Rise Up Naija: Let there be Light [Sound Sultan ft M.I 2010(official video )]

Striking new video from Sound Sultan, featuring M.I. A significant piece on multiple levels.

"I want to be like Moses
Show my people dem to the promised land
[....]
Me I fear this government evil
Rise up Naija
Raise your hands far
Tell them you're tired of their evil"

While the most obvious message of the video is ostensibly critiquing the government promise of electricity by 2010, the reference to "light"/"darkness" and "government evil" and the "promised land" calls on the "Naija" generation to tackle the many layered problems of the nation. "We've been living in darkness for too long."

Note at the end, the poignant dedication:

Let there be light
dedicated to the lost souls in Jos.

Longing

Poems, that fill the moment, from this Sufi poetry site:

Awakened by your love,
I flicker like a candle's light
tryin to hold on in the dark.
Yet, you spare me no blows
and keep asking,
"Why do you complain?"


Rumi - "Whispers of the Beloved" - Maryam Mafi & Azima Melita Kolin

Let sorrowful longing dwell in your heart,
never give up, never losing hope.
The Beloved says, "The broken ones are My darlings."
Crush your heart, be broken.

Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir - "Nobody, Son of Nobody" - Vraje Abramian

Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing itself brings the cure.
The only rule is, Suffer the pain.

Your desire must be disciplined,
and what you want to happen
in time, sacrificed.

Rumi - The Essential Rumi - Coleman Barks

Zo mu zauna

beautifu Hausa fim song (sorry, my keyboard is having probems with one key...guess which one....), featuring two popuar Hausa artists who have since passed on: Ahmad S. Nuhu and Hauwa A i Dodo.

"The Immigrant" by Helon Habila

Came across a short story by Helon Habila that I hadn't seen before this morning. Excrutiatingly beautiful. Excrutiatingly sad. Perfectly fits my state of mind right now. Exactly why Helon Habila is one of my favourite authors.

You can find "The Immigrant" at African Writing Online.

Brothers, my peace is in my aloneness

Brothers, my peace is in my aloneness.
My Beloved is alone with me there, always.
I have found nothing in all the worlds
That could match His love,
This love that harrows the sands of my desert.
If I come to die of desire
And my Beloved is still not satisfied,
I would live in eternal despair.

To abandon all that He has fashioned
And hold in the palm of my hand
Certain proof that He loves me---
That is the name and the goal of my search.

Rabi'a Al-'Adawiyya (717 - 801)

Sufi poet

Putting things in order

Today a carpenter came, built shelves and hung a rod for my wardrobe. I am finally organized--boxes and suitcases and ghana-must-go bags now neatly stacked in the wardrobe where I will no longer stumble over them in the night when I can't find my torchlight. In the afternoon, after washing clothes, I sit and read articles about ethno-religious violence. Agarbatti incense twines through the room, wispy smoke swirling upward, like the jinn in Nazir Adam Salih's novel Zayyana. I say quiet Lenten prayers at maghariba, and after the stars come out, gwanin scriptwriter Nasir S. Gwangwazo, sarkin complex characterization and plots, comes and promises me a new script to read. After a year and a half, I have finally settled--a new bookcase, a new wardrobe, small pounded brass bowls and bits of pottery scattered about--a role to play. Everything is in place. I can't bear to think about ever leaving again. Alhamdu lillah. Allah ya kaimu gaba.

Nostalgia

Koko and kosai at Golden goose, then home in a dark taxi to a background of a crooning Bollywood track. I dream of years past, as a new moon floats faint above me

Excavation

Talatu has dug through the many layers to the very beginning, has set aside those little treasures, the happy moments that were truly, truly hers, and lets the other things rest where they lay, to be covered again by the ever-blowing dust. Allah ya ba da zaman lafiya. Amin.

To those who preach hatred in God's name:

I read this passage this morning:

""God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother."
I John 4:16-21

This afternoon, I read of the details of the massacre of Hausa Muslims in the village of Kuru Jantar on Al-Jazeera, which I had heard hints of earlier posted on Naijablog on January 19: first a plea for help and then an exhausted report of a massacre.

"Reports on Saturday said that about 150 bodies had been recovered from wells in Kuru Jantar, near the city of Jos, where clashes began last week before spreading to nearby villages.

