The Lone Resolution

Just one new year resolution for me,the rest are last years' that i never followed through .Thus unlike you, i have carry-over resolutions! So instead of long lists of things i may never do,i have one thing that i can do that  will eventually create a list of things done,at the end of this year.Here it is:
1). I won't do just my best,i will  do what is required. I will be an Extra Miler
-In my xul stuff,my personal life,relationship and everything in between i want to be an extra miler.I will pay my dues to get what i deserve,no thing less,and nothing more.
'So Help me God!'
Happy  new year everyone!!



Santa Is In Town!


Its xmas!.....briiiiii...Hope your on for the great season of fan,love and spirituality.So i am wishing every one , a good time during this festive moments.Do something crazy.One of my fantasies,is to have xmas  celebration on the  the statue of liberty in NY,i cant die without having this!..kikiki...whatever  fantasies you have let them come to pass this xmas...Get ready it gonna be raining bubblegums like in Bed Time Stories.Coz trust,a literal santa is in town!

My Shout outs  to ALL  my friends  (real or imagined) wherever you are,my sister Chicco,Mwayi,Faith,my brother Happy and the most fabulous mum i know.... Wish you guys a great Xmas,2 bad i wont be home.
Ciao



Marathon

Last week was a blast for me.Our college had a College Olympics so i decided to take part.It was fantastic.At the end i was totally exhausted but it was worthy it.I came 41st of more than 300 participant. Cant complain,especially that im just starting to get in good shape.Check out some pics.The marathon was from Stanley Bridge to Shatby, if you have been to Alexandria,that the station before the Biblitheca Alexandria.






























Unedited:Black Boy in Arab Land......



 I have been living in Alexandria for a year and a month now.Well before that i swear never thought of living let alone stuying in the middle east or among arabs.For me an arab was  a man in his turban,brainwashed,fundamentalist and  dangerous,a caricuture i carried around with me from pop culture and moves i guess.

So when i told my parents and friends i was going to study in Egypt,i saw a whole range of reactions.Some  were downright horrified and almost advised me not to,others were concerned for my life,sighting suicide bombing,muslim brotherhood and other threats that i may be exposedd to. But if you know me,you know im a very stubborn guy,when im goign right,its right and you better get used to it!
I cant say i was never worried,but buried that fear deep down my gut,pushed it,denied it and ignored it......

Were they right?..their concerns and assumption,far from it.I interact with arabs everyday ,and i find them to be just human.Nothing pecular about them.they are just people.they are my friends ,class mates,my proffessors,hostel supervisors,gym trainers,cooks and allsorts of things to me.they are moral ,others immoral,sane,others insane,rich/poor,smart/dull  and everything in between,not in any way different from any humans i know from various walks of life.

I guess being a minority is a new thing to me.i guess i feel more black.im conscious of my color now than ever,i guess beign sorrounded by asea of people of another color makes me distinct and unique.on time a kid run and hid under his mum when i was coming toward him.....im that bad!..hahahaha....yeah at times you get a curious look.if you like me i feel like walking over and saying "wanna touch me?"

A friend of mine asked soon after i came here whether i was exeprincing any...wats the word?..hmmm...'racism?'...from the arabs.I think you may have the same question...iknow you!..deep down...your probably asking..so i will answer you stranger....here is my answer.NO.(notice capitals).

I guess the the Egyptian arabs are used to see Sudanese who came here running way from their war with the north.So black peple are not new here.

Some deep thinkers may get smart on me and say 'which No'  are you talking about? you mean there is never even one sour incident or word said  towards you?...thats a reasonable question,i must say.There have been.but you see i dont walk with my Race Card  in  my pocket ready to flash it out..Your doing  this coz im black!......I dont play victim...

some may say'tell us the incidents'and we may judge them ourselves since you seem to be an enlightened fellow.'

One of the things that happen often..like once in a month..is being called names.they may call you samara...(black like soot)...chocoleta (chocolate-looking)...or bonga bonga (this one is scarce...it means chimpazee like..this one is gross)...
Name calling,is especially common in backward  low income areas.Thats all.Some bitter broke fellows  trying to vent their frustration on people different from them.My friend Jim Rohn says there is nothing worse than being broke and stupid....most these guys in name calling are...hahahaha.....i punch back.yo.!

