BEYOND RELIGION AND CULTURE: Spiritual Musings 5
1. “Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged”― Rumi
2. "Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'?" (John 10:34).
3. “She looked like the kind of woman I could fall in love with. Trouble is, she was standing next to the kind of woman I'd like to make love to.”― Jarod Kintz, This Book Has No Title
4. “Is sex dirty? Only when it's being done right.”― Woody Allen
5. “No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor. ”― Betty Friedan
6. "A wife of noble character is her husband's crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones." (Proverbs 12:4).
7. “It's absolutely unfair for women to say that guys only want one thing: sex. We also want food.”― Jarod Kintz
8. I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles: - Christopher Reeves
Spiritual Musings One: As a boy growing-up in a communal Igbo community, our parents instructed us that it's very dangerous to throw stone inside a trading market, because we wouldn't know who it might hit: it might hit our relative. It's a norm we revered. We sincerely kept to this unique instruction. But as an adult I've been at amiss where this wise instruction has gone to, because people today don't even throw the proverbial stone into a trading market again, but physical bombs and practical bullets, with a reckless abandon, without minding whose ox is gored.
Spiritual Musings Two: When we rage inside and listen to our inner voice, we might get a way out; bcs out of difficulty comes out miracle.
Spiritual Musings Three: A lizard that leaves to abreast the tree trunk invariably is calling on children to toy with her.
Spiritual Musings Four: If snake refuses to exhibit her mettle, children will use her and tie their firewood.
Spiritual Musings Five: A child can only joke with the mother's breasts, but not with the father's manhood.
Spiritual Musings Six: An old woman does not get old in a music she knows how to dance best.
Spiritual Musings Seven: Schooling has exposed us to some dangerous trainings and we are operating in different directions blaming our Devils and our Gods for the woes of the world. Have our individual capitalistic knowledge not been haunting us? Can the communal 'native' intelligence of our forebears be bought in any universities of the world?
Spiritual Musings Eight: One of my friends does not care to know where I relocated to, but he knows where all the bad girls in town live. Is he a bad guy?
Spiritual Musings Nine: I saw her, and she looks like the artistic portrait she qaulified for, as a make-up artist. I saw her, and she is into beauty business, but not beautiful. I saw her, and she is passionate about her beauty business, but how come that beauty is not passionate about her?
Spiritual Musings Ten: No matter how religious any lady might be, can a man win her heart, respect and love in an approach for the game of romantic love affairs with religious words like, 'Baby, The Lord Loves You' instead of, 'Baby, I love You'?
Spiritual Musings Eleven: Death is inevitable, and so also is the lack of willpower to forget the death of a beloved dead inevitable. Has the dead not gone, but has the lovely and bittersweet memories shared together also gone?
Spiritual Musings Twelve: A mingy financially rich-person can only feel remorse when s/he lost a beloved relative or friend, but will not feel guilty that s/he couldn't assist the person to become financially independent, when death hasn't struck. Is there any need then that s/he lavishes the money at the funeral for cheap publicity?
Spiritual Musings Thirteen: How many spinsters will say AMEN to this? "MAY YOUR BROTHERS AND SONS BE LIED TO THE WAY YOU RECKLESSLY LIE TO MEN."
Spiritual Musings Fourteen: My Igbo people would say that a wife who knows how to handle the heart of her husband, people would think that she is using charms.
Spiritual Musings Fifteen: Woman is the height of treasures to man. She has great influence. But is this why there is an inscription thus? "Women don't suffer heartattack, they give men heartattack". Pls, I reject any forms of heartattack that would lead me also to any hospitals that was supposed to be where people should go to heal, but has become where people go to die. Is it better you are given heartattack or go to hospital where you will die?
Spiritual Musings Sixteen: There was this lady that I dearly craved to date, a long time ago. She was a beauty to behold, & knew all the 'bad' methods to bring me close to her. We were very good friends, & I bit my fingers anytime I set my eyes on her, bcs I couldn't have her, at least, press my chest to her's. She always antagonised that I didn't attend Church, but on one hand, admitted that I was highly principled. However, she characterised the moral codes/principles as "self righteous". This was her infused & controlled mentality. Upon how many times she went to church, there wasn't any behaviour to bring her home, except her beauty & alluring breasts & aesthetic black. She was a bag of lies. A titular graduate of ABSU, the only intellect she acquired was how to pervert her voice & speak through the nose. She could send a sms only in abbreviated words. She made avoidable errors, while using the English Language. I found in her, incoherent syntax, everyday. She helped her mother in a mini-restaurant she ran. Her sight brought men around. But she gave me reserved audience. And her two phones rang like a president's. She used a tablet of soap sold at N1, 500. I didn't know the cost of her cream. Inshort, she was gorgeous & expensive. She never asked me for money. I heard her called "baby" on phone, anytime she made call, even when I heard the voices of her callers as men. 'Baby' was her misleading tactics. I didn't bother! I loved her beauty, and hoped I could mend her glaring lack-of-foundational lifestyle/behaviour. Her father was old, & she had no elder brother, who could've tamed her excesses, at the bud. I presumed. Her mother didn't stay around. She was always out for 'business'. The lady told me. It's obvious that she wanted me, the way I wanted her. Lo & behold, I was disappointed with the story of her RUNS life with rig workers in Bayelsa State. Ladies know what this means. We were in Port Harcourt. Her story with Aristoes wasn't better, either. The night I went to confront her, she bluntly told me to go & manners. She had said that could I give her say N100, 000 if she asked. I don't want to say more unprintable things surrounding her manners. This is the type of church people go? They see anyone who attends church as 'a God fearing' person', even when the person has a fish in the cupboard? In this case who is preferred: The Moralist or the Chauvinistic Religionist?
