What do you need a map for?

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Hello, My name is Niel and these are the ChristaPoet Freestyle Sessions. This year, ChristaPoet wants to give you a special perspective to our freestyles. At first, some of these poems were published as stand-alone pieces. But in actuality, each poem is an untitled part of a freestyle session. Each freestyle session is given a topic for the poems to address.


Today, we take a trip to June the 25th, 2021. At 5:05 AM, Dr King broke a 40-hour spell of silence, which in itself was quite the anomaly. Here is Dr. King with Seed power. I doubt it was a freestyle:

SEED POWER



If I could
Drive your dreams
To the moon
So you see that its reality
Breaks the bound of gravity

If I could
Wear your smile
On a monster frown
To model the comfort
It gives to a warring heart

If I could 
Shout with a mute
To show the deafness
Of a voice that roars
Without insight 

If I could
Live without a breathe
To reveal the deadness
Of a being
With no purpose

If I could
Think without my mind
To display the madness
Of a creature 
That denies it creator

Hmmmmm
Oh! I wish you could see
The giant in the ant
The forest in the shoot
The Oaks in the acorn

In your action, the world
Bows to the law of motion
The “lit” lies in a bit
If you believe
In the power of your seed


                       -King Uwe


Yeah, he seemed to be consumed by some message that he needed to pass across. Do you think he did so, effectively? Either way, at 7:09 AM, I: The Niel Quchi, officially opened the #freestylefriday at 7:10 AM with the Topic “Journey”.

At 7:16 AM, I launched the first spurt:

March past shit on the road
Forgive as I was told
Yeah you gotta stay in God-mode
Mercy never gets old
Oh my confidence is passed the past successes I have owned
Imma keep on walking, preaching Jesus to the souls
Bused to work and back again, on day I’ll be drove
But grateful I remain until my default mode is love


Going to another city
But my fellow around me
Saved to save, ọ́ chọ̀ kaambili
Holy Spirit sound in me

Now, yesterday we saw the freestyles of the 11th of June, and on that day, something happened that I didn’t speak of. The arrival of Jemcy. Having come on a few days before, it was refreshing to read Jemcy at  9:59 AM:

Keep running
I know the path is narrow
Filled with fearful arrow
But I would be there with you leading


Shift your gaze off looming darkness
Can’t you see my brooding spirit?
Shake of the fear
And have faith in me


Oh honey,
This journey is with a price
Not of earthly money
But to a life of eternal glory
©Jemima Joseph


Yeah, the kind of thing you’d write to a topic such as “Journey” and you’re a Christian writer. Also as delightful, this is one of those special freestyles because it was written by Ifiok. Ifiok and I wrote The Chosen reviews presently. But she heads that endeavor. Here she was at 10:22 AM:

Dear Abba,

This journey started with you leaving the 99 to look for me. 

Oh yes, I rejected you the first time, and even after a hundred rejections, you kept coming back. 

I thought the rejection would weaken your resolve but I had never met anyone so strong-willed. 

Then I thought, I must be really worth it.


Very intimate piece, and I’m sure these pieces have ministered to someone somewhere. The reason, I thought, the dates and times should be written is that I want you to think back on what it is you were doing at the time that this poems were written, and just juxtapose the poem against that context. Does the poem have additional meaning now? Ebube continued the beautiful freestyling at 12:55 PM in her “Ghetto Sister G.O. vibe”:


Like an essential oil wafts through the nostrils breathe crafted genesis out of nothing, made a demi-god with all it requires to meander through the genesis of a cold, cobwebbed wrecking cave until gold locked in the web are harnessed triggering shock waves 


Kai….dem no born you to give up, as the current of this life’s ocean journeys from one end of the hemisphere to another without a millisecond to grab a t-fare, trade fair the loss will be gross if in all these turbulence salvation is lost.


Salvation is gain
Salvation is pain endured to get us sonship, our ticket to sanity in this ship called life bound to capsize outside Christ, intense cravings out to steal our integrity and seal our fate in hell and the love for the world rather than word grows day after day.


You may fall a million times and foots will ache in this journey but trade not our SALVA-GAIN.


Oh Wow…this next spurt reminds me that I have not seen Tunde Micheal’s writing this year. Note to self…

Here is Tunde Micheal at 1:12 PM:


The journey came from unconscious to conscious,

Came from from the raging noises of sea to a still whisper of peace,
The journey started from while I was yet a sinner, my dad kept calling me Bishop,
Deep was I into doing dirt,
Dead was I to sin,
You kept calling,
But how was I to know?
Till at the lifting up of your name that came by melody,
This song of triple parts came as power unto salvation for me,
Wrought and became a mirror before me,
I saw the beauty, bad and the beast,
All that I was becoming,
Then, it was clear enough that I was not living the one who Christ breathe in and blessed and bled for,
Right there, I made the sharp lift from fall.

