RFK on violence.

On the Mindless Menace of Violence
City Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, OhioApril 5, 1968
This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.
It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.
Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.
No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.
Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.
"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."
Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.
Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.
Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.
This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.
I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.
We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.
Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.
We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.
Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.
But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.
Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

song of songs: the fray's "you found me"

“I found GodOn the corner of First and AmistadWhere the westWas all but wonAll aloneSmoking his last cigaretteI said, "Where you been?"He said, "Ask anything".Where were youwhen everything was falling apart?All my dayswere spent by the telephoneit never rangand all I needed was a callit never cameto the corner of First and Amistad”

It is said that God is big enough to absorb everything into Him-self. It is said that He can swallow our dark moments with His light. Why does He not swallow all our dark moments with light? This is the question anyone who is walking in present darkness, in stopping grief, in stumbling fear, in pain, hurt, ache, and despair has asked. It is the question the song asks: Where is God at our desperate moments?
The dark always seems to thrive beyond the light. It seems that when you are in the thick of it the light is off somewhere, probably flaming God’s cigarette. This is the brilliance of the song. It is honest enough to imagine that deity is not concerned with the problem at hand. That God is somewhere doing something for himself while we call and call and call in vain: “Eli, Eli lema sabathchani...”
The songwriter goes further in this to imagine a whole play, a short one, where face to face with the light you are allowed to ask your questions. In one real sense the whole song is the soliloquy that the other character, the one that is not God in the dock, is allowed to embark on. It is the interrogation of God. Before you go off on a rant about how one cannot question God remember “come let us reason together…” I doubt God is afraid of our misplaced rants. The ‘reasoning’ can only end one way.

The first question asked is the most vital to the human experience and the modern impression of God; “where you been?”

“Everyone ends up aloneLosing herThe only one who's ever knownWho I amWho I'm not, who I wanna beNo way to knowHow long she will be next to me”
The idea of God missing has been persistent for a while. Can’t you hear Nietzsche declaring “God is dead...for we have killed him”, Pacino, in character, calling him: “absentee landlord” or your own beating heart doubting the relevance of God in the high age of so-called enlightenment?
Perhaps that is too head. Let’s go heart. Does it not seem like you face the reality of your dim moments alone? Is it not in isolation that you grapple with the effects of life turning on you? Sure friends and family “defend the silver lining”. They do what they can. But they cannot share in physical pain, understand your most stifling fears or live with your deepest shame. They cannot live for you. “In the end everyone ends up alone.”

“Early morningThe city breaksI've been callin'For years and years and years and yearsAnd you never left me no messagesYa never send me no lettersYou got some kinda nerveTaking all I want”
And finally we get to the point of why we are angry at God. For those who have sought, even for a moment, to build a life around a belief in the right, in goodness, in love must have hit the heavy wall of reality a few times. Some right intentions have wrong consequences. Goodness does not win. Love can walk away.
It is not the event that bothers you as much as what it means. It indicts God as the watcher and not the doer. He gave no warning signals, he sent no sacred text messages, he let you delight in futility then he let you fall down.
I have asked so many times for the same thing: show me how to live, show me what to do, tell me the way to go. “Leave me a message, send me a letter” show me the way to live without the cross and its weight. “Is there any other way?”

“Lost and insecureYou found me, you found meLyin' on the floorWhere were you? Where were you?Lost and insecureYou found me, you found meLyin' on the floorSurrounded, surroundedWhy'd you have to wait?Where were you? Where were you?Just a little lateYou found me, you found meWhy'd you have to wait?To find me, to find me”

But it is the chorus that speaks to me. It is here that the song really takes off. These are the words that have not left my head for weeks. Before now it has been an interrogation of God. Here, finally we find an affirmation of His presence.

We have been warned before that “rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous”. Sometimes it is good, pleasant, cuddle-ready rain. Other times it is a raging storm that shakes every house on the street to its foundation. We know that faith must be tested, the world is full of cruelty, and our hearts carry limited glory. We know we should expect the worst but we hope for the best. And even when we hope we know by experience that pain is inevitable. We will face it and it may kill us.
Now, pain is not a badge of honour and the cross is a symbol of human weakness not strength. We fall down because we live in a falling and fallen world. We are lost because darkness has reached its summit. We are in the midnight of the creation experience. Man is at his/her ugliest hour.
We see evidence of this every day. The world is in an uproar. Poverty, disease, war are the prominent kings of our day. There is something amiss with the collective and individual human soul.
If you intend to be part of the solution you must feel the pain of the problem. If you want to be a light you must first be put into where the light is most needed: the dark. The proverbial seed first goes into the dark of the soil before it begins to grow out under the sunlight. It is said that Christ descended into hell.

All of this cannot answer the individual question of pain. I am not trying to. What I am saying and the thought I must end with is fairly simple: the pain has a reason. It builds us so we can build on. It is allowed so we may be prepared for the end of pain. It helps us toward that end. Our dissatisfaction with the darkness leads us toward the light. It is at this place, when we are finally fallen, broken and in need that He finds us. Pain, whatever its initial intentions, leaves us needing to be found.
If you will, go back to the first verse of the song with me. You must notice that the same place where the actor in our play called for God (“the corner of first and Amistad”) was the same place he found God. He had been found without even knowing it. The place where His tragedy had left Him was the same place God found Him. I believe it is the same for all of us. We are found at the point of our need.
Perhaps all we have to do is stand up and accept it. Perhaps the answer is to accept that you are no longer missing. Perhaps the trick is to start by singing a hymn. I suggest you sing one called “you found me”. It’s by a band called “the fray.” It is a song of songs.

the dog in the lion's den.

A bitch and her two pups made and lost their way into the desert not far from their home. A sudden sandstorm had erupted from nowhere and blown them off course till the mother did not know where to find, again, the secret path they had taken to leave home. It soon became terrifying. The boy-dog was the first to state their predicament. It was his personal custom to state the obvious. He said:
-we are lost.
His tail was wagging as he said this. The fear had not yet touched the tail/tale of the adventure in his head. The girl-dog was wiser. She had heard the stories of the lions in the desert. She stayed close to her mother not simply out of fear, because she was quite resolved, but to breathe in the familiar smell of home.
The sandstorm passed duly but now everything was sand. The mother-dog could no longer make her way toward freedom or toward the boundary of home.
She sighed, guessed the old distance and began to walk slowly toward a barely understood concept she had heard called “east”. Her children followed her in unquestioning trust.


(For the sake of keeping the story short and sweet we may travel through their time faster than they have, not suffering the sweat, sun, agony of what they endured for hours….we meet up with them as they encounter the peculiar situation that is at the centre of this whole narration…….)
It was not long, in our time, but hideously long for them, before they ran into trouble. The mother-dog could see that a pride of lions had begun to encircle them. She found a tactful way to pull her children close to her, to shield them from the knowledge of danger. We are told that it is not in the nature of such creatures to think this way, to ward off mental as well as physical danger. We are told that it is not the way of the dog to do this yet it is the way of this dog. For, in her heart, she hoped to give her pups a little peace before the impending dark plunged them into a violent death.

The pride was slow to attack. The prey had no way to escape. They had cut off, slowly, any route of useless attempts to do so. They did not want to run.
Soon they were visible to each other; the predator and the prey. Three lionesses came forward and looked down at three measly dogs. The meat for the evening.
The mother-dog stood in front of her scared brood. Her own hind legs shook terribly. She forced herself to look at the killers. She forced herself to bark against their roar. She made herself brave. And in that stance, she waited for the darkness to come.
But the darkness did not come. A hint of recognition won the day. For in the face of the lioness that stood at the head of the hunting pack she did not see slayer, killer or predator. She saw the face of an old friend.

