PURPLE HEART

I don’t remember dying… but I remember lying on the hospital bed… awaiting transition 

I wasn’t that old… maybe a hundred and a few toppings… but I had lived a great life… in the jungles of Somalia… the deserts of Sudan… the roughies of Congo… and the heat of Kenya. The beautiful thing is most of my peers would not even remember that I once existed… not because I had not thought about leaving behind empires and legacies… but because I knew all earthly empires and legacies eventually fade away. 

I had forsaken all my PhDs, my investments, and my wealth at the age of 52… when it occurred to me that I would always want more despite the apparent sufficiency… avarice was and is an inherent strand in the human DNA… the unregenerate… and I wasn’t going to leave on like that. 

So I had taken up my cross and not only sponsored missions but volunteered for every mission I sponsored... the complex newness that came over me was beyond the principles of quantum physics and philosophical dissertations… I was a new man, heaping my treasures in heavens… trading the currency of faith for the souls I reached out to… 

“Hey” I heard that all so familiar voice that you could never get used to “Welcome Home…” he continued and when I spun round my aged knees buckled (despite the new strength that surged through them)… 

I fell in awe, not quite sure if standing in the presence of “Greatness” was appropriate… I looked… but it felt like I could never exhaust the vista of his face… 

“My Lord” I uttered with a voice lost in emotions… 

He smiled “I am not He… I am Michael” he came over to me and helped me up… “Please rise… I am at your service” 

If Michael was this beautiful how entrancing would My Lord be…? Hitherto, everything was all white, but the moment he took my hands, the true nature of my whereabouts was revealed to me… now I grasp what Paul meant when he said “the man beheld things that he’s not allowed to say”… not because his voice failed him or he was banned from saying anything… the words to communicate them just didn’t exist. 

It wasn’t about the streets of gold… gold here is the least of awes… allow me the youthfulness of using the word “Dude”… Earth is a mangled work of art compared to this… just pacing this streets alone was enough to pleasure me for an eternity… my whole body wept in bliss as we were transported through space without moving our limbs… 

Then we arrived the throne room… words do also fail grey hairs… sensations too wild to be imagined by the best of authors wracked my body when I beheld My Lord sitting at the right hand of My Lord… both were wrapped in Light… strong enough to shield Jehovah from my view but subtle enough to let me experience Him…

Oh! What glory treaded my cells… my body burned with so many tender emotions that I fell flat and moaned in awe… “glory… glory… glory…glory”

Then I felt my Lord stand above and when I lifted my head… I saw… I saw… I saw those golden holes in his hands as he held a crown over me…

“In Sudan I saw you” He smiled as he said this and I knew life “In Somalia you fed me… In Kenya, you visited me in prison, in Congo you clothed me… and in Nigeria you gave it all up… I was there son… I was there” 

I opened my mouth to say something… anything… but only tears bubbled out

“Well-done” he continued “here”… and he placed the crown on my head 

I don’t know how long it took for you to realize that earth is just a transitory phase… but I want to encourage you to keep faith… and set your eyes on the glory that awaits… It’s beautiful beyond your comprehension of beautiful 

And if you haven’t come to the knowledge of Christ yet, hop out of that path to eternal doom… don’t miss this awe for anything on earth…

I am… doesn’t really matter… but I am dropping this note from heaven… the awe here is inexplicable...

ORIENTATION OF A KING III

Kunle Smith stared at the map in his hand and considered his son’s face. Eti’s thought patterns were

vividly spelt on his face, just as Kunle had planned. The map was a prototype of the Lagos Island blueprint. Kunle knew the roads too well because he had grown up on these same streets. He could walk around these streets in blindfold and name every turn.

“Which path do you want to take?” Kunle asked his son without taking his eyes off Eti’s face 

“Dad” Eti observed the map as his teenage mind searched desperately for the shortest route to arrive the finish line.

Today was fun Saturday for the Smith’s and Kunle had come up with a fun way to yet again teach Eti an important lesson that would be essential in his walk with God. Earlier on in the week, Kunle had made copies of the map from an old Lagos State Diary. He then traced three lines for probable race routes from Start Line to Finish Line. The Start line was at Marina and the finish line was at TBS. 

The women in the house had gone shopping at Shop Rite.

“Route B” Eti finally spoke, trying hard to conceal his excitement at finding the route with short cuts. 

