THEY CALL ME A FAG...BUT AM I REALLY GAY?

THEY CALL ME A FAG (Adapted from a real-life experience/s)

By Felix Abrahams Obi
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I have a beautiful name, Paschal that was given to me by my parents during my baptism as a child. My parents were close to our parish priest, who left Belfast several years ago to work as a missionary in Nigeria. They said I was such a bubbly little boy, full of energy and life and had named me Paschal because they wanted me to be like the Irish priest. Family friends who visit my parents are usually thrilled by my stage plays: I could mimick just any sound I hear and my mom believed I would likely become a clown if they didnt stop me in my tracks. I bought the idea of becoming a priest but by a stroke of ill-luck missed sitting for the entrance exam into the junior seminary.

My parents decided to send me to an all-boys secondary school owned by the church, with the hope that I'll be kept away from girls. It was the only alternative as close to a seminary education as the regulations in the boarding house were as strict as they could have been in a seminary. With joy my parents drove me down to the boarding house and it became my home for the next 6 years.I was only 12 and my class was a mix-grill of innocent, naive and exuberant boys who had dreams and goals. I didn't hide the fact that my dream was to become a priest at the end of the day!We all had one 'senior' or the other who protected us from being punished by senior students both in the domitory and during the school hours.

Senior Kennedy was very popular among the junior and senior students alike, and everyone liked him for his cool-headedness. He was made the Chapel Prefect in SS1 due to his consistency and commitment to attending church activities in the school. Since I planned to be a priest, I decided to fulfil the maxim that says, 'birds of the same feather, always flock together' and told him I wanted him to be my 'school father'. My parents were delighted with news when they came during one of our visiting days.So I managed to keep away from the wrong crowd. I closed my eyes when some mischievious classmates pull out 'Playboy" magazines they stole from their dad's collections to watch in between lesson periods.

They would usually congregate around the locker of the particular student with each little boy struggling for a vantage position to see the naked women on display. There's always a giggle and muted chuckles from my classmates whenever a new page is opened. Usually, another student will stand by the entrance door to check when a teacher or prefect is closeby. Once he whistles, everyone dashes back to their seats to evade any traps!I liked Senior Kennedy so much and he would rescue us from being flogged or terrorised by the senior students, and sometimes gave us provisions.

He and a few of the senior students had the rare privilege of staying back in the dormitory to rest during preps, and would ask a junior student to attend to them. But none of us the junior students knew why. It was not until my JS that it all came to light.My best friend, Kalu had gone to deliver a message to Senior Kennedy and his group in the dormitory during the games period after the one of the afternoon preps. I waited for him to join us at the football pitch but didn't come back until the game finished. Kalu liked football so much and was one of the best strikers in the junior team. When he came back, Kalu looked sullen and depressed. I tried to make him talk but he wouldn't budge so I gave up.

After a couple of days, Kalu brightened up and never told me whatever that happened even though we never hid any secret from each other before then.A week after while we were having our afternoon prep, my classmates hounded around another locker to flip through another porn mag. A particular picture aroused a lot of interest among my classmates. Curious to know why, I brushed aside my religious inhibitions and drew closer to peer at the magazine.

It was a picture of two men having anal sex; which to me was the most bizzare scene I had ever seen. In my naivity, I asked Kalu who was part of the group, '' What are those two naked men doing in that picture? Why did he put his wee-wee into that man's anus? Will the shit not stain his wee-wee and make it to smell?"The class roared in laughter and many jeered at me with shouts of '' Reverend Father, '' Mr JJC'', ''St.Innocent'', ' Mummy's boy'' and '' Mr Ntu'' . Feeling a bit embarrassed, I asked why they called me such degrading names especially 'Mr Ntu' which seemed to fly around with ease.

One of my classmates, Emeka who is the clown of the class asked derogatorily, '' Mr Innocent, so you don't even know what is Ntu?

I sure knew what 'ntu' was and answered. 'Ntu is nail ofcourse, or what had a nail got to do with my question? I retorted.

The whole class roared in laughter and chanted...''Mr Ntu, Mr Ntu, Mr Ntu...'' singing and chanting, beating their lockers to the rhythm of the chant. The song came to an abrupt end when the next the class emissary announced the arrival of the next lesson teacher.

Still curious, I asked Emeka during that evening's game and my vocabulary increased that day.

'Mr Ntu is any boy that does 'ikpo ntu' with another boy like those men in that magazine' he said, chuckling.

''But I didn't see any nail or hammer in that magazine. Do you mean those men are carpenters? I asked.

Emeka couldn't hold back his laughter.'So you want to tell me that you didn't hear that Senior Kennedy and his ba bad friends forced Kalu to do 'ikpo ntu' with them last week? So you don't know that since we don't have girls in our schools, the senior boys used to have sex in the anus of junior boys?

''Kalu is my friend, and Senior Kennedy cannot do that kind of thing. Don't you know he's the Chapel prefect?"

"So you think am lying to you ehh? OK now, when you go back to the domitory ask Kalu if am telling the truth or not", Emeka said and walked away
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I felt a hand move and rove over my body . I was far from deep sleep. But it was a soothing caress that lulled the hairs on my body to rest. The fingers of this hand were discreet in their cadence; stroking, teasing and gently kneading my chest muscles and wriggled down to my pubic area. A current of pleasure surged through me like hot flushes of blood and I tried to open my eyes, but the weight of darkness made my eyelids too heavy.

