Gift of Breath

Death makes me contemplate so many things. And I am writing this post so early in the morning because I barely slept after seeing a dead man yesterday. 

Holit Annewetey wasn't exactly my friend and I only met him once. He was my brother in-law and my sister's husband's brother. I did hear a lot of nice things about him and I was sad to see such life pass away. R.I.P Holit. May you find rest in the bosom of your maker. 

So anyway about death and the many questions it raises for me...

Most tend to be spiritual or religion related. I feel I need to read more about other religions to understand this further but the main thing I asked myself after seeing a lifeless body was "so where did his soul go?"

I know you're thinking 'heaven or hell' at this point but that's not what I mean. 

If 'life' as it is, is actually just breath...it proves to me that generally, until the death of a relative, friend or some other person, we actually take our breath for granted. Life force and spirit cannot be ignored. They must be acknowledged. 

I don't care about your religion or your system of beliefs. All I'm saying is one day you may 'wake' to find yourself alone and/or in a strange place. You and I will cross over to a place we probably were never really ready to enter. 

And so for what it's worth, be thankful always for the breath of life. It may seem like the simplest thing, and the most insignificant of our daily life processes, but breathing every second is a gift. 

On this note;

My the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in perfect peace. 

Two Of Me

Morning...
Well, should be 'Good morning' but I guess with time people have come to accept that the morning is not always good so in recent times the 'good' is always omitted.

Anyway, it's been quite a while since I posted anything and it'll soon be my birthday so I guess I owe it to myself to put something up.
This is generally about me and 'my kind'. Somebody reading this just now will understand what I'm saying already. Most of you however...

I was watching the series Dexter and realised something very real; I'm just like him. And there are so many of 'us' out there but each of us feel like we're alone until we actually meet people or at least someone who understands us.
Rewind...I don't mean I kill people when I say I'm just like Dexter. I mean I pretend to feel things; I pretend to belong. But when I'm alone, my dark passenger disturbs me. Everyone probably has a dark passenger, a monster inside that is the real you. Some people just accept it way more than others. I accepted mine a long time ago and I've learned to hide it and more or less control it. I have been overcome by it a few times but I try my best.

I mentioned feeling good about meeting someone who is just like you; someone who understands what you go through. I've met people I thought were like me but I finally met someone who could be even worse than me. He's gone past controlling his dark passenger. I'd say he's 'in charge' of it now. I wish to be able to do that because then, nobody will be able to hurt you unless you wanted them to or unless you allowed it to happen. That's how powerful we are.
I have my weaknesses and my dark passenger takes advantage of them a lot of the time. And that hurts me...a lot. In other words, I hurt myself. But I also recover. I learned to recover and that takes a while. I'm not sure I can speed up the process any further.
And there are those times when I really need to be with someone (mostly myself) and the people around me will never understand. Hence the pretence I have to put up day by day.

No, you will not know when you're just being a nuisance to me. Sometimes I snap and it's not good. Well these days it's better so I'd probably just be rude in my speech and I might ignore most, if not all, your comments and conversation starters. That's the biggest clue you can get about my state of being.
I don't call it a state of mind because that's not what it is. As I said, some of you would understand.

So basically, I believe everyone is a different person when they're alone with themselves. We must keep up appearances to keep the harmony. I wrote this on facebook once and got a lot of disagreers (yes there's such word...apparently -_-) but you and I know that it's true.
Only advice I can give anyone fighting to take control of this 'monster' within them is to just let it be. Allow it to work and then note when it comes out to play; note the things that agitate that darkness and you will know what it is you can do to tame it and bring it under your control.
Kinda like training your pet.

;-)

Prayer Of A Stupid Person

If you have ever felt stupid in your life or felt like the worst person in the world, pray with me.

"Oh Divine Master,
You alone know why these things happen to me. You alone have all knowledge of all things visible and invisible and are able to keep all things under control by your mighty power.

It is you, oh Master, who understands what moves me to say the things I regret and to do the things I shouldn't which always get me in trouble. I have no power to control these things and sometimes I'm so convinced I could've avoided them but you teach me to understand that sometimes we do things on impulse. And this may be due to unseen things we may never understand as humans.

But oh dear, it always makes me feel so stupid and to the world, that's all I'll ever be if these things keep happening to me.
In the end, you yourself, oh God, reveal the true reasons for putting me through all the humiliation under the circumstances of the past and prove to everyone else in the future that I am worth so much more than they could ever think of.

