The above reflection on Africa’s reality has been an ongoing debate within various fora with most of our people narrowing down on it’s demerits as opposed to its merits.
It could be said that this reality has a lot to do with the spiritual aspect of Africa as opposed to the physical aspect.
Such kind of introspect reflection may demand a lot of humility to be able to get at its reality instead of assuming a self defence mechanism approach.
This could be what Immanuel Kant’s conception of understanding referred to as the use of an eye glasses metaphor,an enabler of clear perception of the world’s reality.
I once heard a friend referring to one of my family member as having acted on them as a conman,and this utterance caught my attention with a bhang since I had always believed my family to be a straight forward God loving people.
And instead of personalizing the mean word against my family,I took it to the other level using it as a reflection frame of what don’t meet the eye in prayer and contemplation.
It was then when the Lord graced me with a mental image as follows:
“There was a disable young boy who had come to our house at the wee hours of dawn time,camping behind our sheep pen,crying claiming that my father was given his school fees to take to them but instead,he used the money and the boy could not then go to school having been sent away for school fees.” The End of the scene.
The spirit then prompted me to one of my step grandmothers instead of my father to ask what that could mean. And it was then when she opened up and told me that my grandpa whom I was named after,was a very gentle and humble person who didn’t like contentions but was the Joseph,the trickster of their time who could not be trusted with anything,declaring to me that was what currently could be following most of his family.
And when I shifted my mind briefly from where we’re to our family applying the acquired eye glasses, I could then begin to grasp the clear perspective of my family.
And it could be argued that the person who coined the above said narrative somehow had his eye glasses on or was inspired and thus able to tap into some coded knowledge about African’s blackness from higher diamention realm of this African reality.
Of late in most of our political public discourses,there has been talks like better the devil we know than the one we don’t know,a symbolism of public desperation towards political leadership.
However, the devil remains the devil,whether known or unknown, whose key role is to steal,kill and destroy as argued by the gospel episode according to saint John.
And this is how our said preferred devils rob us of our power to dream and hence create our hopeless realities since realities are created from the future to the present,meaning we must first be able to perceive that reality by dreaming before we take aleap into an expedition to create it,or manifest it.
This is what prophet Isaiah could be alluding to by saying God is Lord of the Future and narrates in chapter 48,as follows;
“And so I predicted your future long ago, announcing events before they took place,to prevent you from claiming that your idols and images made them happen.
All I foretold has now taken place,you have to admit my predictions were right. Now I will tell you of new things to come,events that I did not reveal before. Only now am making them happen; nothing like this took place in the past. If it had,you would claim that you knew all about it.”( Lines 6 & 7.)
It thus mean that if we can’t see it in the mind before its appearance,dream it,then it means we can’t create it and would be hustling or gambling about life,something that humanity was not ordained for but in reality this is the life of majority of our African folks.
This what could be argued to be what Immanuel Kant believed in,man essentially being rational,thinking being whose behaviour is dictated by universal and categorical moral truths / absolutes. While expecting a devil to operate within these standards is pure deception.
This could be why Kant believed in the principle of sufficient reason,known as the principle of Noncontradiction and the rational universal application of logic,that might have led to his critique of practical reason and pure judgement,the philosophical tenets we can’t expect from the devilish leadership.
The gamblers / hustlers are always said to be led by the said devils our people are yearning for in their desperation of being unable to dream their future ,wallowing in darkness. And this why our modern intellectuals keep scaring us with intellectual jargons like state captured approach of governance without delving into its genesis and even its likely remedies.
I don’t mean our intellectuals are wrong in their problem definition / identification, but we can only walk the talk by moving forward to craft it’s equivalent remedy instead of capitalizing on the identified problem by weaponizing it,or using it to their advantage to demean and destroy others.
Nevertheless, for keen observers,the effects of state captured replicas,the banditry / terrorist sponsored style of governance could be seen all around our modern societies,a governance model coined by lazy beaurocrats / capitalists who are lacking creative energy / ideas due to their inability to dream,and visualize the future in its formless stuff / nature before birthing it.