The same hand that caressed my body now enveloped my eyes. Another gagged my mouth. Additional hands hauled me out of my dormitory bed; a double-decker bunk bed! I could only hear the eerie screeches of crickets and the howls of owls. I was afraid but couldn’t shout. I struggled and kicked my legs but the hands that gripped them were stronger. I knew I was been carried away; to where, by whom, for what purpose? Ritualists? Human traffickers?

The dormitory door was unlatched quietly, and the door hinges didn’t protest nor cringe. I felt the cold air over my body as my pajamas eased out of my body. My heart raced and bumped like a bike on a bumpy road. Am I about to be slaughtered? God don’t let them kill me?

Prayers refused to exit from my gagged-mouth; now stuffed and sealed with my pajamas, I suppose. The faint voices sounded familiar but distant. Could that be Senior Kennedy’s?

“Abeg make I go the first round’, the first voice pleaded.

“No, I go do am quick quick’, the second voice said in hushed but firm tone.

‘E suppose be my turn this time around’, a third voice protested.

In a matter of minutes, they flung me into bent-over position. I felt a hand rub my anal area with an ointment; maybe Vaseline jelly. A stiff object poked through anal orifice like a jagged nail and began to thrust in a sequence of movements.I cringed and let out a cry but couldn’t hear myself.

I felt a current of excruciating pain tinged with pleasure surge through my entire body as the back and forth thrust increased in intensity. I was between heaven and hell and couldn’t figure out what went in and out of me. The only sign that I was alive was the hushed voice that moaned and heaved with each thrust; and the pressure of the hands that gripped my waist and trunk.

The thrusts ceased and the stiff object limped out of me.

“Na my turn now” the other voice said.

“You better be fast before them go catch us oooh!”

Another round of rhythmic thrusts assailed my sore and painful anus for what seemed like eternity. Hot tears seeped out of my sealed eyelids. The pain had become unbearable and I tried to kick and punch at my assailants to no avail. My arms had grown limp and my body, flail.

….…………………………………………..

Someone shook my body vigorously. I managed to open my eyes but saw only a silhouette-like figure bent over me. He shook and shoved me the more.

“This nonsense boy, common wake up jooo! Everybody is getting ready for class and you’re still lying down on your bed like a lazy cow.”

Though I didn’t make a sense of what he said, his voice mocked like Emeka’s; the clown of my class.

“Mummy’s boy, you better stand up before the senior prefect flogs the hell out of your coconut head’’.

Full of mischief, he pinched my forearm and I gave a grunt and twitched in pain.Still uttering no meaningful words, save for the groaning hiss that escaped from my clasped lips, he shook me as he tried to rouse and move my body.

He paused. Two big eyeballs leered at me with dilated pupils. His shrieking scream jagged me back to life.

“Blooooooood!” Emeka shouted.

In a flash, a horde of my dorm mates circled around my bunk to see the blood stain on my bed sheets. Apparently I had fainted along the line and my assailants quietly tucked me back in my bed, and covered me with my swaddling clothes; now stained with blood.

My rumpled pajamas had sucked in the blood like surgical swabs stuck into the sore ends of a sutured wound from a scalpel.As they turned me over to my side, the source of the blood stains no longer could hide like the tummy of a pregnant woman.

They made a quick diagnosis of my condition; a case of sore and bleeding anus in an all-boys secondary school can only point to what we called ‘bone-to-bone’ or ‘ikpo ntu’- translated literally as hammering a nail into an object-; the rape of a junior boy by the senior boys and a rite of passage to a world as dark and sordid as anyone can imagine.

This usually happens when senior students are about rounding up their final exams, targeting boys they want to send to hell.My assailants may’ve even joined to commiserate with me. And even if anyone had known, no one would dare to open up.

Kalu’s case was reported to the Principal but the case died as soon as it was opened; ‘ikpo ntu’ was a necessary evil; an outlet for seething passion and lustful embers lodged in the loins of rabid teenagers whose animal instincts ruled once they enter their moments of heat.

I couldn’t go to class that day and was taken to the dispensary where the matron cleaned me up with disinfectants, before dressing my wounds. Her needles pumped in antibiotics and analgesics into my blood stream.

“God punish those wicked boys, and it will never be well for them’, she cursed.

After the initial shock and all, life in my dorm settled back to its normal pace. And I became one of the butts of the class jokes; a victim of ‘ikpo ntu’ who now belongs to a class of boys that have had an experience that is etched in their memories forever.

A cult of boys who grew up into men overnight. A group of boys whose psyche and sexuality has become transformed. Angry at other men, and abhorrers of women but lustful of some men. A strange world that I found myself….!(To be continued)
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Felix Abrahams is a physiotherapist and poet who lives and works in Abuja and can be reached via email: halal3k@yahoo.cm

