We often speak of a tight schedule. Well, that is, until Raila Odinga dies. Then suddenly, the schedule loosens -- loosens so much that leaders from around the continent, with barely any notice, assemble in Nairobi and Bondo, as if this event had been pencilled into their diaries all along. The diary may seem tight, but something "tighter" will always come up. When it does, a whole new diary emerges.

Burying Raila Odinga was definitely not part of the broad-based plan. They had brighter ideas that did not include this dark reality. In a world that prides itself on busyness, every once in a while, nature steps in to remind us: beyond the wristwatch and the wall clock, there is another clock -- one whose diary we are part of, yet cannot see. And once in a while, that hidden diary calls your name.

When it does, your "tight" schedule will have no choice but to bow before the diary that brought you into the world in the first place -- at a timing not your own. Death interrupts. It interrupts kings and clergy alike, billionaires and beggars, prime ministers and popes. It has no respect for protocol, appointments, or priority lists. The earth's most powerful hands can sign decrees, but none can sign an extension on the day the invisible diary calls.

As Kenya mourns, it is a fitting time to ask: What does hope look like in the face of death?

One of the greatest contributions of the Christian faith is the promise of life beyond death. It gives us the power that humbles death -- the Resurrection.

As death pulls us to the earth and even buries us, the power of the Resurrection pulls us from the ground and lifts us beyond the skies. The Resurrection is not a mere resuscitation -- it is the birth of a new life, unknown until it is experienced. It is more than Lazarus coming back to life on this earth; it is rising into a new realm of existence.

The Creator who made this earth we so love to dwell in has also made another kind of dwelling -- a Non-Earth -- a reality beyond the boundaries of this world. Between this world and that Non-Earth stands a day of judgment. Just as there is a birthday and a death date, there will also be a judgment day -- the day of justice in its purest form. Like on a weighbridge, our true life weight -- the net substance of our lives -- will determine our next existence.

The Good News is that you can begin working on your spiritual body mass index if you care about your destination in the next life. That index is not built through gym subscriptions or dietary discipline, but through love, truth, mercy and justice. These are the weights that matter when heaven's scale begins to move.

But if you do not care about the next world -- if it's not your "thing" -- by all means, do earth in full mode! This is all there is, right? You only live once! Build your barns, enlarge your portfolio, expand your empire. Yet as you do so, remember this: death will still find you. It stops your mode. It is the one reality that ends "all there is."

Death's task is to deliver you somewhere in the Non-Earth. If you do not guide death where to take you, it will choose the destination for you -- because it must take you somewhere. When that moment comes, you cannot tell death, "Go to hell!" -- because it might just say, "That's where we're going."

The parable of the rich fool captures this truth perfectly. He was expanding his barns -- not because he was evil, but because he thought he had time. He was managing the visible diary, not realizing that the invisible one was already flipping its final page.

Then God spoke: "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you."

It was not the man's breath that offended heaven, but his boast -- the illusion that his barns were permanent, that his comfort was secure, that his success was self-made.

Sometimes God will not take your life; He will tear down your barn -- sometimes the prime barn, the barn of barns. The collapse is not of breath but of boast -- not of the person, but of the machinery that fed his illusion of invincibility and political comfort. The rich fool is left face to face with what he had forgotten: that power is lent, not owned; that barns, no matter how vast, are never safe from heaven's audit.

And when the audit comes, God may not kill the man -- He may humble him. For sometimes divine mercy spares the man but dismantles his empire, so that he may see what truly matters when the walls of self-made security lie in ruins. When the source of your power falls silent, fear grips the powerful, and power flows -- irresistibly -- to their opponents.

We have seen such collapses in our time. The powerful reduced to pleading for sympathy. The wealthy discovering that their wealth cannot buy rest for a dying body. The proud learning that a hospital bed levels everyone.

That is why the Resurrection is not only a future event -- it is also a present power. It is what makes us rise again after our barns have fallen, after the diaries have been disrupted, after our illusions of control have been exposed. It tells us that even after death -- personal, political, or institutional -- there can be new life.

So, as Kenya mourns and as we all stare into the mystery of mortality, we must ask: What have we built? What will remain when the barns fall? Have we invested in the Non-Earth or merely in the fleeting comfort of this one?

The day will come when your calendar will clear itself, your phone will fall silent, and your body will obey a timetable you did not set. As the old song says, "Sad to say, I'm on my way, won't be back for many a day..." -- and though it was written of travel, it speaks with eerie truth about life's final journey. But if your life was anchored in the hope of the Resurrection, you will not be lost when death delivers you. You will be homeward bound.

Until then, live wisely. Build barns that do not rot. Keep a schedule that heaven can interrupt. And remember: every ticking second on your wristwatch is a faint echo of a greater clock -- one whose hour hand moves unseen but unceasing, drawing you toward the day when the diary calls your name.