I have prayed in vacant rooms that were filled with benches.
I have knelt on smooth wood and felt it bite into my knees. I have known prayer, and in between these bites, I have know that sometimes God hurts.
I have sat in a room that 30 minutes prior, choked in smoke. I have smelt the impact of water on warm ashes. I have felt it rise and inhabit my pores. I have poked my tongue into the air, tasted ashy humidity.
When they should have been closed, I have opened my eyes, I have let them wander. I have seen them go on safari. They have watched clean feet dry on pieces of clean wood, toes lost in dripping peace. They have met other wandering eyes and forced the second pair to cower behind eyelids. I have sought more open eyes and found none. I have lifted my eyes, not to the mountains, but to the drying, soot covered bits of firewood. I have scared myself by imagining that soot falling into my eyes; my God’s wrath for the disrespect that is unclosed eyes during prayer. My mind has wandered and I have forgotten His wrath, as quickly, as conveniently as promised in the gospel of the repentant.
My mind has returned to my body, to find the prayer still ongoing. My lips have moved, mimed that old prayer; her troubles, her state of widow-ness, husbandlessnes…the weakness that is a woman without a protector, her poverty even when the tea bonus floats in her bank account, the burden that is life attempting to live like Christ with the full knowledge that she really cannot. I have said this prayer like it is my own. Over and over and over and over again. Until repetition turned the prayer into a song I do not care for. I have seen beads move between between fingers and had my head master the dance that accompanies the rosary. I have acted prayer until the freedom I imagined for myself has become a reality. I have ran, like the freedom was a ghost and I turned into wind.
I have swept the floors of the earth, this earth, His earth and found freedom in all my descriptions of it. I have turned into a pillar and cycled destruction into existence. I have faced walls and let it all get to my head; some days, air can beat stone but my life has not turned into one such day. I have found myself uttering single sentences that sounded like prayer. They brought salvation but stupidity takes a minute to extinguish and I keep trying to beat stone… I keep losing. I can feel myself emptying; my bones are heavy, but it’s my soul that I worry about; it weighs down.
I am convinced prayer would fix this, but I worry that I do not know how to say one… So why don’t you, say a little prayer for me.
Image courtesy of @mianophotography
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13 Comments
Carol
Good read.
veon
Thank you Carol
Jude
I don’t know why, but this speaks so much to me. Beautiful
Veon Ngugi
Thank you Jude.
Miss Koki
I missed you today…Then I saw this post
And I said a little prayer for you
To keep you alive longer than me
So that I can always enjoy your exquisite writing
Veon Ngugi
That is a really sweet thing.
Amayi
Who wrote this and where can we get more of the writer’s work??? Brilliant piece!!
Veon Ngugi
Morning Amayi,
I wrote this and you can get more of my writing on this same site (theVeon.co.ke)
Thank you…for passing by.
Durden
Hi Veon Ngugi,
Just read through your blog and i think i have an opportunity for you.
Please reach me on 0718-87-27-81
Thanks.
Veon Ngugi
Morning Durden,
Feel free to shoot me an email here (veonngugi@gmail.com)
Gio
I also do suffer from sore knees and now sore eyes from this read.. this is an amazing and familiar perspective. Lovely read!! Big fan!!
Veon Ngugi
Hello Gio,
I hope the eyes recover, before it begins to feel like sand grains have been dumped in them, I am not sure if the knees ever do.
Thank you, keep coming back.
Liz
I love this! You have a dope writing.