HO-HO-HO 2

Santa is right here on THE INSPIRER

If you took part in the first ever quiz/ giveaway on THE INSPIRER, here are the correct answers to the set of questions.
Q1-. Jungle Bells, Jungle bells..
Q2-The letter D
Q3-First of July, Time

No one got the entire set right................too bad!

In the Spirit of Yuletide, THE INSPIRER in collaboration with T-PRAISE CONCEPT set out on her first ever reach out programme. You can get the details and pictures of the event on our "reach out" page. Touching lives is our priority and it was well demonstrated on a visit to the king's kid home located at Alheri, Jos.  See all of it!!!!!!

HO-HO-HO

It is that season of the year again and the frenzy is encroaching. I can feel it in the air; I can smell it in the waters and I can almost touch it in the sky. Every single person is engrossed in the hustle and bustle of the yuletide. This morning, I was jolted to life by the traditional chirping of the birds behind my window but today, aside from the usual “wake up sunshine” call, they deliver, they told me something else and I have no reason to doubt them because they got it straight from the elves……… Santa Claus is coming to town!!!!!
You probably should start making that list. I thought I d pass on the information.
Last year I was told the story of the little boy Sammy, who wanted Santa to get him a brand new bike for Christmas. Read this:

It was coming up to Christmas and Sammy asked his mum if he could have a new bike. So, she told him that the best idea would be to write to Santa Claus. But Sammy, having just played a vital role in the school nativity play, said he would prefer to write to the baby Jesus. Sammy went to his room and wrote ' Dear Jesus, I have been a very good boy and would like to have a bike for Christmas.' But he wasn't very happy when he read it over. So he decided to try again and this time he wrote 'Dear Jesus, I'm a good boy most of the time and would like a bike for Christmas.' He read it back and wasn't happy with that one either. He tried a third version. 'Dear Jesus, I could be a good boy if I tried hard and especially if I had a new bike.' He read that one too, but he still wasn't satisfied. So, he decided to go out for a walk while he thought about a better approach. After a short time he passed a house with a small statue of the Virgin Mary in the front garden. He crept in, stuffed the statue under his coat, hurried home and hid it under the bed. Then he wrote this letter. 'Dear Jesus, if you want to see your mother again, you'd better send me a new bike.'

How about the story of the 20 years old Ella, let me share as the season demands.

Santa Claus at the shopping mall was very surprised when a young lady aged about 20 years old walked up and sat on his lap. Now, we all know that Santa doesn't usually take requests from adults, but she smiled very nicely at him and asked 'What do you want for Christmas?' 'Something for my mother, please,' replied young lady sweetly. 'Something for your mother? Well, that's very loving and thoughtful of you,' smiled Santa. 'What do would you like me to bring her?' Without pausing, the lady answered quickly, 'A millionaire son-in-law.'

Maybe you have not quite decided on what to ask Santa for; I just gave you a few pointers. Anyway, as you ruminate on that, follow this closely, in the spirit of Christmas, the most celebrated festival on earth and space I suppose, THE INSPIRER is setting out to inspire you some more but this time with fewer words.
How would you love to participate in the first ever “INSPIRED XMAS GIVE-AWAY!!!!!!!” and win one of two fabulous prices.
It’s a cinch.
For the next two Sundays, effective today, 16^th December, click on our brand new HO-HO-HO page and solve a quiz, get it correct and you win for yourself an amazing Christmas present on the 23^rd of December to reach out to your friends and family. Visit the page now, get more details and begin to play.
Santa Claus is coming to town and you better make sure he visits you.

IDIOSYNCRAZY

          

 

       They were standing in the foyer that linked both departments, engaged in what seemed to me from a distance like a heart to heart. My elder sister was beaming, a beautiful smile played across the edges of her face. She always wore that smile and never hesitated to distribute it liberally. I approached them from behind, my sister facing me directly but her course mate; with whom she was having the talk had his back at me. The foyer was crowded in its traditional manner and they didn’t seem to notice me approaching, the young man was so engrossed in the conversation and was making gestures with virtually every mobile part of his body, “does she even smile? She walks around with this intimidating look like she is the only one on the planet. You guys are so different- you are the quintessential warm and fuzzy lady and your sister is” the epitome of cold and hard I supplied from behind him. You should have seen his face; he looked like someone who had just had an encounter with a ferocious wraith. His mouth fell open but not a sound proceeded forth. Gaze glued to the ground, he waved hastily at my sister and disappeared into the departmental library.