Uncle Bros: My Neighbor's Lover Boy Son

Uncle Bros…My Neighbour’s Lover Boy Son

By Felix Abrahams Obi ………………………

He is only 4-years old but he’s not stopped to baffle us all. He has shown his precocious tendencies way back as a toddler but his brain seem to have aged and matured too soon. Though his name is Emmanuel, my friend’s son and I call each other ‘Uncle Bros’ and he scarcely calls me ‘Uncle Felix’ save when he wants to sound a bit formal. In all fairness, he owns the original copyright of the brand name ‘Uncle Bros’ as it came as an offspring of his creative genius. And no one should bat an eyelid if he displaces and pushes out brand icons like Leke Alder and Charles Otudor out of the branding market anytime soon! Emmanuel’s dad and I have been neighbours in the government estate where we live in Abuja. The apartments are not the classical ‘face-me-I-face –you’ type but have a semblance of it as it was custom-built for the lowest cadre of civil servants. Many of them sold their flats to reap the dividends of Obasanjo’s monetization policy, and used the proceeds to rent far cheaper apartments at the outskirts of the Abuja city centre, while some relocated to nearby Nasarrawa and Niger states respectively. Many of us who are not civil servants have become tenants of to civil servants who bought the apartments from their indigent colleagues. My neighbour grew up in Benin City where I lived in for 3 years during which my crisp and burnished English accent was corrupted with Pidgin English ‘made in Bini’. As an NYSC physiotherapist, my first baptism into Pidgin was in the consulting room when an elderly woman with osteoarthritis of the knee came for treatment. While ‘clerking’ her, I enquired about the nature and characteristics of the pain to help me at a treatment plan. Mama answered, ‘my pikin, ai dey hear am inside’ stretching the phrase for emphasis while pointing her fingers to the source of pain. Confused and flustered, I hid my ignorance under the cloak of professionalism and managed to treat her that day. It was not until I went to the ward to attend to another patient who had necrosis of his hip joint due to sickle-cell anemia that I decoded the phrase. Educated and young, I expected this patient to speak in ‘janded’ English accent when I took his case history. He also blurted out this ‘ai dey hear am inside’, and I had no option than to ask for its meaning. I wondered how on earth one would ‘hear’ pain instead of ‘feel’ it, but in Benin, pain has a voice, and only the victim ‘hears its villainous voice’! By the time my NYSC was over, I dumped my hallowed English for pidgin with its musical undulations. I began to say ‘Bros I dey double hail oh’ etc, when I meet a close friend on the streets of Benin. Since Emmanuel’s dad grew up in Benin, we mutually call each other ‘Bros’ and being his ‘Uncle’, this kid’s genius reckoned that I should be called ‘Uncle Bros’ and the name has stuck with us all, and that’s what his parents call me as well. When he wants to strum my guitar, he’d yell at his dad to take him to ‘Uncle Bros’ house’. The pidgin bug hasn’t stung him yet but his grammatical theatrics only goes show that it’s only a matter of time before the ‘pidgin gene’ matures and becomes expressive. Over year ago, little ‘Uncle Bros’ used to regale us with his homilies and displays as a ‘tele-evangelist and pastor’ in the mould of Chris Oyakhilome, whom he saw as his mentor. Uncle Bros would mount the ‘podium’- his mom’s kitchen stool- to preach to us, with his Bible stuck in his armpit. Clad in his stripped suit with knotted tie, Uncle Bros would convert his dad’s phone charger into a microphone to gleefully declare and echo pastor Chris’ popular refrain, ‘’So mightily grew the word of God and it prevailed’. Uncle Bros toga as the kid pastor received a knock when he started nursery school couple of months back. He has caught the attention of a little girl, Sandra, and he no longer mounts the podium to preach again like a backslidden pastor whose soiled linen has been washed in the public. I wonder why he chuckles and giggles whenever Sandra is mentioned in his house. He shocked my auntie and me when he tried to impress her 5-years old daughter when they visited me last year. He painted the scene of a proud peacock trying to impress a female mate for when he heard that a little girl was in my house, he dropped everything that caught his attention and dashed into my apartment with breath-taking speed! He boasted to my auntie and daughter that his mom is now his wife, and that when he grows up, he’d take her to the church and ‘do wedding’ with her. With mouth ajar, she listened as Uncle Bros strutted around to impress and boast about his mom, ostensibly to impress my auntie’s daughter I suppose. He brandished his toy gun and boasted that he’d shoot even the Policemen and soldiers, and will arrest us (offenders) and put us in prison. My auntie’s witty and impressionable daughter spurned his overtures and looked the other way until Uncle Bros went back to his parent’s apartment. Uncle Bros and his dad are in for a never-ending romantic contest and the object of the conquest is his mom-wife! Each time his dad kisses the mom , he’d yell at his dad to “leave my wife alone’’ and his face gets furrowed with the mischievous smiles each time his mom beckons, “come and kiss mommy’’. And whenever he refuses to eat his ‘Indomie noodles’ like he always does, his mom will threaten, “I won’t marry you again’, only for him to become apologetically patronizing. After forcing down the food down his guts and topping it with water he’s plead, ‘Mommy please marry me you hear…!” Uncle Bros squealed recently after a trip to Wonderland –Abuja’s most popular amusement centre-with his mom. His mom’s phobia for heights took a hold of her when they both entered one of the formular-1cars that raced like legendary Michael across a tortuous rail track suspended from the ground at an elevated height of over 4 meters. Uncle Bros giggled and had fun at the expense of his mom who screamed and cried hysterically as the car made its breath-taking stunts above the earth’s surface. To cover and conceal her shame, Uncle Bros and his mom made a pact to not tell anyone about the incident. After all, lovers have secrets that no one else is permitted to be privvy to…hence ‘no kiss and tell’ is permitted by lovers! Having not seen my neighbour for weeks, I walked over to his apartment to see them. As usual, he greeted me with ‘Bros I hail oooh’ and no sooner had I reclined on the sofa than Uncle Bros walked up to me to ‘kiss and tell’ on his mom, who was sitting nearby. To his mum’s chagrin, he chuckled loudly as he told me how his mom screamed out of fear as they rode in the car at the amusement park the previous day. Like most lover boys are wont to do to the objects of their romantic adventures and conquests, Uncle Bros reneged on his vow to not ‘kiss and tell’. After another threat of divorce, he went down on his knees to apologize and plead with his mom to welcome him back and ‘marry him’ again. His dad usually is the chief audience who watches helplessly as this Oedipus complex soap opera plays itself out daily under the roof of a house he had bought over from the government as a civil servant from his savings. I wonder why little boys are ‘jealously in love’ with their mothers! ........................................................ Felix Abrahams Obi is a writer based in Abuja and can be reached via halal3k@yahoo.com

