I copy paste this from am email from Our Daily Bread, a story by Monica La Rose“As I shared with my counselor my roller-coaster of emotions after a stress-filled week, she listened thoughtfully. Then she invited me to look out the window at the trees, lush with autumnal oranges and golds, the branches swaying in the wind.
Pointing out that the trunks weren’t moving at all in the wind, my counselor explained, “We’re a bit like that. When life is blowing at us from every direction, of course our emotions will go up and down and all around. But sometimes we live as if we only have branches. Our goal is to help you find your own trunk. That way, even when life is pulling from all sides, you won’t be living in your branches. You’ll still be secure and stable.”
I was so so inspired by this and immediately shared with my little sister. Joy of having such knowledge is unbeatable.
I suddenly realized that we have focus our efforts and devotion to branches in the wind and completely forget the trunk on which we are rooted.
Many of us are going through a difficult time as a result of COVID 19. We have uncontrollably focused on where the we wind is blowing our jobs, sources of income, family making us direct our energy to what might be hunger, poverty, loss and poor health leaving us to worry our brains thin.
We have forgotten that trunk on which we are rooted. Even when the wind is blowing up and down, left and right, our finances, families and health were stand still.
We have life. We can HOPE. As long as we breathe, believe and have faith, any ruins of our lives can be rebuilt. Grab tight on that trunk in your life. When it’s calm you will rebuild the ruins of your life.
Mothers’ day brings joy to the hearts of many. We all craft the best speeches and messages to our most beloved.
But we know, no words are good enough for our mothers. Actually, I think no words crafted in human written and spoken language can accurately relate to a mother’s love.
To all mothers a happy mothers’ day and to my mother, I celebrate you every day with words and feelings I can’t express.
I am perplexed as to why people choose to or act involuntarily violent. I have thought over and over about why I would beat someone. I think that the failure to do as I might have instructed or as they ought to have, in abilities and reasoning that is same as mine or that that suppresses mine might make me angry and the need to “punish” them by inflicting physical or psychological pain.
As I think this through, I wonder if my victims would actually change. Yes, because they are afraid and do not want to be hurt again and no because they actually might not care about my sentimental needs and are willing to fight back. Then when one has the ability to fight back we might have an escalated situation. I believe that we all are independent humans, with rights, beliefs, goals, ways in which we might want to go about our days and complete a task among others. But the fact that we thrive under superiority complex or leadership, at one time we all are a responsibility of another and therefore required to behave in a certain way. Failure to do as instructed or required might get you into trouble.
In many cases of domestic violence, a committer expects their spouse or child to behave in a certain way because they think that it is the best ways to, or are supposed to or their sole responsibility to or by fact and moral rules they should. Short of that, they the committer (of violence) who has a mindset of dominance over the victim or power or advantage over the other acts in an authoritative way to punish or inflict pain. In incidents like war, many women and girls are sexually abused. Why? Why would anyone on the verge of death and loss want to cause such agonizing to another? The supposed perpetrator assumes power over those in captive or those who are subject to him/her. I am not aware of the extent of sexual abuse among men during the war. But anyway, the committer assumes power and the right to pleasure himself as he pleases even when it is wrong. Even for bigger institutions like governments, war or violence is mostly the way to go out to overthrow or overrule others. I am not politically knowledgeable so their reasons for violence still confuse me. And at times, even without intension for supremacy, some people may find aggression pleasurable and may want to please themselves in such a manner. People who may please self in aggressive sexual acts find a limited number of people mostly girls to offer “aggressive pleasure”, they tend to enslave them to fulfil their pleasures.
Evolutionary psychologists say that our prehistoric predecessors passed down a tendency of violent behaviour especially among the males. Globally the males are the leading perpetrators of violence. And exactly why we are violent probably because it is embedded in the DNA. In the animal kingdom, male animals are territorial, they fight to keep their territories, instil disciple in their subjects such as females and their children, win over a female animal etc.
Vulnerability and supremacy are a common factor in most cases of violence expect when it is self-defence. Evolution is the most celebrated discoveries of science and states that human beings have the most developed and versatile brain. That is a discovery of scientific research made by humans I don’t know what other species; the animals say about us. I think they laugh at us with mockery! Anyway, my question here is if we have super brains why haven’t we evolved out of negative behaviour such as violence? On some occurrences, victims describe their committers as animals “he is such an animal!” some may say. I have read lots about violence, the list of occurrences and intentions of violence in our lifestyles, in the laws, in our cultures still leaves me unsatisfied. I cannot comprehend why it is a human tendency to be violent. In all, I do appreciate that there has been a tremendous drop of violence, especially the physical violence but unfortunately, verbal violence is on the rise. Unfortunately, the sense of human responsibility and commitment to their families and the environment has tremendously dropped. Women and children live in fear, of being hurt, losing the love and protection of their spouses or parents or being disowned. This state of vulnerability leads them to dependence and they might at most times become acquiescent to demands and acts of violence. In worse scenarios victims lose their power to will, to make decisions even those as important as choosing their freedom and independence. And for cases where the victim, has the ability to find independent, to work and fight for their rights a state of no retreat no surrender might be achieved. This may continue to cause more harm to families and the wider society.
It is our responsibility as a human beings to use our super developed brains to control tendencies of violence and resort to peaceful negotiations. We might be deceived by the decrease in incidences of red eyes and broken arms when the actual problem is embedded in the broken hearts. Don’t be an animal….be a human!
Last week, after reading my daily devotion I had great hope and energy that coronavirus I will beat. Of course, I still have energy, but the weight of how others suffer completely weighs me down.