Locals in Kuru Jantar, also known as Kuru Karama, told Andrew Simmons, Al Jazeera's Africa editor, that a massacre had taken place in the village.

They said armed men had surrounded and attacked the village on Tuesday.

Al Jazeera saw the bodies recovered from wells, as well as the burnt bodies of children recovered from ransacked houses.

Up to 18,000 people in the area are thought to have been left homeless by the clashes in Nigeria's Plateau State."

Witnesses seem to indicate it was some sort of outside attack, saying the "village was surrounded." Whether that is true or not, there definitely seem to be politics behind this. (For more information on the indigin/settler politics that seems to be the root of the recent sectarian violence in Plateau State read these documents: a recently published article by shari’a-in-Nigeria scholar Philip Ostien on the events leading up the the 2008 crisis“Jonah Jang and the Jasawa”; a Human Rights Watch report on the politics of “Settler/indigene” in Nigeria, with a section on Plateau State, and the Human Rights Watch report on the Military abuses during the 2008 crisis, which have no doubt been continued during this crisis.

I've had a few friends recently be vocally critical of "religious" people who do not speak out loudly against those who commit evil in the name of religion. Let this be my response:

To those who kill and loot and politic and conspire and corrupt youth in God's name, may He judge you with the same fire you used to burn the houses and bodies of innocent people. To those who preach hatred and prejudice and violence in God's name, listen to the words of Jesus, who is venerated in both Christianity and Islam:

"Jesus said to his disciples: 'things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. So watch yourselves.

'If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times come back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him." Luke 17:1-4

"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By your fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'" Matthew 7:15-23

And when the men came forward to arrest Jesus and one of Jesus's disciples cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest,"Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword." Matthew 26:52

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites, You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.

[...]

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside will be clean.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypcrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.; So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers!

You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the alter. I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often i have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'"
Matthew 23:13-39

"This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." John 3:19


For those who excuse attacks on those who are of a different religion or ethnicity because you think if you don't strike first, they will persecute you:

"Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, 'Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?'

"Jesus answered, 'I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times." Matthew 18:18

"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloack as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you."

You have heard it that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in Heaven." Matthew 5:38-45

"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you." Luke 6:27

"A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household!

So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny[assarion]? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows" Matthew 10:24-31


"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13: 34

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid" John 14:27

Phone call from my father: on Jos

My dad calls me 5 minutes ago. He says "This thing has really exploded this morning. Much worse than last time. I have never heard so much gunfire in my life."

"It's all retaliation," he says. "It could spill over anywhere. No one is targeting us, but you never know. Someone who has just lost someone is not in their right mind. Just stay home today."

Every few seconds, he'd say "There's another one. Another shot. A heavy one."

"There is a 24 hour curfew. No one can go anywhere."

I ask him if there are refugees. He says not so many, mostly a lot of children at the house.

"There's another shot."

I tell him about the Martin Luther King sermon I read last night about "loving your enemy." "Do you have internet? I'll send it to you," I say.

"Ok. yes, That's what we need right now. You know this thing in Haiti, it's terrible, but there's nothing anyone could have done about it. But this. All of this retaliation.... " His voice is sad.

I tell him to text me if he needs more phone credit. I promise him reluctantly that I will stay at home.

God, help us.

5:34 pm: Links to articles about the most recent Jos Crisis:

(The most recent and most horrifying: http://234next.com/csp/cms

/sites/Next/Home/5514377-146/appeal_for_help.csp)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8468456.stm

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5514254-146/plateau_governor_invokes_24_hour_curfew.csp

http://allafrica.com/stories/201001190555.html

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hWrSZmvk_k_nz58XcrcIx3B-r4AA

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/01/19/world/international-uk-nigeria-clashes.html?_r=1

For more background on the last Jos crisis in 2008 and some of the tensions behind it:

http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/07/20/arbitrary-killings-security-forces

http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2006/04/24/they-do-not-own-place

You can also go back to December 2008 on this blog to look at my posts on the last Jos crisis.