Scribblings of a Hungry Soul

In quietness I draw near to your heart
Let your streams of fire light me up
Cause a stirring, a diffusion of hot springs
To thaw my heart towards you, my God

Lead me to the oasis of your WORD
And feed me till every cell in me
Is filled with the essence of you, dear Lord
And let your Word become as honey to my soul
That I may long for it endlessly

Dear Lord, keep my heart glued to you
For I don’t want to stray away again from you
Keep my mind from that endless quest
In search of knowledge outside you
And let me anchor my faith in you
No matter where hope leaves me behind

(Abuja, 5: 30 am, 20th April 2009)

-Excerpted from my 2009 Devotional Journal: Scribblings of a Hungry Heart-

24th July 2009: Birthday Musings

WELLSPRINGS NEWSLETTER; JULY/AUGUST 2009
A Publication of Masters Pen Media, Abuja Nigeria
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Editorial Note.

Dear friends,
After a long hiatus, I am back again to share with you this current edition of WELLSPRINGS newsletter. I was so touched by a couple of readers in my mailing list who got worried about my prolonged silence and wanted to know why I stopped writing. I wish I could give a ready-made answer but all I can say is that even though I’d kept quiet, the burden to write still lurked somewhere in the recesses of my soul but somehow there just was no flow.

I guess God was taking me through a phase in my life and ministry of writing where I needed to step back and learn some very important lessons about Him and about life in general. This journey has taken me through valleys and cliffs and has helped to revalidate and consolidate my faith and belief in God. It is with joy that I feel privileged to be able to share with you my thoughts through this medium and am humbled by all the show of love from those readers who tried to get in touch and urged me to keep on writing.

Today, July 24th is my birthday and I wish to bless God for the grace, favor, mercy and love that He has been investing in my life. I have this deep sense that great years of joy and fulfillment are ahead of me. And I wish to thank friends who have been calling in, sending texts and dropping messages on facebook to wish me a happy birthday.

May God bless you all and may you find yourself in the centre of His plans and purposes for your lives.

Shalom and God bless!

Your brother and friend,
Felix Abrahams Obi
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1. IS IT ALL ABOUT YOU OR HIM?
In an unguarded moment, I had made an uncouth statement about a dear friend that harmed and damaged a relationship I had treasured over the years. I felt sad over the encounter and efforts to redeem the situation had hit the walls and in a bid to see what relics I can recover, I went to God in prayer, pouring my heart to him while acknowledging my mistakes in deep remorse. In the quietness of heart, it was as though God made me realize that the friendship was dealt a lethal blow because I brought my own selfish interests to the fore over and above the feelings and sensibilities of the other person, and in the process, bruised the ego of a cherished friend. It came as a deep rebuke…and the words resounded in my inner man: ‘’Is it all about ME (God) or just you?” and no one told me to confess my failures to God and asked him to heal my friend’s heart.

A few years ago, the worship atmosphere in Christian churches across the nations changed and a new era was heralded. These songs that helped people navigate into God’s presence had received a boost through the ministry of the great psalmist of our generation, Michael W. Smith. His songs resonated in churches and fellowship meetings and he became a household name among Pentecostal Christians. One of the songs that impacted so many goes this way:

When the music fades, and all is stripped away, and I simply come…
Longing just to bring, something that is of worth
That will bless your heart
I’ll give you more than a song
For a song in itself is not what you’ve required
You search much deeper within
Through the way things appear
You’re looking into my heart
Am coming back to the heart of worship
‘Cause it’s all about you, it’s all about You, Jesus
I’m sorry Lord for the thing I’ve made it
For it’s all about you, it’s all about You, Jesus
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It was one of those songs that easily would prize out tears from the eyes of many a Christian. But beyond all the tears and lifting up of holy hands, we’ve become a generation that have become so involutedly selfish that is characterized by utter selfishness. We are always seeking to have our own way in almost everything. When we negotiate, we press the other party till they compromise without us having to yield any grounds. Rather than a win-win attitude, we press for a winner takes is all situation, not minding how the other party feels at the end.

I believe that God is now looking for Christians who would exit the confines of self and begin to carry the weightier burden of the kingdom. God is seeking for intercessors-men and women who will stand in the gap for the rest of humanity, even at the expense or risk of incurring personal losses. You can only carry the burden of others only when you come to the point where your personal needs become of less significance relative to the needs of others.

From biblical and contemporary history, it’s been documented that those who stand out in the secular, business and religious realm are men and women who think less of themselves and more about the needs, and welfare of others. Moses risked his life in an attempt to rescue a Jew from the oppression of Egyptian task masters, and was banished in exile. God saw that and when the Jews cried to God for a deliverer, Moses who felt the least qualified was chosen by God because he had a burden for others.
David was a selfless and caring shepherd boy who risked his life for the sake of his parent’s flock…he fought the wolves and lions that attacked the sheep. Little wonder he dared Goliath because he translated and expressed the same selfless love towards Israelites when they were under the siege by enemy forces.

