The heart of desire always matters

Desire is not a luxury

There is a sense that there are luxuries one cannot afford in relation to certain circumstances that one might find oneself in. Yet, it is without debate that one is probably best equipped to face some issues in the company of the closest companion a person has, where intimacy and trust give the impetus and courage to attend and apprehend.

What cannot be discounted is the wanting, probably the wishing, yea the longing, indeed the craving, and definitely the yearning, all the synonyms of desire playing in strength and force to a state of compulsive demand in groaning and supplication for fulfilment.

It is so quickly dismissed as unimportant, like you should put desire aside for the pertinent, like desire is shirking attention to the essential, something you cannot afford to put out there in the light of prevailing issues.

Desire makes us human

Then I look back through the times and find that the stability of having someone with whom there is commitment without conflict has served as a first the grounding and then the springboard to leap into the unknown to experience adventure, wonder, and excitement.

For everyone who has a companion, the closeness to each other makes for the fundamental bolstering of emotion and temperament for purpose and challenge. People can help and do so much for you, but that person with whom love is shared for intimacy and desire excites a passion in the pursuit of happiness and the joy of living that words cannot so easily express.

Desire matters, even the divine understands that man has desires, deeply held yearnings of want and desire that in lovingkindness, tender mercies and amazing grace are granted beyond the wildest dreams of the supplicant. The heart’s desire is part of what confirms us as men, nothing would please me more than to face each day together with Brian, knowing that together, we are more than a formidable team.

I know there is strength and support in the company of those whom you love; to face issues. Every good desire is like fuel to light the flame of hope creating a reality for which in accomplishment every sound that escapes our lips can only be of thankfulness and gratitude for times that have become so kind.

The social beings we are

The needs of I

Recently, I have found myself seeking the succour of different support environments that attend to the many facets of my personality and being. It is a realisation that no one is an island, and I have understood quite well that these are not distractions, but engagements.

Spirituality, as a man of faith, I have been developing my personal fellowship in listening to messages and given to prayer; then besides my Anglican inclinations to which I have given much adherence, I have also sought an evangelical and Pentecostal community to involve myself. The morning for the establishmentarian and the evening for the free-flowing and sometimes unstructured, yet quite edifying fare.

And what matters more

Beyond that, for the mind and sense of well-being, I attend a support group that gathers black men living with HIV, once a month. In a way, I find myself transitioning from the hermit sequestered in my apartment for days, into a reticent and introverted social being. 

It is the strangest feeling that to some I appear to easily strike up a conversation with strangers, yet in these communities if I am not approached, I look like a shrinking Violet with a yearning that I can neither express nor commit to any form of networking.

Then again, I am thankful for these different community and support environments, as they address different needs in the quest towards being a more complete person. However, the situation I need the most is the company, companionship, and embrace of my partner and my lover, in whose daily verbal intercourse I revel and need much more. Everything else would always be secondary to the power of love, the place where two hearts are knit in one and nothing else matters.

Thought Picnic: Of the essence of dreams that cannot be filmed

They refuse to ride

There are times you want to reassess things that are presented before you like being at an amusement park and having a companion join you at the suggestion of the wildest, hairiest, and craziest ride in the park rather than being overwhelmed with excuses, doubts, and fears that underwhelm your sense of adventure.

In the same vein, there are opportunities and possibilities that look so far out, the much that you have contemplated about the achievable that at face value seems impossibly unattainable, you are met with opposition and repudiation, your judgement questioned, your sanity reviewed, as not one facet of belief, encouragement, or support presents towards your apparently crazy idea.

Expect all the opposition

The keenness of your vision is given a bludgeoning black eye as you reel at the stiff rejection, no one is even ready to consider the ride, in fact, they leave the amusement park altogether and you are left to consider if that visit is worth staying for, for the thrill that got you there in the first place, or you just yield to the counsel of the unpersuaded, probably never to attempt that adventurous inclination again.

You wonder about how to reach, believe, and work against the grain of the familiar and trusted acolytes to who you offer the honour of participation. You are known and they think that they do know and that is not immaterial. Yet, you know there are areas where uniquely different thoughts, purposes, insights, and goals have led you to experiences that needed a dash of exceptionalism that challenges received wisdom.

We rise with surprise

For that, I have considered that introspection with circumspection is a discipline of discretion, for all that is assumed, you know your own temperament and outlook, the things that feed your earnest and deepest desires without which you are doing much less than the best possible. Do the outwardly essential, but never lose sight of the dream that never gets screened on a public projection to an audience.

