Mind Boggling
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta
Chapter 68
I was wondering about the ten commandments and asking myself what significance they really have on my life. The one about having only one God and not worshipping idols makes sense as I discovered when I converted from my atheism. What about the other ones?
When I look around me and the society I live in, I see that obeying the ten commandments is regarded as an impossibility. Something that any sane person would not bother trying to do. Stealing, coveting, adultery, murder, perjury all these things are common place.
The commandment that caught my attention and made me think deeply about its significance is the one about honouring your mother and father. That commandment struck me as unduly oppressive since parents are usually very difficult people to deal with. Their needs are insatiable and their sins are unforgivable! Yet we are commanded to honour them. There are no exceptions or conditions to this commandment.
I thought about the beginning of a relationship between a parent and a child. This starts with the child being born. This is how we come into this world. We are born. Some of us believe that once we come into this world, there is nowhere else to go. This is it. Is it really? Have you ever wondered what it is that causes a heart to start beating? Is there a scientific explanation for that thing? The trigger. The one that starts you growing into a person and keeps you alive until death? Am I just this body I am in and when I die I rot and become part of the soil and remain here on this earth? Something tells me that there is more.
Assuming that there is more, how is it possible for me to continue into another life after I die in this one? The logical answer is that I will have to be born into that other world just like I was born into this one.
If I do not obey the commandment to honour my parents, is it possible then, that I cannot be born into the other world and I will be stuck here in this one forever?! Is that why the commandment to honour my parents is a commandment and not just a directive or a suggestion?
I will need parents to give birth to me and bring me into the new world I go to when I die in this one. If I don’t honour my parents in this life, what are the chances that I will have parents in the next one and not be stuck here? Christians believe that when Jesus comes again, the dead shall rise. If that is so, how can it happen without parents? I have never ever met anyone who came into this world otherwise than by being born. I therefore cannot imagine the possibility of a continuity in my life unless I honour my parents.
The commandment contains a promise. The promise is that if you honour your parents, your days will be long. I must admit that obeying this commandment is the main reason I try so hard to find ways and means to forgive my parents for their wrongs and to understand them and to be take care of their needs. I must get to Heaven. I cannot imagine myself in Hell. The enlightenment I have experience thus far is a wonderful feeling. I can only imagine how blissful the enlightenment in Heaven must be.
Every good thing you do in this world always has to have a benefit for you otherwise there can be no motivation for doing good. Unfortunately, the rewards are invisible and most people cannot understand how something like honouring your parents can be a rewarding experience.
I understand that honouring my parents will buy me a ticket on the next train to Heaven. Those who think that we are here to stay are right to the extent that if you don’t honour your parents, you are stuck here forever!
The meaning of the word HONOUR is: to venerate or to revere or simply, to hold in high respect. So I am commanded to hold my parents in high respect. Imagine that! I thought high respect is for presidents and kings and queens and billionaires. In the presence of anyone who fits these titles, most of us who don’t would squirm with reverence hoping and wishing that that person could so much as glance in our direction and should s/he shake our hand, well ………… we would feel honoured. Funny huh? Yet the people who gave us this life so that we could feel honoured by being noticed by some rich nobody cannot so much as instill a shiver in us when we see them!
The simple fact that you are alive. That you have a life. Is because of your parents. As you read this chapter, you should let that fact sink deeply inside of you and come to a realization of how important your parents are to you. Those eyes, that mouth, those fingers, that body of yours and everything that is in it which you got for free would not be yours were it not for your parents.
So next time that you dream about meeting the president of your country or some CEO of a conglomerate or some super star or the winner of the next Big Brother series or whoever it is you revere, know that those people are nowhere close in significance to your parents who gave you the ability to recognize those people.
Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land that the Lord your God gives you.
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta
Chapter 68
I was wondering about the ten commandments and asking myself what significance they really have on my life. The one about having only one God and not worshipping idols makes sense as I discovered when I converted from my atheism. What about the other ones?
