WHAT HAPPENED!?

Pretending to be someone you are not is a waste of the person you are! I would rather be hated for who I am, than being loved for who I am not! A lie may draw a smile, and the truth, a tear, but which is better, the lie or the truth? We are living in a world where the lie is more appealing than the truth. We love those who tell us half truths, untruths and outright lies and hate those who give and tell us the truth however painful it may be. The problem with half truths is that more often than not we get the wrong half. Even though we seem to know that the truth sets us free, we vehemently reject it and distance ourselves from the same as though it were a plague. It seems to me that it has become universally acceptable to hide our true selves in the background and only reveal or present  that which the world will applause of us. Double lives is the in-thing or so it seems, be it in politics, church, or even in our day to day lives. Consider a number of scenarios with me. 

It is painfully becoming impossible to tell the difference between a Christian and a pagan. In numerous instances some Christians are even worse than the pagan. No wonder we talk of Christians and practicing Christians, so sad. Our consciences are dead and stinkingly rotten. Wait a minute, did I talk about the truth, yes I did, and that is what I will tell you here. A majority of the hands that are exchanging bribes in our offices, be it public or private, are sadly christian hands. I don't care what your justification is, if you have not worked for it, if you do not qualify for that position or tender, yet you got it through undue influence, it's a bribe, it is corruption, it's a sin and God hates it. If for you to execute your duties or responsibilities that constitute your job description someone has to "motivate" you financially or otherwise, that is a bribe, it is corruption, it is a sin. Did I see you in church the other day with your hands lifted up in worship, the very same hands that took a bribe, the same hands that signed the inflated cheque, the same hands that swapped the shortlisted names for the interview, to include someone who "talked to you well", and deny someone who deserved that slot? What is God thinking about you?
The beautiful maisonette, or is it a bungalow, that you pride yourself in as your abode, you build it using corruption money, may be the land it stands on was not legally acquired. The latest powerful machine you cruise around in, you know perfectly well that it is from the proceeds of that corrupt deal you pulled the other day. My brother, my sister, how does it feel to see your parking lot bereft of parking space, when all the cars there in are acquired through not so genuine means? Yet you call yourself a christian! The vacations you take so often  to exotic destinations within and out of the country, sponsored by some business men or is it investors or private developers whom you have shielded and protected from being arrested due to your influential position, yet they conduct illegal businesses that endanger the lives of our youth and future generations, and grab from the innocent needy citizenry and you still call yourself a christian... and actually give staggering amounts of money in church for every other project... is God pleased about the same?  When you lie that you are blessed yet it's corruption. If you compromised to get it, it's not a blessing! We know you as a christian, but does God know you as such?
You are a married man yet you can't resist the temptation to sample whatever lurks beneath every other skirt that passes by, you have become a Casanova! Your hands knows the geographies of  the fairer gender's bodies than it does the pages of the Bible, yet you lift the same hands up in church every other Sunday in praise and worship, worse still you may be a worship leader leading God's people in powerful songs, the same hands play the guitar, the keyboard, the trumpet on the pulpit every other Sunday. You tell me that you don't do any of such things, but masturbation is an hobby for you, your hands have become your sexual partner and you stand on the pulpit preaching and holding the bible with the very same hands. My brother, Paul in 1st Timothy 2:8 admonishes men in every place of worship, to pray with holy hands lifted up to God, free from anger and controversy. That can't be said of your hands brother! 
