Story: Double Love

I cannot reach my love, her who is constantly in my soul. It seems more than ever that we are world's apart, like we live in two different realms. Yet she is always in my heart and in my soul. Oh what to do!

But the other day, in the early afternoon  I met another who gave me an approving smile. The stars of admiration glistened in her eyes. Although she did not confess it with her lips, yet her arduous touch and steady gazing confirmed it. 

I spoke to her a while conversing on many light matters, for it would do no good to talk about a thing that weighs the soul. We spoke of gentle nature and how equally we admire the sunset but that we both favored the sunrise. The more she lingered around me, the more I began to see her ascending supremacy in all things.

Have I been won? As my heart been taking away once again into that garden of dearest love? But there was nothing in my mouth to suggest such a thing, for my tongue still had the taste of indifference, although as each hour went by, yes hours for with her, time flew blessed by, I began to taste her honesty.

She was all lovely and blameless. No spot of blemish I could see in her beauty. Her character was angelic but I must halt, for wisdom councils that one should hold judgement on a person until they have done them wrong. 

After many hours spent in her presence, I retired home and so did she. I retired o my bed and thought of her, her whom I cannot reach with my love but concluded that perhaps she is not worth the keeping in my head. She ought to be dismissed and I should reverie about her who admires the brave wind that busies itself in the eastern desert. 

Morning came with a cardinal merit of delight. I rose to wonder about her who delights in the rays of light, who would never eschew a depressing company but linger with them until they are dismissed. I wondered if she is up like me thinking about me like I am thinking of her. Nay I thought, she would earlier rise and put her house in order, for all I observed about her proclaims that she was a woman of congenial charitableness, pleasing others before she pleased herself. I am too in this way of order and no doubt that when we are together, we are equally yoked.

Such was my morning easiness that I relapsed into a soft dream where she was all in fantastic white coming towards me. But my comfortableness was soon dislodged by a loud slap on my door!

"I know you are in there," her voice screamed that is her whom my love cannot reach.

But why this wrath I thought. Nevertheless I must open and prepare myself for her cutting remarks.  

 

Watch over me

Watch over me
What is there to watch?
My life

Watch over me
What is there to watch?
My ways

Watch over me
What is there to watch?
My sins

Watch over me
What is there to watch?
My Sorrow

Watch over me
Why?
I need someone to care.

My Lord, my sweet love

My Lord, my sweet love
You are forever kind,
For you have restored and renewed my soul.
I am forever in your debt
You are the treausure of my heart.

You are my hope, the king of my life.
I Kneel, your commands to heed,
I pray, I know all my feelings to you flow.
My shelter, my ever present help
My Light, my dream, my righteousness
I will ever walk with you.

K.Oni

One day, for many people happiness and pleasantness will cease

One day, for many people happiness and pleasantness will cease.

For the other people, happiness and pleasantness will be never ending.

For those people whose happiness will cease, their existence will be hard and unsparing. Despair will be their daily gift.

For the other people, each day will be glorious and gorgeous, full of glitter and glamour, merriment and good will.

Who wants this grim to be their existence?

None I dare say who truly know the extent of its misery. But because many have no idea of the eternal depression of hell, many are not tortured by it in their soul.

In the church, hell is an awkward topic, but when Christ returns, it will be a graphic matter.

Who in church is informed of this impending doom? Who will weep for their generation, let alone weep for their own family!

Who worries about their own soul, let alone the heart of their brother?

Man has hugged reason and hung faith. He forgot that both came forth from the Almighty!

Reason without faith misleads. Faith without reason deludes.

A great portion of men are drunk with unbelief, and those who believe, among them are few who pray earnestly for those who admire their unbelief.

Who is awake to pray at the eleventh hour, just before the dawn of Christ?

O I will pray and not play. Play is for eternity, work is for this erring time. Stand and correct, but be prepared for retribution.

When the TRUTH met with lie, lie crucified HIM.

The brothers and sisters of TRUTH must always smile at cruelty, tolerate it and always seek to eliminate it with good.

One day, for many people happiness and pleasantness will cease

Who knows what life will give them?

Who knows what life will give them?

Who knows except the one who can see the future. Surely we can predict and say, if I do this then this will happen, or if I do that, then that will happen.

Who knows what life will give them?

There is wisdom in planning, in working hard and in having goals. There is foolishness in laziness and leaving everything to nature to sort itself out.

