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Sunsets are the Beginning — Part One

Kahumuzah Leave a comment
Photo by George Becker: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photography-of-city-351434/

Miho stood in the way of the grand guard as they went on their daily morning march. He clenched and unclenched his fist, his nails digging deeper into his palm each time. The sensations of the day overwhelmed him; he felt, smelt, and heard everything so acutely. A ball of sharply honed senses with the omission of sight. However, Miho was not blinded by nature’s doing. His intentional decision to close his eyes spoke to the urgency to not let the desperation and fear escape from behind his eyelids.

The commander’s voice thundered from afar. Miho unclenched his eyes. He could feel the robes of the dark one as they brushed against his leg, a breeze dancing between them. He was here to guide him if he needed him. The ground trembled as the marching guards got closer. ‘Boy! Move!’ the commander shouted. ‘Boy! BOY!’ Miho braced himself for the push he was about to get. When met with resistance, the commander felt his spirit rattle with in him; he’d heard stories but he never hoped to experience them. His little boy was about the same age as this young boy. Miho stared into the commander’s eyes; they gauged each other the seconds, splitting faster and faster. Sensing a window in the hesitation of the commander and his frozen company. He pushed past the front of the force, breaking their reverie. As they scrambled to grab him, Miho detonated the bomb.

The dark one’s presence was one that harshly accentuated the daylight. To Miho, it was calming. He stood up and walked towards him, stumbling as he got to his feet. He clutched the hem of his robe and shed a solitary year as he looked up, then bowed his head, surrendering to his fate. He dared not look back at his body; the horror he lived had been enough for his young soul.

The oranges bounced in the basket in response to the ground. Ariho corrected one orange hanging on the edge of the basket precariously, then turned to continue polishing his scales, preparing for his morning customers. This was the second incident in two weeks; the government would ignore this one like they had the first, but there would be a circus tomorrow. A veneer of care for the masses. The shopfront bell twinkled, “I’ll be with you in a minute.” Ariho called to the customer, switching his stained work apron for a clean one. The stranger and Ariho sized each other up. It was clear that Ariho wasn’t about to win a fight against him. He then placed a letter on the counter with the name ‘Cian’ on the front. Ariho felt his chest constrict. “Who are you?” he probed, eyeing up the stranger suspiciously. “I was sent to find you and give you this.” The man’s voice froze the atmosphere of the shop. The silence was broken by the bell, and a soldier marched in, then placed a uniform on the counter with a single white lily on top of it. The three men stood awkwardly for a moment, then Ariho cleared his throat. “Thank you, sir,” he managed to bite out. The soldier saluted him and marched out. Denniolo was a victim of the first suicide bombing, a soldier in the Grand Guard. Ariho never really approved of his chosen career, but he was happy that he found something he loved to do. Deni would’ve never done it without his approval, and he could never refuse him anything. Now his baby brother was gone. Tears pierced his eyes and threatened to fall. He wondered why it took a week for them to give him Deni’s uniform, shaking his head to throw the thought from his head. He pinched his eyes, willing the headache not to dock at the forefront of his head, then he remembered the letter from Cian. It had been 20 years since he’d seen her with staggered communication over the course of that time. The war had separated them but could never create a gulf between them. His last letter spoke of Deni’s passing; that would explain the speed of her response but not who delivered it.

Dear Ri,

I’m sorry I cannot be there to hug you, but broken hearts cannot fix other broken hearts. My tears are shy, but my thoughts replace them as they flow faster than a stream. I didn’t think a heart could weigh you down, but I might be a hunchback the next time you see me. I can’t believe I’m making jokes at a time like this. As I write this, Melca is resting; he recently had a close shave with a landmine. His ball fell on a mine, and it detonated; one of his friends closest to it lost his leg. Melca fell and injured his arm. Other than that, we are well.