By the way i use Samara and chololeta on my friends lots.To me someone calling chocolata does not have a sting.its actually funny,coz we have repossessed  the words and made them harmless..so if  you aare  a Samara reading this relax! After all  'It's not what they call you, it's what you answer to' that matters.... Samara!....what are you gonna do?

So if you ever wonder how this black  is doing among arabs.The answer  is Pretty Good..made many friends among them.Learn with them,laugh ,eat ,play and they are brothers to me.Nice people ,good peole great people and everything thng in between...Eating Ashi, fullu fallaf, kebda,and other arab foods..hahahahahahahah.............

Its my ride yo...and im grateful to meet all sorts of people....

peace




Revisiting Malirana

It's been long I guess, since I was back to good old High school of Mtendere, deep down Malirana in Dedza.I got lots of memories from them days. Most are generally good others actually outright hilarious!
One of the funny things was a sleep talking in the dorms. I lived in Shire house, I guess the most unruly House. There was a pattern I observed among perennial sleep talkers. All of us may sleep talk once in a while under special circumstances, but of these you can stay up late and you will surely record a funny sound. A person has to have at least 2 to 3 of these qualities (These are personal observation only)

1)      They are usually quiet people.
2)      Generally nice guys
3)      Mostly loners, or at least  reserved guys
4)      Generally religious
One  guy in particular, for the sake of himself and those who may know him I shall leave him unnamed but he lived  Shire 23 ,and later moved to Baghdad(this is for the initiated only).this guy was an eloquent  sleep talker. He was so talkative in sleep! He went on and on rumblings in very coherent Chichewa.

His all times great talk was one Thursday night. The tyranny of boarding school ,had already been in force; the lights  were off ,the dorm was quite except for some low chattering ,or  in-bracket chewing of   roasted maize!..Hahahaha...then our great friend began his all time talks. Starting with some little rumbling in a rather fast talk, and climaxed with an all time quote that has since haunted him. He exclaimed "Ndigula chigayo!"(I will buy a maize mill!) Then he went silent only to repeat "Ndigula chigayo!"
Everyone was stunned, and then a large roar of laughter followed. It was a night of laughter and a nightmare from then on for our good friend. It was always a punch line and an argument ender for him if anyone used it against him.

I guess I remembers this coz my roommate occasionally sleep talks. I have also been accused to do so. We are just not that perennial. I guess it's being far from home, some nostalgia and great memories.
NB:
Don’t mind me, I'm just reminiscing. Hope you look back too. We got so many things to be grateful for.


The Madman:The Death of God


 The german philosopher Nietsche wrote this story in his book  Die fröhliche Wissenschaft(Gay Science).Its a story that has been subject to major philosophical material.Check it out!

  Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: "I am looking for God! I am looking for God!"   As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.

  "Where has God gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? 


Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto."


  Here the madman fell silent and again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling - it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves."  It has been further related that on that same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang a requiem. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: "what are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God?"


Explaining    Nietzsche's 'death of God'

"God is dead" never meant that Nietzsche believed in an actual God who first existed and then died in a literal sense. It may be more appropriate to consider the statement as Nietzsche's way of saying that the "God" of the times (religion and other such spirituality) is no longer a viable source of any received wisdom. Nietzsche recognizes the crisis which the death of God represents for existing mbecause "When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident... By breaking one main concept out of Christianity, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands.oral considerations, "[1] This is why in "The Madman", a work which primarily addresses atheists, the problem is to retain any system of values in the absence of a divine order.
The death of God is a way of saying that humans are no longer able to believe in any such cosmic order since they themselves no longer recognize it. The death of God will lead, Nietzsche says, not only to the rejection of a belief of cosmic or physical order but also to a rejection of absolute values themselves — to the rejection of belief in an objective and universal moral law, binding upon all individuals. In this manner, the loss of an absolute basis for morality leads to nihilism. 
This nihilism is what Nietzsche worked to find a solution for by re-evaluating the foundations of human values. This meant, to Nietzsche, looking for foundations that went deeper than Christian values. He would find a basis in the "will to power" that he described as "the essence of reality."


