Faith is not what we do for God to do something, It is an informed response based on the understanding of God’s Love and Provision [already accomplished by grace] , through Christ Jesus.
When I try to complain…
Words well up from behind my eyes as I type them without format, stanza or protocol. I simply need to eradicate the stench of annoyance that has built up from years of not flushing my system properly of irritation.
The log of wood in my left eye has grown a canopy that is the habitat for my patience and perhaps, I have become a patient nursing the promises of my Comforter as I watch my kin shiver in a cold world.
I want to dump my conscience, having found it has been conditioned by the same Miss Information that hails from The knowledge of Good and Evil. Since I’ve fallen off that family tree, I want to leave that Local Government Area behind, but…
How?
Lord You said if I left mother, father, sister, brother and anything anyone for you I would surely get more in return, but is this…
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AMAL’S QUEST
On other days, the dryness of the land would reach out to the body’s interior and cause the parched tongue to hang up mouth’s roof. Until water came, whether it was by the oasis, or the precious scatterings of rain. And the rains were only an occasional phenomenon, even in the middle of the year.
The air was arid on that day too, when Amal set out with his donkey for Bayt Ansar, that far-flung town which seemed to have much more of everything than Maqaas ever possessed. It was one of those things which had bothered him into getting unto desert roads. The drought was particularly bad this year; only the oldest of Maqaas’ men could recall anything like it. The trail of the traveler’s route was decorated by numerous carcasses, obscene and haunting as could be. The beasts of burden had many times failed to bear thirst much more. They had fallen, along with many other lesser creatures.
The march of death was now upon the gates of man himself.
Sandstorms cut short Amal’s advance many times. The scourge of the heat was perennial and ubiquitous; and the waves of dryness was trouble to skin and soul. It seared, it depressed, it weakened. Though there were stopovers at makeshift shelters and little lonely villages, those nights were by no means comfortable. The rest was intermingled with thoughts of coming sights of monotony, of emptiness, and of hopeless horizons seemingly without end.
On this night, Amal stopped over at a tiny village. He had been on his quest for three days, had conquered more than half the swath of territory he needed to overcome to get to that priced reward. But he was feeling tired and even a little sick. There was little to fall back on, except an ancient bed in a poorly lit room graciously offered him by an old friend who lived there. His frame was ragged, his face lined with the many signs of many worries, all connected to the quest, and to home.
He was beginning to think about retreat.
The harshness of Maqaas had not been in the weather alone. It was everywhere, and in everything. The ringing calls from the top of domed constructs, their minarets shining, announcing along with loudspeakers that this land was Lorded over by compulsion. The passion, the fierceness in the voice of he who roared to the faithful, who looked in the corners to see that the law was kept, not broken. The chants of children narrating the tale of enforced devotion, in the nearest shade, instructed by a whip-wielding master many times older than their mothers. And mothers in silent space, behind the black veil, seeing the world via distorted vision. The threat of death, which the violent zealots roaming the streets were all too willing to execute. The blood of the disobedient was that which quenched the thirst of the earth.
Thirst. Maqaas had so much ‘piousness’, but left much to desire. It held people bound, it promised to make them straight. But stiffness to mercy and a firing up of vain passions was the end result. For there were hidden parlours and corners of open secret in which the very men who appeared saintly by day would seek to quench their thirst by night.
Amal shook his head. The way back was long, and the way forward was a hard thing. But he was also dying of thirst. He was dying to live. He could go back to Maqaas, where he could live the schizoid life and get sunk by the misery and guilt of personal contradiction; or he could move forward and somehow get to Bayt Ansar, where the faithful were also free, and where thirst was unheard of. He retired for the night, overwhelmed by the great confusion.
But by morning, Amal had made up his mind. It had drizzled a bit while he was asleep, and the weather now was a bit clement.
“If this is what its like being this close to Bayt Ansar, I wonder what it’ll be like over there”.
He went into the open with his friend, thanked him for his hospitality, and bade him goodbye. Then he rode into the distance, more determined than he had been before.
