self

TOLERANCE FOR THE SAKE OF COMPLEMENTARITY

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Human society needs a healthy mix of capitalism and socialism. Too much of either one has always proven to be bad.

Human society needs a healthy mix of faith and doubt. Too much of either one has always proven to be bad.

The world needs a healthy balance between “I” and “we”. Too much of either one has always proven to be bad.

We divide ourselves into “left” and “right”; and then we forget that left and right are the two legs on which that which is Human walks, balanced. They are not adversaries of one another; they are complementary to one another. Each must tolerate the other, for the sake of all.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

POWER

~ Che ~ 1 Comment

All power belongs to God, and only to God. If power is given to you, then you are just temporarily a vessel through which power in part will seek to fulfil the Will of God.

If you try to wield power and to bend it to your own will, and use it solely in service of your own ego and volition, then it will turn against you and destroy you, even if this destruction only becomes obvious to you after you have left this earth and it is too late to stop or reverse your self-destruction via power.

This is the worst kind of destruction, the one that becomes visible only after you have left the earth. You will have to come again as a baby and live a new life, to attempt to painfully undo the errors of the former.

Power is a very strange thing. It is not what you think it is. It is not what you see or think that you are seeing. What you see as power, no matter how obvious or subtle it may be, is just a temporary vessel through which power seeks to fulfil the Will of God. For all power belongs to God.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

PROGRESS

~ Che

When you ride the western star until you hit its heavenly glass ceiling, are unable to break through it, and then console yourself with the thought that, at least, you have done better for yourself than those who once started off with you back home in the deep global south… the question is: has Progress really been made?

You rise in the West
But Africa stays the worst.

If you shine moderately in the glow of the eastern star, but your own land of the rising sun is still struggling with twilight…

If like a lost moon you reflect dazzlingly the northern lights and it blinds you to your own northern people’s plight and they desert-roam in darkness and have no light…

If you drown power-drunk in the global financial waters, but your own lagoons are not overflowing with milk and honey, and your people thirst out of lack…

Has Progress really been made?

West, east, north, global are not necessarily far away places. They are the System and the way of life that rule and school you also at home, and force you to make a choice.

It’s easy to rise as a stranger.
It’s hard to rise as yourself.

As a stranger you just have to pretend and act the part and they’ll let you through and put you in a place that’s safe for them.

But as yourself you have to persevere; and refuse to compromise if it won’t help your People; and be content to inch your way forward, little by little, you and your world.

It might be slow, it might be painful, but that is true Progress.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

EVEN A NOBODY IS STILL SOMEBODY

~ Che

Though you seem foolish
And out of touch
Keep on being who you are,
Neither life nor nature’s laws
Was created by human beings.

Though the politicians seem to have all power
Though the freedom-fighters seem to be the only brave ones
Though the intellectuals seem to know it all
Though the popular stars seem to be the only dream-achievers
Yet always remember…

Every single Thought you think
Every deep Intuition you perceive
Every Word you quietly say
And every Little Action in your life
Has an effect Somewhere, Somehow…

For nothing goes for nothing
Nothing gets lost in life, in nature, in Creation
And the fact is that while we’re all so busy
Running around the place
None of us really knows what it’s really all about.

So: Ye Unknown Ones, be brave
And when your Inner Sensing leads you away
From everything the world proclaims “Great” and “In”
Then forsake the world’s ways and quietly, quietly
Find Peace and Joy within your Hearts.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO LIVE WITH A STRANGER?

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You cannot find like-minded people
Until you know your own mind
If you know not what you seek
You won’t know when you find
You will walk with your enemies
Your friends you’ll leave behind
You will feel no sense of belonging
Wherever you yourself bind
For without a sense of orientation
Or self-knowledge, you are blind.

And then there are those that will say:
You must stick to your own kind

So some stick to their race
And some to their nation
Some to religion and faith
Some to culture and tradition
Some stick to their gender
Some stay in a certain generation
Some remain within a field of thought
Or choose those of like inclination
Some share in an agenda
Some an intuitive perception

Some are united in what they seek
Some are united in what they find

Some will leave you when they find you
Because it is themselves that they seek
Some will seek you when they lose you
Because it was you who took them to their mountain-peak
And showed them their inner freak
Because – give me a break –
Who on earth does not secretly
Want to be a freak?

You like the taste of many soups
And are a part of many groups
And yet nobody knows who you really are deep inside –
Not even you yourself, with whom you always abide.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

BEING DIFFERENT

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UNRAVELLING THE mystery that is my own soul, I pondered and sought; I wondered about my beginning. Woman and man in a garden. Which garden? East or west? Home is best, they say.

So I went home into my spirit-man and discovered an a different person dwelling within, staring back at me with my own face but not my own eyes.

“Different person,” I asked him, “Who are you and what are you doing inside my heart?”

But he only returned my gaze without giving an answer, and I sensed that I must find the answer myself. Myself? But who is myself?

The mystery took shape, deepened, arose. I wandered from pole to pole. But each time I thought I had found my goal, I saw the different person inside my heart again, looking back at me with my own face but not with my own eyes.

I wanted to scream, but my heart rejected this. I lay me down to sleep, but sleep ejected me. So on and on I wander and sojourn, on and on I go, seeking to unravel this mystery that is simply my very own self.

And each time I think I have found the answer, I see him again, a different person inside my soul, staring back at me with my face but not with my eyes.

Who are you, I wonder, you stranger in my soul?

What are you, why are you, so different, so alien, so silent, so bold?

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

WISDOM

~ Che ~ 1 Comment

Wisdom. To see the limitations of others, and see the limitations in myself which stop me from seeing the limitations in others.

Wisdom. To accommodate the faults of others, and to accommodate the faults in myself which prevent me from accommodating the faults in others.

Wisdom. To understand the confusion of others, and understand the confusion in myself which blocks me from understanding the confusion in others.

Wisdom. To fathom foolishness, and fathom that which can never fully fathom the foolishness of man.

Wisdom. To be aware of my ignorance, and of my knowledge, and of the difference between the two.

Wisdom. Lord, make me wise in Thine Ways. Amen.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.