Nietzsche believed that the majority of people did not recognize this death out of the deepest-seated fear or angst. Therefore, when the death did begin to become widely acknowledged, people would despair and nihilism would become rampant. This is partly why Nietzsche saw Christianity as nihilistic. He may have seen himself as a historical figure like Zarathustra, Socrates or Jesus, giving a new philosophical orientation to future generations to overcome the impending nihilism.

NB:
 I just gave you the take of the  issue from a very mild philosophical backdrop.I will dive in in part two to reflect on the Death Of God,as I see it and how it can or has happened ,unlike in …is quite literal,or almost literal.Check out part two.Part three will be athestic view of the issue and lastly I will bring in the christian leading thinkers and their comment of the issue,Is God Dead?








My Friend:A dedication

I just thought of my great friends over the years.Hope,jimmy,Allan,Gift and many others.This is for you!

My Friend

I feel like I've known you forever
Although I only met you sometime this past year
But our friendship will remain forever
No matter what shall cross our paths and hearts

The best thing that's happened to me
Is finding a forever friend like you
You're there to listen, help, and talk to
And best of all, I know I can confide in you

Some say the best love is one sprung from friendship
So I feel this is why we should try
Time leads us in this direction
Should we follow on down the line?

Friendship and love are always intertwined
Too close which sometimes causes confusion
But if we don't try, we will never know if it was meant to be
But forever you will remain my friend

I don't know if this is going to work
I'm not totally sure we should try
But I have all these mixed feelings
Bottled up inside

I love you both inside and out as my best friend
And I know that you love me that way too
So when I say "best friends forever"
That even means when I'm saying" Goodbye, I love you, too."

Miss you fellas ,and all others.You decorate my life!

Zodiak Radio Online

If  you are like me,i have been facing problems streaming Zodiak Radio.For some of you familiar with my blog,i had a widget of it and made quite a easy listen.So i took it up with them ,with my surrogate of coz..Check out  our correspondence

--- On Wed, 12/2/09, zodiakmalawi@mail.com <zodiakmalawi@mail.com> wrote:

From: zodiakmalawi@mail.com <zodiakmalawi@mail.com>
Subject: Re: Live 365
To: jimmyfranklinwhite@yahoo.com
Date: Wednesday, December 2, 2009, 10:21 PM

Dear Lawrence Kwalimba,
 
Hope all is good with you. Well, about live365.com, we have terminated our contract and that if you want to access our online radio, please, visit our website http://www.zodiakmalawi.com and you can listen to our live radio from there. We have done this to recuce costs which were going as high as
$5,108.51 per month.
 
We hope you will not have any problems.
 
Best Regards,
IT Officer


-----Original Message-----
From: lawrence kwalimba <jimmyfranklinwhite@yahoo.com>
To: zodiakmalawi@mail.com
Sent: Tue, Dec 1, 2009 4:57 pm
Subject: Live 365

Dear Sir /Madam
 
I'm a malawian in diaspora,and love listening to Zodiak.Recently i can not find it in the Live 365,and the one on your page is not working.I hope you fix the problem because zodiak is the only dependable,neutral source of news for me and many of us.
Your Sincerely
Lawrence Kwalimba


Attitude


No matter how badly life has treated you, just walk tall with your head high.

LIKE THIS CHICKEN!..


"Its not what happens to you but how you represent what happened that affects you"~Tony Robbins~

"Life turns out the best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out"
~Milton ~

Heaven

By

Steve turner


What happens in heaven?
Will I sit on a cloud?
Is walking or talking
Or jumping allowed?

Will I be on my own
Or with some of my friends?
Does it go on for ever
Or eventually end?

What happens in heaven?
Will I play a harp's strings?
I can't play piano
I can't even sing.

Who chooses the music
That angels inspire?
Who does the auditions
For the heavenly choir?

