lessons to learn from the Chelsea saga:

1) Go ahead no matter what. God has not finished with you yet. When the chips are down and everyone says you are useless & worthless, it is then time to know that glory is not by power or by might!
2)Without a followership dt is ready to support a leader, it is much more difficult to progress. ( AVB)
3)Emotional intelligence is a greater leadership trait than analytical skills ( Matteo & AVB)
4) It is d right mix of old & new with appropriate leadership dt brings out champions.( Chelsea FC)
5)It is a great opportunity for progress wn all eyes are off you & you are written off.
6)The more entrenched habits are d more difficult dy are to change, it is much easier to manage positively our bad habits than to seek to cut them radically .( AVB & Dmatteo)
7)Don't give up on your ambition, it is when you least think of it that your star shines d more ( Champions league title)
8) Do not be quick to change your winning strategy( Dmatteo & defensive game)
9)There is something called destiny, no matter what, wn u are marked for success, you are marked!
10)Humility pays, it is when Chelsea fans stopped d bragging dt dy won 2 big braces .
11)Do not be afraid to profess your beliefs in public, it assures your victory( Drogba & sign of d cross)
12) God is everywhere & in everything, don't just watch sports for its fun only . See God!

Between The Good Shepherd and Corporate Leadership

The study of MBA is the most desirous in the corporate and business world today and concepts like 'corporate vision','change','emotional intelligence', 'social responsibility',' ethics' are some of the 'ABC's' of MBA.These teachings are nothing short of christian messages in a secular language. The study of MBA has gradually developed into an even more important branch of study called Leadership. Proponents of the study of Leadership have unanimously analyzed that without deep spiritual development it would be difficult to develop strategic vision and achieve organizational growth.

 At this juncture, the corporate leadership seem to be 'confused' about which spirituality to actually adopt. Eastern spirituality has been of particular interest for these leaders while western monastic spirituality is also on the rise, but a great lot of these business leaders have gone deep into diabolic occultic spiritualities. It is in this  that the corporate leadership have not come to terms about the decision to adopt any spirituality, and this is how it affects me and you, who work directly or indirectly with this secular organizations and her leaderships.

 The challenge of our Christianity is to supply for the leadership that is often very lacking, delusive and confusing in the corporate world, and this task is not an easy one because the church herself suffers from the scars bequeathed on her from the confusion borne out of corporate leadership.This responsibility of leadership is so great that very few would like to look the challenge in the face and the contentment of the parallelism between church and state seem to be on the rise, even though it is just very apparent, from  faith's perspective, that the model is not working

 Leadership entails great responsibility, and it is this responsibility that we shy away from and a confused secular world, in spite of her delusions are leading growth, a growth that is ephemeral. The great Recession is an example of how very weak and fragile the model we build our existence on are.

 One of my national heroes is Umar Yaradua. He looked the challenge in the face, and he, a Moslem, adopted one of the often neglected slogans of the corporate world, which incidentally was that which was assumed by the prophets for Christ: Servant Leadership. Umar's government was lacklustered and entrenched in controversies, but i really and actually believe Yaradua lived a fulfilled life and gave his life for the progress of the nation.

In Yoruba land there is a title called 'Aare Ona Kakanfo', a kind of war generalisimo. There has been 14 of them in Yoruba history,it was said that the Aare has been created to eventually be a victim for the preservation of the Yoruba nation. All the 14 have died in war and crisis and outside their lands. The last was MKO Abiola, and since he died noone has had the audacity to accept such a title anymore. Scary ,hm?

The Good Shepherd sunday is a call to leadership, and even though these 2 examples are not Christians, they are such that live in our living history, and the issue of their death seem to be so disconnected with its actual purpose.Leadership has to be less and less bureaucratic and autocratic.Leadership has its source in spirituality,and the highest form of leadership assumes a great responsibility ,not of power, but in the face of extreme responsibility,of being the victim - alive or dead- of that which you really care about. This applies in the family, in corporate organizations, in our nations and in our lives.Of this sort of life does growth springs from, not from any skill, strategy or dialogue.

Happy good Shepherd Sunday!

Surely, Goodness and Mercy!

