By Rev Edward Buri
 |
| Victoria Falls, Zambezi River |
If there is one place that is driven by newness it is the marketplace. Companies are always launching new products and if not new products, they are re-launching old ones. We are bombarded with images of newness all the time on television, newspapers, radio and on the web. Companies do a lot to persuade us that even their old products are somehow new and superior to previous versions. The more I consume the images of new product launches, the more I ask myself: how much do we invest in renewing our people? How does our community invest in creating women and men of improved character?
Softie, a film of
photojournalists and activist Boniface Mwangi, captures the sad reality where
Kenyans expect money from political aspirants as part of the luring process. They
describe him as a good man without money. Some sing praises of other competitors
who always give them money. Good policies and good heartedness are not
forefront qualities in the winning equation. All that bad people need is big
money. The money then becomes the sustainer of evil and not a tool for good.
How can people unlearn this?
I recall from my
high school Geography class a concept called river rejuvenation. When a river
is streaming down the Aberdares, Mount Kenya or the Mau it will usually carry
clean water with hardly any dirt. It is young and therefore bubbly as it
gallops fast down the mountain. As it flows on, it is joined by other streams –
tributaries – making it larger. As it is joined by other rivers, the size slows
it down. The increase in the volume of water makes it lazy and the water gets
dirtier because of the soil and other debris the river has harvested as it
heads into the ocean.
But this aging
river can get a new life. How? If on its path it meets a sudden sharp change in
ground level with a lengthy fall the result is a waterfall. The waterfall makes
the aging monotonous river a spectacular site. People travel from far not to
see the lazy river upstream, but the long, misty waterfall. Because the massive
volume of water drops with a mighty force, upon hitting the bottom it
automatically gains speed, making the river bubbly and vibrant again. The
waterfall makes the old river young again.
Similar is the
hope spirituality brings to a people. God promises renewal to meaningless and
messed up lives. But truth be told, newness is often disorienting and even
threatening, especially because it uproots you from familiar ground and gives
you a new mission. Renewal sometimes is so radical that it even drops your
earlier name – you are no longer just Size 8 but Size 8 reborn.
The story of Size
8 Reborn is very inspiring. From a pit of self-confessed vice to the pulpit of
Good News. Reverend Linnet Munyali Muraya of the Mateke fame has been
public about her reformation story.
Before her transformation, she thrived as the queen of secular music.
She was as secular as secular can get and pushed the limits to unveil thicker
layers of the night. But a widely publicized encounter with God made her life
take a sharp turn towards the light. Her conversion experience coded in her Mateke
song implies an aggressive disengagement with a life of sin, which results in “uhuru”
– an experience of freedom. Some may argue that “Mateke” theology, but it is
hard to argue about her vivid transformation. God is still radically
changing people!
This is a story you
would best read from the Gospel narratives. Some may have wanted to lock her in
the life of night. But light has converting power too! Some may have wanted a
lukewarm transformation where she can play hot or cold. But light is radical
too! Her transformation is a sharp critique of vice-driven lives. Many will be
following her priestly career in search of slip ups. But let us give her a chance.
Rev Linnet Muraya
is a loud exhibit of the potency of the church and spirituality. This experience
of radical transformation needs to be expanded beyond personal transformation
and find application in the larger cultural reforms of the community. This
potency is universally applicable even in the realm of politics where both
politicians and citizens need a thorough transformation. Prodigal politicians
need to come to their senses and embrace a
form of politics in which deception is unnecessary. Citizens too need a
radical perspective where principle-based voting paralyses voter bribery. Some
may preach that such radical transformation is not possible, hoping to clip
radical ambitions. But a good look at divine interventions affirms the validity
of dreaming the impossible dream. If only the church and its priests could find
a consistent way of involving the power in the truth that “nothing is impossible
with God!”
Walking around our
neighborhood recently, I passed by a construction site where a building was being
pulled down to make way for a new construction. Heavy machinery was tearing the
old house down and what caught my eye was a sign at the construction gate that
said, “demolition for progress.” Sometimes soft adjustments will not move us –
only radical changes will shift us. Where it takes radical only radical will
do. There are times change comes by giving a house anew color. But sometimes it
comes by demolishing it and building up a whole new structure. Let us not paint
what are meant to demolish.
Source: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/opinion/article/2001432209/spirituality-is-a-potent-asset-for-our-crucial-and-radical-transformation