But beyond carrying the burden of God’s people as their shepherd, there was an additional trait that made David standard out from generations before and after him- he was consumed by a desire to please God. It was said of David that he found favor in god’s sight because he sought for a dwelling place for the God of Jacob (Acts 7:44-50). He was the man after God’s own heart!

We’ve ‘worshipped’ God enough in our churches but beyond the lifting up of hands and swaying to the soft and smooth rhythms of the ‘praise and worship songs’ on Sundays and during midweek services, God wants us to live a lifestyle of worship…an orientation beyond singing of songs and feeling good in church. He wants us to begin to care about the spiritual, social and moral climate of our generation, which is further dipping into depravity as the years roll by because we now live more for ourselves than for others.

When was the last time you went out of your way to do something for others without a desire to be acknowledged by the recipients? When was the last time you prayed for that friend whose marriage was is going through a major crisis? When was the last time you did a good deed for others…and if you did, was it to get a reward or did you see yourself as an answer to someone’s cry to God for help?

We need to start thinking differently all over again and start carrying the burden of others and laying them before God like the intercessors that we are, as well as doing practical things that would uplift the burden of others. This requires a paradigm shift from that position where we thought more of ourselves and our needs to a new position where we become sensitive to the needs of others and become God’s vessels of grace and help. It’s only from the point that we can access and be able to wield power from heaven to impact others on the behalf of God.

Selflessness is too strong to yield and die that easily. A mere wish to become selfless and others-centered will never be realized except at the place of prayer. It requires a trip to the lonely Garden of Gethsemane where our personal needs and will contend with God’s plans and purposes for humanity till ‘self ‘ is broken to the point of capitulation and near subjugation that we can cry from that place of helplessness saying; ‘Not my will, but yours, oh Lord”. It was at that place that Jesus Christ gave up his personal human rights and gave up every dream. From that point he didn’t look back till he died on the cross…and we now walk the streets with stickers and emblems that brandish our different brands of Christianity. How undignifying that we so forget how someone had paid the prize for us…and we think it so absurd to bother about the guy next door!

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“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But the hireling…watches as the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them.”(John 10: 11-12)

“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.” (John 15: 13-14)

“By this we know love, because he laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide with him?”(1 John3: 23)
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2. THE HEART OF A SAINT
As a young boy growing up in the east, I read the biography of , and was told the glowing stories of numerous Catholic saints that were celebrated as patron saints almost on a daily basis. A saint, such a hallowed word that paints the picture of a halo over the head of a man or woman who lived an extraordinary life that had earned the respect of the church, after the due process of canonization.

But I was a bit bothered as I had no Nigerian saint to call a patron saint for so many years until the cheery news came that Vatican had recognized a Nigerian, Rev. Fr. Iwene Tansi of Onitsha as a saint after successfully scaling through the process of beautification and canonization. Now that we had an indigenous saint, my hope of becoming a saint became more realistic I had thought hence had no need again to become a Monk locked up in eternal meditation in a monastery.

As a child, monkhood for me was the way to go to become a saint then. But as a spiritually enlightened adult, now I know better to not see a saint in classical parlance for every child of God, who has duly been certified as a sinner, then acquitted of sin and its consequences becomes qualified to adopt the title of a “saint’’ with or without official canonization. I walk tall and with a swagger because I can now be called a saint due to what Jesus Christ had accomplished on the Cross for all of humanity.

But beyond the title, what does the heart of a saint look like and how can we be certain we are saints indeed without the angels having to scan us with lie detectors? Why do experts in crime investigations focus a lot on our facial expressions and words to know if we’re telling a lie or not?

Somehow there is a connection between the expressions on our faces and the current state of our heart and our words have same relationship with our hearts. And in order to check if we truly are saints and living the lives worthy and becoming of saints, we need a trip into the inner recesses of our hearts. For this journey to be fruitful we need to be brutally honest with ourselves for more often than not, our hearts play a trick on us that we unwittingly slip into self-deception which is one dreaded enemy that hardly gives up easily, and denies us great blessings.

This journey requires self-criticism and intellectual honesty so that we can dare to probe and ask ourselves questions that have the power to unmask self-deception which harbors our hypocrisy, spiritual decay, moral corruption and errors. Like the respected Jewish rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said in his spiritual classic, “God in Search of Man”, ‘we may have to realize that religion is liable to distortion from without and from corruption from within.

Like the craftsman who over and again recalibrates his products to ensure they meet the stipulated standards, we need to constantly scan our hearts for what this rabbi calls ‘distortion and corruption’. Within our hearts, the truth of God’s word is constantly under the siege of spiritual corruption since our human nature easily slump into decay by default, while the external environment is so harsh and threatens to distort the truth of God’s word within our hearts.

That is why the Wise Father admonished his son, “Let your heart retain my words; Keep my commands and live. Get wisdom! Get understanding! Do not forget, nor turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you; Love her, and she will keep you…My son give attention to my words, incline your ear to my sayings, keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those that find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out it springs the issues of life.”(Prov. 4: 4-7, 20-23).

David the ‘man after God’s heart’ faced a rude shock when he allowed the pleasurable thoughts of his heart to stray a little till he slipped from a man of moral strength to one that had a tryst with another man’s wife, and the snow ball effect rocked his family life and left a scar that history had not deleted yet. He then realized the need for searching and probing his heart, and when he looked deeper within, what he saw embarrassed him that he had to cry out to God saying “Behold You desire truth in the inward parts and in the hidden part, You will make me to know wisdom…Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”(Psalm 51: 6-10).

