SAY A PRAYER

"Prayer is the key of the morning, and the bolt of the evening." - Anonymous

Pray for Nigeria

Someone said, "In my deepest, darkest moments, what really got me through was a prayer. Sometimes my prayer was 'Help me.' Sometimes, it was 'Thank you.' What I've discovered is that, intimate connection and communication with my creator will always get me through, because I know my support, and my help is just a prayer away."

Having been in this nation, all my life, and experienced different administrations, and governmental leadership, with much chaos, confusion, and corruption, I have noticed also that - as a nation - we have experienced some triumphs too. What has gotten us through were our prayers to God. Did someone say in what areas? There are a number of success stories. God has delivered us from many trials. I will mention just one, 'Kidnapping.' There was a time when no one could sleep with both eyes closed. No one knew who would be kidnapped next, or what time the kidnappers would strike. It was a nightmare.

The Reality of Injustice

Wisdom Nugget.....He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth: In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth."

Sign on Nobel Laureates Boulevard in Rishon LeZion saluting Jewish Nobel Laureates.

Here are my closing thoughts on injustice.

We all like stories with happy endings. Whether the story is in a book or movie or even in real life, we like stories with happy endings.That's one reason why I love Chinese movies. The good guy never dies and he always beats the bad guy at the end. Sometimes, however, real life stories don’t have happy endings. And although we prefer stories with happy endings to stories with sad endings, we understand that life and its stories don’t always have happy endings. And as much as we all hate to live in a world of injustice, truth is because we live in a fallen world, some stories have unjust endings. Solomon wrote :
"Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. 2 And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. 3 But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun."

In 1947, Simon Wiesenthal formed a volunteer organization to help find and prosecute Nazi war criminals. During the next forty years, Wiesenthal’s organization helped track down more than one thousand war criminals, including Franz Stangl, the former commandant of the Treblinka death camp.
What was Wiesenthal’s motivation? He had plenty of good reasons. During World War II, he spent the last three years of the war in a series of labor and concentration camps. The Nazis killed 89 members of his and his wife’s Jewish families during the war. But when asked the reason for his work, he pointed to one concrete experience that happened in a World War II death camp. One day two Nazi officers rode to the site where the prisoners were excavating rock. One of them grabbed a Jewish man and made him stand back to back with another Jewish man. He had a guard bind the two men together with a rope. Then, just as calmly as if he were swatting a fly, he pulled out his gun and shot through the first man’s head into the head of the man behind him, killing both men with one bullet. He turned to the other officer and said to him, “See, I told we’ve been wasting 50 percent of our bullets.”
Simon Wiesenthal’s responded to this atrocious act by saying, “God was on leave.” He wondered where God was when the world was filled with injustice.

66 years later the Jews rule the world. Out of the total 684 Nobel laureates ( in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Economics and Peace.) world over, a full 22.66% of them have been of Jewish lineage. An amazing list of achievements for a people who comprise just 0.1955% of the world population! There are 115.9 times as many Jewish Nobel laureates as there would be if every race had equal representation among the Nobel Prize winners). Many of their contributions to science and society are practical and beneficial to our everyday lives (e.g. anesthesia, penicillin, blood groups, relativity which enables GPS).

How did they do it ? Many reasons, but one of them being that
after thousands of years of persecution, climaxing at in the Holocaust murder of 6 million of them They were resurrected and restored to greatness because " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit".


Photo credit: en.wikipedia.org

The Crash Is On Its Way

Wisdom Nuggets: "There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man." - Alan Paton

Alan Paton (Photo from: todayinliterature.com)

 A woman who worked in a small office, so that her boss could see what she did all day, had to use the toilet a lot because she was pregnant. The boss made a note of how long she was gone each time and took the minutes out of her lunch hour. Another employee, a salesman had leukemia and was very sickly. His boss insulted him every day and doubled his sales quota while he was still undergoing chemotherapy. He quit and recovered. One American film producer had 109 assistants in five years, not counting those who stayed less than two weeks. He fired one for buying him the wrong breakfast muffin. A man's hand was cut off by a giant cutting machine in the factory where he worked. After 6 months of being admitted in the hospital due to the loss of limb, he was laid off the job. He was considered a waste of company resources. Yet another staff was involved in a fatal motor accident while on official duty as sales rep. He was still battling with the trauma of the accident in his hospital bed 3 months later when he was informed that he has just lost his  job. The company figured out it will be too expensive to pay his medical bills. Till today in my country, a lot of house helps are not treated better than the 12th century slaves in Brazil : physically, sexually and mentally abused just to remind them that they are different from the cute kids of the house owner. They eat sparingly, sleep seldom and work for long hours.