After shocks

Yesterday, after being away from internet and television for about four days, I found myself in the parlour of the house where I was being hosted in Kaduna, watching CNN coverage of the continuing devastation in Haiti. I cried. I am not as jaded, perhaps, as I would have been had I been watching it nonstop for the last four days. I was not yet glutted on the tragedy-scoops. The horrors of the earthquake in Haiti make all of the news of the past few months--the hysteria about the near miss with terrorism on Christmas Day (in which no one was actually killed), the madness over the disappearance of Nigeria's president--seem like children's quarrels. There are politics there, certainly. Peter Hallward points out in a Guardian article "Our role in Haiti," that

"Since the late 1970s, relentless neoliberal assault on Haiti's agrarian economy has forced tens of thousands of small farmers into overcrowded urban slums. Although there are no reliable statistics, hundreds of thousands of Port-au-Prince residents now live in desperately sub-standard informal housing, often perched precariously on the side of deforested ravines. The selection of the people living in such places and conditions is itself no more "natural" or accidental than the extent of the injuries they have suffered."

The poverty in Haiti is indicative of larger global injustices. I tried to donate online to relief efforts and couldn't because apparently the foundation I was trying to donate to would not accept money from an IPS in Nigeria. There are many ironies here--there are certainly many Nigerians who would like to join the global effort to help Haiti but even if our IP address were accepted what about global structures which mean that only those elite Nigerians who have lived abroad have access to credit cards? How do poor/rich people in Nigeria, labeled a "nation of interest" in the "war against terrorism" help earthshaken people in Haiti? Why is it that there were international volunteers working to save people trapped in hotels and not so many in ordinary homes? Why is it that the UN sent doctors back because they feared it wasn't safe? As if it is safe for anyone... for any of those people lying in tent hospitals because those hospitals that were already there had collapsed in the mindless thrust of the earth? The quake exposes global political fault lines as well as physical ones.

But ultimately, in the face of such great devastation, there is so little room left for outrage. The loss is too overwhelming. Human mistakes and squabbles and politics are dwarfed by the incomprehensible nature of the earth rising up and shaking down schools and homes and palaces--crushing children and mothers and teachers and politicians and journalists and UN representatives. Postal workers and cooks and students and grocers and doctors. There is no one to blame in these moments when the earth shakes but God himself. And yet what do we make of those hymns drifting out of the open parks where people are camped, homeless, and through news channels into the parlours of those of us in middleclass Nigeria, where the light has come back for a few hours, and we sit, and we watch, and we cry, and we listen. To the voices of those people singing who have lost everything, like the voices of those I woke to last November at 6am, women and children in our house, as Jos burned around us. Women and children and those young men, who were not yet patrolling, who had run with only small bags in their night clothes to the university. Refugees all. Singing.

A few hours later after I cried over the stories on CNN and we went to church and came back, my friend started receiving phone calls that there were problems in Jos. She is a student at the National Film Institute in Jos, and I had come to Kaduna with her and another mutual friend who is a Hausa film actor and director. For the next few hours we texted back and forth with family and friends in Jos. No one still seems quite sure what happened, but there is once again a 6pm to 6am curfew over Jos, and my parents tell of people our friends know who have died. Here are a few articles I've been able to find, from NEXT, BBC, and Al-Jazeera. And two more later articles from Next: "Police Restore Calm in Jos" and "Jos Residents Besiege Displaced Person's Camp." It seems that at root, it was a quarrel over land, over rebuilding a house that had been burnt in the last crisis. The feud spilled over into gangs wielding fire and machetes--destroying newly rebuilt buildings, killing the children who survived the killing last year. The skin slowly creeping over the wound is ripped open again. Once again it is Muslims against Christians and Christians against Muslims and "those Hausas always causing trouble," as the endless online commentary goes, so quick to assign blame to those who are not "us."

I am not in Jos now. It is hard not knowing what is going on. I remember last November but feel distant. I am not there. And there are no CNN stories showing families weeping over bodies.

When I come back to Kano and my laptop and go online, I discover that it is Martin Luther King Day in America, and a friend has posted part of this as her Facebook status update:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I try to find where the quote is from, and I find this 1957 sermon that apparently re-stated (pre-stated) much of what is in the quote (although not exactly): "Loving Your Enemies."

I am still trying to wrap my head around the connections here:

The violent rupture of the earth in an island nation not far from where i was born, the after shocks that heave and tremble long afterwards.

And the violent explosions born of both love of home and hatred for the other--all tied up in the earth and belonging and who owns what and who belongs where. It breaks, breaks, breaks across the land that divides north from south, the coast from the sahel. It threatens to break us all, and what do we have left? When will the light come back? How long can we keep singing?

"Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." This is the way the quote my friend posted ends, but in King's 1957 speech he continues, "Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction"

So do we end with love or do we end with destruction?

Can love overwhem hate?

Will it save us in the end?

Remembered Spaces

I took the bicycle from a child. He was heading into our garage to put away the ancient, used bike I had bought almost nine years ago. It was a heavy, man’s bike with a rod across the front. The child looked worried when I took it from him at the door. “It’s my uncle’s own,” he said. “I’ll not take it far,” I said. “I used to ride this years ago.”

I soon discovered that the hand brakes didn’t work and when you sat on the seat, it fell back pointing upwards toward the sky so that I had to balance on the tip of it to sit at all. But as I glided down the gravelly pot-holed university road between empty golden fields, heading for the photocopy shops near the hostels, I lifted my face to the distant mountains scaled with silver roofs, gazed out at the trees scattered occasional in long pastures stretching to the sky. “I’ve missed this,” I thought, “I have forgotten myself—that girl I once was.” Those long solitary walks under the open sky I’d take as a teenager—dreaming myself into a different world—down the road to the small waterfall that gushed over rock into the culvert and down to the river when the rains were heavy. I'd weave bouquets of golden flowers when the rains were at their end. And then in January days, when the veils of harmattan lifted—I'd gather dried arrangements to place in the vases brought home from ceramics class—dried red seed pods, half opened, feathery weeds, and hard prickly golden grass.

I was young and I loved the solitude—the rush of wind in the grass—the boulder strewn mountains. I lived half my life in another world—the world of princes and princesses and fairies and nymphs—I’d imagine the ghosts of great writers peering out at me from mirrors—guiding my pen with whispered words. Every once in a while I’d act out my story for myself, saying my lines with feeling, as if for a camera—as if my life were on film.

Sometimes I’d take a chair out to the driveway at night when NEPA left. There were not many generators on campus in those days and we did not use ours often, only candles and kerosene lamps, and it would be dark and silent with the steady thrum of the cicadas and barking of dogs around me. I’d lie back in the chair, our huge dog snuffling about, imagine myself lying in a boat of glass on a mirrored sea, stars above me, stars below me.

Those were the days when I was quiet and shy, and a bit of a dork. When my classmates were playing sports or going to parties, I was at home reading novels. I’d read far into the night with a candle balanced on my bed and wake at 2am with wax dripped all over my blanket. Those were the days when I knew Nigeria from the long trips I took with my family on the long hot roads between the flat green of Port Harcourt and the misty hills of Jos, from occasional trips to the market or to visits to churches where my dad would speak, from friends I had at our fenced in international school. I knew nothing of politics, other than the fact that here it was military and that we were all tense when there was a coup, and little of colonialism, though I devoured historical novels about World War II. I wandered through life dreaming of love and fame and all the beautiful things that I would do and be someday—in America or Europe or that imaginary world which I alone knew.

Those were the days before I fell in love with cities and crowds and subways and taxis and acabas. Before I learned to use makeup (though that knowledge is still shaky), before my ears were pierced, before I discovered the dramatic appeal of henna-ed hands. When the musicians I knew were my brother’s friends—my popular brother was the one who went on the radio every week with his rock and roll show and was the cool young guitarist in a band full of my classmates. I admired his life, and I’d imagine myself in his world, but I was too shy for it. I wanted to act in school plays, as I had as a young child, but I froze with terror at my first audition and didn’t go back for three years—it was not until my final year that I launched with gusto into my minor role as a frosty upper class mother-in-law. Those days I spoke no more Hausa than “ina kwana?” and Nigeria was slightly out of focus, veiled behind the mists of harmattan.

I loved deeply then, but I did not know what I loved. I loved my dreams. I loved my imagination. I loved those characters I read of in novels, or saw in films, or created in my head. But with real encounters, my imaginary characters slipped away. Everytime I returned to this country, the focus became clearer. I left the international school behind and made friends at the university, with authors and writers and poets. As the language began to come, I heard those things that had all seemed like a dreamy blur before. It was like tuning a radio, with the static giving way to the warmth of words. I discovered novels in Hausa. Films in Hausa. Writers, actors, musicians who live their lives in Hausa. A whole great world, that I had never known was there. Life began to burst characters, real ones, real people I could talk to—when I too could speak Hausa. I became less dreamy and more alive—I began to lose my imagined stories, because the ones around me were so much more urgent and interesting. I laughed and loved and sped around town on acabas—even acted a little bit. When I was young, my love was so dreamy, so imaginary, and now it was real and full and dancing with life. Real words spoken, not just imagined, a real face there smiling and laughing at me, not just wished for. I no longer liked being alone. I could no longer sit at home happy with a book. My loved solitude came now when I rode on motorcycles at night with my face lifted to the wind.

