My death wish!

As non-negotiable as it is to say that, God Kills, it is also comfortable to say people die every day for causes that are notable and detrimental to their very existence and some even do for reasons that are very alien to them.

soliciting for a nice way to go?

 

It is an undisputed fact that, only the living knows how stupid the dead has been and as long as life still triumphs in the face of the ugly monster; death, the living shall remain behind to recount the death of the few that has been called.

Just like the proverbial cat with 99 lives, which has required that man devised many ways of killing it, we’ve witnessed people die through many ways and for many reasons which are not far-fetched. People gush themselves up in fire while the extremists include their family or sometimes friends. We’ve seen people died of taking in poison while some have drowned before our very own eyes and in other news,  some have jumped out of high rise buildings like we see in those heroic moments in the Hollywood blockbuster movies.

Some will do anything to direct a round or two of the bullets they bought  to stop any encroaching buffoon into their own brains, while some will severe themselves or body parts of their victims. Some hang themselves in solitude while others prefer dying by taking overdosed pills of un-prescribed drugs and all these gory sites can sometimes remove you from reality.

These deaths, which are motivated from the subconscious minds of these victims, are triggered by remote and immediate antecedents which always revolve around this simple but complex life of ours and sometimes, the apparent reasons for the loss of these lives are pathetic, devastating and mostly infamous.

People die through all kinds of death; some for love which is usually incensed by jealousy, intolerance, needless competition between couples, cheating, insecurity, rejection and what have you. The zealots on the other hand will shed blood at anything they consider blasphemous against their person or God or their institution of orientation. In Politics, insurgents will fight and kill each other for very trivial reasons, such as defending their boundaries or loose talks of their leaders and others are just unleashed to clean the messes their Bosses have committed and that often involves killing all who were there at the wrong time also known as eye-witnesses.

Which cause are you going to die for?

Are you going to be a martyr?

Are you going to be the last man standing and defending your boundary?

Would you wait to exhaust your whole life span?

Would you die for someone to rule over the living?

Have you killed for money yet?

Have you mistakenly killed someone out of resentment or jealousy?

Well, if you are waiting for the life giver to take away your borrowed time, then you can feel free to pitch camp with me because it is the best thing to do under the circumstances and it’s what I’m doing anyway. 

“It is not good to speak evil of the dead…” and so on and so forth, so it comes to pass that everyone exiting out of this cold world was a good person. How nice! They all lived their lives with good intent, except some couldn’t have theirs manifested before their demise. They all helped their communities and the entire global village in one way or the other. All of them are either good children or parents, but for how long are we going to lie to ourselves? 

For how long are we going to unequivocally and predictably connive and condone to perpetrate this wrong against the dead over the years? I don’t want to believe that the same law that prescribed that we do not speak evil of the dead has asked us to lie against the dead.

This “we do not speak evil of the dead” was introduced to save the face of the living. It is another face saving venture of ‘the family’ to avoid being the trending topic for weeks to come. It is not the dead they care about since most of them don’t show it when the deceased is alive. They just want to portray themselves in the eyes of the public as caring, loving and supportive while you were alive. 

Do you think, they would have really liked us misrepresenting them for something they have not done while they were alive? I can imagine a whole Reverend, the congregation and all sympathizers reading a doctored and misrepresented account of me while I’m gone, and that wouldn’t be fair. It is why I would love our tradition changed for us to actually let the chips fall where they may. We want to start reading tributes like “Kofi Asamoah, however good, was an irresponsible man who beats his wife almost every other night…” or “here lies the mortal remains of Qouphy Dwumah, one reckless and immature Politician who took his people for a ride..” and finally my death wish, which should read “here lies the mortal remains of Fo Fovi who died in the struggle for equality. He tried!"

A letter to the Reverend

Dear Rev. 

May the peace and blessings of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you as you find time to read this missive of mine. I pray that God will give you the shrewdness to understand my missive the way I wanted it to be understood.

