How are you, my dear reader? Hoping that you are well, I am going to tell you something special today. It's not the usual yadda yadda.

I was reading Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People the other day when I learnt from the internationally acclaimed best-seller that we (yes, you and me) have two sections in the brain: the left and the right.

The left brain deals with words, the right with pictures; the left with parts, the right with wholes and the relationship between the two. All that means the left brain is where we analyse issues while the rightt brain is where we creatively visualize things.

Given the brilliant stories I have been posting on this lovely blog of mine, I believe my left brain is in good working order. But my right brain still needs to be exercised. That's why I have decided to be spending some time visualizing the kind of life I'd love to lead, beginning today.

After all, if I don't visualize the kind of life I desire to lead, how will I know that my dreams have materialized? Or to put it in Biblical language, how will I know God has fulfilled the desires of my heart?

And what kind of life do I desire to lead? Okay, let me begin with the material world.

I understand from the Scriptures that we don't live to eat, but again, we can't live without eating. So I desire to have enough genuinely-acquired money not only to keep my body well-fed with a balanced diet punctuated with an occasional glass of wine but also to afford a decent life.

And a decent life begins by living in a comfortable abode. I envision my abode to be a home here in Kiserian - an area I have come to love and appreciate because of its year-long lovely weather and its green landscape demarcated on the western horizon by the world-famous Ngong Hills.

Surrounded by a well-manicured green lawn and a well-knit kei-apple fence, my home shall basically be made up of a magnificent mansion like the one in the photo above, and a farm which I shall christen "The Garden of Eden". I will stuff the mansion with books, music, movies, modern appliances and comfortable furnitures as well as with rare and beautiful treasures.

And in the Garden of Eden of my home, I will set aside sections for an apiary, an aviary, a cow-shed, a fish-pond and a garden of vegetables which I shall separate with orange groves because as my siblings can attest, orange trees grow robustly here in Kiserian where I am currently living with my wonderful parents.

As well as connecting me with nature, such kind of farming will also provide my future family with eggs, meat, milk, fish, fruits, honey and vegetables. That's awesome, isn't it?

Besides building a magnificent home, I also envision having enough money to purchase a sleek car, to travel around the globe and to conduct a colourful wedding, God willing.

That's for the material world. Now let me visualize myself developing my mind, body and spirit - the most precious assets of a human.

On developing my mind, I can visualize myself turning the pages of a book, getting engrossed with what it's saying and pausing occasionally to reflect on how its message relates to my own world, to historical contexts and to the opinions held by particular authors.

On developing my body, I can visualize myself walking (my favourite physical exercise) and stretching with rollers according to recommended levels while eating at appointed times because, as all wise men know, too much eating leads to excess weight.

On developing my spirit, I will be praying, singing and connecting regularly with nature which is the visible work of God as the wonderful old hymn How Great Thou Art puts it in verse one which goes like this:

O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds thy hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy pow'r thro'out the universe displayed...
Then sings my soul my Saviour God to thee,
How great thou art, how great thou art!

I have always felt every word of that verse in my heart in the couple of times I have sang it with joy. And it's my faith that I will feel it again and again in my heart when I sing that verse to myself while gazing at the Grand Canyon in the United States, at the Coral Barrier Reef in Australia, at the Himalayas mountain range in China or at another magnificent work of God that I may be honoured to see before I depart from this grand and beautiful planet.

Enough about me. How about you, my dear reader? What kind of life do you envision for yourself? Join me in this journey of making productive use of the right brain which as I have told you, is where we creatively visualize things. Think about your future in clear vivid details. Over to you!

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Yesterday late in the evening as I was going to check whether a certain bunch of banana fruits I had seen on our farm was still there or stolen, I was greeted by a sight of the full moon freely suspended on the sky to the east of the farm. The moon was so perfectly spherical that I had the impression God must have used a mathematical set to design and construct it. Then I found myself reciting the following lines from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream:

Sweet moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;
I thank thee, moon, for shining now so bright;
For by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams
I trust to take of truest Thisbe sight!

And the sight of the Moon has set me thinking about God because like it, I was also designed and constructed by Him. But I must be more important in God's eye than the Moon because I am more fearfully and wonderfully made as I possess reason, feelings and life.

I have decided to reconnect with this God who created me whom I know as the Lord, the Mighty One. By reconnecting with God, I mean tapping to the powerhouse within after experiencing a setback in life that could be anything from a rejection to an illness to a loss of loved one. As for me, I usually reconnect with God through believing, praying, singing and studying His Word.

Of believing, I have this time round deepened my faith in God by thinking of Him as my source of strength and guidance. You see, I didn't choose to be alive; I just found myself in this planet as it must be the case with you. Or did you apply to be born and live at this particular time?

Of praying, I have this time round asked for peace in my life using a prayer Dr. Geoffrey Griffin, the founder of Starehe Boys' Centre, used to utter during Friday assemblies. The prayer went like this: "Show us, O God, Your mercy and Your grace, so that our hearts may be stirred to worship, and our lives may know Your peace."

O peace, what a pleasant and precious feeling to possess! Now that I have trained my mind to stop worrying, I believe peace shall always reign supreme in me as I journey in this life on a planet characterized by death and sorrow.

Of singing, I have this time round sang "Guide Me O My Great Redeemer", a hymn I came to like during my days at Starehe Boys' Centre. We used to sing that hymn with zeal during a church service held before breaking for long holidays. And we sang it with such zeal that we might have cleaved the roof of Starehe Boys' magnificent chapel (see photo above) with our pleas for guidance. But our zeal sprang not from an earnest plea for guidance from God but from a joy that we were finally heading home after more than twelve weeks in school at Starehe.

I have come to love that hymn these days because of the way it calls on God to guide me. So much have I come to love it that I have committed it to memory.

And finally of studying God's Word as a way of reconnecting with God, I have this time been reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. Now, I know some may yell at me, "Oh Thuita, for Christ's sake, that Stephen Covey's book is not God's Word!"

Well, I am alive to the fact that people usually refer to the Bible, and only the Bible, as the Word of God. But for me, any book, magazine or newspaper that helps me understand God and life better is God's Word phrased differently.

And from the Stephen Covey's book, I have learnt to attain emotional independence. That means the way I feel should never result from the way others treat me but from the way I accept myself as a brilliant and charming young man. Adieu!

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