Category: Naomi Stainbank

A few years ago I embarked on my new career as a homemaker and I was determined to make a success of it. After some time of thorough introspection, I composed what I believed was an all-encompassing Homemaker Mandate:

Create magnificent atmospheres rooted and established in loving intentional servanthood and authentic connections that inspire, nourish, solace, and propel souls to wholeness Nimi // Homemaker Mandate

Growing up I had a dream where I saw myself as a domestic Goddess whose husband and children dreaded leaving the home and counted down the seconds till they should return to our sanctuary. I grew up hearing tales of many children who couldn’t wait till they left home, and many husbands who dreaded leaving offices, pubs, or golf courses, and my heart yearned for a different tale.

Imagine the despair when instead of my dream coming true I was looped in a nightmare of a cold empty house that “my person” seemed to shun, in favor of overnights and days playing electronic games elsewhere. As much as it hurt and I wished the mortal could ascend to Christly love, I couldn’t blame him for long because as soon as I had the sense to honestly assess the quality and quantity of all those things my mandate defined as essentials to a pleasant home, the diagnosis revealed a critical state of the heart of the home.

Indeed the structure was not the problem, the house was often clean and mostly tidy but I was taken to a rebuke Jesus spoke saying:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

Ouch!

But, this was a pain I was so happy to suffer because it was the loving hurting of truth, and we know that the truth sets us free. Moreover, I gained a precious insight that triggered a tremendous transformation toward making my dream a reality. I began to consider the place where I permanently dwelt, that is, my heart.

Yes, we live in houses but as I pondered this vision, I realized that I am always in the home of my mind, will, emotions, and conscience – the heart – and that these atmospheres merely overflow into the physical realm and become real experiences through the creative effect of my words and actions.

The words in my Homemaker Mandate seem to have been the spark that set ablaze the discovery I now pursue, that heart is indeed where a good home is.

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Yikes!

Again, what painful and humbling truths. In reflection, I was convicted. While examining my heart (my prevailing ideologies, opinions, motives, emotions), I was startled to find innumerable toxic thoughts, desires, intentions, feelings, and rebellions such as those Jesus described when he said: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts and plans, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, slanders (verbal abuse, irreverent speech, blaspheming)”.

We are innately tuned to dwell in a peaceful, nourishing, and nurturing environment. This is the ideal atmosphere we ought to pursue for our homes. Sadly, like mine before coming to my senses, my home was a place terse with hostility. Criticism, entitlement, covetousness, and self-importance were the four sour grapes that wrought wrath, ruckus, and decay in my home.

Like shrilling nails on a blackboard, there’s nothing like being told you’re a failure and being made to feel like you can’t get anything right to make us flee in search of urgent relief. The proverb warns of a brawling woman who sends a man to the corner of a roof but like many an uninitiated wife, I eroded the joy and peace in my home by habitually complaining, nagging, criticizing, and whining under the ruse of ‘helping my husband and our relationship grow’.

In addition to this grave foolishness, I implemented my worldly women’s education from magazines and romance novels demanding that I deserved and was worth this and that.

These demands were almost always born out of comparison and covetousness. Whether in real life, on YouTube, Instagram, or WhatsApp Status I would hear or perceive another wife getting what I felt I wasn’t getting and feel short-changed, and I’d be sure to whine about it to my husband.

Me, me, me, was the grating cacophony that drowned out the harmony we longed for in our home. No wonder “my person” couldn’t bear to dwell in my space and presence for prolonged times!

Coming to the awareness that the miserable state of my home atmosphere was a reflection of my heart’s condition invited me to overhaul my heart-home, remodel it on Love’s blueprint, and become a good person or suffer a miserable existence isolated from the love and warmth of family as my soul ached for. I chose the former, and that has made all the difference.

But how could I become a good person when the Divine diagnosis of humanity’s heart is that it is desperately wicked with every inclination set towards evil from childhood?

Moreover, Jesus set the record straight that only God is good. It only took an honest look into my heart to find nothing purely good therein indeed. This called for urgent heart-house cleaning and I had a hunch about where I could find help. I turned to my dear friend in the Word, Apostle Paul.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor [perpetual animosity, resentment, strife, fault-finding] and slander be put away from you, along with every kind of malice [all spitefulness, verbal abuse, malevolence]. Be kind and helpful to one another, tender-hearted [compassionate, understanding], forgiving one another [readily and freely], just as God in Christ also forgave you. 

By the grace of God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, through the power of his Holy Spirit, little by little we’re sweeping foulness out of my “heart home.” The cleaner and purer my heart becomes, the more the atmosphere in our home becomes pleasantly infused with peace, love, joy, and friendship. In place of cold, resentful, or fault-finding receptions, the warm joy of appreciation and kindness salutes and ushers our souls into the magnificent atmosphere of heaven’s good treasures, a true homecoming!

