Not My Business - Niyi Osundare
They picked Akanni up one morning
Beat him soft like clay
And stuffed him down the belly
Of a waiting jeep.
What business of mine is it
So long they don't take the yam
From my savouring mouth?
They came one night
Booted the whole house awake
And dragged Danladi out,
Then off to a lengthy absence.
What business of mine is it
So long they don't take the yam
From my savouring mouth?
Chinwewent to work one day
Only to find her job was gone:
No query, no warning, no probe -
Just one neat sack for a stainless record.
What business of mine is it
So long they don't take the yam
From my savouring mouth?
And then one evening
As I sat down to eat my yam
A knock on the door froze my hungry hand.
The jeep was waiting on my bewildered lawn
Waiting, waiting in its usual silence.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
Breaking News: Sex Makes Babies!!!
I love my sister Jennifer Fulwiler, not just because of the blood that bought us both, but because of the way her mind works; she has a beautiful way of coming to knowledge, and a delicious way of chronicling her journeys. She used to be an atheist and now she's orthodox catholic. She blogs about this at www.conversiondiary.com but the article that had me blissed out today was one she contributed to America Magazine on how she went from being Pro Choice to being Pro Life. Below is an excerpt:
"All my life, the message I had heard loud and clear was that sex was for pleasure and bonding, that its potential for creating life was purely tangential, almost to the point of being forgotten. This mind-set became the foundation of my views on abortion. Because I saw sex as being by default closed to the possibility of life, I thought of unplanned pregnancies as akin to being struck by lightning while walking down the street—something totally unpredictable and undeserved that happened to people living normal lives."
I laughed and laughed. It was an honest article, and her sincerity and intelligence I can't help but find endearing. Talk about loving the LORD your God with your mind! She was on point at every paragraph, and I'm both entertained and encouraged. You can find the article here -
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10904
Happy reading!
"All my life, the message I had heard loud and clear was that sex was for pleasure and bonding, that its potential for creating life was purely tangential, almost to the point of being forgotten. This mind-set became the foundation of my views on abortion. Because I saw sex as being by default closed to the possibility of life, I thought of unplanned pregnancies as akin to being struck by lightning while walking down the street—something totally unpredictable and undeserved that happened to people living normal lives."
I laughed and laughed. It was an honest article, and her sincerity and intelligence I can't help but find endearing. Talk about loving the LORD your God with your mind! She was on point at every paragraph, and I'm both entertained and encouraged. You can find the article here -
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10904
Happy reading!
Friday, April 1, 2011
Premarital Sex Redefined
Does the Bible really say that premarital sex is sin even when you're going to marry the person?
The problem with Christianity today is that we don't take time to study the Bible in its original context. If you take time to study the old testament in Hebrew and in the Jewish context, and the New Testament in Greek and against the backdrop of the society at that time, you will definitely come away with a better understanding of sacred text. You will also realise that there is precious little you can do to change God's Word.
Premarital sex is sin, whether you intend to marry the person or not.
Hahaha! Don't you just wish! April Fool! Happy April Fool's day to you!!! I love you all, thanks for reading my blog!
The problem with Christianity today is that we don't take time to study the Bible in its original context. If you take time to study the old testament in Hebrew and in the Jewish context, and the New Testament in Greek and against the backdrop of the society at that time, you will definitely come away with a better understanding of sacred text. You will also realise that there is precious little you can do to change God's Word.
Premarital sex is sin, whether you intend to marry the person or not.
Hahaha! Don't you just wish! April Fool! Happy April Fool's day to you!!! I love you all, thanks for reading my blog!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
For John Chijioke
When I go, don't cry for me; in my Father's arms I'll be. The wounds this world left on my soul will all be healed and I'll be whole. Sun and moon will be replaced with the light of Jesus' face, and I will not be ashamed for my Saviour knows my name. So, weep not for me my friends, when my time below does end; for my life belongs to Him Who will raise the dead again~Jars of Clay (All My Tears).