Kunle smiled, knowing he had his son right where he wanted him. “All right then… remember the emergency dial on the phone if you get stuck, but it should be easy” 

“Sure dad” Eti replied, taking one more look at the route with short cuts 

“Let the race begin”… Kunle strolled off as Eti tore away with youthful excitement. Eti got to the end of the first turning and observed that his dad was just strolling towards his own end of the street. Eti didn’t pause to ask himself why, he had a race to win… If he won, they were going for go-cart racing the next day but if his dad won, He would have to summarize the book of Psalms. 

Eti’s first challenge was the human traffic along Mandilas… unknown to him; human traffic was heavier here because of wholesale distribution done by marketers in the numerous complexes that lined the street. No sooner had he negotiated the street did he encounter more human traffic. 

All the short cuts on the route that he had chosen were crowded by buyers and sellers trying to close sales because sunset was fast approaching. His frustration bore his young heart weary but the thoughts of summarizing the book of Psalms urged him on. At every point Eti stopped to look at the map, he felt like he was losing time so he memorized the route and tucked the map into his pocket. 

Two hours later he arrived under the horses outside TBS and found his dad sipping a can of coke. 

“Dad, how did you get here before me?” Eti asked with short gasps 

“Catch your breath” Kunle smiled at his son and tossed a can of dew at him.

Eti caught it but wouldn’t open it. He kept staring at his dad, trying to catch his breath “Dad, did you cheat?”

“That wasn’t and will never be an option” Kunle replied… still smiling “Son, you chose the route because it had short cuts right?” “Sure” Eti paused “You knew?”

 “I traced the routes didn’t I?” Kunle smirked as he drew his son near “In your haste to arrive first, you picked that route not realizing that there would be other factors like human traffic…” Eti raised his brows in surprise

“Son, short cuts are the most traveled routes in life but they seldom guaranty early arrival…” Kunle continued “If you want to arrive exactly where and when God wants you to arrive in life, you have to follow His way, even if it seems like it’s a long route”

“Are you saying you knew I would lose the race?” Eti puzzled 

“I made you lose the race son” Kunle hugged his son “I wanted you to learn that the race is not to the swift or the strongest… but to whoever follows God’s proposed way… there are no short cuts with God” 

“Not fair dad” Eti sulked 

“Come on” Kunle tickled “summarizing the book of Psalms will be fun… it would be your introductory classes on poetry” 

Image courtesy of Fuse MQ Enterprise

SUBLIME

After the fifth time Stacie promised herself she wouldn't call Jim again, she dialled his

number and her heart skipped a trifle when his image appeared on the screen. She knew she had no business calling him after he had blatantly told her she was worthless…

 What happened to all the sweet words, the attention, the petting, and the "I am crazy about you"? 18 months into the relationship and she had never even kissed him, until that movie night when the watched a romantic flick in a candle lit room. It was all so beautiful, just like in the movies…

 "Hello" Jim answered irritably on the other side "Stacie, what is it?" "Baby" Stacie returned from her reverie "baby, how are you doing?"

 "Listen Stacie" Jim growled "I'm at work, if you have nothing important to do, I do…"

 "Baby what happened to us?" Stacie resumed her sobbing routine, but the line went dead. She tossed the soiled tissue on the pile that was fast rising to the height of the couch. She wasn't naïve, matter of fact this was her third relationship and every one of them had ended after she gave up the "cookie". 

She had thought what she had with Jim was different because he never made any demands, never threatened and didn't even act like he was interested in "Cookies" before marriage. Truth be told, of all the men that she had dated, Jim was the sweetest… well, turns out the sweetest sometimes have fangs.

 After their first time, Jim started acting cold and she felt she had done something wrong. So, she tried to get his warmth and sweetness back by giving up more cookies, but nothing changed. It was raining ice by the fourth time… Jim stopped calling, stopped texting and didn't even bother replying her messages… 

 What had she done wrong? She was a good Christian girl, beautiful (sexy even), had great character, worked hard and earned good… maybe she got too emotional… but was that it? Isn't a woman allowed to be emotional? She pondered on these until exhaustion drove her into the warmth of sleep. 

 Later that day, she came across a psychology journal, it featured results of a research on subliminal messages that are inculcated in advertisements, to get consumers hooked on products. 

Then it hit her, even though Jim had never mentioned sex or implied it, the movies they saw at the cinemas, the songs he made her listen to, the novels he bought her, and the sort of underwear he bought her all suggested sex implicitly.

