Who’s Asking?

My mother calls me Sakalia. So do my uncles, my aunts and people back in the village. It’s what happens to Zachariah where I come from. On paper I’m Zachariah Oburi. At home, the paper has no vote.

The name came with a warning. In Luke’s Gospel, my namesake Zechariah is told by an angel that he will have a son, asks how he can be sure of it, and is struck silent until the child is born and named. A few verses later Mary asks almost the same question, how can this be, and gets an answer instead. I have spent a fair part of my life working out the difference between those two questions. This is where I keep working.

I have a nose for one arrangement in particular: a decision that looks perfectly sensible because the person making it gets the upside and somebody else gets the bill. I can smell it from a surprising distance. When I’m the one getting the upside, my nose doesn’t fail. It gets confused. Too many teachers speak at once: my upbringing, the survival of the fittest, and a version of “love your neighbour as yourself” that starts, conveniently, with yourself.

I’m Catholic. I can make a fine case for forgiveness right up to the moment it’s my turn to go first. Then I discover a sudden interest in procedure. I believe the faith is true, which is exactly why I’m not nervous about questions. My Church was nervous once, about Galileo, and took until 1992 to say his judges had been wrong. A truth that cannot survive a second question was only ever an opinion with good posture.

I put Sakalia on the door. If I ever write myself a little too well, my aunties know where to find me.

What happens here

Most conversations stop at the first explanation. Sakalia goes back for a second look at the things we were told, by parents and preachers, proverbs and politicians, headlines and our own convictions, and asks whether they are true, whether they are fair, and whom they serve.

Wednesdays: The Second Question. One ordinary thing, a queue, a funeral harambee, a school certificate, a headline, followed further than the conversation went. Scripture, literature, history and economics all get a vote. None of them gets a veto.

Saturdays: The Village Boy. Stories: a boy, a farming village in the highlands, the road out of it, and the people who made him before he had any say in the matter. They arrive out of order, each with its place and year.

Sundays: The Front Pew. Faith, conscience and the questions underneath them, argued in daylight. Some Sundays from inside the faith, some from Thomas’s seat, some from the back of the church. I would rather be disagreed with than politely ignored. Pilate asked what truth is, then walked out before anyone could answer.

Every day: a proverb, and on Sundays a verse.

Every Sunday morning: the letter. The week in one email.

House rules

I argue with ideas, not with people.

Disagreement is welcome; contempt isn’t. Reply to any letter, and the best disagreements may appear in a later one, with your permission.

When I’m wrong, I correct the piece and say what changed.

I write for myself. Not for my employer, my parish or any party. None of them is responsible for what follows.