Rest In Peace CD John. Take heart fans, friends and family. The dead in Christ will rise first... 1 Thess 4:13-18. Love, Joy.
Rest In Peace CD John. Take heart fans, friends and family. The dead in Christ will rise first... 1 Thess 4:13-18. Love, Joy.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
LIVING SMARTER, LOVING SMARTER
As I got on the bus one bright morning last week, along came a man selling one of those better-your-English pamphlets usually sold to commuters at garages and motor parks. Of course I wasn’t going to buy one. I didn’t even think about it, since i figured my English doesn’t need any help, much less from a street pamphlet. The man selling the pamphlets kept spouting excerpts from it; “It is wrong to say ‘The tap is rushing.’ Instead you should say, ‘The tap is running.’” “You don’t say ‘It’s time we leave,’ you should say ‘It’s time we left.’” And so on and so forth. I buried my face in my novel. Surely there were people on the bus badly in need of the pamphlet, I thought, unaware of my smugness. Just then, the man said, “You don’t say ‘I have an exam to write.’” I looked up sharply, my curiosity aroused. What then should we say, pray tell? “You do/sit/take an exam.” Oh, really?
All of those are correct, I thought. Still, that doesn’t mean “write” is wrong, or is it? I was sure that when I got online, my friend Google would tell me. Still, so discomfited was I by the fact that I could not say for sure if what he just read out was correct or not, that I did something I had never done before. I asked for a copy of the pamphlet and I paid for it. It was the very first time I ever spent something on English and me. As I put it in my bag I felt humbled, and then I was suddenly grateful that nobody on the bus knew me, and then I felt silly for feeling that way.
How many times have we been so comfortable in our work, our friendships, our romances that we hardly ever put in any effort to make them better? We are so certain that that we have them where we want them, that nothing could ever go wrong, that we’re geniuses at what we do, and that things will stay the way they are. “He can never fire me. I’m a natural at this job, the best he’ll ever be able to find.” “Of course she can never leave me. What would she do without me?”
However, when we’re faced with projects that don’t come easy to us we double and triple our effort, determined to succeed. And when it comes to the curious case of loving people who don’t really love us, how we excel! We sell arm and leg to win their affection. We work ourselves into a frenzy trying to keep them interested, trying to prove that we’re worth their time, attention and love. The ones who love and want us? Baah! The ones we didn’t slave and sweat to get? Pooh pooh!
I had a peculiar relationship with a certain well known fellow called Mathematics. We got off to rocky start right from primary school, and the number of lesson teachers I had solely for Mathematics would astound you. By the time I was in JSS3, our issues had become more severe. Oh how I wanted it to work, how I wanted “us” to be perfect. My poor mother was all over the place, recruiting teachers and buying books. By SS3, it had become a do or die affair. The Math genius of a lady who was preparing me for my ‘O’ Levels told my mother to make available New General Mathematics volumes 1-6, and in the months leading up to the exam she started from the very basics and we worked through to Book 6. After countless evenings of poring over equations and graphs, I ended up with a D7 when the results came out. Apparently Mathematics and I had come to the end of the road. The relationship was over, and it had ended badly. I was heartbroken. What did it matter that I never studied for my English paper and yet I made an A1? I was inconsolable. I had poured my all into my affair with Mathematics, and it had all been for nothing.
Still, English has been a faithful friend, never mind that I never take any time or spend any money in a deliberate attempt to build our relationship. Whatever nourishment our relationship gets is a by-product of the things I do solely for my own pleasure. In a way, that’s how it should be. Love shouldn’t be so hard. It should come naturally. Yet, it should never be taken for granted.
Of course there are those of us who upon realising that they have something at which they shine with minimal effort or a relationship that blossoms and sparkles without back-breaking effort, proceed to carry it like an egg, water it, hone it and do everything in their power to make it even better. These are the ones who stand out from the crowd, who truly have results to show for their talent. These are the ones whose beautiful relationships remain strong and grow even more beautiful with time’s passing.
