As Iron sharpens Iron…An Ode to a Rogue…Rennaissance Man

I’m sitting at my desk totally flabergasted and stunned at the blessings The Master puts in our lives, usually innocously diguised in the unlikely package of a young friend. I have a friend, my dearest and best friend after my wife, an amazing young man who goes by the alias the rogueking. I’ve known him for close to 8years now.

We met unceremoniously at the very first internet cafe in Kampala years back when being a geek wasn’t as cool or profitable as it is is today. We were in a sense digital outcasts, but we didn’t care. We had passion, vision and loads of naivete. We became fast friends very quickly due to our shared interests in quantum physics, robotics, space/time, videogames, lord of the rings, the dark knight, ironman, superman,  xmen and ofcourse, The Great One…Oh did i mention we really loved all things form & function related to computers? Yeah as you can tell we were and still are, thoroughbred geeks

He immediately took me up as his older brother and I saw the brotherly relationship i’d never had with my own brothers. We began to dream and soon, an urban legend was born. The first of its kind production house. Well truth be told all we had were two CD-RW’s which we later upgraded to Lexmark Jumpdrive Flash disks –128MB we were kings! The company had it’s great highs and some very deep lows. It sadly doesn’t exist anymore. I failed in some of my responsibilities and the firm collapsed. It took me a while to get over those mistakes but he never condemned me, never bad mouthed me or blamed me. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me. It was the love of the Master manifest.

Anyways, time came for me to get married recently and I needed a bestman. A bestman isn’t just someone who matches your height or looks good in pictures. He’s supposed to be someone who u can totally confide in, rely on, pray with, seek counsel and generally someone who will lift you up as a man. Even among my married friends, I couldn’t think of anyone better than this totally unmarried and maritally inexperienced man. His wisdom and knowledge and faith are way beyond his meager years. I absolutely had to have him by my side.

I just read some powerful writing he had done on one of his blogs, The Darkness I can honestly say i’m lost for words. Even after all these years of intimate friendship, ridiculously long hours working together, I thought i’d seen the complete genius of my friend but I find i’m still pleasantly surprised by him. Dude you rock. But i also see clearly the kind of person I have been blessed to know, despite all the darkness in his past, he’s still matured into a true light in the earth. He inspires me and humbles me at the same time. The size of his dreams, goals and endeavors is mind boggling. He dabbles in writing, art, technology, food connosiuer, decor, spirituality…He is a true Da Vinci, Rennaissance man.

So whats the point to this ode? Well, my point is that Iron sharpens Iron. The greatness that I have in my life is a direct result of having amazing great people like the Rogueking in my life. We all need to have friends who lift us up, who are of such refined and yet raw intrinsic worth, people to whose lives we can contribute the best of ourselves such that they bloom into the greatness that The Master created them for. In doing so for them, we are also richly fed and transformed. I believe we all need to work harder at not only finding such friends to surround ourselves with but more importantly to ensure that we are the type of friends that can sharpen others and be sought out. 

The other point is really just to edify my friend and let him know that I think the world of him and i’m forever blessed because you call me “Bro”

Forth Eorlingas, to a Red Dawn.