My sister you are a bachelorette, yet you have made yourself available for every other man who wishes to have you. Most of your male acquaintances have had an experience with you between the sheets, actually as a matter of fact, your lips have been kissed so many times that they have been declared a public property. Your clothes are in every other man's house whom you had moved in with or is it cohabited with! Yet you still sing in the choir, you are a praise and worship leader in the church you attend, you usher God's people in the church, you are a church elder, a deacon, you are a youth leader, What kind of a person does God see when He looks at you? Your dress code exposes more than it covers, parts of your body that are supposed to be private never enjoy any privacy at all!  Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.  Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price.Therefore honor God with your bodies. 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 NIV
You hate people simply because they don't belong to your ethnic group. My goodness, are they not children of God, the same God you claim to belong to, the same God who has saved you! Are you still a Christian when you talk so badly about some other ethnic group, insulting them in some unprintable words. Yet the only "wrong" thing these people did is to be born in a different ethnic group from yours? It's painful that you would rather elect a corrupt person from your ethnic group but not your brother in Christ who has better leadership credentials among the candidates. Those people you are still holding in your heart, the ones you decided that you can't forgive. Whether they wronged you or not, you can't cage them in your heart, ultimately it's you who is getting hurt. These are your brothers and sisters in Christ, and the Bible puts it so clearly that anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him, 1 John 3:15 NIV. 
The bottle has become your constant companion and a buddy which gives you solace for distress you have caused yourself forgetting that God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Psa 46:1 NIV. You frequent the bar more often than you do the church, lying to yourself that you are having fun when you are on a highway to destruction. My brother my sister Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, Eph 5:18 NIV. If you are a Christian, live like one, yes, like Christ. 
When we call ourselves Christians, yet we lead double lives, it's not the other people we are fooling, but ourselves. When we want to be seen as though we are on the same train as the other Christians, living lives that are pleasing to God, and honorable to Him, Glorifying His Holy name, yet all that is pretense... that is beyond hypocrisy, it's foolishness. God sees and knows us beyond our outer self's, beyond our pretenses, He sees and Knows our intents, our hearts, and our hidden unpleasant habits. We can hide from other Christians but not from God. David captures this very well in Psalms 139 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day,  for darkness is as light to you.
When you pretend to be who you are not, to your fellow Christians are you aware that, that doesn't matter? What matters is not how we mortal beings perceive you to be, what matters is how God knows you. I usually wonder why anyone would do this. You depict a Christian lifestyle but your closet is full of skeletons, that you are not willing to clear and do away with. At the end of the day, it's not fellow Christians who will determine where you will spend eternity but God will. How you live should then not be dictated by what people perceive of you, or by a desire to please human beings, but rather by a desire to please God. 
This takes me to another point, may be you were once saved, at some point in your life you walked with God. Yeah, you were actually a Christian Union official at the university, college or high school. You used to sing in the choir, to lead prayer sessions, you never missed a single evangelical mission due to your desire to win souls for Christ then. My brother my sister, what happened that you left the first love and now you live a life that you are not proud of hence you resort to hiding the real you and end up leading a double life. What happened that you no longer seek God in truth and in Spirit,  what happened that you now first seek the things of this world while righteousness and holiness are relegated to the back burner. I thought you were going to heaven perpendicularly, now you are sliding to hell at a supersonic speed? You led so many to Christ, will you miss heaven? This reminds me of Galatians 3:1-4 You foolish Galatians (replace with you name)! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain?

