Seeds & Jewels

How do you think outside the box when there does not exist a box in the first place? How do you imagine something that has never existed before? When I am asked to think outside the box, I immediately consider a picture of imaginary boundaries around a 6-sided object which I need to set aside in my mind’s eye to consider new perspectives. This box could be past experiences or circumstances but wait, what happens when there is no box. What guides your thought process? What do you do?

It’s the year 2020 and it has been an interesting year. We were barely in the first quarter before the visitation of a variant of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus called the Corona Virus (COVID-19) which was first detected in December last year. Not to bore you with the details and effects of this disease but to remind us of the fact that this isn’t the first time that the world would been plagued with a deadly disease. In fact, history is replete with plagues and disease outbreaks occurring from as far back as 429-426 BC in Greece (the plague of Athens)* till date. These include the influenza, smallpox, cholera, black death, yellow fever, malaria, bubonic plague, etc. Most of which have been managed effectively. With the morbidity and mortality that could result from these disease outbreaks and the economic implications for countries, world leaders aim to halt the spread and ultimately the effects of these diseases among populations as quickly as possible. Some

Yes! I said so. Before you have my head, please read, you will be helped. Historically, wine was stored in wineskins, these were made from animal skin and had the ability to stretch to accommodate the fermentation process of new wine. Jesus while teaching John’s disciples (Matt. 9:17) uses wine and wineskins to illustrate his teachings. He teaches that it was unwise to store fresh wine in old wineskins because the subsequent fermentation process would break the skin and the wine would be spilled. In other words, old wineskins had reached their elastic limit. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Let us take a few steps down memory lane, in 2 Kings 4, a widow cried out to one of my favourite old testament prophets - Elisha seeking help. All hell had been let loose, her husband was dead, and her sons were about to be sold into slavery to pay her debt (double wahala!). Elisha asked a pertinent question: what hast thou in the house? Wise woman mentioned that she had a small jar of oil (never say yo