Believe it or not, the way you treat your staff, domestic or corporate, will either attract a blessing or bring down a curse on your organization, your family and your life. When Job's entire world crashed, trying to figure out where he had gone wrong, this is one of the questions he asked.
 “Have I ever been unfair to my employees when they brought a complaint to me?What, then, will I do when i am confronted?When my books are examined, what will I say? Didn’t the same God who made me, make them?Aren’t we all made of the same stuff, equals before God?

The truth is you may be the world's richest man and your organisation may be responsible for the livelihood of a million families who would suffer if you did not employ them, but Job says before our Creator you are no different from your staff. You are equals. The only difference is that you have been privileged to have these great cooperations in your care. You have been entrusted with the opportunity to extend His blessings to others.

Life never blesses us for ourselves but we are blessed so that we can be blessings to others. Some CEO's adopt a Eugenistic attitude, which gives the feeling that they came from a superior breed from their staff and therefore, embark on a program of deliberate and systematic dehumanisation, humiliation and degradation. Most employers suffer psychological abused, emotionally traumatized and physically drained. Fact is today you can be the boss and tomorrow a staff too.

First ,if you treat your staff as a worthless bunch of people you are just doing a favour, it will reflect everyday in their poor performance, affect their self esteem and deplete the company's market share.

Secondly, employers who treat employees shabbily and pay them poorly must hear these words: "you are not pilling up wealth but judgement." You'll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon your  organisation.

"...And a final word to you arrogant rich: Take some You’ll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you lessons in lamentation. You’ll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you. Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you’ve piled up is judgment. All the workers you’ve exploited and cheated cry out for judgment. The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of the Master Avenger. You’ve looted the earth and lived it up. But all you’ll have to show for it is a fatter than usual corpse. In fact, what you’ve done is condemn and murder perfectly good persons, who stand there and take it..."

Speaking of crashes: the whole world has recent been dealing with a global economic meltdown. Maybe we are just discovering some of the reasons behind the crash sweeping the world's big businesses.

Robert Burns said "Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn!"
To which Alan Paton replied "There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man."
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The Curse of Injustice 4

Wisdom Nugget: "Don’t steal from the poor, because they are poor; and don’t use your position to crush the weak  The Lord will take up their case and press the life out of those who oppress them."

Oppression

Have you ever wondered lately why more rich people are getting struck with cancer, tumors and very deadly heart diseases ?

I still remember like yesterday, my days in Law School. One of our lecturers walked very slowly into class, apparently not feeling well. We - the students - empathized with him and expressed our sincere wishes for his speedy recovery. Then one of the students dared to ask him the nature of his ailment, whereupon he said something that we all laughed about then, but now I know not to be a joke, He said to us "Oh don't worry, you all can't relate with it. It's rich people's sickness!"

Many years after, I realized that indeed one of the greatest tragedies of life is how the rich steal from the poor, and use their position to oppress the weak. And how as a result, their Maker "...takes up their case and  presses the life out of those who oppress them."  You will recall I had said before that because of the complexities of human existence, at one time or another we will all be vulnerable, defenseless and very susceptible. There are laws which make it obligatory for the strong to protect the weak; the informed to protect the ignorant; and the powerful to protect the defenseless. To violate these aforementioned laws is to attract a curse. Take away those laws and society will be brutish, savage and barbaric. To undermine those laws is to take us right back into the jungles of the Stone Ages where only the fittest survived.

In 2010 was born the Arab Spring: the wave of revolutionary demonstrations, protests, and civil wars occurring in the Arab world. This revolution which began on 18 December, 2010 fought against oppressive dictators who had stolen from the poor and used their position to crush the rich

Till date, these official thieves (Presidents) are being crushed and disgraced out of power. We have witnessed the fall of the Presidents of Tunisia,[1] Egypt,[2] Libya,[3] and Yemen;[4] civil uprisings have erupted in Bahrain[5] and Syria;[6] major protests have broken out in Algeria,[7] Iraq,[8] Jordan,[9] Kuwait,[10] Morocco,[11] and Sudan;[12] and minor protests have occurred in Lebanon,[13] Mauritania,[14] Oman,[15] Saudi Arabia,[16] Djibouti,[17)and  (18) Western Sahara.

To you who are being oppressed, your case will be taken up. Your oppressors will have the life pressed out of them. But to the rest, let me remind you of the words of Carl T. Rowan, "It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home."

And Jonathan Sacks wrote "If you want a free society, teach your children what oppression tastes like. Tell them how many miracles it takes to get from here to there. Above all, encourage them to ask questions. Teach them to think for themselves."