When I look around me and the society I live in, I see that obeying the ten commandments is regarded as an impossibility. Something that any sane person would not bother trying to do. Stealing, coveting, adultery, murder, perjury all these things are common place.
The commandment that caught my attention and made me think deeply about its significance is the one about honouring your mother and father. That commandment struck me as unduly oppressive since parents are usually very difficult people to deal with. Their needs are insatiable and their sins are unforgivable! Yet we are commanded to honour them. There are no exceptions or conditions to this commandment.
I thought about the beginning of a relationship between a parent and a child. This starts with the child being born. This is how we come into this world. We are born. Some of us believe that once we come into this world, there is nowhere else to go. This is it. Is it really? Have you ever wondered what it is that causes a heart to start beating? Is there a scientific explanation for that thing? The trigger. The one that starts you growing into a person and keeps you alive until death? Am I just this body I am in and when I die I rot and become part of the soil and remain here on this earth? Something tells me that there is more.
Assuming that there is more, how is it possible for me to continue into another life after I die in this one? The logical answer is that I will have to be born into that other world just like I was born into this one.
If I do not obey the commandment to honour my parents, is it possible then, that I cannot be born into the other world and I will be stuck here in this one forever?! Is that why the commandment to honour my parents is a commandment and not just a directive or a suggestion?
I will need parents to give birth to me and bring me into the new world I go to when I die in this one. If I don’t honour my parents in this life, what are the chances that I will have parents in the next one and not be stuck here? Christians believe that when Jesus comes again, the dead shall rise. If that is so, how can it happen without parents? I have never ever met anyone who came into this world otherwise than by being born. I therefore cannot imagine the possibility of a continuity in my life unless I honour my parents.
The commandment contains a promise. The promise is that if you honour your parents, your days will be long. I must admit that obeying this commandment is the main reason I try so hard to find ways and means to forgive my parents for their wrongs and to understand them and to be take care of their needs. I must get to Heaven. I cannot imagine myself in Hell. The enlightenment I have experience thus far is a wonderful feeling. I can only imagine how blissful the enlightenment in Heaven must be.
Every good thing you do in this world always has to have a benefit for you otherwise there can be no motivation for doing good. Unfortunately, the rewards are invisible and most people cannot understand how something like honouring your parents can be a rewarding experience.
I understand that honouring my parents will buy me a ticket on the next train to Heaven. Those who think that we are here to stay are right to the extent that if you don’t honour your parents, you are stuck here forever!
The meaning of the word HONOUR is: to venerate or to revere or simply, to hold in high respect. So I am commanded to hold my parents in high respect. Imagine that! I thought high respect is for presidents and kings and queens and billionaires. In the presence of anyone who fits these titles, most of us who don’t would squirm with reverence hoping and wishing that that person could so much as glance in our direction and should s/he shake our hand, well ………… we would feel honoured. Funny huh? Yet the people who gave us this life so that we could feel honoured by being noticed by some rich nobody cannot so much as instill a shiver in us when we see them!
The simple fact that you are alive. That you have a life. Is because of your parents. As you read this chapter, you should let that fact sink deeply inside of you and come to a realization of how important your parents are to you. Those eyes, that mouth, those fingers, that body of yours and everything that is in it which you got for free would not be yours were it not for your parents.
So next time that you dream about meeting the president of your country or some CEO of a conglomerate or some super star or the winner of the next Big Brother series or whoever it is you revere, know that those people are nowhere close in significance to your parents who gave you the ability to recognize those people.
Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land that the Lord your God gives you.
2 comments:
Njeri, your book is great.It is motivating and quite inspiring. You have stated your mind openly and are quite frank about so many things in life. Like you said you have definitely simplified the complications of life. You have shared exactly what goes on in your mind and the questions in life that we ask ourselves. You book is all round, it touches on so many aspects of life.
I like the language you have used. it makes the reading so much more interesting and faster.
You actually dont need to ask yourself why you are writing, just keep on writing.
Thanks Magdaline. It wont end soon so keep reading.
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