And yet, with all these things I gained, I forgot that part of myself that needs to walk alone through golden grass and just be silent. I forgot that part of myself that desperately needs to feel starlight on my skin. And of course, here, these things are harder after the armed robbers come, harder when we lock the door firmly at first dusk. Harder when you are now faced with the seductive siren’s song of the internet, and its crowded pages of friends and pseudo-friends, where you are never alone but never satisfied. The internet calls endlessly until you are frozen into repetitive meaningless checking of email and facebook and blog stats, until you come close to destroying yourself, dashing yourself against the pages of those who no longer love you, unable to read, unable to create, unable to think. Frozen by basilisk eyes but yet drawn ever forward by the promising song and beautiful faces in a tag parade of endless photos.

Biking today to photocopy my research consent forms, with the silent university spread out around me, the fields stretching out in every direction, solitary and quiet with palms and baby baobabs rising from the furrows, I thought I must return to this more—come out on this borrowed bike. I am no longer that shy, awkward girl, though sometimes she rises up in me. I no longer wish to be her, but I do miss her belief in her dreams. I must re-awaken my love of solitary beauty. I have forgotten a part of myself that I shouldn’t have. I have lost part of myself that I need to find again. I have recently come close to breaking myself. I have grown louder and more outspoken, fiery but brittle—I need this silence to remember that my strength is that I can bend, like a palm in the wind. I will not break. I can be alone, I can be still. I can listen. I can be strong. I can find joy in the hills and in the grass, and the calls of the children to me as I wheel the bike back over the culvert and towards the garage. “Aunty, Aunty, I tried to follow you but I couldn’t see you again. Where did you go, Aunty? Where did you go?”

Zazzabi

As I lie awake with a fever, this song comes to me. The metaphoric zazzabi that turns out to be literal....

Nazifi Asnanic[ dawo dawo]

Dawo Dawo...

Dawo gida
Don Allah sauke kayanka
Ai garinmu da zafi
baka saba ba....

Dawo Dawo.

We deleted all the controversial passages

I have been on a book-buying binge the last few days, buying mostly books on Islam, including a Hausa/Arabic Qur'an.

So, tonight, just as NEPA comes back, I crack open one of my most recent purchases, Stories of the Prophets by Imam Ibn Kathir and translated by Sheikh Muhammad Mustapha Gemeiah, office of the Grand Imam Sheikh Al-Azar.

And this is what I read in the translator's note:

"All those Mulsims who speak English as their native language have been, for decades longing for such a work in English, to share in the refutation of all the false accusations and doubts about the infallibility of the prophets and messengers of Allah which some writers raise.

We have elected to simplify the translation to suit the foreign reader. We deleted all the controversial passages; therefore, this text covers most of the important points which are relevant today."

Noooooo..... Nothing strikes gloom in my heart like a statement like this. What controversial passages? What were they? What suits the foreign reader? What are the most important points which are relevant today? So... frustrating...

P SQUARE DANGER (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

Off the hook video from P-Square!

To buy the album Danger:

Meditation

This is a series of readings I have done today, from first reading the chapters around yesterday’s Psalm (much needed reminder that sweet passionate David, the man “after God’s own heart” was as human and fallible as me)---then free associating as my memory leads to other sacred texts, hymns and prayers from the Anglican, Methodist, Catholic and Greek Orthodox tradition. In the middle, I re-read C.S. Lewis’s perfect little spiritual-novel The Great Divorce, which I have to read at least once a year to revive my imagination and remind me of why I have the faith that I do.

Psalm 143

A Psalm of David

O Lord, hear my prayer,

Listen to my cry for mercy;

In your faithfulness and righteousness

come to my relief.

Do not bring your servant into judgment,

for no one living is righteous before you.

