Solidarity – The Practice of Self Dispossession

Self dispossession is the price solidarity exacts
~ M Shawn Copeland

I love asking questions. Most of my life, I have been asking questions, only difference is how and where I ask them as time has passed. I remember when I got employed after college, the secretary at our department was fed up with my questions and one day she raised her voice exasperated and said:
“Joyce! You are like a walking questionnaire!”

One of the questions that has been swirling in my mind for years is the question of solidarity amongst those who claim affinity to the Christian faith. I have suffered a lot in the 37 years I have been on the face of the earth and it is around this suffering that this question arose. I always wondered, sometimes out loud, why are the people of faith unable to fully empathize with those who suffer – physical, emotional, social, mental, spiritual suffering? I always wondered why it is that people of faith seemed lost when in the presence of another suffering human being. For years I asked God this question as well as fellow human beings who proclaim the Christian faith.

I remember when I lost my second child. The most awkward visitors I got were from the church. They looked lost, uncomfortable, out of place. In the end, while nursing my own physical and emotional wounds I cracked jokes to ease the palpable tension. This made them very happy. They ended up extolling my resilience and courage and ability to endure suffering and still laugh. In laughter they easily were enjoined with me, but as soon as my pain showed they coiled into themselves. I found it so odd.

April 1, 2021 0 comment

Christian

Palm Sunday – Lets linger with the colt a while

written by Wanjiku J. Mwangi

When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’”
(Luke 19:29-31)

I grew up in the Pentecostal church, and I have heard the colt sermons numerous times. In all forms, shapes and sizes. From the preachers who froth at the mouth, to the quiet whispering preachers, to the staccato speaking preachers to the laptop and project preachers. What is not different from all these preachers is the content of their sermons on the colt featured in Zechariah 9, Matthew 21, Mark 11 and Luke 19. The baseline of these sermons is that you as the Christian are the colt who needs to be untied because the Master needs you. And it does not matter who tries to stop your untying, the word of the Master is enough to get you lose. The Master needs you untied so that He can ride on you into Jerusalem aka the purpose He ahs for your life.

This past weekend as I reflected on the Holy Week beginning with Palm Sunday and ending up with Resurrection Sunday, my mind for some reason lingered on the colt. And I felt sad. Then I felt angry. Then I had so many questions.

Why is Jesus the Nazarene coming off as a bully here?
Why would he go about picking other people’s colts, just because he could?
Why could he not pay for the colt?
Is “the Master needs it” code for something?

Still lingering a while with the colt. . .

March 30, 2021 0 comment

Mother

Mothering Sunday 2021

written by Wanjiku J. Mwangi

A Prayer

Great Ear,
Great Eye,
Greatest Embrace,
Great Love,
Great Circle,

Creator of all,
Sustainer of Life,
Keeper of us,
Lover of all you made,

I come to you as a mother,
I am pleading for myself and other mothers,
The wailing mothers,
The weeping mothers,
The weary mothers,
The abandoned mothers,
The forgotten mothers,
The betrayed mothers,
The bereaved mothers,
The waiting mothers,
The mothers whose backs are against the wall,

You who hears, hear us,
You who sees, see us,
You embraces, embrace us,
You who is love, love on us,
You who circles, encircle us,

You whose property is always to have mercy,
Have mercy on us,
You who comes and rescues the weak,
Rescue us,
You who delivers all who are oppressed,
Deliver us,
You who wipes away all tears,
Wipe away our tears,

God who remembers,
Remember us,
God who vindicates,
Vindicate us,
God who restores,
Restore us,

Great Father,
Great Mother,
Great Parent,
Great Lover,
Great Comforter,
Great Healer,
Great Provider,

Would you look upon all the women with mercy,
And hearken to their prayers we ask,
Would you be quick to answer,
Would you be quick to come to us,
Would you meet us where we are.

We ask in faith,
Amen.

#MotheringSunday

March 15, 2021 0 comment

Friend

The Dark God

written by Wanjiku J. Mwangi

He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him,
thick clouds dark with water.

(Psalm 18:11)

I continue to reflect and ponder on:

The God who clothes Himself in darkness,

The God who exists in darkness,
The God who reveals Himself in darkness.

For so long I only knew Him as,

A God who is light,

A God who only exists in light.

Now I know Him as,

The One who clothes Himself in darkness,

The One who stays with me in darkness,

The One who walks with me through darkness,

The One who is darkness.