For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. Philippians 3:18-21 NIV. 

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:17-24 NIV

KENYAN CONCEPT!

When we hear the word KENYAN, what exactly rings on our minds, does this word elicit any feelings of belonging, what is our perception of what a Kenyan is, is Kenya just a conglomeration of some 42-plus ethnic groups, hence viewing ourselves as members of our respective ethnic groups and not a one people- a one nation? Are we more proud to be kalenjins, luhyas, mijikendas, kambas, luos, merus, kikuyus, somalis, elmolos, turkanas, etc than we are to be Kenyans? if one day you go out there in the diaspora and someone asks you who a Kenyan is, what would you tell him/her.....? is there a Kenyan concept or anything close to it? when we talk of a Kenyan dream.... what exactly are we talking about given that we don't even seem to know who a Kenyan is!
These are some of the questions that have been running through my mind of late, as I interrogate the Kenyan concept. I know by now someone is wondering what on earth is a Kenyan concept, I call it a kenyan concept because to me, being Kenyan is more of a concept than a reality, it is more of just a notion, a thought, something conceived in the mind, than an actuality. When we are cheering our national teams, and athletes we are so much enthusiastic and loyal to our mother land, we are joined in jubilation every time a Kenyan wins a gold medal or when rugby 7s wins the world cup, something that immediately fizzles out after the game......and we go back to our ethnic cocoons. Being Kenyan, to me seems like a far fetched idea, something out there which is not real, or else how would one explain the fact that, on ascension to power of a new regime, civil servants have to be shown the door, especially if you don't belong to the "correct ethnic group", making Kenya's public service jobs some of the most insecure in the world. Almost every other time an interview is being conducted, the interviewers don't seem to look at the interviewees as Kenyans but rather as from certain areas or ethnic groups..... so unfortunate!
Does it have to be like this, do we have to allow ourselves to continue trudging on this dangerous path. What makes it so difficult for us to forge a one identity, a common identity, for us, Kenyans, to have a common vision, a common mission, shared core values. I am privileged to have worked for a number of institutions and served in several organizations and I don't know of a single organization that doesn't have a vision, mission statement and core values, which every new staff is socialized into..... so as to enhance the organization's chances of achieving it's goals and objectives. Unfortunately as a country, Kenya doesn't seem to have a vision, mission nor core values. Things which we as Kenyans should be focusing on, what should be our common bond, stuff that unites us together. I have been thinking about how we can be able  to forge a common Kenyan identity, how we can be able to put our differences aside and pursue common goals and objectives, how we can be able to make Kenya a great nation for a great people...... it is unfortunately coming to my realization that, even though we have so many things in common, we have chosen to focus on our few differences at our own peril. Every other Kenyan wants a better life, better living standards, to be able to afford good meals for our families, to be able to take our children to good schools, take them to hospital when they fall sick and to live in good neighborhoods. To live in a secure country, to be able to take a stroll around our beautiful cities and beaches without the worry of losing your belongings or someone hanging on your neck as they empty the contents of your pockets or wallets, we all want leaders who would be more interested in bettering the lives of all Kenyans regardless of ethnic belonging, race, colour or even religion than they are interested in enriching themselves and their kinsmen. We all want a country of equal opportunities, where every other citizen has an equal opportunity to employment, education and even healthcare. Where no certain positions are reserved for certain people, where anyone and everyone is able to rise to whatever position that their abilities and capabilities so allow. A country where positions are not seen as avenues of embezzlement or being "our time to eat" but rather as opportunities to serve, to avail our talents and abilities to the service of the citizenry and humanity at large. Where law makers legislate laws that endeavor or are geared towards bettering the lives of their constituents and not laws for political expediency and fattening their salaries.
We all want a country where the difference or gap between the highest paid and the lowest paid is minimal and not so big to an extent that some people's daily expense is several times someone else's monthly salary and yet they live in the same country and worse still in the same city. We all want a country where talent and intellect is nurtured, with an education system that provides relevant courses to meet and satisfy the market needs. Where graduates are assured of employment or avenues and ease of creating employment for those who can.We all want a country where corruption is no longer the order of the day but a vice that is viewed as such by everyone, a country where ineptitude, laxity and laziness are no longer  associated with our public service..... a country where the courts administer justice without favor or fear, where all the three arms of government, the executive, legislature and the judiciary work harmoniously towards achieving the same goals, where their role of instituting checks and balance on each other does not result to antagonism but results to synergism.
These and many others, my dear brothers and sisters, are our desires, all of us, but then if this be the case, why are we still stuck where we started, still a majority of us wallowing in poverty and a few in opulence. Still fighting ignorance, disease, and poverty..... terrorism, insecurity, joblessness and ethnicity being additions to the previous vices. I feel that a majority of us have sold their conscious, heart and care. We seem to forget the words of Martin Luther King Jr, that injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere,   no one ever enjoys success and prosperity if he/she is the only one who has succeeded and prospered. I am writing this to at least awaken our otherwise dead conscious to the truth of the words of Mahatma Gandhi that the world has enough for everyone's need but not enough for everyone's greed. The realization of these desires that we corporately share can and will be achieved when and only when we wisely and objectively engage our minds, and thinking capacity when our turn comes at the ballot box, yes you can elect someone with whom you don't share ethnic belonging but with whom you share a common vision, goal, mission and same desires for this great nation called Kenya.
My challenge to each and everyone of us this day is to ponder on what our personal contribution has been to making Kenya what it is today. Every other time that we are about to complain about the state of affairs in our beloved country, we must ask ourselves what we have done or can do to avert the same. The unfortunate thing is that, what most of us can do is only available to us once every five years, and we so much abuse it, selling our ballots to the highest bidder or completely refusing to exercise our right to vote and hence letting the bad guys get into office and then start complaining almost immediately. Brothers and sisters we should not forget that we only have the power of choice up to the point of making that choice after which the choice takes over and determines the course of events. For those of us who are in positions where they can influence policies, decisions and plans, please do so, those who can make noise that can be heard where it needs to be heard, please do so, and for those who make policies and those who implement the same, do so not thinking about the next election but thinking about the next generation.
Kenya, a one people, one nation, one destiny!!!! A Kenya for all Kenyans!

