THE EARTH SHALL BE FILLED...

I have always heard and read of prophecies dating back to independence about Kenya. That it will be a springboard for end time revival. It took me a while, but finally I understand and agree with these prophesies.

But the revival I have in mind is not about heavenbound people gathering in churches to await the rapture. It's a revival of the human spirit. A defeat of the domination system and a restoration that makes our life finally to start to make sense and have meaning. A throwing down once and for all of the shackles that currently enslave us, and an outpouring of real freedom amongst God's children. An establishment of God's Jubilee among God's people.

That revival is underway.

It will begin by the overthrow of the fake Jubilee that has installed itself as a false political kingdom riding roughshod over our nation.

But it shall not stop there. It shall spread East, West, North and South, overthrowing despots in its wake in Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, DRC and beyond. It will reach all the way to the Capitals of Europe, China and America and beyond until the whole earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

These are the days all our forebears beheld only from a distance as in a dream, but did not live to see.

May we be worthy of them.

THE COMING DICTATORSHIP AND THE CHURCH'S LOUD SILENCE

My afternoon read today was about the rise of Hitler and the totalitarianism that engulfed Germany under the Nazis and swept the whole world into war for the defence of democracy. In particular, the book analyses the role of the church in Germany which remained largely silent as this existential threat to human freedom spread in Germany unchecked.

The book notes, "... the Confessing church as a whole, despite the courageand suffering of many of its members, was too compromised and concerned about its own survival to fulfill its early promise. Most tragically, it remained silent on the persecution of the Jews."

The Kenyan church has remained largely silent as this government has escalated its violence against the poor through extra-judicial killings, mass unemployment of the youth, misguided curriculum reforms, and the displacement of the poor through the destruction of their dwellings in informal settlement. It has remained silent as the government has blatantly violated our Constitution, assaulted our fundamental freedoms, and set our country on the path to economic ruin through reckless borrowing of money that mortgages our children's future while most of it ends up in the black hole of corruption.

Like the church in Germany, the Kenyan church has remained silent because it is "too compromised and concerned about its own survival to fulfill its early promise," the promise of the church of Alexander Muge, Henry Okullu, Timothy Njoya and David Gitari.

But the same chapter has a warning for the church. Despite its caution and complacency, "Hitler and the Nazi leadership regarded it as a political threat. Any organisation which sought to retain its own autonomy, especially one which had such a large and widespread membership, was an enemy," which had to be dealt with accordingly. However, by the time the church fully appreciated the nature of the threat, it was too late.

And so, I have a simple message to the Kenyan church today as it sits on the sidelines and watches silently as Jubilee rolls out its dictatorship: First they came for the media, civil society, jobless youths, and I kept silent because I was none of these. Whey they came for me, there was no one left to speak up.

Change is coming. On which side will you stand?

AMBASSADOR GODEC'S FUTILE DIPLOMACY AND END OF EMPIRE...

Sir John Glubb, in his long essay titled, 'The fate of empires and the search for survival' makes the poignant case that throughout history, the lifespan of reigning empires is 250 years, give or take a few. He also outlines the characteristics that define the course of empire from outburst, commercial expansion, art and luxury, affluence, defensiveness, intellectual advancement, civil dissensions, frivolity, decadence, and fall.

This has proved true for all empires from the Assyrians, to the Babylonians, the Medo-Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. It will also be true of the current Anglo-Saxon Empire which has the USA at its helm. In actual fact, measured against Glubb's analysis, this reigning empire is on its last legs. It is going through the age of frivolity (arguing about everything under the sun - watch CNN where they have ten analysts for every news item) and decadence (they actually elected as their president someone who boasted that he would touch women "by the p**sy" and get away with it!). 

It will soon fall.

What does this have to do with Kenya and Africa? Well, when one empire falls, another rises. The falling empire is the most global in its reach in human history. When it falls, other nations that have so far pretended to be sovereign republics but are in actual fact just vassal states of Washington shall fall with it.

Kenya and Africa have a critical decision to make. Will we continue listening to Ambassador Godec as he tries to manage our revolution while ensuring as much continuity on the inside regardless of the changes he pretends to seek on the outside, or will we summon up the courage to take a stand against the empire he represents and thereby avoid sharing its doomed fate?

If we do the latter, we will start walking along the path that will make us the harbingers of the new empire, one that will be defined by social justice, human dignity, and abiding hope for all.

A LESSON FROM NASERIAN...

This morning, our one and a half year old daughter, Naserian, had an inadvertent message for the Kenyan people. I came from the bathroom to find her screaming in terror as she was trying to slide down to the floor from our bed and was holding onto the blanket as for dear life. What she did not know was that her little feet were dangling just two inches above the floor. If only she had had a little more faith to slide further down to freedom.