Our souls long for home. A place to dwell permanently as members of a family, loved, served, and seen in goodwill. We can try with all our might but there is only One who is this good, all the time.

The heart of God is where I am making my home more and more. As I grow complete confidence and trust in the goodness of his thoughts, will and feelings towards me scandalously revealed in Holy Scripture, I am more and more at ease in his presence and with the anticipation of his coming kingdom.

I suppose like me, many people have lived through deeply distressing heart-homes (our own and others) and have unjustly condemned Abba Father without giving him a fair trial.

As for me, the more I taste and see of him and his heart, the more I am sure that this is what humanity longs for but will never find if we do not consider it worthwhile to attain and retain the knowledge, truth, and power of God’s heart.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, God demonstrates that though we may misunderstand his heart and go off on our ways, should we ever come to our senses, we can always return home where a hearty warm welcome awaits.

In the heart of God is where we belong. Through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, we may enter and be utterly dazzled in the splendor, majesty, and matchless expression of perfect goodness in God’s heart-home.

Our wandering, worn, and weary souls crave a place where they can live and belong permanently. Perhaps it is time to let go of all our defenses, demolish futile arguments, and simply crawl back into the shape of you and me imprinted in Abba’s heart.

Dear one, would you run to the Father and enjoy the perfect belonging and rest your soul is dying for?

xoxo

Nimi

I’m damned if I do, and I’m damned if I don’t.

This was the final thought that settled the year-and-a-half debate within, and just like that leaving no room for further hesitation, I stepped out into the wilderness.

I could tell you of how much more than “just that” went into the decision but it seems there are just such things in life that we are compelled to be, do and believe, for reasons that are often unknowable and imperceptible in those moments.

No matter how many times I have read the accounts of the Christ, I am always astonished at the insanity the disciples display when a stranger passing by the lake or road says “follow me” and they leave everything, including their families, and follow him. And what of Peter who dared to leave the safety of a boat to walk on water?

My father used to say that all humans essentially live by faith. He called it common faith. The faith that when we sleep we will wake with the sun. The faith that when we leave home we will return at the end of the day. The faith that when we enter vehicles, they will transport us safely to and from our destinations. That when we step off the bed, the ground will hold our weight. The faith that when we inhale, sufficient life-giving breath will surely fill our lungs.

When I ponder all these things, it seems a shame that we should ascribe them as common when they are nothing but glorious displays of God’s faithfulness to reward unwavering faith. Yes, God is faithful and He rewards faith for without faith, we cannot please Him.

Incidentally, most of these things we take for granted are such things as are completely out of our control yet come to be by God’s invisible hand in an ever-awesome display of His power over things that no man can boast of.

The conclusion of my year and a half wrestle brought me to sense and recognition that my faithless existence is foolishness.

But then again, no human exists without complete trust or confidence in something or someone. As I found out, those who lose faith soon drift towards self-annihilation. And that is the perilous path for all who continue to trust in finite and fickle structures.

By grace, I was enlightened to the volatility of founding complete confidence in humans, things, and possessions. It began when, in the blink of an eye, my parent’s mansion and all the possessions they worked hard for turned to nothingness as grenades and bullets rained down on our home in Rwanda.

Later, family, friends, and boys disappointed. Then money’s coyness frustrated. All these things I’d esteemed left me feeling tossed about, and completely insecure about everything and everyone. It was at this time that the Word came to me by the Holy Spirit from the Word heard long ago:

Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness.

These words sounded familiar and in seeking, I found them in the epic story of Israel’s exodus from the oppression in Egypt. For months I read and studied this historical account and found astonishing parallels to my own suffering, and I dare say the suffering most humans live with.

Like the Israelites, upon birth, I had come to a foreign land where various forms of idolatry were practiced, the greatest being servitude to Mammon, aka Money. At the time of “The Call” I was a zealot to King Cash-Money. Oh yes, more than anything I wanted all the things Money could grant: cars, houses, clothes, and illicit sex (this is in fact the honest want when we allow lust to manifest in fornication). I just wanted to be this kind of “successful”, which according to modern humanity’s culture is the measure of success. For many years I devoted my whole heart to pursuing money and the confidence it gave me. I relished the feeling that I could take care of myself, splurging on whatever pleasures my flesh desired.

You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me. But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth…If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed.

Like most of modern humanity and the Israelites before us, I forgot this fundamental law declared long ago in the Prophet Moses’ admonition. I forgot God, followed culture’s prescribed gods, and worshiped them.

