Kanayo Ikeh

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The older I get and the more people I meet, I get the chance to see increasingly, just how truly broken the world is. There is a lot of pain to go round. Then I think about all the stuff I have to deal with and how I still go on with life as though all is well and I ask myself, “What really is going on with the people I meet?” “What is the heart behind their smiles?” 

One of the best things in life for me is connecting with people intimately. And when I meet someone that is willing to bless me with his or her vulnerability over coffee or waffles, I am just wowed! I feel like asking, “Can I just hold you and cry with you please?” While I learn to rejoice with those who rejoice, connecting with those who mourn is just beautiful pain. There is something about ‘sharing in suffering’. There is indeed, a lot of pain to go round.

So what do we do with it? My first instinct is to escape from it. Given the rise in the rate of suicide, I could say that this response isn’t particular to just me. No! I am not saying there are many suicidal people moving about, but ‘escaping‘ can take different forms.

People think to themselves, “If I am ‘high‘ enough, I would forget about this problem… alcohol high, substance abuse high, adrenaline high, relationship high, sex high… anything to make me forget the pain, or at least make me feel good again.” Soon it is realized that what goes up comes back down, and the pain is still there. The brokenness, loneliness and depression are still intact.

After repeated cycles of that, we begin to look for something beyond us, some sort of spirituality. Christians will normally start from this point: ‘the Jesus high’. “If I can just get me some Jesus….” This is me! When people speak with me about their problems, I would often ask, in different paraphrases ‘How is your Christian life? Not that it is a wrong question per se, but it is usually an extension of the Jesus high mentality. ‘If you’ve got enough Jesus, you should be fine. You need to get you some more Jesus.’ Ultimately, the point is revisited where there is pain, loneliness, depression and the likes.

So is Jesus no longer doling out rest to the weary and heavy-laden? Has He run out of perfect peace? He did say he knows the surgical procedure for broken-hearts, right? Okay, get on with it then!

I am learning to have Him not as a substance, but as a person; not as a connect, but as a friend. I have learned that He takes that ‘sharing in the fellowship of suffering’ talk more seriously than I care to admit. I am learning that when He said ‘sharing in the fellowship of his suffering’, the suffering included mine. I am learning that, more than He wants to get me out of the painful situation, He wants to get me through it. Fellowship in pain; friendship in apparent absence, in tears. Growth lives here. Peace lives here. Intimacy lives here. Those ‘in the rain hugs’ that bring a sense of safety.

I met a lot of people this weekend and built so many friendships. Two people particularly caught my attention. I could tell they were each other’s best friend, and that they knew each other intimately. Their eyes and ears followed each other round the auditorium. I knew because I could be talking with him, and she, several feet away from where we were and with other people, would chip in a comment to our conversation. They couldn’t pass by each other without a backrub or some other sort of physical contact. Take my word for it, they were beautiful to observe, a beautiful married couple. I wasn’t eavesdropping, but one time she came to him and said “I am sorry, I feel like I let you down” and inched close towards him. Absolute gentleman that he is, he pulled her in for a warm hug and told her “Everything is okay”.

As I watched them and took trips down memory lane, I was glad because, not only was this very familiar, I had just observed an example of the relationship between Jesus and the church … and me. I keep playing that scene in my head, “I feel like I let you down”, “Everything is okay” and the embrace in the midst of everything that possibly wasn’t okay at the point, and think to myself ‘that is the real deal!’

It is in the ‘real’ that we find the peace and rest, not in the ‘high’.

Edited by: Editors at Large – Kenechukwu Nlem; editorsatlarge20@gmail.com

(An old poem resurfaces. It’s best read aloud.)

