HAPPY PILGRIM

It’s a joy to know Jesus
For his peace smiles on me
If I bear the sun’s heat now
Or freeze through the snow of it
I’m kept alive by His spirit in me
I’d rejoice for Christ in me

If I’d walk in dreary valleys
Or I hike the highest hills
He’s my strength and sure companion
I can’t fear what life may bring
He’s in me and walks with me
It’s real joy to have Jesus

Till the sweat, troubles and pains
When all death would be no more
When my tears shall cease at last
No regrets, in bliss with him
When all is said and done
It’d be joy to know that God knows my name

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GHANA CAN BECOME BETTER IF WE BECOME BETTER

 

Let’s talk about Ghana. It is easy to display gross apathy towards the nation and its future. But truth is, a fallen country may either have fallen citizens or citizens who become refugees and slaves in other countries.

This country deserves committed people who want to sow seeds of integrity. Seeds that they themselves may never benefit from. Seeds sown because of the sons and daughters unborn.

The nation demands men and women of integrity. Young men and women hungry to live truly with the principles of freedom and justice. The country needs men who once again believe that the easy and corrupt ways that grant them convenience today  endangers the freedom and liberty of the children the nation is yet to bear. We have duty calling!

We cannot act religious in churches, mosques and where have you while we act like insane devils in our homes, offices and positions as citizens. We all complain about the rot in high offices but have failed to take a stand against the corruption that surrounds us. Most of us either condone, promote or benefit from unpatriotic and corrupt activities. It was Mahatma Gandhi who said, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world”. We have to be the change we want to see in Ghana.

We must have some form of awakening to defend our flag and logos again. Corruption may solve some individual problems of today, but it would throw the whole society out of gear sooner or later. Greed kills more than it prospers you as an individual corrupt being.

Let us once again cherish “fearless honesty”,embrace integrity and patriotism as a people. Not everybody would do right. But at least, honesty, integrity, patriotism and right doing can begin from you. 

Love Revival: A Reminiscing and Hope

That your laughter looks like the feathers of a peacock, beautiful.
Your love is like gold that has passed through the furnace over and over again, real.
I wish we could run around with full energy and play in the beach sand.
If we could share chocolates again under the coconut tree shades
How I wish I could steal the remainder of your favourite ice-cream.
And yeah! I’d love to smell and pull your hair over and over again.
I want that unsuspecting kiss on the forehead,
And your fingers creeping around my shoulders playfully.
Can we relive these moments?
I beg if we could have these just one more moment before you run away.
Let not these moments be carried away by the whirlwind of destruction.
We’ve got to thrive beyond these frontiers.
I’d love to hold your hands, walk with you and lift you up again.
I’m not ready to let go.
We cannot forget our promises!
Whatever has come over us must pass over us so we’d regain our senses and fall in love again.
I’m loving you from the beginning again!😊😍🙈🙈😍😍

A prayer by Michael Quoist

This Poem is Originally by Michel Quoist, who is a French Cleric.
Have a Read…
I have fallen, Lord,
Once more.
I can’t go on, I’ll never succeed.
I am ashamed, I don’t dare look at you.
And yet I struggled, Lord, for I knew you were right near me, bending over me, watching.
But temptation blew like a hurricane,
And instead of looking at you I turned my head away,
I stepped aside
While you stood, silent and sorrowful,
Like the spurned fiancè who sees his loved one carried away by the rival.
When the wind died down as suddenly as it had arisen,
When the lightning ceased after proudly streaking the darkness,
All of a sudden I found myself alone, ashamed, disgusted, with my sin in my hands.
This sin that I selected the way a customer makes his purchase,
This sin that I have paid for and cannot return, for the shopkeeper is no longer there,
This tasteless sin,
This odorless sin,
This sin that sickens me,
That I have wanted but want no more,
That I have imagined, sought, played with, fondled, for a long time;
That I have finally embraced while turning coldly away from you,
My arms outstretched, my eyes and heart irresistibly drawn;
This sin that I have grasped and consumed with gluttony,
It’s mine now, but it possesses me as the spiderweb holds captive the gnat.
It is mine,
It sticks to me,
It flows in my veins,
It fills my heart.
It has slipped in everywhere, as darkness slips into the forest at dusk
And fills all the patches of light.
I can’t get rid of it.
I run from it the way one tries to lose a stray dog, but it catches up with me and bounds joyfully against my legs.
Everyone must notice it.
I’m so ashamed that I feel like crawling to avoid being seen,
I’m ashamed of being seen by my friends,
I’m ashamed of being seen by you, Lord,
For you loved me, and I forgot you.
I forgot you because I was thinking of myself
And one can’t think of several persons at once.
One must choose, and I chose.
And your voice,
And your look
And your love hurt me.
They weigh me down
They weigh me down more than my sin.
Lord, don’t look at me like that,
For I am naked,
I am dirty,
I am down,
Shattered,
With no strength left.
I dare make no more promises,
I can only lie bowed before you.
[The Father’s Response]
Come, son, look up.
Isn’t it mainly your vanity that is wounded?
If you loved me, you would grieve, but you would trust.
Do you think that there’s a limit to God’s love?
Do you think that for a moment I stopped loving you?
But you still rely on yourself, son. You must rely only on me.
Ask my pardon
And get up quickly.
You see, it’s not falling that is the worst,
But staying on the ground.
-Michel Quoist

