excerpt 1:"the ghofian"

Below lies an excerpt from a book i have been writing for some time now. In a word, the first two chapters. I would rather say no more for it may take away from the reading experience and context may, for once, act at cross purposes to meaning. It is enough that you see it as part of a much larger work. And enjoy it with that anticipation.

FILM

DAY ONE : ‘Barely, aware.. .’

                                                                                   

The raven…if it is a raven...cracks on the window with its mouth...its insistent beak...not very quietly...until he wakes up...his eyes open quickly...his head still heavy from a full night...sleep cut short...by that cracking on...he does not yet know...it is nothing but a persistent and annoying sound...noise...clear enough to wake him...but still be unfathomable...as he rolls out of bed...twisting his large body sharply...coming out with some pain...and tiredness...he has enough of his mind on to disable the alarm...to look at the window...almost prescient in this act...Window...unhindered by the undrawn curtain...sees nothing...collapses back on the bed...finds no sleep left...

Waking up again…not really…He makes his way to the bathroom...almost an hour from the first crack of that beak...the one he does not yet know...legs fall out of bed...like heavy stumps...splashing water on his face...regretting the aftertaste of last night’s wine...the peeping Lagos sun...through the open window...cursing at its yellow intrusion...the scourge of being awake...

...making notes for the day...trying to construct the business ahead...never liked the busy...had to be tied to important...had to be tied to purpose...the idea of a bird...perched on a window...waking him...passes through his mind...but is quickly discarded...a thought he cannot yet recognise...hector stalks in on him...unannounced except by an out of place...yet friendly...tap on the head...he gives a side glance, drinks his tea...hector corrects his notes...leaves as he came...Forri watches him leave..Drinks some more tea...Sits back on the chair...caresses his own head...eyes closed...savouring from his own mouth...the taste of...the sweet sting of leaf, water, sugar, milk...hot water...

He emerges from his room to see he is  the last one out...the plethora of...crewmen, production assistants...And one unwilling executive...all waiting curiously by the cars...polite nods...some genuinely friendly glances...he settles in the lead car...where hector is on the phone...something domestic thing with lams...so the car is silent...except for...The fast roll...of his own heart...trying to remember...what day is it...Monday...what car he is in...a production vehicle...Where he is going...to the film set...why...to produce and direct...a co-written script...codeword for doctored...sort of codeword for ghost written...what film?...the film based on the book...his book...written aeons ago...not one he enjoys...now...too starry in the face...and with rights sold...things set up...he is now ready...to push a medium he loves...back to the centre...of introspection...to make a film...

          ...The ride is as uncomfortable...as he thought it would be...as uncomfortable as...hell...or heaven...if you do not belong there...did this not begin with a taste for heaven...is it still about that...when did things change...when did he pray...feel the wind shift on his upturned finger...hear the tone ‘to go forth’...when did he write a new line...with that old need to say something...when last was a word about God...self...he thinks...as they take the last turn...and the knots gather in his stomach...settling down a little at the jolt over the speed breaker...the smell of gravel, the wind, the feel of early sunlight...the weight of standing...on heavy legs...looking at the impossible rush...the anty rush of the set...tiny wires...full trailers...cords...lights...camera...people standing around...could he have caused this...did this come from his own flawed mind?

 Standing on nothing...now looking through a lens...but not seeing the scene set up...or searching the marked positions of the actors...but looking through time...staring at pre-production...seeing the endless meetings...permits, approvals, agreements... all done by some other person...for the benefit of his work...some other person sweating through offices...seeking permits to film...his eyes back to the present...all deals done...permits gotten...filming on...

The mere fact of being there...erases the weirdness...the excess caught out by the play...the false background fades into the picture...and it comes back to him...the feel of this old place...a memory not so far...he is not scared...donning the ear phones...sitting in the chair...side glances at hector...looking through the scene notes...correcting dialogue at the sleeves...remembering shooting has begun...letting go...