I have always wanted to express my observations and sentiments to you but I guess I do not feel much inspired to do what I had to do until this fateful day, when I can’t resist the overwhelming urge to let you know the problems I have been troubling my mind with.

As an integral member of this church who has been admonished to go the way my ‘fathers’ went, I have had no choice than to be here all my life, and this letter is necessitated by the fact that I am a gate-keeper for the Lord and cannot see the Church drift into an abyss.

First of all, I think the assembly has lost its sense of appreciation and openness that characterized the church in the days of old and I need you to observe keenly, since you do not really have time in-between counseling, teaching, meetings times and your own family life. There is no sense of humility among the members because pride and ego has taken over their sense of appreciation and that in itself is segregating the flock instead of congregating them.

On the periphery, I overheard the other day from a reliable source that the church was getting prepared to pitch stocks, and it amazes me how our sense of purpose has eluded us. There’s only one cardinal reason to enlist on the stock market and that is to make profit; to amass wealth and prudently manage our assets. It is an undeniable fact that the administration of the church thrives on finances but don’t you think that getting out there with our monetary issue is pushing our secularism too far and begging the question of the church now venturing into profit making?

I beg to differ but it has become evident that some of the clergy are not here for the flourishing of the gospel and the Church but for their selfish gains and that in itself is defeating the preamble of the Christian faith. They throw dust in the eyes of the people just to have their ways. They mask their intents with the growth of the church when their main job is to pull the church down.

Consequently, the flock is straying because the shepherds have reneged on their calling. It is convenient to state that the shepherds have to know that, their calling is first and foremost a duty and not an avenue to attract gullible members who have a blind allegiance to all their initiatives without a scintilla of doubt or inquiry. They finally succeed at dragging some fanatics into their fray as they all bear stones to rain on the biblical Stephens and some of these acts are brewing apathy towards the church.

Rev. Fr, I would also like to know why the church has stop evangelizing to the lost souls out there.  If the church was supposed to be turning people away from their sinful ways and making them face and love God, why then are we sending people out of the church to rather indulge in more sinful ways?

 Is the church no more an avenue to seek solace from all the confusion in the outside world out there?

It is disheartening to note that, some new converts are simply turned away because they are shabbily dressed and others too, for spotting weird hairstyles, especially that of the Rasta fraternity per the doctrines of the Church. Is God going to judge us by the purity of our hearts and the effect we have had in the lives of others or by simply looking at a catalogue of the various hairdos we’ve spotted during the days of our lives?

Why do you allow Church members wearing transparent clothes and looking semi-nude to fill the auditorium while you allow thieves to parade in the church, just because their contributions are needed to do the work of God? And it is also evident that married men and women are committing adultery and the youth agog with fornication without any one chastising them. I just wonder what Jesus Christ, our figure head would have done in these circumstances.

My last but not the least of my enumerated concerns is to bring to your notice the degree of opulence in the church. If pastors can adorn themselves with expensive cloths which they practically pride themselves with and ready to enlist the array of technological toys they have at the expense of some Church members who cannot even feed for a day, then something is amiss. It is even appalling when some of the clergy goes ahead to tout the expensiveness of even the perfume they use and I don’t think it is Christ-like to revele in vanities especially by the vessels of God.

Finally, finally, why is that transgression and vices seemed to be growing exponentially in the face of proliferation of Churches? Does that mean the Church has failed to pursue its mission, since it has become less powerful in the fight to instill and sustain morality? 

I really do not know how far you will side with me on my concerns, but I still have a duty as a church member to write to you. You have just finished reading and that alone in itself is enough to make my soul rest for now as I await the reformation that is yet to hit the Church.

Dear Rev, if it suits you and in the spirit of the Church gaining its grounds and doing the will of God and pursuing it purpose of the institution, then I crave your indulgence to address the issues expediently and drastically before the seams are split-opened.

Yours in the Lord,

Agbodeka James.

Content is King!