Spiritual Musings Seventeen:
At first
it was enchanting
and they were happy
they have fallen in love,
like we all do.
But as time progresses
it becomes glaring
that the love they fell in
has become
falling in trouble.
Spiritual Musings Eighteen: Time, they say, is the healer of every problem. No matter what the anti-patience are saying, they can never change nature. Those who thought that they could cheat nature by not being patience, always get nature's repraisal attack. These renegades are in marriage, relationship, business, church, family, school... One may change his or name from Patience to Progress, but cannot change Nature to Non-existence. We knew the case of the New Orleans' Hurricane Katrina, seemingly in 2005, where ocean jumped board, to claim its sabotaged bank. Patience is good, and those who think it should only remain as a word and, not as a practice, always land into immeasurable trouble, at last.
Spiritual Musings Nineteen: Pls, where are we heading to in the recent times? A married lady-friend isn't happy. Her hubby isn't up and doing financially. As a result, her elder sister is mounting pressure on her to have a man-lover, who probably will be assisting her financially, to enable her be meeting up with her glaring pressing needs. When she acquainted me with this ugly development from her elder sis, I was muddled. "Your elder sis gave you such crass idea?" I asked. She was sobbing. A reserved lady, she's not comfortable with her sis for the philanderous disposition. Such drivel hardly happen before, let alone, the idea coming from almighty elder sibling. It is surprising how things once regarded as taboo are taking centre stage of our behaviourial menu.
Spiritual Musings Twenty: Pls, teach these children manners. A girl whom I didn't know added me on Facebook, which was normal, & latter inboxed me thus, "SUP". And I replied, "SUP?" She wrote back, "How are you?" I found it hard to ignore her now, albeit upset. "Oh! Iam fine," I pretended. "Thanks." She added, "K. Where are you?" I couldn't stand such disdain and unmannered approach of her's. I went to her profile, she was born in 1995. It smashed on me that we have lost some sense of sanity. At her age I already knew how to approach people, let alone, people that I didn't know. I was taught that outside home, there are rules and regulations, but these lads & lasses have thrown these to the winds. Even at my present age I can't imagine approaching her the way she did me.
Spiritual Musings Twenty One: Once a child is made to believe that s/he is a king in the wrong direction, the most stories that would come out of him or her would be notorious.
Spiritual Musings Twenty Two: "We are no longer in the era of the female actresses suffering from sexual harassment; it is now man to man," Nollywood movie sensation and movie magnet John Okafor, (popularly known as Mr. Ibu).
Spiritual Musings Twenty Three: There are still aged people that radiate with exceedingly leadership traits. So, it is an irony for anyone to think that the vigour of youths qaulifies them for leadership above the aged.
Spiritual Musings Twenty Four: Some people think that it is their fundamental right to make noise? Such people keep u bored all through the night with the humming noise of their Chinese-made generating set. In the morning again, u hear them raising their voices calling a member of household or something. If they're the chauvinistic churchers they keep u awake at odd hours with their weightless-thunderous prayers. They unconsciously open their door, "Gbum!". The volume of their electronics is always Satanic. They do many stupid things without considering how u may be feeling. U can neighter read nor write. Afterall, they are in their flat? If u confront them about their uncouth partern of praying, they automatically tag u the mirage-witch they've been praying against. They thank their GOD for EXPOSING u. You don't even remind them about their noisy electronics. My dear, living with some people isn't easy in Nigeria. Do people do these bcs of the frail law enforcement aproach the system operates or what? Hope u're not this neighbour?
Spiritual Musings Twenty Five: There was a time the Oba of Bini was seen by his people as the owner of the universe and, he was hearing direct from their perception of God. Zik of African was also, believed to be holding the key to River Niger. The Bini people thought that the world was limited to those areas the Oba governed, till they met with reality. This is why I see the Adam & Eve story as a section of world's history. So, those who chronicled the story were in the euphoria of the Bini people, but the problem is that they have refused to accept reality like the Bini people, because their's is in print.
Spiritual Musings Twenty Six: Like friendship, the concept of God is not something that you study by going to an edifice, like school. If you do not have a good upbringing, it will take hard for you to understand that concept. A good upbringing is not about being fed with golden spoon but a case of having a living conscience. It is very saddening how some people think that when they talk about God and Christ overtime, especially, from the Christian periscope, that they know God, even when they exhibit crass manners.
