People Just like Us

What our physical eyes cannot see, our inner eyes can. Those who watch a bomb blast scene from afar, on television can't be compared to those who were right there when it happened. Well, that's a fact! The victims of such blasts had their flesh torn off, bones probably broken, while some never get to wake up again, the doctor had pronounced them dead. They get zipped up in bags, piled with other bags and moved to the morgue  Some get burnt to ashes for an offence they never committed and knew nothing about.

These people had their own lives, hopes, families, relationships, twitter accounts, facebook walls. They are men, women and children just like us. There's someone's dad, mom, husband, wife, brother, sister, uncle, friend and ... fill in the gap. But in the twinkle of an eye, at the sound of a blast, they were gone! Gone with the wind!

It's no longer news what happened last sunday at Madalla, Niger state, very close to Abuja, Nigeria, of the suicide bomb blast that claimed several lives and left others injured. Church worshippers who came to celebrate the Christmas with their loved ones. Did they bargain for this on a Christmas sunday? Definitely not!

Even if you were not at the blast scene, take a minute, look at the scene with your inner eyes. See the people who were once smiling happily out of church, looking forward to the warmest christmas, as their hopes got dashed, as their lives came to an abrupt, unforseen end, at the sound of a blast. People just like me and you.

Songs for the season

"Come to the well" is casting crowns newest album. It features songs just as "Courageous", the official sound track of a movie with the same name from Sherwood Pictures.

I have listened to the songs over and over and I love them all.

My favourite songs are "Courageous", "Already there", "The Well", "Angel", "So far to find you"

Don Moen released his newest album about 2 months ago "Uncharted Territory" with real cool songs (as usual). I noticed he co-wrote most of the songs with Mia Fieldes and  Claire Cloninger (the same Claire Cloninger in "We give you Glory"). Okay my favourite songs in Uncharted Territory are "Uncharted Territory", "You will be my song", "Somebody's praying for me", "My Portion You will ever be", "Thank You Jesus" and "Burn".

If you have listened to any of these albums, please it would be my pleasure to get your reviews, especially your favourite songs, thanks!

When you find the Muse, RUN!

Those who have played the Nintendo game "Mario" would remember that part where Mario gets a power star and keeps crushing everything on its way without getting hurt. The only problem is that the power star goes off after a while and Mario returns to normal. Same goes for us, our effectiveness with our work, relationships, academics and everything else varies with time. Sometimes we are highly effective and at other times, we are simply dragging our feet.

Attending seminars, psyching ourselves up, and the motivations we get for our daily up-keeps are fantastic. But I have realized that no matter how much we attend symposiums on how to make money or to have a lovely relationship, it doesn't still work out for a lot of people. Sometimes it even gets worse like when I read the book about how to work more and sleep less. That was when I began to sleep more and work less. But seriously, I believe that as much as we motivate ourselves to become more effective, we need more.

We need something that can help us get up early in the morning to do all we need to do to succeed. We need what poets call the Muse! An inner inspiration, strength, and wisdom that puts us at the top of our skills and performance.

Sometimes, we find it just the way Mario finds the power star but how fast do we run when we find it? How much do we do when you find the muse? Wait a minute, is it okay to wait for a muse to perform at optimum or do we just go out of our way to find it anyway. I have heard of singers who take marijuana and Indian hemp to perform better. Athletes who take hard drugs to get excellent results. Everyone is trying to keep up with the muse.

I must confess here that I do not know how to find the muse, the motivation to work at the peak of our strength and wisdom. Sometimes, I walk away from the problem for a while, or take a vacation, do something lighter and interesting. Sincerely, I am still trying to figure out the perfect way but I would caution people not to do what will hurt them during the course of finding the muse.

However, there is something I do know. Whenever you feel it that you are on top of your skills, strength and wisdom, then run as fast as you can.

What if we've all been dreaming?

Imagine you were dreaming, and something bad, really bad was about to happen to you. Something as bad as falling off a tall building, or at gun point with this bad guy who is about to shoot you in the forehead. What would you do? Well, there is nothing much you can do, than to wake up from the dream.

You wake up suddenly, panting and then you come back to reality. You tell yourself that you've just had a bad dream. You get up from bed, put on your pair of slippers and go to the bathroom to wash your face. You are no longer in the dream world, but hey? Let's go back to the dream.

In the dream, you were falling off a tall building but you could not wait to see the end of it, you had to wake up quickly. But you fell off the building down to ground! People came around you, you were unconscious. Passers-by had to look into your wallet to identify you, an ambulance came around to help you to the hospital. Little do they know that you are no longer in the dream. They do not even have an idea that you are actually in the bathroom somewhere else washing your face and wondering why you had such a bad dream.

Sometimes, I look at our lives, the world we live in, the mystery of everything surrounding it and it leaves me in awe. We never saw the beginning of our lives, we were only told the story of how we were born. We cannot see the end of it either. If we were falling off a tall building in reality, we only fall off and helpers come around us, check our wallet to identify us and an ambulance comes around to pick us up to the hospital while our loved ones pray so hard that we make it.

What if we really wake up somewhere else? What if we wake up wondering what kind of dream we had? What if we wake up, put on our pair of slippers and go the bathroom to wash our face? What if we've all been dreaming?

Top Ten Inventions

I really did not want to conclude if the computer is the best invention in the world, so here's something I stumbled on, while searching for top inventions in the world, of top ten popular inventions ever.

