STOP KILLING THEM BEFORE THEY GROW

Nobody is born thinking he or she has less dignity or less worth than another human being. No child thinks it has less dignity or less worth – or more dignity or worth – than another child. These things are trained, instilled, indoctrinated and socialized into them in the process of growing up. By the time they become adults, they „accept“ their position, their place and their role.

Teach and train your children, above all, to be confident and self-confident. Self-confidence is the most powerful weapon in the soul‘s arsenal. It is what makes people cross boundaries and borders, break barriers, and open up new vistas of experiencing as well as make new discoveries for themselves, their environment and even for humankind. Self-confidence is the original character and prime characteristic of the Spirit.

When the spirit opens its eyes for the first time in the world of matter, it just finds itself confronted by this gigantic unknown world around it. But it is not intimidated, it is curious and full of the urge to adventure and discover. It is self-confidence that makes it set forth, intuitively certain that it will overcome all obstacles and challenges, thirsty for experiencing and knowledge, and wanting to forge its destiny, and find itself.

Children carry a deep sense of worth, of „I-am-somebody-ness“ inside of them. Of „I deserve whatever another child deserves“. They have a sensitive inner antenna against discrimination, and an instinctive feeling of having the same rights as very other child. Strengthen and preserve this intuition within them, so that they will never ever surrender their dignity and equality without a fight all through their life. And they will always win the fight.

But teach them too that in addition to their rights, as payment and balance for their rights, that they also have equal responsibilities as everybody else too. The responsibility to enact and uphold and obey fair and just laws. The responsibility to create and maintain and constantly improve a system that helps the disadvantaged without unfairly suppressing and disempowering the talented. The responsibility to not only preserve every good thing already achieved by humankind, but to be untiringly innovative and to invent and constantly re-invent the future. The responsibility to never stop seeking the truth, seeking to understand life, seeking to know what makes us human, what links us as humans, and how to become better humans. The responsibility to listen to their conscience.

This is a responsibility we all share – old and young. We pass on the torch endlessly to the next generation. We do this by igniting the flame within the young souls of children. Even if we are all reincarnated souls, Every Childhood is a new chance to re-engineer humanity, correct or discontinue the past, and save the future of humankind. Every child is worth the effort. Never stop trying. Never give up on a child.

Seek always to bring out the best in your child, in a child, in every child.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

AN EARLY RECOGNITION ON RESISTANCE

When I was a little boy – 6 or 7 – I watched a film on the Holocaust, in the sitting room with my parents. One question nagged at me then: why did they follow so quietly and obediently to their own deaths? Why did they not resist?

That question has since then detached itself from that film and that story and has followed me everywhere in life to this day, in many forms and contexts. In truth it was not a question – it was a Resolution.

Always resist.

Never give up, unjustly, what belongs to you, and is valuable to you, without a fight. It’s either you win, or you lose with pride.

All that’s left is for you to decide what your valuable possessions are.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

YOUNG AND OLD

Suffer not the young with belief in their ignorance
Thinking only the old can with wisdom be soaked
Watch: and see kids give to hidden truths substance
For what is a child but an adult cloaked

And seek not in the old for the seat of all staleness
Sure that, with youth passed, all vigour is lost
Look past the frame at a quicker, higher freshness
For what is an adult but a child unveiled

The child is the parent of the out-born adult
The adult is the parent of the in-born child
For up looks the earthling and up looks the moonling
And each sees nothing but the other in the skies

So suffer not greatness with the label of complexity
Nor suffer ordinariness with the verdict of the rejected
For where the great and the ordinary meet, simplicity
Is born, adult and child unite, and Perfection is reflected.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

A DREAMER’S MIND

I see a mountain
In the distance
A mysterious mind
Over matter
The birds that circle its heights
Like higher thoughts
That hover above a dreamer’s mind
Seeking to make contact
For oft the thoughts we think
And think are ours
Are borrowed
Upon a lazy afternoon, somewhere
In Creation.