Worship is the greatest activity mankind and angels wholly do. In thoughts, words, and deeds, we worship. No, worship is not only the singing that happens at religious services – although it does include singing, whether in church or Hip Hop, Rock n Roll, and other secular institutions. It is essentially ascribing the highest value, worth, priority, and devotion of our breath, time and resources to something or someone.

With this revelation, I could not deny the call that came to me inviting me into the wilderness so that I may repent my idolatry and discover true worship to the only One whom all praise is due.

In the fullness of time, events that I simply cannot explain aligned such that I relented from several months’ wrestling and conceded to handing in my resignation and stepped into the wilderness – a crazy move that invoked utter astonishment from colleagues, family, and friends.

Though mouths pronounced felicitations, eyes and words betrayed bewilderment: why is she doing this, leaving a job that pays her so generously, way above any market rate of a similar position? Who in their right mind does that?

Soaring high from my brazen faith leap, none of these concerns could touch me.

But alas, it didn’t take long for the verdict to conclude that maybe I had indeed been possessed by a great and terrible madness to leave the security of a very well-paying job for…Bible study?

How would immersing in the Word daily make up for the insane hourly rate I could have earned in my job? How would drowning my soul in devotional pursuits pay the bills and satisfy the comforts my lucrative salary had afforded me?

Nevertheless, my soul thirsted for more than money can buy, and often any niggling worries were quenched as I’d remember that money had been sinking sand.

The time came, however, when all of the savings I had stored up for what I predicted should only be no more than eighteen months of wilderness ran out and I was undone.

With no cent left to latch on, I desperately clung to faith in the Word who called me out into this arid place – and to be honest, I was ashamed to go back to Egypt begging.

I was left with no other option than to resolve to see the reward of my reckless modeling of those disciples who also left everything at the Master’s call to follow him, not knowing where he would lead them or what encounters they would meet along the way.

Since the beginning, faith remains the wrestle of humanity’s existence. Over the ages, quarrels persist as one man’s faith contends with another’s. Everyone’s faith comes from hearing, whether from esteemed scholars, close companions, traditions, or popular culture. We are all free to choose to what or in whom we assign our complete trust and confidence.

As for me, all else before the pursuit of Christ fell short, whether in reliability or sensibility.

Now, I would like to end here with a glorious announcement that I am rolling around in the milk and honey of the Promised Land but considering the Israelites were in the wilderness for forty years, my diligent focus is to navigate wisely, not following the wrong turns they did. But even this has been incredibly adventuresome because I have been revealed to be just like, if not worse than them!

Several times I have yearned to return to Egypt. Countless times I have murmured. I’m even ashamed to say that within the wilderness I found idols to which I turned to worship, for a time.

But praise be to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in whose power is at work in me by his Holy Spirit, and under his grace, I am provisioned with strength, joy, and peace surpassing all understanding. Daily I am sufficiently cared for and have lacked nothing. Instead gain all the best things in life that money, cars, houses, clothes, and empty sex could never hope to offer!

And best of all,  my time in the wilderness has brought me to complete persuasion that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the only solid rock on which a strong and meaningful life of truth, love, righteousness, peace, and joy may be built.

The cost remains crazy stupid faith that voluntarily casts all caution into the wind and free-falls into the unseen Everlasting Arms that uphold all things by the Word of His power.

In the falling, I have tasted, seen, and proved that God is scandalously faithful to “command his angels concerning us, and they will lift us up in their hands, so that we will not strike our foot against a stone.’”

Who wouldn’t want to invest complete trust and place all confidence in such a One who is faithful and has only good intentions toward us?

Me, I’ll follow him to the ends of the earth.

What about you, won’t you come along? In Abba’s kingdom, the more the merrier!

xoxo

Nimi

It was my thirteenth year when I saw myself in the glimmer of a field of petals in whose splendor I shriveled. And the more reflections I walked past my deficiencies glared, willing me away, as a misfit and trespasser.

Like many thirteen-year-olds, I often paged through glossy magazines and therein found the verdict: you dear are the ugly duckling.

My broad nose, tightly curled locks, and pimply sun-blackened face were beneath the standard pointy-nosed, flowy-haired, flawless fair-skinned damsels whose necks stretched out elegantly and whose legs seemed to have no end. Yes, even the dark-like-me magazine variants simply surpassed me.

I came from a place where having food on the table was more urgent than lip-gloss, pretty headbands, daintily painted nails, darling outfits, and cute teen-girl panties. At school, the petals around me always glittered and left a trail of sweet scents with every step. Whereas I, having walked many steps in sweltering heat, arrived with only a sticky armpit stench to afflict the atmosphere.

Moreover, I was immersed in a culture where my witty, warm, radiant personality was obscured by its unfavorable and unimpressive packaging.