I shall therefore bear the temporary humiliation until victorious, priceless glory from above shines on me once more.
Hence I pray for strength to hold my head up high and toil as time ticks away. I shall wait patiently until my day of gladness. I shall keep my spirit strong and believe in the glory that lies ahead.
It is not easy but the joy of The Lord is my strength. May your name be praised and adored forevermore, dear Lord God.

Amen."

What Is All This?!

You know the feeling when you sit in front of your computer and open your blog page and click on 'New Post' and the blank page appears and your mind just goes blank all of a sudden?
That's me right here... -__-

Then suddenly my heart begins to ache again and emotions rush through me like a wind - images, feelings, movement...aarrrgghhh!

Have you ever been intimidated by those 'Christians' who feel the need to talk to you about Christ just because they saw you do something or heard you say something they have never thought of? For example, because I said "shit" someone starts to quote Bible verses saying I will be judged by every word that comes out of my mouth; or when I decide to 'shake my bum bum' to Oliver Twist by D'Banj someone also feels I need deliverance.

I still believe that we're not an ignorant generation. We are taught to believe in a higher power right from birth, whatever your religious denomination or affiliation whatsoever. And so I find it funny to see people despising others just because they do not serve their deities in similar fashion. Each to his own.

If we're praying in a group and I decide to be silent does not mean I'm a devil incarnate just because you have decided to spill your prayers vocally. I am not evil if I listen to music with no 'Jesus' in it. I am very comfortable attending church programmes and joining any group I might be interested in without people trying to force me to be a part of something with the 'threat' that if I do not join such and such a group, I will lose the gift that the Holy Spirit has given me.  (Cuss words fill my head right now!)

Please, we are all human. We do not know every single thing happening in the minds and lives of everyone else. Assumptions can be dangerous at times and we should not rely on such thoughts to judge people. In fact, we should not judge others at all.

If you do not know, ASK! If it seems strange to you INQUIRE and you will be told, and then you can act based on that. DO NOT ASSUME and go make a fool of yourself. We have all been fools before and it is not a very nice feeling.

So all I'm saying is, please allow people to serve their deities as they wish. If you have a problem with that, or are unsure why they do what they do, find out first and then you can take action cautiously. If you believe someone needs help, speak to them in a way that will make them listen to you. 'Spiritual threats' (as I call them) will not work!
Tell me what you think is better than what I am doing and do not tell me I will go to hell because of what I am doing.

I think you understand. :)  Good.
Thank you.

Made In.....Where??

I honestly didn't know how to title this post. It's about something that has baffled me for a long while now and so I decided to put this post up and see if I could get some answers/clarification (or whatever).

Many people these days like the look of 'African Wax Print' and would love to have their clothes made with such material. Even shoes, slippers, bags and other accessories these days have a touch of these wax prints.

Before I go on, I am a big fan of such fashion as well but I also do patronise non-African attire. It's just personal preference. Some people like to go along with anything as long as it suits fine.

So as I was saying, it's suddenly become a big thing in Ghana, my homeland. But I have a concern. Most of the Ghanaian designers who use these wax prints, always advertise with phrases like "made from African print", "...proudly African..." etc. and yet (correct me if I'm wrong) most, if not all, the fabric used is cheap Dutch wax prints. 

In Ghana we have two major factories producing our locally made wax prints - Tex Styles (formerly GTP) and Akosombo Textiles Limited (ATL). Whatever happened to people patronising our own wax prints? Is it because they're more expensive? That is the only excuse I would buy; otherwise it makes no sense to me why we preach 'proudly African' while donning European wax prints.

I don't mind buying any wax print from whatever country. My only problem is with those who claim their stuff are made from African print and are using Dutch wax prints instead. I think that's deceit of self and of public. 

It's possible these people are not aware...or maybe they are and are just having a good time selling us stuff which are not what they say they are; and we're also buying and supporting falsehood blindly.

It's in our best interest to patronise our home made goods in general so that our value as a nation will rise gradually.

It's not just the wax prints that's a problem. There's also the amazing issue of the current 'fufu flour' craze in the food industry.

I've heard of (never tried) imported fufu flour from Europe -I don't know where exactly- which tastes really awesome. 

Why are we depriving our own friends and relatives here (who are farmers) of their livelihood and feeding mouths that already have more than enough? It's quite sad what we do, isn't it? I want to believe we're unaware but sometimes we must stop for a minute and think; ask ourselves a few questions and try to find the right answers. 

I don't think I can go on any further. If you have thoughts on this, please share. I may have some wrong info or something. These are just my own and sharing yours might help me understand better. 

Cheers!