Three dogs walk in the midst of desert-lions into a canyon of broken trees and forgotten wells. It is the only semi-shade in all the heat and the recognized face, now revealed as the queen of the pack, has declared it to be cool at night. It is already fading day.
The queen-lion and the mother-dog go to the head of a large boulder and talk under its unique shade. The boy-dog is intrigued by the size of the cubs and grabs his sister to go and explore these magnificent creatures of smaller stature. They all begin to play.
The mothers talk.
-I did not think you would survive running into the desert.
-I surprised myself.
-all these years and now you are a queen.
-by precedence not by achievement.
-Still...all this time...we are old, we have fresh-ones of our own.
-where is your male?
-which one? There are many. I have had many pups that have grown. My present male...he comes and goes. Your king?
- He comes here at night. He is probably hunting some female...not to eat as meat. I am not sad (laughs) male is male and female is female. It is the way of the species. It is the way of all nature.

-I always wondered why you left the commune.
-my heart wanted the wild, the open spaces, to be free of rules that contradict my nature. To be free.
-they say you murdered some chickens (glances uneasily at her children playing with the cubs).
-your pups are safe. I have ordered it so. I did eat those chickens. To eat meat is in my heart. I cannot fight it. It is my nature. But you are not meat. You are a friend. It seems the commune had some effect on me after all. I cannot eat a friend.
The mother-dog allows herself to relax under the powerful eyes of her friend. The sand is cooler here. She is weary from walking and talking and protecting. She falls asleep.
The boy-dog was playing with the girl-cub when he first heard that they would be eaten. He had beaten her to a third race around the canyon. She had a fond look on her face when she said:
-I will be sorry when we have to eat you, fast-one.
Her tone was cool. She had no frills about him being both friend and meat.

The boy-dog runs to his mother and begins to bark out this new revelation of their fate. He does not know that the queen-lion still remembers the bark-language apart from the common tongue of all creatures. His mother could not tell him to be quiet fast enough. He read it in his mother’s first look. He knew they were doomed.

-so this is the end for us?
-I am sorry.
-is there no other way?
-this is the only way, the way of nature. One day I will die and the vulture will be my predator. It is the way it is, the very real circle of life.

-it will be easier if you do not fight it. I will make the death fast for all of you.
- This was all a trap.
-I did not want to hunt you. This is better.
-for you!
-it was always going to end this way. Deceiving you was an act of mercy. My sisters-in-marriage can be vicious. I spared you their torture. Can’t you see? Once you fell into our path your lives were forfeit. This is the best way. It will be quick. I promise.

-what happened to you in the desert?
-I became who I truly am.
- A liar, a killer, an eater of friends!!
-a lion, a beast, a predator.
The queen says this with a roar and the canyon shakes. The other eaters tense, expecting the feast is almost at hand. But she goes silent again. The shadow of impending death leaves her eyes. For the moment…
The mother-dog knows it is only a temporary calm. For all her bold talk there is no hope left in her. She knows she will die here, with her children, her efforts at freedom ending in bloody failure.

-you were running away, weren’t you?
-Yes.
-why?
-to be free.
-where is freedom possible?
-I heard there is a place beyond the desert…a place….
-…flowing with milk and honey. I heard it too. Where the lion lies with the lamb and the heart is no longer hungry. It was the first rumour I heard of life beyond the commune. The rumour of my own heart was stronger.
-so you gave up?
- I settled for reality not some dream land. Do you know how many pilgrims to this utopia lie in my belly?
-I think you are one of those victims..
-silence! Once my husband comes we will feast.
-and this is your freedom; hunter for an absent male.
-no, this is my freedom; not trying to be more than I am. That will only kill you.
-it has killed me already.

The queen-lion thinks of these words long after her friend has gone silent. They twirl in her head like that first rush of courage that drove her into the desert. The early-morning joy, the first jolt, the risk before the let down. This was a letdown. She was free but empty. Freedom was nothing by itself. Once it saved you from the chains you were in: what next? Her next moment had never come.
Now she was stuck. She could not kill her friend. She knew it the moment she began the hunt. She had been altered by the mere possibility of leaving at peace with others. She was not a killer; she only pretended to be one, to fit in with her kind, to please her male, to hide herself. Every hunt had numbed her but none had cured her of the conscience of knowing there was something more. Something more.
The more was beyond her now but she made her final decision in worship of it. She arrived at that place of milk and honey without ever stepping on the land that held its promise.

The dog walked away, slowly, trying to hide the joy of escape. She was not going back to where she had come from. That would not be possible. She had travelled too far. Her pups stayed close to her side. Together they walked toward the promise of a new home.
The queen-lion watched the dogs fade with the day, out of sight. She knew what would happen next. Her orders had been firm and would be followed. The dogs were safe. She was not so sure of herself. She could already see, in her mind’s eye, the shadows gathering around her. The ancient code had to be appeased. New meat must be found. Someone else would die.
Still, as the shadows came, closer and closer, almost real, she had the vague rustling of that old joy. She felt like herself when she was young and fearless and ready to be different. She felt like she had defeated her own nature by betraying it. She felt like she was on her way home.

may your heart break....and mine too..

Common wisdom has it that heartbreak should be avoided at all cost. But common wisdom is not always right. In fact it, probably, rarely is. Such wisdom comes from the experience of common fears and thus normally lacks the ambition to grow out of that fear. For this fear, and its twisted logic, leads us to stifle imagination, cripple wonder and to live the safe-ordinary lives that can create nothing truly spectacular. In the hum drum life, where safety is king, any act or word that may have even the slightest element of apparent risk is crucified and every path to uncertain glory is the road that will not be taken.
We are taught early in life that safety is to avoid pain and enhance pleasure. If heartbreak is the worst kind of internal pain then any possible step to that house must not be given room to grow in our minds. This colours everything. Soon we have no real dreams or passion or want or desire. All we have must be processed through the great machine of self-preservation and serve the demi-god of the circumstances we can see, imagine or control with only our naked eye and the eyes of others that have done nothing with the gift of life.
Yet we cannot thrive in this life-house without the ingenuity of our sense of wonder, our need for real passion in our lives, our constant craving to act out the dreams long held in our storied hearts. For true material and spiritual advancement is anchored on our great search of the unknown, our questioning of the shadows and learning the uncomfortable answers of the light. We live lives that can only be challenged and enriched by taking risk.
Stop. Now imagine for a second that you have done all I recommend above. That you have let your heart set out on to uncertain seas and sea shores. And you have failed. Imagine that this has left your heart a little more broken than before or it has crushed you completely. What to do now?
Here, we reach the crux of the matter. For I do not only recommend that you risk all for the sake of truth but I also recommend that when your attempt at reaching for the stars fails and fades before your teary eyes that you let yourself fall. That you let your heart break.
Now, my aim is not to trivialize pain or to exaggerate the unpractical but I do believe that in pursuing the extra-ordinary life that heartbreak may be necessary and ‘practicality’ less so. Sadly our examples of success seem to push us toward the inner thinking box rather than spring us out of it. Our reaction is to copy and not to innovate or build upon. There is a genuine but misguided belief to save people without a saviour or a saving path, to protect them from the ills of this world while also shielding them from the possibility of things. Christianity, at its core, offers another path-the saved must understand the sacrifice of the saviour, acknowledge it in all its brutality and daily live in the serenity of the grace it offers. It says “carry your cross” “die daily” not as pseudo-masochistic undertakings but as reminders that true character is made in the furnace of ordeal. To avoid ordeal is to miss the opportunity to grow. Everything in life tells us that it is in difficult times that words like courage, leadership, perseverance, triumph have any meaning. We avoid such trying times to our own detriment.
Heartbreak? To be broken by an event shows you are invested enough in an outcome to be affected by it. It is not cowardly to fall apart because your dreams and hopes have been dashed. It is cowardly to not dare a dream. It is not weak to cry tears when you are hurt. It is weak to not admit hurt or to worship that hurt as an excuse for inertia. It is not foolish to be used or deceived for it is wise to learn to trust in people, principles, and possibilities. There is nothing wrong in being wrong for it leaves open the door to be made right.
For all failure can lead to eventual success and every letdown is innately beautiful because of the creation or re-creation that can come from chaos. The light that is always ready to conquer your dying day. The truth that is always willing to correct the lies you have bought and sold to your-self.
In the end the truth is what the soul desperately needs. It is worth the broken heart because it is the final, crucial healing for the heart. Truth sits above all realism, practicality, relativity. It cannot be subjective because by its very nature it is objective.
We hope on things everyday that will break our hearts, all limited, finite, and not able to satisfy. I do not recommend that anyone tries by effort to shut out these false whispers because they help us realize the great shout of God. For even the lie has the purpose of failing so the truth may stand. We may need to hit our head against the wall in the dark to remember to look for the light switch. I do not wish to puncture any balloons of hope too soon. I have often made the mistake of trying to burst my own too soon or help others to do the same to theirs. It does not work. Truth must come from the realization of the individual heart. You may plant the seed or water the growing plant but you never, ever give the increase. That bit God leaves for Himself.
The individual must grow through his or her own anguished night. The heart must break. A death to self must occur. For this breaking down is the first symbol of repentance and the cornerstone of faith. Weakness must accept strength; the fallen must be raised by the power of the sun. It is not a weak position to take to give in to God. We are already weak compared to the vastness of the eternal spirit. Our lives are brief, our skins are so easily broken and our power over the earth is limited. Admitting this lack and “lostness” is simply owning up to the truth about ourselves.
To find initial purpose and to thrive in being built by it is the strongest decision we can make. If a broken heart is the path to knowing that this is the truth then: May my heart break.…and yours too.