I have sent Manushki to deliver the letter for me. Be nice; his a sweet boy we took in after he was orphaned by a bomb. I know what you’re thinking, but he just looks like that, and don’t mind his silence; it isn’t malicious. You are old now brother; 50 is sneaking up on you like a thief. I told Manushki he would be able to work for you. Presumptuous, I know. I see you raising your eyebrow at me in irritation, but I’m right! You could do with an extra pair of hands at the shop. Take him in; you need the company. Everyone sends their love. The Lord keep you, my brother, till we can see each other, and may he grant Deni peace.

Annoyingly,

Cian

Ariho folded the paper with slight irritation; this was typical Cian behaviour; she made a decision, and he had to deal with the consequences. He hated to admit it, but she was right—the manual labour of his job has started to take a toll on his body. “Manushki, my sister speaks highly of you,” the boy couldn’t be older than 18 he thought. “Mama C takes good care of me, and I return the favour,” Manushki answered. “Well, come to the back, and I’ll give you an old apron; I’ll get you a new one tomorrow.” Ariho said, gesturing for the boy to follow him. He reminded him of Deni, built like him but less personable, and that was okay.

Crossroads

Kahumuzah Leave a comment

Life is a road with many crossroads in it and sometimes we seem to be standing at the intersection for the longest time because we honestly do not know which road to take. As you stand at that intersection the mental gymnastics are absolutely phenomenal, for lack of a better description they are Olympic worthy gymnastics. I have watched my thoughts go to the overthinking tournaments and win first prize because I stood at mental crossroads for too long. Theatrics and thoughts go hand in hand especially if you are uncertain.

I don’t feel qualified to speak about feeling lost and finding yourself. First because I still feel lost; I am not very sure of who I am yet or where I am headed in life. Second, I feel like to fully put across this idea or any idea for that matter you had to have lived it and successfully solved it too or at least tried to. I am quite plainly in my opinion none of the above and grossly under qualified but I shall try my best.

In this fiasco we call living you are likely to encounter your fair share of fires. Some real and physical, others existential. The former being much easier to put out than the latter depending on the scale. The real fires however can spark the existential ones, with enough destruction to cause internal interruption.

As I said before I am not the best person to speak on this dilemma around finding yourself, but I will nonetheless throw my two cents into the basket. They will likely disappear under the many other coins but for me just knowing they are there is enough.

I never really felt lost until I reached the age of nineteen. When I turned nineteen suddenly the world felt bigger than before and I had to fit in it even though I felt very small. However I did not know where to place myself and even if I did place myself somewhere I did not know if I’d fit there. For me life was a jigsaw puzzle and everyone had their place in it. Fast forward to my quickly approaching twenty second year on earth I do not quite feel the same any more.

It’s interesting how much you can learn in a year or two just from experiences both your own and those of other people, from observation and listening to both those that know and those that don’t know. There are no words that ring true to me than those of Eleanor Roosevelt that are “learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them yourself.” It’s true. There are many things I have avoided or have chosen to do differently because I saw someone make a mistake. Slowly through this trial and error I have learnt that there is actually no place for you to fit but rather you create a space for yourself.

Where you decided to fit is for you to decide. It can be in the normal hum drum of life, nothing extraordinary (an ironic word if I ever heard one, with an even more ironic description). Or it can be in grand dreams, chasing greatness. Either way you find a space and you make it your own. I’ve come to accept that we all leave a mark, for some our mark will only be felt by a few in our community and the occasional stranger. For others the mark is felt worldwide, with many benefiting or suffering due to it.

Our mark, fingerprint, personal identifier is hinged on our character and values that inform our actions. I’m not talking about what was instilled in you as a child, that is merely a foundation. I am talking about what you build based on the decisions you make especially the hard and pivotal ones. Do the ends justify the means or are there some things you just will not do?

