Reflections

The craters in Owerri,
coated in mechanics greasy rags
dishivelled plastic, bits and odd ends, brimming with thick dirty mud sauce
drink cars, swallows trucks

Wet baking ovens,
Owerri craters paint tyres, lubricate, wrestle. rusticate and retire ball joints

Their gaping yawning jaws
jeer at and jab away
at the rust mud maligned,
dirt and murk soaked
undercarriages of tired cars and weeping SUVs, groaning and creaking as they creep and crawl in this sea dirt and misery, born from the greed of big men with undersized minds……

Otamiri, please rescue us
from the rot and rust
leftovers of looters who came garbed as our rescuers.

My reflections reveal the results of my musings on life. When a third party reflects on them critically and passes them through the lenses of his/her own reality, some refractions may occur yielding refracted reflections or even reflected refractions in some cases.

Here are some of my reflections on life on one idle slow Sunday morning when I woke early and missed mass because I had to catch a flight on the snaky air routes of West Africa.

Reflections # 1 Never live in the past. Leave your past behind. Life is a present and must be lived in the present.
Reflections # 2 Never allow your past to trap your future
Reflections # 3 Never allow any sense of guilt from your past smother your openness to the possibilities that today and your future offer.
Reflections # 4 Oscar Wilde said that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. The wild one was paraphrasing a Pauline truism that all have sinned and fallen short of the grace of God.
Reflections # 5 Be careful of the present love whose love consists in throwing your past constantly in your face. This is not an act of love. It is a manipulation strategy that seeks to control, dominate and overpower you by appealing to a sense of guilt and dirt from your past.
Reflections # 6 Christ forgave Mary of Magdala. It was a one off thing and He never revisited her guilt after that. If your current relationship does not adopt this approach to your past failings, he or she or they do not know Christ fully, for to know Christ is to act like Him.
Reflections # 7 You must forgive yourself if you really expect total liberation from the bondage of guilt.

Bros/Sis, Na so him dey me for mouth dis early mormor as I dey wait to check in at MMIA to travel to Burkina Faso for an African microfinance summit. Make una live una lives wella, in the present and not in the past remembering that Nkiruka.

The power and sheer beauty of Achebe’s prose. Is this prose or lyrical poetry? Ezeulu’s story of his confrontation with and triumph over the elements and the spirit world are presented in this racy and gripping narrative overflowing with imageries and symbols. The days of the week are protected by their powerful spirits but the priest of Ulu worsts them all and who emerges at the end a liberator and successful negotiator and one who also carries the weight of the failings of his people and buries these at Ulu’s shrine. In the engagement with the four market days and in his race through the town, the High Priest of Ulu is offering supplications for the wishes for the protection of the clan and prayers for their future. He is also carrying the weight of the needs of the clan and all their failings on his frame as he rushes into Ulu’s shrine where he drops these.

This encounter of expiation of sins and renewal for the future is told in a style that grips and awes. The Igbo world view presented here is deep and fascinating.

The beauty of Achebe’s prose. He has appropriated the English language and breathed Igbo into its core. He speaks Igbo in English. Ezeulu’s pragmatism shines forth as does the patriarchal mindset that defines and shapes him. Simple yet deep, ordinary yet majestic are the best ways to define this artistic tour de force which this master word and “storysmith” achieves in these lines.

JGS 11:29-39A

The Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah.
He passed through Gilead and Manasseh,
and through Mizpah-Gilead as well,
and from there he went on to the Ammonites.
Jephthah made a vow to the LORD.
“If you deliver the Ammonites into my power,” he said,
“whoever comes out of the doors of my house
to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites
shall belong to the LORD.
I shall offer him up as a burnt offering.”

Jephthah then went on to the Ammonites to fight against them,
and the LORD delivered them into his power,
so that he inflicted a severe defeat on them,
from Aroer to the approach of Minnith (twenty cities in all)
and as far as Abel-keramim.
Thus were the Ammonites brought into subjection
by the children of Israel.
When Jephthah returned to his house in Mizpah,
it was his daughter who came forth,
playing the tambourines and dancing.
She was an only child: he had neither son nor daughter besides her.
When he saw her, he rent his garments and said,
“Alas, daughter, you have struck me down
and brought calamity upon me.
For I have made a vow to the LORD and I cannot retract.”
She replied, “Father, you have made a vow to the LORD.
Do with me as you have vowed,
because the LORD has wrought vengeance for you
on your enemies the Ammonites.”
Then she said to her father, “Let me have this favor.
Spare me for two months, that I may go off down the mountains
to mourn my virginity with my companions.”
“Go,” he replied, and sent her away for two months.
So she departed with her companions
and mourned her virginity on the mountains.
At the end of the two months she returned to her father,
who did to her as he had vowed. http://bit.ly/1j6IVSe

https://www.poemswords.com/post/186621235938/greatmindquotes-i-have-found-that-among-its