singing david gray to her.."please forgive me...."

Please forgive me
If I act alittle strange
For I know not what I do.
Feels like lightning running through my veins
Everytime I look at you
Everytime I look at you

Help me out here
All my words are falling short
And theres so much I want to say
Want to tell you just how good it feels
When you look at me that way
When you look at me that way

Throw a stone and watch the ripples flow
Moving out across the bay
Like a stone I fall into your eyes
Deep into some mystery
Deep into that mystery

I got half a mind to scream out loud
I got half a mind to die
So I wont ever have to lose you girl
Wont ever have to say goodbye
I wont ever have to lie
Wont ever have to say goodbye

Yeah na na na na
Yeah na na na na

Please forgive me
If I act alittle strange
For I know not what I do
Its like my head is filled with lightning girl
Everytime I look at you
Everytime I look at you
Everytime I look at you
Everytime I look at you

babylon....

Friday night I'm going nowhere
All the lights are changing green to red
Turning over TV stations
Situations running through my head
Well looking back through time
You know it's clear that I've been blind
I've been a fool
To ever open up my heart
To all that jealousy, that bitterness, that ridicule

Saturday I'm running wild
And all the lights are changing red to green
Moving through the crowd I'm pushing
Chemicals all rushing through my bloodstream
Only wish that you were here
You know I'm seeing it so clear
I've been afraid
To tell you how I really feel
Admit to some of those bad mistakes I've made

If you want it
Come and get it
Crying out loud
The love that I was
Giving you was
Never in doubt
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now

Babylon, Babylon

Sunday all the lights of London
Shining , Sky is fading red to blue
I'm kicking through the Autumn leaves
And wondering where it is you might be going to
Turning back for home
You know I'm feeling so alone
I can't believe
Climbing on the stair
I turn around to see you smiling there
In front of me


If you want it
Come and get it
Crying out loud
The love that I was
Giving you was
Never in doubt
And feel it now
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now

Babylon, Babylon, Babylon

the crush....

i have not had a crush in years
or so i will say if someone else was here
nothing else to hide from or fear
until i bring my hand close to your ear
and try to make music from the tear
of my heart
next to you

you say it is inappropriate to walk this line
i say rejection never looked so fine
i am done with love like yesterday
just to find a little fairy near
soon to be gone
but let me try
to sing a new song of original meaning
it is to you i have been waiting,leaning
no need for conversation when love comes
or is it just the crush?
then God bless the old word
for you are the swagger, the temple, the sword

and if it is how it is advertised in my heart
it will pass by fast
too quick for words or reason
just an old song for the new season

and if it is what i say it is
you have nothing to fear
tolkien or soyinka need not bother
no epic or saga to depict
it is just an end

and if it is only a crush
then before these words are read
i would have moved on

but i saw you in prime age
and something in me moved
like snow on the end of winter
like the last rain in june
like the marsh road of smeagol ending
something moved

so.....perhaps...it is time...to freak out
for number one
may be number two
afterall.

on ambition: part 2 : the answer: "reach of arm."

to say: "i want to change the world" is a wide and silly concept without the benefit of context. in this season of obama-love the idea of change can become the pseudo-quest for self-importance ( we are important intrinsically but not merely for ourselves). it is easy to set the task of saving the world in general and connect it to innate feelings of misapplied greatness. but life is not the united nations and the people who have had the most impact in shaping global right thinking have always sprung out of ethical-political campaigns situated in a local context. think: martin luther king and race relations in america or gandhi and indian independence or nelson mandela and the end of aparthied in south africa. saving the world begins, and may end, in the context of your own local setting.
your very own patch of the earth. true greatness is not manufactured it is merely lived up to. a thousand books on becoming will not change the silent call of your own heart, telling you to do that particular task and become a little more like yourself.

when i say i want to change the world i must begin with my own patch of earth. i do not know if the words i say or the acts i perform will have any effect on the street child in mumbai or the tortured woman in kabul. i know the troubles within my own family. i know when my friends are hurting. these are within the reach of my arm. this is where i begin to change the world one person at a time. the way i will deal with six billion is an extension of the way i have dealt with one. in our generation, private acts must match public conduct. i should not be uncaring to the people i spend most of my time with and speak love to the general peoples of the world. i should not seek to escape facing the real questions of my own corruption by subsuming them into a quest to end,say, economic corruption. i am more concerned today with living and loving within the reach of my own arm.

of course my arm will extend. there is a wife around the corner and children to be born, books to write, business, activism...my horizons will continually expand. and i will grow into all of it. i am in no hurry. i am not trying to meet up with some landmark set before me. the land that is my life is virgin territory. i walk alone, competing with no one. the reach of my arm is my own patch of earth.

so, for this weekend, this is how i intend to change the world: i am going home early today- to hang out with my sisters and sit with my mother(she has been a bit under the weather lately). i am going to call friends and brothers and just talk breeze. i am going to call the woman i am chasing and try to make her laugh. for somewhere between my lack of a funny bone, anywhere and her idea of laughter only in reaction to sarcasm we have not done that enough. tommorow i am going to the house of my brother to observe capentry and eat free food. on sunday me, that woman, my brother and his woman are going to see the nigeria-kenya game. we are going to sit in the stadium and scream for the great green white green. between screams i will be sipping on my first bottle of beer ever. the reach of my arm.

and everday i will wake up to find it again: the awareness that if i live the best life i know how, if i allow grace in, as an ocean, and let it carry me on its heady wave to island after island in need of a light houses for the soul- from shore to shore, person to person, living, breathing, becoming forri, then i will be changing the world.

on ambition: part 1 : the question: "reach of arm?"

i have a running lie i tell so i do not have to explain myself too much. anytime i am asked about my own ambition i usually say, by word and then by deed, "nothing". or i play to the specific gallery. to lawyers i make some broad statement about changing the practice of law in nigeria"( for isn't the word "change" the moniker of our present kairos). to writers and readers i want to write, write and only write. to christian's i am all for christ domination. they are all ready answers to make sure i am left alone as quickly as possible. the lie was initially intended to hide the fact that i had no idea what i was doing. now, i know perfectly well what my days will bring, who i am becoming, in all those general and specific colours of fate and faith. in one sense i have always known. in another sense i am discovering it day by day. but now i am ready to say it out. to put it in words and hope that, to the hearer, it all adds up to some sort of logic beyond me.