The journey,
The strong can’t walk therein.
No map can contain this path where peace is.

And ofcourse, one of my favorites, Eremi at 1:20 PM. Like, the poems were coming back to back to back:


“You are so intimately aware of me, Lord. You read my heart like an open book and you know all the words I’m about to speak before I even start a sentence! You know every step I will take before my journey even begins.”
Psalms 139:3‭-‬4 TPT




My days before they started counting
My thoughts before I started thinking
My words before I started speaking
My emotions before I started revealing
My friends before I started making
My course before I started charting
My wealth before I started counting
My desires before I started wishing
My life before I started living

You knew it all
From start to finish
‘In your book, they were all written
Days fashioned for me when as yet there were none’

So, who else would be my guide
If not you
My Guardian-God


See her, she started with a Bible verse… How led. Well, I had been watching, reading, and after Eremi at 1pm…there just was no one writing, until I began again at  7:10 PM:

Walking to the few chores I have in the future

80/20 vision i adjust to user features
We are Igbo but we chose being eternal
Where I’m going he told to stay recalling.
I marvel,
When they read me I’ll be way past what I wrote since
All this in preparation for the fruit of my jeans
Daughter Sonny you can tell I told her everything
Son is Yeshua, I’m a poet, he is privileged
We did it

But I woke up in my body
Five hours after I slept at the party
They said they wanted graphic so I gave em jagbajantis
Code it I did not mean
I’m divided Greenwich
Should I stop or start or continue stopping or starting or continuing where I’m going?
Of course we move, there’s a level I’m ascending?


And like a reenacted play, no one wrote again until 11:43 PM, when Ade, my Guy wrote this:

I wonder if Abraham ever felt like this,
Tired, frustrated and lost,
Somewhere between hearing God’s voice,
Somewhere in the wilderness lending his ears to navigate his way
To finally getting to his promise land and being the Man who started Faith, 


Your words never really painted doubt or fear in Abraham’s picture,
So, Lord, I ask why the only palpitations my heartbeats,
Are percussions of fear and doubt,
If I am from his loins, then why I am plagued,
Or better put; the black sheep that didn’t inherit his faith from His genes,


My legs are quaking to the tremors this path presents,
These weights are way beyond what they were built for,
My heart no longer longs for hope’s touch,
She seems unreachable with each passing day,
My hands have held your promises for as long they can, 
Knees dropping, tears washing off my face,
My lungs holding on to the last bag of air…

At this crossway, I pray, Lord,
Let me find my north,
There’s nothing to go back to,
My strength fails me but can still go one trip,
My ears are weak but still yearn for your voice,
 My eyes are dim but can still pick you from the crowd,
All I ask is for You to hold me by the hands; never letting go,
I am burdened and don’t know how to pray again,
So take it from hear Lord and lead me,
And I will sheepishly follow You,
I can’t make this journey on my own!


And that was how it went down on that day. What would you write under the same topic?

I believe that if you had read any of these poems on their own, you would get a part of the picture. Now you see them together, I think it’s a more wholesome picture. Tell us what you think, and see you next time.

Authors:

Niel Quchi

Tunde Micheal

Eremi

Ebube

Ifiokabasi

Ade

THE MOST IMPORTANT EVERYTHING

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Do you ever get the feeling that you have been lied to?

I think many people especially feel this way when they are convinced of the promise in the pursuit of some goal, only to find out that there is more than meets the eye. Let me tell you a story.

The year I would get into secondary school, my parents had a wild idea to put me in boarding schools with my brothers and sisters. I say it was a wild idea because, at the time, that should have been frightening to a boy my age. I think the only reason my parents even considered the idea was because I was going to the same school as my elder brother and sister.

When they asked my opinion, I was absolutely elated to go, which I can imagine was surprising. You see, my brother had done some background work of convincing me with the age-old scam of “you can do whatever you like”.

I say it is a scam because while it had some truth to it, there was definitely more to that story than he let on. So, when the other parts began to unfold, I felt scammed.

In retrospect, I do not think my brother was trying to be malicious in his description of what being in a boarding school would be like. In fact, he was correct because to date, my ability to adapt to any context I have found myself in is largely credited to my boarding school days. So yeah, I did have the freedom to do whatever I liked but this freedom came with varying degrees of expressions and consequences.

The thing my brother was trying to achieve was to point my eyes to the most important thing or most attractive thing about boarding school.

So, while he may have not been trying to swindle me, I made the mistake of misinterpreting his information from the most important thing to the most important everything.

I find this is common with us as humans. As we travel through the most visually driven age of time, we tend to look at those shining bright ahead of us and we spot what we reckon is the most important thing and falsely tell ourselves that it is all we need to be like them. We assume that if this is the focal point of their success, it must be the entirety of what their life entails.

