I shared the following note with my Facebook friends, and it is pertinent that I share it here as well. Here goes:
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It was my birthday yesterday, declared a holiday by a quasi-Briton who shares the same birthday (not date: day!). Today, another three people that I know also had their birthdays.
The other day, I tried to picture God in the heavens, looking down at us earthlings, throwing parties and sending messages of goodwill whenever one of us completes a full earth cycle around the sun. For some reason, I couldn't picture Him finding reason to have a party. After all, He is the One who set time rolling. Before time began, He is. I find that AWESOME, don't you?
It is a similar kind of awe that I feel when I meet someone who has lived long enough to call my dad "son." Now, THAT is seniority, and my dad is not young, by any means.
Back to that image of God looking down on us, celebrating the fact that we have lived long enough to see the beginning of yet another cycle around the sun. Every day on this planet is someone's birthday somewhere, and, boy, do humans party! Any excuse to indulge the appetite, and I will call for a party.
On the FIRST day of the week, the day popularly known as Sunday (we will not be fooled by the quasi-calendars that mark the day popularly known as Monday as the first day of the week), God, after setting time in motion on this planet, said there should be light. There WAS light.
Now, to appreciate the significance of that FIRST creative act on this planet, I know, for a fact, that, for light to exist, there ought to be a source. In this account, light existed with no named source for the light.
AWESOME! :-O
As I type this, the sun has slipped over the African horizon, ushering in a night of rest for me and my spiritual friends who share the same ideal that I will describe just now. In the night, darkness (the ABSENCE--NOT the inverse, but the ABSENCE--of light) reigns. In my world, therefore, I associate light with it's source: the sun, the same golden, gleaming orb that peeps over the eastern horizon, hours before the telltale signs of a brightening day have marked its imminent appearance.
However, and I am deliberately stressing this point, the very FIRST Sunday on this planet was marked by the presence of light WITHOUT THE SUN!
AWESOME!! :-O
Two, three, and four days later, only then did God speak the sun, and other celestial bodies (I wouldn't know if these were the ones that are observable by the naked human eye only, or the ones in the solar system only, or the whole lot in the whole universe) into existence.
I therefore put it to you, as you read this short excerpt, that light, the progression of night and day, existed for a FULL three days before the sun EVER existed. On that note, whatever the age of the earth is, we must add three days to it, for we count years by the number of full cycles that this earth makes around the sun, and the sun, in the beginning, wasn't there for a full three days of this planet's existence as we know it before the sun came into being. Three days out of seven, counted by 24-hour cycles that were NOT regulated by the earth's orbit around the sun.
OUCH!
Here's the point: for the Roman pagans who contrived the idea that the golden blob in the sky, the same one that reliably rises every morning to herald the start of a new day, is some god, and then named the FIRST day of the week after this god, isn't it ironic that this sun god NEVER existed on the very FIRST Sunday on earth?
As I type this, the Sabbath has begun in my area. I am at rest (halellujah!). Some other people will be marching off to "rest" in obedience to the edict of his papal supremacy 24-hours late, on the venerable day of the sun.
I'm suddenly reminded of the account of Elijah on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18). When you go off to worship the sun god on Sunday, lo and behold, God has NOT created him yet! You may scream and kick, cut yourself and yell yourself hoarse, but the only God who answers by fire said to rest on the LAST day of the week, and that day is NOW.
I rest my case (no pun intended). :-)
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My ideal world would involve this WHOLE planet coming to a halt, literally, every seventh-day of the week, to commemorate a full cycle around the Son. The record of Scripture according to the Gospel of John, the first chapter, reveals that the Divine Being who brought this planet into existence, plus these paltry creatures called man, is none other than God, the Son.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
My Birthday
Of all the days to start a regular post of my memoirs online, it had to be on my birthday. " Hip! Hip! Hooray!!"
As a believer in the Almighty God, I am blessed to have lived to see the completion of yet another earth-cycle around the sun.