My capaity for judgement is flawed. Where will i be: heaven, purgatory, hell? I wouldnt bother my head about that, as the factors which i would be prone to using is evidently inarpropriate, and the result can easily lead to my presumption or despair.

The capacity of my humanity to make this jugement and other judgement is utterly insufficient . I cannot tell of His judgement or where i shall be, but i can surely tell of His mercy. Mercy is His part of the covenant. What proves that He loves us is that while we were yet sinners, He died for us. This mercy is real, now and continous.

I cannot even tell of my position towards my destiny, but what i know is that it can only get better. Mercy can never be reduced and it is always positive. The 'yoyo' of life may be flinging back and forth, but i know it is moving, and moving forward only.

Mercy is a state in which you see the perfect orderliness of your life, even in the midst of woes and calamities, in blindness and sorrows, in agonies and pains, you see it daily, instantly, you see the essence and positivity of your destiny, you see the Meaning and Reason behind it: Christ our Lord!

What then shall seperate us from this mercy, from this great love of Christ, since water finds its level and nature harbours a vacuum?

Karma only takes its turn in the environment of a faith that is not positive. Where then is a positive faith that could spare us from the effect of karma, that which creation and the cosmos obey?This faith could only be found in the Covenant: the new and eternal covenant of which Christ takes full responsibility. Covenant of God is nothing but His mercy, the mercy promised to our fathers, to Abraham and to his sons forever, could only find its perfect fulfilment in the blood of the Lamb, the blood of the new and eternal covenant , shed for us and for ALL! The blood is there, it is only up to us to make use of this mercy without being either scrupulous or presumptous.

The whole laws of the cosmos and its elements does not affect this Factor. My faults, errors and sins does nothing to shake it. For me, heaven, hell, purgatory matters little when i see that the whole creation and cosmos happens as a reference to me, because of me, and for my prosperity!

What matters is not where i go, but my assurance and trust about the irreducibility and positivity of mercy. I shall not be dismayed, life can only get better, anyhow you look at it.The problem lies, not in the state in which i am, the problem lies in my attempt to judge mercy. Mercy lies outside the scope of negative judgement.The orderliness of Mercy is astonishingly perfect and Her vision is extremely positive.

Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow us, all the days of our lives, and we shall dwell in the heart of the Lord, forever and ever . Amen!

From death to life!

Deal with lustful looks in public to prevent pornography in private.
Deal with pornography to prevent fornication.
Deal with fornication to prevent adultery.
Deal with adultery to prevent divorce.
Deal with divorce to save your children.
Deal with your children to prevent cyclic poverty.
Deal with poverty to prevent war and unrest.
Deal with war and unrest to prevent death!

Deal with death to know the truth.
Know the truth to be liberated.
Be liberated to live.
Live to make others live!

From the beginning of death to the meaning of life!

Between The coin And The Host : The Ultimate Exorcism!