 "Wow…" Was all she could say… Jim worked as an advertising executive in one of the top ad agencies in Lagos. The whole time, he was all about the cookies even though his words were all about their future… 

Then the popular proverbs 4:23 verse hit her "guard you heart with all vigilance and above all you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life" "How many things do we know, yet don't put to practice?" She asked out loud… 

While Jim featured a "Christian" façade, he was subliminally suggesting "Cookie take-outs"… She should have known better than receive media content and gifts that were not edifying from Jim… she should have paid greater attention to Paul's warning in Romans 12:2 that we ought not to conform to the standards but rather to renew our thoughts with God's word. 

 She exhaled in realization of the fact that she had been duped… through subliminal suggestions and she got down on her knees… It was time to hit the refresh button… She had messed up, but she wasn't going to stay messed up… 

She knew Christ would be waiting with open arms… and she resolved there and then that she was going to filter everything that she read, listened to, and watched…

STILL

Thwack… the harness that held the sail down to the gunwale gave way and the thrashing sail flopped

about menacingly. The storm had come upon MV Calvary without notice and the gurgling tempest of the pacific spoke thunders. The waves were tales of fiction featured in flicks only – when it troughed, the darkened clouds laughed at the keel of the fishing trawler.

MC Calvary crewmen scurried about cutting harnesses, wrapping sails around the gaff, channeling the flood off the deck. Capt. Maxi watched the whole thing without emotions from the prow, his knuckles white from gripping the gunwale. This wasn’t how he’d envisaged the end of his great fishing career on earth. “North-East’s Finest Sailor lost at sea” the headlines would read. 

He thought about all the stories he had heard about sailors dying at sea and their final words. He knew this night wasn’t going to last long because the storm had just begun and he knew what the word “cyclone” meant… this storm had the tell-tale signs of that monster written all over it. 

The waves crested again and passed immediately… their descent reminded Capt. Maxi of the crests on the highways to his village… He missed the hollow feeling that made one’s heartbeat increase whenever a crest was passed on the highway… but this wasn’t a highway… this was an ocean without borders… without solace… a moaning ocean thirsting for souls… calling… beckoning… 

As they descended, Capt. Maxi looked round to see his dejected men hold on tightly to anything that would reduce the impact whenever MV Calvary hit water again… they all looked scared and knew what he knew… this night was not going to last long… no Captain deserved this looks from men who looked up to him

He gazed down at his feet and saw the words he had engraved on the prow when he bought the trawler – PEACE BE STILL… the words of His master Jesus… he was a Christian but this was beyond his faith… Still he muttered the words… not in hope that the storm would pass but that their deaths would be in peace…

“Peace be still” he repeated silently, his eyes closed… his heart at peace… and his spirit ready to be poured out “Peace be still”… 

Before they bottomed out, another crest caught them in mid-air and took them up… at the peak of the crest, Capt. Maxi heard a screeching sound and looked round at his men. They all had their eyes shut… 

“Peace be still” he muttered again… ready for anything 

Then the trawler stopped moving… MV Calvary was perfectly still… still in the raging storm… not swaying… not canting… not tilting… but perfectly still in the belly of the cyclone. Everyone opened their eyes and noticed that the storm was still raging about them, several feet below them. Yet, their ship was steady. 

Capt. Maxi peeked beyond the gunwale and observed that they had crested on a rock. The rock had a groove that the trawler’s keel fitted perfectly into. Reverent awe washed over him… there was no record of such a rock in the pacific… no scientific expedition had evidence of this and in all his 37-years of sailing Capt. Maxi had never heard of this rock…

This was no ordinary rock… This was the Rock of Ages… this was Christ himself… Capt. Maxi knelt and his entire crew followed suit…

TWO FACED

“I specially invited you over because you have a way of stirring up emotions” Pastor Skye told

Isaiah, the rap artiste that everyone knew as “Mouthpiece”… Isaiah couldn’t believe he was listening to a man anointed by God…

 “Let me get this straight” Isaiah cleared his throat “you are saying I shouldn’t minister as the Holy Spirit leads?”

 “No… no… no… come on, how can I say that?” Pastor Skye smiled awkwardly “I’m simply saying, you should let the Holy Spirit lead your ministration in such a way that, the congregation would give willingly”

“In other words, I should manipulate the Holy Spirit”

“Boy, don’t act naïve… the Lord confirms the words of his servants the prophet” Pastor Skye justified his words “How do you think your flight from Kano was paid for? Church offering” Isaiah thought of responding but the Holy Spirit restrained him.

He had no idea why God had even nudged him to respond to the invite. Pastor Skye’s church was having a miracle revival and wanted to reach the younger generation, so they had invited him over – being a rap artiste, prophet and a preacher all wrapped in one.

