Transmogrification...Lost in translation

A lot gets lost in translations, the transition from child to adult robs us of so much more than we are warned and the promise of adult hood is but a mirage, an ethereal experience, a fantasy and a cruel, cruel dream, one that we sadly have to endure for life.

What was once childlike abandon is quickly lost when we grow up; in Uganda it’s probably about the second year after we are released from University. Everything you are taught suddenly seems irrelevant and outdates. This is especially true of the Bible theories we are given. Let’s face it, they are nothing but that and when held against reality they are revealed for what they are, mere veneers of suggested guidelines.

We are thrust into the world and life by extension, terribly unprepared. And while there are some who seem to be happy and happy can be and squeezing out the most of life, the rest of us stumble around wondering what those smiling, happy idiots are smoking and why aren’t they sharing.

But secretly I know they have their moments of despair. Its just that their mask hold up so much better against scrutiny. But if you were to follow them into their deepest, darkest, dreams; you would discover that they too are beaten senseless by life.

Church does not help. Sometimes, to some, it’s the dos and the don’ts. For me is the doubled faced hypocrisy of it. I would just like to take a torch to it all. Yes indeed, they are not unlike white washed tombs. Those entrusted with shining the light and living to a higher standard are the same people who do not live by those principles. Those with the light prefer the shadows and the dark of the night.

But what then is the solution to this. I have found that going back to the word of God with the same childlike abandon we had helps. It helps me at least. I try not to question to much and trust a little more. To rely not always on fact but i have a place for faith as well. And I decided that whatever happened is a human thing and I should not be shocked with it, though I should guard from becoming callous and unfeeling.

Let us not be impervious to life but strong.

God is not dead, we are just sleeping…or some other mundane adult pursuit.

What does it mean to be a MAN?

From moral weakness, from hesitation,

from fear of men and dread of responsibility;

Strengthen us with courage to speak the truth in love and self-control;

And alike from the weakness of hasty violence

and from the weakness of moral cowardice:

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD

From weakness of judgment,

from the indecision that can make no choice

and from the irresolution that carries no choice into act;

Strengthen our eye to see

and our will to choose the right;

And from losing opportunities to serve you,

and from perplexing ourselves and others with uncertainties:

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD

These are the opening lines to what is known as the Southwell Litany of Prayer. It was originally written for Priest but it has come to embody a lot of virtues needed by men but sadly lacking in many of them.

What is true manhood? There are many definitions. Responsibility is one of them. I life we can only make decisions based on what we know at the time. Sometimes these decisions are wrong. That is normal and to err is human. But what you do after that reveals your true calibre and virtue.

Two of my favourite lines from the above litany are, “from fear of men and dread of responsibility… and from the weakness of moral cowardice:” how much more true is this for our day. How many of us men esteem the views of others more highly than that of the truth or even choose their approval over doing right. That in itself to me is moral cowardice spoken of in the next couple of lines.

I cannot stress how important it is for men in this city to stand up for what is right but also to stand up for what they have done and ‘man-up’. How many single mothers struggle under the burden they have been left with? How many men risk their lives and that of their spouses with wanton sex and multiple partners? How many men damage lives irrevocable through careless words, verbal and sexual abuse and even more men stand by and do nothing fearing men and cowering in the corner like cowards.

Let me stop here and say that the thought of getting your lights punched out trying to stop a domestic disturbance is not much encouragement even for me but responsibility and a pair of balls is what makes you walk out into the dark to stop a couple that is fighting. I did it once, it terrified me but I dialled the confrontation down enough for the couple in questions so it would not turn violent. And I am sure that woman was grateful. I never met her before and never seen her since.

I tried to stand up for what was right and that night, light shone in the darkness albeit briefly.

Another of my favourite lines is, “from the indecision that can make no choice and from the irresolution that carries no choice into act” I am sure so many woman would appreciate this. Indecision is one of the greatest flaws a man can demonstrate. When travelling with friends in a car, its not the speeding  driver that I am afraid of but the indecisive one, because in a split second you need someone with their head screwed on straight and their reflexes  tuned and in sync with the noggin.

Indecisive people scare me. But that not bad. What bad is when a decision is made and never enforced. Those guys just make me mad. They are worse than indecisive men. They demonstrate a spinelessness that would make a work look stiff.

No one is asking for perfection, no, all we want is direction, leadership and a willingness to give it a short. It’s amazing too that the greatest demonstration, in the Bible, of wisdom had to do with making a decision and greatest request was for wisdom. That aide’s decision making right?

