The beautiful and the awkward at weddings

The love that leads a man and a woman into marriage for the rest of their lives;  propelled by the conviction that life would not be as sweet without each other, is an awesome love. That's why my best moment at the wedding is when the vows are being exchanged; when the bride and the groom swear to love and to cherish each other for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, until they are parted by death. 

You can feel the love vibrations between these guys. Real love is awesome.

It really is a golden moment; how the church shushes while the resonant voice of the presiding priest echoes in every corner, reciting the memorable words to which the lovebirds take turns to respond with the characteristic: "I do" or "I will." I particularly love the old English vows: 

"Dennis, wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holiest state of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour and keep her in sickness and in health, and forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her so long as ye both shall live?" 

"Carol, wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordnance in the holiest state of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him and serve him, love, honour and keep him, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him so long as ye both shall live?"

It's marvelous how the voices of the groom and the bride quaver with quintessential love as they respond, "I do" or "I will" all the while not tearing eyes from each other. It's a wow moment the love you see bubbling in their eyes – the most pristine romantic love you will ever see in any pair of eyes. You don't have to be a believer to accept that the awesome beauty of that moment has its roots in the fact that marriage is truly ordained by God. 

That is why I was shocked and completely taken aback at the last wedding I attended when the groom could not look the bride in the eye as the vows were being exchanged. He cast his eyes down or looked at some distant something yet the girl was looking at him like she wanted to dissolve in his eyes. Even when he said "I do", it was a disinteresting mumble, lacking the genuine passion that typify those two magic words.

So many questions raced into my mind: was this guy forced into marrying this girl? Was it an arranged marriage? Did the girl blackmail him into sliding a ring down her finger? Was he already regretting and couldn't wait for this to end so he could return to his life? 

A groom who cannot look his bride in the eye, or a bride who cannot look her groom in the eye as the vows are exchanged is reminiscent of the couple who insist on switching off the lights every time they want to make love. It could be that one has the worst case of self-esteem or is too shy to maintain eye contact but how are you going to romantically love your spouse if you cannot hold hands and maintain eye contact? 

I cannot also forget the awkward kiss – how it mars the beauty of weddings! To be honest, it's not in our conservative psyche as Africans to kiss especially in public. Kissing remains a Western thing and we are doing it like one groping in the dark. So when the benevolent priest told the groom to kiss the bride after the vows and rings had been exchanged, the guy plunged in recklessly; enveloping the poor bride with his huge mouth, and proceeding to lick her up and down like a cow licking a pillar of salt. Some people snickered, and most senior citizens, including the parents, looked down, embarrassed and confused. 

I think if you cannot kiss right in public, it's only sensible that you reserve the awkward kissing for the bedroom and save your guests the embarrassment. 

Living like a jewel collector

Sitting alone on a bench outside his two-roomed muzigo in Kampala, enjoying a tasty rolex, a young man reflected on life as the gentle evening breeze blew sweet kisses all over his welcoming face. He thought to himself: "How beautiful it is to be alive; how happy and fulfilled I am!"

Nothing can steal the joy of one who has learn't to be content

It had taken many years for this young man to overcome his insecurities but he had since learned that the best moments in life were easy; that one can live a completely fulfilled life even if they had no coin in the bank, as long as they learned to be grateful and find beauty in everything.

That evening, this young man had walked from his workplace in the city to his abode in Makerere, and had been befuddled by the unhappy faces he saw behind the wheels of powerful cars. Were their sour dispositions caused by the traffic jam or had the pursuit of riches and the climbing of career ladders left them too weary to smile?

The young man didn't have the answers but growing up upcountry among people who had little but were happy had taught him that the joy of life is not dependent on the size of one's wallet, the car they drive, the swankiness of their offices or even the mansions they own. In fact, his experiences with the rich made him believe the words of writer Logan Pearsall Smith that, "Eat with the rich, but go to the play with the poor, who are capable of joy."

If only everyone can dig deep and resolutely resolve never to gravitate towards unhappiness, but to be grateful for the breath of life; finding beauty in simplicity, seeing a testimony in every test, life would be a whole lot more meaningful. Let’s live like the jewel collector who approaches each day with the joyous optimism of finding the cutest, most sparkling gem of all.

Adult things

I recently visited one of my married friends. Our interaction somehow drifted to the significance of modern technology and he told me about his plan to buy his daughter a smart phone on her sixth birthday, which was arriving soon. This is when his wife jumped in with an emphatic no. 

"What will she be doing with that kind of phone," wife said worriedly, "our daughter is  too young."

Children need to be protected from adult things

 While she believes it would be treading on dangerous grounds to introduce some things to children including sex education, my friend argues that the earlier children get the hang of things, the better.

I didn't know what to say about a six-year owning an i-phone until later that day when nude photos of a voluptuous Ugandan musician started circulating on social media. I'm not a parent yet, but the thought of my daughter seeing such pictures sent tremours down my spine. 

 

It must be in some rap song I heard that every woman should behave like a whore in bed but some take it too far. If you are a mother and public figure like the woman whose nude v-pose has gone viral on social media, you have to think about the implications of your actions with a man who is not your husband. Even our grandmother Eve quickly plucked up some lettuce leaves to cover up her nether regions after she had devoured the forbidden fruit and realised that she was naked.  

Our ladies could learn a thing from her even as they make out with the objects of their desires. St. Paul's words of wisdom crown the point: "When I was a child I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I understood as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things."

Leave Miss Uganda alone

Negative vibes are still vibrating around the cyber world against the newly crowned Miss Uganda. Those saying Leah Kalanguka is an ugly duckling, forget that the ugly duckling turned out to be the most beautiful swan. Besides, the definition of beauty pegged on one's looks is skewed. Our bodies are merely perishable shells that are dumped into the grave to rot and feed the worms therein while our true beauty is the soul that ascends to heaven to meet its Creator.

