Sunny Banana
YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/@sanibonani-y2g?si=09LymOLYjP7sE3cY
I am a school chaplain and the content is intended to encourage curiosity about Faith and it's impact on day to day life
The Sunny Banana, is a play upon the Zulu greeting, Sanibonani, meaning I see you.
As tech wrenches us from real life, we are not seeing each other. The Greek word 'idea' means to see. It is as if we have lost the idea of what it means to be human; social, communal, relational. The same word, to see, in Old English is 'seon' which has connotations of understanding.
Let's start seeing each other again, listening, respecting, and understanding each other and ourselves. After all, we are people through other people.
Sunny Banana
#31 | Anxious? God has a plan: Mercy. Love. Thankfulness.
Anxiety loves to keep us time-travelling—looping old regrets and forecasting worst-case futures—until the present feels thin and brittle. We take a quiet, focused walk through a three-part path that restores peace: repent and receive mercy, forgive and be free, love and live gratefully now.
We start by naming psychological time and the wisdom of the Desert Fathers: three thieves steal our joy—regret about the past, fear of the future, and ingratitude for the present. From there, we move into practice. Repentance is not self-punishment; it is a change of mind that tells the truth, asks for mercy, and trusts the promise of forgiveness. We talk about how confession lifts shame’s weight, why saying sorry—both to God and to people we’ve hurt—opens space for growth, and how honest acknowledgement separates who we are from what we’ve done.
Then we explore the mutual rhythm of forgiveness. The Lord’s Prayer ties receiving and extending mercy together for a reason: letting go of a grievance restores inner freedom and makes grace believable. We share ways to start small—gentle words, unsent letters, simple blessings—and how these choices reduce the mental drag that fuels anxiety. Hope meets fear next, with Julian of Norwich’s steady refrain that “all shall be well,” and a practical vision that love casts out fear. Love is not a mood; it’s a daily discipline that turns us outward, rewires expectation, and anchors the future in trust rather than doom.
Finally, we return to the present with gratitude. A humble practice—saying “thank you” morning and night—trains the heart to notice gifts already here. From brief prayers to a three-item gratitude list, these small acts thicken the moment with meaning. The thread through it all is simple and strong: forgive, love, and give thanks. If your mind’s been racing between yesterday and tomorrow, this reflection offers a calm centre and clear next steps. If it helped you breathe a little easier, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review to help others find the show.
Sunny Bonani. Welcome to the Sunny Bonana. I see you. Today's very short reflection, or this week's short reflection, is our modern problem of anxiety and being distracted. In modern parlance, they say the only thing that makes a person anxious or worried is psychological time. Psychological time. And Saint Anthony of the Desert, one of the Desert Fathers, said something rather prophetic about this new science idea, scientific idea or psychological idea of psychological time. When we knew about the past and we think about the future. And what Saint Anthony said, I'll just get the quote up for us, is that the only thing that steals our joy and peace is one regretting about the past, number two, fear of the future, and three ingratitude for the present. And I think they could they possibly lead into one each one another, regretting the past. In Christianity, we have this beautiful access to forgiveness. This beautiful access to forgiveness. I said last week about God loves us where we are, and He also loves us into being who He created us to be, and that's a saint. It's a high calling, it's a very high calling and very daunting. But it cannot be achieved without forgiveness. And for forgiveness to happen, we need to say sorry. The church calls this repentance. We need to change our mind about the things that we've done. We are promised that if we honestly confess what we've done wrong, we will be forgiven. And the beautiful thing about that is once we do it, and I implore you to do this, to say sorry. Take opportunity when you pray or to the person or people that you need forgiveness from to say sorry. And we all need forgiveness from God because we know we are not the saints that we should be. So say sorry, seek forgiveness. On the other side of this chord is forgive. Be very gentle with others, be very gentle with yourself. You'll understand that when you forgive somebody, forgiveness comes easier to you, as it says in the Lord's Prayer. Forgive those who sin against us as you forgive us. Sorry, I'll say that the other way around. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. It happens simultaneously. When we forgive others, we have this access to forgiveness for ourselves. And when we have forgiveness for ourselves, the other way is true, we can easily, well, it'll be easier to forgive others. So that's that point. Now, fear of the future. Now, fear of the future is when we don't understand that all will be well, and all manner of things will be well, and all shall be well. And that's the to quote a beautiful English woman saint, Saint Julian of Norwich, an anchorite who lived in silence and solitude. And such beautiful wisdom there. All shall be well, all manner of things shall be well, and all shall be well. Christians understand this deeply that the world isn't headed to hell in a handbag. One of my favorite quotes from a Franciscan monk is that if it is not okay, it's not the end. I'll say that again. If it's not okay, it's not the end. The world is heading to union, and we need to just pray about that and understand that. That God has the final say, that love wins in the end. And to just say, in the Bible it says, there is no fear in love. It also says God is love. So for the second part, the fear of your future is to love, is to seek out love, to love other people. Saint Francis of Assisi said it is loving that we are loved. Isn't that beautiful? The Bible teaches us that we love because God loved us first. Love will win, my friends. Love will win. And that drives out all fear of the future. And the third ingratitude for the present. I said to the chapel this morning, we all have very different beliefs, perhaps. But if there's one prayer, other than the Jesus prayer, of course, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Although I didn't say that one, I said if there's a prayer that you say in the morning and in the evening, let it be this. Thank you. Thank you. And I also brought up Kung Fu Panda, when the wise old tortoise says The moment is a gift, that why it is called the present. Now without being too cheesy, show a bit of gratitude and understand that the moment that your life is a gift and it's incredibly precious and valuable. So, my friends, shall we forgive? Forgive others, go gentle with yourself, love others as you would want to be loved. And let's say thank you a little bit more. And thank God for our lives and each other. Sunny Bunani. I see you. Thank you and God bless.