This is where we are as Kenyans.

We are so close to finally stepping on the solid ground of freedom and justice and walking along the path of unity and dignity, but many of us do not yet know it. So we are screaming in terror, calling each other names, and holding onto the the filthy rag of our painful yesterdays.

But I am here to tell you this morning that I have seen our collective future and it is bright with promise. If only we could but summon up the courage to push together until that future is finally born.

Change is coming.

UHURU KENYATTA, LET MY PEOPLE GO !!

So the media tells us that President Uhuru Kenyatta has re-constituted his inner team and put in place a new 'power circle' to enable him to ruthlessly execute his idea of what Kenya should be. The same media reports on government officials disregarding court orders with impunity and treating our Constitution like an inconvenient rag, making this seem like the new normal.

When we ask whether there are no other qualified Kenyans to serve in key offices than Kariuki, Muturi and Kinuthia, we are told to wait for our turn to eat. When we ask why the government has decided that court orders are just suggestions which it may or may not obey at its convenience, we are told we are an unruly lot that needs a benevolent dictator who knows what is best for us.

But when people tell us to accept and move on, many of us groan like the ancient Hebrews being forced to produce bricks without straw. We cry out to God, 'Please set us free!' and to the politicians 'Let us go! Let us find some space to worship God, to think, to be human, to be Kenyan, outside the bars and walls of tribe and the fences of party, of this new dictatorship. The bars in which we are currently constrained, imprisoned and suffocating.

But make no mistake. Our time is at hand. Soon we, like the Hebrews, will head out into the wilderness. We will risk hunger, thirst, exposure, death. For we cannot sustain this constrained way of being, of thinking, of living, any longer.

Change is coming.

CHANGE IS COMING.

Kenya is at a crossroads and we the people are terrified. That is why we lash out at each other at the slightest hint of provocation. It is not really hate that is so pervasive on social media. It is fear. Fear of the unknown that expresses itself as hate for the Other.

We know that what we have is not really working, at least not for the vast majority of us. We are lost, but we have no one to show us our way home. We are in a dark place and we dare not take another step forward lest we fall into the abyss.

So, in our paralysis, we continue calling each other names in the dark, instead of reaching for one another's hand and feeling our way together, however tentatively, forward until we find the light of day.

But we are in a kairos moment for our nation. A moment of rebirth and we must summon up the courage to push until the new Kenya is born.

However, we must be careful. For there are all manner of people pretending to be midwives but whose actual motive is to carry out Pharaoh's orders to snuff out the new life before it takes its first breath.

So, let us beware of the custodians of the old order - the politicians, the diplomats, some church leaders, business people, civil society - who are desperate to hide from us the fact that we are at a moment of rebirth and who would substitute a version of the old Kenya for the new one we so long for.

The old is truly dying; the new is being born. Do not just stand there. Come and join in the final push so that you, too, may become an eyewitness to the miracle of our rebirth.

Change is coming.

MAY ALL WHO COME BEHIND US FIND US FAITHFUL.

Kenya is not facing a crisis of leadership, we are facing a crisis of courage and a failure of imagination.

Those who fought for our independence, despite being hopelessly outgunned by the colonial forces, summoned up the courage to take them on in a blatantly unequal contest in order to proclaim from the mountaintops that Africans were not the children of a lesser god. And in spite of little exposure and formal education, they had the imagination to dream of a new Kenya they had never seen before. A Kenya where all would be treated equally and have a fair shot at a successful life regardless of the colour of their skin, and a society defined by the abiding values of democracy, social justice and freedom for all.

What about us?

We have allowed ourselves to be defined by the avarice and decadence of politicians who cannot see beyond their noses to imagine what our country could truly become. We have cut down our dreams to fit the size of the cloth they have thrown at us, a rag that barely covers our nakedness.

We hear about the gallant struggle of our freedom fighters and shrug and think, well what can I do? I cannot be a Mekatilili wa Menza, or a Waiyaki wa Hinga, or a Muthoni Nyanjiru or a Markam Singh or a Dedan Kimathi or one of the Kapenguria Six.

But God will not ask me to account for not being like them or not accomplishing what they did. He will ask me what I did to take forward the dream of the Kenya that they fought and died for and to hand over to my children the Kenya that they sacrificed for.

I woke up this morning feeling paralysed by this weight of history, and rebuking myself at thinking that I could measure up to any of these giants of our glorious past. God knew my struggle, for He gently led me to Alfred, Lord Tennyson's famous poem, Ulysses:

'Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.'

May all those who come behind us find us faithful in having preserved the Kenya of our fathers' and mothers' dreams.