My innate craving for love demanded I should turn my wormy form into something resembling a butterfly. Perhaps even a moth would do! At first, with what I could, I concocted rouges and hair straighteners. But it was all in vain. Alas, there was no mending the horrid fate that was mine to bear as a hideous quack from whom eyes singed when gazed upon.

This was my lot, until I discovered that even the ugliest ducklings could be loved if they flaunted the one jewel gifted to every female… The rest of this here tale is a horrible history punctuated by rude misuse, heartbreak, shame, and unspeakable self-loathing that still causes me to cringe at its recollection. Too soon. Too shameful. Too sad. Perhaps a confession for another day.

It was in my twenty-second year, having stumbled and shattered in the maze of definitions of what constitutes a beautiful female that I was led to another field of even more beautiful flowers: I found myself at a women’s conference. For years I had avoided proximity with women, where my thorny self stuck out sorely, in favor of the company of boys and men – who sprinkled rotten crumbs of “love” at me.

Standing awkwardly in the foyer of the conference hall, I feared this was the end of me. I couldn’t take any more mocking that blatantly exposed what I could never have or be!

Yet something quite unexpected transpired. Over the three days at the conference, this thorn sprouted a rosebud!

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praise

When I considered the voices and sights that so long dictated who I should be and what it meant to be a woman, beautiful and lovable, I could not shake the tune I’d heard from The Great Gatsby film: will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?

Indeed, the boys and men I pursued and everything around me taunted how dispensable I was, easily replaceable for younger, newer, and more beautiful models. But alas I also learned that these more beautiful ones also suffered this despair as the insatiable eye of lust could not linger upon them either for much too long – after all, there is always another newer, younger, and more beautiful one!

I admit my aging body and soul simply could not keep up with chasing the mirage of being the sexiest or most beautiful one to deserve validation of being acceptable and loved. And honestly, I was weary of chasing love; at my core, I felt I was not made to pursue but to be pursued.
I desperately hoped that there had to be more to who a woman is than only her looks and devalued pearls and with this hope, I began to see my error had been to revere the opinions of man, who looks only to fickle outward appearances.

Hollow man lusts for first impressions and appearances. If we are honest, we have this annoying tendency to gravitate to superficialities. Glitter and sparkles captivate our eyes and if we are not wise, as we often are not, we become hypnotized and lured only to find out (sometimes way too late) that indeed all that glitters is not gold.

When we look for worthy friends and covenant partners, rarely do we pause to investigate what and who really is behind the many acts we have learned so well to perform for appraisal. Moreover, concerned with playing our parts to perfection, we give no thought to uncovering the beings beyond the masks, scripts, and theatrics presented to us at every turn.
Alas, more tragic is when we have so long acted that we can no longer distinguish who we are from the many faces, and characters that are now all too agonizingly familiar.

For the longest time, I was proud of my chameleon ability that enabled me shapeshift and fit into people’s fickle graces through flattery, fawning, and self-debasement. The more I practiced this witchcraft, the more I lost the essence of my consecration. Eventually, I was on the brink of multiple personality madness brought about by the complete disintegration of my unique personage.

Most of my life is grotesquely marred with gashes of feeling worthless and being envious towards those whose worth I deemed more than my own. I shudder to consider where I would be now had Grace passed me by and I not invoked the courage to reach for His salvation.

At a point where I was utterly confounded by myself – that strangely foreign personality prone to letting all hell loose within me, and the desperately oppressed divinity, also within me – the one who searches the deep things of the heart, he who formed me and cherishes the witty, warm radiant personality I was beguiled to bury in a stained masquerade found me and invited me to discover that I have always been his delicate beloved rose petal.

Not only I, but us all.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life

We are born into a place that bewitches us to forget that we are each cherished children of God. Therefore, we stagger through life with corrupted perspectives and perceptions of who we are or supposed to be, and constantly covetously compare ourselves against our brothers and sisters, blinded to the fact that we are all uniquely, divinely, and wholly formed for equally unique and divine expressions of the glory of our Father.

Abba, the great I AM, is patient and kind and holy therefore he will never force any of his children to come to their senses and turn from the deceptions that lead to separation, temptation, and ultimately destruction. But he does extend an invitation to whosoever would take courage and believe who he is and what he says of us, all his special possessions.

The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.

Even though parents deliver us into the world, they are mortal and imperfect vessels as all humanity is; therefore it is a great deception to seek a definition of who we are from other humans who are just like us, instead of going to our Maker. As simple as it is to see how foolish this is, unfortunately, we are duped at every turn to fall into this error and spiral into the terrible holes of identity crises we suffer, needlessly.