He was almost -or can i say,he was actually- made manifest, His influence on humanity and power against evil  was that great that His kingship was made manifest to all: he rode on a donkey to Jerusalem, and He went to the temple to perform what I call, the ultimate exorcism:His radical purging of the temple off the ultimate evil: money, and to think the greatest evil lies at the hearth of the temple! It sits at the 'holy of holies', it is the abormination of desolation seated in Jerusalem which has prevented Isreal from recognising the Messiah. At Palm sunday , they did recognise Him as Messiah, but the level of recognition was very myopic, for they still remained at the level of earthly kingship who is to deliver them from the power of Rome. What made this perception myopic was what Christ went into the temple to radically purge out: money.
Christ provoked money to a duel , He knew that, before evil and poverty could be defeated, money needs to be conquered, the duel between the coin and the Host actually took place and this is its drama :
After the event of the temple,(that is, His driving the marketers from the temple) money felt very slighted and waited for its revenge.And Christ knew it is in its nature to revenge.If it is no little wonder that the greatest evil lies in the heart of the holy of holies, what when we see that its messenger lies in the heart of Christ followers: Judas Iscariot!
The price was 30 pieces of silver, taken from the temple cofers.
And we have to meditate more on the scourging at the Pillar, hell was let loose then, money made sure that Christ paid to the last farthing, as a revenge for His action of scourging it in the temple, and if Christ's intention was to ultimately remove money from the temple so that people could see who He really was, Money's aim was to totally exterminate Christ from the earth so that its kingdom would be perpetually established.
Judas repented. But his repentance was similar to the belief of the Jews as the Messiah: not entrenched. He was deppressed, it was a possesive repentance. Money made him return it back to the temple where it was deeply entrenched, but it had 'moved', stagnancy is its virtue, and for it to move against 'Movement', the exorcism was completed.Judas committed suicide and money was banished into the field of the blood for strangers. The abomination of desolation had been disposessed and forever. Exorcism of evil, mammon has been performed to the root core by Christ. The temple is free. Because of the desire for vegeance of money, it lost its place in the temple.
Christ provoked the devil through violence and won it through humility. We need to know that , sometimes to purge evil, violence has to be initiated to unseat it, but we cant win it at its game, we need to return to non violence and gentility to quench it completely, that it can not master.
After its banishment, Christ total and complete seal on the temple and His perpetual reign was accomplished through the shedding of His blood  on the cross. Mammon can return no more.
From time immemorial until now, through the quest for authority and power, money goes out to kill people using some Judases within humanity. Money kills, but that has always been its greatest undoings, because the more it kills the children of God, the more the temple , the symbol of Divine power is taken from it, and the greater the children of God become and are made manifest, and the more the kingdom of God draws nearer.
The root of all evil is money, and its love is its tool.Money, epitomised as narcism, selfishness and egocentry, is the premival serpent, the apocalyptic dragon, the abomination of desolation. The most authentic decision in the quest to remove poverty and bring forth freedom is the willingness to conquer money and root out its love!

The Law of Consevation of Energy: Between Sacrament & Science

The law of conservation of energy simply says that the total amount of energy in a system remains constant over time.The rejection, by Christians, of the sacraments and sacramental is what has resulted into what I call The Age of Matter: the enlightenment, science and the liberalization of reason. Science is unsustainable without faith. Without Faith, Awareness or Truth, as you may call it, the whole work of science would ultimately result in a calamitous destruction of the world, for the earth by structure essentially has as its constituents the sacraments and not matter, matter has essentially become sacrament through the death and resurrection of Christ. History has shown that matter on its own is not sustainable.Not until the world rediscover the mysteries of the sacraments  would the world be saved, no matter the advancement of enlightenment, salvation of the world does not lie exclusively with science, rather it portends its destruction. So how do we rescue the situation? Science has made much progress devoid of faith while faith has lost much as a result of an abject rejection of the sacraments; it's a question of simple law of energy conservation. To save the world and move it forward, faith can only take back her lost energy from science through reason,and if there is any hope left at all for the world,faith has to employ reason to engage science in order to take back what belongs to her in all truth:when matter would live the truth and become the sacraments. The battle point between faith and science is reason!