Blog - Walking in the dreams of your mind

That journey is usually not clearly mapped, and the destination is frequently misunderstood, but the arrival when told is a marvel to behold, as even you wonder how everything worked out so well. One can live in the mysteries of the unfathomable, we are sometimes within the grasp of it if we choose beyond the mundane and average. When there is no further place to fall, you rise.

In a moment of critical self-evaluation

The Job mystery in every life

It has become a canon of development and growth, to understand the event of trial and adversity whilst seeking to make a way towards a better story and good report that becomes the grist of testimonies further on.

I cherish much the counsel of those who attempt with all feeling and compassion to walk the shoes I walk, through the rough patches with the immediacy and urgency to help relieve me of the burdens that at times seek to crush and fail to impact, strengthening sinew and muscle of spirit, mind, and body as each day passes.

To those to whom I have not given an ear, much as I appreciate their concern which comes from a good place, persuasion is a lot more than hard talk or tough love. Our humanity in its fragility responds best to encouragement with the light of hope to lead toward a desirable destination. It is not one of vague optimism but of practical consequence, where words are followed by an activity that buoys what to some might seem a sinking ship.

Those beside on your side

In friend, I have found more than the material that suggests one is not in this alone; in lover, the amazing embrace of support and the constant expression of faith and confidence, much of which one might struggle to believe, but pictures are created in the mind of what is both possible and achievable.

In mother, a soothing and comforting voice almost like a lullaby that wafts in the ears of a toddler being rocked to the shore of peaceful and blissful sleep. Then a steeling up of belief that you are both able and capable, to which I promise was made, you have a son who will not throw in the towel. We are fighting this to the end for triumph beyond anticipation.

Blog - Thought Picnic: On mother today and everyday

In parson, counsel and pastoral support came with such Christian compassion and engagement, with advice and reference, help and prayer. We sometimes forget we live in a wealthy place of a community we rarely access and understand enough for the neighbourly succour that exists not for our inconvenience and essentially more for our safety.

A process of self-discovery

Personally, I seek a way to the light, a better understanding of self and purpose to gain focus and advantage in the issues that beset me. In the things of old that once were a source of strength and the search for the new in revelation and exposition of why we exist at all in the settings and situations that we are. Besides that, how else would one be so uniquely different and storied if you do not do crazy things? Each man has to work out their salvation with fear and trembling.

So then, my dear ones, just as you have always obeyed [my instructions with enthusiasm], not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation [that is, cultivate it, bring it to full effect, actively pursue spiritual maturity] with awe-inspired fear and trembling [using serious caution and critical self-evaluation to avoid anything that might offend God or discredit the name of Christ]. [Bible Hub: Philippians 2:12 Amplified]

Reference

The story of Job, a biblical figure [Wikipedia]

Essential Snobbery 101: Yet More Compassion Affects

Your Monitoring Causes Anguish

It was with amusement when I was chatting to my friend yesterday that I talked about YMCA, in reference to the malevolent Village People that camp on my social media pages for no particular reason than to seek salacious gossip to feed to others to find some sort of relevance or sense of significance.

Indeed, especially in almost 20 years of blogging and well over a decade on Facebook and Twitter, if it is not already clear that my expression is not as advanced and determined as it would ever be, my hope always is to present an ever-improving clarity in voice, intent, and assertion.

Maybe, in some cases, what I say when reported to some might upset them, but those who know me already know who I am, I am accepted for the person I am, and I have been. I know that learning to love myself is the greatest love of all, and I keep at that.

Your Meddling Cannot Alter

I was over 50 when a distant relation I had not spoken to in over 35 years called out of the blue to upbraid me. You this boy have not done this, he intoned. There was a swell of rage and anger in me, but I kept my cool. Apparently, he wanted to humble and humiliate me before shoving a begging bowl before me to send him funds to complete his building.

I have been blessed abundantly to have an open hand to many and more grace will abound to be able to do more for times change.

What would not happen is people who have no inkling of my life, history, struggles, or victories, thinking they can come around to instruct me to change something about my life because they once had some influence by reason of some old relationship to interfere and exceed their bounds.

Your Meanness Cultivates Atrocity

It is quite irksome, the lack of self-awareness in the first instance that follows with the inability to mind your own business. Busybodies, on the lurk, unconcerned with the particularities of their own situation but inserting themselves in the lives of others in the quest to dominate.