Solomon summarizes it in these words: "Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, All will be judged: both the righteous and the wicked. For there is a time for every matter and for every work."

Desist from stealing from the poor. Stop using your position to crush the weak. If you don't turn a new leaf, ...it's only a matter of time.

Photo credit: whatsaiththescripture.com

Injustice and Curses

Wisdom Nugget: He has told you, O man, what is good; and what is required of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your Maker?             

Scale of Justice

All through the book you will notice that "The fatherless and widows" come under the same omnibus and are always grouped together. Literally, "the fatherless" means those without fathers and "the widows", those without husbands. But the spirit of the text goes beyond that simplistic application. They both represent people who are defenseless,. helpless, vulnerable and with no one to fight for them.

In most cultures in my country, when a father dies and his children are not of age, relatives take away all of the father's assets from you, everything. As for the widow, she is only a piece of property bought by the husband while he was alive. At his death, all her husband's properties are seized, she is subjected to demonic rituals like drinking the water derived from the washing of the corpse, shaved and must not leave the solitude, confinement and darkness of the room she shared with the husband for several months. When she finishes with the mourning rites, the house would have been swept, her; children, reduced to housemaids and everything her husband labored for would have disappeared. Often, young widows are forcibly remarried to one of the deceased's kinsmen; or contend with being raped as a matter of right. And sometimes, she may have to sleep with those who are to pay her late husband's gratuities.

Once there was a young girl who went to her late father's colleagues for assistance for her school fees. This man whom she called uncle, gave her a condition: she was requird to sleep with him before he would offer her any assistance. What these  traditionalists don't know is that these cultures bring great curses upon our communities . When the bitter tears of these fatherless girls and poor widows flow down their cheeks and fall to the ground, a lamentation against the land is raised. And a curse is invoked upon the people.

As Job put it : "But maybe you sent widows away without giving them anything.And maybe you took advantage of orphans. That is why traps are all around you,and sudden trouble makes you afraid. That is why it is so dark you cannot see,and why a flood of water covers you."

Have you ever wondered why many of our communities are so blessed in natural resources but the people are still poor ? Foreigners come in and prosper but the owners of the land are blind and in darkness and can't see the opportunities and for centuries the flood of poverty covers the indigenous people. Violence against women, rapes, mutilation of the female genitals are only a few of the evils that are responsible for the downward spirals of our economy and the violence and fears that we live with daily.

"...maker of the fatherless, and judge of the widows...will bless a people who respect the right of orphans and widows and vice versa."

 “If you listen to what I say, you will get the good things from this land. But if you refuse to listen and rebel against me, your enemies will destroy you.'... She was a faithful city. What made her become like a prostitute? In the past, the city... was filled with justice, and goodness... Instead, there are murderers. Once you were like pure silver, but now you are like the impurities that people throw away when the silver is purified. You are like good wine that has been weakened with water. Your rulers are rebels and friends of thieves. They demand bribes and accept money for doing wrong. They take money to cheat people, and they don’t speak up for widows and orphans. They will not even listen to their cries for help."

Another sage says, “You must never do anything bad to women whose husbands are dead or to orphans. If you do anything wrong to these widows or orphans, Their Maker will know it; will hear about their suffering; and will be very angry...

Conclude with Imelda Marcos words: "Continuous persecution of widows and orphans is a crime. Even the Bible says there is a specific place in hell for those who oppress widows."

Picture credit: fabiusmaximus.com

The Curse Of Injustice II

Wisdom Nugget: To trick a blind man into going the wrong way is to attract a curse.

A curse is an invocation of a supernatural power  to afflict or injure grievously; to harass or torment, to inflict serious harm or punishment on someone or to cause misfortune, evil, doom or unhappiness etc to  befall a person, group.

In the noun, to be blind means "People who are unable to see."

But in the verb it means "to Cause (someone) to be unable to see, permanently or temporarily: eg "eyes blinded with tears".

Life always brings us in contact with people who are temporarily blind , due to a situation they have found themselves in. The young girl who is in a relationship crisis; the fresh graduate who badly needs the job but must sleep with someone; the student (as a lecturer) who is struggling to pass your course and can't figure out why she keeps failing it; the young man in mid life crisis who comes to you for answers to 101 Questions of life; the young student who is confused about which career path to follow or who cannot figure out where the next school fee will come from; your congregant (as a pastor or religious leader) who looks up to you as God's representative; your subordinate in the office who regards you as their father or elder brother, depending absolutely on your (in)sight to make it to the top some day; and finally, your patient whose nakedness is only known to you and her husband. These people are blind, confused, defenseless and vulnerable before you.