#TheDarkGod

March 11, 2021 0 comment

Friend

The Table: Here is the Cross, Here is the Blood, but where is the Body?

written by Wanjiku J. Mwangi

I was born and raised Pentecostal. For all my life in the Pentecostal Church the Lord’s Table/Holy Communion was always presented in a very dangerously mystical way. Kind of like if you approached it wrong even an inch you were doomed. Problem is, all this dangerous mystical thing was neither well explained nor questioned as it were. We just flowed with it. It felt more like a condemnation ritual rather than the life giving ritual I was convinced it should be. So every time the Holy Communion was scheduled, mostly once a month, there was always this fore bonding feeling that engulfed the congregation. I remember so many adults, who were the ones eligible to participate, walked out of the church building when the communion ritual started. It always started in a very threatening manner. Scriptures were read, mostly condemning scriptures like 1 Corinthians 11:13-34. Most emphasized part of this, usually used a the intro to communion time was vs. 27-32

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

March 11, 2021 0 comment

Friend

God, if you were me, would you trust you?

written by Wanjiku J. Mwangi

A Lament

God, you know me and you have been at this conversation for a while now. Just going back and forth, back and forth.

In regards to justice and mercy, sometimes it is really hard to know where you really stand. I know, I know what is written in the Holy Book, but to me honest, more often than not it seems you are either fence sitting or sitting pretty with the oppressors, the enslavers, the abusers, the capitalists, the unjust and the wicked.

Really, because from where I sit, my mind being limited and all, it is hard to picture you being with the oppressed. What with all the turmoil, the pain, the suffering they go through – for years, decades, centuries!- even unto death. And it would seem that you just sit and do nothing God.

That’s why I am asking you if you were me, would you trust you?

To be honest, even going by just the Written Scriptures, God you really have a bad record with the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, the needy – that entire group that Papa Howard Thurman called ‘those whose backs are against the wall’. Just look at Abel, go to Job, look at the 430 years of enslavement of the children of Israel, the death of the Hebrew boys, come to Lazarus dying, all the women and children that suffer disease, hunger and death. Your track record is right there and it is wanting. Come out of the written Word into history and it even gets worse. All the genocides, holocaust, enslavement of black people, displacement and murder of indigenous people, colonisation, capitalism!

You know sometimes I really wonder if you take convenient breaks while humanity destroys each other and the environment which supports us! Where are you when the poor are oppressed, crushed and killed.

Why, O Lord, do you stand far away?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

(Psalm 10:1)

Where are you God?
Where are you when we need you the most?

Why are you silent?
What are you silent when we could definitely use your voice?

Why do you not act?
Why do you not act when we could use your decisive actions?

I know oooh so well that me and You we are so different. You are God and I am Wanjiku. You are the creator and I am Your creation. Your thoughts, view of time, way of doing things is definitely quite different from mine. But I also know that you became man. Christ the Nazarene, you feel me I know. You know how limited in thought, time and space humans are. Having been here and gone through hell and back, quite literally, why don’t you act quickly? Why don’t you respond resoundingly?

The more I get to know you, I am really aware that you cannot be boxed as it were. You are not an either or. You are the entire spectrum of light and color splashed across the starry sky. You are earth. You are wind. You are water. You are fire. You are the elements in their fullness, in their vastness, in their breath, width and depth. Would you just please arise and show Yourself in all your fullness!

So there you have it God. I am here on the side of the oppressed, with my back against the wall. And I am asking you to choose a side, how audacious of me! Not just choose a side with words but in actions, you know. As you may have rightly guessed, of course, I want you to chose my side. And I also want you to act swiftly and quickly and bring reprieve to all of us whose backs are against the wall. But most important, would you bring us into what you are doing, what you are upto? Open our eyes, raise our senses to see what you see, perceive as you do? Like enjoin us into Yourself, Holy Trinity. Again I ask, Ooh circle of life holder of the past present and future, would you be quick to it.

Sincerely,
Wanjiku

March 11, 2021 0 comment

Friend Mother

My First – 3rd March 2010

written by Wanjiku J. Mwangi

The events of this particular morning, 11 years ago today, are still painful to conjure. I remember the entire morning and early afternoon in my head as if it happened a couple of hours ago. I had begun the practice of recording all my daily expenses to track my spending. So the night before, I wrote down the expenses in my book and put the book on my bedside table then settled into bed with my then husband to watch a movie. For the life of me, I cannot remember what movie we watched. I was around 10-12 weeks pregnant at the time, my first pregnancy and everything was going on well.

Next morning, 3rd March 2011, I wake up and my side of the bed is soaked with blood. I am shook! I do not know what to do or what is happening. I get out of the bed and we are now in panic mode. Blood is not a good thing when you are pregnant. Having a bed that is soaking in blood is baaaaad. So we call my doctor and she says that sounds like a miscarriage. I am trying to process everything all at once. I am scared and at the same time the pain has kicked in. Doctor guides us to get some medicine and my then husband goes to get the medicine. At this point the pain is debilitating, I am literally writhing on the floor. I am screaming in silence, holding my stomach, groaning and bleeding. Doctor says, the miscarriage is on and I just need to let it through.