A THANKFUL HEART IS A FULL TANK OF ENERGY

Life is like a fast moving car on a dirt road, if time is not taken, the passing coils of dust would make us forget the beautiful scenes along the road. It takes a decided traveler to pause and behold the beauty that have been concealed by the dust. It is easier to complain about the dust than to appreciate the beauty beyond the dust.

But the question is, does the dust stop covering the road because we whine about it? And because of the dust, are the beautiful scenes of the road non-existent? Complaining seems to be our default setting and we do it at ease. Fact is, we hurt our health and mar our days by complaining unduly instead of appreciating what we ought to be grateful for. No matter how much dust covers a gold bar, it remains gold.

If we would be grateful for what we have while aspiring for higher heights, the emptiness in our hearts, the hurts and dissatisfaction would eventually begin to heal.

Imagine a good hunter who goes to an all-night hunting trek and yet sticks his game in a big bag with big holes beneath it unknowingly. Can he ever have a full bag? He might have the best catches of the night but his bag would never become full. I see most of us gathering our wealth, dreams and achievements into big hunting bags with big holes beneath them. We are only careful to get more and never seeing the need to appreciate what we get. The emptiness continues in us because we are never grateful for the catch we have achieved. Gratitude changes the story.

I must confess how much I sometimes look so forward in life dreaming, hoping and aspiring for more (which indeed is not at all bad in itself) without appreciating where I have come from to where I am and what I have at where I am now. When that began to change, I realised more easily what I achieved in the past and the things God freely gives me daily. From these past glory moments, it is easier to believe that the next dream and plan can become realities through God’s leading and provision.

I bet you that a grateful heart and an eye of gratitude is a very good source of energy that can propel you into doing more today than you ever thought.

Before you think your day, week, life and year have been so bad, never forget that you had to be alive to realise that. A living dog they say is better than a dead lion. There is hope for a better tomorrow with life. THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A TOTALLY BAD DAY IN ANYONE’S LIFE WHO HAS AGREED TO PAUSE AND SEE LIFE THROUGH A GRATEFUL LENS. Never end a day without being grateful for anything.
#IT’SABEAUTIFULDAY

THIS ISN’T THE END!

Like vapour that settles and dries up is how fast we come and leave this stage.
We move through here like a flash.
Grasses are weak and boneless, so when they fall and go, we understand they have no bones.
Animals, do all the reckless stuff but never seem to leave here as easy as we do.
Why do we fall as if our bones were just straws overloaded atop?
If I understand anything, it is not the abrupt speed with which a full grown body falls.
If these falls be our absolute ends, we have no reason for our toils.
It kills to know how our hopes and dreams cease when we fall.
This certainly cannot and is not the end but just a turning point into a better scene.
Only that the fog at that curve makes us want to lose hope or belief in the beauty of the city beyond the curve.
But we believe things are too real for this sham of a stage to be the end of the toils and strives of man.
This is not the end!

THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF A LOVE STORY

See? This story is not supposed to be real. But like those stubborn birthmarks, it cannot be erased nor hidden. I don’t know what to liken it to.

First it seemed like the last egg on the kitchen shelve rolled down and crashed before breakfast. I said I don’t know what to liken it to. But I remember seeing everything so much down on the ground or sometimes in the slippery and dreadful valleys.

We’re warned to not cry about spilled milk but I couldn’t cry any more than I did on the day we had the fight.

You see, I have always dreamt about you and me withstanding everything. We of course withstood much but this last straw stood against us. It was like losing the last family treasure or being robbed of your diamond.

When you left, I went in, grabbed your old photos, searched for the ones before you whispered the I love you for the first time. I believed they’d come alive. Oh! I bet I still remember it but I cannot explain. How we loved fast, grew into it, nursed and matured it all these years only to see it die without warning?