The heart of a saint when dissected would reveal how much of God’s word have been stored in them for circulation to the cells and systems that constitute our spiritual edifice within. The heart of a saint will not only show how much he loves God, it will also show an index of his fear and reverence for God…for we can love God deeply and yet swim in sin! The heart of the saint will reveal compartments where his valuables are stored but their worth depends on the focus of the saint…temporal or of eternal value?

In Psalm 1, we are presented with the resume of a righteous man; the saints of old from whom we can learn the same principles: he delights in the law of God, he ignores and denigrates the company and counsel of the ungodly. As New Testament Christians, the measuring mark has been so raised that we have no liberty to slack for a moment as we’re contending constantly with the unfriendly and ungodly culture and system where we live and work. Hence we need to constantly check if we are still in the faith before we slip into spiritual depravity with no evidence that we are saints and people that reflect God’s power and glory to the world outside the walls of the church.

www.nuggetz4life.blogspot.com

A FASHIONABLE CHRISTAFARIAN vs RASTAFARIAN

A FASHIONABLE CHRISTAFARIAN vs RASTAFARIAN
By ©Felix Abrahams Obi

The Christmas mood was palpable and the cold harmattan breeze had stripped the large Iroko at my kindred’s play ground tree to the bare, and it was the oldest in my village. My big cousin had arrived from Lagos and we waited with batted breath for the unzipping of his big box which was loaded with goodies from the city. As I stripped my pack open, my eyes beheld a blue ‘jeams’ trouser as we kids called it then. It was my very first jean trousers; not really made of jean material but velvet which we called ‘velvetine’ and what else would you expect of a naïve village boy. My treasured ‘jeams’ trouser made its debut on was Christmas day and was worn only on Sundays till it faded. And I still have a childhood picture of my ‘jeams’ that reminds me of the good’ol days.
In secondary school I became fascinated by the socially conscious reggae music of Rastafarians; who were the true custodians of jean trousers, freedom fighters that rebel against the norm in fashion. They wore rugged jean trousers that were hardly washed that contrasted well with their dreadlocks that signed of their rebellion against ‘them Babylonian system’ that oppressed us the children of Jah that live in Zion. I dreamt of hanging my box guitar across shoulders, decked in jeans and bouncing like a true Rasta man.
But I was a church boy, who didn’t have the nerves to be rebel like Rastafarians, and the little courage in me was snuffed out in med school where I was literally banned from wearing jean trousers, and any idea of growing a dreadlock became embalmed and completely dissected like the cadaver we toyed with during anatomy classes. The Babylonian system that my Rastafarian mentors hated imposed a dress code on us: Sartorially cut trousers, clean shirts with a tie to match which was hidden under the enshrouding cloak of the white ‘lab coat’ for which medical and paramedical students turned into a respected fashion symbol that stirred admiration in every other student in the university campus.
I found myself in a very conservative campus fellowship that made wearing ‘a shirt and tie’ the dress code for brothers and to add to my woes, wearing the almighty jean trousers was a taboo for the serious-minded ‘brethren’ like us. My childhood dream of wearing my ‘jeams’ and ‘dada hair’ was dealt a devastating blow and I gave up and accepted my fate till I graduated from med school.
But as an intern at UNTH Enugu, I saw a consultant anaesthetician who had very long and aged dreadlocks; the type you’d find only in Jamaica among ‘Kaya’-puffing Rastafarians. He was a true rebel; had no ties and jean trousers were his companions. I was too stunned to not notice him. So when I started work as a physiotherapist National Orthopaedic Hospital Igbobi Lagos-with the famed ‘Okada Ward’- I began to dress down by wearing jean trousers on Fridays like a tamed rebel at heart that I was. At least a plastic surgeon I admired so much was always on jean trousers but he had no dreadlocks! So was not my ideal fashionista mentor…so the search continued!
My salvation came years later when I met a man I truly admired- Ben Okafor. He had long dreadlocks, strummed his acoustic guitar dexterously and boy, he usually wore rugged jean trousers, and was not even a Rastafarian, and didn’t puff nor smoke ‘ganga’ from a drum with his band. He spoke no patois and his reggae music was as avant garde as any root rock reggae vibes from Jamaican. Though ‘ Christafarian’ because he is a professed Christian, the vicar of a church in England where he once played a gig and gave a sermon on spiritual revival had asked the congregation to ‘pray’ for Ben ‘to cast out demons from his dreadlocked hair’. But on the day he played a gig in my church in Lagos, rather than see demons flying off his dreads, streams of tears flowed from his eyes as he urged humanity to love one another with God’s kind of God. That Sunday, dreadlocked guys felt at home in the church…!
But this redemption was transient. Few weeks afterwards, I left my hospital work as a physiotherapist and became a health program officer with an international donor agency. The dress code so changed that to look formal and appropriately-dressed for the endless meetings between the ‘government and donor partners’ and the numerous diplomatic dinners, I had to revert to wearing suit which overlaid my shirt and tie. What bondage. Though we do dress down in the public health and development field, the sartorial codes of med school still have a hold on so many of us that we are yet to break away from its bondage.
I still wonder what my oyinbo boss will do on a typical Monday morning when I’d resume for work wearing a pair of rugged jean trousers, with my now growing afro hair locked overnight into dreadlocks. Some days I will suit come to work clad in designers’ suits, sporting a well-starched TM Lewin shirt and a silky Gucci tie, with my then grown –up and matured dreadlocks cuddling my shoulders freely. I seem to hear a silent but confident voice within saying ‘nothing dey happen’ to douse any fears that my job will still be intact as no dress code was enshrined in the offer letter and contractual papers that I signed when I took up the appointment.
Not too long ago, one of the ‘brethren’ ran into one of the ‘jim jim’ brothers who had banned brothers from wearing jean trousers in the campus fellowship at Mile 2 bus stop. This ‘broda in da lord’ had shed the cloak of ‘shirt and tie’ and was clad in a pair of rugged jean trousers, and a branded T-Shirt, with his silver bling bling hanging freely over his neck. He had locked his hair and the dreads were strutting out like fashionable buds that will grow into mature seeds that will harvest longer dreadlocks in the coming months. He’s no Rastafarian, he has no acoustic guitar nor does he smoke a pipe of weed!
(Felix Abrahams Obi is a physiotherapist and writer based in Abuja)
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OBI,Felix Chukwudi Abrahams jnr

