Afterwhile

How can I forget
The times you held my hand
And wiped the tears from my eyes
How can I forget
That when I needed someone
You were right by my side
I know you had to be an angel in disguise
Sent from God to bring joy to my life
And now you are gone back home
And I want you to know

I still hear your voice
I still feel your touch
And when I close my eyes
I can see your smile
Though you are gone away
To a better place
I can’t wait to be with you
Afterwhile… Afterwhile

Sometimes, I break down
But I accept God’s will
In spite of the way I feel
Sometimes, I wish that
I can take your place
You should not have gone that way
But I know that you were an angel in disguise
Sent from God to bring joy to my life
And now you are gone back home
And I want you to know

I still hear your voice
I still feel your touch
And when I close my eyes
I can see your smile
Though you are gone away
To a better place
I can’t wait to be with you
Afterwhile… Afterwhile

- Deitrick Haddon

Christian or Yam?

The word ‘born again’ has caused one of the greatest havocs in this world. What is the meaning of ‘born again christian’? In fact, it is now a general opinion that there are two types of Christians namely, ordinary Christians and born again Christians and the latter are on a higher spiritual plane than the former.
Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but if you are really conversant with your bible like you should be, you will agree with me that there is no where from genesis to revelation that anything like born again Christian was mentioned. The term ‘born again’ was used just once as an illustration when Jesus was trying to explain the process of salvation, please note the word 'illustration'.
Its either you are a Christian or not and just in case you are confused, to be a Christian means to live a life that portrays Christ in all aspects. We do not have types and species of Christians (this is not yam and beans). Christian is Christian.
One more thing, Christianity is not a religion, it is the way to eternity. Religion says there are many ways, choose one, Christianity says there is just one way. Thank you!

Africa Magic

This post is just for people whose minds are very creative and think right, not just average thinking minds. With this said………….

Have you ever been forced to watch Africa magic (which really should be called Nigerian magic because everything about it is Nigerian.) for about 2 weeks? Well, I am sure that for the people I described above, it sure is a very disturbing experience. I stayed in my uncle’s house recently for 2 weeks and before he goes out, he would tune the decoder in his room to Africa magic and the lock his door. He did this because he assumed the people in the house love Africa magic (actually, they do). Unfortunately for me, I went there without books because I wanted to travel light. Because of this, I was regularly forced to watch Africa magic all day till my uncle got back. It was actually a very painful experience for me as I couldn’t switch off the TV because I was not the only one watching, I would sometimes turn my face away from the TV. I got annoyed at the shallow mindedness of the Nigerian film industry form the producers to the directors and a few actors. Well, I must commend most of the actors, they try their best but some of the just annoying and not talented which makes me wonder how they landed such roles. It is no wonder many intelligent Nigerians do not watch Nigerian films. Sometimes, I even wonder what kind of people carry their money to but these films. On the other hand, very few of the films I watched impressed me but majority was messed up.

I think it is time for fellow right thinking Nigerians to rise up to the occasion and show these half-baked directors, producers and writers what a movie should be like (note: I am only talking to creative minded people). Let us take the Nigerian movie industry to the next level and show the world that Nigerians are not actually as shallow minded as our movie industry has portrayed us to be. This is why I respect directors like Tade Ogidan, Amaka Igwe, Tunde Kelani, as far as I am concerned, most of the others are jokers.

Thumbs up to Funke Akindele (aka jenifa), it’s your time to shine and please, do not join the jokers.

More to Life

What do you do between the period when you surrender your life to Christ and when you actually drop this earthly body to go and meet Him? For some people, this period is long while for some others, it is very short. This then points to the fact that the primary aim of salvation is not to make it to heaven but to reconcile us back to Christ while we are here on earth because if it was to make heaven, people should start killing themselves after getting saved or better still, people should not get saved till they are about to die.

Back to the issue, for some people who had divine wisdom to get saved early enough, what do you do during this waiting period? We have no choice but to live out our salvation here on earth but this is where people miss it on two different extremes.

CASE1: Some people think its think to live like they are not on earth again. Yes, we are spiritual beings but we still need the body to help us exist here on earth but they don’t realize that they get so spiritual that they forget the physical and by the time reality deals with them, it might be too late.

CASE2: On the other hand, some people just don’t think they can keep up with the ‘difficult standard’ that salvation required and they then decide to derail a bit and take the grace of God for granted hoping to get back in line later in life because they just can’t afford to ‘waste’ their prime years living out their salvation.

There’s got to be more to life and salvation than living for ourselves only or trying to be ‘so spiritual’. In our daily interaction with family, friends, colleagues, we have to try to make our salvation have impact on everything around us so it won’t be that we came, lived and died and at the end, we realize that we were just a statistic in the human race.