Hey! Everyone else said I just have to let go of you. Don’t worry, they don’t know your worth. Even if you’d want to forever go; I’d plead with all of me, “May I have a date like the first with you”. A time to talk at the end like we did in the beginning. Remind me of your love for me. Let it be fresh enough in my mind. Make it real again to me. Cos even if it’d hurt forever, I want to forever remember we once were in love.

I pray you’d come back again. I vow to love you again like always. I’m not whole anymore.

Oh! No! This dream must not happen!

51. A PRAYER

When like an unrepentant dog, I return with my mouth to my dung, cast me not away.
Give me wisdom to discern that my destination is more glorious than the seeming loss my flesh reminds me of.

From this ruin, Lord! Hold my hands; lift me up, strengthen my buckled knees, clean my stained heart and give me that eyesalve that heals my spiritual myopic nature.

Lift me up! Lord lift me up and let me never go down there.
How I smell the stench of the table set in the dark only after I’m done feasting is sickening. Give me Wisdom to know; not only that but courage to do the good I know.

Remind me of my worth and how much the ransom you paid to buy me back. Make me understand that the luxury of my slavery was a loss sending me into utter loss and darkness. Lord grant that I may be conscious of the new person you’ve made me and walk as such. Grant Lord, that no call from the old world be strong enough to cause me to yield.

This frail being knows you’re powerful and craves your power to overcome it’s failures. Grant it, Lord!

SINCEREST THOUGHTS AND WISHES TO A DAD

What comes quickly to mind right now is how fast you could walk even when your grey hair started approaching that of KOFI Anan. You were almost like a millitary commander and me the new soldier recruit anytime we’d walk from Vodze to school.

I’ve not forgotten how you made me practice some little form of yoga every morning cos you felt my legs weren’t well straightened.

I remember the days I sat below your table in the village classroom at Vodze while you were teaching and whacking those kids without love and blaming it on their laziness towards studies.

You were very strong and too particular about things most people would not even stop to examine. Of course you were the village teacher of the new Ghana with the onus lying on you to set a standard.

Too much to say about the mounds we raised for yams and wateryams, the inspection of your traps and the cassava we planted on the leftover yam mounds once the yams were harvested…

But I really thought you were inhumane when you’d sit me in front of you (with my back to you), and give me those beautiful story books that I struggled to read. You’d go like, read it aloud. Oh! The heavenly stokes from that big bush cane that landed on my head from your hand anytime I failed to pronounce a word correctly is still fresh in my mind after these many years.

I’m glad one one of the books you used to teach me reading was your old and almost destroyed ewe bible. I was so glad that I could read it to you when you asked me to.

It took me not too long to appreciate the extra school you provided at home. You positioned me to be the unquestionable and unchallengeable village challenge champion in the school.

I was strong enough by the time it got clear to me that I had to scheme up plans to hustle and still do well in school.

You failed in giving us the money we’d have wanted as kids but you trained our muscles and minds to grind and get our own. You never pampered us except for the sure boiled egg on our birthdays (and sometimes rice with enough tomato sauce and sardines).

Teacher, Mr Deku, Papa, your eyes are now dim and sadly almost gone. your once neatly grey hair is losing its beauty and your strength is no more. Now the man who could tell who’s entering by their footsteps struggles to differentiate between our voices on the phone. You continue conversations began with one sibling with the other unknowingly until you’re prompted (it’s expected, you’re old we are numerous).

Your one thing I’m proud of – your utmost love for truth. I remember when you’d repeat, “If there is anything I’m scared to die for, it is a lie and if there’s anything I’m ever ready to die for, it is truth”. Oh! How many times you’d cane us until we confess our misdeeds. Like magic, your wrath ceases once we accept that we were wrong.

You’ve never been perfect and you are not the type who’d call regularly to check on your children (especially we the boys as was gathered from my small research). But I think I can still have so much I’d be grateful for.

You built us into independent people who value integrity, hardwork, and love for people. I really hated how many visitors you’d receive, the people you’d always greet at times and how many funerals you’d attend. To be frank, I still hate the funeral bit but in all of it, I learned one thing: ‘that people matter’.

I wish you well in the short stretch of life ahead of you. I’m glad you have hope for life after here. In all things, wait to give infest my kids with your warm and rich smile and laughter before you go wherever you’re walking to.

I have never said I love you and I cry I as I write this; “I love you dad”!
May God bless and keep you in strength and peace.