The benefits of Doing Good.

 “Lets’ not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time, we will reap a harvest of blessings if we don’t give up.” – Galatians 6:9.

Birthday Greeting to a Dearest Daughter.

Ebunoluwa, Iyalode 3rd: As you celebrate an addition to your glorious years on earth, may God Almighty continue to shower His bountiful blessings upon you.



You’re always after my heart---smart, focused, goal-oriented, determined, confident and extra-ordinary in everything you do. Thanks for always bringing joy to my heart. Happy birthday! I wish you a Long life and abundant Prosperity!!!



 

Davion Only: At Last, A Good Samaritan Cometh!

“My name is Davion and I’ve been in foster care since I was born. I know God hasn’t given up on me, so I’m not giving up either.” - Davion Only.

This was the thought-provoking plea of a 16-year-old teenager whose plea for a family to adopt him went viral on the internet in 2013. The young Davion Only appeared before a Florida church congregation to make the plea after learning that his incarcerated biological mother had died. Prior to the church incident, he had been bouncing between foster homes.

Based on this clarion call, the young man’s foster agency got as many as 10,000 phone calls from people, some of  whom merely wanted to satisfy their curiosity. And when he eventually got accepted by an Ohio church minister’s family, he was soon sent packing after a minor incident. The church minister and his family threw the boy out of their home when he got into fights with one of their kids. I  guess the said minister and his family forgot to realize that this was an emotionally-traumatized young man that needed a lot of love and patience.

In the meantime, Davion had been pleading with his case worker for nearly ten years to adopt him. The woman, on the other hand, thought there could be a better family out there to bring the boy into their home. When none was forthcoming, she finally resolved to adopt him. What a “Good Samaritan” she is!

Connie Going, who will adopt Davion Only later this month, has known him since he was 7. (Photo: Melissa Lyttle/Tampa Bay Times/Zuma Press).

 

 

The Celebration of a Quintessential Lady.

Titilola, iyawo mi atata, Iyalode (1st Class):

On this joyful occasion of your birthday, I pray that God grants all the good desires of your heart. You have earned the rare distinction of being a quintessential lady, wife, lover, mother, advisor and confidant…all rolled into one.

Happy birthday! Many happy returns of the day, Long life and Prosperity. I LOVE YOU.

 

 

 

 

Tribute to All Great Parents.

Life is Worth Living Well.

I have a belief that the situation of every human being upon death will be like the arrival point of an international airport. There will be a long line of travelers as they arrive from earth. Waiting at the front of the aisle, are some angels who will take one look at each of the new arrivals and direct them to appropriate cubicles for entry interviews.

And very much like the Parable of Talents (Matthew 25:14-30 English Standard Version), a particular group of people will be directed to a cubicle where the interviewer will yell at each one of them; "You slothful idiot! Do you know how long and how painstaking it took God to create and mold you as a precious, distinct individual? Yet, you got lazy, complacent and wasteful of that same precious life. While on earth, you neither passed nor failed except to remain static in one spot. And now, you return up here all messed up, looking sad, depressed and dispirited! Will someone please cast this worthless fool into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth!"

The Issue of Forgiveness.

Simplicity, Patience and Compassion.

“Simplicity, patience, compassion.

These three are your greatest treasures.

Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.

Patient with both friends and enemies,

you accord with the way things are.

Compassionate toward yourself,

you reconcile all beings in the world.”

― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching.

No Good Deed Goes "Unrewarded".

It was one February morning during the harsh winter of 2003. As a supervisor, I was showing a new staff around the job place when we stepped briefly into the front of the building.

“Oh my God!” the woman suddenly exclaimed while pointing at a car on the street. “My car is all covered up in snow…”

Expressing my sympathy, I promised to get a permit for her to pull the car into the staff parking lot. But first of all, the frozen snow had to be taken off the windscreen. Getting too concerned with the woman’s plight, I told her not to worry. Dashing back into the building, I went into a nearby kitchen, got a bucket-full of hot water and walked toward the car.



I emptied the hot water on the windscreen and saw the snow melt. But as the woman began to thank me, we both heard a strange, crackling sound. Alas, the windscreen had cracked sharply from the impact of the hot water.

The same woman now glared at me in obvious anger, “Excuse me sir…you’ve broken my windscreen…”

“Oh my God…” I muttered in shock. “I am so sorry…”

“Yeah…” the woman continued to glare at me. “I…I guess you’ll have to get me another windscreen.”

I was dumbfounded.

 

 

 

 

The Paradoxical Commandments.

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.

Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.

Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.

Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.

Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.

Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.

Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.

Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.

Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.

Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.

Give the world the best you have anyway.”

― Kent M. Keith, The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council.

Why Mock God?

“To see evil and call it good, mocks God.

Worse, it makes goodness meaningless.

A word without meaning is an abomination,

for when the word passes beyond understanding,

the very thing the word stands for,

passes out of the world

and cannot be recalled.”

- Stephen R.