“Listen Mouthpiece… if you play your part well, everyone benefits…” Pastor Skye continued “We’ll split all proceeds from the offering 50-50…”

Isaiah smiled, stood up and walked towards the door, then turned round “Sir… I’ll be in my room. When it’s time for me to minister… I’ll do what needs to be done” and he stepped out of the room

Two hours later, Mouthpiece stood in front of the congregation ministering and all he could see were thirsty souls…

He poured out all that the Holy Spirit poured into him… the move of God was apparent and everyone knew that God was with him… behind him, Pastor Skye bubbled in his seat, conscious of the vulnerability of the excited congregation… wheel chairs were being rolled up… blind eyes and deaf ears were popping open… broken limbs were healing and most of all… Souls were getting saved

Pastor Skye couldn’t wait for Mouthpiece to finish ministering; so that he could receive offerings… then he heard what felt like an earthquake…

“I speak as God’s Mouthpiece when I say this” Mouthpiece was saying “On no occasion should anyone give offerings or tithes till this week-long event is over”

Pastor Skye was about to jump up and protest when Isaiah turned round and faced him…

“I am sure the Holy Spirit is ministering the same thing to the man of God…” Pastor Skye had no choice but to nod and smile sheepishly…

Three hours later… Isaiah stood in front of Pastor Skye with his bag packed…

“There is no money for your return flight son” Pastor Skye said drily as he sipped whiskey from a glass…

“You are not my shepherd… The Lord is” Isaiah replied “My work here is done… and he’ll fly me home… but it would do you a lot of good to remember that you were not called into ministry to make money”

“It takes good money to run a good ministry son” Pastor Skye screamed

 “It’s not your job description to look for money, you are not a marketer” Isaiah calmly replied “the glory of Lebanon shall come to you, the Cypress, the plane, and the pine together to beautify the place of my sanctuary… Isaiah 60:13”

With that Isaiah turned round and walked out…

ORIENTATION OF A KING II

There was nothing… absolute emptiness that defied contemporary definitions of nothingness…

Kunle Smith couldn’t even feel his son’s palm & tiny fingers wrapped tightly around his. His heart skipped a bit and he realized he wasn’t breathing…fear clawed his heart and the blackness sunk its barred fangs into his skin. Kunle felt like he was being sucked into the nothingness.

 He could feel Eti’s hand yet he couldn’t feel it. He tried to ask the boy if he was okay, but nothing came to his lips… he tried to raise his hand to feel his lips but there was nothing where his hand used to be and he knew this lesson was one he shouldn’t have taken his 12 year son through.

Kunle Smith had brought Eti to the Imaginarium of Creation (In Otieké) to show his son how wrong evolution theory was. The boy had kicked and ranted about the facts replete on the internet about evolution, since the day he was taught Charles Darwin’s evolution. Kunle knew the boy had to pass school exams, but more important were the exams that life would pose when school was over. Eti needed to be grounded in the faith before science & philosophy stole his hungry heart. 

Suddenly, the intense fear left him and he felt an approaching force. He had no idea where the Force was approaching from, but it seemed to be approaching with such speed that the waves it radiated shook Kunle’s bones. 

He felt like crying… yet laughter rippled through his core… but he didn’t hear anything. The Force approached… and the closer it got, the more Kunle shook with laughter. A billion lights exploded inside him, yet all he saw was darkness. He felt like he was drunk on divine nectar that a zillion litres of dopamine couldn’t beat. 

The Force slowed down as it arrived near Kunle. He still felt Eti’s hand and heard him laughing uncontrollably but when he turned to look at Eti, blackness swallowed his gaze. The Force finally hovered above him and Kunle knew then that he was dead… yet alive with so much vigour that he could feel his soul flutter like a wet sheet in front of an industrial fan. 

The Force hovered for eternity… yet It had just arrived above them… The Force seemed to be just above them, but Kunle knew that this Force was everywhere… How he knew he couldn’t say… he just knew… The Force had the warmest embrace yet it was fierce and rugged… how the Force could be all of these at once, Kunle couldn’t tell… all he wished for was that His son was experiencing all of it. 