 The first scene to be shot...is of him, hector, buksy, Mohican, Ai, dotman and Phil...standing at the foot of the auditorium...it is scene that never happened...a figment, an amalgam, a cinematic trick to bring all the players together in one recognisable frame...a device put there by the script doctor...the actor who plays him hangs loose, almost magnetic...unlike him...it flatters the second skin of his real demeanour...the dour stance...the open mouth...the tired limp after the sun sets on a long law school day...all those years ago...the other players inhabit the scene with all the skill...all the competence of the countless rehearsals...all hector’s idea...all hector’s show...they look unaware, for this is the real magic, they look unaware...like there is not another universe present...the real one...recording their own false one...he sits in awe of it...a little...as it plays out...trying to figure out...who is to say what and when...trying to remember...on this day of days...why he chose this...was it about heaven?

...they do this little scene over and over again...always some sensible line from hector...something wise and forward...he just wants to get it done...but it is somewhat better...every time...he had read that somewhere...the fiftieth take may be better than the fifth...he argues with hector...for the sake of it...and a little...tired of the tedious...until they reach a point they both like...looked at over and over again on little monitors...shot...print...

...the hours pass...progress is slow...four eyes pour over every detail...must agree...the accountant counts the hours...looks away nervously...at lunch most of the tension gives in to real hunger...he eats spaghetti and drinks his beloved coke...as light as can be...hector writing notes to the actors...chewing at a salad...swallowing water...pushing his new glasses up the bridge of his nose...nothing left to argue openly about...peace at last...

... the second part of the day flows out of the first...sweat is in large supply...heavy chins fall...concentration needed even when receding... he wonders how this can be fun for anyone...but it is fun for him...boundless...passionate, worthwhile, valuable...in retrospect...but fun in measures...controlled chaos...outside the box...but very in a much larger box...

...he waits for someone to call it a day...the sun is descending...there cannot be much to it in this ambience...they have moved on to other scenes...some out of sequence...he is confused...and distracted...tired...short with answers...out of the energy driving everyone else on...realises he has a say in ending the day...hustles around to make it so...okay, okay...yes...it is a wrap...for the day...

... Applause breaks out at the end horn...relief, perhaps...he walks to the waiting car...hector wants extra time with some actors...car will be back for  him...nods his way to the car...accosted on the way to his blessed backseat...the actress playing ‘Mohican’...wants a ride home...nods her in...quiet...she tells the driver where she is going...he nods approval again...she drops off into some dark street...offers something, perhaps a ‘chance’ meeting with the parent(s)...struggled politeness says “no.”...she says: “goodnight then and thanks for the lift”...he barely answers...his reply trailing after her as she enters some unknown gate and is gone...

In the bath tub...floating in the milky waters of rest...he calls home...talks to the shadowy wife...over the phone, a plane and a car ride away...her voice tired, pregnant, wistful...just the way he likes her...conversation easy...relaxes afterwards...almost falls asleep in the tub...except for the loud knock he can hear through the open doors of the suite...the knock expected...he hurries out...dries with a heavy, white towel...finds his robe...paddles in wet marks to the main door...hector in the half-light of  the hallway...looking like some kind of Moses...a tablet under his arm...

They sit...over more tea...and talk movies and magic...and all the business/non-business interest they share...he is soon falling asleep...the sure voice of friendship had that effect on him...the vodka in the tea loosening day-bound knots...hector waking him on his way out...

-rest well, hector says.

-ok, he says, the voice strange, loud and clear...like the start of a conversation...

...almost tumbling into bed...adjusting his hand...covering himself...letting the last thought of the day drift off toward heaven...he can hear...in almost-sleep...that old sound again...he has no idea what it is...we do...all of us...a dark beak...cracking, cracking at the window...patiently waiting...to be let in...

LIFE

              EXCERPTS FROM THE NOVEL “THE SUN” BY F.S. BANU:

1

(A JOURNAL IN WRITING: To begin is always the hardest part. Where to start, where to end, what to reveal and what to withhold. At morning I wake up to the old dark wound of remembrance: I know I must make my way to school. There is boredom in staying under the covers but there is purpose in the drudgery of existence. On the way back from the hours in between, on that especially dusty road that separates the speedy sort of highway from the stillness of hostel life, I am in conversation with Nas about the thing in front of me, this book-demon, wind that causes a shiver, that must be exorcised or I will have no rest. He gives me the key to the kingdom in short sentences.