Those who have absorbed to the jot and tittle everything going on elsewhere, yet all they do is exacerbate tittle-tattle without any iota of humanity or concern to help tackle to some resolution the situation they know too well is for a season not going to plan.

They are everything but the Good Samaritan, evil in thought or deed, overly spiritual in apparent prayerful support without helping meet any need. Full of faith but bereft of works that make it of any effect. They stand as leafy green fig trees without fruit awaiting the curse to wither to the root and bear no fruit again. You know yourselves; the Lord forgives you and shows you mercy.

Y'All Moi Conquers Adversity

As for me, much of my amazing life has been lived in the open, my lips filled with testimonies of success, victories, successes, and beauty. What say I? I have no problems with those who have set encampments at the gate, they will see the glorious from afar, and they will be partakers of the blessing whether they deserve it or not.

The spirit of hope stirs up a well of possibility and that has happened so many times that I even wonder how things happened and how change has come in ways never anticipated.

I will always have a story to tell, a story of a life that has experiences, adventure, loveliness, excitement, and much more. It has always been my own story, not vicariously living the lives of others because I have enough to be doing and living, I love my life and the stories I have been blessed to share. Yet More Compassion Affects!

Notes

Village People was a popular American music group that formed in the late 1970s and one of their most-played hits with a cult following is Y.M.C.A, which has formed the basis of the subheadings in my blog.

Context of Village People from the Urban Dictionary: A person or a group of persons who wish you bad and constantly work towards bringing you misfortune through physical or diabolical means. Usually from your town but could also be anyone.

Remembering Uncle Cash

First amongst men

I cannot say how or what, there would have been months of preparation and a different message written. When I last sent birthday greetings, I said, “You have been one of the greatest and consequential influences in my life, for the good, the better, and the best.” I meant every word of that and to my knowledge, all who have influenced me, you come first amongst men.

At the celebration of your 65^th when we gathered to give thanks at your church, even I wonder how that was the very first time I had set barefoot as is the tradition in the citadel of Celestial Church, it speaks to the kind of man you always were to me, accommodating and understanding, never imposing and frequently counselling.

An irreplaceable loss

Much as I looked forward then to the jubilation that would have greeted your 70^th birthday today, it has become your first posthumous birthday. There are times I scroll through the many WhatsApp messages we exchanged through the years and before that, the distinct sound of your voice in my head that gregariously salutes me with one of the many monikers from 'Ọmọ ìlú Òyìnbó' through Kakaakin to the slip that allowed 'Ọmọ Fish & Chips', therein was an irreplaceable loss.

In some instances, it feels like a canopy with the embrace of appreciation and encouragement that was that light to the eye as a long weary walk through the night offered a fillip to press on to a beckoning hospitality disappeared; snuffed out by circumstances impossible to anticipate, yet one must not despair.

Your example guides

I believe you would have wanted us to be the better examples of your mentoring, your industry, your zest for life, your broadmindedness, your engagement, your kindness, and your unconditional expression of love and grace. There are many lessons to cherish and more to revisit to learn anew purpose, direction, and determination.

I commend your exemplary life and that we do not get to celebrate another birthday would not take away from the footprints which we follow in the path of excellence you exemplified. Uncle Omo Uncle missed but never forgotten.

Thought Picnic: On the journey without alternative

Knowing yourself

You find there are times of self-appraisal and self-assessment that leads to a deconstruction of who you are to its fundamental and unencumbered state, where all you have to see is your sheer humanity in all its vulnerabilities, no ego lurking and imposing. It is like viewing yourself just before you step in the shower, warts and all without any embellishment.

In the workshop of thought, reminisce, and meditation that resides in the factory of my cranium, scarcely would I invite any to visit even if they have adorned the highest industry-standard protections to shield themselves from harm, it is a fiery and industrious space, as much as it can be calm and resourceful.

Being known

As to what kind of person I am, much of which can be exposed in conversations with those who know me very well and maybe too well to be comfortable with, I might have struck them as both strange and sometimes unserious and irreverently playful. I am not sure I need to apologise for what they already know and can vouch for in terms of what and who they believe I am.

When I set a course and I do not want to shift or deviate, I probably do not want to be distracted from what I have decided to do. Essentially, I am not a Plan B kind of person, my temperament is not suited to straddling and accommodating many options in a whack-a-mole game of chance in the hope that I hit something or something works. The future might not be sure, and neither should it be the theatre of a gamble even if choices give a dabble.