To those who do not believe in God, think about your lack of belief in this way: IF God exists, you will have something to lose when He decides that He is calling a stop to all the New World Order nonsense that we see going on in this world. IF He doesn't exist, you will have had NOTHING to lose by believing that He does. The statistical odds that He exists against the odds that He doesn't are 50:50. Those odds are too great to stake on the equal chance that He doesn't exist.
Fortunately, God HAS left more than enough footprints in the sands of time for humanity to establish, by faith, that He does exist. Whenever I see a shadow on the ground as I approach a corner, cast by some object around the corner, beyond the reach of my eyesight, I cannot prove through sight that the object around the corner DOES exist, but I can extrapolate, from the existence of its shadow, the one fact that, for certain, the object that cast the shadow exists. The presence of a shadow presupposes the object that casts the shadow.
As I look back at the full extent of my years of existence, I can say, now that the answer to the question on God is firmly established beyond dispute, that I owe it all to Him, to God.
I sit at home today, with my younger daughter watching a National Geographic nature special on the story of a young, male leopard named Chilolo, I could be anywhere but here. I could be a piece of humanity reduced to living my life off the streets, or in a mental asylum, save for the grace of God. As my story unfolds, the reason for my saying so will become apparent. Even then, I dare not minimise the experiences of those who have seen worse by pitting mine against theirs. However, this is just my story and not theirs. Therefore, I look at my life purely in its own context.
My older daughter is off to school already (she is in Grade 5 and has brains that would rival most politicians that I know). My only begotten son went off to work with his mom. I have a wife who makes my world go round. However, she is so bashful when I say things like that, so be kind and not tell her I said these things about her online..., but then I can't help it, so there!
Didn't something sound odd in what I just said? Maybe not, depending on one's personal views, but I feel odd. Here's why.
My wife and I opened a health shop a while ago. I'm a health nut, you see. However, I'm only nutty in the most reasonable of ways (smile). For one thing, I believe that being healthy doesn't mean eating insipid food. If that is what it meant, judging from some of the health food products that I've come across on this planet, then could these health freaks who make such deplorable products explain to me why the Lord of Heaven endowed us with sensitive taste buds, only to deny them their full taste sensations for so-called health reasons? I literally get red under my collar when some people misrepresent health interests in annoying and insulting ways like that.
By no means do I want to convey the image that I am above reproach. However, there is a fine line between promoting a rarely appreciated stance like healthful living and totally losing it, and going all cuckoo in the process. I am, by no means, cuckoo. For the same reason that God gave people taste buds for their full use, so also did He give them fine brains for their use too. I choose to use my brain, thank you.
Back to the health shop story, I ran the health shop, for my wife has her own business interests. I opened shop in November 2007, in a small south coastal town called Port Shepstone in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. For one thing, I failed to factor into the business plan the interesting socio-economic setup in Port Shepstone.
Being close to Durban (Durban is a mere hour's drive from Port Shepstone), there is a large Muslim Indian population in Port Shepstone. Most of the businesses and buildings in the central business district are run and/or owned by our Indian Muslim business brothers. In my short existence, I have never seen a need (if we can call it that) to exact so much money for the use of one's services. For a shop space of close to 100 square metres, I was paying close to R13,000.00 per month, from the word "go."
One could argue that I had a choice to seek rental services elsewhere.
Hmm. I had been looking for shop space to rent for almost a year before I settled on the shop space in question. Not only was it strategically placed next to a major road, facing the road, it was also placed next to a pizzeria, a video shop, and a major bank around the corner. Did I mention that it was also positioned on the upper part of a mini-mall, with a Super Spar Hypermarket on the lower floor?
When I initially approached the estate agent for its availability, when the shop was still under construction, he told me that the landlord actually wanted R20,000.00 per month in rent! Now, before I make this landlord sound outrageously exploitative, another landlord who owns a shopping complex next to the one that I eventually rented also rents out shops of similar, or slightly smaller, size for R20,000.00 per month or more. O, yes, he is Muslim too, so I have concluded that it must be an Islamic arrangement between these Port Shepstone businessmen. Yet another Muslim businessman was renting shop space slightly bigger than the one that I rented for about R26,000.oo per month.