-why don’t you, he says, write about life as it is happening for you right now and has happened before and somehow link it to faith and the idea of having conversations with God?

It makes sense. It sounds easy enough. What can you do with the heavy burden of memory but diffuse it into the system of the world so that your aches and pains join the singing chorus of prayers making a beeline for the heavens?

It is something to think about but not for too long. The writer is forever in the immediate, the underscore, and the short span from the spurt of the idea to the energy of creation. If not, entropy will do its dirty work.

Soon all will be gone from memory.

So, it comes at night, to cover shaking hands and heart. At night when the wind vane turns a little more violently and there are beacons of sudden hope everywhere, this is when I plan my coup against inertia and demise.

The table is set; the light is low, the pen, the white paper, the drooping silence of the page soon to be filled.

My hand rubs my aching head. The head is aching in a good way, the ache of the idea about to reach full expression.

-just begin, I tell my fear, just begin and you will find the way.

Deep bread, take up the pen……..begin with the deepest piece of honesty you can muster, the thing uncommonly known. The book is a quest for intimacy, a seduction beyond time and space. Share as deeply as you can, fumen says, so it may be shared with you…..

Share, share, share…do not be afraid.

Okay, the pen goes.

The pen writes:

It all began the night I tried to kill myself…)

                                                                        

In the beginning there was the suicide attempt and it felt like it was real. The truth sat next to him but he did not see it, know it or recognize who it was. He reacted to it like an outside event, a scene from some play but a play of his own life on a stage before the audience of one. He heard two whispers: one for and one against. He could not decipher which was of the dark and which was of the light. These were the details of the life almost ending. He sat in utmost misery observing and then he made a move, the slightest tip of his hand, in order to yank a page from the growing book of life. Here, in the great book of life, I write the events of every worthy life. Every life is made worthy and then must be made worthy by choice. Still here is a life facing extinction by knife and the call of the darkness within. Even this life must be examined, from time to time, and here are a few pages of it:

It all began the night he tried to kill himself. When he dares to think of this night of re-creation it comes to him in strange visions, curious vistas:  the unsharpened knife, the untested will, the unhappy heart, the uncertain state of everything around him in, this, his dark room. The walls are a pale blue. They are dirty from the passing of age and the play of hands touching them in the many hours that he suffers the enormous idea that the weight of living as flesh and blood will never end. Even in the midst of the amazing, the parts in slow motion can seem to last forever.

 He has the gait of a drowning man refusing to come up for air. The music is blaring from the radio; he is laid back, counting the seconds, till he can pull out of himself the courage to do the cowardly thing.

It is like this that he decides it must all end. He takes one last look through the window and the promise of the known world offering only pleasure-pain. He looks at these fierce inanimate things and somehow they hold an almost strange beauty, like a final fading dusk. Eternity, to his eye, becomes one straight line and while I can see all of it, he sees it in shadows, an incomplete picture.

Then he puts the knife to his wrist and lets it rip.

He wakes to feel the dark around him.  The electricity has gone off again. He feels the necessary wrist and finds that the blood spilt is not enough, that the wound is still just a wound and he has survived his latest attempt at ending the imponderable.

[You lack the courage to do what is necessary.]

Soon she enters the room with a candle of light. She can tell what has gone on because of the history of conversations, the look on his lost, withdrawn face and the tale-tell of blood on his wrist . He has threatened to do it often enough. The failed reality is in his eyes. He can, by now, see the anger rising in hers.

“Give me the knife”, she says.

He obeys.

He waits to see some tear in her eye but there is only resolve, the steady arrogance of being right against a wrong scene and this right breaking the fragile state of the part of him that wants to be in the right. To bask in the false malady of being lord of the jungle, king of the hill and the ruler of an imaginary kingdom.

“Stupid” she says, as she leaves, not intending to return.

Yes stupid, very stupid.

[You lack the courage to do what is necessary.]

Later, he can hear everyone going to sleep. Sim does not come to say goodnight. He hears his mother ask, in Hausa, if he is asleep. The no-answer makes the question rhetorical. The door to their own room closes. And then it locks. His room is open but he is now alone. The place he loves and dreads the most.

Oh well, he thinks, tomorrow is another night. Practice will make perfect.