I see

There is a fight in my conscience, the need to follow my deepest premonitions and probably premonition is the wrong word because sometimes, in the midst of the storm comes a calm, a word of encouragement and assurance, the kind that tells you that first you are not alone and then there is a path where there seems to be absolutely no way.

They call that a breakthrough, it is usually not a plan, just life becoming the time when you think and say to others, I really wonder how that happened.

Beyond the wish is the heart’s desire, the pictures that have been drawn and redrawn in the recesses of that factory that you are only a hair’s breadth from seeing those things that were not as though they were in materiality and experience. All things are possible and that is just it.

Thought Picnic: I keep keeping on

Where we are and have been

Sometimes, I have to ask myself, what the image of success is in my own life and when looking around me. In the things I have done before, I have been quite successful, so the concept is not an alien one, there are so many references to suggest that favour and good fortune have been present in many areas of personal endeavour.

Then I think of times when it appears things are not essentially working in my favour and my attitude towards such situations. Generally, my outlook is positive, and the way I present is usually upbeat, yet all appearances could sometimes mask inner turmoil, the struggle to assert oneself, along with an apparent failing in confidence.

The mission is to believe always

At this point, I need to believe in myself and recognise those who believe in me, these things do happen and on speaking to one of my senior managers recently, he assured me that it happens to the best of us, we just need to keep believing in ourselves, despite the unfavourable, unfortunate, or frustrating prevailing circumstances.

To press a point about certain ideas I have, the ghost of a mentor was resurrected for me to reconsider certain aims, it just so happened that I also had a contrary retort from the same mentor when I was at crossroads, some 12 years ago. Nothing is entirely sacred or sacrosanct despite the respect accorded our mutual mentor.

I keep keeping on

Indeed, I want it all to go away, even a crazy thought or two has tried to reach into my mind that I have refused to entertain. I try not to dwell on aspects where it seems I have failed myself, lost my discipline and yield to distractions that convey me to harmful conduct. I do wonder if I have prayed hard enough or done everything I need to do, many of those things I probably do not at all want to do if I had any other option.

I count the many blessings that keep me telling amazing stories and the reality that there are phases in life, some long and others short, some with obvious cause and others not quite so obvious, altogether impactful in forming character, resilience, purpose, and direction. I may be down, but I will never be out until there is no breath, heartbeat, or hope to keep me going. That is a promise here and from on high.

There are things to do and places to go! [Bible Gateway - Romans 8:14 (The Message)]

Walking in the dreams of your mind

The solitude of the sleepy world

When I dream, the people invited to participate in the dramatic and theatrical expression of my mind as I sleep probably do not know that they are in that script and if they are, they are most likely playing a different perspective from the one that gains my focus.

Even so, when I have dead relatives in living colour conversing contemporaneously until at one point my consciousness interfered and told someone who came to pick me up that they were dead and should not be here. Immediately, they got back in their car and drove off.

The mystery of individuality with the uniqueness it engenders along with the way we believe suggests a clash in many spheres of life, wherein the ideas I may present will elicit the admonition in other words implicitly telling me to come to my senses, yet like Nicodemus in The Chosen, “I have never been closer to my senses.” Even if from an observer’s point of view, I am crazy and bordering on demented.

In my hearing and wearing

I have many friends from whom I take long and considered counsel; their views are sometimes as distant as the east is from the west to what I have going on in my mind. We must at certain times have the courage of our convictions despite the contrary wisdom being proffered.

For all intents and purposes, each man has to walk their own long hard road and climb to subdue their own mountains; the succour and comfort you get along the way is rarely from those walking in the same shoes on the same path. What we endure affects people differently. I know the pain of cancer and probably my pain threshold, but I will not compare my appreciation of pain to that being suffered by another, be it a headache or something considerably worse.

Let me ply my course

When I came to the conclusion that involved the decisions I have made, it would be uncharitable for anyone to think that anything was done without due and considered contemplation. Coming to the harvest to reap knowledge rarely involves knowing who tilled the ground, sowed the seeds, watered the grain, pulled the weeds, and kept away the pests until the crop was ready to be harvested for the barns.

What you see today did not begin in some instant just measure in the few hours past, the crying of the soul, the pain in the heart, the weariness of the bones, the loss of sleep that presages a sense of peace at the point of acting has already taken its tenuous toll. The force of hope trundling on like a perpetual engine fuelled by life and living.

There is at least one who seems to understand where opinion should be silent and support should be unstinting, and for that alone, I am grateful that I am no stranded in the wilderness of threat, danger, and a forlorn absence of direction. The story remains the one you tell of what you have lived.