THE STATE OF US- KENYA!!!

Whoever said that the leadership of any society reflects the moral standing of that society was quite correct. The leadership of any society is just but a sample drawn from the society, such that if a given society has a majority of corrupt members then the same will be reflected on the society's leadership. It was the moral standing of the society during Jesus' time on this world that made the populace to choose Barabbas as opposed to Jesus, condemning a good man to the crucifixion and giving the bad one absolute freedom. In Athens Socrates a moral and social critic, who has been defined as goodness in itself was killed for standing against  the moral ineptitude in that society.
I want to submit to us that the leadership of any society is a fruit of the masses, a good tree can never give bad fruits, as Jesus put it in Matthew 12:33, "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit". Therefore its either we make the society good and we have a good leadership or we make it bad and we have a bad leadership. How can we, the people elect good leaders when we are evil. 
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines corruption as an impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle, and this is a very accurate description of our society as it is. When we claim that we want leaders with integrity, virtue and of sound moral principles, and then go ahead to practice the opposite of this, where do we expect these leaders to come from? When we bribe to get a job, don't we also expect the leaders to bribe to get a bigger position, when we compromise the people under us by

inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (as bribery), do we expect our leaders to be different. When we compromise the standard operating procedures (SOPs) at our work place, do we expect our leaders to be any different and respect the constitutional provisions stipulating what they should do. When we accept kickbacks for us to do that which is our responsibility and actually our job description, do we expect the leaders to be any better and extend governmental and public services to us without demanding bribes from us?

It is sad how we bribe our way to bigger jobs, how we bribe to get our children to better schools, how we bribe to get elected in our saccos, and other groups where we have subscribed membership and yet expect our leaders in the political arena to be any different!!!! It is sad that most of them have been doing what we are doing, failing to pay their bus fare if the conductor forgets to ask it from them, celebrating when the cashier mistakenly refunds more than he should, and very quickly pocketing someone's wallet if it falls on the way by mistake. Once this part of our population ascends to leadership they practice all this at a larger scale!
My friends if we want good leadership, we must practice that which we expect from them. It is hypocritical for us to expect from our leaders what we cannot give. The principle of preaching water and taking the same does not only apply to the leadership but also to us the so called commoners. The principle of doing unto others what you would that they do unto us should apply to all and sundry. The quagmire that our leaders often find themselves in is being expected to do that which they have never done in their lives. In a society where money is everything, where we have glorified material possession and the "respect and honor" that comes with the same, a society where as long as you have money, regardless of how you've acquired it, that alone grants you a right to leadership... with or without moral uprightness.
When it comes to ethnicity, we cry and condemn our leaders for their ethnic jingoism forgetting that we are as well deeply rooted in the same, when we recruit people to jobs based on their ethnic groups, when the first thing that comes to your mind once you meet a stranger is, where does s/he come from... in an effort to label them ethnically! Surely my good friends, our society shall remain in this pathetic state as long as we don't rise above these parochial and sectarian mentalities and perspectives. 
It has always been said that every society deserves the leadership they have, yes a society reeking in moral decadence gets a leadership of the same kind and it deserves the same, a morally upright society gets a good leadership responsive to their issues, and yes that is what that society deserves..... so what is the way forward, we need to change at the personal level, and to borrow the words of Mahatma Gandhi, "Be the change you want to see in the world" This, my brothers and sisters, is what will get us untangled from this quagmire we unfortunately find ourselves in!!!

US AGAINST THEM!