Then, the white light comes…..or he can see it finally, for it is always there. 

A MAN OUT OF TIME...

There has only been one man in history that exists (or existed) out of time. I met him once and I know him still.  Well, “know” is not very effective here. More like, I am known by him.

The idea of a man outside time demands that he be neither current nor stale, neither in front of any particular movement or behind it or within it. He is not liberal and certainly not conservative, right or left in any spectrum mean nothing to him. He is not for free trade or free markets or anti-china or pro-negritude. Shockingly, he is not even for or against countries, is not Nigerian or polish or Japanese. He is not a champion of any ethnic group or ‘people’ though he belonged to one. Blue or pink, rich or poor, free or bound, Dark Age or renaissance, the tides do not change. The issues he addresses are not tied to any age.

His claim to living does not come from studies of “purpose” or the things that he owns or may own around that way or the person he became/or may become in some material future. Eternity is all that gathers on his mind and in his heart.

It is not that he is non-linear; it is that he is multi-linear, ultra-linear, hyper-linear and meta-linear. It would be an insult to say he is “outside the box”.  He is so far above all that. He would not even notice that you have sought to put him in context and so limit him.

His message is simple but it is not easy. It is for everyone but it is hard for anyone to submit fully to it. Most likely, we will pick and choose and adapt for use. It will challenge professors and adolescents in exactly the same way with different circumstances.  It says the same thing to those who value heart over mind and to those who value mind over heart. It says: love others as you wish to be loved. That is the hardest of the disciplines because often we want to be loved in indulgence, loved as we think we deserve to be without effort on our own part to reciprocate with even the tiniest morsel of the grace-bread. Loving as we wish to be loved removes the quid pro quo at the base of our ideas of love and romance. It encroaches on our ego and wants it destroyed in every place in which the ego exists. It is Ayn Rand’s philosophy of objectivism turned on its head, the “fountainhead” in reverse. “The ego is the fountainhead of human regress.”

For our man out of time gave all he had and did it without holding back him-self. He was not afraid to lose his identity or position or respect or dignity or love or intimacy because he knew these things were masks of masks, mere consolations in the light of eternity. He knew that by giving all we would all have the opportunity to become all we can be and give that up too and on and on till all are held up in grace and…you know where this is going.

The Christian life is an exercise in learning how to live out of time. It is not an escape from the calls of your day but the interpretation of these days with the illumination of forever.  It is the discipline of emptying out all you think you are on earth and looking up to all you really are from the vantage point of heaven. It is the answer to that question that bothers you at the most successful and unsuccessful points of your life, the baffling anti-climax of all your great events, the gaping hollow space when you have just drunk deeply from the fountain (head?) of life.  The tiny voice that keeps insisting: more, more, more…you have no answer for this voice so you quench it. But you really should let it keep on. The words become clearer…” more, more…there is so much more to be had…” it is the great something missing in all something(s).  The price for this life is the self. It will take all you have and all you think you cannot live without to get what you need.  It will take a step out of time.

This is done in full aggression. We are not in a passive sport. It is a lifetime of not yielding, constant training, no surrender and only victory of light over darkness will do. The victory over the preservation of self is the first battle. It begins on your knees (maybe) and ends beside a throne.  Yet it is still based in love. It is love in utmost action, as light, as salt, as cross, as tomb and as resurrection. It is a heart, mind and body dedicated to the origin and destination of things toward God.

But all that  comes  later. The foundation must be clear. Christ is not an image to worship but a path to follow, a hero, a role model, a trail blazer, an original. There are no others. All must become like Him to get the fullness promised by the very presence of life and the heart of man. Here is your chance, now, right now, to fill all your empty places. Now, right now, is your chance to be finally better.

You know the first pill. “Cease from your own works”. Stop acting so right. Competence and character in one part of life does not a wholeness make. And we are talking about the whole man.  It is hard to accept that our strongest points do not matter, that one ink stain ruins the whole cloth. It does. It is hard to not cover up your ignorance with what you think you know and not hide behind shades of apparent brilliance. We are speaking about the whole man. If the shades are still drawn up on your life house and you have no use for sunlight then turn away here. It has always been a message first for the losers, the half-wits, the non-fixers, the slow to burn and the unfortunate. “Blessed are they…” they are also the honest. They know their value is inherent and in their souls.  That they have given, that they must give.  The more aware you are of the state you are truly in the more you have to give and the more appreciative you are of the divine exchange taking place.