March 3, 2021 0 comment

Friend

#SubversiveSeminary

written by Wanjiku J. Mwangi

Howard Thurman (18^th Nov 1899 – 10^th Apr 1981) is the precious man who led me to #SubversiveSeminary. At the moment that he did so, I had only read his name a couple of hours earlier and known the title of one of his books ‘Jesus and the Disinherited’. The mind is an interesting organ. Curiosity can really drive one’s mind to great lengths, sometimes for good, sometimes to injury. The reason I went about scouring the internet to learn more about Howard Thurman was because I had received a double caveat on him and his book ‘Jesus and the Disinherited’ in a space that I am in. The fact that this caveat was in both a male and female voice really intrigued me. What was it about this man and this book that would necessitate such measures? I had to find out.

February 7, 2021 1 comment

Friend

Travelling Light @37

written by Wanjiku J. Mwangi

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2

I am a teacher. One of my favorite people to teach is the little children, beginning with mine, whom I joyfully teach God’s Word or maybe I should better say Catechism because we cover the broad length that is the doctrines of our faith. In these setting we have narrowed down our definition of SIN as follows:

Teacher/Leader: What is SIN?
All in unison:
SIN is anything you think (touching the head and shaking it small small);
anything you hear (wiggling our ears),
anything you see (touching our eyes),
anything you smell (pinching our noses small small),
anything you eat (moving our fingers towards our open mouths),
anything you say (flapping our fingers next to the mouth),
anything you touch (wiggling our hands),
anywhere you go (marching/stomping with our feet)
that does not please God!

February 2, 2021 0 comment

Friend

Ruth – And the greatest of these is Love

written by Wanjiku J. Mwangi

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:13

I love me a good love story and the Book of Ruth and her love story with Boaz is one of the romantic accounts of the Bible. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves because the story of Ruth begins in tears, in widowhood. I know a few widows and I know how society looks down upon, mistreats and generally maligns widows. Do not even get me started on young widows, the rumor mills are set on maximum speed as soon as the death of their spouse is made public. I can only image the pain and agony of being a widow in Ruth’s days and in our days.

Ruth is a widow of a foreigner. She is a Moabites (I loove the way mine pronounce this word). Her dead husband is an Israelite living in a Moab after their entire family left Bethlehem because of famine. Ruth is not the only widow, her mother in law Naomi is also a widow and her sister in law Orpah is also a widow; three widows in Moab. One day Naomi wakes up and decides to go back home, to Bethlehem. Only problem is, she has two widowed daughters in law. She decides to cut them off, politely so, by informing them that even if she were to give birth at that moment it would not be viable for them to wait. Orpah heads back home after wailing but Ruth clings onto Naomi and utters the famous words in Ruth 1:16-17

“Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”

Good move Ruth. Good move. The two widows arrive in Bethlehem and the gossip mills are on overdrive. As Providence would have it, it is the beginning of the barley harvest time. So Ruth learns how things are done by Naomi and she gets to work to provide for both of them. Do you remember Leviticus 23:22; 19:9

“And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.”

Well, Boaz was one of those diligently walking in obedience to God’s command. And once again, as Providence would have it, Ruth finds herself gleaning in the land of Boaz. Boaz comes around his farm and voila! A new madam is in his farm gleaning, ofcourse meaning she either poor or a sojourner. He quickly enquires about her identity and when she is informed about her, it would seem Boaz immediately takes a liking to Ruth. Ruth is welcome at Boazland for the rest of harvest season. She goes home and tells Naomi all about it and brings some bounty from Honcho Boaz.

In comes the concept of a Kinsman Redeemer; a concept well executed by Naomi, Ruth and Boaz. In essence a widow is redeemed so that the name of the deceased does not get lost. Naomi knows this all too well and she gives Ruth a crash course on what to do. Boaz does what he needs to do and Ruth get a husband and bears a son Obed.

The part Naomi plays of it is beautifully summarized by Sylvia Gunter:

“Sit still, My daughter, the apple of My eye, waiting as long as it takes, until you learn (know, perceive, understand, discern, and distinguish as truth) how the matter, thing, question, or cause will turn out, because surely the Man Christ Jesus, your Kinsman-Redeemer, will not by any means be idle, or silent, or have any peace until He finishes His purposes, working until the job is done, in His eternal now.”

Love is a beautiful thing. Ruth’s love and devotion towards Naomi. God’s love and devotion towards His children. Boaz’s love towards Ruth. Hesed is the Hebrew word that summarizes this type of love. It is rich. It includes kindness, Providence, care, protection, wisdom, procreation, preservation. It is an all encompassing love. And Ruth the Moabites gets to experience this love in all its fullness. She shares it with Naomi. She receives it from Naomi. She shares it with Boaz son of Rahab the prostitute and together they, two women considered as outsiders Providentially find themselves planted in the genealogy of Jesus the Son of God, Jesus the man from Nazareth. Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called children of God – all of us, including those considered as ‘outsiders’

So now faith, hope, and LOVE abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13

January 22, 2021 0 comment

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