It is quite disheartening to see the direction that the politics of this great country of ours- Kenya- is taking. We are still stuck in our ethnic jingoism, ethnic cocoons, I am hesitant to use the word tribe because of it's negative connotations-tribe often implies primitive savagery-. I have been thinking a lot of late, and I cannot come to terms with the fact that we as a people can take up arms and attack one another on the basis of ethnicity. We have come to the level of "othering" others, creating an us from them. As long as someone is not from our ethnic group we automatically label him/her as an enemy, we see him as not one of us. What is it in us that is not in them. What is it that makes us think that our ethnic group is superior than any other and hence entitled to some privileges not entitled to any other. Have we ever paused and asked ourselves, who we are. Do we first belong to an ethnic group, then to humanity or is it vise versa. Why is it that as human beings we like to concentrate so much on our points of divergence rather than our points of convergence, we elevate our differences far much above our commonalities. It is so saddening to realize that any time we meet someone we want to know where they come from, not because that is what we are interested in but because we want to label them. Why should you insist on asking my second name if I tell you that I'm Frank? Simply because you want to label me and treat me as such. Does it have to be like that really? I beg to differ.
I want to submit to us that we can rise above these parochial perspectives and mentalities. We can choose our leaders on the basis of their ability to offer this great country the kind of leadership that will propel us to greater heights.  Our prosperity as a country is not anchored on one of our own- as we usually call those who belong to our ethnic groups- becoming the president. It does not make any sense to support anyone on the basis of their ethnic belonging. As we approach the march 4th elections, is it the policies that these leaders espouse or is it their ethnic belonging we will consider as we vote. I usually ask my friends, if today it came to your realization that you don't actually belong to the ethnic group you've always thought you belonged to, that you were mistakenly exchanged in the hospital where you were born, would this change your political persuasions? If it occurred to you that the tribe you so much hate is actually your ethnic group, Would you still hate that ethnic group or would you now change and start hating the one you thought you belonged to? 
Let us be objective as a country and not subjective, great nations have never been build by focusing on their differences but rather by concentrating on their strengths and diversities. Great nations have been build by exchanging ideas, by focusing on what benefits the country as a whole and not what benefits one group or an individual. 
Fifty years is not a short time for us to still be wallowing in poverty, we are still fighting what our fathers were fighting against, corruption, disease, poverty and ignorance, and at this rate our children and probably grand children will still be fighting the same. Fifty years down the line we should not be associated with phrases like, such and such tribe should never lead this country or we want to teach them a lesson. I really wish the intensity of effort and passion we employ in fighting one another could be redirected in positive projects that build the economy of this country. 
I want to remind us that the so called one of our own becoming a president does not guarantee prosperity of each and every individual in that ethnic group, Moi was a president for twenty four good years, yet there are people still living in grass thatched mud house in rift valley, Kenyatta was a president for fifteen years and Kibaki ten years, yet poverty levels in parts of central Kenya are alarming, in nyeri, Kibaki's backyard there are people infested by jiggers that are associated with poverty. We have perpetually elected people who were self interested in the name of one of our own. Not only at the national level but also at all other levels of leadership, how else would you explain our frustration with our parliamentarians. In 2002 we said that half of them would not get back, and for sure they didn't, unfortunately we were using the same phrase in 2007, and yet as if we never learn we are using the same phrase today, in 2013. 
It is time now, we elected our leaders on the basis of what they have done or can do given an opportunity. It is time we reviewed the qualifications we consider in choosing our leaders, because the ethnic card has failed us and miserably so. It is time we developed a mind like that of a child who loves or hates someone because of who they are and not from which ethnic group they belong to. It is time we discard our ethnic jingoism and develop a nationalistic mentality and patriotism. It is time we ask our leaders what their agenda for Kenya is and not which ethnic group they belong to. 
It makes me shed a tear when I see coalitions being crafted on ethnic basis, asking a leader what they will be bringing on the table in terms of numbers from his/her ethnic group, and not on the basis of the vision these leaders share about this country. It is time as the electorate we realized that we've been misused by our leaders for their personal gain and they have pitted us against one another for their own interests and not ours. It is time we wake up to the fact that we only have two distinct groups in this country, the poor and the rich, a majority poor who are poor because the rich have exploited and robbed from them and a minority rich most of who are rich because they have stolen from the public coffers and these are the ones who misuse the poor by dishing to them hand outs which blinds their eyes and you find these poor fellows praising them when they should be singing a national elegy.
Lastly I want to remind us that the concept of negative ethnicity was cemented to us by the colonialists, who employed the same to divide us, so that we may not unite and fight our common enemy- the colonialist. Keeping us busy battling one another at our own peril but as my friend Jeremiah Maina puts it now the trumpet summons us again, not to battle against one another but to take up our voting cards and to chart a new leadership for our beloved Kenya. It is yet time to wage a battle against our collective enemy: injustice, poverty, disease, illiteracy, tribalism among others. Forget the hogwash that is" our interests"," our community" and so on.
We are all sons and daughters of Kenya our motherland. Let us be sober and make wise decisions that we benefit not only us but generations to come.Surely our children should not be allowed to fight the same battles we do.
Stand up and be counted for a better Kenya.I AM FOR A SAFE AND PEACEFUL ELECTIONS.