Why do I mention all this? Just to highlight a simple fact: between January and March of the following year (2008), South Africa had a series of electrical power blackouts called loadshedding. For the rough winter that the country had had in 2007, and most people relying heavily on electricity to keep warm, there was not a shred of load shedding for the WHOLE winter. Come the HEIGHT of summer, and all of a sudden, South Africa had insufficient electrical power to dispense to the whole country when the needs for electrical energy were most minimal. That, plus a dire budget speech made by the Minister of Finance in March of 2008, brought many a business to its knees.
My knees buckled in July 2008 after my sales figures literally plummeted from March until I closed shop. Before then, I had had a steady, upward climb in sales, peaking in February. I moved our shop equipment and stock to our garage, and have been trying to peddle some of the stock from there. It has been most difficult without the natural advantage of shop space in the public thoroughfares in Port Shepstone.
So, I sit here at home, sorely wishing I had a means of reversing this story that I have just told, and rebounding from the financial hiccups that this venture into the unknown has caused. Until I redefine what I do, or find something else to do, I am a happy but rather unsatisfied house-husband. If there is a housewife, then I am her counterpart.
While it is fortunate for our family that my wife can still work, I would rather that she was the one who was at home, taking care of our 10-month old son at home, rather than fending for him at work. The last time I checked my mammary glands, they were totally dysfunctional when it came to feeding an infant, so I do not blame my wife for going off to work with the son; no, I don't. Her mammary glands DO work, and, yes, I checked! They work. However, I cannot stop wishing for the IDEAL: I wish I were the one working and my wife taking a more than deserved maternity break.
Is that too ideal a wish?
As I close off this birthday blog, I have tabled this issue with God in prayer. In His wisdom, He will attend to my needs and those of my family, as He sees best, in His time. It is ONLY in that light that I can truly say: I am happy though there is a vacuum of purpose in my desire to be employed in a project that can generate income for my family.
This is the Idealist, signing off... ;-)
As a believer in the Almighty God, I am blessed to have lived to see the completion of yet another earth-cycle around the sun.
To those who do not believe in God, think about your lack of belief in this way: IF God exists, you will have something to lose when He decides that He is calling a stop to all the New World Order nonsense that we see going on in this world. IF He doesn't exist, you will have had NOTHING to lose by believing that He does. The statistical odds that He exists against the odds that He doesn't are 50:50. Those odds are too great to stake on the equal chance that He doesn't exist.
Fortunately, God HAS left more than enough footprints in the sands of time for humanity to establish, by faith, that He does exist. Whenever I see a shadow on the ground as I approach a corner, cast by some object around the corner, beyond the reach of my eyesight, I cannot prove through sight that the object around the corner DOES exist, but I can extrapolate, from the existence of its shadow, the one fact that, for certain, the object that cast the shadow exists. The presence of a shadow presupposes the object that casts the shadow.
As I look back at the full extent of my years of existence, I can say, now that the answer to the question on God is firmly established beyond dispute, that I owe it all to Him, to God.
I sit at home today, with my younger daughter watching a National Geographic nature special on the story of a young, male leopard named Chilolo, I could be anywhere but here. I could be a piece of humanity reduced to living my life off the streets, or in a mental asylum, save for the grace of God. As my story unfolds, the reason for my saying so will become apparent. Even then, I dare not minimise the experiences of those who have seen worse by pitting mine against theirs. However, this is just my story and not theirs. Therefore, I look at my life purely in its own context.
My older daughter is off to school already (she is in Grade 5 and has brains that would rival most politicians that I know). My only begotten son went off to work with his mom. I have a wife who makes my world go round. However, she is so bashful when I say things like that, so be kind and not tell her I said these things about her online..., but then I can't help it, so there!
Didn't something sound odd in what I just said? Maybe not, depending on one's personal views, but I feel odd. Here's why.
My wife and I opened a health shop a while ago. I'm a health nut, you see. However, I'm only nutty in the most reasonable of ways (smile). For one thing, I believe that being healthy doesn't mean eating insipid food. If that is what it meant, judging from some of the health food products that I've come across on this planet, then could these health freaks who make such deplorable products explain to me why the Lord of Heaven endowed us with sensitive taste buds, only to deny them their full taste sensations for so-called health reasons? I literally get red under my collar when some people misrepresent health interests in annoying and insulting ways like that.