The state captured approach of leadership within African Nations has become a threatening life predator,feeding on its own peoples’ blood to perpetuate the culture already ingrained within the systemic governance failure.
It manifests itself daily in our work places,churches,schools / colleges,including market places as capitalist and these lazy policy makers seek to micro manage governance enterprises to protect their vested self interests at all costs possible including crushing / smiting those who stand on their execution parlance and Africans yet to reap wholesomely from the consequences of such generational lapse,curse.
This is the sickness of our generation which Blaise Pascal referred to as,”A sickness of our age,that of having fit bodies but flaccid minds and vacant souls. So like a drowsy napper who falls off to sleep after a meal and is reluctant to rouse himself to answer the telephone calls,which are alluded to be divine insights / angelic promptings,we find ourselves disinclined to heed the challenge to rise above our age,thus our desperate creative slogans like better the devil we know and the huslers verses dynasty narratives since our leaders’ creativity is at death bed unable to coin revolutionary creative narratives.
The author of the narrative could be alluded to have seen African reality in its totality,thus both physically and spiritually.
And such desperation could be argued to relegate our thinking to the back bench with all hopes of dreaming to have died and we’re left wondering like lost sheep through the vast and terrifying wilderness with poisonous snakes and scorpions.
When a people cannot dream,they are rendered clueless,wallowing in darkness,since living starts by dreaming,with dreams creating desires while desires creates determination which eventually translate to creating a,desired reality,destiny.
However,our drowsiness, state of stupor,cannot qualify us for a practical / transformational shift to rise above our age.
While for those willing to rise above their cultures / age,Pascal gives them three sure options,as travelling,history and direct knowledge of God,with travelling enabling mind anchoring, history equipping us with informational learning and finally direct knowledge opening us up for higher realm communication transactions,thus transformational learning.
The above could be alluded to facilitate a common framework of understanding, which is said to be at critical short supply in the present microwave moment,but being key for a thought to work as a partner in communication.
This could be the floodgate for deception, with various preachers / teachers sharing their little glimpses of knowledge revelations,with finality while forgetting that both knowledge and language are relative drivers,meaning we would always need a harbour as the judgement point of reference.
Recently, I came across some commentator in a broad Television Network claiming with finality that people should not be prayed for with ministers with CRB credit listings,and the first question coming to mind is whether the commentator indeed,knows the said scriptures he was talking about.
The scriptures narrates that saint Paul who is argued to be one of the most influential agent of the gospel, a witness,wrote almost all of his epistles from prison,and he argues that though we’re under chains,but the gospel cannot be chained.
This in other words could be alluded to comparatively put saint Paul at par with the CRB creditors’ listing and I wonder if such commentators could have known the major damage they cause the body of Christ.
Again in one of his epistles to the Church in Corinth,saint Paul narrates that for those who are in sin,we associated ourselves with Sin so that we may be able to reach / get them,and could this be alluded to be the scenario God anticipated through prophet Hosea by reprimanding him to take Gomer in marriage?
And how do we reconcile Jesus’ mean words to the Cananite woman,that it’s not right for children’s food to be given to the dogs and saint Paul’s epistle narrative to the church in Corinth narrating that we became sin for those living in sin,so that we could be able to evangelize them?
Can we conclude that by Jesus granting the Cananite’s woman her pleadings,he opened a new dispensation of extending God’s mercy to those living a dog’s lifestyle / the likes of harlots and urchins like the one mentioned in the gospel episode of Mark 5?
Well,such authoritative one wing gospel proclamation approach could be argued to negate the principle of evangelization,but only comparable to the pharisees’ approach,the self righteousness’. While the word is the Eucharist,body of Christ and could only be shared in fellowship to the entire body. This could be what saint Peter alluded to being an individual’s living stone,building block,which has become the corner stone for building the holy temple. It’s built one stone ( an individual’s at atime)upon the other for the edification of the body of Christ.
This approach of the gospel proclamation is what could be referred to as the persuasion,that is said to be lacking in our current generation ,where collective responsibility is factored in the gospel proclamation equation bearing in mind that both knowledge and language are relative to various geographical places.