The only profound catchphrase that I could see and read on my timeline without looking out, prior to the 23^rd of March in the year of our Lord, 2013, was ‘Content is King’ and I started asking myself what this was all about. I grew frantic as the days wore on, since anxiety was engulfing the best part of me, so I mentally psyched myself to go and see this new king by the name ‘Content’ and possibly hail him if need be.

If you have ever made a date with an upcoming event before, then, I am of the conviction that, you must have mastered all the apprehension and the art that comes with waiting in-between the day of notification and when the actual event comes off, so I deplored all my skills as I hanged in there for the day to arrive, for me to go meet this Content of a King. 

Then to my chagrin, I realized there was nothing regal about the #Blogcamp13 event that was organized at the KACE-AITI in Accra, Ghana. There was no ushering in, of any King, neither was there any payment of homage, so I concluded that, I have been shortchanged. It wasn’t what I bargained for but I had to sit through the event till it finally came to an end, which i did not regret after all was said and done.

#Blogcamp13 was primarily a talk shop on the rudiments of blogging and writing. The programme sought to give us insight into what blogging is all about and how it can affect the writer as well the reader; with regards to what the writer churns out to his/her readers.

I kept pondering over what ‘content is king’ has to do with the blog camp event, while we were being taking through the sessions, until the whole import of the theme dawned on me that content was really a king, except that, the organizers found it difficult explaining it to us. 

I was suddenly elated when the meaning was illuminated to me in the simplest form ever and I couldn’t help but share it with other bloggers who probably might still be struggling to really understand what the meaning of the theme was/is.

Dear friends, all the organizers are reiterating is when you set out to write, try to imagine yourself being handed an empty calabash without the koko you set out to buy, imagine yourself being sold a pie without the stuffed meat/fish in it. How about buying raw waakye without the gari, macaroni, hide, meat, egg and the leaves to embellish it or beans without gari and fried plantain?

That will be a sight to behold, especially, if other buyers are populated around the waakye seller too.

Okay, how about hauling your trotro to and fro without passengers or an empty banking hall without customers to transact business or a barracks without soldiers, not to think of what will happen to the Pastors going to church to meet an empty auditorium?

That is how disappointing it can get if you should blog without any good content that elicits the attention of the reader, thus making their time reading such a blog an unworthy one and you know what can happen if a reader/customer is crossed with your work.

Depending on your expectation and how integral you are to any of the aforementioned scenarios, the result can be debilitating, so next time you pick up your pen to write, please, be fair and honest to your readers by availing contents that would make their ride so kingly. Give them contents that will linger on their minds for a long time to come. Give them something that will influence their perceived thoughts; either in the negative or positive and while you are it, always remember that ‘Content is King’ and must be treated with royalty.

Word is bond. Name is all

He was dying to come clean because he simply was tired of walking on egg shells. He was tired of destroying anything that reeked of evidence and has become a shadow of himself. This was not the life he sought out to live, and it was not what he promised his ailing Dad who died on his sick bed minutes after he was done giving the deceased his word, and this was not a matter of God disposing what man has proposed. It’s just a blatant failure on his part to heed to his father’s call and that of his conscience.

Although a man shall not only be guided by his conscience, Vodeka, was bound to what he has been taught by his family and the immediate society he found himself growing around. He learnt a few things from the first institutionalized society he came across; the church, then, the school and then the larger Society through role plays and interactions as time passed by.  All these institutions added up to his nurturing process and the barrage of inconsistent teachings and doctrines has now given him differing perspectives about life even though he’s always reveled in the simple definition of life being ‘how you make it’

He just wanted to be the free-thinker and Lawyer education has churned him out to be and doing what he’s got to do, but the dogmas and the need to please society, which other aspects of society has instilled in him is having a toll on him and he has to find a balance in-between his social, religious, economic, marriage and other lifestyles that appealed to him by not towing and conforming to someone’s ideals.

He was not the one to be judgmental. He allows people to do what they want to do simply because he’s done a few things people wouldn’t like but he did it all the same. However, his main concern was a person knowing that every choice he makes comes with its own consequences. After all, No one is stupid.

