Re Thinking it all.

I stop and see the confusion of the world and wonder…is the confusion of the church a better substitute.

In the last months as I have battled depression, failure and all manner of personal demons I have heard to think hard about some of the moments that have defined my past year.

I have had to rethink politics. Will all my friends shouting and campaigning under the Black Monday Movements actually cause change? Is it a passion filled tirade with about as much future as the white rhino and the life span of a fly? What are my views about politics anyway?  I have had to answer these questions and still refine those answers.

I have had to rethink church. Right now there seem to be several factions split between the traditional churches and here we have all those Anglican protestant and other traditional denominations. There is the “born again” faction characterized by wild gesticulations and noisy overnight services. Then there is what I call the alternative style churches. There are mostly new and tech savvy for the most part. This is where you find the bohemian crowd and the others who found their traditional churches too…well traditional and the born again churches I guess too noisy. Please note I said church and not faith.

I have had to rethink dreams. Anyone who has followed this blog or read any of my pieces on Facebook has come across the Chasing your dreams series . I have had to rethink this whole concept. I have accepted that time is a greater ally and the straightest path is not always straight and that sometimes I need to stop and camp a whiles on this journey. I have learned that when you smile, make sure you fangs show but like a gentle she wolf, never bare them in anger, malice or hate. Just let them know you have them as well and yours Is a choice not to use them…unless they provoke you.

I have rethought money and poverty. These two seem to be the yin and yang of my existence. Money is not what I work for but it’s a just recompense for the expenditure of my talent. The journey out of poverty is not that easy. Stop reading get rich quick scheme books, work hard, save as much as you can, give as much as you can and be content. The last bit is playing me.

I have rethought friendship. This is the one year that most of my friendships seem to have imploded or just gone into some sort of coma. I will not lie, I am not all torn up about all of them. In fact these days are am not as quick to save friendships. I believe they should develop organically and just go where they may of course with a little trimming and such here and there. I am not trying to grow a bonsai tree but a radiant flourishing bush or tree. I do my part or what I can cause at the end of the day no amount of water or manure makes trees or bushes grow faster…perhaps a little better.

I am still rethinking…perhaps soon we shall share deeper exactly what I have been thinking on some of these topics.

Chasing Your Dreams Part I

This piece first published on Facebook  on Thursday, 29 July 2010 at 15:2 
I Hope to continue this walk from here.

Sweeping my sitting room floor this evening, or is it night; it was 11:45 pm, I mused at how much pleasure that single act brought me. In fact I had paused a series I was watching because I was overcome with the urge, so to speak, to clean my house and test my new broom.

I just love the way it sweeps and I love the way simple things now bring me joy. No longer do I have to pray for the joy of the Lord but now I take joy in the Lord and the things that He has made. Joy is no longer something that I have to search for in fact I find it in the most unusual places these days and mostly in the everyday things of life.
It’s funny how the little things bring out the best in you and you know what it’s also a good thing because these little things are all around me so I don’t have to search far for a smile.

I rewind back to the days when I seemingly had it all, a good job, a good pay chaque and with this a new freedom that even my lack of curfew could not bring. Man, I was “in things” but I was out of touch.

I hated my job, not because it was a bad job, heck I spent three years and nine month and an extra retake semester preparing for this. I chose journalism. I was made for this. I had all that people said it took, confidence, an eye for detail read critical thinking, I was good and English, literature, I was an avid reader and I was average with people. But for some reason Mondays seemed like another tool the devil was using to torture.

I was groggy right out of the stock and I knew it. Something just did not feel right, at least not the way I had expected and I did the obvious Christian thing, I prayed about it and put my back into it. But like a bad stain, the more I rubbed the worse it got and soon my work begun to reflect the death that I was feeling on the inside. 
I felt like every day I spent chasing the news I was losing billions of brain cells every day. Million, trillion little creative cells seemed to fall off like dandruff. I felt like I was doomed, sentence to a life of routine and…well whatever it was that I was living at that time.

I could not find solace in my secular friends the just said I was lazy and to an extent they were right. To my Christian friends, well to them it was all about attitude and praying or speaking positive things in my day. The only positive thing to the day was the fact that it would end I could go home and spent another restless night waiting for the next day.

But my life was not all drudgery and pain, in fact there were some pretty colorful things about them but sadly they had little to do with my life as a journalist or even getting stories into the paper. I enjoyed the times I finished a story and could go and hang in church for a few minutes. I enjoyed the books I bought with the money I earned and the ideas that swam around me head when my boss was not breathing down my neck. My job gave me the money but robbed me of the time.

It was then that a crazy notion hoped and skipped its way into my heart, why not quit it all and just do something you love? Why not just shout “screw you world” and run out and follow your dreams. But reason stepped right between me and this thought and said, 

“ What? Are you crazy? Do you know that this job pays the rent and buys you cloths and food and all this other stuff? It asked
“Heck it even allows you to do some ministry on the side” it’s said rolling its eyes and stood back with its hands on its hips.

Leaning forward and pointing a finger into my face, it lowered its voice and said, “ Do you know that that would mean you going back to your father’s house?
We all shivered at that thought.
Poking its head through the window, the journalism Angevil, that yellow eyed, red faced, off white cross between an angel and devil chipped in. 

“Do you know how many lives you could change? Think of it, we are the ones who keep everyone honest and bring all that filth into the light? Man we are engaged in a national duty. You don’t have to be in church to change lives? Boy gets back in here!” he motioned with his pen spiked fork.

Taking all this in, I thought for a moment. All that was said was true and made good sense. The idea of going back to live under my father roof terrified me. Id sooner lived under a bridge than done that. Journalism did do some good but what evil I had to be put through to do it, I was not willing to pay. 

What about the Christian folk and all their peer pressure? What would they say? What about my reputation for laziness and failure? Wouldn’t this just prove them right? But if I leave what shall I do, God whom shall I say sent me? These and thousand other questions filled my mind, they were so many I took me 2 months to tender my resignation and another month to serve out my notice period.

But there I was, free and a bird and as clueless as a deer caught in headlights. What was my next move and where would I go? I went where every sensible Christian would go, I went home, to my Father’s house.