i have thought about a definition for what i consider a worthy life beyond the the general sound bite of a "discover your purpose" seminar or book or book from seminar or seminar from book. i woke up this morning with an old quote from an odd book of delights in my head. the book is "Hannibal" by that writer of outstanding thrillers Thomas Harris. in one bright scene our heroine, clarice starling, is deciding what to do about our villian-hero, hannibal lecter. lecter has been abducted by one of his earlier victims, the demented mason verger, and is sure to be killed if starling does not intervene. she weighs her choices. she is, by now, a suspended FBI agent, her career lies in ruins, she may be facing criminal indictments in the near future. and all of this in the line of duty, while struggling to do the right thing ina world of wrong motives. she does not need to save him. she is the only witness to his abduction and no one believes her or really cares if lecter lives or dies. she could go home and mourn her descending life rather than risk it all for a man who is dangerous and would kill her if she ever got boring. it makes no sense to face verger and his gang of goons backed by money and the government. it is not worth saving a monster. her final thought in making her decision is of her father. he is the highest ideal of the worthy life, to her. it is with this thought that she rises, holsters her gun, turns her car toward the lair of villians and arch-villians with the declaration: "the world will not be this way within the reach of my arm."



i am going to write books but that is not my end. it is merely a means.

i am going to practice law but that is not my destiny or destination. it is merely a path to take.

i believe that in jesus christ we encounter the light above all lights, the light by which we can truly observe other lights. i believe that in his life on earth he showed the way man and all men should live and love and die to live again, full. i believe that jesus is the way to see God and what He wants with us. it is in seeing God that we see ourselves alive and living, full. looking and living toward jesus is the means to an end in God. i am not to take that revelation and move into a jungle in vain pursuit of the "pure life". faith or real religion is not an escape from the problems of the world, it is an answer to the problem of the world.



so, now i have a new answer to that old question: "what are your ambitions? what are you on earth for?"

the answer: "the world will not be this way within the reach of my arm." my gun is packed, i am turning my car toward the storm and danger. i want to change the world.

the fine art of being wrong.

i am wrong more than i am right. this is the best lesson growing out of my own skin has taught me. my wrongdoing outweighs my hypocritical acts of purity. my decision-making process is flawed, my dreams are too light to settle on the earth, i am my own God and reference-point and the only thing that keeps me going is my delusion that one day i will "slip the surly bounds of earth and touch the face of God".
and i am learning i will be more wrong in the future. i will miss it 99 times to the 1 time i will hit the centre of that darn dartboard. i will be in more useless scrapes, i will fall down, get more weary from trying, i will battle depression again, i will leave many battles with a bloody nose and a silent ear. i will not meet up to many a standard, i will spend money on rubbish i do not need, spend time with people i do not like, pretend to be a soccer nut, pretend to be interested in things i do not care about, try to fit in, fail to fit in, be cast out, find a lonely spot, get over it in obscene ways, make a mess and ask a God to fix it because He loves me. i will be wrong, again. about people and places, statements and states, processes and purposes. i will be wrong before today ends.
but in constantly being wrong i will rise. i will learn that humility is the first, last and middlestep to the door of eternity. i will learn to rely on the universe greater than i, the creator greater than the universe and the nexus that connects me with the creator and His ultimate purpose.
in being wrong i will grow. my jaw will grow hard from the punches, my back will grow stronger from the weight. my sight will get better from seeing in the dark, my aim will get more flexible from failing to hit the target and my mind will open up to new ideas from the failure of my own. i will learn.
i will learn that the crowd, the mob is always spewing nonsense. they always want to hang truth from the tree and let the rebel out with his murdering hands. i will learn to be forri and no one else. i will learn i walk alone on the path before me and though people are assigned by providence to help me along they cannot take my place or walk for me. at best they walk beside me on a narrow path of their own. i will learn to let go, to forgive the weaknesses of others because i have mine. to carry both on this road would weigh me down.
and i will rise. i will rise to know right from wrong and truth from fiction. i will rise to find that at the height the eagle soars every problem is small and my hanging on to things is because they seemed big when i walked the portion of my path where i was supposed to soar on the wings of that perfect bird. i will rise from wrong to learning right.
i am in no hurry to be perfect. i do not apologise for my imperfection. i live for an audience of one, for one set of hands to come together in final applause for the fulfilment of my worthy life. that being, thriving in the great hall of faith, does not mind my being wrong. from His height it is all turning right at the cross.
He knows i am merely perfecting the fine art of being wrong.

why you must move on...by john mayer

People have the right to fly
And will when it gets compromised
Their hearts say "Move along"
Their minds say "Gotcha heart"
Let's move it along

And airports, see it all the time
Where someone's last goodbye
Blends in with someone's sigh
Cause someone's coming home
In hand, a single rose

That's the way this wheel keeps working now
That's the way this wheel keeps working now
And I won't be the last
No I won't be the last, to love her

You can't build a house of leaves
And live like it's an evergreen
It's just a season thing
It's just this thing that seasons do

And that's the way this wheel keeps working now
That's the way this wheel keeps working now
And you won't be the first
No you won't be the first, to love me

You can find me, if you ever want to give
I'll be around the bend
I'll be around the bend
I'll be around, I'll be around
And if you never stop when you wave goodbye
You just might find
if you give it time
You will wave hello again
You just might wave hello again

And that's the way this wheel keeps working now
That's the way this wheel keeps working now

You can't love too much, one part of it(repeat)
I believe that my life's gonna see
The love I give
return to me
I believe that my life's gonna see
yeah
The love I give return to me.
I believe that my life's gonna see
the love I giveReturn to me...

(words and music by john mayer)

in search of the love-specific....

"i love you but i am not in love with you." that has to be one of the dumbest statements ever made out of a grasp for a convienient answer for an inconvienient question. it is a way of saying, i think you are great but i want more than great. i want the greatest. why not just say that? clarity is the best way to go when in a tight corner. that phrase has always annoyed me. i have never bought the tale that love is a thing you can put in compartments, that you can love in this way this person and in another way that other person. of course you have preferences,some momentary and some otherwise but i think that is like. intense like but still like. love is the great objective. it hovers above our in and out feelings, our passionate affairs, our attractions. like makes us selfish, more time with ...., more space in .......'s life, more, more, more. love makes us whole. it is the great oasis after a desert of the unfulfilment of arms that flap in and out of our lives. love is an end, like is a means ,to our own satisfaction. i have liked and liked all my life. i am only now learning to love.

and then there is the love-specific.

my val's day was a disaster. nothing went well. i just got caught up in useless fights and destructive anger. when i have days like this the remedy is a long bus ride. so i took one. i sat at the head of the bus, facing everyone else. it was there, defending myself in my own head, that i caught it. there was a girl and a boy to my left. she was wearing a veil, dressed conservatively, you could tell what religion she was. he was fair, looked like he was from the southern part of the country and talked like it too. they could not have been more different. except they were holding hands. they looked in that fine heat of romance. they looked like they were in love. now, this happens all the time. in youth we forget social,religious, tribal differences and fall in love. or intense like. but it was a beautiful thing to see. i know that a christian can quote the "unevenly yoked" scripture and a muslim can quote the Quran on how this is all a sin but i think God smiles down at this. for these two are defying religion and family and seperate inclinations to try and make an attraction work. it probably will not but they are closer to love than all our singles' seminars, play-it-safe, use 'wisdom' to decide, false sense of security decision making processes. they are advancing toward the love-specific. we are still stuck on safety and convienience.

on my way to work on another morning i saw a man and his daughter. he bought her a seat and showed her the city as the slow, red bus opened up to the early streets. she looked content to be in her father's presence and he looked happy to spend time with her. this man was poor. he did not look neat nor did he sound particularly intelligent. he was probably solving a thousand problems in his head. but he gave his full attention to this young mind forming and growing. he showed me another glimpse of the love-specific.

love is the great objective but its expression is the love-specific. for it is not a general zen state of love toward humanity but a love toward every man in your way, every person you encounter, every opportunity you have to make a life better or not worse. we fail at it but we grow in it. we catch it in glimpses but we are moving toward the whole picture.

so i am in search of the love-specific. today is my older, much older (hahaha), brother's brithday. there is hanging out to be done. they may or may not be booze. my younger sister is getting married on saturday. i think she is a marrying a g.....but i will think so of anyone who marries any of my sisters. i have not been as into it as i should. that stops now. all my anger, all my disappointment,all my thoughts of rage and revenge at people that have let me down is evaporating. for they were not born to please me but to live their own sacred lives. i love them best by allowing them enter their own fullness than in forcing them into mine. i am in search of the love-specific.

and so we come to the women..if i am totally honest the woman i really want does not exist. she is a figment of my mind. i created her. God has refused to follow suit. so i have to trust Him with the love-specific. on this road of truth and redemption lies mrs. white. i may know her, i may not,she may be part of my past or only part of the future, she may be reading this and thinking "what an idiot!" but she exists. and when we dance around and then into each others arms to hold and make all kinds of love in all kinds of colours, when we break ground and move past the feel of the thing and into the life of the thing, there will i, she,we have the closest shadow of that high communion with God. the love-specific.

so, i live.

my birthday song...