The person who rises up early to study will sleep well before the eve of an exam. But the person who sleeps till late will worry anxiously before he takes his test.

But even with all precise planning, yet who knows what life will give them?

If our life is a drama, the stage has already been set. We enter in crying and eventually we will depart. We observe, we react, we listen and form relationships with the other characters in this drama. We join different plots and develop different themes but we are always under certain constraints. 

What are your constraints? 

What is life given you at this moment or what are you given life? What are your themes? Love, betrayal, alienation, discovery, escape, freedom? 

Who knows what life will give them! Do you know?

Some people lead themselves in life and father themselves whilst others let other people lead them and mother them. 

There is a spirit of the child and that of the orphan. Which one are you? Perhaps you are both but can that be. 

Some people don’t have a direction, whilst some are on a path but no destination. 

Where are you going? Where is your character in this drama of life heading? What are you doing with the props the authour has given to you?

Who is leading you and where are you going?

As for me, I say Jesus lead me lest I stray, gently or in whatever manner you see fit lead me all the way. This is because Jesus is life himself. He sees the future. He has seen the whole picture, I haven't.

So Jesus, walk me through the stream of time to the land of endless days. Guide me through each scene of my life, I will follow your script.

Though I may not know what life will bring, yet I know this that if I let Jesus lead me, all will be well at last.

K.Oni

Goodbye my golden glow

Her beauty far outweighs mine,
Golden glorious
Her smile dislodges my downhearted tide,
Carried in by the moon of my distress
Of her never to adore our filial pride.
But Halt, her gladsome glow forever my golden show,
Now confined to memory, to ethereal gratification
Of her lips caressing the hardness of my skin,
Till serenity overruns our stimulated exhale.
Goodbye my golden glow
Your stream now ease through his pictorial path 
His wonders better than the stars of night
His light brighter, better than the charmful art of nature's rhymes.
He gives your eyes and heart what I lack,
I do wish you well though I fear 
This heartache will soon make me die.

K.Oni

I knew a sad boy: No where to go with his life

I knew a very sad boy who told me that he had no where to go with his life, that there was no future for him. His brown eyes was continually teary even at the best of times. He told me,

"Sir, I have nowhere to go with my life. I just want to die, halt my step and be deceased. For I am a disease, unwanted and unloved. One person said that I was a poison and the other that I had something missing which I could never give. Many others looked at me with eyes of scorn, labelling me a scum. O sir, my heart is sensitive, and those with whom I have built my hopes have taken a hammer in good cheer and happily broken my home. O what to do sir! I have no hate for them in my heart for I am all those things, vile and evil. I believe as they have said that I could never make anyone happy, and what is living if those that I want to make happy can never be happy with me? One time, I saw in her eyes utter disgust for me, as if I was a filthy stain in her life, an hindrance to her happiness and I saw in his eyes deep anger and bitterness. O Sir, in my heart I feel that I have only done good, but my good is bad, and therefore I ought to perish immediately and kiss this world goodbye. In as much as I wish this feeling to go away, that is the feeling of remembering her, and of them accepting me, this feeling persists and each day rises to new heights that makes me stumble because of the heartache. O sir, my hope is hopeless."

I looked lovingly on the sad boy and pitied him. I wish I could remedy his case, but he was so far gone that I fear in the coming days that I should be summoned to bury him. His case is beyond earth and heaven, only divine hands can change his heart, but also her whom he so loved. Only if she would remain his friend and give him hope, but such is the case with our free-will that no matter how one hopes, it has no affect at all to change a person's affection. Only God can do that.

K.Oni

I give you my all

To be here again, that is among the people of God, that righteous assembly; I behold Jesus and pour contempt on all my pride. O I have boasted on my abilities though they are worth less than a talent and I have delighted in vain things that to my shame charms me more than the the things from above. But now those earthly things that takes my heart, I sacrifice them to my Lord and burn them forever in order to yeild myself entirely to him. For I saw again the crown upon his head, the nails hammered in his hands, and in his eyes I saw sorrow and love flowing down in his tears. O my beloved Chist, my heavenly darling, I give you my all. Love so amazing, so divine demands my all.