Since birth, so many stimuli aimed, and for a time succeeded, to convince me that I was less than, worthless, and a thorn among resplendence. Cunningly curated media targeted my impressionable mind to believe that a perfectly staged, airbrushed photoshoot or a larger-than-life bank balance is the measure of the value of a person.
I have been awakened to see that turning away from these hypnoses is no light work.

Yet if I should become the rose I now believe I have always been, I must muster every courage ration within me and daily move towards what is true, which may only be found with my Maker, our Father, and God.
Only then will I witness the full glory of transformation into a luscious rose bush.

If like me you find yourself perplexed and lost in the mazes and loops of discovering who you are and why you are here, and should you need some help navigating these challenges, consider tracing back to the beginning, where God created a good wonder-filled home and brought us to live in it, enjoying the overflow of goodness. Then consider that perhaps all you’ve ever heard, known, or believed against his goodness, love, and mercy are cunning lies warped with precision, and aimed to steal, kill, and destroy your experiencing the abundance and joy of life in this realm.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Finally, activate the courage within you to believe God instead of believing lies and pursue with all your mind, will, emotions, time, and strength, little by little or voraciously to know the truth, his heart, and will toward us, humanity – His image bearers:

For goodness, for prosperity, for wholeness, for hope, and a future.

Then you may find that I AM loves you as He loves Himself, and see that you are loved as fearfully and wonderfully made as He created you.

xoxo

Nimi

Once upon a time, on a deserted path, Stranger, I spied our shadows
intertwining. Then I knew that human souls are constantly longing to mesh, but alas the walls scale too high and wide!

A glimmer sparkles in our budding acquaintance as you sit there, opposite
me. I look into your eyes and I want to know you;

But I sense you are afraid to breach the wall and let me see who you are. And who could blame you?

You have no guarantee that I will find your deeper waters more fetching than the winking surface waves that you tease back and forth the shores that define you.

Set on assurances, how can you know that I long for a long drink from
these chilling depths below the tip of your iceberg?

Instead, you tell me of your flourishing enterprises, your praiseworthy accomplishments. You strive to impress me with your flashy possessions and
glamorous lifestyle, and I…

Well, I am found wanting.

You see, I possess not a fraction of what you have. Some time ago I would have blushed, ashamed of my material poverty. But I have come to know the secret that life is more than doing and having. Therefore I am not dazed;

Perhaps I am a little fazed that what could be, at our intersection, is forfeited in favor of chit-chat when we know deep down that if we sit with genuine intent for companionship, we will glimpse the awesome breathtaking beauty of unblushing naked souls.

Perhaps when we next meet, I hope we shall whimsically risk looking into each other’s eyes and find the hidden jewels of our whole hearts.

Perhaps then, you and I will never walk alone. ~ Nimi Stainbank

The world is crowded yet we can feel desperately alone. I was sixth of nine siblings, and though there were often multitudes occupying or passing through my childhood home, I had this deep sense of aloneness that left me feeling strangely vulnerable, in a vast scary world.

I think of subways and city centers where countless bodies pass each other and more and more, even the simple courtesy greeting has disappeared from our interactions. We’re either preoccupied in our heads or our heads bent to the distractions in our handys. Therefore we go about unseen, unheard, and unknown. Yet these are the essence of our pilgrimage.

We used to tiptoe on the shores of deeper connection but now we avoid the beach altogether.

In Joburg CBD, and I wager many other places, one can suffer the misfortune of mugging or collision and bystanders will not dare to intervene. An even worse phenomenon is that people will whip out their phones and film the attack or collision instead of stepping in to save a life.

Witnessing these irregularities in the city unlocked an understanding of the strange vulnerability in my childhood. Amidst the multitudes in my home, many ills and much abuse occurred and was suffered in silence, with no one the wiser.

From the moment we enter life, we suffer hurts of all kinds, and it is not long before hurts from others, whom we’d hope to care for us as their kind, scar us and trigger our defensive mechanisms such that we flee from any kind of vulnerability.

The problem is that as we flee from vulnerability we also flee from our soul’s primary longing – intimacy.

It is written: “It is not good for man to be alone”

Isolation continues to grow at alarming rates. No longer are we courageous enough to obey the Creator’s conclusive remark above, instead in pride we rebel and diminish to “me, myself, and I” solitary confinement.

Isolation begins with self-absorption. This is where the self-entity usurps power and becomes the dictator in our heads. Everything becomes all about me, myself and I such that we fail to notice anyone else’s point of view or existence. Self-absorption snuffs out recognition and compassion for others.

Indeed, we are also not built to continually be in the company of multitudes. Our souls also need to be alone.

The problem is that we tend toward extremes, like iron fillings to magnets, we cannot help the temptation to veer to polarity. So, instead of enjoying appropriate times on our own, we adopt the perversion of isolation.

