom of heaven explodes with cosmic enormity. That tiny drop of inert expression recoils and bursts in sudden goodness and love, demolishing any and all foundationed chaos and darkness it touches.

I’ve seen it happen. A man who has lived his whole life waiting for something, and he finds it and sees it for the first time and chokes out a sigh of relief as he accepts it and feels absolutely safe for the first time. Nothing else matters anymore. His life is shattered and remade and his old acquaintances wonder where he went off to. Even the hands seem different, lovingly ruined by a whisper.

1 June? 2006 7:21pm

Apparently, its June.

The first of June is Madaraka Day. Madaraka (Mah-dah-rah-kah) is a kiswahili word that means something like "independence", and today is Madaraka day since June 1 of 1963 the Kenyan people were approved by the British government for succession from their Empire. So, anyways, uhh happy Madaraka Day. All it really means for me is no class.

Actually, that has been a small change of living in Kenya. All these American holidays have come and gone and I pretty much never noticed it. People will email me saying, "How was your Halloween/Valentines/Arbor/Groundhog/Festivus/AprilFools/Veterans Day? I'll be like, whaaa?

Maybe next year I'll do some of these anyways. Of course, people will wonder why I'm running around campus dressed as a goblin. Groundhog Day probably doesn't work considering there is no winter or groundhogs here. As for April 1st, well, pouring honey on people in their sleep and then shouting "happy april fools" probably isn't as smooth here as it is in the US.

Happy Madaraka Day.

31 May 2006 7:41pm

Similar to isolated communites anywhere in the world, the rural villages here in Kenya are home to some interesting practices. In the villages of the Luo people, for instance, there is a particular practice for warding off evil spirits or nyawas. A tribesmen will hear a neighboring village banging drums and pots and pans. They will understand it is because a nyawa is passing by and so the neighboring village is creating noise to ward off the spirit. The tribesmen will spring to action and summon the village to banging drums, pots, anything with noise in order to ward the nyawa away from the village. So the village will continue this noise until they feel the evil spirit has passed. The interesting part is how the tribesmen will hear the drums and banging in a third village, located on the side opposite of the first village. And so the drum waves will travel down long lines of rural Luo villages, sometimes up to a hundred miles.

This practice has been integrated into some of the stranger Christian churches here in Kenya. When a demon is in the congregation and will not easily leave, it is chased into the forest by a church member furiously beating a drum.

29 May 2006 1:09pm

My Hungarian and Armenian friends and I were eating a githiri lunch with a student from the area who is also a full time pastor. This is what he said:

"I'm tired of these Western women who become liberated and cease fulfulling their roles as child bearers in our world today. All of a sudden the women think it appropriate and encouraged to not have children at all. Meanwhile, Muslim women are having large amounts of children, six to ten per wife per family, and the Muslim world is exploding. Christian women need to exclude Western cultural liberation from their Christian faith and meet the challenge that has been issued by the Muslim world. If this does not happen, the Muslims will overtake us and we will lose."

"So", I said,"Christians must fight for Jesus through increasing our birth rate?"

"Yes", he said. "We are losing."

"Wow", I said.

26 May 2006 8:59pm

My professor's grandfather was an elder in a rural Kikamba village back before woven cloth had come to the country. Marriage, he described, required a man to kill a large goat and clean and work the skin until it was a suitable garment for a wife. Then, with the presented goat skin, the wife was allowed to marry. I am struck by the fact that my professor has family memories of the days before cloth. I'm not sure, but I assume such a time for my genetic line was at least a thousand years ago. It is fascinating to hear of the way life was at such a basic point.

Or, perhaps, the greatest fascination comes through hearing how similar life was back then to now. People were still humans with the same basic needs. Still the same preoccupation with food and water and sex. Still the same need for 'utility' in life, that is, the ability to have a role of a producer. Still the need for community. Still a desire to practice cultural traditions.

I suppose the fascination comes from what I was borne out of. Successful living, a life that is lived correctly, means to become 'extra'ordinary. If a person attains entrance into a certain higher income bracket, gains national attention, or achieves success in scholarship then they are socially defined as 'extra'ordinary. Once a person has attained one or more of these qualifications then they gain ability to practice the privileged leisure of this class, leisure that brings 'extra'ordinary satisfaction.

However, what I've seen as I have interacted with people who have attained these things, and have myself had experiences of a 'higher' designation versus a 'lower' one, is that it is all mostly a fallacy. Lexus cars, expensive wines, and world travel are all amazing, but soon the rush is over and the things that used to be fun don't satisfy anymore.

The boundless freedom of our lives creates only prisoners to unsatisfaction.

Perhaps my professor's grandfather was more content in his ordinary day to day than the majority of this 'extra'ordinary western culture. Perhaps we need to realize the goodness that life still had when we were satisfied to stay who we are. Perhaps the best things in life are things like deer hunting with family and friends.

25 May 2006 4:49pm

The girl who cooks our meals gave me a fruit today. Everbody recognizes it and nobody knows its name.

I am exhausted. Not in the sense that sleep will cure, but in the sense of a clouded and dull mind. So much has happened so fast in so little time. Its as if baking soda has been added in my brain. This inexorable rude mood pushes me towards seeing only the wrong and shrugging off the right.

I'm trying, hard, to become retied to the harmony that comes with have Jesus in my heart, and am tripped today by pastors and their quests to find sin, since sin creates occupation and authority. It seems, with no identified sin in their flock, many pastors here seem to feel underutilized. But, ahah!, once it is found and pinched between the fingers, the pastor's fists become filled with righteous thunder and things are back in business.

I'm exhausted. I shouldn't be typing. Our propane is out, so I'm going to get s'more.

24 May 2006 9:14pm

all i want is to be good in the eyes of god