It’s a STORY
We’re telling news here
Keeping alive an ancient epic
The grand narrative of paradise lost and paradise regained
The greatest “Once upon a time” tale ever told
The beautiful story which moves relentlessly toward—
“They lived happily ever after”

Never, never, NEVER forget that before its anything else it’s a story
So let the Story live and breathe, enthrall and enchant
Don’t rip out its guts and leave it lifeless on the dissecting table
Don’t make it something it’s really not—
A catalog of wished-for promises
An encyclopedia of God-facts
A law journal of divine edicts
A how-to manual for do-it-yourselfers
Find the promises, learn the facts, heed the laws, live the lessons
But don’t forget the Story

Learn to read the Book for what it is—
God’s great big wild and wonderful surprise ending love story
Let there be wonder
Let there be mystery
Let there be tragedy
Let there be heartbreak
Let there be suspense
Let there be surprise
Let it be earthy and human
Let it be celestial and divine

Let it be what it is and don’t try to make it perfect where it’s not
This fantastic story of—
Creation
Alienation
Devastation
Incarnation
Salvation
Restoration
With its cast of thousands, more Tolstoy novel than thousand page sermon

It’s a Story because we are not saved by ideas but by events!
Here’s a plotline for you: Death, Burial, and Resurrection
Yes, it’s a story — not a plan, not ology or ism, but a story

And it’s an amalgamated patchwork story told in mixed medium
Narration, history, genealogy
Prophecy, poetry, parable
Psalm, song, sermon
Dream and vision
Memoir and letter

So understand the medium and don’t try so hard to miss the point
Try to learn what matters and what doesn’t
It’s not where and when Job lived
But what Job learned
In his painful odyssey and poetic theodicy

It’s not how many cubits of water you need to put Everest under a flood
But why the world was so dirty that it needed such a big bath
Trying to find Noah’s ark
Instead of trying to rid the world of violence
Really is an exercise in missing the point

Speaking of missing the point—
It’s not did a snake talk?
But what the freakin’ thing said!
Because even though I’ve never met a talking snake
I’ve sure had serpentine thoughts crawl through my head

Literalism is a kind of escapism
By which you move out of the crosshairs of the probing question
But parable and metaphor have a way of knocking us to the floor
Prose flattened literalism makes the story small, time confined and irrelevant
But poetry and allegory travel through time and space to get in our face
Inert facts are easy enough to set on the shelf
But the Story well told will haunt you

Ah, the Story well told
That’s what is needed
It’s time for the Story to bust out of the cage and take the stage
And demand a hearing once again
It’s a STORY, I tell you!
And If you allow the Story to seep into your life
So that THE STORY begins to weave into your story
That’s when, at last, my friend, you’re reading the Bible right

BZ

We are crea­tures with a mys­tery in our heart that is big­ger than our­selves. We may think we can find ulti­mate plea­sure, sat­is­fac­tion, and mean­ing in alco­hol, sex, mon­ey, or pow­er, (**Career, family) but in real­i­ty those have nev­er sat­is­fied any­one. They are too small for our mas­sive souls. We were designed to take part in a divine dra­ma, an epic sto­ry. We were made not mere­ly to hear it but to be in it. We are, indeed, sto­ries. But in truth we are not the pro­tag­o­nist of the real sto­ry, the sto­ry we long to take part in. God is the hero of the only sto­ry that will sat­is­fy us. ~James Bryan Smith – The Magnificent Story

Some years ago, I watched Louie Giglio’s video on Youtube titled ‘Indescribable’ (Link: https://youtu.be/AEh56ROJx48). If there is one word that will aptly describe God at the end of that video, it will be, well, INDESCRIBABLE! Louie Giglio, explored the expanse of the known universe in a way that gives sense to this verse:

Psalm 19:1-4 (NLT)

“The heavens proclaim the glory of God, the skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world.”

I encourage you to see that video. When you are done, you will find yourself asking the same question the Psalmist did in Psalm 8:1-2 “When I look at the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”

I started pursuing a PhD in Cellular, Molecular and Biomedical Science a few months back. I can say without a doubt that I am in a very ‘intelligent’ environment. I have met some really smart people, I mean people operating at really high IQ levels. This is not about the Impostor syndrome where I feel out of place.