We began our regimented walk to the hostel in silence until we got away from earshot, I guffawed and my sister gave me the usual long chastising stare. “It’s is your forte isn’t it? You simply love being the bad cop”
Still consumed in my laughter, I answered, we both can’t play good cop, it’s a buzz killer! She laughed too and we continued our chatter all the way to the hostel, as was our norm.

Back at the university, 99 percent of the time, you would be certain to find me in my sister’s company and vice versa. The odds were a smidgen of occasions. People admired our closeness. We shared almost everything. Her course mate was accurate in his verdict- we were completely different and we still are.

I wouldn’t walk on the street with a smile plastered across my face, I thought it was idiocy. I had my jolly times though but I guess they were classified. You simply had to earn it! I said exactly what I thought without flinching and more often than not, created a really ugly scene for my sister to clean up which she always did effortlessly with a lot of poise and finesse. She could waltz through the lion’s den with her characteristic aplomb! 
At some point down the developmental ladder, I decided I wanted to be just like my elder sister-graceful, elegant, charming, warm, soft and may be a little mushy. I decided I was going to eliminate the old me. I was sick of carrying the invisible sticky note on my forehead that had difficult written all over it but how long did the charade last? You guess!

I caught the epiphany in our final year at the university and from then on, we joked about our differences like in the instance above. I stopped getting hurt and irascible when people made their comparisons and tagged us. It was the beginning of a pleasant transmogrification. I demystified it. Being different doesn’t make you an ogre if you can discover how to constructively weld it to reinvent your personality.

I happen to know a story that I would love to share with you in the light of buttressing my point. I remember this story very vividly but what I fail to recall is where I heard it from or maybe read it from. Anyway, it happened in a very remote period. In the palace of a great king in the east lived a number of servants. Male and female serving their king with fervor but there was a certain young lad that had a hunch back. He was discriminated against by the other servants and considered a curse from the eternal keeper of the kingdom but he would always refute their words. He believed he was a blessing from the keeper and pointed it out to all of them unwaveringly.

He also maintained that someday, they will all treat him with respect like that accorded to a king for the same disability they antagonize and josh him about. They further mocked him for his hilarious assertions and so was the status quo at the servant’s quarters for years. Life was almost unbearable for the hunchbacked servant. He had not a single ally and was trampled upon at the slightest of mishap with no one to assuage his shame but he went about his chores diligently and even the chores of other servants since the chief servant made him everyone’s stooge. Time passed and nothing changed, however, the king’s daughter began to notice how hard the hunchback worked and how poorly he was treated. Like a vermin, he would sit under the oak tree in the evenings when every other palace servant socialized and play his oboe, a riveting sound that pulled the princess from her chambers that evening and several other evenings.
The chief palace servant got wind of the budding rendezvous between the hunchback and the princess and decided to sabotage it.

On a beautiful evening, after the sun had retired and the moon was gradually unveiling her beauty simultaneously as the wind whistled in a soft enthralling manner, he began to lurk around the oak tree till he was certain the princess had clandestinely arrived at the scene to listen to the mesmerizing sound of the hunchback’s oboe,

"INTERRELATED"...THE MLK STORY

“All life is interrelated; somehow we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality”.

A humanitarian in all ramifications, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. never kept quiet in the face of injustice. He was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, to Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King. His legal name at birth was "Michael King"; his father, who changed his own name from Michael to Martin Luther, later said that the name Michael was recorded incorrectly. Martin, Jr., was a middle child, between an older sister, Willie Christine King, and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel Williams King.

Growing up in Atlanta, King attended Booker T. Washington High School. A precocious student, he skipped both the ninth and the twelfth grade and entered Morehouse College at age fifteen without formally graduating from high school. In 1948, he graduated from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology, and enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951. King married Coretta Scott, on June 18, 1953, on the lawn of her parents' house in her hometown of Heiberger, Alabama. They became the parents of four children; Yolanda King, Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King, and Bernice King.

In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great

...........IN SERVICE TO HUMANITY...........

