Lord of Mercy: The Return of Christmas

It is a given that Christmas time is a time to show goodwill; a time when we share our material possessions with just about everyone – friend or foe; even during these our times of great trepidation and uncertainty where things to share are between little and none, and the only thing one can be sure of is that which is already in one’s viscera. But, as they say, between true friends, even a shared gourd of water is good enough.
Ten times out of ten during the past decade, the end of the year brought with it a lot of grief and consternation among our most impoverished and long suffering Zimbabwean ‘masses’, for it meant one more year added to the biblical seven of hunger; another interminable, tedious, hangover-less festive period spent with bottoms down under that mango, peach, musasa or munhondo tree that has suffered immature menopause due to a seemingly eternal drought.
I am engaged in a hair-raising panga duel with the urge to laugh right now; and I am losing – so tough were the times that even a rarity such as an earthquake failed to arouse the withered excitement of a haemorrhaging nation. Actually, the more garrulous of our citizens argued that it was not an earthquake at all that rocked our beloved Valentine in 2006 – “just the Poverty Datum Line slithering further beyond the reach of the local populace.”
We did not even have the copious strength to argue, let alone laugh.
But then, he who said where there is life there is hope was really an apple that fell near the apple tree. As we wondered whether the coming year would bring more bane rather than boon, events in the past months awakened a renewed, if cautious hope in Joe Blogges and gave him reason to smile and rekindle belief in the sexually transmitted disease called life. For this time round, our average Joe truly believes that his woes are now a thing of the past.
Well. For one thing the North Pole and its Southern counterpart – sworn enemies that claimed to be representing the needs and wishes of poor Hoi Polloi – were eventually forced to swallow some of their megalomaniac egos and come mano o mano at a round table; effectively making a volte-face from that decade old trench warfare that bled the country of the father bone dry.
Their suspicion-littered so called talks, which John Smith aptly called jokes, for they dripped with one obfuscating accusation after another, not surprisingly emerged with a shaky, but ‘workable’ ramshackle called the Global Political Agreement (which is a misnomer actually. Global Political Argument is more like it), which begot the Inclusive Government (one wonders who is and is not included – only that the IG did have one inclusive thing though: an inclusive homogeneous salary for all civil servants, from the floor cleaner to the God-given Head of State and Government, Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces, Chancellor of all Universities, Patron of the Cricket Board, First Secretary of the Party and Supreme Leader).
We marvelled from our base in the terraces – wow. Will wonders never cease. Mountains had indeed moved, as one thankful Young Turk remarked just two days before the tripartite signatures set us free. Like a woman scorned, we all went hysterical and historical as we caught our breath for the first time since eternity. It was like being born all over again. We all wanted to gather at Something Fishy’s and buy one another some fishy thing. A flood of all those past Kisimusis and Nyuweres that had passed by while we painfully looked the other way besieged our minds. Our kids – naïve and demanding as ever – their cries led most of us into temptation; how could we tell them that Santa Claus’ annual sojourn in this great nation had been postponed indefinitely? And the landlord howling down the corridor because we did not have his dues. Where had the potatoes whose abundance Mukuru had declared to the world gone? Because we were now so hungry we could excoriate his words and devour them.
We wondered as our numbers began to dwindle, first falling prey to the Brain Drain epidemic before succumbing to something that could only be described as another Gukurahundi, because even the most intellectually challenged among us began to disappear in swathes. Now we understood what the History teacher meant when he taught us about the Great trek.
But the good lord reminded us that he was there for all of us, and life was fair again. Then we reflected on the year that Christmas re-emerged out of forced hibernation.
Yes. We remember everything (well, most things). The friends we lost on the way – some not by choice (may their blessed souls rest in eternal peace) while others just woke up one day and decided that any business that had anything to do with any part of us was none of their business.
We seethed as our anger boiled by our side, hurling flabbergasted insults at the good lord as we wondered what macabre injustice this was. Yet he just stood there looking at us sulking and displaying the humongous, but vainglorious ire of a wronged millipede, loving us all the same.
He silently – and at times amusedly – watched as we finally came to terms with our namby-pamby behaviour, our hoity-toity attitude and our ineffective and very tactless gallery-playing tactics that were nothing if not infra dignitatem. It was true everything we cared for had gone belly up and Humpty Dumpty. Like Obierika had said in ol’ Achebe’s all-time literary classic; “Somebody has put a knife on things that hold us together and we have fallen apart.”
But where are we now? Still here of course; even though we might have wished to be some places else before. Yes; some places really unreasonable. Places like that most rich, but most useless part of our mother Earth – the cemetery.
The sun still rises from the east each morning. The price of our favourite Lion Lager is still the same; its taste is still the same. The way to the nearest United Methodist Church has not changed. And we still love Dynamos exactly the same way the next man hates it.
That was when we started counting our blessings. How we cheated death that other day when the puerile political tug of war finally met its Waterloo. The Obamanic bonanza that blew into our aghast hands in recent times. All the good places and the good people that we met as we negotiated the latest annum. Good people. Better places. Best animals. All the reasons in the world to make us wonder why we were so lucky to be alive to witness all this pandemic splendour.
And the truth dawned on us then – the lord had given us so much and in return we had given him… nothing. He had bestowed upon us the latest round of a wonderful, adventurous and eye-opening 364 days and all we could think of was that 365th day and its short quarter when we thought He had walked out on us, leaving us at the mercy of the horned one.
How ungrateful the mortal mind is. And the dearth of depth of our dwarfed minds was denuded when we failed to appreciate how comforting it was just to snuggle in Morpheus’ arms and wake up the following morning with our anatomy still functioning normally. Alive and kicking, with all the limbs still intact.
Oh; there will be more of the same, of course. We will have more heartbreaks – and many more reasons to scream at the man upstairs, cursing him and the day when our spirits are at their nadir. But has anybody out there succeeded in answering this most mind-boggling question of our times: why does man keep looking forward to the next daylight, despite the night spent in the hail? Why do we hope to live until kingdom come in spite of the horrendous catastrophe that surrounds us? Don’t look at me; I really have no clue.
But whatever reasons we might have (I know there are a myriad), I think they are the eschatological manifestation of our existence, the veritable and testimonial kerygma of our unrelenting human spirit. We love our life because we take pride in its mystery and the challenges that life presents to us. Our joy when we overcome those challenges – and when we fail, we pick ourselves up and try again. Who wants a life where they know what will happen tomorrow? Count me out. Please. I might not like it, and will certainly give some serious consideration to whatever urges me to give it an apocalyptic end. But throw me a life where I have no idea where I will be in the next hour – now, that’s my kinda life.
We love life, so we show it in any way we can – our endless journeys to the local mosque, the temple, the church, the shrine and (of course!) the bar. We do it because we realise we only have one life to live. And, do you know why I love it so much? It is MY life to live. To live in any way I can.
So. It is my life. Give me a thousand politicians who will play cat and mouse with the needs of my stomach while they indulge in mind-blasting political games. Throw at me a thousand girls who will tell me they love me and go on to cheat on me the next minute (told you life was one hell of a journey of mystery). Or a thousand teams that will clobber Dynamos by a thousand goals to nil week in week out. True, you will beat the hell out of my living daylights for a time.
But, after all is said and done, you will still find us here. Me and ol’ Lion Lager. Let’s share our holy waters in the brown gourd – and turn our bottoms up! Because I have no intention whatsoever of giving the bucket a mighty and decisive final push. So, ladies and gentleman, breathe so that you may inspire; because if you don’t breathe, you will surely expire.

Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.