But our time alone is also not entirely alone, because The Word that declared “it is not good for man to be alone” cannot lie. Our time “alone” is actually meant to be time with the All One. Time with God.

Yet even He is lost in our flight from the call to the courageous pursuit of our Creator’s decree.
For if we cannot bear to know and be known, hear, and be heard by a brother or sister whom we can see, we cannot know and accept to be known nor hear and be heard by God, whom we cannot see.

To be heard and known is a great risk. It requires us to uncover the infinite bands we’ve bound on our hearts over the many years we endure continuing berating, rejection, and careless rude handling of our tender personhoods. It means bringing our heart out from hiding and holding it out again, offering it up for the promise in our Maker’s summation. It is living by faith with your most vulnerable essence exposed. It is living with our heart on our sleeve, so to speak.

Living with your heart on your sleeve is a weighty task that one who would seek to follow our Creator’s decisive proclamation regarding humanity adopts.

In many circles, if not all at this point, it is considered a criticism to be guileless, to live authentically, with your heart on your sleeve.

Living with your heart on your sleeve is not inflicting bad manners or moods on people but a commitment to be and speak truly and courageously from the heart.

If someone asks how you are doing, a guileless posture offers the sacrifice of sharing something true, even vulnerable, of their true present mental, emotional, or spiritual condition instead of the customary meaningless “I’m fine or I’m good”.

Perhaps you’ve heard of, or been that someone, whose outpouring was disdainfully scorned as an inappropriate “TMI”. Hearing this about someone or it said of you can instantly thrust you into hiding, causing your heart to retreat. But take heart to hand again, you are not called to be one of those who shrink back.

Yes, what you share may seem like “too much information”, and it may well be; but if the sharing is an honest offering of a broken and contrite spirit, then go in peace: you should engage courageously, even if it shocks or offends those who would seek to dim your light and condemn humanity to remain in the rebellion of obscurity.

Living with your heart on your sleeve is offering authentic measures of yourself to be known with the desire to unlock and extend meaningful connection with yourself, our Marker, or another human.

Concerning another human, alas in this life, we also have to navigate wisely, hence mastering the art of discerning what measures and doses apply to certain encounters and persons because it is sadly utterly foolish to entrust ourselves wholly to man in this fallen world. Many people have gone so far astray from the original design for mankind to honor one another in favor of corruption. Thus like swine, they will trample on your pearls. From such hogs, cast not your pearls.

But with ourselves and our Maker, it is foolish to withhold any measure of our trust. In fact, if we expose our souls to ourselves and Him in our “All One” times, we will have the wisdom and discernment of the right measures of trust toward humanity that comply with the command to not be alone.

In a time where the tide rushes toward aloneness – in truth, disguised isolation, it will require extraordinary courage to learn, pursue, and master the delicate powerful art of walking intimately with God, and man, which is earnestly speaking and living out the truth that is in your heart, according to wise measures, even at the risk of social scorn.

Thereby never walking alone.

In all these musings it is most crucial to witness to the truest reality that the LORD, our Maker is Immanuel, God with us. A blessed poet penned this reality in a well-known poem, Footprints in the Sand, illustrating that in fact, we never walk alone.

When you have been in hiding for too long, it is initially tough to connect with the outer world and people, but since God is always with us I am finding a way to return to the ease and joy of being heard and known by mortals from whom my heart has fled starts here, with God, with me.

I have committed to listening intently to my heart, and boldly sharing her thoughts, wishes, and feelings truthfully with myself, and God.
This kind of opening up to be heard and known is requiring me to get away from the self-entity in my head and perceive the beautiful mind and spirit of God, in me.

And as I do, I’m finding that getting away from the self-entity in my head allows me to see more of the real me, and others as I, and they are instead of the often false or incomplete constructs in my head

As I look forward to progressing in mastering the art of being heard and known I see it requires abandoning fear and the selfishness of withholding.

When I’m afraid of being hurt again and again and again by others, I am unable to engage in the courage of vulnerability.

Without vulnerability, true intimacy cannot grow. Something and someone’s got to give. Sure it’s no fun being hurt, but by now we know that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger and wiser. This thought ignites my courage to expose my heart sincerely and in truth.

Opening up to hear and know, and be heard and known can be a wearisome duty. To endure it with joy demands that I continually arouse curiosity and the zeal to learn more than meets my own eye and understanding.
This continues to be enriching as I walk with God-Immanuel.