BLESSED TERESA OF CALCUTTA
“whole hearted service to the poorest of the poor”

Severally, I have found myself pondering over the enigmatic words of Rabindranath Tagore, The great Indian poet who said “I slept and dreamt that life was joy, I awoke and saw that life was service, I acted and behold service was joy”. Overtime, I have come to realize that the greatest moments of our lives in which we find a compelling joy from within are the periods we spend in service to humanity.

What then can we say is the most significant achievement of a mortal post earth’s sojourn? Could it be quantified with the magnitude of wealth he accumulates, summed up by the number of prizes he wins, or allotted to the social recognition he gets? You answer that but before you do, read this!

“Poverty was not created by God, it is we who have caused it, you and I, through our egotism” those were the words of a woman that dedicated her entire life to give whole hearted and free service to the poorest of the poor. She, as well as Tagore viewed life from a common perspective- the magnifying lens of service.

Popularly known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (gonxha meaning "rosebud" or "little flower" in Albanian) was born on 26th August 1910, but she considered 27th August, the day she was baptized, to be her "true birthday". She was born in Skopje, now capital of the Republic of Macedonia, but at the time part of the Ottoman Empire.
She was the youngest of the children of Nikollë and Dranafile Bojaxhiu (Bernai). Her father, who was involved in Albanian politics, died in 1919 when she was eight years old.  After her father's death, her mother raised her as a Roman Catholic, in her early years Agnes was fascinated by stories of the lives of missionaries and their service in Bengal, and by age 12 was convinced that she should commit herself to a religious life. Her final resolution was taken on 15 August 1928, while praying at the shrine of the Black Madonna of Letnice, where she often went on pilgrimage.

She left home at age 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto as a missionary and never again saw her

PROFILES-"THE ROSA PARKS STORY"

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks
"the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement"

Do you believe in maintaining a negative status–quo or are you a fervent believer in hope for a revamp? Who says one can’t make a positive change? This is the story of a woman that endured adversity and consequently, engraved her name in the stones of eternity.

 "Y'all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats”. Three of them complied. Parks said, "The driver wanted us to stand up, the four of us. We didn't move at the beginning, but he says, 'Let me have these seats.' And the other three people moved, but I didn't. The black man sitting next to me gave up his seat. Parks moved, but toward the window seat; she did not get up to move to the re-designated colored section.

"Why don't you stand up?" Parks responded, "I don't think I should have to stand up." Blake called the police to arrest Parks. When recalling the incident for Eyes on the Prize, a 1987 public television series on the Civil Rights Movement, Parks said, "When he saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up, and I said, 'No, I'm not.' And he said, 'Well, if you don't stand up, I'm going to have to call the police and have you arrested.' I said, 'You may do that. That was the conversation that birthed the elated “Montgomery Bus Boycott” and chronicled an epoch of equality for the colored Americans.

Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913, to Leona (née Edwards) and James McCauley. She was of African, Cherokee-Creek and Scots-Irish ancestry. She was small as a child, suffering from poor health with chronic tonsillitis. As a little girl, these were her thoughts "I'd see the bus pass every day... But to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom. The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black world and a white world.” Did the status-quo

THE INDOMITABLE!

 When life stares hard at you in the face, do you stare back or simply flinch? The adversities of life are extremely disrespectful. They show up without notice and try to tear our dignity into shreds but there is yet a man that can weather the storms of life and come out unscathed. A giant not necessarily in the pounds he weighs or the feet he measures in height but him that has unraveled the secret weapons of life’s battles and has mastery in welding them. Such is the man that stands unflinchingly at the face of troubles and gives his challenges a long hard stare that eventually breaks into a chuckle when he emerges victorious. Today, I would like to share with you three weapons forged in eternity, in the presence of which despair disappears and only a song of victory is sure.

This event happened long before I was born and long before you let out your first shrill came this thunderous shrill in a hut in the distant land of “Arogbo”. Surrounded by the traditional midwife and experienced mothers was a set of triplet screaming in high pitch as euphoria took over the neighborhood. The long awaited birth had come and the gods had proven to be true for the compensation for an almost eternal delay was three healthy screaming boys. Kurokimi, the great warrior didn’t have to fret, he had beseeched the gods for a warrior but they had given him three. The drums were rolled out and the “ijaw-wuru” freely poured at every corner of the warriors’ compound, it was a great feast that lasted for three days and three nights. "Sui generis” indeed!