In the end, to step out of time, you have to learn to walk out on your own life and be more active in it. I am putting it badly. Shall we try Francis Thompson’s “hound of heaven”, paraphrased:

“That which I took from you/I took not for your harm/but that you might find it/in my arms.”

Clive Staples Lewis said there are no selves outside God. It is only in Him that we begin to approach who we truly are.  Before that we are phantoms, alterations, ghosts of spirits, betrayals of our true, given state.

Death is the doorway to the more whispered about.  A physical death one day but the first death is of the ego. It must succumb to the holy trinity of hope, faith and finally love.  This is the grand giving up of those ‘vital’ things so you can get on with what truly is. This is the tailspin and truth of Rand’s fountainhead and Howard Roark and objectivism. It is: there is God and man is in His image and not apart from Him. In His image, not in space or time or earth but in image. Within Him man will be everything not just anything.  Without Him man will die. In time.

seven letters: one.

Hey,

To love anyone as you should is hard. It is hard because the heart has grown brutal, it is hard because you do not want to enter the death-clench of a changing heart, and it is hard because failure is necessary, as in all things, for success to be certain. The image of apotheosis is not man climbing up a mountain but one of man falling down to earth, human, broken, ready to be proclaimed. There is no easy way to say this: love will break your heart, it will kill you. It was always meant to.

You are never right when you love or rather you are never right enough. There is always something you are not doing well enough. It is like trying to sing one of those great operas we always hear are brilliant and dark and deep. It is like breaking into a rendition of “nessum dorma” with a broken voice and neither the head nor heart for singing in tune. It is the endless wish that is always beyond the grasp, the eternal stare into the bottomless pit.

I am not trying to make it sound impossible or unfathomable to love. There is really no option but to find it and keep it. It is not a dispute between us what love is and why we should love. Your question is how to do it without feeling tired, worn, used and alone. The question is what will be left of you when you forsake balance and jump into the redeeming well. Our faith raises the bar on existence: it says that to truly live you must forsake the tone and shape of the ordinary life; you must die to it and get the more of eternal life. Love is the highest ideal; the most conscious selflessness is more worthy than the most planned and easy protection of self.

You may think that there must be a palliative to this odd picture of a wound I am painting. That somehow you can be self sensible and love. You may think that her recent infidelities have scarred you, that by enduring them you have reached the limit of your love. You may even imagine that by letting her go you are giving her the freedom to be who she truly is. I do not share your optimism. I do not think she is better off without you than with you. I do not think that your obligation to love her, as best as you can, should end with one act or one hurt moment. I believe that there is more for both of you on this road to wholeness.

The betrayal between a man and a woman is a deep thing. There is no easy remedy for it. It is a hard road back to trust. It is not one you want to take. It is one you should. The hardening of the heart is never the path to take. It is never our best move. There is something larger at stake than hurt feelings and a broken heart. There is the person waiting in the wings, the man you were always meant to be. There is the reality of the God you serve and your love for Him. There is the man He wants to introduce to you, you on the other side. There is the woman she can become, the wife you always wanted. You heard of her in a rumour in your heart, the stop-start talk with Elyon. He is never wrong and our wrong cannot amend that.

I know I am giving you platitudes, easy sayings that do not connect with your present darkness. What else can I offer with mere words? It is not a conversation that can end with a single word of wisdom. It is a start. Our conversations never end. They will continue until He heals all wounds, answers all questions and is ever present in our fellowship.

Am I allowed to say one more thing? It may sound insensitive to the way you see things now-that glow in the dark, the non-gleaming sense of loss, the idle memories coming back to life and the distrust of everything you once hailed as certain. Am I allowed to say that the pain is a sign of life not an indication of the death of the soul? That it will get better or worse depending on what you choose?  That love is patient, kind, forgiving and always right? That whatever happens we will be alright? That the certainty we have is that there is an eternal stream of living that makes adverts on earth about the life beyond? That by your conduct in loving her through and through all as lover or friend is one of such adverts?