Spiritual Musings Twenty Seven: Those who think that the lives of others are not important by taking their own lives through the detonation of explosive devices to achieve the dastardly act had already disqualified theirselves of life.
Spiritual Musings Twenty Eight:
IF they hate book, we love book.
If they hate school, we like schooling.
If they are terrorists, we are not the terror.
If they hate us, we love them.
If they like bomb, we hate bombers.
If they like suicide bombers, we see suicide bombers as murderers.
Why do they want the disintegration of humanity, when we like the integration of mankind?
Can't these killings in the name of religion stop, for humanrace to have some relieve?
Spiritual Musings Twenty Nine: "The point here is that because we have been colonized in Africa, we tend to see everything through the eyes of the white men, but not through our own natural eyes. I tend to portray the culture and religion of my people as being ideal in setting moral codes. Religion, especially, has played a great role in the ethical philosophy all down the ages. The imported religions, [Islam and Christianity] do not have the same powerful hold on the people as the traditional religions, so their use as ethical instruments is not as effective." (Excerpted by Odimegwu Onwumere from Elechi Amadi's interview, The Sun LiteraryReview, pg 30, Nov. 3, 2012).
Spiritual Musings Thirty: There is an English word called KLEPTOMANIA. This is what these rapacious pseudo misleaders called Clerics are in Nigeria. What luxurious lifestyle their Jesus couldn't have done is now their logo. How come a cleric will purchase private jets worth over $40m each? Is this church not calling for a serious revolution when paupers are littered everywhere? Not even Pope could do such! It's time those who are petronising these vain Men of God followed the compass navigating back to our traditional beliefs, if it is mandated that everybody must worship a God. I've summoned these deviants from reality to our anscestors who are waiting to bulala them during each's transition to the great beyond. These believers of lucre and celeb lifestyles are unthinkable.
Spiritual Musings Thirty One:
We do not read one particular book
and say that we are educated.
We read various authors,
yet we are not educated.
Those who see the concept of God
from one religion's dogmas,
are dependents of religious prejudices.
Different roads,
do not get a driver
outside the world.
Similarities have no strength;
the strength lies in differences.
Spiritual Musings Thirty Two: It's not that I find it hard to chat with ladies here. Few of the ladies are very beautiful, wonderful and nice. Others are just the opposite. Few can write good sentences, while many cover-up under abbreviated words and write with glaring mistakes in their presage meanings, upon than. I don't know many of them, but would have loved to know many of them. I think that I am not fortunate in that I know one of them whom I had loved to chat, but she gets me out and about and boring from chatting. She is not a special person to me, but she portrays some traits of humility and, that glues me. Is it not true that too much of dull and parochial use of words kill chatting? What do you think?
Spiritual Musings Thirty Three: I am still at amiss why Christian chauvinists still see Jesus as God even when he had not said so. If those who believe in the Jehovah and Yahweh see HIM as a perfect God, the following is one prove that Jesus wasn't that God and, wasn't perfect and, wasn't good. He must be laughing at the religious bigots if he were to be here for ascribing to him what he even rejected. He warned you but you wouldn't listen thus: "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good- except God alone." (Luke 18:19).
Spiritual Musings Thirty Four:
It was long I looked outside
And I was always dreaming
But now that I am looking inside
I have awakened.
Spiritual Musings Thirty Five: How many people know that the science in religion is called spirituality and that having a very intuitive mind is imperative? You cannot be close to your concept of God if you do not question the issues the God has surrounded around you. And a lot of neo-religious bigots do not want people to be doing this. However, if every individual begins to combine the happenings in his or her life, it is evident that before transition, every person must have gotten a full-size of a seemingly Bible. But regrettably, we call such work Biography. The evil spirit of the heart is hard to be exorcised by mere prayers, but by an individual's conviction to kill such mindset. Every individual has to broaden his or her heart positively, because the more the heart shrinks in a particular dogma, the individual suffers detrimentally of knowledge inherent above board.
Spiritual Musings Thirty Six:
The faith, The hope,
The trust
We want
To see
In the world
Are within
Our conducts
And not
In our
Book shelves.
Spiritual Musings Thirty Seven: Thank you all! I think if one has a misunderstanding with a post the person should throw in light why s/he disagrees with the post in a polite form and, not showing a gait of monopoly of knowledge in a rather uncouth and unbridled uncivil attitude. Well, for the fact that some people have not read beyond their certificate and text books, hence they are selfish in their seemingly correctional approach and, lack the dexterity to influence people. I don't know about others, but Iam on Facebook to further my quest for knowledge as a pedant, not to create enemies more than the presumed friends. But in all, Iam not surprised that anybody could exhibit mannerless manners here, because some people just had bad manners before coming on Facebook and, the irritating truth is that, a Vulture will never seize/cease to be a Vulture.
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Odimegwu Onwumere, Poet/Author, Media Consultant, Motivator, Founder of Poet Against Child Abuse (PACA), and the Coordinator, Concerned Non-Indigenes In Rivers State (CONIRIV), is based in Rivers State, Nigeria.