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Health Expert
Japan International Cooperation Agency
Third Floor,Oakland Centre
Aguiyi Ironsi Street
Maitama, Abuja
Nigeria
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WHEN A WOMAN LOVES A MAN.....!!!

I wrote this piece about 2 years ago and have been toying with the idea of developing this idea into a book manuscript. So I'm pushing it out into the public domain for discussion and ideas on how I can rework this into a book.Is it worth all the effort or should I just leave it as just an article?Any ideas, critques, condemnation, criticisms whatever?I wait with batted breath for your responses!

( Originally published on http://www.nigeriansinamerica.com/articles/1385/1/When-A-Woman-Loves-A-Man/Page1.html)
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WHEN A WOMAN LOVES A MAN

...by ©Felix Abrahams Obi
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“There are three things which are too wonderful for me,Yes four which I do not understand:The way of an eagle in the airThe way of a serpent on a rockThe way of a ship in the midst of the seaAnd the way of a man with a maiden” (Proverbs 30:18-19)…………………………………………………………..

Whoever coined that word, love must have thought deeply to have known it’s an all pervasive word. Like they say, “love makes the world go round” and little wonder an ancient sage called Agur (quoted above), could not fathom the mystery surrounding the love between a man and a woman.Agur’s headache bothered on “Man meets Woman”, but the subject of my contemplation for quite some time is rather the mystery of “Woman Meets Man”.

When a man loves a woman, his love sometimes gets tainted and subsumed by his base instincts. He becomes consumed by what he wants out of the relationship over and above the needs of the woman. And once his base interests and desires are satiated at the expense of the woman’s, he smiles at his luck and moves on unperturbed. Rather than have a symbiotic give and take situation, it becomes a winner takes it all scenario.And who ends up hurting? Your guess may be as right as mine. He leaves hurting hearts in his wake most times and the victim usually is, the “woman that he once loved”.

But when a guy loves a woman and the love is unrequited, hell is let lose. He’d mock and deride the object of his love, and God save her soul if he’s not the type that is short tempered. After all, it’s a masculine world though feminists have made some progress in their fight for gender equality.Many a male chauvinist are wont to hit back and quip, “Do you know how many countless men that went the way of Death and Hades because of the women they loved?” I never trained as an attorney and wouldn’t vouchsafe any defense for the male folks.

My little bit is to zero in on how I’ve perceived Daughters of Eve and the little insight I have gained from their version of love, not necessarily contrasted to Adam’s Sons that we are! It’s been a fascinating experience as I thought about the Love a Woman has for a Man: the emotional dynamics, the travails and triumphs, the vagaries and mysteries, the joys and the pains etc!

Ego became engaged as a teenager to Emeka, the President of her Youth Fellowship in church. Upon entering the university, she realized she had been naïve about her decision, but she hung on till after graduation. She couldn’t continue anymore and her fiancé unleashed his emotional armory against her. It was a major battle for her during her NYSC until she met Jide who became her friend and was a big brother figure to her. Jide was her counselor and confidant with whom she shared her emotional turmoils. He didn’t know he’d so much touched her until it was time for her to go back to base after the NYSC. Upon her request, he came to bid her goodbye. So they chatted and reminisced on the past year. Thereafter he stood up to leave…Ego began to sulk and her tear sac burst as she cried,” Jide will I ever meet a trusted friend like you in Lagos?” She clung unto him like a child that is scared-stiff and wouldn’t let him go. He was stunned to say the least for he had never seen such an unrestrained emotional side of his born again fellowship friend. Their friendship was purely platonic and devoid of romance and all the pecks in it.

Nkiru, the daughter of a rich Ibo business man, and red-capped chief stunned her parents when she opted to marry her heartthrob, Ike, who hailed from a very poor and obscure background. Prior to the wedding, he had lost his bank job and was not a man of means. But she stuck to him at the risk of being disowned by her parents, and reasoned that life would be so bland and loathe-some if she married someone else. She couldn’t literally think of ever falling in love with another man. Rather than a society wedding which her parents dreamt of, she had no other option than a quiet one at the registry. Her mum sneaked out to witness her daughters wedding which had no guests let alone a reception. Her love for Ike triumphed!

Amaka who works with an Oil Company was engaged to Dipo, whom she met in her local church. He was a struggling guy who had no much economic base, but she loved him dearly and was ready to help him achieve his dreams. She introduced him to some of her friends who’re into business and ploughed much of her savings into the business. Soon the fruits began to yield and Dipo became a Lagos Big Boy, riding the latest Porsche car in town. No sooner, his gaze changed, and he lost interest in Amaka. The deed was done and he left Amaka’s heart in shreds when he took the exit door.

