The Most Stylish Furniture Piece We Own

Ok so the story behind this one is that I noticed yesterday that the label on our kitchen bin says a lot of strange things, one of them being "stylish". I just had to have some fun with that.



I don't like to boast, but one thing I make sure to show off when guests visit is our sleek and stylish kitchen dustbin. It is the best investment we have made for our home and is a key decorative feature in our kitchen. We have themed everything  in the kitchen according to this chic piece. Luckily we were not stuck with one of those ridiculous built-in cupboard  bins! That would have been a tragedy. But even if we had, we probably still would have bought this bin, even if nothing was put in it. When I first saw this bin, I was inspired by the advance of dustbin-designing  technology. When people come over, I make a point of pointing out the bin point, so that they too can feel excited for the future of bin design.

Limitations --> Freedom

When I was 5, my dad would sometimes hold my hand whilst I lay in bed trying to sleep. I remember one night he said, "just for 5 minutes." I counted in my head: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. "Ok goodnight daddy!" He laughed and showed me his watch and explained, that's not how you count minutes. The concept of counting something without it being finished after you literally count...strange. So anyway, I got to hold my dad's hand for 5 whole minutes! Which was more than what I thought he promised.

People love labels. We love adjectives and stereotypes, I've noticed. One person I know, every time they see me, says "Oh, but you're quite [meaningless adjective]." One lecturer wanted us to stand up and say what animal we were because our choices apparently revealed some kind of psychological identity conflict. But you know... No matter how many adjectives cover a jam jar, nothing can take the place of the sweet, sugary, strawberry experience of it melting into my tongue. Of course, adjectives have their place. There are adjectives in the bible. But not that many. "And so, a cleaned baby was laid into a perfectly sized, splinter-free manger whilst two jersey cows looked on." Uh no. How about: "And so God came to the earth as a human being." BOOOOOM! Earth shakes! Minds explode! The bible does have beautiful words but it's a deeper beauty that comes from truth, not just decorative language. None of it distracts from the facts.

What I'm getting at is this. Why do we put limits everywhere? God is limitless. And He never saved you to live a cubicle Christianity, walled in by rules, other people's stereotypes and low standards. "You have brought me into a spacious place because you delighted in me" [1]. What you think is 5 seconds is actually a way, way longer 5 minutes! And more! God, your Father, wants to blow your mind with his limitless love. Our way of human thinking about our lives is like a child thinking she can count minutes like she counts marbles. God doesn't think about your life or future the way you do, thankfully!

My hope today is that through reading the Bible we will see how big this thing is, that we wouldn't be conformed to certain patterns of thinking but allow our minds to be renewed [2]. And when we pray, we'd open our heart for God to inspire us into higher ways of thinking and living.


[1] Psalm 18:19
[2] Romans 12:2

Tonight and Every Night

Another poem here: http://www.srizzil.com/blog/tonight-and-every-night/

Help Me Know How

Hello blog,
what I really should be doing right now is sleeping or studying or reading...("should be"? Who says??) What I would rather do is tell you something I'm ashamed of.
I have lots of intentions but no action.
Intentions are pretty meaningless unless they lead to something - so I guess a seed is pretty cool but it's pretty small and useless unless it's watered and stuff. It's only after the the tree grows that we go, what an amazing seed! Look what it did.
Yeah so anyway, back to me.
Sometimes I really dislike being a passionate person. I can get hyped out about anything. Especially if it involves God or Futurelife. But let's not limit my ability here. So here we have all this hyper-ness streaming out of my head, gold tendrils twisting out into the atmosphere at high velocity! Then all of a sudden...nothing happens.
I need people. I need God first, and then I need to not be alone. I need you practical people, you resourceful people, you people who have driving licenses, you people who have muscle volume, you people who know where to buy the good stuff, you people.
I am so afraid to tell people where my passions lie because they seem to me weightless passions, without physical evidence. And so fear pins me down again.
I want to change the world, doesn't everyone?, I want to see God's kingdom outworking into everyday reality.
South Africa I'm yours.
Pretoria, I'm yours.
Tuks, I'm yours.
Can we turn vision into action? I need you to help me know how.

Love Poem

Love Poem
Blue-eyed ghost,
Waiting for a stray silver bullet to catch your heart
And carry you to heaven-

Do you know you're perfect?
You are joy-shaped,
And your DNA is made from the sun?
Your spirit is a sunbeam!
You don't have to die to be in heaven -
It's open and raw and it belongs to you now.