We must remember that even the most perfect of relationships need a little helping along every now and then. We must resist the tendency to take for granted the relationships that flow easily, all the while fussing over the ones that are not really meant for us. If you have a gift, be it a talent or a relationship, isn’t it worth it to work at it and make it the best it can be? Is that not much better than wishing and striving for something else that simply isn’t yours to have?
Some argue that it’s not in your power to choose who you love, and you can’t turn it off and on at will like a switch. If you love someone, you love them. And if you don’t, you can’t force it, even if you know they love you. While the jury is still out on that theory, it is possible that we really have no control over who we love, in which case I’m lucky, because I love the English Language. And she loves me right back.
PS
I did Google. You can take, sit for or write an exam.
All of those are correct, I thought. Still, that doesn’t mean “write” is wrong, or is it? I was sure that when I got online, my friend Google would tell me. Still, so discomfited was I by the fact that I could not say for sure if what he just read out was correct or not, that I did something I had never done before. I asked for a copy of the pamphlet and I paid for it. It was the very first time I ever spent something on English and me. As I put it in my bag I felt humbled, and then I was suddenly grateful that nobody on the bus knew me, and then I felt silly for feeling that way.
How many times have we been so comfortable in our work, our friendships, our romances that we hardly ever put in any effort to make them better? We are so certain that that we have them where we want them, that nothing could ever go wrong, that we’re geniuses at what we do, and that things will stay the way they are. “He can never fire me. I’m a natural at this job, the best he’ll ever be able to find.” “Of course she can never leave me. What would she do without me?”
However, when we’re faced with projects that don’t come easy to us we double and triple our effort, determined to succeed. And when it comes to the curious case of loving people who don’t really love us, how we excel! We sell arm and leg to win their affection. We work ourselves into a frenzy trying to keep them interested, trying to prove that we’re worth their time, attention and love. The ones who love and want us? Baah! The ones we didn’t slave and sweat to get? Pooh pooh!
I had a peculiar relationship with a certain well known fellow called Mathematics. We got off to rocky start right from primary school, and the number of lesson teachers I had solely for Mathematics would astound you. By the time I was in JSS3, our issues had become more severe. Oh how I wanted it to work, how I wanted “us” to be perfect. My poor mother was all over the place, recruiting teachers and buying books. By SS3, it had become a do or die affair. The Math genius of a lady who was preparing me for my ‘O’ Levels told my mother to make available New General Mathematics volumes 1-6, and in the months leading up to the exam she started from the very basics and we worked through to Book 6. After countless evenings of poring over equations and graphs, I ended up with a D7 when the results came out. Apparently Mathematics and I had come to the end of the road. The relationship was over, and it had ended badly. I was heartbroken. What did it matter that I never studied for my English paper and yet I made an A1? I was inconsolable. I had poured my all into my affair with Mathematics, and it had all been for nothing.
Still, English has been a faithful friend, never mind that I never take any time or spend any money in a deliberate attempt to build our relationship. Whatever nourishment our relationship gets is a by-product of the things I do solely for my own pleasure. In a way, that’s how it should be. Love shouldn’t be so hard. It should come naturally. Yet, it should never be taken for granted.
Of course there are those of us who upon realising that they have something at which they shine with minimal effort or a relationship that blossoms and sparkles without back-breaking effort, proceed to carry it like an egg, water it, hone it and do everything in their power to make it even better. These are the ones who stand out from the crowd, who truly have results to show for their talent. These are the ones whose beautiful relationships remain strong and grow even more beautiful with time’s passing.
We must remember that even the most perfect of relationships need a little helping along every now and then. We must resist the tendency to take for granted the relationships that flow easily, all the while fussing over the ones that are not really meant for us. If you have a gift, be it a talent or a relationship, isn’t it worth it to work at it and make it the best it can be? Is that not much better than wishing and striving for something else that simply isn’t yours to have?