In one of my modules, we get to read classical research papers that have changed the dynamics of medical science; beautifully, intelligently designed experiments that give details of the molecular complexity of life (from the lowly E. coli to the lowly man). I marvel deeply at some of these experiments and their conclusions, but even more so at the One who puts all of these in place. Intelligence unquantifiable; intelligence much higher than ours that the best description of it is “as high as the heaven is from the earth”.

What is man that You are mindful of him? Question of the ages!

I don’t want to go full nerd; oh but if only you knew the molecular level details that make up who you are! THIS REALLY BLOWS MY MIND. That the same God who made those massive stars (that after seeing the Louie Giglio video, you don’t even know where to begin in right-sizing Him or right-sizing yourself), will pay so much attention to the most microscopic, molecular events that make life is mind-boggling. A sense of unworthiness washes over me when I study, and I am not talking about the Bible. I mean studying science for my degree.

Who am I that you are mindful of me?

Science has not even come close to fully understanding all the molecular and cellular details that sustain life!

For me it is not so much about the degree anymore. It is not even about the love for biological science. I am just grateful for the opportunity to sit and learn about Him who made me, the God who sees the whole picture but still focuses on molecular details. I am in awe of the One who, by the breath of his mouth, put the stars in place and yet concerns himself with how a DNA polymerase works. I am humbled by the fact that the One who commands angel armies still collects all my tears and numbers the strands of my hair.

My constant prayer is this: “Father, these are your molecules. Teach me something about what you have created; teach me something about You as I study these molecules.”

This passage of scripture will always resonate in the deep recesses of my soul:

Psalm 139: 13-16 (ESV)

¹³For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.

I don’t doubt that he exists. No, I most certainly know he does. He has made it very clear that he does, and is paying a keen attention to my life…making sure I am miserable at every turn. The blood-thirsty hound, systematically taking away everyone and everything I ever loved and cared about. He is definitely All-Powerful and that’s the problem. No one being should wield such power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely! Most cruel of them all, he deliberately left me here…the rope could have had me, but the fan gave way; the knife left me with a punctured lung, but I’m still here; the poison may have as well been a cup of coffee…why wouldn’t you JUST LET ME DIE?!

Now I’m here on my knees. No, not out of submission to Him. There’s a camera to my face. I recognize the people kneeling beside me. We were all in the Bus going from Jos to Maiduguri on Medical Humanitarian services. There are lots of masked men all about us with guns of different caliber. The sound of the Gunshot was deafening. Dr Mark lay still on the floor with blood gushing from a 3 inch hole in his head. A lump rose to my throat as I realized that this was it, this was the day of my death. Fear gradually gave way to indifference. This was what I wanted all along.

Hold on a minute, these people are going to kill me because my name is Joseph…because they assume I follow the Tyrant! No this wasn’t how I wanted to go. I could see the captions already…”Young Christian man murdered by terrorists”… “Medical Humanitarian butchered”…The church packed full with people during the funeral, telling stories about how I’m most certainly in heaven. Such Ignorant Fools! Why would I want to be in the same sphere of space as He will?! They assume I will be with Him because I am a ‘good man’…but that’s exactly the reason I wouldn’t be with him!…He is a Murderer and I am a good man. He took them away from me. I owe Him nothing but DISDAIN!

“Yes, Loathe Him“…“Fill your heart with hate”…”It was all perfect till He stepped in. He RUINED everything!”…”You know it, you know it was Him right?” “He killed them…He took it all away”…”CURSE HIM AND DIE!”

I have no problem with death. I have sought to make him my friend for the better part of last year. He’s eluded me very successfully so far. But this is it. I can feel it. I can breathe the air of finality. Today is the day I will dance with death. Today is the day I will drink deep from his cup. Today is the day I will finally die. But I wouldn’t have people thinking I died in His service. When I’m done, everyone will know just what I feel about Him.