K.Oni

Looking to the day I will be still

I feel guilty
how can I escape and feel freedom?
lately I’ve been dreaming of death
she sounds sweetly
save me!
I need a saviour that will whip me
ritual my days
imaginary is what I’m wishing,
looking to the day when I will be still.
Aching desire to accomplish my end
hating my jealousy
thinking deep past death,
the threat of living keeps me bound
in my agitated demise,
I feel guilty
Looking to the day I will be still
Nobody needs me.

K.Oni

Happy I am

Happy I am

Happy to stand

To walk in the light of eternal life.

Happy I am

Happy to sit 

Under the shadow of the Almighty.

Happy I am

Happy to walk

With her to paradise and beyond. 

K.Oni 

Pain lingers in my heart

Pain lingers in my heart

It is the death of me. 

The lines of life have awfully swayed

To sorrow's lodging.

She welcomes me to dine with sombre

And play along with gloom.

After many years she (sorrow) said

Your pain with me will lead to an early death. 

K.Oni

End of the world

The world is quiet 
Overhung with gloom 
Her proud beauty Destroyed, 
along with her shame. 

Where are her echoes 
The noise she loudly sang 
To go beyond eternity? 
The debris 
Now superior to her callous society! 

K.Oni

God loves his own

God loves his own. He loves them so much that he would bring about the greatest suffering upon them to bring them back to himself and to glory.

The centuries have confirmed this noble truth in the life of many Christians. Jesus himself was perfected through suffering. Through many heartaches did our Lord enter into glory. And we should expect nothing less.

It is a rarity that God should let a saint pass into eternal life without difficulty. It is like looking for gold among sands. One must look for gold between rocks or at the bottom of streams.

Many Christians after passing through their valley of death say with that Blessed apostle to whom suffering was a never ceasing companion that, 'For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. '

O right now poor Christian, does your heartache? Does your unbearable pain bring you to that sorrowful conclusion that you have indeed received the sentence of death! Do you right now wave a white flag above your head and call for the sweet arms of death to take you to paradise? O miserable child, I share your heartache, Paul shares your heartache, David Brainered shares your heartache, the king of glory weeping at Gethsemane shares your heartache; but we must persevere, for the suffering apostle continues his words:

'But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.'

Ah, the end of all our sufferings! To take us away from ourselves and rely on God. The weeping Christ relied on God, the suffering apostle relied on God. Now it is your turn to follow in such faithful steps.

God loves his own. He loves them dearly that he would not let them enter hell in their pleasures but heaven in their misery.

The converted soul looks upon the agony of his heart, yea when reflecting on the many lashes on his soul, that it was God meaning all thirty-nine lashes as discipline of love.

O, has a person broken your heart or have you been the instrument of breaking another's heart? God uses both means to bring his own back to himself. In the latter we see ourselves as depraved sinners as the bible affirms that we are and we look for sweet mercy from the christ who was crucified. And in the latter we confess that all we have is Christ and his merit to gain; that we are in ourselves unworthy deserving the worst but sweet kindness has comforted us with the sweetest of comforts in the blessed Holy Trinity.

God loves his own. Through many pains and heartache, he brings them home.

K.Oni

Psalm 93: An Exposition

One of the clearest biblical truths is that God reigns. He is sovereign, the only ruler of the cosmos. He is the great Creator of all things and governs all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least. There is nothing outside of his sovereignty, even the remotest particle is under his Sovereign sway.

God reigns and He is robed in majesty. That is his Sovereignty is clothed with the greatest conceivable beauty. God reigns but not like the most despotic of rulers, or Kings who are bent solely on destruction, but he reigns magnificently and efficiently administering his mercy and grace to all creation, kissing all his works with the soft kindness of his tenderness. O to have seen the universe before the fall, to have beheld that uncorrupted creation! Men could almost be justified in worshiping her, but our uncorrupted reason would have prevented such a catastrophe.

God reigns but many scoff at this truth. They deny him his basic right namely his absolute sovereignty over the cosmos he himself established. Yes, the world is established and it shall never be moved. They deny his personal involvement and attribute the cause of this fine world to a force that cannot be known, or they established it upon nothingness. But the truth remains, namely that God reigns and he has put on strength as his belt. Only God has the power of being in Himself. He alone exists necessarily and all other things exist in him and move and have their being. The psalmist understood this simple truth, the simple truth bellowed by nature which was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him (God) who subjected it, is tortured with frustration at those who seek to attribute to her what they should attribute to the one who reigns, whose throne is established from of old; who is from everlasting.