This commentator reminds me of my earlier days in ministry around 2002,when I prayed God for a job only to be told that there are so many jobs I can do including going to the chapel daily to pray for those going to work under difficult challenges. I was also told to be going to wash the church and many other church chores all of which were seemingly non paying jobs I expected,but I obliged and began immediately. However,I could g
However,this is said to be the charesteristics of human nature,which is to love oneself and to consider only one’s self. It cannot help its own love being inconsistent and miserable,and finding itself in this predicament, it reacts in the most unjust and criminal passion imaginable. For it conceives a deadly hatred for the truth that would rebuke it and convince it of its faults. It would like to eliminate this truth,and not being able to destroy it,it represses it as much as it can in the consciousness of itself and of others. That it takes every precaution to hide its own faults from itself and from others, and cannot bear to have them.pointed out or even noticed.
It could be said to be how the agents of the spirit of the world operates, which reminds me of some experience I had with him around 2005,when I used to meet an extraordinary woman in the image of virgin Mary within the vicinity of our Basilica every morning as I went in for the adoration in the chapel before reporting to work around 9am.
Having been in love for the blessed virgin Mary,after our Archbishop rewarded me with a beautiful rosary all the way back in 1987 after chairing our youth denary leadership meeting just shortly after his Lordship had administered to us the sacrament of confirmation,which eventually led to my miraculous healing from the spirit of death that used to torment me with madness,at least twice yearly
And as I used to approach the lady,in the same spot daily,she could just smile at me as we pass by each other, until when I decided to confirm if she was indeed a real human being or my own imagination by asking her about her name. But when I shook her hands,I instead found myself asking her where she works instead of her name.
Most oftenly,we act as the said Israelites in the scripture episode of Deuteronomy,where the Lord commands us to dream,and advance to possess our promised lands,the dreamed lives,but scared by the giants occupying the land,the banditry,terrorist sponsored cartel running the shows,we complain to God and adamantly decline to advance since we choose to walk by site,while forgetting that its the Lord who drives out the giants out of the land.
The said woman in the image above then told me that she works in the National Social Security Fund Building,and that was all we could share and parted ways,with her smile as usual. And in a minute as I turned back to look at her since I had not been satisfied with what was transpiring which to me was just like a movie,she had already disappeared in the thin air. And that marked the last time of our meeting with her only for her to come back to my house at night but in a different appearance, completely naked, demanding to sleep with me and it’s then I was able to know that was not the blessed virgin Mary, but the spirit of the world. Maybe it could be alluded that I servived her deception trap simply due the rosary gift I was given by our Archbishop,a symbolism of an institutional church authority,a system that me covered me,since I was then to be shown how she deceives God’s people,even the religious?
Nonetheless,we’re here to exhort our African brethren that we can still dream again,and the Lord can still make water,a symbolism of life flow again in this dry and waterless land.
But how can we dream without repentance, a renewed mindset?
This could be why what Africans may need as a priority currently is not the said political,economic or social revolutions but cultural shift / revolution,to impact a renewed thinking.
Its this cultural shift that is going to remedy our extreme actions like that of zombies and marionettes, reminiscent in our lifestyles such as the said state captured model of leadership,since most of our lives are controlled by the spirits of the dead from underworld thus our actions tend to incline so much to perpetuate death and not life.
And this somehow tends to take us back to the gospel episode of saint Matthew,Peter’s declaration about Christ being the Messiah,and we witness Jesus giving him the key of authority by telling him even the dead will not overpower or deceive Peter’s creativity.
And this tends to paint the contest between LIGHT and DARKNESS,two different realities at play as enshrined in saint John’s gospel narratives,as being the substances of humanity creativity.
We read saint John gospel chapter from verse one narrating that in the beginning,there was word and the word was with God,and that all things were created by that word. While in the kingdom of the dead / darkness,before any creation,a fellowship has to be invoked between the dead and the living through libation ritual offering. Which then binds the two parties,one from the living plane existence while the other from the underworld kingdom,and this where man do loses the key / authority to creativity, thus acting as zombies,urchins and cartels such as banditry agents.