"Nuclear"


'This is where the summer ends
In a flash of pure destruction,
no one wins

Go nuclear.
Nuclear.

The violets in my eyelids goin' red
Sentimental geek
Shut up and go to sleep
The calm, the beach and the remains
Of the bathing suits and Porsches all in flames

Go nuclear.
Nuclear.

When I saw her and the Yankees lost to the Braves(or nigeria drew with mozambique,which is sort of a loss)
Sentimental geek
Shut up and go to sleep

(God) give me an answer (if you want to)"

words and music by ryan adams.
additions in brackets are mine. to make it specific.,

sex is holy?

"There was a time you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was
Hallelujah"
words and music by leonard cohen

we are all afflicted with the desire to pursue sexual intimacy. some of us will find it and some will find fulfilment in celibacy(though i can not figure out how that works or why..i will leave that to He who delights in contradictions but is the great harbinger of truth). c.s. lewis once noted that once sex was talked about too little and then too much, neither helping keep the act sacred or the doers of the deed free from guilt and doubt. it is a complex and personal thing and it defines so much of who we are and what we do. it is the hot topic of religious instruction and those that give up on doctrine do so, many times, simply because they can not reconcile the perpetual turn to their desire with keeping up with the "do not have sex" instruction. apostle paul, celibate and all, did us no favours by making sexual sin a stand out and the books generally spell out doom and gloom for those that indulge in the act; sex is holy within a context and outside that you are on dangerous ground.
the truth is that it happens quite a lot. even in the most religious settings. we have not been open enough to help each other or closed enough to protect each other or graceful enough to forgive and show redemption. there are a hundred things you can do around sex and call yourself clean. the thought is enough, jesus said, in a rare word about the sacred act. so i have had sex today once i thought about it..o brother!
and then there are those of us fractured by early sexual encounters, abuse, rape and all the things that may make us see the act as repulsive and redundant to pleasure of mind and body. those that live in shame of past acts and cry over every present act, caught in a cycle of meaningless encounters, for whom sex has become the verb; fucking and nothing else. i was too young myself. twelve, hungry for escape, eager for fake nirvana, not knowing what the thing meant, confused by the advances of older women and men who insisted they it was all about love. no it was not. and when one toook the wind from me and by chance it was a woman and not a man, my sexuality was formed in this way. what if it was a man? would i be gay now? how dare i say such things? how many boys out there have been raped by men and then turned to the alternative lifestyle. could i have been one of them? if the chance turned the other way? to these i have nothing but sadness and anger for the crime and prayers offered. for sex is too complicated to be forced on a child.
and some of us just liked to be touched. the act is expression, feeling, need. but in the lonely hours we feel there is more than an orgasm to the act. we know it can be a "haLLELUJAH" moment. that two people can so connect that their love can find a bed to express deep things in physical acts and loud noises that come from deep in the heart.
the next time i have sex i am going to cry. i am going to share a bed with someone i have already shared everything else with. my mind has always been: sex is holy? it will be. no more empty face and fallen dreams. it is not all there is to life but for that moment i want to let go of gravity and fly with the woman i love. i want, as mr. cohen said, to move with the holy dove. the next time i have sex it will be holy.
i hope it will be so for you too.
i pray so.
hallelujah.

on past state, present memory, future joy.

"Hallelujah"

Now I've heard there was a secret chord

That David played, and it pleased the Lord

But you don't really care for music, do you?

It goes like this

The fourth,

the fifth

The minor fall,

the major lift

The baffled king composing

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof

You saw her bathing on the roof

Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you

She tied you

To a kitchen chair

She broke your throne,

and she cut your hair

And from your lips she drew the

Hallelujah

Baby I have been here before

I know this room, I've walked this floor

I used to live alone before I knew you.

I've seen your flag on the marble arch

Love is not a victory march

It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah,

Hallelujah

Hallelujah,

Hallelujah

There was a time you let me know

What's really going on below

But now you never show it to me, do you?

And remember when I moved in you

The holy dove was moving too

And every breath we drew was

Hallelujah

Hallelujah,

Hallelujah

Hallelujah,

Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain

I don't even know the name

But if I did, well really, what's it to you?

There's a blaze of light

In every word

It doesn't matter which you heard

The holy or the broken

Hallelujah

Hallelujah,

Hallelujah

Hallelujah,

Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much

I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch

I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you

And even though

It all went wrong

I'll stand before the Lord of Song

With nothing on my tongue but

Hallelujah

Hallelujah,

Hallelujah

Hallelujah,

Hallelujah

Hallelujah,

Hallelujah

Hallelujah,

Hallelujah

Hallelujah,

Hallelujah

Hallelujah,

Hallelujah

Hallelujah,

Hallelujah

Hallelujah,

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

words and music (originally) by leonard cohen

a song and a prayer.

"When you look at the world
What is it that you see?
People find all kinds of things
That bring them to their knees
I see an expression
So clear and so true
That it changes the atmosphere
When you walk into the room
So I try to be like you
Try to feel it like you do
But without you it's no use
I can't see what you see
When I look at the world
When the night is someone elses
And you're trying to get some sleep
When your thoughts are too expensive
To ever want to keep
When there's all kinds of chaos
And everyone is walking lame
You don't even blink now,
do you
Or even look away
So I try to be like you
Try to feel it like you do
But without you it's no use
I can't see what you see
When I look at the world
I can't wait any longer
I can't wait till I'm stronger
Can't wait any longer
To see what you see
When I look at the world
I'm in the waiting room
Can't see for the smoke
I think of you and your holy book
While the rest of us choke
Tell me, tell me, what do you see?
Tell me, tell me, what's wrong with me"
words by bono and the edge, music by U2 and allied musicians.

the GOD series:Hebrews 11 and Hebrews 12:from fantasy to faith.

"I have climbed highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you
I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing fingertips
It burned like a fire
This burning desire
I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
I believe in the Kingdom Come
When all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
Well, yes I'm still running
You broke the bonds
And you loosened the chains
Carried the crossOf all my shame
all my shame
You know I believe it
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for"
music and lyrics by U2 "i still haven't found what i'm looking for"