I hated mathematics as a child, I have some of my teachers to thank for that but mathematics is life. All you do in life is make calculations, not always with numbers but with decisions and the likely consequences of them. In business there is the term opportunity cost, this is the potential benefits that are missed when a business owner, an investor or a person chooses one alternative over another. The formula for this is the return on best forgone option subtracted by the return on the chosen option. This calculation helps you evaluate the costs and benefits of all the options available to you and compare them so you arrive at the most sensible decision. Life has a long line of opportunity costs that might have led us down different paths but for reasons best known to ourselves we did not take them. As a result we stand where we are today, doing whatever we happen to be doing due to these decisions.

Life is definitely what you make it. It is quite a cliché and rather ambiguous statement but it is true. If you are feeling lost just remember it is a step by step process to finding yourself with very round corners, Everest level highs and sea floor lows. It not an instant process where one day it just clicks, it just slowly forms as you live and try out what the world has to offer and it is underpinned by a feeling of contentment. At the end of the day in the dusk of your life you want contentment, whatever that means or looks like for you as a person. You will change a lot as the decades run by, both internally and externally but I’ve figured if you make the right decisions even when they feel like they aren’t or are hard to do and are true to yourself, you should be alright.

Above all if you believe in God, pray for guidance it helps. If you don’t may you have the wisdom to do right by yourself and those around you.

Those are just my two cents.

It was M.E.N.T.A.L

Kahumuzah Leave a comment

2020 Lockdown – a weird state of mind, where time slowed down while simultaneously speeding up at the same.

I’ve watched the world stop

So still

A pin could drop in the east

and you would hear it in the west

But as the world got quiet and loud

My thoughts became a festival

I’ve never heard them before

They turn sunny days, rainy

and rainy days, sunny

I watched everyone through frosted glass

Seeing the parts that they illuminated

Never seeing the dark side of the moon

Like watching candles burning through the windows of a church

I crushed, badly during the first lockdown. I’ve struggled for a long time with depression (I have never clinically had it diagnosed) or as the internet likes to call it “the big sad”, and I thought I had finally learned to control it but the covid-19 lockdown of 2020 showed me otherwise.

Do you know those scenes of people crying themselves to sleep in movies? That was my life for some nights, except there was no soundtrack to my breakdowns. Just pain and the weird hope for a new day. The only positive side effect, was that the sleep after crying was actually really good and peaceful. Whoever said crying a form of therapy was right.

I will never forget the feeling of being left behind as I watched people do all these wonderful things during the lockdown. The fear of missing out was excessively strong as I saw people start businesses, pursued new hobbies, re-discovered old hobbies and I on the other did nothing. One would ask what were you afraid of missing out on? I don’t know to be honest all knew was I felt like a potato, I knew I could do something but I really did not have the energy to do anything. As my days sort of blurred into each other and the concept of time being a construct begun to take on actual meaning for me, I let go. Slowly at first. I let go of my feelings of being left behind, I made an effort to work through my feelings instead of avoiding them. When I stopped comparing myself to others, I re-discovered things I loved doing but had forgotten about in the midst of the hustle and bustle that is life.

However this created a very different hurdle for me. Should I post the stuff I am doing? That was a constant question for me as I engaged with long forgotten hobbies. Weird to say that even if the pressure was really from within, it felt like people needed to see what I was doing as a sort of validation of the fact that I actually was good at what I was doing. It seems that as I let go of comparison, for a hot minute, I took on the burden of seeking validation. It was two steps forward and five steps backwards with this.

I then realized something, I was doing this for me. These long forgotten hobbies were my means of escape from my brain that goes into overdrive but never seems to overheat. We thank the Lord the brain is like a CPU but the mechanics are different. If I was going to share what I was doing with other people then I needed to shake off the imaginary pressure to impress. I should not be sharing from a place of needing validation for the things I am capable of and whether they were worthy of my time.

The lockdown of 2020 was a chance for me to grow in ways I did not know I needed to. The imposed full stop on how busy life can get was actually a blessing in disguise. In a world where you can feel inadequate for not having any tangible results, I hope you are able to realize that those tangible results come from the intangible work that happens on the inside and the hours of tangible work put in behind the scenes. In the words of Shakespeare “All the world’s a stage. And all the men and women merely players”, so play your part but do not lose your heart. Life happens for you but it also happens to you, how ever you react to both depends on you.