Dear blue-eyed ghost,
Your every tear is kept in a jar near my heart.
I see every thought that would sink you heavy in a pool
I want to unwind you from that sticky web of stars that
Caught you when you fell backwards into the sky.

Blue-eyed ghost,
I am not repelled by the sick darkness that is your humanity,
But I see the Light in you, your freedom-gift from Me.

It's ok - oh, no need to talk yourself out of anything.
Eyes on me, princess.
I don't need you to be anything,
But I want, I want all your attention.

Those ropes,
That ball and chain,
Those cages
Have nothing on my infinite love for you.

No trouble or hardship
Or nakedness or danger or sword,
Neither death nor life,
Neither angels nor demons,
Neither present nor future
Nor any powers
Neither height or depth
Nor anything else in all creation
Could separate you from My love.

That Imagination

Where's my imagination?
I haven't seen her for some time.
She runs off every now and then, sensitive girl.
She's full of monkey tricks.
Once she hid behind the curtains for days.
When I scolded her for it -
She just laughed.
She has a laugh like the sky.
If you heard her laugh, you'd say,
"Oh boy."
Because a laugh like hers leaves you quite speechless.
You wouldn't be able to think of what to say.
I miss her quite terribly and without her I am a cliché.
She loves to collect keys.
All sorts of keys.
No one could say why or where she gets them from.
I would say,
"Golly-gee-my, that's a lot of keys."
If you were lucky,
Her eyes might light up and she'd unlock some door over there, take you by surprise.
But other times, she'd just lie in bed.
Covered in keys.
Keys and keys and keys:
A cool key weight over her eyes
And a sharp key taste in her mouth.
She would lie quiet and still -
So quiet that it was rude.
Man oh man, she's rude!
I am always dotting her eyes and crossing her tees.
"Mam, where's your politeness?"
She'd pout and run away.
Although I'm not sure why she left this time.
I don't know where she lives, else I'd visit her.
The once I did find her in an igloo, the imp.
Trying to imagine up a refrigerator to keep things warm in.
Imagine!
Anyway, if you see her,
my Imagination,
Please send her back to me immediately.
She's the one with a laugh like the sky.

No Cellphone.

Without a Cellphone: Day 1

05:45 Woke up and could not find it anywhere. Hurriedly make carry/fetch plans with unimpressed brother.

06:45 Arrive at campus. First class at 10:30am. In order to keep track of time, had to frequently initiate contact with strangers, also looked at antique clocks decorating library walls.

08:30 Have to later meet a girl I've never met to work on a society project. Wait in line for a computer and email her what I am wearing. (flowered skirt and blue shirt - see you!)

??:?? Supposedly expecting a call from a speech therapy client. Who knows....

??:?? Feeling haggled and distracted. Keep looking at side pocket of bag, waiting for phone to make re appearance.

??:?? In a lift. Akwardness remains awkward and I can't pretend to use my phone.

14:00 Visit optometrist for a referral to an eye specialist. Am given contact number but infected eye will have to wait until tomorrow to make its appointment.

14:45 Return to campus too late for tutor session.

??:?? Want to make appointment with a different tutor for a different module but ... am almost cut off from society, and now education...

16:30 Wait for girl outside meeting place.

16:40 Waiting for girl...

16:50 Just standing there.

16:55 Me and the wall.

17:00 Cleaning lady greets me. "Ah I have been watching you. And my heart is breaking. I'm thinking, why is this girl standing there? My heart is really broken." I ask her for the time. Seems like I've been stood up.

18:15 Class ends early, search library for brother. Can't find him.

18:30 He finds me in our original set meeting place.

18:55 I get home. Search through all counters, bags, bedding, books, nooks and crannies.

19:05 Repeat search.

19: 15 Search garden.

19:40 Wait for dinner, refuse to study due to frustration, level 9001. Rather rave on internet.

20:15 My dad helps me search my room. "4 eyes are better than 2." Especially if two of those eyes are his.
He uses his cellphone torch to check under my bed. And there she is.

20:30 Read the day's messages. Girl offended that I stood her up and society leader unimpressed. But we all forgive each other.

Conclusion.... the world is mad. But there's always hope.

Twilight (the originial)

My favourite part is twilight.
                       That illusion
          as the sun makes her magnificent exit
                                         of      liquid-gold

infinity.

The sun's last wish for the day

                                             is for beauty.

U  n  d  e  n  i  a  b  l  e  

beauty.

She gives us the signal

                                  that it's over

and we can breathe.

Everything 

                should be

                               fading...

                                            f  a  d  i  n  g .  .  . 

ButMyHeartIsScreaming: Everything's

                                       ALIVE!