“FROM FANTASY TO FAITH”
There is the old joke about getting everything you want. “Be careful...” it begins, warning us about the prayer that asks for the things we think we need only to find, when we have them...I have been thinking about getting everything I want. It seems now possible that I can have it all. It is not just a childhood dream anymore, this pursuit of the worthy life. It is now possible reality. So, what if? What if I wrote that book that said all I had to say and married that woman in the embrace of total love and lived in that light house on a hill with the children, long sought and prayed for, playing easily in the shifting, high grass? What will happen when my inner dreams finally match outer reality?
My answer has always been too simple: joy, fulfilment, completeness. I might be 70 years old when I notice that my life is good, might be on a deathbed with a fading heart, only then sensing that the shadows of heaven have been around me all along. Still, the picture will be complete.
Now, however, I see holes appearing in my dreams of completeness. I see blotches on the white garment of my future-mind. In the middle of my reverie about the perfect day lies the imperfect mind that creates such mass-manufactured bliss. I underestimate the very real hunger of my own soul.
I remember what it felt like at the summit of the romantic love I shared recently. The way I would watch her do the most mundane task, eating perhaps, and attach holiness to that sacred moment. The way she could gently bend my day away from darkness and into her glowing light by telling me to be calm, to not let the flood overwhelm me, to be more like myself. I remember holding her hand and feeling connected in every way, walking in a crowd but seeing only her, laughing at our private jokes, calling her for no reason but love, counting the seconds in between till she replied some text I had sent her with the wit of her brain and the colour of her beautiful heart. It felt perfect, unstoppable, like the alchemy, the all-cure, the all-thing, the love that all other inklings with other women led up to. Complete. Not perfect, but complete. And yet I was still hungry. I would needle her over irrelevant nonsense, feign jealousy at innocuous acts , switch off when she wanted to talk deep and all the time test her, probe, push, pull, look for where the weakness was, try to prove that there was something wrong here, that love could not be true and so naturally so. At first I put it all down to not trusting love or that anyone could love me and not leave. So why not speed up the process of departure? Now I know better. We were total in our fragile state and had the potential to be more but it was not enough for me. I wanted something more. Our hearts are carved in the shape of heaven. The things we chase can lead us further or closer to that. Yet they cannot be that place. I could stare into those beautiful eyes forever and it would not be enough. If we are honest about our true state, this is all of us. When you get what you want you get busy with trying to keep it. If you do not, if you allow one minute of introspection, one second of inner study of the entire picture of your desire, you will see how hungry you still are. The big secret about life on planet earth is: nothing satisfies.
Within all of us is this hunger for heaven that only heaven can satisfy. There is no complete life without the complete picture of God, no real freedom without the great boundary of faith, no real end without a beginning in God. The final frontier is faith; the last safe place is the in the arms of a certain belief and the fulfilment of that stand is the full fulfilment of the single soul.
I am writing this on the outer bench of a church. There is that microphone in the air sound, the static, the trumpet, the horn, the voice of one certain in his hopes, the safety we seek in concepts like God and free will and church community. A boy cries for his mother. He hugs her legs and she bears him up, toward the safety of her embrace. There is this illusion of simple need met by simpler action. It speaks also of the illusion of safety hidden in the great cathedrals of our minds. No room to be troubled or sad or wrong or wronged. Always act “as if”. As if you are not scared. As if he/she did not hurt you. As if you are not in pain. Walk on in pretence. And then we call this faith. To cover up every question we have about the state of our souls and the state of our world because we hope that in God’s divine safety net we will not be touched by storm or fire, by wind or by flood. The mark of the blood (and you must repeat “blood of...”) will separate us from the Egyptians (sorry, D.) and we will be safe. The bounty of heaven will grant all our desires and we will be rich. The giver of destinies will make us important and we will do well. The redeemer will find us a spouse, a house, a car and a job and all the doubters, the charlatans will bow to our affirmation as the sons of God risen from out of scripture to live life full. Is this not faith? No. This is fantasy. I agree that in the early days of the God-experience it all seems like this. Promises made from the heart of your new love seem to say you have come to rest and all your former frustrations with everything but yourself have come to a crucial end at the cross of Calvary. This is fantasy. The reality is blood and gore and death in discomfort. The reward is resurrection and life forever. This is our faith.
There is no moment for me like the moments in which I am writing. It is complete all by itself. Time stops, hunger disappears, I am at the wheel of my own special car. I have entered that zone where Christ told his over-eager disciples “my meat and drink is to do the will of my father.” And where Tupac Shakur noted: “I feel the hand of God on my brain when I write rhymes.” I feel most like myself in between a paper, a pen and the forming of words steadily in my head and heart. And even this is not enough. There are dry days when the wells of inspiration are hard and deep. I cannot spend my whole life in the solitude of writing. It may feel complete but it will not complete me. There is still the more I want beyond this. For fantasy is to take glimpses as the full picture, a rest on a mountaintop as the end of all valleys ,to think that faith is about giving you all you want rather than the assurance that in God’s brilliant lights you will find all you need.
A verse in Hebrews 11 makes this crucial statement about faith: “and all these died without receiving the things that God had promised them.” When I read that it bothered me so much I put it away for a few...years. Yet we have to look at truth when we see it and in looking at the first promise we are told about between a rising God and a fallen man on the basis of faith we find the secret of every subsequent promise. “Come Abram, leave all you know and come to a place that I will show you.” Our entire faith is here. Come from the comfort of family, from the scourge of indifference, from the every religious inclination, every church or mosque, every prayer house or group of doubt, come from where you are right now, from that imperfection called your former life, come to be who you truly are, come and find faith out of that fantasy called the ordinary life.
The promise was never physical safety or ‘true love’ or a soul that wants nothing. The promise is hunger, cold, comfort, truth, power, weakness, loss and all these wonderful ingredients leading to one glorious end-Him. The reward for the worthy life is God. God does not lead us down this road of tragedy and grace so we can get a gift. The gift is Him. Nothing else will do at the end of the road of life. The world is not enough for any of us.
Think of the last time you experienced the end of any pleasure, satiation. A good meal making you full, an orgasm, an evening with a person you adore, a job well done, anything at all. Just be sure to think honestly. It was not enough, was it? Somewhere in your soul you have to admit that it only made you more aware of your hunger. It did not cure you. You knew you would be hungry again. Hungry for more food or achievement or sex or intimacy. More. All these things we chase tell us there is more. They are not the more.
God is the more. Faith is the belief that He is the final place we are going and where all of this drama we see and feel will make sense. It is so simple it is by instinct we draw close to it. While we have to invent fantasy, all we have to do to embrace faith is to listen to the hunger of our soul. And listen to what it says as we fail and fail again to fill it with all the air in the world. For if there is no God or He has been replaced by science or logic, if all of this is some carefully constructed myth sustained over time by a Mafioso church and only that, then why are we still hungry? Why do we still want more than we can get in this world?
It is time for us to end the fantasy. To chose to live up to the truth. To join the league of those who know they will not be satisfied, until...those that hunger and thirst...for they shall be filled...to move from fantasy to faith.

the best people i know.

I have been writing this entry in my head and in my heart for months. I hope I finally get it right.
I want to celebrate the gift of golden friendships; the great rising that is the final realisation that you are not totally alone in the world, that there are others like you and that you will face the world, back to back, together. I want to name names, state events; I want to expose some of the best people I know to the brilliant light of day. I will not arrange it in any particular order and it is by no means an exhaustive list. So, Holy Spirit or profane muse, lead me on:
I celebrate myani. He once said that Nas and I were the reason he was sent to law school. I have to say that he is the reason why those nine months do not feel like a waste. There are few people with his depth that will reach the heights. The world is less futile with him in it.
I celebrate the hotness. When I showed up at her door, teary eyed and heart ached over ada she put aside the protective wall between man and woman and held me in spirit-arms. There is hope between man and woman.
I celebrate my band of brothers, Jacob’s pillow, black pearl, the ship adrift to nowhere land. When the true story is written it will be all of you written into the books as my saviours, my sun, the lighthouse of my soul. To name you or to state your event is not enough and is not allowed. Our cult has its oath of secrecy (wink, wink) and I will abide by it. It will suffice to say that in number and in deed you are perfect. The number 7.
I celebrate ada. Break-ups are nasty, unfortunate affairs and no one comes out of them looking good. But here is a genuine beautiful letdown, something that hurts and heals and then you wake up on an island of lessons learned. The pretenders to the throne of perfection claim that a mistake is a mistake and all is bad. Those of us that live in the real world defined by grace know better. We know all roads lead us back to Golgotha where our king won it all. We fight, we claim love, we chase others but our circle will close soon and whatever we become it will be full of love. The kind truly made in heaven, above romance, above pictures, above embraces and skin and the feeling that would have taken us nowhere at all. When we are there, in that place where “I love you “means only one thing then we can truly say what we need to say and nothing else.
I celebrate Nas. For here is a pat on the back, a pint of frosty beer, a good story told well, a night with the inklings. Here is faith above fantasy and truth above the many faces we put on to feel a little better than the inner disasters we think we are. Here is the word of God, the chasing of alcohol and beautiful women, the conversation never-ending, the laughter real. Here is the man apart, the koko, the star, the ear, the heart, the head. Here is the “what the fuck?” and the island of troy and the place where Arthur is buried and Excalibur sleeps beside him. Here is the book and the author, the poem and the play, the playwright and the verse, the director and the stage, the stage light and the actor. Here is the truth, finally. A bleeding, breaking heart that nothing ever satisfies and nothing ever will. Until, God. Weak, needy, obnoxious, loud, proud, perfect son of God. Flamingo 1. The common rumour is that the man that stands next to you at that shadow of final reunion they call a wedding should be the best man you know. I know my best man.
I celebrate these and the many more in pages to come.
I am better because we all share the same century.
Nagode.

poethree:the fatherhood poems:"to my son: hirra and about hirra."