Epiphany

Kahumuzah 1 Comment

Epiphany: an illuminating realization or discovery, often resulting in a personal feeling of elation, awe or wonder.

I should be reading for my upcoming exams but instead, I am sitting here reflecting on the past seven months. They have weirdly enough been a rollercoaster for me, which is not usually the case with the past years. While I don’t have much to show for them physically, I have everything to show for them mentally, emotionally and in some ways spiritually.


I have met people or should I say people met me. These few months I have met people who, now with hindsight, feel like they were put in my life to force me to do some very serious self-reflection. They have taught me things about myself by simply interacting with me. Their actions and my reactions have forced me to ask why I choose to see things that way; is my view the reality of things or am I seeing things through a purely emotional lens?


I have never been one to feel insecure about someone, what they do and what they have accomplished, but Jesus knows I have felt that this year. I have never been in a position where I have needed to seriously think through and sort out my emotions for the most reasonable answer, but this year I have. I have never really felt the pressure to get my life together and start being independent like I have this year. I have also never felt as confused, grateful, and happy as I have this year. I have also never felt myself mature like I have this year, it is almost scary how tangible it is to feel yourself mature to be very honest. It’s like taking off a cloth but for the last time, you literally feel yourself drop some childish tendencies and that can be weird especially if these tendencies developed as coping mechanisms that helped you function.


To anyone who has been a part of my life this year so far and played a significant role in it, I’d just like to thank you from the bottom of my heart. You have taught me things about life that I knew but had never experienced; the lesson you live stays with you longer than the lesson you hear.


We are now in August. I do not know what the next five months hold for me but I’ll be living one day at a time and doing my best to make the most of every day. I feel like I have been in a state of slumber, life and its various realities hadn’t sunk in yet but this year was the biggest wake-up call I have ever had and I have had quite a few. Suddenly I am questioning old thinking patterns and habits, I want other things for myself. I want to wake up one day and see the life I have always envisioned for myself, but that cannot happen without work on my part. Serious, consistent work. I have always put off doing things, learning things, exploring things because I was scared I’d fail, scared of what people would think, and just generally scared of walking out of my comfort zone. I’ve done things that I genuinely loved but I later abandoned them because I felt kinda silly doing them, or the grass looked greener somewhere else, or I wondered if people would even cared. Not anymore if I want to do it, I will do it.


I know changes do not happen overnight and some of the most beautiful things are made from patience and consistency, but if I always remember I am doing whatever I am doing for a purpose whether grand or personal I’ll be able to keep at it. So whenever I get tired or lose interest I just need to remind myself of the purpose behind the work, because the grand picture shows you the pieces you never get to see under the microscope.


I wish everyone reading this a great rest of the year. If you want to start something, do it. If you want to learn something, start learning. Whatever you want to do you are capable of doing, you just need to start. Do it scared, do it unsure but do it.

I learnt something…

Kahumuzah 1 Comment

So I started university and let me tell you something, it is neither overwhelming nor underwhelming. I just feel like I took an extra-long break from school and now I am back at it again. Upon arrival here I had no excitement of any form nor did I have any expectations; in a way I almost felt normal, a sort of “let’s do this *cracks knuckles*” attitude.

I don’t mind people knowing I am a ‘fresher’ but I also need them to know I’m not stupid and naïve. I guess I can attribute this whole attitude I have to the fact that I continuously told myself over my long hiatus from academics that I am starting on a new slate, I don’t know anything, I’m here to do my best and possibly surpass what I think is my best and explore by getting out of my comfort zone. This is called conditioning. I have conditioned my mind a certain way so I can react to a particular event in this case moving to university in a particular way.