Your Attitude Goes Before Your Religion.

Some years back, I used to work with a guy who was notorious for his negative attitudes to life. This guy would curse or swear like a rogue sailor over the smallest form of irritation or annoyance. One moment, he was smiling with a colleague and the next moment, he was “stabbing” the same colleague in the back without batting an eyelid.

This guy’s attitude to work was something else. If he was not being lazy, he was complacent. And the worst aspect of it all was that the guy was as prejudiced and racist as a stray, diseased dog was known for being rabid. There was really “nothing good to write home about him”.

Then, something happened one day at work. We were all talking about our weekend, and particularly the past Sunday. It soon came to the turn of this guy. He began by saying “I was in the church…and as a Sunday school teacher…”

“What?...” almost everyone in the office exclaimed and glared at him simultaneously.

“What is what?” the guy, embarrassed, turned around to gape at us.

Suddenly, the entire room was quiet!

I was the first person to speak. “Did you just say…you were a Sunday school teacher?”

It took him a few seconds to answer but he finally did, “Yes…and so?...”

Quietly, everyone began to leave the room, one after the other.

 

Taking Responsibility for our Image.

Whether we like it or not, certain people in our neighborhoods, at our jobs, among our friends and even within our families, will insist on seeing the worst in us. But it is our individual duty to take responsibility for our image, do right by others and project positive image to make a majority of people see the best in us.

There is a natural mechanism in every individual that sieves the positive character in our nature from the bad. Therefore, no matter the extent by which other people try to dent our image either out of ignorance or by sheer mischief, if the positive character in our nature is greater, it will always outshine whatever smear campaign is launched against us.

 

 

will.i.am (of the Black Eyed Peas) & "The Four Amigos."

Most times, celebrities get on my nerves. Why so? They are vain, self-loving, self-admiring, self-absorbed, self-obsessed, conceited, self-centered, self-regarding and grossly egotistic. Many of them (especially the blacks) don’t even care a hoot about giving back to their communities.

It was therefore with an impressive and appreciative heart that I read about the great, heroic feat performed by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas.

In 2009, four high school students from Delaware (my awesome state), Elijah, Darien, Jaiquann and Barien were accepted into their dream universities. But there was a mutual problem. They could not afford the costs. This was in spite of the fact that these young men were Field & Track stars and top academic students. In fact, they were said to have worked assiduously in a bid to help their respective single mothers.

Two of the boys, twins Darien and Barien (their father was in jail) went further to continually motivate the others to keep their grades up.

"Well, I've tried to learn from my dad's negative decisions,” Barren said. “…and it has influenced me to strive in school, and to get good grades…"

Then fate intervened one day. The young men were invited to share their story with Oprah. That was where they got the biggest “pleasant shocks” of their lives. Black Eyed Peas star (will.i.am) stepped in and gave all four boys the first-ever “i.am scholarships” that covered their tuition, books and fees for four years.



 

Trust Oprah. She did a follow-up with the young men. This was to find out how the boys were doing today. They filmed a video update, calling themselves "the four amigos."

Barien is now in his second year of pharmacy school. He will be graduating in 2016.

Elijah graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in May. "I want to get into the architectural field, so it's just been a lot of years of hard work," he declared joyfully.

Jaiquann earned his degree in education from Cabrini College and is now a teacher. He admits that he was holding back tears when he found about the scholarship.

Darien is currently attending Morgan State University in Baltimore with plans to graduate with an industrial engineering degree next year fortune enough to have a full-time position lined up for once I graduate."

Although will.i.am is the greatest hero here, the young men also deserve some commendations. They did not just cry for help. When the help finally came, the young men did not disappoint their benefactor. These great acts are worthy of emulation by the many other celebrities out there and the numerous young black folks who are desirous of a better life.

 

 

 

Lessons From My Mother's Death

Good, Good Morning by Andy Kim

The sad event occurred early in the morning of July 6th, 1979...precisely 33 years today!

One of the very first lessons I learned from my mother's untimely death was the irony of life.

As our family was reeling from the shock of the terrible blow, the music blaring from radios all around our neighborhood was a very popular song of the seventies titled "Good, Good Morning" by Andy Kim (click on the link above).

Ironically, the message in the song was so completely opposite what our family was going through that morning that I felt like yelling at the entire neighborhood to turn off their radios.

Another immediate lesson I learned from my mother's death was how devastating the death of a spouse could be. My father was not only shocked and pained but also disoriented for days. He kept on mumbling to himself that God should have taken him instead of his wife because "Your mother was the moral and emotional back-bone of this family. If I was the one that passed away, it would have been better as you kids would have been left in more capable hands...I am not as good as your mother in mobilizing or rallying a family together..."

This sad moment of my life also made me appreciate some of my father's very strong life's principles. The first was "Love your relations but don't ever depend on them for your survival." And the second was "A couple of good friends are worth more than a thousand useless, happy-go-lucky friends."  