In Memory

IN MEMORY My primal sin: I take things for granted. What if my grandfather hadn’t decided to be a Christian or hadn’t invested in my Dad’s formal education, and what if my Dad hadn’t valued education also and hadn’t trained me to the university level. Surely, I could still have made it, but at a greater toil and lengthier time. Only God knows what important choice my Great-grandfather or Great great grandfather had made to get me here. And do I think at all, am I grateful for these or do I take things for granted? And what choices will I make for my children to keep up this progress. This is the capital sin: Idagunla, aibikita. Memory. The bane of our society. We lack history. We treat death as another ‘spanner loss’, we ignore the lives of our ancestors, that is why wise elders are lacking, why dynamic leaders are short and why we have swarms of mediocre as followers. Don’t look too far. Mia cupa. It’s saddening when we practice faiths that tend to kill memory. How on earth shall there then be growth? Even Christ cannot effect much without memory. A society whose followers are obedient and grateful, whose leaders let go, and whose elders practice memory and teach others its method will move at light speed. The greater virtue after morality and letting go is memory. Look at yonder, how do they get on? They lack faith, they are immoral, they are aggressively secular and atheistic, but they value history, biography, autobiography, they have a reading and writing culture , they think, they don’t forget and they believe in and leave legacies for posterity,. All Souls Day tend to portend sorrow (which is good, it helps the souls anyway) and purgatory has loads of bad press that we think of it little less than anathema. We look at our beloved dead as being helpless, and having no more contact whatsoever with our lives here, and we spare some thoughts for them, if at all , only on All Souls Day. A whole lot of Christian faiths wouldn’t even spare a day for memory. Do we really need to be sad for them? Yes, sad because they are no more around us physically. But they feel an infinitely more sorrows for us (which they have mastered, for sorrows effect much than joy in heaven) because we are more to be pitied. Work, pain, labour sorrows, etc becomes the opposite over there. When we remember them, we help them quite alright, but we benefit a lot more from them. We gain vision, progress and love. Blessed are the sorrowful, for they shall be comforted. Do you think pains, labours works etc are evil? Think a little of the Little Flower wanting to spend her heaven in doing good on earth. Did I hear earth? This ‘jakujaku’ earth?; as if that is not bad enough, what if we think of the Blessed Virgin still in labour of childbirth until now? Since 33AD! Is that not purgatory in heaven? And as if that is not the worst, what when you hear of St Paul’s wish of being condemned to hell on behalf of the Israelites?.. Don’t try to imitate them if you haven’t trusted love.’o ni hun ti agba je tele ikun… ‘Are they stupid or are we ignorant? Only when we learn to love and not hate do we know the reason why. It is He who has not come to condemn, but has come to save, who causes that experience. What is purgatory, for those who live the beatitudes? Hell melts away at the sight of love. A soul in love cannot stand still, that is why Yoruba says that ‘oku olomo kii sun’, that is the most natural means of this love that we speak about, albeit needing purification. (Mother and child). Movement is love, love happens for freedom and peace. He who is more artful at the utility of memory wins, that is why evil thrives. Evil people believe more in devils than we do God and have mastered this memorial act than us, and it is easier for humanity to destroy than to build. They conjoin demons, they remember devils, thus iniquity flocks the world. They make us forget our heroes who are dead in Christ and they keep on holding to the land. Freedom is all about the liberation of the land. Who owns the land? Who are our ancestors, the true ‘alaales’? Until we realise that man goes back to dust, and that, a man in Christ is word, and that it is through word that the land gains its freedom and liberation. In fact, the word has become land. Christ has won for us the land, but until we master the art of memory, we shall continue to succumb to the devil’s illusions. (And when He is come He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement: Of sin, because they believe not on Him; of righteousness because He goes to His Father, and we see Him no more; Of judgement because the prince of this world is already judged -JN16:8-11). Christ’s ultimate legacy is: ‘Do this in memory of Me’. Therein lies great power, and He gave us the means to do this: The Eucharist. Christ told the rich young man after he has fulfilled point 1 of progress: morality, to apply point 2: go sell all what you have and give the money to the poor (letting go, the virtue of a leader, ‘agba maa n gba ni’), after the 2nd point He proposed step 3: ‘then, follow Me’. That following is the stage of memory, keep me in focus, it is the arrival of eldership, the 24 elders who are always by the throne of the Lord are those who have learnt the science of memory. The eternal legacy a man can achieve is the true acquisition of the land, and you can only acquire this land if it is truly liberated, and it behoves of one person, one man only to liberate the land, He only who has opened the seal. The Christ. Our Saviour! Our lives, knowingly or unknowingly are truly a battle for the land. But it is through letting go and memory that we gain the wisdom of conquest. And about what matters afterlife, Christ says: whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me. When we remember those who have died in Christ, albeit imperfect as they are (least of the brethren), we give Christ greater means of conquering the land. A damning belief is that which teaches us to forget the dead. A society or household that fails to constantly remember its dead is itself dead! No matter our cries to Him for liberation, Christ is likely to tell us: I am busy with Israel and Palestine, and when we tell Him, but come to Nigeria, He’ll reply: You have Tansi and all the numerous dead in my name to deliver you, and we shall answer, but they are not You, and they are not saints, they are imperfect, and we’ll rattle to Him their faults and imperfections, and He shall reply us: whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me. Remember them, thus you remember Me., for they are in me, ‘e ma pa ketekete!’ I rule from Israel, but I am present everywhere through my vicarages, even Peter is not here in Israel, he is manning My site in Rome. My mother also is not here, she is in Ephesus, so also my beloved disciple, John etc ( This is a description for literary purpose, I know the land is one and everything operates in essence) .What is sin and imperfection in the presence of love? When we believe that they that are in Christ are not saved, we have thus commenced our own condemnation on earth. Home is the natural place to build love, that which lasts till eternity. We should do everything to preserve the natural love of the home. ‘Bi ile o ba dun, bi igbe ni ilu nri’. If we miss the love from home we shall labour more to get it elsewhere and the vastness of our destiny most probably shall be curtailed. I know we dread idolatry, but nonetheless, Christ takes glory in the glorification of Christians, more so those who have died and are perfected in Him. Remember that famous Starcomms slogan: ‘We speak your language!’ , how important it is. Apart from the natural love which family fosters, there is this family, tribal and national language which is manifested in culture and tradition, which only he who is born, bred and died in the land is adept at. We speak your language! And this language is the word, which every one of us shall become. Logos. This logo must cut through the waft and weft of the illusions of true cultures, where a fake word exists; it is burnt up and taken over by the True Word. The Logos of God and it is through this that the land is liberated. This is truth, it is because we believe it in a shallow way, that is why evil still reigns. The real war is on and has been won at the same time. The actual war is inside us, our capacity to see this and work in love. Liberation of the land can only take effect through memory of our ancestors, our true ancestors, those who have died in Christ. The more this is continual and widespread, the more this cult of memory is built, in an individualistic and personal way, and all brought into the mystery of the Eucharist, the more our individual locality language is spoken, and the more our lands are liberated, the more there shall be prosperity,for the liberation of the land has a very close tie with the liberation of its people. We are the Word! Those who are dead in Christ are the actual living, they are waiting to perpetuate this true legacy! The real fact of the many languages heard spoken of during Pentecost is not only that of speaking in tongues , but that of a deep and divine understanding of the respective cultures of the languages spoken , which had been hitherto foreign to the disciples, which needed to be entered into and conquered for Christ. If Christ had not envisioned the universality of the church, they would all have spoken only Hebrew on Pentecost, even with that, it took persecutions to move the apostles from there comfort zones. They spoke the gentiles languages, they knew, by grace, the waft and weft of dwelling in the respective lands. That which they gained through divine grace is what we have been given naturally by our language. We need to wake up, and wake up the dead in Christ through memory. They have the natural ability to speak our languages, in fact, they have become our languages, and that is a plus for our land. They are the real words, but they are powerless without us bringing about their memory, even Christ is powerless without His memory (which the Holy Spirit shall not permit), and He is busy in Palestine, He still rules from Jerusalem, and whether we wilt or not, He shall conquer in the middle East and when He does, He shall rule the world, but then He shall have to ask us, how have you assisted me to conquer the land? The same words of the judgement apply in our relations to those who are living as well as those who are dead. The corporal and spiritual works of mercy begins from the life here into life hereafter. Will the words ‘whatever you do to the least of my brethren….’, affirm or refute us? Some ancestors have tried so much that they have won over their traditions, cultures, albeit to truth or to falsehood. Latin has so much been conquered that it has become the language of the church, and how the devil trembles at Latin! So also is Aramaic and Hebrew. Powers also dwell in Arabic, Hindu, English, Greek and even Yoruba, albeit positively or negatively. They know the power of using the word. I was named Francis during my baptism. I have cultivated the art of remembering St Francis, my patron Saint. He blesses me and blesses my family through me, but he has carried the remaining blessings to Assisi, for he really could not speak Yoruba to effect much further, except to act briefly only through those who understand him as we do. But he knows the nooks and crannies of Assisi, so it becomes easier to work in Assisi, or through Assisi, for work he must as an authentic logos. What shall I do then to liberate my land? I must learn and practice the science and art of memory, bringing back alive my ancestors who are dead in Christ, for they love to dwell with us, they hold the true language that can liberate our land, and it is through them that there shall be prosperity, progress and true liberation of the land! O blessed are the dead who have those that really matter to remember them, i.e. the church, holy people, simple souls; and also blessed the living who have saintly dead to remember. Reciprocals of this bring liberation of the land!