DEMISE OF THE JIGSAW
Crosswords that point us homewards, our lives, as stacks of scenes
I’m stuck in the middle, spindles that spawn yarns across here, there, the between the fabric sweeping
I’m the man now, boy was, sage intending, will be, God willing
Or else, disillusioned, despaired, desperate, death-like thirst, request
There’s here, sparks flying from me, strings spring through, multiple crosses, sent forthwith
There’s there, stuck to me, attached yet departing from, friends, foes, part of life
Other worlds, words said tell of them, of other minds
They think, seem similar, yet so varied, vacillating between vicissitudes
Like me, they recount times, temporal, they envision the eternal
At times I smile and muse about mushy themes, things about these realms
Its fine when they help me out, when they make my life like tasty tapestry
Its other times when they lay my longings waste, ruin my rites, rent my robes
The implication is that I lose love for connectivity and social medium
I crumple into a shapeless ball of fury-bathed porcupine
I let go of the big picture, the us-fixture, the bio-psycho-mixture
Discuss turns discourse, then tends to inveigle, to ride on polemic, phillipic
Tear away, well up with tears, raining astray courses upon face
Return to dull single soul bubble
The other parts of “things” apart from “I” and “T” for “these”, I’ll read
The breezy steads, busy streets, snaking strips of city traffic
There’s more, about birds whistling, about dears browsing, about goats bleating
The whole life of nature, the whole spice of meteors driving as though to strike grasslands
The awe I find, of the days that slowly pass, the joys and pains that relit my head’s lightbulb
If life was just for me, it’ll be free of fast heartbeats, in need of every other thing
I’ll walk through nothingness, be lost in blank bland coldness
Weightless, valueless, not linked, without springs, without wintery excitement
But here, what I do is the extension of another’s life story
What I see is the unfolding of days seen
by me and others
If only we can meet to stick together, let the portions of our thoughts and walk merge again
If only we understand one as a piece, and all as part of a puzzle
Fix these perfectly by letting our strengths be gifts to each other
Let our faults be filled in by other’s love, until we all are collectively strong
If only we abandon the frame of mind that revolves around “me”
If Christ’s self is all we could be birthed into
One person at a time
Then all of us for all of eternity
If only.
#God_alone
Romans 12:2
The Void
We all were once standing in this congregation
So excited to see what’s next in preparation
For what we do not know
Uncertainties of life
Strugglings yet unsure of
With both fingers crossed and in our thoughts
And still here in wonder of what’s next
The confidence we have gained, the mistakes we’ve made
Trying to appear again as “up next”
In line with the hope for a different result “yes”
Not to be as crime but prime
Within our hearts are dreams and goals
All mixed with stories untold
Still with our heads up for what’s not
The official guest did not show up
The now immortalized mortal is dead
And so, our hope “dropped dead
Seeking for something..or someone
Who fills the emptiness we feel
That thirst, that hunger
That has driven many to the yonder, the yawning hell
With many jogging down there
Trying to love to fill it
But it ends up in lust,hate and war
With the things that seems tangible in our hands
Slipping away through our fingers
Grasping for all these
Like a man gasping for his last breath
Oh the feeling
That even the air we breathe is toxic
To our hearts
Causing an uncontrolled cough of hurt and anger
Still the emptiness is
What can we do to live at peace?
Though we don’t show it
But this is it!
Well, doesn’t this statement ring a bell?
The men that Peter words held
Not just Peter, but Philip as well
What can we do to be saved?
And be free from this disease worse than AIDS
The God-void syndrome
Without Him,
As empty a drum is
So shall you be
In Him you find wonderful discoveries and more
It is just a change of mind from the crow to the eagle that soars
To accept defeat of flesh
And the feet of Him instead
To the belief of all possibilities
And secured destinies
To rest in real peace
The reason to seek
All written in a mysterious love letter
Inspired by my best friend, HolySpirit
Surprised right?
That’s what happens
When what you step into all seems bright!
…
….fini!
Christ a poet 