More than one thing but to one point: love her. Go beyond yourself. Let it kill your previous self. You could never have that forever. And if you give up your hurting self you will find, as the great Clive says, everything else thrown in. And yet brighter still…

finding my religion

It was not too long ago that I had no doubt in me about who I was or what that meant in terms of living. The morning roll out of bed led me to my knees and between the pages of the greatest article of my faith. Now, I just roll out of bed. There is something lost in the withering days, some precious part of myself that I cannot find in present worship. It is true the seed must go into the ground, mimicking death, before it rises to die again. Somewhere between these two illustrations may lie my true state.
It is a hard fall to make from your estimation of yourself. It is not easy to admit that you have been falling and not rising. For we are not more than misplaced egos, temples to our own greatness and constant preachers, believers in our own personal gospel. It is not easy to admit that you have lost your way after being found. Ask King David who discovered a separate purpose by staring down at a translucent figure springing up from a pool of water, basked in total beauty. There was adultery and conspiracy and murder. Yet the throne was quiet until the prophet came with the news of God’s anger at, even, royal sin from a lovely king. We are like the fallen king. We hate sin and sinner as long as we are not given any of those monikers. We are unable to give grace outside but willing to escape the guilt inside. Takers but not givers of love or grace. No one I have met is yet a perfect picture of the Christ himself. Isaiah chapter two tells us, in the first few verses, who we can be and, in the latter part, who we are now. The latter flourish does not paint a flattering picture. When we read this book we are reading from a book of prophecy so we must not forget that it speaks of present state in light of future destination. The world as a whole is not whole. From continent to continent there is much to worry about and much to criticize. We may have had some ‘progress’ in areas to do with comfort and political organization but for so many and even us there is the feeling and knowledge that we are not yet at our best, that the narrow way still holds much more than the scourge of present living and we still seem unable to break the everyday violence of life. There is nowhere on this planet where life, by itself, is full.
I wake up every day with a fierce desire in me. It is physical, seeking pleasure, and it is spiritual, seeking fulfillment. They are opposed desires, at first glance, but their battle will determine the destination of my soul. Desire has been at the epicenter of human advancement but to really be fruitful it must be going somewhere. It cannot be an endless journey. It, like everything else, must find a home.
I have found or been found by the idea that my home is God. I do not think there is anything to match true fellowship with the ultimate deity. My whole life, it seems, has been a quest for the true religion of living in God. Nothing else gets me really going, I run out of air. Nothing else stays, I get lost in any other river.
So now I seek to find that narrow path daily where both desires become one and I am no longer at war with myself. Failing at it has somehow made it more beautiful, lovelier, more there. Failure has corrected and will correct me. I hope to live and love and be ensconced in the great river beyond twin-desire, beyond failure, beyond self. When I was a child paradise was an orange sunrise, the taste of particular cereal, my mother’s arms. Now I know these things to be inklings of an even greater reality, the finding of home, the end of a quest.
The question has always been: how should we live? I believe that we are all part of the eternal story and while we must face the temporal episodes with boldness and grace we must never forget above all that is the reality of an incarnation, a virgin birth, a life of glory, an innocent death and a resurrection to the life forever. This is my religion and I hope to always be found within its holy pages.

a (brief) history of violence

There are many things wrong with our nation but none as imperative to the moment as the issue of violence. Violence has recently taken lives in Abuja, Jos and Maiduguri. It has been elevated into the national psyche by the ‘innovation’ of concealed bombs and drive-by shootings on a consistent level. These are the most common and recent symptoms but they are not the only pointers to the disease that threatens our community. We have all heard the tales of fathers killed, mothers threatened, sisters raped and brothers left with the unholy taste for vengeance in their mouths. The reality of these sad events creates a cycle of violence that can only assure the end of our society if carried through to its illogical conclusion.
Now, not later, is the time to address the question of violence in our society. We must provide answers to why it goes on untouched, sinking deeper and deeper into the mire of our experience, claiming more and more lives, stifling democracy, dashing hopes, creating fear and futility against the noble idea that a human life, any human life is sacred. For if we take value from any life we take from all and when we take it for granted when anyone is killed we may become accomplices to our own imminent murder.