I open my mouth to curse him and suddenly, there’s a blinding light that is not blinding…intense light as from 10 suns but I can look through it. He walks towards me, a Lamb, neck bent precariously as a result of a wound from the neck, blood flowing out of it. I’m no stranger to Sunday School, I know He is described as a slain Lamb. “You’ve come to finish what you started?!”

There’s something about the Light though. As He comes closer, I see Light in its purest, undefiled form, a beautiful spectrum of colours. As He comes closer, I feel layers upon layers of my ‘goodness’ being torn away, till all I see I see is what is left underneath: pride, lust and lies! Stay away from me! So now you think you are better than me? He bleats but I can understand perfectly, “Be Quiet!” My mind becomes clear. I can finally say what I really want to say:

“Help me”

“You must drown”

The blood from his wounds have become a stream. YET it was still flowing! “You want me to drown in Blood?…You want me to die?”

“Yes, it is only at the end of death that you will find life!”

When the blood hit my lungs, I knew death finally. When the blood hit my lungs, I knew life!

It couldn’t have been more than a minute since Dr. Mark was shot that I heard the gunshot again and I lay slumped on the floor

Headlines: “Young Christian man murdered by terrorists” “Medical Humanitarian butchered”. The Church is packed full with people telling stories about how I’m most certainly in heaven.

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1. There is a fountain filled with blood; Drawn from Immanuel’s veins; And sinners plunged beneath the flood, Lose all their guilty stains: Lose all their guilty stains, Lose all their guilty stains; And sinners plunged beneath the flood, Lose all their guilty stains.

Sherry set the cup down, spilling a splash of coffee on her thumbs. “A few sleepless nights? No, I don’t think so, Father. I wouldn’t call being locked in a box while your parents are butchered above you and then living through 8 years of nightmares a few restless nights!”

The priest didn’t flinch at the words. “Let me tell you a story, Sherry. I think it may bring this into perspective for you.

“One day not too many years ago, near the end of World War II, a common man – a doctor – was detained and brought to a detention camp with his wife. His twelve-year-old son was in the safekeeping of his grandmother, or so the doctor thought. In reality his captor, an obsessed man named Karadzic, had also found the boy. Bent upon breaking the doctor’s spirit, they placed the man in a cell adjacent to two other cells – one holding his wife and the other holding his son. Of course, he did not know his son was in captivity – he still thought he was safe with his grandmother.

“The wife’s and son’s mouths were strapped shut and each day all three were brutally tortured. The doctor was told that the screams from the cell on his left were his wife’s screams, and those on the right were the screams of a vagrant child, picked from the streets. He was told that if he ordered the child’s death, both he and his wife would be spared, and if he refused, they would bot be killed on the eve of the seventh day.

“The doctor wept continually, agonizing over the groans of pain from his wife’s cell. He knew he could spare her with the death of one stray child. Karadzic intended on dragging the son’s body in after the doctor had ordered his execution, in the hopes of breaking his mind.

“But the doctor could not order the child’s death. On the seventh day both he and his wife received a bullet to the head, and the boy was released.” The priest paused and swallowed. “So the doctor gave his and his wife’s lives for another, not even knowing it was that of his own son. Does this seem fair to you, Sherry?”

Sherry’s head swam in the horror of the tale. Another emotion muddied the waters of her mind – confusion. She didn’t respond.

“We don’t always understand why God allows one to die for another’s life. We don’t easily fathom God’s Son’s death. But in the end” – he swallowed again – “in the end, Sherry, we will understand what Christ meant when he said that in order to save your life you must lose it.”

Petrus looked away and shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe my parents’ death saved me for this day – so that I might speak these words to you.”

Sherry dropped her jaw. Father Petrus was the boy? “You were –”

The priest looked back to her and nodded smiling again. “I was the boy.” Tears wet his cheeks and Sherry’s world spun. Her own eyes blurred.

“One day I will join my parents,” the father said. “Soon, I hope. As soon as I have played my role in this chess match.”

“They both died for you.”