Conditioning by it’s dictionary definition is: 1. the process of modifying a person or animal’s behavior, 2. Any training or preparation especially athletic training of the body, 3. The storage of a material specimen under specific temperature, humidity for a specific time prior to testing. Basically a process of preparation for a specific event, a good example of this how they train guard dogs they are taught to react particular sorts of stimuli a certain way.

Conditioning is a fairly easy thing to do. One thing that is signature of it is repetition. You need to keep repeating the action or words for it to stick because you know what they say practice doesn’t make perfect it makes permanent. However conditioning isn’t always conscious. You know those habits you have that you feel you’ve done since forever? That was a result of conditioning, you did that one thing continuously that you are so used to doing it comes naturally to you.

The hardest part about conscious conditioning is the beginning of the whole process, especially it is a taxing thing to do like starting to exercise. The pain and shaky legs cause you to want to give up on the whole experience, it seems unbearable. The breakthrough comes when you can push through the pain and give yourself a small goal and discipline yourself to reach it. Once you can do this and do it again and again, your body gets used to it and it becomes routine.

It’s very possible to do you just need persistence, determination and discipline. So whatever it is you want to do go ahead and condition yourself.

The start is a high or a low

The middle a monotony and a stumbling block

The end is the reward

The journey is what makes it worth it, remember it always.

Kahumuzah

Loneliness

Kahumuzah 1 Comment

Being alone and loneliness are two different things, I’ve learned that the older I grew.
Being alone doesn’t necessarily mean that you are lonely, it is very possible to be alone and enjoy your own company. You could enjoy taking care of yourself, thinking over everything that you would want to achieve, evaluating your growth over the years and marveling at it and so much more. Jonathan Van Ness said “Loneliness is, like, when you wish someone else was there, and solitude is when you enjoy being alone. I don’t always wanna be alone, but I definitely like pockets of solitude to recharge and come back to myself. I think that’s so important for everyone.”

Loneliness on the other hand has no space for the type of light that can be related to being alone. Imagine loneliness as an island in the middle of the sea, your stranded on it and no one knows your there it doesn’t matter how many bottled messages you send out because no one will ever find them and you know that and soon you stop sending out bottled messages and accept your fate as you sink further and further slowly by slowly into the quicksand that surrounds the middle of the island. That is loneliness, it is soul crushing and it sits your chest and suffocates you leaving you a shell of yourself. However, it is also like a series but you just don’t know how long each episode will last or how it will leave you. One episode may leave you feeling like you don’t fit in and uncomfortable at social gatherings, the next episode may beat you up and leave you crying buckets on a bathroom floor. You can never tell how it will leave you, a hardened soldier or a survivor?

 What is loneliness?
 It's a place where you are on your own
 A place that shuts out everything even in a room full of people
 It's in your mind 
 Sometimes it sits on your shoulders
 Sometimes your chest
 Its weight is crushing
 You can't breathe
 Your hands shake uncontrollably
 You sink to the floor, wanting to go through
 Your knees reach your chest
 You can't even rock yourself
 You sit still
 And shed silent tears riddled with barely sobs
 You don't want anyone to hear you
 Sometimes you press your hand to your mouth to stop the sound
 It hurts
 But you don't know how to stop it
 You don't understand it
 It's a resident in your mind
 Making an appearance whenever
 It paralyzes you
 You hide to deal with it
 You don't want them to think your ungrateful
 Ungrateful for them, for being there, for loving you
 But you can't help but feel abandoned sometimes
 So you let the silent tears tear through your body 
 Then you stand up and clean up and hold on to your sunshine as it comes
 Even a single beam is essential

So what causes loneliness? Many things for example transitions in life, moving from one place in your life to another can cause you to lose interaction with others and social disconnect; mental health problems, not feeling connected and understood by those around you. So this helps you realize that everyone experiences loneliness at some point in their lives, sometimes only for a particular period and others it’s drawn out and can last awhile.