How do we address this as individuals? For the role of the state is clear and I am sure commentator after commentator over the coming days and weeks will speak of how the government is failing and the political class is a mess. I am more concerned, here, in what the individual can and must do in reaction to such violence, especially that individual of the faith. When I speak to my friends on the issue of violence they usually, in the heat of the debate, quote from to bible and say, in effect: “the state does not hold the sword for nothing but as an instrument of God to administer justice upon the earth.” It is a fine quote from the New Testament. It seems to suggest that the state wield force for the sake of doing what is just and protecting that which is sacred. But what do you do when the state itself is unjust or incompetent? Could this verse apply to those in Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Russia or Mugabe’s Zimbabwe? What do we do in the face of a state that yields the sword for its own end?
Of course the scripture still applies because the apostle was talking to Christians under the imperial rule of Rome. Yet I think it is an ignorant and dangerous thing to isolate the reaction to violence to this singular verse which was spoken as a guide for Christians to follow the law of the land. In reaction to violence we have rich store of quotes: “blessed are the peacemakers…” “…and the lion shall lie down with the lamb.” “…shall study war no more.” “Love your enemies.” “We wrestle not against flesh or blood...”

If the earlier scripture seems to tell the state to be violent for justice sake the latter verses seem to tell the individual to be pacifist for holiness sake. In fact Christ was a victim of gross violence and he said: “those who live by the sword die by the sword.”
When I hear of violence across Nigeria and the world it scares me. I think of the people that I love and where they live. It is then I desire private militias and a storehouse of weapons for “protection.” I think of an eye for an eye modified to be a hand to my face so you cannot reach my eye.

I am not a pure pacifist but I believe that when violence becomes an option for the individual cooler heads will not prevail. I am afraid that when we claim it as permissible it will become necessary. I am convinced that all it will do is escalate the situation to the point where every home is a fortress and every street is a war zone. Violence is not the answer to violence.
For Nigeria to survive we must build a community of peace and justice. Peace ensures that violence is never a viable option; justice ensures that evil is always challenged and defeated. The church must be a leader toward the light of peace and justice in our society. We must never hate, never use violence as retaliation, and never reduce the battle between good and evil to one between religions. There are mad men of every faith.

The state must protect its citizens, sometimes with force, but the citizen must never take the role of the state in doing so. It is hard and many are hurting but if we are ruled by hate and revenge the history of violence will always be present and never past. We fight for democracy, for credible elections, for forthright leaders so we can transform our fractured state into a community of peace and justice. We do not fight in vain and if we are vigilant and endure through the dark night of doubt we will wake up to a morning where the violence we have so feared is a passing dream, part of a regrettable piece of history.

and still...

the fire of the sun still beats here
power to the son in me
truly the honey and the bee

warm-suckle it feeds
the hunger
just for a little bit
/the raging sunshine of her eyes
\her hands are a gift/unharmed by the beast

and still there is strenght in the beat
the old song gone
tell it to india, to the pradesh of pradeshes
tell it to the hindu
for the christian has no fear
and still there is the heat
on bloodied streets
i just run out of steam
and then i howl
but no one hears
or cares
water under the blasted bridge
and still there is

do not be twisted
happier alone than together
but missing the old years
of alone as one
no sense in hiding
can i say your name?
it is.....serendipity for my pain
asthma for my inhale
er
go home you darn european
i want to stay in africa-land

and still it beats
and still, and still
the stones, the shade, the whispering, the way,
the falling down
two hundred and thirteen

i have become a man-whore you see
a wolfman of little success
cause i only howl for you
such desperation in my voice
but peace in my heart
and still there is...
i believe
space in the juice
of the orange
where the lives are played out
in the shadow of the fair

gibberish, i know
but late at night
we talk again
and i want to qunatum leap
into that bus
and obey DEI again

and still there is. and still there is
only you
stupid, irreverent, unknown you
and still, all i want
is to be free
but all i want
all i want
is to not bleed
all i want
is you....
and i love the rain the most
in the shadows of some place only you know
when i used to be the truth
re:stacks on my heart
on my side, a pact
desire like none other
samson's hair screams: halleujah!
and then repents
go back to God
to find the long ride again
and say: baby i love you and i am sorry have and you have doubts and i will open the toilet door
it may be too late
back to my hut in the tent, fiona
but first,
nothing
i give up daily
and still...oh baby....still....
you.

why i am a Christian.