I trust when the time comes that the door to my heart reopens, that it will prove beneficial to my neighbor too. Thereby attaining in the physical the promise in our Creator’s decree, and never walk alone.

xoxo

Nimi

“Howdy neighbor. How ya doin’ this fine and dandy mornin’?” (Here goes nothing for my best Southern accent attempt, lol)

I remember the day a silly little daydream flashed across my mind. Overlooking the morning rush hour in my city, I mused that every person in every car was my friend. I continued to wonder how I would manage to greet each one as they drove past: Would I keep lifting my hand to wave, or should I nod my acknowledgment, or would I adopt the continuous Royal Wave? Ha! I chuckled. Knowing how my waves tend to carry the highly charged energies of excitement and giddiness I feel when I see a kindred friendly soul, I concluded I would be a traffic hazard clown.

In the past, I’ve felt self-conscious and needy concerning my whimsical dream. One day, however, I challenged myself to pursue it because my soul was discontent with how terribly disconnected or rude I felt our species was becoming. I began with the least of society, and behold, like a magical spell, I discovered that greeting is the ultimate little simple act we can all do anytime, anywhere to activate and extend peace in our inner and outer worlds.

I grew up in a culture where greeting was not a question but a prized courtesy that we enacted without hesitation upon seeing another person. Minors were expected to pay honor where it was due, and any adult was at liberty to swat at an impudent youth who dared pass without offering a reverent greeting. When my Mama explained why we greet, and the little solid meanings behind the hand gestures involved in greeting, my heart swelled at the splendor of this humble ceremony.

The simple act of greeting is a courteous expression of recognition, welcome, and goodwill that varies uniquely with cultures, proximity, contexts, and familiarity. What seems to have become universal symbols are a wave of the hand, a slight acknowledging nod, and the handshake – the latter, now recognized as a filthy practice due to its rapid spreading of germs and viruses, has been replaced by elbow bumps. Most cultures adhere to greeting more senior persons before others.

Why should we need to greet?

A smile and a wave melt hostility instantly. Even the most stoic being has no defense against these biological weapons each of us possesses and may use at will. When I started my greeting revolution, I lived in a “dangerous” part of the city. Being female, I felt exposed in this ravenous bandit-swamped hood. Passing through this place was a daily risk. Pickpockets, murderers, drug dealers, pimps, and rapists were all camouflaged in the hustle and bustle of the city. Stragglers littered the streets harassing every female with catcalls, jeers, and threats.  Thus to implement my campaign, I needed to craft it just right.

Too much friendliness invited the unwanted company as I trotted to the next taxi rank. Too little sparked aggressive growls and biting insults. My experiment aimed to prove that even “such as these” longed for recognition, welcome, and good wishes, expressed in the humble act of greeting.

Method 1: Guns blazing. The apparatus: Smile and Wave

My natural inclinations tend to be excess. I feel too much. I think too much. I love too hard. I smile too brightly. I hug too tight. I wave too frantically. For the malnourished vultures, such overflows after eternal droughts roused curiosity, then startling vampiric consumption of my simple regard. In a flash, this strategy backfired. No sooner had they tasted love that the rooks sought to claim me as territory, and take possession of me.

It remains a marvel of the Invisible Hand’s protection that I was unharmed in a place where many a female has suffered unspeakable violations.

Still, I desired to let the wolves know I saw the lambs beneath so I deployed Method 2: Word Power

Now, acutely aware of the extent of the wolves’ famine and their uncontrollable impulses, I went in composed and with a clear purpose. I was determined to compact the message my smile, wave, and eyes transmitted and make the intention and boundaries of my greeting clear. How did I do that, you ask? I got an insight to test the notion of the power of the mind for telepathy. So, for a time, I looped an affirmation in my mind and envisioned the words traveling in waves through the city and alighting on the souls who languished for the sustenance that acknowledgment and recognition inject.

“I see you, the divine image of the Most High. Greetings and goodwill, I extend to you” I silently chanted.

This method was greatly successful. It confirmed that indeed words are real creative forces that travel to whosoever and whatsoever we direct them. At first, those I greeted appeared roused from absentia, bewildered. Others were amazed, even astonished. Then some seemed to bloom in ultimate recognition.

The act of greeting increases our sense of others. When we see and acknowledge others, we are saying to them: “I see you and your whole life, whatever it may look like, matters.”

We tend to avoid greeting the poor, the beggar, the stranger, and shockingly these days people in the same houses and offices neglect to extend honor to one another. Oftentimes people double-take or even stop and stare when I greet them. I guess one way or another we are both puzzled. I wonder why it has become such a foreign thing when once upon a time it was common sense. Needless to say, our now tech-advanced lifestyles are not helping, or rather we are misusing technological tools to our own demise.