Talking of friends therefore, I'll forever remember and be grateful to some of my father's friends and notably, Mr. Adigun.

Although younger, more educated and highly placed (he was a top shot in Nigerian Telecommunications "NITEL"), Mr. Adigun was more of a brother than a friend to him. As soon as the incident happened, he placed his entire family at our disposal. In the first place, Mrs. Adigun, a nursing Matron at Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) was working on the night shift the day my mother passed away. She did not only perform her best during the critical moment when my mother was battling for her life, she also took an unpaid overtime to wait around and ensured that the corpse was bathed and properly embalmed. And when she finally got off duty, it was to our home she came to play the role of a therapist. For instance, she took one look at me and said, "Femi dear, you look more angry than sad. You're the only one that has not cried..that's not good for your health, you know...maybe you should cry a little."

In reaction, I did not know whether to laugh or cry. Then, I told her not to worry but she kept on asking why I was angry. So, I finally told her.

"Excuse ma'am...do you know how much mama devoted her life to Jesus?"

The woman nodded her head sadly. "Oh, yes, everybody knew that..."

"But why did she have to die just like that?"

"Oh my dear, your mother was a fighter...she refused to give up her life easily even as she screamed for Jesus to save her..."

"There you are..." I continued. "She screamed for Jesus...and what did Jesus do?"

Alarmed at my sacrilege, Mrs. Adigun moved closer to wrap one arm around my shoulder. "Ah...please don't talk like that...you boys are too young to be in this sad situation...but no one knows the ways of the Lord..."

"Yes, I knew you'd say that..." I quickly withdrew into my shell.

The poor woman went on and on to counsel me and pleading for me to "just accept it as fate..."

But that would be the beginning of my personal feud with Jesus. And it took years for me to reconcile with Him.   

Still on the Adigun family, the man gave us a chauffeur-driven car with his son, Femi Adigun, as the driver that took my brother and I on all errands in preparation for the funeral. Mr. Adigun went further to equip us with adequate cash allowance to fuel the car. And there was Iyabo Adigun (I hope I got the first name right) whose duties was to assist in cooking and taking care of our home while my brother and I ran around. Incidentally, when we expressed surprise at all these acts of kindness, my father merely shrugged his shoulders with a smile and then he said something that confused us, "Well...Adigun and I are brothers from the same mother..."

My mother's death did teach me another great lesson; one must endeavor to be good to people because there would always be rewards to be reaped from good deeds, one way or the other. This was amply demonstrated the day my brother and I walked into a popular casket showroom at Ebute-Metta. The middle-aged owner took one look at us and showed a hint of recognition.

"Hey, young men...who died?"

Initially, we were both irritated by the embarrassing question until finally, the man invited us to his office and said, "I can recognize your Olawole faces...I hope brother James is not dead?"

Now, we stared at him curiously and said no but that it was his wife who had passed away. Suddenly the man began to cry, grieve and lament.

"No! Mama Bose can't die...no way! That wonderful woman...she can't die...why must good people always have to die untimely?"

We allowed him some few more minutes to grieve until he gathered himself together with an apology. Then, he led us back to the showroom where, still sobbing, he pointed at a section where the most expensive caskets were displayed.

"Young men, please pick any one of these caskets."

We both shook our heads as we explained that we did not have the money to buy any expensive casket.

The man said "No, you will not pay...it's free! I bet you boys don't know how nice your parents are...do you?"

As we thanked him, the man waved us off and promised to come commiserate with our father.

There was a little "drama of love" when a committee of my mother's friends decided to finance the Service of Songs/Wake-keeping service that was held inside the sprawling compound of Ijero Baptist Church along Apapa Road in Ebute-Metta. The Adiguns wanted the deceased's friends to finance something else as they insisted that it was a great honor for them to take care of the expense. My father had to plead with the women and they took care of the assorted desserts that were served to the guests at the subsequent funeral party.

The "drama of love" did not end there. The then Pastor of our church (Ijero Baptist Church) was away all through that time. Our father therefore reached out to the Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in central Lagos who promptly accepted to deliver the funeral sermon because of his close relationship with my parents, and especially my father. The executive committee of our church however felt the task should be performed by a junior Pastor of the church. But the man of God in Ebenezer Baptist Church decreed that no one else was more competent than him in the matter. Again, it was my father who pleaded that the host junior Pastor do something else in the program.

During the funeral service itself, the church organist appeared not to be in his best form as the congregation soon began to murmur in frustration. Quickly, my cousin (Femi Durotoye) stood up to go replace the man summarily and the difference was clear between the performances of the two guys. It was like everyone just wanted to show their love for my mom and indeed, the Olawole family.

And so, Sarah Segilola Olawole, my dear mother, it's been thirty three years since your untimely demise. Although he was not as morally and emotionally strong as you were, papa really tried his best to guide us (the kids) to the Promised Land of social, moral and economic emancipation which you envisaged for us all through your life with absolute devotion. May you continue to rest peacefully in the bossom of the Lord in Jesus name.