Oftentimes, you hold in your hands the power to either make or destroy them, either help them or abuse them, either love them or lust after them, either tell them the truth or mislead them, either cover their nakedness or take advantage of their vulnerability, either be their stepping stone or stumbling block, either be their father or their sugar daddy and to either be their mentor or tormentor. The choice is yours to either be their hero or their villain but whatever is your choice they will remember you either for fame or for shame, either for the problems you solved for them or the ones you created for them. And we have enough history to show that those blind people you tricked into going the wrong way, sometime in the past, always have a bad habit of showing up somewhere at the crossroad of your future/destiny, just when you are about to be crowned, and spoiling your party. If you doubt, ask Anthony Weiner, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Barney Frank, Larry Craig, Kwame Kilpatrick, Senator David Vitter, John Ensign,Mark Sanford.

US President Thomas Jefferson (1802): was accused of fathering the children of his slave, US President Grover Cleveland (1884): had sexual relationships with a number of men; US President Warren Harding (1921-1923): had extramarital affairs with two women; US President John F. Kennedy (1963) was linked to a number of extramarital affairs;
US President Bill Clinton (1998): Monica Lewinsky had oral sex with Clinton in the Oval Office; Jacob Zuma (2005-2006): was charged with rape before becoming President of South Africa
Ramzan Kadyrov, Prime Minister of the Chechen Republic (2006): appears in a sauna sex party video; Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s Prime Minister (2011): paid for sex with a minor on a bunga bunga party and has just been sentenced to imprisonment for other of fences. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California (2011): had fathered his housekeeper’s son, now aged 15 and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Head of the IMF (2011): charged with the sexual assault and attempted rape of a housekeeper was disqualified from participating in the French Presidential elections.

To trick a blind man into going the wrong way is to attract a curse. To you who feel the pain of injustice, this is my advice : "The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." -Richard Bach

Photo credit: disputeabout.eu

The Curse Of Injustice

Wisdom Nuggets: The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly.

                                                                                                          -  Richard Bach

confident injustice

In the next couple of days I shall be drawing your attention to an explosive truth which many in this generation either do not know or ignore. It is called The Curse of Injustice. Many are aware of The Power of Blessings. That is why in the US you hear people say "God Bless America". But what is equally potent is the power of a curse provoked by injustice.

Understanding the complexities of human existence in all ramifications; acknowledging the inevitability of our defenselessness and vulnerablilities can help us understand the inherent dangers of injustice. There exist designed laws which make it obligatory for the strong to protect the weak, the informed to protect the ignorant and the powerful to protect the defenseless. To violate that law is to attract a curse (Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the foreigner...)

In 2009,  I sat next to a young man from Miami Florida to Haiti, on board an American Airways flight, and we naturally became friendly. It was my first trip to Haiti and it was soon after the earthquake. I was on a fact finding mission to see how my country could assist Haiti. So I was quick to befriend the young man so I could find my bearing when I arrived Port au Prince. On arrival, we drove around. I was shocked at the sorry state of Port au Prince, many months after the earthquake. Corpses were still trapped under the rubbles, collapsed buildIngs still leaned against one another, people still lived under the UN refugee tents and hunger was endemic. My Haitian friend had told me even the eggs sold in Haiti were from the nearby Dominican Republic. Turning to him, i told him i needed to change some dollars so I could take care of my hotel bills and other miscellaneous expenses. So he drove me to a dirty street, asked me to wait in the car, called a friend with whom he disappeared for a while. When he returned, he told me that the exchange rate was 1$ =30 Haitian Gourde. I was so shocked because I realized how poor the country was and I couldn't reconcile it with the high value on their currency. But I felt I was in the protective custody of my new found host and thus, couldn't dare question his facts (and figures). After all, his wife had joined us. They both communicated in Creole and I couldn't understand a word of what was said. I exchanged about $700 (because he had insisted I must take him and his wife to the most expensive restaurant in Port au Prince). Then I got to my hotel and asked the receptionist who told me the rate was $1= 35,000 Haitian Gourde. Next day my friend insisted that I paid him $500 dollars for taking me around in his car for half a day. As I boarded my flight to leave Haiti the next day I said to myself, "Now I understand why they are so poor !"

We're all defenseless foreIgners. The new staff in your office, the new girl or family in your neighborhood, the new student in your class, the new member in your church/club, the new entrant into your line of business, and the new wife your brother just married into your family, without exception, are all vulnerable and defenseless foreigners whom the fates have brought across your path. Before you take advantage of them remember the words of Plato, "He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it."