What happens in heaven?
Are the streets paved with gold?
Is it crowded with people
Who're incredibly old?

Will I know who I am?
Will I know what I'm called?
If I pinch myself hard
Will I feel it at all?

What happens in heaven?
Do I go through a gate?
What if I get myself lost
Or turn up too late?

Is my name on a list?
Is the gatekeeper nice?
Can you sneak in for nothing
Or is there a price?
..............
In another piece,the Creed ,he makes another remark of heaven. He says:

We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens
They say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied,
Then it's compulsory heaven for all
Excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin and Genghis Khan.

NB
Don't mind Steve,he just thinking, thats why i am a great fan of his.You should check him out!>

Heaven





What happens in heaven?
Will I sit on a cloud?
Is walking or talking
Or jumping allowed?


Will I be on my own
Or with some of my friends?
Does it go on for ever
Or eventually end?


What happens in heaven?
Will I play a harp's strings?
I can't play piano
I can't even sing.


Who chooses the music
That angels inspire?
Who does the auditions
For the heavenly choir?


What happens in heaven?
Are the streets paved with gold?
Is it crowded with people
Who're incredibly old?


Will I know who I am?
Will I know what I'm called?
If I pinch myself hard
Will I feel it at all?


What happens in heaven?
Do I go through a gate?
What if I get myself lost
Or turn up too late?


Is my name on a list?
Is the gatekeeper nice?
Can you sneak in for nothing
Or is there a price?
..............
In another piece,the Creed ,he makes another remark of heaven. He says:


We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens
They say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied,
Then it's compulsory heaven for all
Excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin and Genghis Khan.


NB
Don't mind Steve,he just thinking, thats why i am a great fan of his.You should check him out!




Just Thinkin

Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he`can but does not want to ;or  he  cannot and does not want to .If  he wants to ,but cannot, he is impotent .If he can and does not want to, he is wicked .If God can and wants to abolish evil, then how comes evil in the world?



~Epicurus, Philosopher~


 Guess life once in a while we all hits rock bottom or face challenges we can’t comprend.Some hurtful situation, at times tragic happens in our lives, and we start getting those deep questions. The questions that demand answers of  Why.


I’m not a leading philosopher or something, im just a guy like you, wondering over such an issue. Recently a friend told me of a situation that happened to a distant friend of our. A truly nice guy, religious and well rounded I must say. He has found himself in uncharted waters and he pretty confused, distressed and worse.
I would really like to acknowledge such feeling as legitimate and necessary for the particular situation. A year and a half ago, I walked an almost similar road to hell.I don’t particularly claim to know the answers, but I admire the questions and would like to wonder with you and offer my own reflections.


Why did it happen?

Why did this happen? This is a totally legitimate question. We want to know the reason for how thing s turns out this way. Someone somewhere has to give the answers. So we clinch the first and wait for the answer. I have done this, you probably haven’t. I have demanded answers from god and, I must say I have gotten none. Is he there? And if yes, does he have the answers?
I will give you my answer to this later but for now let’s go to the second question


Why did it happen to ME?


Why on earth did it of all the people, occur to me? What at did I do? How did I deserve such a situation? Did I break some universal law or what? I’m I repaying some sins to God or is god playing the Job-experiment on me.



 The Answer


The answer is that i have no answer .I’m not God, I don’t wish to be. Here are my thought though on the two questions are:


I admire a guy called Harv Erker, he runs The Millionare School, a financial literacy institute some sort. I have an audio book of one of his conferences in which he brought a panel of millionaires to give some their life experiences. I was pariculary impressed by a quote of one of the millionaire panel. he said”never seeks the answers, remain in the question, and the answer will be revealed to you.”


The vigorous philosophical judos and rebuttals from atheists and theists o the issue will eventually fill the mind, but the pain is deeper and the questions, personal, and after the philosopher have written their volumes, they won’t erase it. That’s why the answers shouldn’t be looked there only.