Some argue that it’s not in your power to choose who you love, and you can’t turn it off and on at will like a switch. If you love someone, you love them. And if you don’t, you can’t force it, even if you know they love you. While the jury is still out on that theory, it is possible that we really have no control over who we love, in which case I’m lucky, because I love the English Language. And she loves me right back.
PS
I did Google. You can take, sit for or write an exam.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
If At First You Don't Succeed...
I've slipped. I started eating at 7:30, then 8pm and sometimes 8:30pm! I also started drinking with my beau most nights. I figured it wouldn't hurt. But it has. All the good work I'd previously done, all that success, small as it seemed, has gone to waste. Almost. My tummy fat is even more than it was before I started my diet. Since I'm learning not to dwell on where I fell but rather, where I slipped, here are the mistakes I made and how I intend to correct them.
1. Thinking that drinking sugar couldn't hurt that much afterall. It did hurt. Now that I know how much it was helping, I'm taking a 2nd look at my water only programme.
2. Eating heavy meals for dinner and thinking that eating them before 7pm made it okay. It's better to eat a light dinner, no matter the hour.
3.Not allowing myself room to enjoy sweet things. This only had the effect of backfiring and causing me to eat too many snacks and drink too much beverage when I eventually got my hands on them.
4. Ignoring my exercises. No matter how hard the crunches may look (and they only look hard cos I'm no longer fit) I have to do them. I have to try.
I'm going to measure myself now and write it down in a secret place. I will let you know how I feel and look after 2 weeks of good behaviour.
1. Thinking that drinking sugar couldn't hurt that much afterall. It did hurt. Now that I know how much it was helping, I'm taking a 2nd look at my water only programme.
2. Eating heavy meals for dinner and thinking that eating them before 7pm made it okay. It's better to eat a light dinner, no matter the hour.
3.Not allowing myself room to enjoy sweet things. This only had the effect of backfiring and causing me to eat too many snacks and drink too much beverage when I eventually got my hands on them.
4. Ignoring my exercises. No matter how hard the crunches may look (and they only look hard cos I'm no longer fit) I have to do them. I have to try.
I'm going to measure myself now and write it down in a secret place. I will let you know how I feel and look after 2 weeks of good behaviour.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Here Comes the Bride: Why I’m Not Having a Church Wedding
Whenever someone hears me say I’m not having a “Church Wedding” they always gasp, eyes popping wide open and hands flying to the chest. Some think I’m deliberately trying to be contrary, to go against convention. After all, EVERYBODY has a church wedding! It’s just the way it’s done. How can you NOT have one?
Unless of course you are pregnant, in which case it is the church that has refused to wed you (and in which case, I suppose, you are DOOMED). “Are you pregnant?” they ask. No I’m not pregnant yet, and I don’t plan to be before the wedding. The thing is, as far as I’m concerned, the day my fiancé and his kinsmen come to pay my bride price, and my father and the rest of my family give me away to this man and his family, I’m married. That’s my wedding day. That’s the day I was married, the day I truly became my man’s wife; the day I will celebrate as my wedding anniversary for the rest of our life together. While most girls from a very young age (I’m told) dream of walking down the aisle in a long white dress, with bridesmaids and confetti, I never did. White is my least favourite colour, so bland and so boring, it’s almost physically painful to imagine spending a whole day wearing it.
However, I understand that we live in a society governed by laws, and I realise I have to sign papers. And my husband and I will do so after our wedding, in a registry with our friends and family present. I will take the necessary vows. “Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband? Will you love him, honour him...” I will say “I do.” My husband and I will exchange rings as tokens of our love and commitment. We will be pronounced “Man and wife” and my husband will be asked to kiss his bride. We will eat, drink and celebrate this ceremony with loved ones.
After this, I will NOT take off my ring, put on a “wedding gown”, go to church and pretend to be just getting married. I will NOT take those vows again; I meant them the first time, thank you. My husband and I will not be “pronounced” man and wife again, when we are already man and wife. I will not do any of all those things people do simply because they do them.
