Centenary Celebrations, Honoring Abacha.....

I was in Secondary school when Abacha died, I remember spontaneously running out of the school gates with my mates with shouts of joy. I remember scenes of merriments in the streets of my hometown Benin city, men buying beers for total strangers, music blaring loudly from speakers. Infact there were impromptu street parties and bonfires in various areas in town. Now these reactions were not peculiar to Benin, it was replicated throughout Nigeria and it is hardly the reaction of a people mourning the death of a national hero.

Yet as part of honors awarded to mark the centenary, our dear president Jonathan decided to insult our collective intelligence by rewriting history and calling this Abacha one of the “Outstanding Promoters of Unity, Patriotism and National Development”. My fear is that when we honor murderers and thieves from yesteryears, we give further ammunition to current looters and rapers of our common heritage as there is not even the fear of a bad name to deter them. They can reassure themselves that another Jonathan will arise to write their names in gold.

I like to leave us with something I wrote in the wake of Abacha's demise and i would have you bear in mind that this poem are the insights of a 14 year old with no political axe to grind.....

AND THE MAN DIED

Reckless leader he was
Grew fat on the blood of his people
Fed his potbelly
While starving children stared
With there own kind of potbellies.


Poverty ruled the land
Fear it next in command
For my leader he was ironfisted
And allowed no argument
Even from those who rode the tiger’s back


And those who dared
Oya! Into jail they went
Or out goes the assassin’s bullet
And another was down
Great sons and daughters of our land


Then the people wept
Their voice rose to God
And he sent cardiac to arrest him
And the man died, like a rat
People laughed, life was back to normal.

It becomes heavier with time....

A psychologist walked around a room while teaching stress management to an audience. As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they'd be asked the "half empty or half full" question. Instead, with a smile on her face, she inquired: "How heavy is this glass of water?" Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.

She replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my arm. If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralysed. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn't change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes." She continued, "The stresses and worries in life are like that glass of water. Think about them for a while and nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer and they begin to hurt. And if you think about them all day long, you will feel paralysed – incapable of doing anything.

"It’s important to remember to let go of your stresses. As early in the evening as you can, put all your burdens down. Don't carry them through the evening and into the night. Remember to always put the glass down!

Hyperseeing from the Towers of Babel by Jill Carattini

Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.....Matt 13:13


On the influence of media and technology, discussions abound. “Is Google making us stupid?” “Is Twitter bad for the soul?” “Is Facebook changing the way we relate?”(1) In fact, there seems a recent upsurge in articles questioning our faltering minds, morals, and communities (ironically reaching us through the very mediums that are blamed for it). Some note the shifting of thought patterns, attention spans that are beginning to prefer 140 characters or less, information gluttony, news addiction, and so on.

In fact, there is good reason, I think, to step away from the torrent surges of information and hyper-networking to think meaningfully about how it all might be changing us—for good and for ill. For with every new improvement and invention irrefutably comes gain and loss. And just as quickly as I can build a case against the gods of media-and-technology, I can also double check my footnotes on Google, find twenty additional perspectives on Twitter, and watch an interview with the author of one of the headlines mentioned above—all of which came from articles I read online in the first place. There are clearly advantages to having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information, inasmuch as this hyper-access to people, news, and facts assuredly has far-reaching effects on cognition, as well as the way we see, or don’t see, the world.

Speaking decades before the debates over Twitter or the wonders of Google, Malcolm Muggeridge seemed to foresee the possibilities of too much information. “Accumulating knowledge is a form of avarice and lends itself to another version of the Midas story,” he wrote. “Man is so avid for knowledge that everything he touches turns to facts; his faith becomes theology, his love becomes lechery, his wisdom becomes science. Pursuing meaning, he ignores truth.”(2) In other words, Muggeridge saw that it was possible to see so many news clips that we are no longer seeing, to hear so many sound-bites that we are no longer hearing, to seek so many “exclusives” that we are no longer understanding.

Speaking centuries before Muggeridge, the prophet Isaiah and the rabbi Jesus described their audiences quite similarly. “This is why I speak to them in parables,” said Jesus, “because ‘they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand’” (cf. Matthew 13:13, Isaiah 6:9-10). Undoubtedly, we are living in a time that is complicated by towering opportunities of information and knowledge; news clips, sound bites, blogs, and editorials, all piled so high and wide that we can scarcely see around our fortresses of facts. But perhaps regardless of the era, humanity’s skill in building towers of Babel—built to see beyond ourselves yet ironically blocking our vision—is both timeless and unprecedented.(3) Learning to see in a way that “reaches the heavens,” or, as Einstein once said, “to think the thoughts of God,” is far more about seeing God than it is about seeing facts.