I once came across some post in social media,about some relatives complaining of one of their own not sparing time for them while reminding him that they are the ones who will burry him while the friends would only come in a tour,kind of to see if he indeed built a house for himself.
These are some of the arguments that reveals faulty human intentions that perpetuate the existence of the dead within the living,which could be said to manifest in their actions and lifestyles.
I once visited a friend whose brother came begging him on his knees after his son was sent home for school fees,pleading with him to assist the child with something towards that cause to enable the boy prepare for the adequately for his final examinations, but he declined completely, only later to tell me that some of these people once you help them,they instead seek to destroy you through such help,so I decided not to help anybody with anything like money.
However,this going to demand for a greater personal responsibility on our side,a responsibility mind reality could only refer to as bending a steel spoon,which only reminds me of some mental image we’re once was graced with while contemplating our team’s exit strategy from some life challenges by then.
It was then when the Lord graced us with an image of the team walking along a foot path when we eventually came to a point where a big rock was obstracting our way and as we tried to bypass it from the extreme sides of the foot path,a voice finally whispered to our ears never to bypass the rock but to hit it until water gashed out from it for the team marking the end of the scene.
But how can we dream without repentance or renewed mindset?
Do we really think that the kind of revolution Africans need is a political,economical or social revolution?
However,with the crisis of intellectual degradation we’re currently experiencing, the kind of revolution we need as a people could be alluded to be the cultural revolution and not what our intellectual political pundits tend to tell us as above. Its only this cultural revolution which is going to remedy the systemic governance structure lapses we are hauled in currently.
The said state captured,banditry or terrorist style of governance above could only be argued to be a reflection of the said “Darkness of Africans”, which simply mean that we are governed by dark forces of the underworld cosmic powers.
Well,the above sounded a bit task daunting but in essence am coming to learn that this same approach is what everyday life often demand from us as we wade into daily unravelling of life mysteries.
This exhortation has been inspired by a mental image which our mastermind team were graced with recently as to be shared there below.
It’s always argued to be repentance, a shift in perception which is the only way of breaking a steel spoon lest the steel breaks us down and we end up being with depressions, migraines, ulcers, and many other related cases as consequences of subjecting the brain into extreme vibrational frequencies which likely to translate into the raptuer of body tissues like veins,capillaries and others as opposed to yielding to the flow of nature.
But,its unbelievable how people could keep doing the same chores the same way always trying to apply the same basics to different problems at different places uniformly.
This is like gagging nature,doing things our own way and we witness this even within our political leadership where even the available governance structures / sysyems are not allowed to perform procedurally but are shortchanged with predetermined outcomes and still we expect them to give us different outcomes,the said “CHANGE” we know of and feel comfortable with.
While change in its essence means disorder,a leap into the unknown with all its insecurities of not being in control but just open to learning and observation for likely opportunities of learning and collaborations.
This African mission bestowed upon our mastermind team players could be alluded to have been informed with the following mental image that our team was recently graced with.
“It was an image of our mastermind team being in the aeroplane with the team’s banner erected above the plane which has got the African map drawn drawn on the banner.
The adjacent scene was where the plane was flying around the African continent’s with this banner flipping as the plane flies.” The End of the scene.
This image somehow refreshes our mind on various mental images with a new wave of thought dawning on the mastermind team,that all these images have been representative to the mission at stake.
Thus the images could be argued to bear a wider scope of discernment at corporate level,not individually and being definitive tools for corporate assignments,with African continent being amongst them.
The scripture episode of Numbers,coins somehow the reality of man,with God commanding Moses to ask the Israelites to advance forward and possess the promised land,but with the Israelites adamantly refusing to take on the land due to fear of the occupants of the promised land.
The occupants of the land were reported by the spies who were sent to spy the land as being giants,well built in body physic and healthy.
It’s this condition of man which Blaise Pascal opines as one of inconsistency, of boredom, and of anxiety,being sensitive to trivia,and insensitive to matters of major importance, thus reveals man’s strange disorder.