God reigns and nature knows it. She knows her maker, the kind One who fashioned her from nothing and established her to be what she is. She understands her part in his universal plan of him who has worked all things according to the counsel of his own personal will. She adores the Sovereign loving hands that moulded her. That is why the floods lift up, yea they rise up in praise, even that flood which once a time destroyed the earth. She lifted her voice in praise delighting in the obedience of her maker’s will, but not in the destruction itself because her maker does not take delight in the death of the wicked, but does take delight in vindicating his justice, the floods delighted in obeying his will and thus lift up the gloriousness of his name declaring that the Lord on high is mighty.

The psalmist, yea the inspired psalmist in the last verse comforts himself with the application of this grand truth. Your decrees are trustworthy. That is his promises, his verdicts, rulings, judgements, declarations are upright, truthful and trustworthy to himself so he takes great delight in Yahweh’s Sovereignty. God is for him, God is working all things together for his good.

Man never needs doubt his God but there are many who find him suspicious. Some like Adam think that he withholds the greatest happiness from them when he commands them not to do a thing. Others are blind and are in that cave of unbelief and will not gather themselves to come out into his light to see that he really is good. But if they had a personal relationship with him, they too would have soon come to the same conclusion as the psalmist who says holiness befits your house, O Lord forevermore. God is clothed in majesty; He is eternally clothed in sweet holiness and righteousness and what sweet relaxation this is for the righteous. The sinner can take refuge in God’s goodness for it was Him who sent forth his Son, yea that prophesised Messiah that was to come to his own people and justify the ungodly. His saving work now clothes all who would come to him with that unique righteousness, that all who say they are his, yea his precious sheep can say they are covered with the holiness of God, and this being so God is for them forever. Holiness befits your house, O God, Holiness befits his people forever.

K.Oni

I Love your House

I love the house of God, that redeemed community of praise. Like the Psalmist I say, I will go into your house with burnt offerings; I will pay you my vows. My buisness in your house is thankfulness. A heart resolute to worship you in my happiness and brokenness.

If I am broken, out of the depth I will cry to you. O Lord hear my voice says my soul, and I will not be ashamed to mingle my supplications with tears and sobbs. In my barrenness I will call to you my everlasting helper - then I will praise you with all I have. All of my strength will be spent on you as one rejoices at a football game when their team snatches the victory. For your mercy is renewed towards me every day. O that sweet distinguishing mercy which you daily lavish on my sinful head.

I will offer you new praises. Sing my soul to the Lord a new song for he has done marvellous things! I will go into your house. But surely, here in the calm of my room, in the private of my home, I can worship you and praise you. But in fellowship, in that house of yours, in the presence of all the saints, praising you is deeper and the chorus of our praises unites with those above us, those who have gone before us.

I love your house my Lord, may my business there be always thankfulness.

K.Oni

Besotted

She had an angelic beauty about her, an amorous youth. Her ways were dressed in mysticism, in an ancestral creed of woman simplicity. 

Pleasure was her name to me, for she was to my eyes an appealing picture, an architectural grandeur. When she spoke, she had an animated eloquence, an approving smile, an 
ascetic devotion to her subject of discussion. She was to me a cardinal merit, a blessed fanaticism of my boyish heart. A charming radiance strolled with her, soft environment and vivid revelation accompanied her. 

How to me, a charitable allowance she displayed was always answered by grace in me. The loveliness of her character, the tenderness of her disposition, the creativeness of her existence. O to me she was the sum of all my desires, the end of all noble Ideals. Many have said that I have 
been blinded by her, enchanted by her and taken away by her. Whatever spell she has casted on me, I welcome and have no inclination to seek for a release. 

K.Oni

Aware of my love

My love, what I know of my self is this, that I am very much aware of my awareness that I 
love you. When I look into myself, believing that I have a good knowledge of myself, I see that all my faculties have a deep interest in you. My eyes delight at your beauty, my ears are unruffled when it hears your voice, my mouth is eager to kiss you, my nose keen to smell you, my hands craving to touch you and my mind is full of you. 

All of this sensation I am well aware of; and like a magnet I am drawn to you, for everything about you fascinates me. When you are away I miss you. When you are near I want to hold you. 

In my mind, if you will allow it, I have already decided to be committed to you forever. Only death will lose my passion for you. And if in death we should possess any sort of consciousness, then I know this, namely that I will be very conscious of you. 