Can it be remedied?
I believe so, I think first you need to stop fighting alone time because we all need it seeing as society is energy leech that sucks you dry. Alone time provides you with the chance to re-group and get power, think of it like a game of Super Mario you have all these challenges but to meet them you need power-ups.
Then find and indulge in something you love to offset the feelings of loneliness (it can be done, easier said than done but it can be done) for example I write poetry and I am learning to write music, pouring my thoughts onto paper plus I listen to music. Both these things have a soothing and calming effect on me when I feel like the world is closing in on me like an escape. This allows you to see yourself beyond the loneliness you feel, it shows you that you are more than you think you are.
Plus, ask yourself why you feel that way and if you don’t have an answer that’s fine but just asking can trigger you to subconsciously think and flip through experiences buried deep and one day it will smack you in the face. Lastly, breath slowly and do what you need to do to get through your day or next episode.

However, this isn’t a self-help article on how to tackle loneliness these are just things I have done to help me deal with my lingering loneliness and have decided to share.
Have you ever experienced feelings of loneliness? How did you deal with them?

Kahumuzah and Lotus Martha

Fear

Kahumuzah Leave a comment 
 The Oxford Dictionary describes fear as:

An unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harm;

A feeling of anxiety concerning the outcome of something or the safety of someone;

The likelihood of something unwelcome happening

but also

A mixed feeling of dread and reverence. 

The Urban Dictionary says it is:

an emotion which tends to take over your mind causing negative thinking, anger, and even more fear;

Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.

and

Fear is the only thing in your way from achieving your goals.

These days I like to call the Black Death or Saving Grace, for two reasons. One being fear is False Evidence Appearing Real, meaning whatever you are afraid of you can overcome but your own mind has tricked and trapped you into thinking you cannot. Two; sometimes we fear things with good reasons to for example walking alone at night, it is dangerous and this has been proven time and time again. So being weary of walking alone at night causes you to take the appropriate measures to secure yourself if you need to move around at night. Fear is an issue like any that has two faces to it.

This emotion can elicit a “rush” from you or terrorize you sometimes even paralyze you. The reason for this comes down to one thing the context; how we perceive a situation has an immense bearing on whether we react with immense excitement or numbing fear.

You live a life where you know where what goes, what happens when, who comes when, who goes when etc. You’ve you reached a plateau in your life where you can sit comfortably and once one is in a situation like this they do not like to be shaken or even poked, no sort of discomfort is appreciated. Now nothing shakes someones foundation more than uncertainty however small and with it comes fear, it’s like having the lights right in front of you being shut off when ever you take or try to take a step forward. However that’s all life really is lots of uncertainty and a series of fortunate and unfortunate events orchestrated by decisions you’ve made or external factors and your the explorer trying to trek your way through it. We always think of uncertainty as an obstacle that we must go over, go through or get around of but we can also see it as a curtain. A curtain that when pulled back holds either an amazing result or nothing much because what your doing behind the scenes is what eventually appears on the scene, never forget that. 

 That which you dread may be that, that frees you
It may make you cringe
You may make you cry 
You may make you lose 
But hopefully you won't die

"Oh the worlds a stage" upon which we perform
A scene upon which our stories are told
There are those that all see and those that they don't
You never know your next scene or next story to tell 
Next adventure or tragedy to befall you 
Next next or next next next
And all in all as Dory say "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming"

As a wrote this article I decided to do some research on fear, its triggers and what it entails as I did this I stumbled upon this simple but interesting answer on Quora: http://We all have our comfort zones. This plateau may occur when we’ve become good at our jobs and can show off a skill or complete a task without thinking too much about the process. We also learn society’s rules and regulations early in our formative years, and become confident that this knowledge is valid each day. This allows us to get to work, buy groceries, and cross the road without getting shot in the face. Mostly. Learning new tasks requires time and effort that we’d prefer to spend impressing people with what we already know, or going about our business, following rules that we’ve already learned to obey. We aren’t really interested in the government suddenly deciding to change which side of the road we drive on. That’s going to take massive amount of re-education, and a lot of people are going to get shot in the face. Some people don’t like change because they are too lazy, too fearful, under educated, or have physical or mental problems that make learning new tasks and rules difficult. People generally want to follow the path of least resistance. Luckily there are enough innovators and free-thinkers among the sheep who spice things up for the rest of us, and hopefully one of them will make the rest of us a bulletproof face-shield.