“To my son: Hirra and about Hirra.”
The page is always blank
There is plenty of nothing to say
I am afraid to give advice
On the many things I fail at
So, here goes the old song
That thing about honesty
Ancient wisdom passed on
In talk
From son to son
In action
From one to one
So that in these fragile lights
A piece of the battleground might be won

Outside the gift we have, the love we share and the destiny that pursues us as we pursue it
We are just “man”
Living hearts in failing sand
Taught violence badly by history
Hungry, desperate, unreasoning
Trying to hold all this water in
But it always, always finds its way out
Evil has a scream and a shout
While all goodness has is useless clout
All this is abstract nonsense
Can I be specific with the truth?
Outside a certain him
You are just a man
Your quiet destiny is the sand
Your loud one is to play the clown
If you ever decide to play this game of futility
Those that reach for the real skies?
All they find is gruesome humility
Over and over again
I am abstract, again
Hirra, I am trying not to make you my priest
You are not my redemption from past sins
You will not make right my wrong
You have your own battles to fight
You are not my legacy, you are yours
Be the man you are
Live under your own star
And one last thing,
Love
I took a ride with your uncle
Through the new cities of light
I sat in doubt and he sat in fullness
Both under the influence of love
In his eyes I found my final, first message to you
Love, love, love
Use your heart and GOD’S brain
But love
There will be torture, there will be pain
Love
You will always change, never be the same
Love
There is nothing more important in living
Than the simple act of constantly giving
In love, in love
Love your woman; love her womb and its fruit
Love your family, your country; love the tune you play on your flute
But,
Learn to love from love Him-self
He sits above religion, above dogma
He is superior logic, powerful premise and final conclusion
The light at the end of the world’s tunnel-view confusion
Love, Hirra, it is your name.
It is your destiny, your real fame
And when you have done this, all else fades
This is reality
Sudden, broad clarity
The world and its entire destiny
And you are part of that march through eternity

That is all I have to say for today
The sun is setting, the evening looms
I have to go and look through other rooms
Come with me
Let us put the lights on in this old light house
Soon we will eat and sit through old tales
Perhaps, today we will share our first drink
Cuban libres? Smirnoff? Red wine?
We will know when we get there .

poethree:the fatherhood poems:"to my daughter: esther."

“To my daughter: Esther.”
Light encircles the smallest piece of the universe
Something is torn
A certain tear in the fabric of eternal space
Someone plays an old mandolin in the background
Some old john Mayer song called “say”
And the stars tell the tale
No space on earth for a forlorn look
The stars say: “behold, Esther is born”

I hold her in uncertain arms
I look at her as vulnerable as she will ever be
And I dare any man to hurt her
To make her eyes like the sea
To make a murderer of me
She is one day old

She struggles to crawl through red carpets
The dust makes her sneeze
I am typing at some ancient book
I hear her cry and shout for her mother
“I am making the bacon” I say
And Esther gives me an icy look
That tells me work is no excuse
She is nine months old

I try to put on her evening shirt
She laughs at my incompetence
I look at her eyes like an ocean
I am proud of her little victories
Her non-nose picking, non-bed wetting, her grin as wide as a beam of sunlight
She adjusts her shirt and smiles
“Incompetent men” she says, just like her mother
She is three years old

She is going shopping with her mother
I am not allowed to come
Why?
I ask, I beg, I plead
My women are going off to sea
Without, without me
So I wait till the older one is next to me in bed
And I demand an answer
“A bra.” is what I hear
Oh God!
And now, there will be boys
Lustful little devils
Like me
Damn!
Esther is twelve years old

“I love him” she says, defiant and stubborn
“We are Nigerians. That is no way to talk to me. Tell me you want to marry and he is a man of character who will not irritate me.”
“Pop, the west has won. We are all Americans now.”
I should have thought her some Hausa
Or some......... (Her mother’s language)
“Okay I will meet him”
I had high hopes for her
A nunnery, eternal virginity
I am now an accomplice in her treason
Against my dreams of innocence
Or the false idea of what innocence is
I should know better
She knows better
She is twenty-one years old

I read her poetry with the side of my heart
My eyes are glued to words from her soul
Some of it is harsh on me
I see my failures through her eyes
But there is more
In her heart is the river of eternal silver
And I am only an instrument, a prop, a means to the end
Of the making of her and all her beauty
Too rich for words is she
My daughter of the salt, light and the open sea
Her mother’s eyes, her father’s weird walk, and the ear to talk to God
She is the saviour of the nation of my heart

Light encircles the smallest piece of the universe
Something is torn
A certain tear in the fabric of eternal space
Someone plays an old mandolin in the background
Some old john Mayer song called “say”
And the stars tell the tale
No space on earth for a forlorn look
The stars say: “behold, Esther is born”

And she is of the eternal age.

poethree:the fatherhood poems:"to my father: senoir."

note: none of us are fathers but we are at an age where we may soon be. the subject is rife for poetry and so we present the fatherhood poems...

“To my father: senior.”
I had a dream about you last night
In it you gave me the keys to the kingdom
Some golden part of present-future history
In real life the things between us bleed and bleed
On separate roads
Of frost and cold
Is this fatherhood: having nothing from you on which to hold?

But I start with too much venom
I must remove myself from the picture
I am a son of too much expectation and not much sense
I should rejoice for you are alive and in good health
I hear you are in love in the present tense
So I sit with what remains of my innocence
The broken dreams of fantasy
I have my father, real and free
And I am his son
(Oh, goodness, me...)

So I had this dream about you
You gave me the word to withstand the wind
To calm storms and stand on water
To live a live that will not break or be altered
By the visions of broken men
By the tyranny of ignorance and a refusal to bend
Or to repent
Why did you come to me in dreams?
I am afraid of what you might mean
Is it that obvious that I am failing at life?
Too lustful, too angry, too full of my-self?
Too needy? Too hateful? Too prudent and unkempt?
Too safe? Too lazy? Too new to be old?
Not enough wisdom to give or to hold

What did you mean when you said: “live right, live right now.”?

I know, I know
I see what you mean
Like the day you came to my room
And told me to not lie
Not with word but in act and in deed
You were everything about fatherhood in that one moment
And, liar like me, it took me years to know
That dishonesty was not my nature
But my habit
And this is your success that I Can lie no more
Truth eats inside me, forcing its way out
I was a boy and now I am something else
And now you come with new dreams in the night
With a new manifesto for living in the light
So, I follow, I follow, I make my way there
I have a mountain of troubles but you have been fair
And told me my problems are not where to hide
And they do not absolve me of the responsibility to be right
So you have your legacy
In the things that you said to me
And I would make you proud to see
That your words have made in me
A thorough desire to live
On streets of brass that breaks
And copper that shakes
On humble street
Down lesson road
Where I can learn to be
The name you gave to me.
Thank you father, senior, master of my immediate race
I bow to you as I walk toward fatherhood
In perfection, in imperfection
In voice and in flute
I have a good father and I am waiting to be good, better, my sons -the best
At fatherhood.

poethree:new poems:"thursday's child."