He turned away and swallowed.

Her chest felt as though it might explode for him. For her. She had lived through the same, hadn’t she? Her father had died for her above that box.

The father had found love. Love for Christ. In some ways, she had as well.

“What is it with death? Why is the world filled with so much violence? Everywhere you turn there is blood.”

He turned back to her. “In living we all eventually die. In dying we live. He has asked us to die. Take up your cross and follow me. Not a physical death necessarily, but to be perfectly honest, we of the West are far too enamored with our own flesh. Christ did not die to save us from physical death.”

“That doesn’t remove the horror of death.”

“No. But our obsession with life is as evil. Who is the greater monster, the one who kills or the one who is obsessed with their own life? A good strategy by the dark side, don’t you think? How can a people terrified of death climb up on the cross willingly?”

The statement sounded absurd and Sherry wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“In the great match for the hearts of men, it isn’t who lives or dies that matters,” Petrus said. “It’s who wins the match. Who loves God. We each have our part to play. Do you know what the moral of my parents’ story is?”

She looked at him.

“The moral of the story is that only true, selfless love will prevail. No greater love hath a man than to lay down his life for a friend. Or a son. Or a stranger in a cell next to you.”

“Your parents died.”

“We all die. My parents defeated Karadzic. Their love set me free to do what I must do.”

“So do you think I’ve been brought to the jungle to die?” She asked.

He tilted his head down slightly. “Are you ready to die, Sherry?”

A ball of heat washed over her skull and swept down her spine. It was the way he asked the question.

Are you ready to die, Sherry?

No.

It all swarmed through her mind – her parents’ deaths, the father’s story, her own nightmares – they all swirled together to form this lump that swelled in her throat.

She stood and walked into the kitchen. “What’s there to eat?”

So this guy comes up to me and says,
“What’s the vision? What’s the big idea?” 
I open my mouth and words come out like this…

The Vision?

The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday. They wouldn’t even notice. They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.

They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and
dirty and dying.

What is the vision?

The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation. It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games. This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause. A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great ‘Well done’ of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don’t need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting
again and again:

“COME ON!”

And this is the sound of the underground. The whisper of history in the making. Foundations shaking. Revolutionaries dreaming once again. Mystery is scheming in whispers. Conspiracy is breathing. This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed. Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms. The tattoo on their back boasts, “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain”

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them? Can hormones hold them back? Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond talking, with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and with great barrow loads of laughter!

Waiting. Watching. 24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive inside.

On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide. Would they surrender their image or their popularity? They would lay down their very lives – swap seats with the man on death row – guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days, they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.) Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus. Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.

Don’t you hear them coming? Herald the weirdos! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.

Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon. How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great ‘Amen!’ from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.

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Edge of Eternity – Randy Alcorn. Chapter 10 excerpt

I heard the sound of someone pounding with a hammer, but it was a dull tearing sound, not the crisp, loud sound of nails driven into wood. Where was it coming from?

I heard jingling metal and looked around me and saw people pulling things from their pockets. I reached into my left pocket and pulled out…a handful of nails.

I saw now that each person had a hammer. I watched motionless as person after person positioned nails on the Woodman’s giant feet.

“No!” I shouted, “What has he done to you?”

What horrified me most was that people seemed so normal, even nice.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” a woman in a white nurse’s uniform asked me as she positioned a nail and hammered it five times until it was buried to its head in the Woodman’s foot.

“Where’s your hammer?” asked a business man in suit and tie. “Here’s an extra. Glad to share.”

I took the hammer. It hung limp in my right hand. After watching this for a few minutes, it seemed less horrible. Something moved in my chest and before I knew it, I was thinking about how big the Woodsman was, how distant he was, and how little he cared about mt, and how he hadn’t made my life go the way I wanted, and how he thought he was better than me and had dared to cast blame on me. I took the hammer and started pounding nails into his heel, first one and then another and another. I felt gleeful, almost giddy.

“Nick! How’s it going?”