He continue arguing about two personalities who stand out in scriptures to have known and spoken most effectively about man’s misery.
Solomon,who knows by experience the vanity of pleasure which most of the modern world humanity crave for today,and the other personality being Job,who also by experience know the reality of suffering.
And some fundamental feature in the above Israelites’ episode,which paints them as being powerless to define their reality.
And its this condition of man which the scripture episode of Ecclesiates paints comparatively as reflecting man without God as ignorant and inescapably miserable.
He continues arguing that for anyone is unhappy whose will is caught in futility. He wants to be happy and to be assured of some conviction,and yet he is both incapable of knowing as well as
of desiring to know and he cannot even doubt.
It’s this faculty of understanding which Locke compared to the human eye,while Kant’s conception is illustrated with the metaphor of eye glasses.
Kant argued that we may not be able to know what the world looks like without our eye glasses to see the frame through which we view the world.
And it seems this what is happening here with the Israelites, who were ever complaining unprepared to take a leap into the unknown which Abrahamic heirs are called for.
And it could be argued that their vagueness was premised on their insensitivity to Rhemor word,divine instructions which were suppose to be their creative ideas.
It’s this concept which Kant argued that we can critically examine our faculty of understanding with reason to understand how our ideas must take shape to understand both the basis of understanding and the motions of reason.
While Blaise Pascal argues that understanding has a method of its own which is by principles and demonstrations,with the heart having a method altogether different. He argues that we don’t prove love ourselves discerning of love by systemic account of the causes of love.
Our mastermind team was recently graced with the following image:
“It was a scene of some very important persons visiting our team and so we’re gathered in preparation and planning to receive these very important persons,when our team leader asked where we could get good utensils including fruit sald bowls for serving these guest. It was then when his father appeared ion the scene and picked a key in our midst that we’re unable to see in his absence.
He then asked him to follow him to his late step mother’s house from where they could get the required utensils and as they got at the exit door out,his father asked him to put on his father’s sandals as his father puts on his. He then led him to the site of the said late mother’s house only to find a big heap of grave with a big tree having grown from it.” The End of the scene.
In our previous post titled,”Transfiguration,and tent building…”,we mentioned an image that was graced to us in early March of some expectant lady we’re aiding to exit the underworld / grave with her little daughter. It was last week when a lady approached me from mass and introduced herself saying she has been hearing of me but didn’t know me as she was tracing me with my children in church as she was told. It was as we talking that the Holy spirit reminded me of the above said image,confirming the lady to be the one I happened to meet in the image earlier.
She was then able to narrate moving emotional stories of how the spirit of the dead has been terrorizing her life helplessly and unknowingly. She shared how she has been getting jobs but could not even keep the job beyond three months,and now what broke her heart beyond measure is that every moment she finds a love bird to get married to,they can plan everything including the wedding.
And the very moment she could dream of a group of old women sitting in a group asking her what she wanted to do,and she answers them she is planning for her marriage, that’s the moment they could break the meeting,laughing as they shake their palms against the other walking to different destinations, and that’s how her plans could get scuttled for good.
The above image could be argued as follows: The V.I.PS could be a
The V.I.Ps could be argued to be the that renewed lifestyle,with God’s spirit in charge,while the utensils just as we argued earlier in some of our prior posts could be said to be issues to do with the heart,which Jesus challenged the Pharisees in his gospel according to saint Luke 11,to stop washing the cups from the outer side leaving the inside of the cup for what matters is what comes from inside the heart of a person.
While the said key could be alluded to be the spiritual authority the mastermind team has been graced with to minister for the victims of such ordeal. While the heap of the grave could be argued to symbolically connote the altar of death spirits that each and every individual of the mastermind team has to deal with prior to be ushered in to the said wedding feast.
It’s this wedding feast of the lamb that saint John alluded to in his revelations where only very important persons,those with their robes cleansed by the blood of the lamb are allowed to partake of.
To be continued as the second series.
Best wishes for an inspired blessed weekends.( Maurice.)
God’s blessings and Love,
Purposeful way of creation 