27, Destiny close,
Providence lodge,
Faith on fate Boulevard,
A place in location and allocation,
Somewhere under the endless roof.
This day and month in the year of our Lord.
Office of the Almighty,
The unseen headquarters,
The skyscraper in the very sky,
A place called heaven.
LETTER TO GOD- GRATITUDE
Dear God,
The knight to whom the king’s most treasured gem is betrothed
Must be ready to slay the king’s most fearsome foe
Like kings we sway in majestic gait across bridges
On the backs of those whose backs made the pillars
And in the crevices and far reaches of the bridge
We find not one man to embrace and grace
But He who made the king made the gem
Made kings, made men whose backs made these bridges
He’s no man to embrace; grace of His will he gives
The praise of kings He chews with His all reaching mouth
…
My lungs will trumpet, my heart will drum beats
My hands will clap, my feet will dance
My body will groove, my soul rejoice
I’ll make merry and feast plenty
My tongue will lick and my mouth will savor
My nose will delight in the aura of felicity
I wove a basket, I tapped the wine of the palm
You filled my basket and drank of my wine
I ploughed the ground and rowed the sea
You sowed the fullness of love and overwhelmed my boat
…
The calabash that grumbles bad tides on the sea it sails on
Sways in protest, disgruntled and ungrateful
That calabash woe betides, it tips and drinks the fullness of the sea
The kite that frowns at the breeze it cruises on
Gets snatched by the wind and is shred in bits
The timber too high, gets logged; the stump makes cinders
But the gourd content of its content does not spill its essence
If on a foot I could hop, if I could howl?
Like kangaroos I’d hop, like coyotes I’d howl
For ingratitude is gratitude unpaid and down paid
A man blessed with time is as a man who’s found the greatest of gems, from which he, being wise or otherwise, makes chances or excuses. My chief reason for gratitude today, tomorrow and for the innumerable amount of time providence chooses to gift me, is time. Time and chances; time, mostly and the chances, the few I took and the many I lost. But the grace to continue, to persist through it all. Above all, I am especially grateful for the grace to see this through.
I hear voices, even now, I hear myriads of voices, each telling me what to and not do. They are never silent. Often times I am confined in myself. The one that emerges victorious is the one that mostly become words and the words, beautiful letters as I have written, the past 6 weeks. Many of those times, I somehow manage to say things, write things that stir up people, rouse my readers to action or bring people to the revelation of something beyond human. Those times I realize it could only have been you, dear God, speaking through the multitude of voices in the madness of my head. The one voice that soothes, that coos me to comfort, the one voice that steers me from the freeway to my doom, that one that warns my egungun from entering the express. That could only be you lord, only you. I guess what I am trying to say is, to you I owe and in your inheritance I own it all.
Dear God, this will be the last of the series, the one meant for public eye. Most certainly, I will keep writing, pouring my heart to you in my closet, as I have become so endeared to the intimacy of father-son expression, padi-padi reactions. If someone asked me now, who is God? I’d emphatically say, merciful and gracious, amiable and sweet, the friend in need – the friend indeed. As opposed to the wrathful depiction of God.
I see you in everything. In the dark, when I stumble and fall, thou art my light, thou art my delight. In my weakness, when I am frail and nimble, thou art my stay, my brace. In the storms and brazen cold, when my flesh is bare and the frosts bite, thou art my nest, the cocoon that keeps me warm. In my shame, when reproach thus approach, thou art the grace that kept away disgrace. In my gloom, when the soul is mournful and broken, thou art my joy, the color that makes my life a carnival. I see you in everything. You are in everything. You are my everything; my light, my delight, my stay, my brace, my nest, my cocoon, my grace, my joy and the palette that makes my life colorful. My life is a carnival of colors, a splash of mystery. Like a mosaic, I am a rainbow of intentional splashes, splashes of the variant hues of greatness for my inheritance of the greatness of God.
A man is dubbed blessed when he finds God. Even more when God blesses him with time, with which he makes chances. I am that man Taiwo Oladele. The one who found God somewhere elsewhere but the pages of books or on scribbling of scrolls and tablets, but in the center of his heart. I am that man, grateful for the gift of time and the abundance of chances. Now and for many eternities to come.
Thanks for always
Taiwo Oladele
Eternally grateful.
Taiwo Oladele 