During my experiment, I observed how the intention to greet other beings around you can reduce the chances of being mugged or attacked. I witnessed how in great efforts to dodge acknowledging another, many people walk looking downward or blankly forward. Nowadays, most people lock their eyes and give their ears to mobile devices, yet pay no attention to the divinity all around them, and this mindlessness puts their own lives at great risk. Consider the insolence of this scene you and I have played the leading role: you walk past a beggar with your head buried in your phone. You may briefly glance up just so you don’t walk smack straight into the person approaching but just a fleeting dismissive glance and back to a fixation on your screen. Crazy, ain’t it? This chosen posture to ignore what and who is about us makes many practitioners ripe pickings for mugging and attack.

Failing to greet is a silent declaration made to another that shouts the message: you are nothing of worth or value. Frankly, no one likes being spoken to this way, verbally or not. Thus this really nasty stinking attitude and dead conscience action results in hostility from the dismissed marvel that is a whole human being.

If only our rudeness remained confined to paupers and strangers, but alas, we do this in marriages too!

I noticed degeneration in myself when my husband came home and I fleetingly glanced up and then back to my screen. This screen came with me to the dinner table, in bed, and interrupted while he tried to have an important conversation. The glittering screen was more attractive, more awesome. Take a moment to imagine the magnitude of these insults we hurl at everyone, everywhere! We lack understanding and wisdom and will perish in our carelessness and blind ignorance.

Blind ignorance is a state where we think we know it all, when in fact we do not know the simplest things we ought to do to survive in life. We waste so much money on insurance and armed responses because we are just too dull to comprehend how life in communities works. Everyone is important in a community. Not only because they are part of our little clique but for the mere wonder and majesty that is each breathing life.

So much is embodied in our neighbor that it is sacrilege to dismiss anyone, as though they are a fly – though sometimes in our corruption, even these get more attention than a human. We all know we are so valuable but the act of imagining that only we are valuable is a great error we are making whose consequences we have already suffered and will suffer evermore.

When we stop valuing human beings and human life, only desolation follows. These days we are more lonely and depressed – needlessly so since at any given moment, there is an eternal being at hand to enjoy conversation and closeness with, irrespective of the appearance of their physical tent. Divine communion illuminates the darkness of our minds, enabling us to see that we are not alone but have an endless supply of our kind with whom to walk the path of life.

Despising to greet others all around us ruins our bodies as well. It takes so much effort to evade someone, more than we know. The obvious effect of this really daft exercise is hunched postures – due to looking down most of the time. I imagine gravity also pulls down on a downward countenance causing faster sagging as the facial muscles are not actively engaging with the world they should be cheerfully facing (my humble working theory).

With each dismissal of the divine, our souls die a little each day. Why should others consider us important (something we all inherently demand) when we mindlessly discard others who are just like us? When we do this, we are in effect telling ourselves that a human (you and me) doesn’t matter. Soon after we develop feelings of disharmony as we try to reaffirm our worth in selfies and God knows what else. We can’t despise our kind on this very basic level and expect our lives to flourish.

So why don’t we greet anymore?

As I said, I grew up in a place where greeting was enforced as a foundational value from infancy. In this age of tattered, demented, and abominable family structures, feral progeny knows nothing of basic courtesies and etiquette. It’s a jungle out there.

Up and down, back and forth, we roam. With places to go, people to see, and always in a rush to get somewhere or do something, we make no room for spontaneous conversation that may strike up with god on the bus, train, taxi, Uber, or check-out queues.

Seized by dreams and nightmares, we easily get lost in our own heads and lives, after all, it’s the closest to a sure thing we’ve got and we want to hold on and never let go. Nevertheless, everything and everyone is not by chance and may very well be a key set piece you need for perhaps a clue to the next step in your dream, or a rope to reel you out of drowning in nightmarish life sagas (another working theory).

Excuses aside, perhaps we don’t greet because we are just pure evil.

Sure we love to think of ourselves as good. But we are not. We are inherently selfish pathetic creatures and when we do not engage with life to evolve into mature useful members of our species, we simply decline further into our basest nature. This is to say we become ever increasingly selfish, self-absorbed, and self-centered all the while using up and enjoying the resources that should be enjoyed by a collective symbiotic species – each one giving and taking of Love’s providence, proportionately.

At some point, however, the selfish cannot be allowed to continue in his ways, and as such a time of reckoning soon comes to the one, and the nation that perpetuates base infantile attitudes. That said, let not my banter by no means imply that I am discarding the fact that some people are too far gone and not the warmest embrace can turn them from wickedness. In addition, I am wary that cunning criminal minds may capture this thought and tweak it for their ill gains.

Nonetheless, we need to return to the urgent business of serving uncommon courtesy to our neighbors and make it once more the rule.

Our placing value on a person no matter their station, that little act of kindness can raise a life, and that life may very well be our own for we will feel good – more human– as we rescind contempt and receive life’s reciprocal gifts of dignity, peace, wonder, righteousness, and joy.

xoxo

Nimi