Ugochi was a shy teenager when she met Chisom, her elder brother’s friend, whom she had a crush for. They were in Med School while she was in secondary school. She’d blush each time he visits their home, and her heart often missed its beat. She felt what she’s never felt before and she secretly wished he’d know about how she felt about him. Just before she entered the University, Chisom asked her out and the love affair blossomed and being her first, she lost her innocence in the bid to prove her love for him. Now married 4 years down the line to her former coursemate/boyfrien d, she still would not forget Chisom, her first love!

Like Agur the sage, I am still benumbed each time I contemplateon the love women have for men. Why do women love with all their being? Why would a woman who has been cheated by her boyfriend/fiancé , or husband always make excuses for him, while accusing his partner in crime, i.e. the other woman? Why would a young girl date an older man just to make enough money to groom her younger lover? Why would a teenage girl slip out of her parents’ morale walls just to laugh and be cuddle by her boyfriend at the dark alley at night?

Why would a woman laugh over, yet believe all the lies and bragging heroics of her “pauper” boyfriend when a serious-minded guy wants her badly? I am all the more amused than miffed at this “sisters act” which many a woman premiere each time a new guy waltz into her life. She may have been brooding over a failed relationship and promised “not to love another man again”. What with the many heart breaks she had suffered in the hands of guys she thought had loved her deeply.

Without warning, another bloke; tall, handsome, well built and with a soothing baritone voice comes her way. No sooner had he bestrode her path than her heart begins to skip and reel in love again. She throws her 2 or 3-year old resolution aboard and allows the rhythm of love to grip her again. Once subsumed in love, she offers and gives her best as a memento of her love.

Oftentimes, her best is all she’s got; her precious body! She may struggle with guilt feelings but what else would she offer? For her, sex is more than a trip to Pleasure Land; it’s a part of her sacredness hence she gives it to her man at will.While the wait for the engagement ring lingers, she hears of his “exploits” and the news that he’s engaged to another woman, who swept him off his feet. She hopes against hope that her beloved will come back for her riding on his White Horse. She keeps hope alive even as the flickering flames of love whimper towards being extinguished.

And if she loved him so much, she won’t give another man a chance until he slips in the “Mrs. Ring” into the other woman’s left ring finger. She may end up marrying a man whom she never really loved for her love had gone with her ex!The downsides notwithstanding, one of the greatest motivations a guy can experience is the assurance of a woman’s love. It can inspire poems of the avante garde genre. She may hide it as long as she can but her voice, her eyes and actions would betray her no sooner. She may not understand why she picks her phone to call him before she sleeps at night. She laughs at his dry jokes, sends him tender texts and loves to hang out and peer into his riveting eyes. And when he doesn’t reply her calls and texts, she tells herself, “ He must have been too busy at work, or that his wicked boss may be on his neck again”.

But how could men be so clueless!!!She is very religious, resolute and strict and won’t let any guy mess around with her. Her moral codes and bye-laws are etched on the marble of her heart; no hugs, pecks or a lingering touch! No male visitors are allowed beyond 9pm in her apartment. Yet she’d so much relish the company of her man that he would actually sleep over till the next day. Her love for God fights a lost battle with the enthralling love for her man. With him, there is no act or scene with the toga of sin!He may have even ditched her many months back. She had cried and “moved on” with her life. Then someday she bumps into him at a bank. She braces up to forget he ever existed. After her cries at night, she picks up her phone and dials a number. Alas!, it’s the voice of her ex- that bellows across.

She pinches herself again wondering why she blew her cool resolve again. She had sworn not to call him again, but she just did…and it’s not so much of his fault as much as it’s hers. Because she had fought the idea of deleting his number when he dumped her. But would her love for him not fight her?

By weekend, he shows up by her apartment looking contrite and sullen. On bent knees he reels out his flowery regrets and apologies of how he became captive to another woman’s love. He reminds her of the joy and sweet memories of the past they shared together. How they built an enviable relationship that had a future, before tragedy struck. She knew he must be lying but her bowels of love begins to simmer, and soon overwhelms her. Amidst sobs and tears, she welcomes him because she has never loved another man like him, not even those who genuinely loved her…!

This kind of love is one that I am yet to fathom. A love often without reason, save the usual “he’s nice and caring”. A love that gives more than it takes from a man; the object of her love. A love that is patient and believes the best for her man. A love that doubts rumor mongers, and forgives even when the rumor is proven as veritable moral sin against her by her man. The love that a widow has that wont let her marry another man, unlike a widower would. A love that loves, in spite of…

As I reflect on this, I now reckon that in Women did God leave a semblance of His Love for Man. A love that wipes away the goriness of sin, in all its manifestations. A love that gives without measure. A love so re-assuring to not take vengeance against unrequited love….and much more. When love becomes sacrificial and “self imploding” like God’s, then we can attest to the fact that it is divine; not an offspring of mere mortals!It is when a woman loves a man, that we see vestiges of God’s love in action .

For in spite of the frailties and imperfection of human love, God’s love shines in all its sublimity. How could the earth be revolving on its axis with all the evil and injustice perpetrated by man against man, and women against women. With all the volatile hatred that abounds, God’s wrath has not consumed us all. I am as guilty as the nest trap guy or villain.Still, I willingly submit that this kind of “womanic love” has bewildered and overwhelmed my intellectual capacity till date. In surrender…I bow out!

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©Felix Abrahams Obi

www.nuggetz4life.blogspot.com