THURSDAYS’ CHILD

I
Seasons by the well of hope,
Times cast in the misfortune of hate,
Died ambition in the lust of things,
Come take me home, sweet seraphs.
II
Come swiftly, here’s my alabaster of woes,
Take them to you, with grim,
How shall i berth in these?
Time come hurriedly, sunrise be more.
III
No more shall i drop, a drop of two,
A taste of joy, to tomorrow and always,
Judgement, I await, guilty I am but why?
If I was my maker, yes.
IV
Born into it, crying more than them,
Seething in a corner, the devil smiles,
Clanging cymbals, heralding more woes,
Louder cries, the bottle is empty.
Here we are now, nothing is smoother,
The union of two, the mystery of misery,
Here we are together in the distance of hate.
V
“I loathe” say it louder,
The father of all more time to woe me,
Out for a morsel, in with the stone,
My misery is sea, all the winds,
Sweetly to unravel them,
I am me take my message home,
Now that the seraph has gone, call me home, by me,
My scale is mine,
My heart is lighter than the feather,
Enter me to Vallhalla.

poethree:new poems:"the flamengo song."

I.
It ends today this daily struggle to face the sun and the world,
I am a coward it says, ‘strike thy self, this once let the end, truly be the end,
Let your journey to forever start with this quest to be filled in hope of fellowship,
I tell you if you do, you have started nothing other than a way to be free and whole.’
It isn’t happy for me, it isn’t happy for me; I wail till dawn and when it fades I bleed.
More hope is lost with each day that I walk alone and the voices grow louder.
ii.
Tighter, yes tighter, that’s the way the noose should go, a twine and a knot,
When all is done, we shall be free and you will be lame no more,
So I did, tighter I made, stronger it became and I was going, until her,
Across, I saw her, with a blade, no knife, no what object is that,
I doubt I know, for this once I shall do stop it and do mine.
I shouted, she halted and with a miracle, she did,
As we faced each other and this came, these thoughts flowed.
iii
So I stand here with my fist clenched at destiny, staring, waiting,
For the sun to rise on my heart, to brighten my darkness, here where I am,
Will I move to the bright way to stand? Will I be better through time and angst?
Maybe I should leave a day at a time in the sun, with the willow winds?
Either or neither this the way to thread for eternity, so I ask you, walk with me?
Please do, I want you for this and me, the need to be with you at the break of dawn,
When the angels sing and the master asks the faithful, let Him say to us, both you are.
So come here with me, to the place where time and purpose are revealed to us all,
And in us the true voice of ‘It is finished’ we truly have finished the puzzle that was started for us.

poethree:new poems:"no cold heart."

“No cold heart.”
She is rock n roll and crystal fires
The rising tide of an evening desire
A house to get lost in
To find a shape in
To move from room to room
To find wonder and wind
To leave always altered
Much more like yourself
Because you are free and whole and without a care
You dare
To show up as you
And no one else
But there is a price to pay
You will never be cold again
Warmth is your destiny and your curse
Your course
You will never be unaffected again
You will feel pain if there is loss
You will have
No cold heart
Any more

There will be no real turning away
By coming in you will never go out
You can wail and shout
It will sound like a laugh
And you will be ignored
No Samaritan will come to your aid
Beaten, broken, cast aside
Your scars will come out
Unable to hide
This is the destiny of the vulnerable love
You will not be able
To be cold
Warm your nights will forever be
In dreams or nightmares
No cold heart
Any more

I know you think this is what you want
But, think again
Are you really sure?
Being unaffected can be a beautiful thing
To be aloof is the pride of fools
To be together in form is a beautiful escape
To look sharp is the key
Who want s to be undressed by the soul?
To be laid bare by God?
If you follow this it will change you
Into the face of a bloodied madman
You will join the league of idiots
That want to change the world
They call them love-fools for a reason
In pain and in deep distress
They cannot have
Cold hearts
Any more

Yet, she is rock n roll
And crystal fires
The secret path to all my desires
Earth moves under me
And I see
Things I thought were merely dreams
Come into brilliant focus
Hocus-pocus
Made real
I tell you to run
But I will run no more
I tell you not to run
Until you find
The place where
Your heart is
Warm forever
And the seconds are divided
Clearly
Into light and dark
What is yours
And what is hers
And the beautiful thing in between
Final completeness
To everything.

poethree:new poems:"and finally, love."

“And, finally, love.”
Mrs Blue is married to God by His insistence
There is no Mr. Blue and no distance
God will not be called mister
He will not let you sit on His lap and stroke His grey beard
He is not into romance
He is into life and living
The perfect gift for the non-giving
Anyway, God courts Mrs. blue everyday
He comes to her river with a song and a flute
Singing those old African songs of hope
And she cannot resist the eternal order
So she falls heavily in tune
With the renaissance of the heart
And the things we cannot do without

So when I met her she already had HIM
She was not looking for me
Or to be finally in love.

It was beautiful in the garden of sounds
Where I re-discovered that love was real
And it is more than what you feel
In the garden of sounds you hear nothing
But you know you are ready,
Ready for what?
I came with my heart and mind open
And I left with my soul full
But,
When I met her she was already Mrs. Blue
She was born with that distinction
She was not looking
To be finally in love
With anything
Or anyone
But love, love, HIMSELF.
So I went to Him so we could talk
About the things that will always be
The wind and the water and the tall trees
In the middle of the garden of silent-sounds
“You fool, you fool, you lovely fool,” He said to me
Can’t you see you are finally in love?
Back to the garden as quick as I can
Overseas and un-dry land
To find her there where I never left
She takes my hand in such a way
I am seeing her for the first, real time
“I had a good time all the way,’’ she says
In letters on an endless page
Final fantasy realised
I hold her in a crystal moment
And the day is not ending but beginning
For I am finally, utterly in love
No hope for a cold heart anymore.

poethree:new poems:"woman."

note: while in law school myani bukar, nasom ngaro and i wrote poems. we co-authored verses during class on a wide variety of topics and on varying gusts of that devil called inspiration. i coined the name poethree(which i suspect the other two dislike) and now i present some of our work to you, the reader. i do not have the permission of the others so they might well tell me to yank it off. so read fast. some of these poems are individually written but they fit into the kind of conversations we always have. the new poems are the most recently written. this is the first one...

"woman."

On a hill in the place of disbelief
Lived a boy of dark and light
And no matter what went up with him
He could never believe
In the imagination of things
The magic of being
He could never believe
In being complete
And so he wasted years, waiting, watching
For the thing he could never be
And he could never see
Far pass that hill
Never seeing the magic
That lived beside the trees
In the place where alchemy was real

He built things by a tower
He built a tower so he could see
The thing he could never believe
But hope failed him
All things were elusive
Far away from him
In the land of disbelief
His fortress turned to sand
The mix of rich and bland
The giver with the missing hands

Until one day of sun
When the thing walked by in gilded dress
The kind that comes together in a total mess
Her hair was the wind
Her mouth was the moon
Solitude made her that much more beautiful
Her scars were all on her face
She had nil to hide
And so, there, in the light and dark
They began to create, a life

There was no summer or winter or autumn or spring
All seasons stopped
There was no rain or dry land or harmattan wind
All nations ended
Time was a bubble that will never burst
They had many, many bubbles
In this life of leading
Where there are no hills
And no hindrances
Only a land of the sacred dances
-this must be love, he said
As they made fish by the sea
-this is not me, he whispered
His prayer for the lasting
And so the story is told
Age to age
If you care to listen
If you care to bleed
If you want to be seen
Or heard
It is the story of all us
Finding God in wholesome eyes
Simplifying till we are simplified
And, then, while not expecting it,
We fall, finally, in love.

the final word.

"These chords are old but we shake hands Cause I believe that they're the good guys We can use all the help we can So many minor chords outside I fell in love with your sound Oh I love to sing along with you We got tunes we kicked around We got a bucket that the tunes go through Babe we both had dry spells Hard times in bad lands I'm a good man for ya I'm a good man Last night there was a horse in the road I was twisting in the hairpin My hands held on my mind let go And back to you my heart went skipping I found the inside of the road Thought about the first time that I met you All those glances that we stole sometimes if you want them then you've got to Babe we both had dry spells Hard times in bad lands I'm a good man for ya I'm a good man They shot a Western south of here They had him cornered in a canyon And even his horse had disappeared They said it got run down by a bad bad man You're not a good shot but I'm worse And there's so much where we ain't been yet So swing up on this little horse The only thing we'll hit is sunset Babe we both had dry spells Hard times in bad lands I'm a good man for ya I'm a good man"
josh ritter-"good man"