In the biblical story of Job, who I call the ultimate questioner. He lost everything; literary.He then embarks on very deep conversations and questions along side his friends. At one point the concludes that a stillborn baby is better than him, and in subsequent verses he goes on with the same train of thought.


Finally God Shows up and does something unique. He Asks him 64 questions back-to-back on things in the universe.Job has not even one answer to them. Ravi Zacharias concludes that, what God was saying is that “there are so many questions to which we don’t have answers to”. Jim Rohn  ,American leading philosopher talks of the “Inevitable” ,he also calls it one of those things!” in his classical exposé of the parable of the sower Rohn talks of the seed that fell on the road an were eaten by birds. In this particular scenario he proposes two solutions to the problem of the ‘birds’. One of them is to chase the birds and leave the field, thus exposing it to more birds. He says things will happen once in a while that are not favorable but rather than concentrating on the them lets  keep the question and move on,coz ”more often than not things are fine”


Life happens, we all have to make sure that whatever we march forward. What about the questions one may say…this is my suggestion”write them down and the moment you arrive in heaven you will ask God himself, mine are entitled my 5,000,000 questions to God. I guess they may reach that much.


In the action movie The Punisher War Zone, the leading actor Ray Stevenson   after   meeting with his seminary friend he utters these words almost under his breath “Sometimes I would like to get my hands on God

Maybe it’s the Answerer rather than the answers that we may need to take us through.


Copyright reserved to lkwalimba Inc. Production 2009

Poor Bub: First Day



Ever Hit Rock Bottom ?



To Whom It May Concern


No post today.I run out of inspiration.ha ha ha..what ever.I would like to thank so many of you guys from this fantastic universe who have visited my blog.Guys from the States, UK, Malawi and so many other  places.I really appreciate your readership.


You know what? i  need you..i'm actually looking for some people to be co-authers and guest authors for my blog.I want guys from  whatever country to join me.


What are the qualications?,you may ask


1.You have to be Human
2.Have a functioning brain
3.Have to be a poor speller
4.Have not been to Harvard
5.Have a story to tell
6.Age doesn't matter


If you are interested,im not joking,leave a comment on this blog.Leave your address or your facebook user name to add you or add me on facebook .(Lawrence white Kwalimba) and send me a message for  me to know its you
Waiting for YOU


Food For Thought


The great apologetic Ravi Zacharias in one of his books quotes this quote by Dr Minirth and his colleague in their Book Happiness Is A choice..I find it intriguing and yet also a warning to every one who may deliberately or unknowingly take the character of the the person under discussion .Take your time to read this coz it will enrich Your mind.


"Out of all the various personality types in our culture, there is one type that is more likely than any other to get depressed at some time in life. That type is the "nice guy"--the person who is self-sacrificing, overly conscientious, over-dutiful, hard-working, and frequently quite religious. Psychiatrists call this type the obsessive-compulsive personality.

Most lay persons call him a perfectionist, or a "workaholic", or even a dedicated servant.... Many find this quite surprising.... But those who have made a study of the depth of unconscious human dynamics realize that is really quite fair. ...Those dedicated servants who get depressed have as many struggles with personal selfishness as the parasite on welfare, he is out in society serving humanity at a work pace of eighty to a hundred hours a week, he is selfishly ignoring his wife and children. ...In his own eyes, and in the eyes of society, he is the epitome of human dedication... while his wife suffers from loneliness...and his sons...eventually commit suicide. ...He becomes angry when his wife and children place demands on him.

He can't understand how they could have the nerve to call such an unselfish, dedicated servant a selfish husband and father. ...In reality, his wife and children are correct, and they are suffering severely because of this subtle selfishness. This is precisely the reason why so many of the children of pastors, missionaries, and doctors turn out to be rebellious."

- Frank B. Minirth an Paul D. Meier, Happiness Is a Choice (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1994). 13

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
~Henry David Thoreau~

Food For thought:

"I hope you pursue the fulfillment of all your drams and live to fullest rather than agree with fate and play"impostor".Sing your "song"and live your life to the fullest,making sure that you are content and happy before you embark on saving the world"



.post { height:200px; overflow:auto; }