Although my dad, himself an elder of the church, always says “the church has no business joining people”, I understand the desire for solemnisation which is undeniably deep-seated in every spiritual person. I do not deny this need in myself. That’s why a minister will be present on my wedding day, to bless our union after it has been sealed between both families.
I love church weddings. I love them because of the deep meaning they hold for the people who choose to have them. I’ve been on countless bridal trains, with joy and gladness and a very merry heart. These friends and loved ones honestly consider this day to be their wedding day, and I’m always glad and honoured to share the joys of a day so special to them. However, having such a day holds no such significance for ME. I attempted to plan a church wedding sometime ago. Lord have mercy, I never went through drearier motions! Only the happiness of my intended made it worth while.
Alas, that wedding never held; that marriage was never meant to be. Weeks have rolled into months and love’s flowers have bloomed again, only this time so divinely beautiful and so steeped in God’s peace. As I prepare to spend the rest of my life with my soul mate, I thank God daily that he not only understands the way I see weddings, he sees it the exact same way.
So, there will not be a church wedding. I am vaguely aware that there are some who will be disappointed, though I’m not sure why. I do not intend to apologise for being true to myself. Still, I can’t help but wonder, if I were to apologise, to whom exactly would my apology be directed anyway?
Unless of course you are pregnant, in which case it is the church that has refused to wed you (and in which case, I suppose, you are DOOMED). “Are you pregnant?” they ask. No I’m not pregnant yet, and I don’t plan to be before the wedding. The thing is, as far as I’m concerned, the day my fiancé and his kinsmen come to pay my bride price, and my father and the rest of my family give me away to this man and his family, I’m married. That’s my wedding day. That’s the day I was married, the day I truly became my man’s wife; the day I will celebrate as my wedding anniversary for the rest of our life together. While most girls from a very young age (I’m told) dream of walking down the aisle in a long white dress, with bridesmaids and confetti, I never did. White is my least favourite colour, so bland and so boring, it’s almost physically painful to imagine spending a whole day wearing it.
However, I understand that we live in a society governed by laws, and I realise I have to sign papers. And my husband and I will do so after our wedding, in a registry with our friends and family present. I will take the necessary vows. “Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband? Will you love him, honour him...” I will say “I do.” My husband and I will exchange rings as tokens of our love and commitment. We will be pronounced “Man and wife” and my husband will be asked to kiss his bride. We will eat, drink and celebrate this ceremony with loved ones.
After this, I will NOT take off my ring, put on a “wedding gown”, go to church and pretend to be just getting married. I will NOT take those vows again; I meant them the first time, thank you. My husband and I will not be “pronounced” man and wife again, when we are already man and wife. I will not do any of all those things people do simply because they do them.
Although my dad, himself an elder of the church, always says “the church has no business joining people”, I understand the desire for solemnisation which is undeniably deep-seated in every spiritual person. I do not deny this need in myself. That’s why a minister will be present on my wedding day, to bless our union after it has been sealed between both families.
I love church weddings. I love them because of the deep meaning they hold for the people who choose to have them. I’ve been on countless bridal trains, with joy and gladness and a very merry heart. These friends and loved ones honestly consider this day to be their wedding day, and I’m always glad and honoured to share the joys of a day so special to them. However, having such a day holds no such significance for ME. I attempted to plan a church wedding sometime ago. Lord have mercy, I never went through drearier motions! Only the happiness of my intended made it worth while.
Alas, that wedding never held; that marriage was never meant to be. Weeks have rolled into months and love’s flowers have bloomed again, only this time so divinely beautiful and so steeped in God’s peace. As I prepare to spend the rest of my life with my soul mate, I thank God daily that he not only understands the way I see weddings, he sees it the exact same way.
So, there will not be a church wedding. I am vaguely aware that there are some who will be disappointed, though I’m not sure why. I do not intend to apologise for being true to myself. Still, I can’t help but wonder, if I were to apologise, to whom exactly would my apology be directed anyway?
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