By no means do I want to convey the image that I am above reproach. However, there is a fine line between promoting a rarely appreciated stance like healthful living and totally losing it, and going all cuckoo in the process. I am, by no means, cuckoo. For the same reason that God gave people taste buds for their full use, so also did He give them fine brains for their use too. I choose to use my brain, thank you.
Back to the health shop story, I ran the health shop, for my wife has her own business interests. I opened shop in November 2007, in a small south coastal town called Port Shepstone in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. For one thing, I failed to factor into the business plan the interesting socio-economic setup in Port Shepstone.
Being close to Durban (Durban is a mere hour's drive from Port Shepstone), there is a large Muslim Indian population in Port Shepstone. Most of the businesses and buildings in the central business district are run and/or owned by our Indian Muslim business brothers. In my short existence, I have never seen a need (if we can call it that) to exact so much money for the use of one's services. For a shop space of close to 100 square metres, I was paying close to R13,000.00 per month, from the word "go."
One could argue that I had a choice to seek rental services elsewhere.
Hmm. I had been looking for shop space to rent for almost a year before I settled on the shop space in question. Not only was it strategically placed next to a major road, facing the road, it was also placed next to a pizzeria, a video shop, and a major bank around the corner. Did I mention that it was also positioned on the upper part of a mini-mall, with a Super Spar Hypermarket on the lower floor?
When I initially approached the estate agent for its availability, when the shop was still under construction, he told me that the landlord actually wanted R20,000.00 per month in rent! Now, before I make this landlord sound outrageously exploitative, another landlord who owns a shopping complex next to the one that I eventually rented also rents out shops of similar, or slightly smaller, size for R20,000.00 per month or more. O, yes, he is Muslim too, so I have concluded that it must be an Islamic arrangement between these Port Shepstone businessmen. Yet another Muslim businessman was renting shop space slightly bigger than the one that I rented for about R26,000.oo per month.
Why do I mention all this? Just to highlight a simple fact: between January and March of the following year (2008), South Africa had a series of electrical power blackouts called loadshedding. For the rough winter that the country had had in 2007, and most people relying heavily on electricity to keep warm, there was not a shred of load shedding for the WHOLE winter. Come the HEIGHT of summer, and all of a sudden, South Africa had insufficient electrical power to dispense to the whole country when the needs for electrical energy were most minimal. That, plus a dire budget speech made by the Minister of Finance in March of 2008, brought many a business to its knees.
My knees buckled in July 2008 after my sales figures literally plummeted from March until I closed shop. Before then, I had had a steady, upward climb in sales, peaking in February. I moved our shop equipment and stock to our garage, and have been trying to peddle some of the stock from there. It has been most difficult without the natural advantage of shop space in the public thoroughfares in Port Shepstone.
So, I sit here at home, sorely wishing I had a means of reversing this story that I have just told, and rebounding from the financial hiccups that this venture into the unknown has caused. Until I redefine what I do, or find something else to do, I am a happy but rather unsatisfied house-husband. If there is a housewife, then I am her counterpart.
While it is fortunate for our family that my wife can still work, I would rather that she was the one who was at home, taking care of our 10-month old son at home, rather than fending for him at work. The last time I checked my mammary glands, they were totally dysfunctional when it came to feeding an infant, so I do not blame my wife for going off to work with the son; no, I don't. Her mammary glands DO work, and, yes, I checked! They work. However, I cannot stop wishing for the IDEAL: I wish I were the one working and my wife taking a more than deserved maternity break.
Is that too ideal a wish?
As I close off this birthday blog, I have tabled this issue with God in prayer. In His wisdom, He will attend to my needs and those of my family, as He sees best, in His time. It is ONLY in that light that I can truly say: I am happy though there is a vacuum of purpose in my desire to be employed in a project that can generate income for my family.
This is the Idealist, signing off... ;-)
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