Then he heard it… what sounded like the rushing of Niagara Falls and giant gorges in the Pacific… it was sweet and bold… soft and thunderous… deafening and penetrating… there was no mistaking that voice… 

“Let there be light” the voice said 

Before the voice finished its utterance, the darkness, emptiness, blackness and nothingness disappeared. Kunle was blinded by the approaching beam of light. His eyes were wide open but the gust of energy that came with the light shut his heart up. At that instant, Kunle knew he knew everything. This light wasn’t just light; it was the illumination of existence…

Any question could have been answered by Kunle at this point… anything… this was the source of knowledge… 

Kunle beheld what appeared to be legions of angels pulling the beam of light on lightning fast golden sleights. The golden sleights where existent, yet you could see through them… transparent orbs of beauty… the angels were so huge that describing them was beyond Kunle. They pulled the beam of light past Kunle and he was once again engulfed in the ecstasy that had rocked him earlier on, only this time… He felt like He was inside The Force.

Then he felt fingers grip his palm and he looked down with teary eyes and saw Eti… with tears streaming down his face. He opened his mouth to speak… still, the words didn’t form… then he saw the words float from his heart towards Eti’s heart

“What is it son?” Kunle saw his thoughts form words

“Is this how God started creation?” Eti replied without opening his lips… his eyes wide and his cheeks glistening. 

“This is how he made creation” Kunle replied again “He started creation before He hovered over the nothingness”

AMBITION 101

The dashboard said it was 01:12 and Ahmadu Bello road was unusually deserted on this wasted

Thursday. The embankment on Akin’s right featured no thugs on a hunt and there were no “hawkers” in sight. He pulled the Ferrari into the curb and got down with a bottle of Red Label in hand. The bottle was still chilled courtesy the bucket of ice that he had bought with the bottle at the club.

 Life was everything that any young man Akin’s age could dream of. He was the hottest thing on tabloids and every club across the nation had K Turton banging their floors and roofs. As high as wealth could fly, he was at his peak and had direct access to the most powerful politicians in Nigeria. Yet, this was never the plan 

Akin Turton was a church boy gone rogue. He started out in the choir, singing and evolving into rapping. He could play at least three musical instruments and majored in Music at Unilag – a journey that saw him graduating top of his class. Two years after school, he was regular at church events and ministered to numbers unheard of, but “ministrations” didn’t put him in the spotlight.

Akin Turton wanted to be famous, he wanted to ride the best cars, tour the world in private jets, own private islands “for God”. He dreamed of building a music city that would be home for all struggling gospel artistes… He had good and grand dreams… ambitions that had the gospel on the forefront… 

So when he was approached by AM records, with a deal that promised he would still do gospel music, he didn’t bother consulting God… every good and perfect gift comes from God, right? The common knowledge that AM Records was owned by drug lords didn’t bother him. Two albums down the line, K Turton went commercial and by the fourth, K Turton was raking in more cash than any artiste in the history of African Music industry has ever done – BUT… his content was sick enough to make the devil puke… 

The gifts and callings of God are without repentance… the anointing was still there, just that it was corrupted. K Turton had everything going for him but he was empty. He knew it and craved to be at the feet of the master again… but he was too big to attend a church… His street cred was too high for him to be found on his knees… 

He hopped clubs… blazed shows… changed female inspiration… but the emptiness got worse… He even tried adrenaline sports… still, sleep evaded him… when his homies were around he smiled but his tears were unfettered in their absence… this wasn’t living… this was wealth in the belly of the Cracken…

 He took a swig from the bottle and climbed the steps by the embankment. He passed a row of stalls and stepped onto the bar-beach sand… he could smell weed but there was no one in sight… He had contemplated suicide on several occasions but had never summed up enough guts to go through with it… tonight looked likely… he pulled off his shoes… jeans… t-shirt… jewelleries… and took one last swig before tossing the bottle beside the pile… He wanted to take a swim…

When his feet touched the first wave that slapped the shore…

 “Can you swim?” a voice asked… the voice sounded like a small boy’s

 K Turton turned round to find a small boy, whose face he couldn’t make out, sitting beside his pile of clothes… His first reaction was to scream… but he was too scared to even scream…

“Remember when you used to tell God you would FOREVER sing to his glory?” The Small boy continued… by now K Turton was too weak to stand… he fell on his knees… “what happened to your promises about building a music city for gospel artistes?” 

“beautiful words and ambitions” The small boy smiled and K Turton could feel the warmth despite the distance between them “but they were not as beautiful as the words that were written about you in the volume of books before you were born…” 

“I’m sorry” K Turton finally whispered as he closed his eyes in shame and tears… “I’m sorry”

“Now that you’ve had your wish” The small boy asked “is everything perfect?”

 K Turton lifted up his face to answer but there was just his pile of clothes…