You can interpret that however you like but what I see is learning new things, change, anything we want to do but are not sure about requires us to rewire ourselves and go back to the drawing board sometimes needing us to unlearn some of the skills we’ve mastered in order for us to tackle this new wave that’s about to hit us. We just don’t want to do that and just thinking about it causes us to get afraid then the uncertainty of the whole situation looms over us, we consider all the ways it could go wrong and the two ways it could go right if we tried. In short we turn into a hot mess and want others to take the risks for us because . However, when faced with this looming fear of the unknown we need to embrace how uncertain we feel about it and only then can find a way to push through that curtain and onto the other side of our fears.

This is what’s up when faced with uncertainty.

Though finding “what is to be done next” is hard, breathe, step back and survey the situation as you do this a window will open and you will see it and jump through. Don’t panic or lose your head just breath and enter the murky waters riddled with fear however you feel comfortable doing so, because and it grounds you in a skewed kind of way.

Kahumuzah

With Love

Kahumuzah 2 Comments

Jesus told us to lead with love. Okayyyyy….but what does it mean ‘to lead with love’? How does one go about ‘leading with love’? What does it entail? And most importantly, what is love?

I remember reading a twitter post that said ‘you know you love someone when you want them to be happy even if its not with you’. I think this is a beautiful representation of what love is, it is not selfish and it does not envy. It takes you as you are and helps you along your journey till the very end. Basically it makes you feel light, you want to celebrate the success of people even if that means it isn’t with you but with someone else somewhere else. Even if it hurts you still derive joy and happiness from them being happy and this can ironically lead to you healing from the pain of being away from them but only if you let it.

LOVE IS LIGHT!
                        Like the Sun it brightens all that it touches.

We hear the statement ‘actions speak louder then words’ its true. How you act towards something ultimately reveals how you feel towards it. This is especially true when trying to lead with love as Jesus did for example
love is safe, love is care
it isn’t you dropping meaningless phrases
it isn’t empty grand gestures
it isn’t hitting me then buying me flowers
it isn’t demeaning me then saying you didn’t mean it like that
it is pushing me when i lose motivation
it is just holding me when I’m sad
it is comfortable silence
it is always being there
it is pointing out my bs
it is also knowing when to let go
love is safe, love is care

I read something somewhere that said ‘if you say something over and over it loses its meaning. I love you, I love you, I love you. See, nothing’. Now think of the phrase ‘I love you’, how many times is it thrown around everyday with nothing behind it? A friend of mine once told me (I,m paraphrasing here) ‘I don’t say that phrase a lot because it means a lot, you should only say it if you mean it’. She is right, when you say ‘I love you’ you’re basically saying how you are is how I accept you and I won’t try to change you.

Back to leading with love. First what is leading? A quick search on google brings up many definitions but a few stood out to me:
1. the initiative in an action; an example for others to follow.

2.  to be in charge of.
This brings to mind the statement ‘you need to lead by example’, if the leader does it then his subordinates are more likely to follow what they do. A leader is not coercion, brutality and fear. A leader is Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz; she was kind, she made friends with people and animals, she was genuinely liked. Dorothy led her little unlikely band to the Emerald City not by capitalizing on their insecurities but by gentle words, genuinely caring, encouragement, gentle prodding and genuine belief that good can trample over evil. Dorothy is a good example of a leader, rather unconventional but that’s never been an issue. She shows what it means to be a leader, she doesn’t really appear to be one but she is, she walks among those she leads in charge but also a part of the action.

Kahumuzah