Number One: The telephone

The telephone is an instrument that converts voice and sound signals into electrical impulses for transmission by wire to a different location, where another telephone receives the electrical impulses and turns them back into recognizable sounds. In 1875, Alexander Graham Bell built the first telephone that transmitted electrically the human voice.

Number Two: Computers

There are many major milestones in the history of computers, starting with 1936, when Konrad Zuse built the first freely programmable computer.

Number Three: Television

In 1884, Paul Nipkow sent images over wires using a rotating metal disk technology with 18 lines of resolution. Television then evolved along two paths, mechanical based on Nipkow's rotating disks, and electronic based on the cathode ray tube. American Charles Jenkins and Scotsman John Baird followed the mechanical model while Philo Farnsworth, working independently in San Francisco, and Russian émigré Vladimir Zworkin, working for Westinghouse and later RCA, advanced the electronic model.

Number Four: The Automobile

In 1769, the very first self-propelled road vehicle was invented by French mechanic, Nicolas Joseph Cugnot. However, it was a steam-powered model. In 1885, Karl Benz designed and built the world's first practical automobile to be powered by an internal-combustion engine. In 1885, Gottlieb Daimler took the internal combustion engine a step further and patented what is generally recognized as the prototype of the modern gas engine and later built the world's first four-wheeled motor vehicle.

Number Five: The Cotton Gin

Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin on March 14, 1794. The cotton gin is a machine that separates seeds, hulls and other unwanted materials from cotton after it has been picked.

Number Six: The Camera

In 1814, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce created the first photographic image with a camera obscura, however, the image required eight hours of light exposure and later faded. Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre is considered the inventor of the first practical process of photography in 1837.

Number Seven:  The Steam Engine

Thomas Savery was an English military engineer and inventor who in 1698, patented the first crude steam engine. Thomas Newcomen invented the atmospheric steam engine in 1712. James Watt improved Newcomen's design and invented what is considered the first modern steam engine in 1765.

Number Eight: The Sewing Machine

The first functional sewing machine was invented by the French tailor, Barthelemy Thimonnier, in 1830. In 1834, Walter Hunt built America's first (somewhat) successful sewing machine. Elias Howe patented the first lockstitch sewing machine in 1846. Isaac Singer invented the up-and-down motion mechanism. In 1857, James Gibbs patented the first chain-stitch single-thread sewing machine. Helen Augusta Blanchard patented the first zig-zag stitch machine in 1873.

Number Nine:  The Light Bulb

Contrary to popular belief, Thomas Alva Edison didn't "invent" the light bulb, but rather he improved upon a 50-year-old idea. In 1809, Humphry Davy, an English chemist, invented the first electric light. In 1878, Sir Joseph Wilson Swan, an English physicist, was the first person to invent a practical and longer-lasting electic lightbulb (13.5 hours) with a carbon fiber filament. In 1879, Thomas Alva Edison invented a carbon filament that burned for forty hours.

Number Ten: Penicillin

Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928. Andrew Moyer patented the first method of industrial production of penicillin in 1948.

Culled from http://inventors.about.com/od/famousinventions/tp/topteninvention.htm

Here is another interesting link to top 10 greatest inventions in the world, slightly different from the ones listed here. Over six of the inventions listed related to the computer.
http://thewondrous.com/the-10-greatest-inventions-of-the-world/

Enjoy!

Church Centeredness

Here is an excerpt from Stephen R. Covey’s ”The  7 habits of Highly Effective People”

I believe that almost anyone who is seriously involved in any church will recognize that churchgoing is not synonymous with personal spirituality. There are some people who get so busy in church worship and projects that they become insensitive to the pressing human needs that surround them, contradicting the very precepts they profess to believe deeply.

There are others who attend church less frequently or not at all but whose attitudes and behaviour reflect a more genuine centering in the principles of the basic Judeo-Christian ethic.

Having participated throughout my life in organized church and community service groups, I have found out that attending church does not necessarily mean living the principles taught in those meetings. You can be active in church but inactive in its gospel.

In the church-centered life, image or appearance can become a person’s dominant consideration, leading to hypocrisy that undermines personal security and intrinsic worth. Guidance comes from a social conscience, and the church-centered person tends to label others artificially in terms of “active”, “inactive”, “liberal”, “orthodox”, or “conservative”.

Because the church is a formal organization made up of policies, programs, practices, and people, it cannot by itself give a person any deep, permanent security or sense of worth. Living the principles taught by the church can do this, but the organization alone cannot. Nor can the church give a person a constant sense of guidance.

Church-centered people often tend to live in compartments, acting and thinking and feeling in certain ways on the sabbath and a totally different ways on weekdays. Such a lack of wholeness or unity or integrity is a further threat to security, creating the need for increased labeling and self-justifying.

Seeing the church as an end rather than as a means to an end undermines a person’s wisdom and sense of balance. Although the church claims to teach people about the source of power, it does not claim to be that power itself. It claims to be one vehicle through which divine power can be channeled into man’s nature.

Oluwabunmi Ibrahim

Oluwabunmi Ibrahim (June 1991- December 2010)

I stumbled on Bunmi while searching for a childhood friend of mine with the same names and barely three months after we met, she passed away. I had the opportunity to meet her face to face just once, a month before she died. It's exactly a year today. It happened on her way back from school on a saturday like this. She died in an auto crash on her way back from FUTA (Federal University of Technology Akure).

I am so sure Oluwabunmi, that your family remembers you today. I don't know them but I feel their agony and pain, and of your closest friends, they all remember you today. This world misses you. Your family and friends miss you. I miss you. 

Sleep on dear friend.