I fell in love when I was seventeen years old. It was not at first sight. In fact it had been a long, slow immersion into the true state. I did not even realize the process, the years it took were as ordinary as years come. But in the year of being seventeen I was ready to give in to love.
I did not fall in love with the shadow, as is my custom, I fell in love with the voice from the forest on fire, with the trumpet herald, the dove dropping from the sky to crown one head, the dragon-slayer, the lion, the lamb. The greatest story and storyteller had me eager to enter the tale; in short I fell in love with God.
It is important to clarify that this does not mean I had a strong emotional response to God. Regrettably I am much too bland for that. What I really mean is that in this year I decided to obey God. This is what is meant in scripture by loving God. And this was my attempt in surrendering my indifference and fear for light and grace.
There is a history to this. Through my move from Anglican to celestial to Anglican to Pentecostal systems of worship I did not need the cosmological or ontological arguments for or against deity. Like a true African I took it for granted that there was indeed someone much bigger than me. Years of filling out the word “Christian” on forms made it clear to me that I owed some allegiance to Christ and that three could indeed be one. But I did these things because I was told I must believe or go to hell. What does a child know of hell but that you did not want to go there? There was no concept of a loving God and so I could not love Him. He was frankly a bit of a killjoy and I just said the prayers and tried not to upset him.
All this does not explain why I am a Christian but why I was not until that year.
I became one in the year where my life came apart and then came back together. It was not altruistic or deep. I did it for survival. It made sense and my Pentecostal background told me this was the way to get things from God. And I needed many, many things. I made deals with God and I intended to break my part of this great bargain. He did not. So I found my life led more and more by Him and my flaws became more important. I became different. Somehow less self conscious but more selfish, strangely quieter but falsely louder. I became inconsistent because I finally made a stand but I was so full of falling. I had taken in the bread of life but I was hungrier. Things did not get better inside, they seemed to when it was novel. Once that wore I was in an even worse hole. I knew myself and I knew what was wrong. And I knew I could not fix myself.
My life has come apart recently. In a good way. I have seen promise fade and lovers leave and books unsold and habits reappear. I have had this curious experience, curious enough, where I could hear myself talk and know I was lying. I have found out the shallow beneath the shallow is just me, posing as wise in foolish clothes. A beggar looking for a palace, a drunken man in the gutter ringing for a butler in the snow.
Christianity is the only thing I know that is for the down and out. For me. Looking at us Christians you would not think so. We want to be centre spread in gloss and top of the food chain. We want to be the serpent that swallowed the dove that pecked the lamb to death. There is more to us than turning the other cheek. We are the great re-visionists of our own sacred history. Disciples lived in beach houses, Jesus wore a Versace robe, give to caeser till you can overthrow him, nine coins better than one and the poor you have with you because somebody did not follow the laws of prosperity. All lies, all excuses for our own demise.
Am I painting a grim picture? I do not mean to. I want to show a real one. For it is at ground zero, with that pesky mustard seed, that the Christ-thing begins to grow. When you come to the bottom of the matter, the place of mirrors without pretense and face yourself whole, this is where Christ comes. He is no stranger to being naked, to shame, to pain, to alienation, to being lost.
And this is why I am a Christian. In the end I am looking for people to relate to, somewhere to belong. A place where I do not have to be together but I am getting better merely by being there. I find it in love with God and I cannot relate to God outside the reality of Christ. It is not a placebo for the soul; it will not make you feel good overnight. It is true, though. As true as I have ever known. There is no room for shadows. Slowly the light will get you. I had this letter from an old girlfriend that always moved me to tears. I thought it was the great missing that got me all Maxwell but it was not. It was the way she laid herself bare in words of such beauty. I realize Christianity is always like that. The promise of it is always there, the carte blanche to be bare, to show your true colours and then much more, to see those colours change in slow, painful but true ways that resound into the boundless world to come.
This is why I am a Christian.