Before you condemn her, get to know her personally; where she has been and what has brought her this far. Judge her basing on the content of her heart. Amen, somebody?

Moreover, outside beauty is fleeting. As the old, old men who were seeing their reflections in the water said wistfully, "All that's beautiful drifts away like the waters." They had been once exceedingly handsome but after age got them old and wrinkled, they learned that true beauty is what is on the inside. And what is on the inside of Kalanguka is confidence and intelligence that made her stand out. It defied the shady modern definition of beauty which flaunts the nudity-crazy; tall and self-starved girls.

The African queen with a full figure, melanin-filled lips and mighty hips is often demonised as fat and ugly. Imagine! Then there are these chemicals that they sell at the beauty parlour in the name of makeup. Man, beauty cannot be bought at the beauty mall. Then our girls are made to dress skimpily in the name of being "sexy." How absurd.

Listen and get a grip. Kalanguka was not chosen by fools. As Miss Uganda 2008 Dora Mwima put it, "Judging doesn't start on that final night. That's the reason those girls are kept in boot camp so that their character, morals and personalities are scrutinised."

The naysayers should get the point and leave our Miss Uganda alone. She was created by an intelligent designer—God—and therefore she's fearfully and wonderfully made. Her confidence and brains are earmarks of true beauty as she goes about fulfilling the theme of beauty with a purpose.

This thing called love

The singer in the Song of Solomon begs us not to awaken love before its proper time. I remembered that line when a friend of mine sought my advice on what he must do to stop day-dreaming about a girl he thought he had forgotten.

He first met this girl six years ago and she told him off when he professed. Deeply hurt, he hit back that he didn't care and meant every word. He bumped into her again recently and all the hidden embers suddenly shot into fiery flames.  

"Man, this is the girl I must marry," he told me breathlessly.  

Young lady, don't awaken love before its proper time

To me she's just an ordinary girl but to my friend she has a mysterious quality so consuming his mind keeps reverting to it. It just makes you to pause and marvel. What is it about love that keeps us awake in the night when we want to sleep?  

Love is something the world's best psychological brains need to explore. We have gone to the moon and invented the most dangerous nuclear weapons. But who can explain why a man can fall in love with one woman so much that his life loses its colour without her? 

Some people think Shakespeare was the world's best in waxing lyrical about love. But I wish there's a machine that records the thoughts a man has about a woman he truly loves. But truly the best love lines will never be written because they are so deep they can never be captured by words.

Love is that strong that you fall in love at your own peril if you don't have the emotional stability and inner strength way beyond the ordinary. Sometimes it's even better to marry a woman you are not very much in love with. Because the heaviness of too much love keeps its victims staggering under its weight so much that true happiness remains a dream beyond their attainment.

In black and white

Is it me or has this year been unusually fast? How else can I explain the fact that I've not yet achieved the thing I hoped to have achieved by this time?

This got me thinking why some people don't achieve as they ought to, and the answers came slowly as I took a thoughtful stroll in my neighbourhood.

Stay focused

P.K. Bernard said, "A man without a vision is a man without a future. A man without a future will always return to his past." That's true. The most important ingredient for achieving is having the vision, not just in the mind, but also in black and white. This impels the vision-bearer to spring into action, and stay focused until the vision is fulfilled.

A vision, to those who say such terms leave them clueless and confused, it simply a mental picture of something which such importance to you that you feel you will not be fulfilled unless you carry it out. If you meet a girl that you fall head-over-heels in love with, you will probably have a vision of walking her down the aisle. A man with such vision constantly playing on the back-screen of his mind will not rest until he has asked this girl out on a date and taking it from there until he slides a ring down her finger.

My stroll also got me thinking about our independence celebrations on October 9. How can we still celebrate without shame when years since we took the instruments of power from the British colonialists, we still have a messy education system that stresses rote memorisation to pass exams instead of practical and creative instructional methods through which we can produce our own Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerbergs?

Parents have to take back their places and help their children to discover themselves early on. It's the only way to grow intelligently and courageously to fulfill the purposes for which they were created.

Birthday reflections

Today is my birthday. I won't tell how old I've turned but just know I'm no longer a child, but a man living each day circumspectly, and captaining my ship to the best of my abilities.

I was born in the thick morning fog and the biting cold of Kigezi where my father was working as a health inspector. The fathers of the time knew how to wield the whip, not wanting to spare the rod and spoil the child unlike today when children sue their parents over a little spanking! My papa was a bold preacher who loved raising the cane as he preached the gospel of morality to the stubborn tots we were. I now look back with a smile of appreciation because it saved me from getting spoilt.

We later moved to our present home in Mitooma District where I lived with Grandma who gave me practical lessons in industriousness; breaking the dry ground in the sun with small hoes; living by the maxim that a man that does not dig (work real hard) should not eat! I’ll forever be grateful, for she ingrained in me a work ethic that has continued to hold me in good stead. There's nothing sweeter than bread that you have worked hard for.

Tick-tock tick-tack and I found myself at the university surrounded by exciting times; exploring night clubs and chasing after shapely girls that were the objects of our romantic fantasies.  These were dangerous times but by the grace of God I passed through them unscathed. 

The greatest lesson(s) learned so far, is that life is sweeter when lived with a smile both in good and bad times. Don't dwell much on the betrayals and the things that work not. Picking myself up and tackling each day with the optimism that things will somehow work out for good no matter the disappointments along the way, is what makes life fulfilling even in easy circumstances.