 Don't  ever forget, the wheel of injustice always spins around. Today it is someone else, tomorrow it may be you. Whatever a man sows, that he will reap.

Photo Credit: johncalvinmusic.bandcamp.com

Love Is Never Happy With Injustice

Fighting Injustice

Wisdom Nugget :  “You must be fair in judgment. You must not show special favor to the poor. And you must not show special favor to important people. You must be fair when you judge your neighbor. You must not go around spreading false stories against other people. Don’t do anything that would put your neighbor’s life in danger... “You must be fair when you judge people, and you must be fair when you measure and weigh things. Your baskets should be the right size. Your jars should hold the right amount of liquids. Your weights and balances should weigh things correctly..."

Today, permit me to demystify and simplify injustice.

When Mrs Potiphar falsely accused Joseph of attempted tape and without trial, he was thrown into prison, that was an injustice.

When Samuel’s sons Joel and Abijah, refused to follow their father's footsteps but  accepted bribes and took money secretly and changed their decisions in court and cheated people in court, that was injustice.

When Jezebel got some area boys to testify against Naboth in court and thereupon had him executed so her husband could acquire Naboth's family land, that was injustice.

"... we pushed Justice away.Fairness stands off in the distance.Truth has fallen in the streets.Goodness is not allowed in the city..." This is another face of injustice.

When against all known rules of natural justice, equity and good conscience, innocent people are convicted, that is injustice.

Unfortunately injustice is real and happens everyday. As St. Augustine advised, "If you are suffering from a bad man's injustice, forgive him lest there be two bad men." Only love can transform calculated  injustice into creative justice. Love makes justice just. Justice without love is always injustice.

 We may seem now to be surrounded by chaos -- war, disease, injustice, oppression, death. But we can rise above these societal ills. Things are not what they seem to be. It is only a matter of time until it becomes clear to all that we are more than conquerors.

Hate injustice but be careful never to hate the perpetuators of injustice.

 Let's end with this quote by, Moore, Olive: "Hatred is a passion requiring one hundred times the energy of love. Keep it for a cause, not an individual. Keep it for intolerance, injustice, stupidity. For hatred is the strength of the sensitive. Its power and its greatness depend on the selflessness of its use."

Photo credit: thecrazylady.wordpress.com

Love Detests Injustice

Wisdom Nuggets: Love is never happy with injustice,...it is happy with the truth.


Dr. Martin Luther King's Words on Injustice

The two pillars of any genuine civilization, the two pillars of the happiest and most prosperous nations on earth, the two pillars of any great lasting and exciting relationship or marriage and the two pillars of any great organization and government are  RIGHTEOUSNESS & JUSTICE.

While righteousness means "doing what is right at all times", Justice implies "rewarding good and punishing evil". Anything short of these and society would be  brutish, cruel, animalistic and poverty-stricken. On these two pillars, you can draw the line between the world's wealthiest nations and poorest nations.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca said " A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts." I still remember the day I vowed that I was going to become a lawyer. Someone had just been falsely accused and she was crying because she'd been innocent. Nobody believed her, but me. I concluded that the world was filled with this kind of injustice and that somebody needed to fight for the innocent. Injustice is rigging an election and stealing the people's mandate; injustice is denying a widow and her little children of their late husband's and father's property; injustice is promising to marry a lady only to abandon her later for her best friend. Now, you aren't just expected to desist from unjust acts, "Don't even rejoice with those who did it".

Martin Luther King, Jr.said: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Desmond Tutu wrote "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality".

Elie Wiesel postulated "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." I am convinced that "A just war is in the long run far better for a nation's soul than the most prosperous peace obtained by acquiescence in wrong or injustice."Henry David Thoreau said "If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law." That was what the Egyptian midwives Shiphrah and Puah did when asked to kill innocent kids and they were blessed for disobeying the government.

Where is the justice today? I fear for how insensitive, uncaring and lethargic we have become in the face of injustice. These days people loot valuables from their work places and pay heavy tithes, It's sad that we have stopped our ears from hearing the cry of the oppressed, the poor and the widows so that we even stoop so low as to celebrate the perpetuators of these injustices.

In Germany during World War II there was a Protestant church which stood near some railroad tracks. These tracks often carried Jewish families on their way to Nazi concentration camps for extermination. The cries for help and justice were sometimes so loud and disturbing especially as the congregation worshipped. The solution was a call for the congregation to sing louder so the cries wouldn’t be heard.

How many times have we tuned up our worship music, or stuck our noses deeper in the hymnal so we can pretend not to be aware of the injustices that abound around us?

Henry David Thoreau wrote "Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant". Truth is, evil thrives because good men do nothing.