My desire for you is unfathomable. Throughout various times in the day you have a desire for a cup of tea. To have such a desire is a conscious thing, for that desire is very present in you and you are very much aware of it. That is why at certain times, you ask me to make you a cup of tea. As well as you are aware that you have such a desire for a cup of tea, I am well aware beyond all reasonable doubt that I have a profound desire for you. Not the kind that is full of lust, but the kind that is full of a whole variety of all the goodness of love; such as romance, charity, kindness and goodness. 

I must admit that the deepness of this desire was not made aware to me until recent activities. We are after all mortal creatures, prone to forget, prone to miss what is right in front of our eyes and what is deep inside of our hearts. 

Some ascertain that in regards to our own feelings and desires that we are omniscient in them. But I disagree. We are omniscient in certain things, namely those things in which we are aware of. And we are in the blind of those things to which we are not currently made aware of but nevertheless could be buried deep in our tomb of forgetfulness until memory resurrect it, or certain event outside of us resuscitate it. 

It was your event, namely the event of losing you, brought about by you which resurrected, or 
even more so brought to the light, that is the light of my consciousness the deepness of my love for you. And now that I know this and very much aware of it, I cannot deny it, nor doubt its veracity. It is not just merely chemicals in my brain, but something much more transcendent. Something not so complex, more 

Without you, life is death

There is only one life with you
Without you, life is death,
Your sight does ressurect my appetite to breathe
And kiss the brown leaves
Beneath Hades shallow creeks.
For you are like Greece in her Alexandria splendour.

K.Oni

Sin, that vile drip slowly posioing my soul

Sin, that vile drip slowly posioing my soul
Always bitter sweet, never yeilding a honeyed note
But crass, inane, gross like a man living in rotten sewers.
Green pastures, righteousness beckons me,
But sins dwelling, inhabited since my blithe youth
A monstrous hold; Freedom!
But held like Samson under Philistine chains.

K.Oni

An honour for Oscar

I confess that I’ve always been a bit dubious about honouring saints. And not just on the kind of theological grounds that made such an impact at the Reformation. I suppose I’ve been rather suspicious of cults of personality too.

I object to the way that women have been honoured for virginity while men have been honoured more for being great teachers and theologians. And then there are all those saints like Valentine, whose stories get turned to all sorts of strange commercial ends. I’ve often insisted that ‘saints’ in the New Testament are always in the plural, that we are all saints (and sinners too) and that there’s no place in the Church for special titles and honours.

But, despite all that, on 23 May, I will be marking the day that Oscar Romero is honoured. I shall be cheering because here was someone who was not a great heroic self, but was someone who really did come to represent his people, and whose memory and inspiration still live in El Salvador.

I went to El Salvador, last year, and as I sat on the plane I remembered how Romero had inspired me as I was growing up. I remembered how we all mourned his death in 1980, when he was shot while presiding at Mass in the chapel of the modest hospital where he lived. I remembered the story of how we had been appointed as Archbishop because the government thought he would be ‘a safe pair of hands’, but that he proved to be a thorn in their side because he never stopped speaking up for the poor. He was a figure of the past.

But as I arrived in El Salvador I saw ‘Romero vive’ painted on countless walls. I saw his portrait, with his distinctive spectacles, represented in windows and wall paintings, his sayings turned into graffiti and his strength of conviction and hope embodied in priests and people. I shouldn’t have been surprised to discover that here was a man whose legacy lives on.

I met Victor, he works for a community group in one of the poorest urban areas of San Salvador. He was wearing a T-shirt with Oscar Romero’s picture on it. He was a gentle soul, facing enormous challenges, and he needed a hero. He said: “You may have forgotten the story of Oscar Romero, but for me, and for many of us here, his story is ours. …He suffered with the poor and left a legacy to his people. His struggle is our struggle.”

Victor had just written a letter to the Municipal Authority to protest about the way in which creation is being destroyed and degraded. And in this letter he quoted from a sermon that Romero preached  way back in 1979.

He said, in words that seem strangely contemporary; “You know that the air and water are being polluted, as is everything we touch and live with, and we go on corrupting the nature that we need. We don’t realize we have a commitment to God to take care of nature. To cut down a tree, to waste water when there is so much lack of it, to let buses poison our atmosphere with those noxious fumes from their exhausts, to burn rubbish haphazardly – all that concerns our partnership with God.”
 