And in those last few moments

of mysterious day,

                               Oh, I know the day's not over          yet 

And there's still a chance 

you might 

call.

        i            t               l

    k       r     -   w        r      i      g                                      ambience!

S              t             i              n

-is this even real?-

We still can!

                     There's still time!

(And oh,

  the million threads running out from my

heart

to this world

have each been tugged today.

My little grain nudge against this Boulder,

U  N  I  V  E  R  S  E.)

I never think towards you, twilight.

But

     I'm forever making my way towards you.

I will open the windows       w    i       d        e

                                                                      Come in,

                                                                      Come in.

Restoration

God
God loves to restore. He loves to make things new. He loves to make things whole. The reason we're made is to take delight in knowing Him! So not only does God want to bring out the best in you, He wants to restore you to a relationship with Him that He meant for us to have back when he first invented humans. (Possible now because of Jesus #aweh.)

Exodus
One of the best examples of restoration is God restoring His people from slavery into the Promised Land. They were other people's foot stools and then suddenly they were this whole new mighty nation by themselves. It's a good story, you can read (the first part of) it in Exodus, it is most definitely better than Twilight and maybe even Harry Potter. There's a lot of Drama, capital D. Like when the ground opens up and swallows some fools. And magic - like when someone puts a bronze snake on a pole and says if you just look at it, everything will be right with the world again. And romance- like when God speaks so intimately to Moses, a mere mortal man,  "Come up to me on the mountain and stay here."

So in this restoration story, the Israelites were supposed to take 11 days in the desert between Egypt (their slavery) and the land God promised them (aptly called "The Promised Land"). But they took forty years.

God had a will and a plan for them but they slowed it down.
They were so reluctant about being in the desert, that they wanted to go back to being slaves. Making bricks and building pyramids, for the rest of their miserable days. They complained about everything they could think of: how long, why, where's God, where's the water, this food is lame, we're going to DIE. Wow guys, a bit over-dramatic considering your God just split the sea open for you then used it to drown your enemies that you've been praying to be released from for the past however many generations. Seriously? All they had to do was walk through the wilderness and on the other side was a land flowing with milk and honey. They were hating on the manna (hello, food falling from the sky!!) but that wasn't even for forever. They had such bad attitudes that God let all of the generation from Egypt die out there, taking into the Promised Land only Israelites who had grown up in the desert.

But maybe even worse: after they were in the Promised Land, living the good life, the promised life, they "fondly remembered their days in Egpyt". What?? Are you out of your cotton-picking mind? After everything God has done for you and brought you to? You want to go back to slave life? You have a God who is exclusively yours, He's not just any God, He's THE God, He's literally promised you the earth, He's helped you win battle after battle, he's taken you from zero to hero - annnnd you'd rather think about the time you were working for some other foreign king who hated you and wouldn't let you mix with the natives.

So...
Here's the point I'm getting at...When it comes to attitude towards God's restorative ability: Christians = the Israelites.

God wants to bring change into our lives but we say 'no', we pull away, we make excuses. He only wants to bring good things to you but a little bit of time in the desert is too much. We have so little stick that it takes forever to get to where we need to go. And sometimes, that means we won't ever get there. We're so stubborn, we think we know everything but we don't even know what we want. We don't trust God to carry us through the in-between times.

What would happen if we closed our eyes and said yes? If we understood it would be difficult but worth it? If we jumped when God said, 'jump' - and then found ourselves flying.


It breaks me to think of how many Christians go back to their old lives after God has redeemed us.
"Whom the Son sets free is free indeed but whoever sins is a slave to sin."
God has taken you out of the past. You're not a slave to the things you used to be slave to. You're not of this world anymore.

And your inheritance doesn't rest in Egypt anymore - a legacy of slavery, mundane brick baking. Your inheritance is Jesus. Your reward is God Himself - a glorious, mighty, loving God. He wants a real relationship with you - the kind that make you feel like you're eating rainbows and pooping butterflies.
Jesus is our inheritance, our Promised Land. Your old life cannot be better than what He is.

Hope
He doesn't want you to DO anything: He wants you to open your heart to what He can do.
Forget about the lame stuff, look at Him. Just looking at Him will change you, that's how much restorative power is in Him. (Kind of like the snake on the pole thing.)
And when you feel him asking you to open your heart more: do it! Don't be like those lame Israelites.

Our ultimate restoration will be when we get to go to heaven. Man, I can't wait for that, especially the golden vocal cords for some sweet jam sessions. Aow!

So have hope! You were born to be made new.

Who Sewed Our Souls Together?