In the art and work of sculpture, there is a term used to describe an artist’s ability to look at an unformed rock and see it in its completed state. It has been said of the sculptor Henry Moore that he had the gift of “hyperseeing,” the gift of seeing the form and beauty latent in a mass of unshaped material.(4) Hyperseeing is a word used to describe a sculptor’s extraordinary gift of seeing in four dimensional space—that is, seeing all around the exterior but also seeing all points within, seeing in a rough piece of stone the astounding possibilities of art.

It strikes me that the exercise of hyperseeing, then, as it might apply to our towering mountains of rough and unmolded facts, is something to which God tirelessly calls us. Far from building towers of knowledge that make names for ourselves, or accumulating sound-bites until we are no longer hearing, hyperseeing (and hyperhearing) the world around us requires God’s vision and voice. “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3). Far better than a world of mere facts is a world made visible by the wisdom of God.

Perhaps we practice the exercise of hyperseeing as we learn to see the power of the resurrection, the glory of the transfiguration, the gift of the Lord’s Supper, or the wisdom of the parables in the daily facts and movements of our lives in God’s kingdom. To be sure, the resurrection of Jesus—the rising of dead flesh to life again—is no more jarring than every other promise we hold because of him, promises we can now see in part, while hyperseeing the extraordinary possibilities of all they will look like upon completion:

“Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
5Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together” (Isaiah 40:4-5).

Indeed, the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6the lame will leap like deer, the tongue of the speechless sing for joy; waters will break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.(5) In a world hyper-filled with facts and knowledge, such are the sights and sounds of a kingdom the pure in heart (with or without the help of Google) shall see.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

When others doubt....

Hurt me with the TRUTH... But never comfort me with a LIE..


What do you do when people, loved ones especially don't respond to your good news the way you think they should do? I mean maybe you passed your exams, got that job or are getting married and your folks or friends are barely excited.

How do you react to their cold reaction, do you go silent and resentful or do you become angry and lash out? Either way only worsens an already difficult situation. The best thing is to listen to their concerns, try to allay them as best as you can. Your life though is yours to live, as long as you are sure of your path and stay with it, others will come round in time.

Bloody Immigrants......

Remember, remember always, that all of us... are descended from immigrants and revolutionists. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt



I just came across this fantastic but infinitely sad music video by Maureen Aku Disu. I have posted the link here for your viewing pleasure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5V0K90UT1w&sns=em

The plight of majority of immigrants is harrowing, as Maureen aptly said in her song, they cannot win. If they have jobs, they are like locusts, come to eat the good of the land, and if they have no jobs, they are no better than parasites, feeding of the work of the nationals.

If we realize that none of us really have permanent claim to any one part of the earth, we will be more tolerant of those that have come to live amongst us whether for political, economical or religious reasons. For even if we have no cause to immigrate, our fathers before us did, or their fathers....

Just a thought.....

“A man speaking sense to himself is no madder than a man speaking nonsense not to himself.”
― Tom Stoppard



We all must at one time or the other seen someone on the road talking to themselves, the idea that come across is all is not well here. Although some researchers has said self directed speech has cognitive benefits as it can serve as a memory trigger, even the genius who indulge in it is at best viewed as eccentric or just plain bonkers.

I cannot imagine the level of stress and frustration that causes a sane looking individual to talk to themselves out aloud in the streets; however it is a fairly frequent occurrence in our society. I just walked past a lady in the hospital grounds who was holding a serious conversation with herself.

Now considering the environment of this particular incident, it is possible to name the various scenarios that may be responsible for this lady's situation, illness, death, mounting bills, the sheer responsibility of looking after a loved one in a medical crisis. Any of these could cause a breakdown.

I don't know if our healthcare facility in this part of the world stretches to offering counseling to caregivers because the truth is, ill-health is almost as difficult for the well as the sick. So medical practitioners out there, have a care when you are dealing with families of your patient, they need support as much as the sick themselves.

Reflections by Regina Brett, 90 years old - 'Lessons life taught me'

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” ― Mae West

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will so Stay in touch.
5. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
6. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
7. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
8. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
9. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
10. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
11. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
12. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
13. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
14. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
15. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
16. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
17. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'
18. Forgive everyone for everything.
19. What other people think of you is none of your business.
20. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
21. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
22. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
23. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
24. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young..
25. Get outside everyday. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
26. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
27.Envy is a waste of time,You already have all you need the best is yet to come.
28.No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
29.Life is not tied with a bow but its still a gift to be cherished