Romero was ahead of his time in recovering again the significance of texts like Genesis 2:15, that points to our God-given vocation to care for the earth, not only to ‘till it’ but also to ‘keep it’.

Successive governments in El Salvador, and those in church authority too, did their best to wipe out Romero’s memory. Children in school were not taught about him for years afterwards, but now, he is being recognised at last as a prophetic voice, a martyr, a servant of the poor.

In a world like ours, where so many look only at the short term and think only of themselves or their own, when many ignore what is happening to those in poverty and to the beautiful creation of God, we should look to the example of those who point to a different way of being a human being, a profoundly Christian way.

Listen to Romero’s own words: “I don’t want to be an anti, against anybody. I simply want to be the builder of a great affirmation: the affirmation of God, who loves us and who wants to save us.”   Oscar A. Romero, The Violence of Love

Romero was a passionate and committed visionary and trusted in the power and love of God to save the world. Let’s do the same.  

Susan Durber is theology co-ordinator for Christian Aid and a United Reformed Church minister. 

On 17 June a day of climate action will see an expected 10,000 Christians gather in London to worship and to meet with MPs, urging the Government to focus on creation care over the next Parliament.
 

Fall from me

The devil, a fiend, not a friend 
Constant accuser 
Jealous of God's eyes on me. 
His name, heavens demeanour frown. 
Upon mine, angels constantly sing a glad redemptive theme. 
Be ever keen Evil one 
To thrall me and enthral me with your majestic visions 
Of Owning God through sin, 
Beckoning me with sweet psalms of rebellion. 
Woe to thee, your eternity is sealed 
And I will not seal my soul with thee. 
Offend me and bite thy thumb, 
I will not leap off the cliff 
Though you offer me the world. 
Thy unformed darkness forged into a forgery 
Fallen from heaven, fall from me!

K.Oni

Whisper in my ears that I still a saint be

Dear Lord I must confess my sins,
On me please look with all of heaven's grace
And pardon my head when on me gaze.
My face is sad and my heart burdened
Because of sins that are deep in my heart.
O please me forgive, I admit I am not a good man
Empty and shallow please create deep love in me.
I dare not judge others, and when I do I sigh
Knowing that I am worse than they could ever be.
O my sins have made me sad,
Locked in a dungeon where no light can reach
Save the light of your mercy.
Please come and all your love bring
And whisper in my ears that I still a saint be.

K.Oni

Beauty sleeps

Beauty sleeps
Under the evening light
Dreaming of pleasures
Beyond the eternal night

K.Oni

This numbing feel

What is it to be, to see the darkness in the coldness of the heat. The mind wonders through barren fields, mortar and ashes are the grass under my feet. The dead sky lingers above stifling my scene, agonizing appeal, I hear the fleeing birds shriek. Is it all an immortal dream, where mortals weak, and sovereign hands cannot relieve this dark unsettling thing, in my mind where all my feelings reach. 

Speak not, my mouth silent be. Muted ears to an outsider's speech; but faint noise, yet too loud causes an antagonistic feel. Help! But their eyes my pain cannot greet. This darkness, did it arise from an ancient creed, or programmed from the seed? 

Refrain from commenting on my existence, unless my lips upon yours be, then for a minute, or for the length of our misdeed, I feel a sensation until the climatic release. It feels like the sun through the clouds break, but after sleep, I awake with a numbing feel, of the darkness in the coldness of the heat; my mind wonders through deeper barren fields, mortar and ashes are the grass still under my feet. 

K.Oni

Blind to her vices

Her keen mind penetrates my august soul, 
Harmless beauty, superficially gentle, 
To my evening eyes, under weather, 
Cold but kind, the mask of the dawn 
Unleashes a soft storm, 
Pulsating like a consecrated stream. 
Hallowed, the strength of my humane loyalty 
To her method of profound cupidity. 
Stillness awe, hilarity gathering 
Beneath hidden thoughts. 
Respectful, courteous to her proud ways, 
A cheap fanatic, but fantastically extraordinary. 


K.Oni

There's a lady I want to make my own

There's a lady I want to make my own 

Who makes my life shine, dazzling Gold. 

She is all lovely and never strange to me 

But it is a shame, my shame 

That she doesn't feel the same


K.Oni

I say goodbye to my sins

I say goodbye to my sins  Never to sleep with you again,  Fair well Iron master!