I called, to hear from one of my cheerful hosts in my relational work. She is a mother of 6, a widow and she rents a small stall in her community on which she sales vegetables for stock worth 50,000shs.
I could hear the sadness in her voice, her lack of energy as she responded to the how are you question. She has been living at the edge of her finances even in what we term as a normal economy. This catastrophe has left her and family clutching on unknown mercy.
Musomesa, simanyi, (“Teacher I don’t”) this was her response, this is how she was! She did not know how she was or how she was going to live passed that day.
I wanted to help, I wanted to run to her and give her a tight hug and say to her that it was going to be ok. Unfortunately, I could not.
But I know, we can help. Staying at home, without doing anything will keep us from getting the virus, which is good. But it will not keep us from the pain of Loss. And good is not good enough we must do our best to make sure that we encourage, we support, we help and we pray for all our loved ones and friends.
I think the pain of losing anyone I love is going to as same as catching the virus. COVID Make a difference, encourage someone today! Give them hope for a hereafter Covid -19 era.
A few months ago, my little sisters brought a strawberry seedling from school and planted it in a compound. We don’t grow much strawberry in Uganda let alone the country side. No one gave it much attention until…
Boom one day, this little pink bud showed up and guess what, I am now thinking of making a strawberry upside cake 😋 when I visit my village.
Before I never thought that the strawberry 🍓 would yield fruit. But after it did, I now have plans for it, even the crazy ones such as a strawberry upside down 🤔, how ridiculous!
Your life should be full good and hopeful dreams, rather than the uncertainty of the future. Covid-19 has brought us counting down the kgs of flour left in our baskets as the television broadcast counts up the number of new cases. Take a break, enjoy the LOCKDOWN, think about what YOU can accomplish on your computer, phone, plant pots and any resource available to you.
We have a lot of time at home 🏠, plant your strawberries you never know what plans and dreams you might achieve with the fruit.
Making Peace with bad things that have happened in our lives is not always possible for most of us. But living with it causes us more pain than we can ever recount and among which the lost and unknown opportunities. In this time of COVID-19, many are looking back on the past pandemics such as the 1918 one that claimed hundreds of millions of people and is comparing it to today’s that has only claimed thousands. I have heard people say that until millions die the virus is deemed to stay. None with the hope that we can survive this. None with countermeasures of remaining uninfected or survive the effects and after-effects of coronavirus.
Fear is a powerful thing, Faith can move mountains and it is up to you to choose the one you want to live with. The bible which I know is the greatest book I have or will ever read gives us a whole lot of answers. In the creation story, it’s written that God, gave man authority over all creation in the sea, on land and in the air and not excluding “COVID-19” to rule over and not to be ruled. And because of the past experiences and fear we have forgotten that. We now are hopeless to wait for time to die. Why have we lost our inheritance, our power to rule over all creation?
The virus may kill, may bring the economy to its feet, may live us hungry because we have let it. But I tell you if you drink the poison of fear and expect the virus to die, then you are in big big trouble. Raise above the bar of fear, fight back with might and faith. Lets us think about how we live passed this pandemic. And mind you, this is not about money or food or public transportation. Think about how you will sell your merchandise, how you will buy and how you can connect with those that are key in your survival.
A global pandemic is here so we will not take it back, however, must stop looking at governments to save us. Not that I underestimate the power and responsibilities of the government, but each one of us is a tiny unit of the government. Its time we all play our roles and enable our government to serve us better. Let’s not blame what has not been done, let’s do what we must do, let’s think about that which we must do to survive this day’s calamity and the many more to come. Let’s are the government of our families.
We need to create that local network and task force amongst ourselves. A task force to grow food, supply food, manufacturer medicine, avail necessary and basic services to benefit our immediate neighbours and those beyond the eye. We need to work as a chain to ensure that we survive.
The world has gone smart an opportunity that didn’t not exist in.1918, we can talk to people hundreds of miles away in a split second, we can see things far from us, we can learn from the best teachers using a small device fitted in our hands, we can share ideas with millions of people in a few minutes and we can reach out doctors, farmers, teachers from where we are. We only need to think, connect and act.
Nothing should have stopped if we had made peace with it and stood against the challenge rather than cast unreasonable blame to the maker of COVID-19
Life has been so generous to all of us. In Uganda, we have lots of sunshine and rain, food and security and all these were our entitlement.
It never occured to anyone that we might experience a global shut down that will put most of our dreams on a stand still and set us ablaze with fear, the uncertainty of the future.
I think its is time to rethink our ways of life. How we live, eat, communicate, adjust to life challenges, skills and abilities to innovative and practice life principles of success.
The way we get an education has been majorly on already discovered principles of many generations ago. Not much has been brought to life.
Today we face a global pandemic, which has knocked the world’s most knowledgeable scientists off their feet.
Tomorrow we might face another global crisis because of global warming or natural calamity.
Maybe the sooner tomorrow, #Corona will leave the world empty or a collapsed economy.
How are you prepared to cope up. How will you find food, medicine, fuel shelter or communication in the times of scarcity. How will your and your family live to see the better tomorrow.
All these should be our worries and even if we have hope, our innovations today will be used for the better tomorrow.
We must avoid wastage, extravagance, learn how to find alternatives. This not only for us but also our children who are born in the seasons of abundance.
#together #wecan #endcorona. #live we can #thinkbetter #stayhome and do #better, #teach our #children #lifeskills
In my work as a social officer working with women in disadvantaged communities in Kampala I am so sudden by the unfolding eventualities on COVID 19. Our saving groups are on a stand still, Our businesses frozen
And mostly losing out on trainings and learning.
Through mobile communications I have shared information on guidelines and prevention with families that are unable to get information from any media channels.
The Activist 