But the secret to this entire lie in the paragraphs and lines before the lines I have quoted. There needs to be a functioning moral compass. An Idea of what is right and what is wrong. What side is up and which side is upside down. For that a man needs to be humble enough to learn, seek wisdom and be taught.

Weakness of judgement must be exercised away and a yardstick found. Without a proper power of judgment there can be non-taken. This comes in with experience and more daring or willingness to give things a shot. It’s all tied together.

Makes a decision based on what you know and if you are wrong, be gracious enough to take responsibility and made amends.

re·spon·si·bil·i·ty

noun /riˌspänsəˈbilətē/  responsibilities, plural The state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone The state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something The opportunity or ability to act independently and make decisions without authorization A thing that one is required to do as part of a job, role, or legal obligation A moral obligation to behave correctly toward or in respect of

Death by Flying

PUSHING BACK THE SUICIDAL THOUGHTS, RACING TO THE TOP SEARCHING FOR ONE LAST BREATH THE CURTAINS OF DARKNESS SWING BACK. I STUMBLE, BREAK THROUGH...THERE IS NOTHING THEIR ONLY THIN AIR...FALLING, FALLING,  FALLING

Even I cannot keep up with my dark thought. Breaking through the glass, shards flying everywhere ironically my hands shield my face from the pieces of sharp glass daggers, as if that will make a difference when I strike the floor with terminal velocity.

Black and white Canvas “all stars” adorns my feet. White laces dangle loose in the crisp morning air. I am pretty stylish an unlikely bird that I am today. Everyone must dress to meet their maker you see. Dark blue jeans with the light fade, gray sweater with the wolf teeth design, pink white and grey I believe with my starched whites underneath.

A billions bits of light reflect in the glass as my hair, bronzed by the back lit sun, hallo my head. An angel without wing soars down…Falling, falling, falling.

It’s all pretty surreal to me now. Walking the long flight of steps, standing in the hallway, the deep breath and then the slow building run and then the massive thigh –thrust-lunge through the glass. Even though this is the final cut in the last scene of my life, i still raise my hands to shield my face. Elbows meets glass and for a fraction of a second resist but soon give way.

Fissures race outwards from the point of impact and from those, smaller cracks spread and even more from those. In a fraction of a second the glass shuttered as my feet left the floor and I hurled the rest of me through the glass. My swan dive had begun. Where it will end we shall soon begin.

A woman walks the streets all adorned in the latest fashion. Her stiletto heeled white leather boots keep time with her brisk determined step. There is a scream from across the street and a loud thud four feet in front of her. Glass rains down everywhere. “oh look, spot of blood on her boots…”

Flags Of Our Fathers.

"When we are young we want to be just like out father. When we are teenagers we want nothing to do without fathers. And when we are old men, we realise we are just like." I read this somewhere on line.

We inherit more from our fathers than just DNA. If you can confess, you would say a little more than you are willing to accept say like that balding thing, or that weird way we laugh or maybe a not too flattering facial feature.

There nothing we can do about some of this stuff like going bald and others with some serious practice can be tweaked. The stuff we cannot change we have to accept and what we can we try our best to.

Some stuff just is out of our league and is more of a burden, yeah bigger than that large set of wind breaks you have plastered to the side of your head.

This is especially true for family. There are things that our parents do that just keep coming back to haunt us. A second wife, other kids, massive debts are just some of the things that come to mind and that I have and maybe you have to deal with from time to time.

The list is endless. And like nationality we are stuck with this flag flying over our head the responsibility of doing something, if anything about it. In the words of my brother, “that’s our parents s**t but we have to deal with it somehow”

How I wish we could boast that the heritages our parents leave us is honour, respect and more but most time, in most cases, for most African families, when the old man checks out the skeletons in the closet walk in bringing with them the hurt, pain and anger that so often threaten to rend families and hearts apart.

It’s when he is prostrate and 6 feet under that the “other woman” makes an appearance, or the sudden realisation of his positive status or just the mountain of debt that he left behind. In other scenarios is simple that he is no longer there to stop greedy, conniving aunts or uncles from caving in and over whelming us. Still for some it’s the gaping hole of loneliness he leaves.

Family is something that I am learning is double important and sometimes the flags we fly are not the proudest but they are our identity, or badge and our claim to something on this green watered rock floating in space we call earth.

The flags represented something during our father’s time and we inherit this but how we go forward with it is the sole responsibility of the current flag bearer. SO while the flag given to us left us with the short end of the stick, what shall your son/daughter say about the flag you hand them

We may not have a say over what we inherit, but we can make the inheritance of our children a little better. The flags of our fathers may come with a burden but they come with a promise and a responsibility. Restore the flag, bear the flag, pass the flag.