A poem to my littlest Ugandan friends

Who Sewed Our Souls Together?

Who crept in
And sewed together at the edges
Our souls?
- Mine into your quilt.

Welded together,
While we taught each other songs,
While we stumbled back from the well with water -
Only for you to pour it into a basin for me to bathe.
While I chased you in our game -
Nimble, swift, bird-like you,
And suddenly the ground slid beneath my clumsy feet...
While you cleaned my torn-open skin,
Waving away the flies.

The "goodbye" pain overflowing from our hearts
Into tears down our faces
Must be the purest pain in the world because it was birthed from love.

Now, my wound healed to a dull red,
I have you still,
Fragments of your butterfly-wing souls,
Diamond dust in my pocket:
The lily whites of smiles,
The star brights of eyes.

I swear blind it was God - He must love me:
He brought us together,
Allowing earth-bound me a taste of radiant heaven.

The Wonderful Logic of Individualism

The Wonderful Logic of Individualism

In a wood, there lay a bundle of sticks tied together. One day, someone tried to break the bundle in half. But they could not be broken. A little way away lay a single stick. With a quick snap!, it broke in two and was less of a stick than it had ever been.

The stick had enjoyed his selfish, lonely life. He had lived as an individual. He developed his own thoughts and ideas, ones too precious to be shared with anyone else. They probably wouldn't understand anyway.
The stick relied on no one but himself for his food, entertainment, transportation and the like.

He was independent in every way.

The food he ate he bought himself with money he earned himself by doing a self-employed job which he paid himself for. He even minted the money alone, in the name of self-reliance.

The stick had tried university but found he wasn't a stickler for the many rules and regulations. People were forever advising him on what to do and how to do it, to which he replied that he was an individual. They tried to put many ideas into his head but he was too clever for them, and thought up all his ideas entirely on his own. After all, he had taught himself to read and write. He had taught himself language.

He even had invented language.

He did not like the idea everyone else implied, when they all wore the same clothes, that he should follow fashion too. Sometimes, he didn't even wear clothes because clothes were for the masses, the sheep. When it was cold, he wore clothing that he had made and designed, and for which he had picked the cotton to weave the material, and created dyes to dye the cloth with.

He also made his own car.
No one could tell the stick what speed he could drive at.

The stick tried church but found that Christianity was just about him and God - church was unnecessary.  After all, there was that verse in Revelations saying that Jesus would be returning to earth one day to take to Himself His bride, stick.

Ah, stick. He died a successful and unloved stick. No one loved him because no one knew him. And he never knew love, because he was an individual.

Best Study Tips

First year university is some tough peanut butter.

I'm writing this for you high-fliers who want to do your best, reach your potential, show the world what you got! Ya, that was me at the beginning of 2012. At the end of it, I passed all of my 20 subjects, with 8 distinctions (75% +). And I want you to do better than me. So here are the secrets revealed.

1. Wander around your house or res. Just keep your mind clear and keep walking. Sooner or later you will land up at your study desk. When you get there, there may be notes around. Don't touch them. Stare at them, still keeping your mind clear. Walk out the room. Repeat.

2. Whatever pillows you own, throw them out this instant. .......(waiting for you to bin them).....from now on, you will use your textbooks as pillows. This way, the information will be absorbed straight into your cranium overnight! For 7 hours straight!

3. When in lectures, pay careful attention to what the lecturer is wearing as this will give you insight into your subject material. E.g. Is she wearing black? The information she is sharing with you in that lecture will probably only be important at night time. Is she wearing a lot of makeup? The lecture will only be necessary in 54% of your life.

4. During the night, wake up once every hour, go to the kitchen and fix yourself a glass of milk with a tablespoon of honey in it. Make sure you drink it in 5 sips, but on the third hour, drink it in two. The last time: be sure to wash your glass so that nobody will know.

5. When talking to anyone about anything, use the correct academic vocabulary. This is a university, not a jail house gamble session. Never say "I like your dress", rather, "You walk in beauty like the night." Never "Can I have a chicken mayo sandwich" but "I solemnly request of you one of those delightful inventions of the Earl of Sandwich, and that it shall be filled with both poultry and dressing." You will be the lunch lady's dream. Also make sure the words are spelled correctly when speaking.

6.When looking at a textbook, make sure to look at it from a variety of angles. It really helps to turn it upside down and see what words pop out at you from the page. This kind of the equivalent to listening to Led Zeplin backwards to find out their demon lyrics. (These days, the demon lyrics of songs are in the forward version.)

Finally, some advice that  will work!
Hambani kahle.