I looked over at Victoria, pounding her own nails into his feet. I saw David and Quon and Malaiki and Salama doing the same.

I felt the skin of my stomach bulge and saw a pulsating lump move up into my chest and out to my ribs, racing within me, as if I were hollow. Now the fuzzy gerbil appeared on my chest, comforting me. I petted it, then immediately resumed pounding.

I hammered nails feverishly, harder and harder. No matter how many nails I took out of my pocket, it was still full.

……

“Take that!” I shouted. “No one can tell me how to run my life. How dare you treat me like this?”

……

I looked at the blood on my own hands. I gazed up at the giant, certain that in one moment, deliberate or unguarded, he could hurl us into the abyss. Something grabbed hold of my insides and made me stop and wonder.

“Why do you do what you do?” I cried up to him, holding out my hands, with nails and hammer, covered with blood.

He looked down into my eyes, and in the next instant he was looking straight into them – that quickly he had shrunk again to my size. “You are why I do what I do.”

My heart was pulled toward him, then I considered his words. Was he blaming me for this again? How dare he? I backed away from him. He stretched out his blood hand, and I retreated even farther.

……

Then a guttural voice, soaked in evil, cried out from the great flying dinosaur.

“Bleed, Elyon! Suffer and die, mighty fool!”

I turned away, crying out, partly for his agony, partly for my complicity in it. For though the beast frightened and repulsed me, through the pounding of the nails I had become his partner.

……

I watched the Woodsman – not knowing how I could see so far – through the dark clouds, lying there, lifeless on the tree.

I looked around me, seeing Malaiki, Salama, Victoria, Quon and David, not knowing how to read what I saw on their faces, knowing only that none of us dared move.

For the King was dead. And we had killed him.

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Edge of Eternity – Randy Alcorn. Chapter 22 excerpt

I looked at his left hand, which had held on to the thorny tree limb. It was covered with red mud. I reached down into my bulging pocket, full of nails. I spilled them at his feet. Maybe I’d find them in my pocket again, as I always seemed to, but here, now, I was determined to have nothing to do with them.

“There are two kinds of people,” he said. “Those who deny they carry the nails and those who admit it. My followers admit it and empty them often at my feet, just as you have done.”

It’s the end of work, and I’ve been feeling pretty overwhelmed for some time, so I felt like getting away again. I have the right gear: my journal, my Bible, my novel, money for Chinchin and Schwepps, so I drive down to my secret place to be revived. I find my spot empty. It’s a perfect spot, direct view of the entrance so I can’t be snuck up on; good lighting so I can see what I’m doing but also poor such that I can’t be identified easily; other tables are a bit afar so nobody is encouraged to make conversation – The perfect spot. The TV is turned on. News of the Corona Virus filled the air space. The virus is spreading exponentially, leaving a toll of bodies in Asia and Europe, and now a few cases in Africa.

I settle down to my Schwepps, now penning down some thoughts and writing my ‘Dear God’ letters, unburdening my heart.

“This is pretty sad, innit?”

I turn to the table closest to me, and that empty chair is now filled with an elderly man…oh boy! There goes my quiet time. I wonder how I didn’t see him come in. I look back at the TV and they’re talking about the number of deaths from Covid-19 so far.

“Yes sir, it’s a pandemic,” I replied and turned my attention back to my journal, hoping my curt answer will get him off of me.

“It really is! And going on for years now. From the bite of that stuff, infecting people’s hearts.”

I don’t think I’ll be catching any breaks with this man. Well, if you’re going to interrupt, you may as well get your facts right.

“Years? Nope, We’re still counting in months sir. And word is that it started from the Wuhan market in China. I don’t think the virus spreads to the heart though. It causes respiratory distress, so, the lungs.”

“Well, It has definitely infected people in the Wuhan market in China but I don’t know that it started there. But this virus is quite the killer, people dying in the Millions”

I legit laughed out loud. “Millions? Don’t be morbid. Yes, it is a deadly virus, but recorded deaths are in the thousands. We would be much closer to the end of the world if people where dying like that.”