Death By Drowning.

Clear blue water everywhere. It’s so bluish greenish that for a moment you are mesmerised, transfixed as if by magic the sun beating down on you.

Then the first small wave washes over you and you start. You look around as you straddle water. In the distance you spy the island and as another waves splashes over you sudden realisation hits, you have been pulled out far into the lake.

You panic slightly but think it can’t be that far and you are not that bad a swimmer so you set your eyes to the shadow in the distance and start swimming.

A few hours later you are closer but not close enough. You can make out the silhouettes of your friends playing on the beach and you try to cry out only for your voice to be carried away by the wind.

You take a deep breath and start swimming again. But by now you are tired. The pull of the waves makes you work harder and the pounding of your heart sounds like the toms of death drums. But you swim on, struggle past each wave as it washed above, over and around you.

A couple of minutes later you stop to rest and judge your progress. Your friends are a lot clearer but no nearer it seems. You try to wave but they are too engrossed in their tom foolery to look out to the water. You shout and scream and still nothing. You are slightly pissed off that they did not even notice you were missing. With that anger propelling you, you set of again this time determined to make it to land if for any other reason than to just punch all of them in the face, ladies included.

You are tired now. You have been swimming for almost three hours, more than you have ever had to in your life. Your arm muscles are tired and more than once you had to fight of a spasm in your leg.  Panic starts to creep back in as the light begins to fade.

The dull ache in your arms is now a shooting pain as your shoulder, arms and legs start to get tired. With each new movement you get more and more tired. You start to breath faster and faster your actions become jerk like and hurried.

Your head is arched backward as your straddle the water more and more frantically in a bid to keep your face above water. The beautiful moon escapes you as visions of death in the dark haunt you. You sink once, a load of water going down your throat. You surface, coughing and splattering your throat working overtime to keep the water out only to take in more.

. Before you can take another breath you sink to the dark depth again this time taking a little more time before you rise to the top. You kick and jerk even harder, desperate to keep above the waves but your strength wanes with each new action.

You struggle, your body ramrod straight in the water. You can no longer see land and wonder if you can find the right direction again. You scan the horizon looking for anything that could point to hope and a rescue but all you are met with is the sheep blackness of the night, land and sky mingling into an indistinguishable mass.

Your leg spasms. You stop moving. You start to sink. You struggle to breath. You cannot cry for help. With the last of your strength gone and as you sink again you take your last breath knowing somehow that this will be your last. You sink towards the deep black depth.

With your fate sealed you strangely become calm as if in a dream. You stare at the moon through the waves. It’s beautiful; too bad you won’t see it again. Bubbles escape you mouth as your succumb to the impulse to breath. As the pain crushes in on your chest you gratefully slip into the blackness.

Hours later the New Papers would tell the story of the Body of a young man being found out in the lake miles from the islands they had visited earlier that week. According to the reports you had been missing for a day and a half. Friends and relatives are shocked and grief stricken with a life cut short, a life gone too early.

Your funeral was attended by hundred of people. Friend, relatives, admirers and countless people gather at church and later in various groups to share anecdotes of how you blessed them and touched their lives.

Miles beyond miles away you look down and stare. You are sad and you miss then but you are in arms that comfort always. No longer are you cold or tired. You are awash with light and a peace that compounds you and surrounds you. You are home. You are at peace.

Suicide Note

PUSHING BACK THE SUICIDAL THOUGHTS, RACING TO THE TOP SEARCHING FOR ONE LAST BREATH THE CURTAINS OF DARKNESS SWING BACK I STUMBLE BREAK THROUGH...THERE IS NOTHING THEIR ONLY THIN AIR...FALLING, FALLING,  FALLING

Even I cannot keep up with my dark thought. Breaking through the glass, shards flying everywhere ironically my hands shield my face from the pieces of sharp glass daggers, as if that will make a difference when I strike the floor with terminal velocity.

Black and white Converse “all stars” adorns my feet. White laces dangle loose in the crisp morning air. I am pretty stylish an unlikely bird that I am today. Everyone must dress to meet their maker you see. Dark blue jeans with the light fade, gray sweater with the wolf teeth design, pink white and grey I believe with my starched whites underneath.

A billions bits of light reflect in the glass as my hair, bronzed by the back lit sun, hallo my head. Falling, falling, falling.

It’s all pretty surreal to me now. Walking the long flight of steps, standing in the hallway, the deep breath and then the slow building run and then the massive thigh thrust lunge through the glass. My swan dive had begun. Where it will end we shall soon began.