A child sits somewhere unseen
Locked in an old body
Each time it smiles
Rainbows and rainbows of new thoughts
Surge out, unite, swing forth, to go seek out
Like-minded wonderers dreaming lazily
Upon a quiet moment, somewhere
In Creation
Blindly receiving the seeds of new thoughts
And thinking the thoughts they think
Are theirs alone
As if the mind of a dreamer
Were not a fertile garden too.

– che chidi chukwumerije.

APRIL

Her glance was taffeta
Smoothed down my trembling hands
Smoothed down my trembling hands
Oh morning glory
Oh these tremors have passed and
I’m asleep again on a Saturday morning
In the birth cradle of April.

Fresh rain, burgundy tears sprinkle sun, sprinkle dawn
Rainbows, silver and gold fingers
Then palmgreen sprouting hope hope
Then palmgreen sprouting hope.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

OMEN REVERSED

His demons
Come straight from hell
Chase him everyday
He remembers the cries of the women
Children and all the others
Victims of his guns of war
The land is silent now
His conscience is loud
The demons won’t go away
They want to take him with them
Back to hell where he belongs.

The last thing he did
Before he disappeared into the depths of hell
Was to pray
Oh yeah he sent up a prayer
Of apology – no plea for mercy – just apology
For all the victims of his merciless guns
Before he with a bold heart faces his demons
And yes the demons
Dragged him down with them
To the bowels of hell
Where his evil had created them

And that was the last that was seen of him
And that was the last that was seen of him

Thousand of years have passed…

But now when I look I see
An angel hovering over the pits of hell
Looking for him, calling him, waiting for him…
Will he rise out again? You’ve done your time.
Rise up, rise up, repentant spirit
From out the pits of hell
Where you no longer belong
Come back to Earth and do it differently this time –

Birth. Rebirth.
A new child is born
An old soul has come back again
Do it better this time

Save lives, brother
Save lives, brother
Love they neighbour, man

A little child
I see it in your eyes
You’ve got a heart of gold
Knowing and old
Full of the mission to do something good

A little child
I see it in your eyes
Exorcism of the demons of old

Save lives, sister
Save lives, sister
Love they neighbour, woman.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

BEING HUMAN IN A SERIOUS AND HAPPY WAY

Walk with me
Down quiet paths in the woods
Hold my hand
Tell me about yourself…
I’ll listen and give answers where I can
I’ll listen with my heart, the heart of an honest man…

I don’t want to take advantage of you
Everything that was good in you
When you were a child
I want it to come to the fore again
When you walk by my side…

And if somewhere along the way
We lie down in some secret grove
Then it’s just me and you, baby
Being human in a serious and happy way…

I want the child we have together
To be a reflection of the child in you and me
I want our old age, our life’s evening
To be again like childhood, in the beginning…
Look into my eyes as I look into yours
Let’s hide nothing from each other, let’s have nothing to hide…
Let our quiet walk in the woods
Last longer than our life on earth…

And if somewhere along the way
We are laid down in some secret grove
Then it’s just me and you, baby
Going up our path again together
Being human in a serious and happy way.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

REMEMBER YOUR DREAM

You’ll never be a better man
Than the boy you once were
So, when you lose your way
The answer you seek is not far:
Remember the dream you once had
Between child- and adulthood
When the boy you once were
Had just awakened from his dream
And the man you now are
Had not yet forgotten that dream.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

REGRET AND HOPE

I sat under a tree
Waiting for me
To come back to me

And while I was there
Two friends came to share
With me their hope and fear

A couple healthy and young
Who for long did long
To right a secret wrong

Early in their union
Confused they had given
A baby away for adoption.

And now though they try
And love and long and cry
The womb stays barren and dry

They’ve traced now doggedly
And found the family
Where their child grows happily

Today from afar
They saw them pass in a car
Saw how happy they are

Then sadly, quietly
They walked to the tree
Where I sat waiting for me.

And so did we three
Reflect thoughtfully
On history and destiny

And then we took heart
Upped and did depart
With courage and hope in our hearts.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.