The enemy pursues me,

he crushes me to the ground;

he makes me dwell in darkness

like those long dead.

So my spirit grows faint within me;

my heart within me is dismayed.

I remember the days of long ago;

I meditate on all your works

And consider what your hands have done.

I spread out my hands to you;

my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.

Selah

Answer me quickly, O Lord;

my spirit fails.

Do not hide your face from me

or I will be like those who go down to the pit.

Let the morning bring me word of your

unfailing love,

for I have put my trust in you.

Show me the way I should go,

for to you I lift up my soul.

Rescue me from my enemies, O Lord,

for I hide myself in you.

Teach me to do your will,

for you are my God;

may your good Spirit

lead me on level ground.

For your name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life;

in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble.

In your unfailing love, silence my enemies;

destroy all my foes,

for I am your servant.

HYMN:

Come thou Fount of Every Blessing

Robert Robinson, 1758

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

Psalm 139

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.

O Lord you have searched me

and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;

you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;

you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue

you know it completely, O Lord.

You hem me in—behind and before;

you have laid your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light becomes night around me,”

even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and

wonderfully made;

Your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths

of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me

were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts,

O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them,

they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake,

I am still with you.

If only you would slay the wicked, O God!

Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

They speak of you with evil intent;

your adversaries misuse your name.

Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord,

and abhor those who rise up against you?

I have nothing but hatred for them;

I count them my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.

PRAYER OF PENTINENCE

Most merciful God,

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

we confess that we have sinned

in thought, word and deed.

We have not loved you with our whole heart.

We have not loved our neighbours as ourselves.

In your mercy

forgive what we have been,

help us to amend what we are,

and direct what we shall be;

that we may do justly,

love mercy,

and walk humbly with you, our God. Amen.

May the God of love and power

forgive you and free you from your sins,

heal and strengthen you by his Spirit,

and raise you to new life in Christ our Lord. Amen.

Anglican Prayers of the People

I Corinthians 12:31- 13

Of Saint Paul:

And now I will show you the most excellent way.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Me:

So often we speak of love as an attribute, a characteristic. And it is, but it is more. It is also the very Nature of God. We long to love, and in that longing, we long for God. For he is Love.

From I John 4

Of Saint John

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loves us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

I John4:7-12

“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. “

I John 4:16b-18

HYMN:

Charles Wesley, 1747

“Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”

Love divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heaven to earth come down;
Fix in us thy humble dwelling;
All thy faithful mercies crown!
Jesus, Thou art all compassion,
Pure unbounded love Thou art;
Visit us with Thy salvation;
Enter every trembling heart.

Breathe, O breathe Thy loving Spirit,
Into every troubled breast!
Let us all in Thee inherit;
Let us find that second rest.
Take away our bent to sinning;
Alpha and Omega be;
End of faith, as its Beginning,
Set our hearts at liberty.

Come, Almighty to deliver,
Let us all Thy life receive;
Suddenly return and never,
Never more Thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing,
Serve Thee as Thy hosts above,
Pray and praise Thee without ceasing,
Glory in Thy perfect love.

Finish, then, Thy new creation;
Pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see Thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in Thee;
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before Thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.

Lord, have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

Lord have mercy.

Glory to God in the highest,

Glory to God in the highest

and peace to his people on earth.

Lord God, heavenly King,

almighty God and Father,

we worship you, we give you thanks,

we praise you for your glory.

Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father,

Lord God, Lamb of God,

you take away the sin of the world:

have mercy on us;

you are seated at the right hand of the Father:

receive our prayer.

For you alone are the Holy One,

you alone are the Lord,

you alone are the Most High,

Jesus Christ,

with the Holy Spirit,

in the glory of God the Father. Amen.

We are Africans Remix- JJC

And one more bit of fabulosity!! We are Africans, aaa-ooo!!

Jesse Jagz - Pump It Up

My current music video obsession--love the rhythm and flow of this... Up, up, J-town...

To buy the album from which this track comes, Jag of All Tradez, click below:

Interview with Helon Habila at Pambazuka News

Last week I had the privilege to finally meet Helon Habila in person (at George Mason University), after many years of reading his work and communicating by email. He was a gracious host, and it was delightful to hear about his most recent projects.

Tonight I came across this interview Mildred Kiconco Barya did with him back in May for Pambazuka News. Enjoy.