“How does it kill anyway? Pardon my intrusion”

Now, you know how nice it feels when people talk to you about something you know that they don’t…that good, validating feeling. I didn’t mind the intrusion as much.

“Well, basically a virus hijacks the cells reproductive machinery and makes that cell produce more and more of the virus, till that cell and organ is overwhelmed,” I answered.

“Hmmm, so everything that comes out of the heart after the infection will be viral?”

“Lungs. But yes, that is the basic gist of it.”

The man was lost in thought. A little silence. I was beginning to think the conversation was over, and went back to my writing.

“It beats me how people can still continue living life normally, ignoring the spreading infection in their bodies, just essentially carried away by all their desires and ambitions, not fully grasping that death waits at the end of the journey for them.”

Okay, this man makes the word ‘ignorant’ seem very mild. And I was going to let him know.

Yeeeeaaah, what rock did you crawl up out from?!! In fact, you didn’t just crawl out, you are the rock. I hope I just thought about that and not not said it out loud. “People are self-isolating, cities are on lock-down, people are not going to work, stocking up on food stuff and toilet rolls and other supplies to last a while. The economy is crashing. Organizations and people meaning well are donating lots of money to salvage the situation. I assure you, nobody is carried away by anything. All we want to do is breathe. People are putting up social media challenges, just as a way to encourage each other in a grim situation.”

He chuckled, “I am the rock alright. It’s a pity that all these measures can’t stop the virus from killing the victims, or limit its spread.”

“Well, the virus doesn’t spread by itself, people spread it. So self-isolation and good personal hygiene are good preventive measures,” I replied.

He’s lost in thought again, a forlorn look on his face. “It’s also sad that some people live for months and years, thinking they’re free of the virus because of how, how, ‘good’ their hygiene is, while all the while incubating it.”

“Actually, incubation period of the Covid-19 is 14 days,” I said. “He will certainly know he may not be free of it when he’s coughing in 2 weeks.”

Still sad, He said, “Can you imagine it? The world without the virus, no more infection, no more death…aaaah, a beautiful world.”

“Well, I’ll drink to that” and took a swig from my bottle of Schwepps.

I mean, I didn’t need to imagine much, I could just think back to last year when there was no virus, which I did, and remembered why I was here in the first place, to vent about how broken I am.

He seemed to have read my mind and got up to leave. “Thanks for the talk. Sorry I took up your time.”

He walked towards the door, and suddenly turned round to me. “Pardon my asking one more question, why do they keep dying when they can get the cure? Why do people that have benefited from the cure not tell others about it?”

“What are you talking about sir? There is no cure yet. We’d be having a different conversation had there been a cure.”

He looked me straight in the eyes. “Oh, but there is! It’s in the Blood!”

It was at that moment I recognized his voice…at that moment, I knew we were having two different conversations, two different viruses, one leagues deadlier than the other. I know this voice, not too long ago, I heard the whisper, “Let me consume you,” the voice that saved me from the beast, the virus and still is doing so. I saw it in his face again “Let me consume you.” I have been painfully ignorant.

“Let me give you a ride sir,” I said.

He looked at my open journal. “Well, I wouldn’t want to be a bother. It’s your secret place, you know.”

“You are the secret, without you, it’s just a place.”

“Well, I don’t want a ride. But you can walk with me.”

---

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Save me from its guilt and power.

Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfill Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All could never sin erase,
Thou must save, and save by grace.

Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress,
Helpless, look to Thee for grace:
Foul, I to the fountain fly,
Wash me, Savior, or I die.

While I draw this fleeting breath,
When mine eyes shall close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown,
See Thee on Thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.

Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-1778)

Too far gone. It has overtaken and overshadowed me. I am soaked in it, bound by it, craving for it, one with it. Black heart scarred by the black slime. Painfully helpless. My own worst enemy, stitched in ever so delicately, one with me. Constantly surfacing, more frequently than before, grinning in mischief, “I will consume you.” He’s too strong, I can’t shake him off. He lurks by the corner, in the darkness, patiently waiting, bidding his time. Exploiting every weakness, “I will consume you.”The longer I fight him off, the more ensnared I get. Perfectly woven trap. Grossly outmatched in every way. “I will consume you.” It seems to be getting bigger everyday, fiercer, less intimidated. It used to be so small, I could it pet it like I would a puppy. How does it feed? How does it evolve, adapt? What does it want from me? “I will consume you.”

I want to resign to it, embrace it, dwell in it, bow the knee. Perhaps if I pledge my allegiance, it won’t bruise me so badly anymore. Perhaps if I let it consume me, I’ll find immense pleasure therein. It’s smiling at me. So attractive, so seductive! I don’t see its fangs anymore. Its claws are now perfectly manicured. The words flow like honey from its lips. “I will consume you.” Now that doesn’t sound so bad. A small step forward, and another, and another. Deep in the recess of my mind, I know I should turn and go back, but I lack the will to do so. If I draw a line here, I could make this the new default point. I wouldn’t go further, but I now have a better vantage point to stare at this magnificent beast. It is patient, “I will consume you.” It shows me enough of its beauty to intrigue me, just enough to spark my curiosity. So I take another step, and another, and another. I draw the line again and set up camp.

Why was I fighting before? My weapons lay several feet away from me. I am left with just my helmet and, as with the others, this is becoming annoyingly heavy. It narrows my vision and I can’t take in as much as I want to. But it seems to be latched on too tightly, so much so that I just let it stay. The beast beckons to me, “I will consume you.” My heart skips a beat. My feet do too, cos I’m advancing in leaps and bounds towards this beast, this gorgeous beauty.

“I will consume you.” Hmm, is it me or are those words sounding more menacing? A glimpse of fangs, claws, dripping with hatred. The memory comes, I’ve been here before! It’s a trap and I’ve been here before. The familiar stench of rot, death. It’s too late as I feel its teeth breaking into my flesh. The more I struggle to break free, the deeper it sinks its fangs, and the weaker I get. I know now that there is nothing in me that can defeat this beast. “He…..lp” “He……lp.” I see the wicked glint in its eyes. Without words, I can read it in its eyes “He’s gone. He won’t help you. Not this time, not again.”

“He…..lp” “He…..lp”

“Let me consume you.” Familiar voice. Source: my head, no, my helmet. “Let me consume you.” Oh, I will be consumed today alright. By one or the other.

THE OATH

Few books have shown me who I really am like this book. And though I couldn’t see it, I knew it was there, I could feel it…the black slime, the black tar, snaking down from my heart to my waist, oozing and staining everything I touch and I’m putting on. I know it’s there. I can’t see it, but I know. With a stench a thousand Arabian scent can’t douse. Wretched and miserable man that I am! Who will rescue me and set me free from this body of death, this corrupt, moral existence?

I also feel the pain. In bouts and waves. I touch my heart and it stings! It keeps me up at night. I may try to ignore it, but it lingers. Pain worse than just breaking a tibia and fibula…worse than breaking every bone in my body. This is good!..this pain evident by the black tar. ‘You keep hurting! Don’t let me forget about you.’ This is hope. When I stop caring, I forget about you. When I forget about you, I start dying.

I have a copy of this book and can loan it to someone who will be faithful (i.e take care of it and return it).

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“May I never get over the fact that God saved a WRETCHED sinner like me. May I never get over the fact that He allowed me to see another day. May I never get over the fact that He’s patient with me, that He’s long-suffering with me, and that in me dwells NOTHING that can satisfy Him. May I never get over being broken over my sin. May I never, ever become complacent. May I never stop realizing the INCREDIBLE DISTANCE between me and my Jesus because that’s the only way I appreciate the distance He traveled to make me His child.” – Voddie Baucham.