As you read this, you might plead guilty to this crime or not. Still, I want to provide one more important expression of this interesting subject: Marriage.

All you need is love. Popular? True? Or not?

Writing this as a single person, I have come across too many adults that have taken this popular phrase from the most important thing to the most important everything.

Love is essentially the central focus but to think that you can survive a marriage with just love would be setting yourself up for a great disappointment. You are going to need trust, lots of discipline, forgiveness, resourcefulness and so much more.

Someone might argue that love is supposed to encompass these qualities. To that, I would say most people can forgive and be hospitable to people they wouldn’t want to go home to every day. I should mention quite clearly that I do think love is by far the most important thing but without every other thing, it can falter.

My pastor said this quite succinctly; most couples that go through divorce still love each other but they go their separate ways because they don’t know how to live together.

Now that we have explored these examples, here is my suggestion; Get the full information.

Knowing the most important thing is great but knowing that everything is important is better. You are creating a blind spot when you ignore the process of learning.

It is important to note that I do not think you will get all the information you need before any decision or taking any step. In fact, I think you will always have blind spots, but I believe you can be intentional about avoiding as many blind spots as you can. You will be doing yourself a huge favour.

To conclude this article, I would like to highlight one of the saddest expressions of this flaw. Many people have been sold on the idea that our Christian faith is predicated on God’s love. While this is the most important thing, it is not all there is to it. Here is a bible verse to help us.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)

Many know this verse but they make the mistake of taking note of only the most important thing which is indeed love.

If you read the entire verse you will notice that Paul does not discount the place of faith and hope. These are not love but they are also pivotal to having an effective Christian life.

There is even more to the Christian life, but I hope this example helps you understand that every part of our Christianity is important and should be paid attention to.

This way, when you face persecution, (which is also part of our faith) you can be well prepared.

Pastor Mike Todd said, the blows of life that tend to knock you out are the ones you don’t expect. I hope this article helps you to double back and learn to learn all there is to learn. It is a wise way to live.

EZEONYEKA GODSWILL

Vital sines

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Hello, My name is Niel and these are the ChristaPoet Freestyle Sessions. This year, ChristaPoet wants to give you a special perspective to our freestyles. At first, some of these poems were published as stand-alone pieces. But in actuality, each poem is an untitled part of a freestyle session. Each freestyle session is given a topic for the poems to address.

So, still on Vital signs, which was where we stopped yesterday, I told you I’d be back today with the rest and here I am.

TC came in 9:02 AM:


*Vital signs*



If its of utmost important
Then I need to know
If it’s needed by my body to keep on living
Then I need to know
What’s this maintenance I hear of that is invigorating to life
I need to know

I hear of signs that provides
critical information about my mortality
Pulse rate checked
Respiratory rate checked
Body temperature checked
Blood pressure checked

Result says body is still fit to eat more red meat
But I’m still concerned
How does one check the inner man’s vitals?
I need to know


Yes and then Eremi came through, at 10:31 AM:


I ain’t a doctor ‘Niel
How am I going to get this nailed?



Body Temperature!
Sizzling Hot
Like a girl on fire
Burning down
Every thought
that thinks it’s higher than God’s love
I burn for God,
Rather He burns for me
Through me
As light and warmth
To a dark and cold world
And like the burning bush
I still ain’t consumed



Pulse Rate!
I dunno how this rates
I can’t even remember my dates
But I know there are days it’s faster
Days when I rage like Jonah
Or when like David I charge for Goliath’s head
Or when I feel so in love like Solomon that
I can’t control my beats
There are days when it’s slower
Those days when I hear
Peace! Be still
In other words
Be still and know that I am God.

Breathing!
In and out!
How many times now
It has become as one
The abundance of love as air
So present everyday that it’s ignored
Some abuse it
Some use it to violate others
Some don’t even know it’s there
Only unconsciously drawing
In and out
Nostrils as pencils
I choose to be aware
Of it’s invincibility albeit seems invisible
So I’ll consciously breathe
Knowing love is what I take in
And love is what I should bring out



Blood Pressure!
Little dudes called cells celebrate
Running here and there with platelets
All within the connecting tunnels- arteries and veins
They all seem to know why they celebrate
Unbeknown to the one they celebrate
Life! from the rates that dates back to when we were first celebrated
Life from a pulsating heart
But soon enough they get tired
So He who makes them excited
Provides another solution asides nature
Eternal life!
Revitalized by his broken body
And by His blood
Life unending
With cells never tiring
Having no plans to retire
An exchange that outlives time
That is the pleasure of this blood.
That now flows in me


Vital signs checked!


I believe that if you had read atny these poems on their own, you would get a part of the picture. Now you see them together, I think it’s a more wholesome picture. Tell us what you think, and see you next time.