Vodeka was an exceptional individual and applied diligence in all he does thus making him excel in every endeavor of his life except managing his own life. Mismanaging his life was explicable because it was the only aspect of his life that did not come with a handbook or instructions.

He did everything he deemed right and at what time, only he wasn’t proud of himself when it comes to his line of work. He has been so promising right from childhood even though it didn’t come easily. He had to battle so many forces but what he had in abundance was self-control and he applied most of it to win the war. Growing up, he was just like his father; very poor, except he did not rob Peter to pay Paul like the Father did, even though they had a terrific relationship and were both proud of each other. And he had one more desire that was unlike his Dad, which is, he was determined to make it in life, to change the vicious cycle that has engulfed his family from time immemorial.

His problem however was, he had some issues with his career and needed to change it. He wanted some time off to find himself, to really recreate himself, to test himself, mentally, physically, spiritually and physically. He was emboldening himself to pursue that one thing that made his work unattractive to him since he considered it a distraction. The only distraction that came with his work was packaged in the form of mouth-watering bribery in all forms. Bribery to overturn verdicts of people with good cases, to connive and condone with third parties and Judges to sway cases their way thus amounting to injustice even in the face of the oath he swears and the word he gave his demised Dad.

Distraction could be a problem in his line of work because what is required to make things grind in their work was a clean mind without an iota of Interference. He’s made a lot of money this way and has saved enough during his four years practice of Law but he was often troubled by the queer voice of his Dad that keeps playing in his mind to do good to himself and that of others even if it caused him, his life.

As soon as he was hired into the law firm, the team of Lawyers offered to help him become a pro in no time because his potentials were tremendous, and they believed in him. They wanted to be part of his success story because it looked like; you were either on his side or on the side of those who were on his side. He had to start hanging around them all the time and every day because it was the only way, he could actually become part of the team. 

The team is a group of friends who enjoys what they do and working around the clock all the time to meet target. Last year the team doubled the marked up target which made them each receive a citation from the company and they intend to step up than the previous performance and all of this was to change his life. Infact, his life was changed and it was welcomed as long as it will make him become one of the most valuable players in his team. He also felt it was interesting being exposed to worlds he’s never dreamt of stepping into, which eventually brought so many problems between him and the ever ringing voice of his dead father in his mind.

He also realized that, he was tied down because of his orientation and other dogmatic experiences that always conflicted with the liberal ways he’s learnt along the line.  Life was complicated and he was burnt on having a simple life. His life became contemplative and was eating him up just because he was continually thinking about going contrary to his father’s death wish, by making money through all sorts of means thus robbing to pay Paul. 

This mind and heart boggling phenomenon got to a crescendo where all he could do to curb it was to answer the simple question ‘what shall it profit a man to gain the whole world for the price of his soul?”  And the answer to this question enlightened his countenance and illuminated his mind that all he could do was to swivel his chair behind his desk to face the screen of his computer to begin typing his resignation letter. He needed to get rid of his thoughts and let himself go. He was almost near redemption as the day was going to be his last day at work. 

His wife did not like the manipulations and the nature of his work and has asked him severally to quit, so the only one he had an issue with was his Boss but he also owed his Dad an allegiance than any other person, not to talk about the happiness that awaits him after quitting and finding something to do that conforms to his ideals. He was done typing his resignation letter.

He pulled his chair back to reach out for the printed document which was supposed to be his resignation letter. He owes nobody an explanation or a reason to leave work and come back no more, there was no decorum about living his life the way he wanted, so he folded the letter into a very neat manila envelope and addressed it to his boss and sent it straight to his boss instead of routing it through the Secretary for urgency sake. He handed the letter over to his boss and slumped in a chair behind his desk.

The Boss did open the letter with same urgency and all he saw on the printed matter was one short sentence which he thought he understood but couldn’t fully comprehend, so he took his eyes off the one short sentence which he’s read overly in that minute second for clarification and all Vodeka could say amidst smiles, without waiting to be further prodded or probed was “yes, I have quit because word is bond. Name is all”

Inspired by @Saygyka