K.Oni

Jesus wept for his friend Lazarus

Jesus wept for his friend Lazarus I see no reason why he would not weep for me Though not in flesh our friendship be I feel him as friendly wind on the skin. I remember when my doubts disquieted me And worry like waves drowned me in her sea, Jesus came by calming the gale Dispelling every fear without and within. Jesus wept for his friend Lazarus When my eyes close he will weep for me Though he knows in a moment I shall be by his side That will not stop aching tears falling fresh from his eyes.

K.Oni

Is it right to wish to die

Is it right to wish to die
To kiss this existence a sweet goodbye?
For my heart no meaning found,
To see another sunrise 
Will not produce a smile.
Empty is the life within,
The waves of my sea 
Calm and calmless be.
Forgotten by the sight I see
Perhaps heaven is the place I ought to be.
Goodnight world, goodnight stars,
Dear flowers your smell I will not miss
And voices heard no more I'm glad
For peace and silence shall be the state of my heart. 
No more longing, 
No more feeling
Goodbye World, 
Is it right for me to want to die. 

K.Oni

The Remedy for Paralyzed Sinners & Fallen Saints. Matthew 6:23

God did his most deadly work to destroy hopelessness and futility and provincial cowardice. He gave up his Son to torture and death. A perfect life, a perfect death, and the decisive work was done.

But there are millions who are numb to hope because of the God-belittling things they have done and how ugly they have become. They don't lift lofty arguments against God's Truth; they shrug and feel irretrievably outside. They don't defy God consciously; they default to cake and television. Except for the periodic rush of sex and sport and cinema, life yawns. There is no passion for significance. For many, no passion at all.

There is a Christian version of this paralysis. The decision has been made to trust Christ. The shoot of hope and joy has sprung up. The long battle against sin has begun. But the defeats are many, and the plant begins to wither. One sees only clouds and gathering darkness. The problem is not perplexing doctrine or evolutionary assaults or threats of persecution. The problem is falling down too many times. Gradually the fatal feeling creeps in: the fight is futile; it isn't worth it.

Along with this hopelessness and futility, especially since 9/11, provincial cowardice captures many Christian minds. They fear that it may sound conceited to call every people group in the world to trust Christ or perish. It seems too global. Too sweeping. Too universal. To say it takes their breath away. And, worse, it brings down the wrath of the tolerant. What could be more arrogant than to think that the infinite variety of need in all the cultural groups of the world could be met by a single Savior!

It is astonishing that the biblical gospel of justification by faith alone answers these three human failures: the hopelessness of unbelievers, the feeling of futility from falling down, and the fear of making global claims for Christ.

To the numb and listless sinner, feeling beyond all hope of godliness, the Bible says, "To the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness" (Romans 4:5). God justifies the "ungodly." This truth is meant to break the back of hopelessness.

The connection between the sinner and the Savior is trust, not improvement of behavior. That comes later. It's this order that gives hope. "For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law" (Romans 3:28). The basis of this wild and wonderful hope (the ungodly justified) is "Christ for righteousness to everyone who believes" (Romans 10:4, literal translation). Through faith alone God counts the ungodly as righteous because of Christ. "For our sake [God] made [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Let all who are paralyzed by the weight of sin and the powerlessness to change turn in here.

To the fallen saint, who knows the darkness is self-inflicted and feels the futility of looking for hope from a frowning Judge, the Bible gives a shocking example of gutsy guilt. It pictures God's failed prophet beneath a righteous frown, bearing his chastisement with broken-hearted boldness. "Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light" (Micah 7:8-9). This is courageous contrition. Gutsy guilt. The saint has fallen. The darkness of God's indignation is on him. He does not blow it off, but waits. And he throws in the face of his accuser the confidence that his indignant Judge will plead his cause and execute justice for (not against) him. This is the application of justification to the fallen saint. Broken-hearted, gutsy guilt.

For the squeamish fellow afraid of making global claims for Christ, the biblical teaching on justification explodes his little world. It says: the deepest problem to be solved is the same for every human being, because every human is a descendant of Adam. And the problem to be solved is that "by one man's disobedience many were made sinners." "One trespass led to condemnation for all men." The only solution to this universal condemnation is a "second Adam" who provides "the free gift of righteousness" to all who hear the gospel and believe (Romans 5:17-19). Therefore Christ, the second Adam, the giver of righteousness, is the only global Savior.