Let us discover the purpose for which we were created and live out our salvation through that purpose. After all said and done, I leave you with one of my favorite quotes: when its time to die, make sure that’s all you have to do.

Obituary

‘With great sorrow, we deeply regret to announce the passing away of our beloved father, grandfather , great-grandfather and uncle, Mr. John Doe, who passed away peacefully in his sleep on December 12, 2008 at the ripe age of 98.
He is survived by children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nephews and nieces. The burial arrangement goes thus…….’
This is a format of an obituary that caught my attention on my way to work last year December. I stopped to read well and started laughing. I began to asked myself, why are these people announcing this with sorrow and regret, they were supposed to be happy that this man had finally died because
1. If people as old as this don’t die, there wont be space for new born babies
2. It is better for a 98 yr old man to die than for a 40 or 50 yr old man to die

In fact, I strongly believe that once a man clocks 90 years, his children should make sure he is prepared for eternity in heaven then start praying him to die peacefully and very soon (ouch! I must sound cold).
But above all, I think the people that put up the obituary were either hypocrites or they just didn’t understand the meaning of what they put up (which wouldn’t surprise me at all because they are remote villagers).

Bikers and Helmets

I came back home after a long time away and found out that a lot of things had changed in Lagos state. The most noticeable thing was the helmets all the bikers and their passenger wore. The first thing that came to my mind was a positive thought. I thought wow, if there is a bike accident, the likelihood of death will be minimal because of the helmet and that it was all for our safety. I do not normally take bikes so I did not see myself having to use the helmet anytime soon.
To my chagrin, I found myself in a situation in which I had to take a bike 4 days later. Several things went through my mind, who was the last person that used the helmet, did the person have lice on his or her head, or worse, did the person have ringworm? Also, considering the fetish thinking of many Nigerians, some people will believe that wicked people will want to use this opportunity to steal their good fortune through the helmet.Sitting on the fence, looking at the positive and negative side of this development, I want to be safe if I fall off a bike but on the other hand, I do not want to catch deadly diseases that can be transferred through the use of public helmets. Can someone, please, tell Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola about this other side of the story?

Why?

I was walking on a busy street 2 nights ago, running an errand for my mother, I ran into some problems and had to talk to my mum on the phone in order to clarify issues. My handkerchief was in my second hand, the direction of the traffic was facing me. A public bus was coming towards me and as usual, the conductor was hanging on the entrance. As I was talking on the phone, the conductor was staring at me from far, he was holding a jerry can with his free hand. I was wondering why so I thought maybe he wanted to snatch the phone that I held to my ear so I held it tightly and tried to shift as the was about 2 speed past me. All of a sudden, as the passed by me, the conductor smacked me hard on the hips with the jerry can. I was so dumbfounded, the smack was very hard and painful. I just looked at the conductor whose bus had already gotten ahead of me, he was still staring at me. Another pedestrian that saw the whole incident just told me to forget about it and move on.
As my hips kept hurting, I couldn’t help but think. I did not know the guy from Adam, never seen him before in my life, why would he derive joy in inflicting pain on me for no just cause. Why are some people just wicked? It doesn’t make sense, am still in shock. Please, do u have an explanation for me?

Ageing Gracefully

Considering the title of this post, one might be tempted to think the blog writer is in the 50s or 60s which is not the case here. I just decided to write about one of the phobias that I have not dealt with.

All through my year in school (from primary till the end of university), I have always been the youngest in class. Sometimes, it felt good, sometimes, it felt bad. I remember someone teasing me seriously towards the end of high school which made me to make up my mind not to let classmates know my real age. From then on, I started lying about my age. I started by adding 3 yrs to it, then later, I added 2 yrs and finally reduced it to 1 yr. it got to a point that I didn’t even know my age anymore. Anyways, later my friends got to know the truth one way or the other.

The irony is that now, I feel like reducing my age, as I celebrate any birthday, I realize that I am getting older(which was what I wanted initially), but I want to be young forever and this makes me sigh. When I was 21, I wanted to be 21 forever, when I became 22, I wanted to be 22 forever which is not possible.

I greatly suspect that this feeling is not peculiar to me alone, most people go through this but happiness will only come when we learn to face reality and age gracefully. I have not yet found that happiness and this reminds of a particular poem that goes thus…

It was spring, but it was summer I wanted-
The warm days, and the great outdoors.
It was summer, but it was fall I wanted-
The colourful leaves and the cool, dry air.
It was fall, but it was winter I wanted-
The beautiful snow, and the joy of the holiday season
I was a child but it was adulthood I wanted-
The freedom and the respect.
I was 20 but it was 30 I wanted-
To be mature and sophisticated.
I was middle-aged but it was 20 I wanted-
The youth and the free spirit.
I was retired but it was middle-age I wanted-
The presence of mind, without limitations.
My life was over,
But I never got what I wanted.

-Jason Lehman