Tuesday, February 13, 2007

My First Encounter with St. Valentine

Love is like playing the piano
First you have to play by the rules
Then you have to forget the rules
And play from your heart…

What a description of this word, phenomenon, mystery!!! I do not know why we crave Love if not for the fact that it is an intricate thread that God wove into us (our fabric of life), when He made us…that links us back to Him.

As February 14 approaches (not sure it is not already February 14 in Australia as I write), oh whatever…these time zones are another thing we need to eradicate…we all need to have our mornings and afternoons together…any one has any idea how we can do away with time zones? Plus it will also help with jet lags….yours truly, I am always deviating from what I am writing about. Ever imagine how people write novels? They start with a story and stick to it and I am dreaming of writing not just one but several such books …not professional books…I can stick to the main gist but I mean…fiction...romance…stuff like that and yet I cannot even finish a blog post without meandering like the river.

Anyway, I was writing about love and February 14 when my thoughts and my fingers went to a different direction…there has been some frenzy in the air about February 14…some adverts even claim they can send flowers and gift to anywhere in the world…these people have no clue that there are villages in some parts of this same world that there are no routes into…they will have to fly, travel by car then change to canoe (not ferries) and it will take like 4 days to reach there…I think I should take them up on it. I just think that before they even get there if at all…it will be another year…maybe Christmas.

I can never forget the first time I heard of Valentines Day, it was in my year one in secondary school (high school for those of us from NA)…yes you can laugh...secondary school. Before this time, I had no clue…have never heard of it as something people in this part of the world celebrate and we celebrate quite a number of things…new baby, weddings, deaths, funerals, new car, new wife, new everything, new yam you just name it but never love as in setting out a day to celebrate love.

It was second term as a year one student and there was so much buzz, gifts were being bought and wrapped and I went to an all girls missionary school …now this are called faith-based schools….even in this school, there was so much going on but for now I will stick with my first encounter with St. Valentine. I called my friend then also a fellow year one to ask what valentine was and I was told it is Lovers day…that even confused me the more. I asked what lovers day meant and that confused my friend the more. Anyway, I bought no gift for anyone, I received no gift from anyone but the gifts and single roses were flying all above my head…it was purely meaningless.

The world has come a long way since then. My son is six and he will be exchanging valentine present in school this year for the second year running. Over the weekend we stopped by a grocery store and he wanted to buy a single plastic rose for his cousin…thank God! not for one strange girl…although I did not buy it, I told him that he should first give his mother before he thinks of any other girl…can you imagine that? Six years and his first thought is not his mother …what is this world turning into?

As you all prepare to celebrate Valentines day, think about it, what are you prepared to give in your relationships...that is more honorable than what you expect to receive. Also, do not let the celebration die after February 14…let the love candles burn all the year round with everyone you love.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Would you date or Marry...?

I must say that this has been the longest break from updating my blogsite since inception except of course when I was on holidays. For some strange reason, it has been very hectic and it looks like my work schedule suddenly tripled…oh well I guess I can say that it at least doubled plus I had to add school run to my schedule last week since my nanny was on a sick off time.

Oh, it is another Monday, I will make good effort not to complain as I usually do on Mondays and I am way too busy today to notice the blues. Anyway, there was this nagging thing on my mind that came up in a discussion I was having with my friend over the weekend. And the more I thought about it, the more I think that I have not reached any conclusion…it is kind of tough and everyone seem to have an opinion and reach a position so very easily except me.

Will you date a man or woman who is divorced or separated, with intention to marry the person? I should explain what my difficulty is, as a Christian woman, I do not approve of divorce and that is kind of binding because God hates it. But what happens when one partner moves out of the house, first to fulfill the legal requirement of a certain period of separation and then requests for divorce. If you as the other partner who believes that because God hates divorce, you would not want a divorce, should you or should you not grant this partner divorce. Secondly, if you are single and a divorced or a ‘soon to be divorced’ but happily separated guy/woman shows up on the doors of your life, would you date/marry this person?

I believe that we see enough of divorces and separations everyday on TV with all the “woods…Hollywood, bolly wood, nollywood), I am not talking about celebrity marriages and what ever else the media has made of marriage. I am referring the marriage in the real sense of it…based on strong values and in the true meaning or Love.

Monday, February 05, 2007

Handling Uncertainties

Looks like ages since I last wrote something. I have been wondering if this year is any different...actually it is very different from the other years...how can I even ask?

Anyway, it just seems like I am so very busy and the hours fly. Work...office has been a bit of a mess. There have been days when I felt like just getting away from it all. There has been quite a bit going on...a botched mbo, confusion, disillussionment, exits and someone in the midst of all these is supposed to maintain some level of sanity.

Remember what they say that when elephants fight, the grass suffers. ...there has been several elephant fights, different sizes of elephants and vaious patches of the grass suffering...yours truly has tried to keep a level head and a calm approach which has worked so far. All said, it has been a trying time at my patience as well. People just forget that everyone is going through the same emotions...only some people have made a conscious decision and choice on how to respond to it. Which brings me to the issue I want to discuss today...how do we respond to uncertainties in the different areas of our lives?

I believe that it is difficult to predict how one will respond to a certain situation until he/she is confronted with it but even when we are confronted with it which we have been at different stages of our lives ranging from the really overwhelming to the not very overwhelming...we can take a deep breath and make a conscious choice of how we will respond and what stand we will take. Sometimes we have time to 'sleep over' an issue but sometimes we have to respond to situations within split seconds...no matter the urgency, we cannot allow situations to toss us to and fro and we find ourselves beeing managed by these changes instead of us managing the situation.

I have seen people dangle and float...not sure where or what they want to do even when they have taken days and nights 'sleeping over the issue' and even claiming to pray about it. The later action is really very funny, you'd expect that someone who prays will expect to get an answer but since God does not speak to us from the open heavens, even getting an answer or a confirmation to our prayers is a difficult task for some people. I am definitely in support of the prayer approach and I advocate it but I know that God is not an author of confusion and I also know that He answers prayers and speaks to us even this day. However, people should not hide under this unbrella to float and be undecisive about their lives or follow the crowd.

Enough of this sermon. I think I have made my point and that is we should always make a decision, a choice on how to react and respond to situations as this will help us manage the situations. The values and pricinciples we live by (hopefully we have) are fundamental to the choices we make. If we lack these, we can sleep over issues for weeks running on months and still be tossed to and fro and just go with the flow instead of dictating the flow.

Have a great week everyone.