Embrace as your treasure the gift of justification. There is no part of your life where it is not immeasurably precious.

By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: www.desiringGod.org

Miscellanies: It all seems absurd, that is the idea of eternity

It all seems absurd, that is the idea of eternity. That when I awake on that eternal day, it shall never end. It will continue and continue. But surely after the honeymoon is over, and the lamb has had his wedding, will he not perhaps get unintrested in us? And like he did after creating the angels, he created us, and after us, perhaps he will create another and they shall have all of his affection and we shall be ministering spirit to them.

But this is all my scepticism, my anger and bitterness at the cruelty of life, at the dullness of existence and being. But my faith, my mustard seed of faith tells me that Christ, the Holy Spirit, and Heavenly Father shall count us a joy and us them forever. 

K.Oni

 

I live knowing that I have nothing to offer humanity

I live knowing that I have nothing to offer humanity. What a shame. What a bad place to be.

Please do not tell me your troubles, becasue I have no advice to give. Even if I did, I will keep silent for all is a chasing after the wind.

Engage me in a familiar discourse and I will act ignorant. I will look you in the eyes and in deep grief shrug my shoulders.

I have ceased crying, hoping and praying. I consider everything I do to be worthless. Indeed they have no worth in themselves. Not that the activies do not have any worth, they do, but when I do them, they have no worth.

But do not pity me because I do not want your pity. Let me die, and when I am buried, that is by nature, let no one attend my funeral except for the angels that are sent to carry me home. And as they carry me upwards, I shall ask them many a question and thank them for taking me to a place where there is eternal light.

K.Oni

I knew a sad boy: whose heart ached from a severe lack of compliments and affirmation

I knew a sad boy whose heart ached from a severe lack of compliments and affirmation. When he overlooked his life, that his to trace all of his memories, he could never remember a time when anybody said anything good about him. He did many a good things but no one acknowledged him, and deep into the night, when the stars themselves begin to shut their eyes, the poor sad boy would cry, saying: 'O for someone to say that I mean the world to them, or that I am lovely.'

But no one ever paid him such words, and worst of all, he could never buy it.

K.Oni

Miscellanies: Its not as if I have it all together

Its not as if I have it all together. As if I have all the pieces of my life in place as I would have them. Instead, they are scattered all over the place, some here and some there. Thus do not find it strange if you do not find a joyful constancy within me. If today I am full of sunshine, and tomorrow I am full of darkness, do not consider it a strange thing. Indeed there is nothing good about too bright a sunlight if it blocks one's eyes from seeing the path ahead. We can say that it is truly the same as the darkness because if I should continue to walk ahead, I will fall take the wrong direction or hit something. It is no better than the blind leading the blind; I will fall into a ditch.

K.Oni

No bounded edge to her personality

There was no bounded edge to her personality, but I am bounded, and her unboundedness intrigues me, fascinates me. I know the world through my feelings, my feelings of guilt, of boundaries, and the fear of going beyond my borders; but she has no such sensation. She is free. A freedom I cannot live, nor accept. I have a best sense of myself, the kind that is typical of all good men, but she, I dare say, like freedom itself considers whatever state she is in to be the best sense of herself.

Her movement dances to a mixture of music and even to silence itself. I can only move to a Bethoven, and my ears only have time for well written music, the kind which echoes from the mouth of a piano, or stringed from the violin. But she could take my archaic tune and make it graceful, elegant as well as dysfunctional, having no pace or rhythm about it, and make both contrary themes lovely.

She speaks without an agenda, move with and without a direction. How a creature so unlike me could live and I be so fond, escapes me. I know only that when I look upon her, seeing day and night with its sun and stars, dwell happilly in her eyes, impells my curiosity and heart to love her more. Oh if I should fall off my precipice and land in her space, I cannot live again in my world, for she has won me, my heart and soul, that if she leaves me in her world with her all gone, then I will go mad, because only staying by her, with her, can I make sense of her universe.

And it was, that I did enter her boundaries, and she did lead me in and that for a while. After playing with me, and I so embedded in her, she did go away, leaving me without a kiss of goodbye, and without directions to find my way back to the edges of my own simplicity. Her world was too vast, too free for me, that without her, madness overtook me; and the absent fires of her love, burnt me to such a high degree that I no longer recognize myself, only a strong desire of an unreachable satisfaction which continually aches my heart remains.

K.Oni