The gods bestowed rapid growth upon the triplet; they were bigger in stature than all their contemporaries and learnt the art of war as boys but the great warrior, with his wealth of experience soon fathomed out something by the help of the eye of the gods who lived in the mountains. The clairvoyant saw that the triplet would conquer great battles, bring down fortified kingdoms and reduce many a great kings into ordinary men. They would be known not just in their community but will be revered in distant lands. Their exploits would supersede their fathers’ and the spoils of their wars would be a city itself but they had to walk in circumspection and above all togetherness.
The eye of the gods proclaimed that as long as they stood together, there was no man born of a woman that could conquer them but woe betides them the day they go separately into battle. The great warrior was pleased and hurriedly left the presence of the clairvoyant who had not emptied all the words in his heart for in the spirit world, the boys had been given three unique names and their names were their weapons in the human world. Their father had not tarried to inquire the names of the eye of the gods.

Time passed in a blur, boys became teenagers and teenagers became full grown men, warriors. Kurokimi the great had begun to fade; his vision wasn’t as sharp or his grasp as firm. His ancestors came calling and time became a luxury. So, on a harmattan night, when the sound of the wind boisterously overwhelmed the song of the night owls, he sent for his sons. His intention palpably was to inculcate into them final values, bless them and bid them farewell.

His speech was concise and following words resonated through the howling of the harmattan wind “your doom lies in your division”. Shortly after, the great warrior left for the realm of the spirits. It was an abomination for the brave to shed tears. His sons, brave men, indulged no emotions and buried their father as tradition would demand a warrior be sent forth. A remarkable ceremony it was!
Thirty days passed and catastrophe struck, the town was being invaded by a coalition of warriors from the west and the north.

 Pandemonium took over, Kurokimi had just being buried and the entire town was still in mourning. The king immediately ordered for all the brave men to prepare for battle and meet the enemies at the gate before they infiltrated into the city. Kurokimi’s youngest son raised an argument at the king’s palace. It was tradition to mourn a deceased warrior for forty days or incur the wrath of the gods! Time had failed them the king announced; the city was under attack and would be taken in no time if a counter attack was not launched.

 Kurokimi’s third son further suggested that the city take to siege and complete the mourning period within the city walls. No enemy could break down the legendary walls he went on and after that, they could launch a full attack. An excruciating argument ensued amidst the warriors. There was an enormous division, a dissension that had gotten way out of reason. Logic had proven abortive and force was taking over. The king then moved for a vote, alas, it was in the disfavor of Kurokimi’s last son. The warriors were to match out at sundown into the valley that separated their city from the northern and western borders. They were to battle at dawn!

The last son objected obstinately, he told his brothers he would rather incur the wrath of the king than that of the gods. He was not matching out until he had given his father his well earned mourning rite.  The other brothers tried to convince him beyond all doubts but the young warrior was recalcitrant. Thirty one days after the death of Kurokimi, his sons went into battle not as the legendary trio but as two of three brave brothers. The brave two, blinded by patriotism, let their fathers warning fall to the wind and matched straight into their Waterloo dismissing their last brother as a Neanderthal.

The battle was fierce, the warriors fought gallantly but on the thirty eight day, they could not hold the line. The enemy had a huge stash of reinforcement but the army from Kurokimi’s city had lost many soldiers.

TREACHERY VS LOYALTY

I would be totally wrong to use the word reminisce but that word would have sufficed  to express my feelings except for the incredible fact that I did not witness what I am about to say. All week, my cerebrum had being plagued with quaint events of times remote from the present and I have caught myself humming the tone “what a wonderful world”. I have traveled centuries back on the waves of excellent history when women were modest, respectful and demurely behaved. The times when females were addressed as ladies with uttermost reverence and maidens were virgins. I floated centuries back to the periods of life when men were honorable, noble and fearless. Times when a man’s word was his bond and his life depended on keeping it.

 An age when bravery was sought and displayed by lads who engaged themselves in adversities. Such was a time when subjects were loyal and knights were brave enough to lay down their lives for their kings without flinching. Such was a period when the pure scent of the serene waters aroused and satisfactorily quenched thirst. The wrens and nightingales were never afraid to hold each other to a singing contest, embracing without any tinge of grudge the result. The trees were never hesitant to wave at the proud blue sky that stretches over the universe. The sun shone in its entire splendor but allowed the illumination of the moon at night. Friendship was embraced, engaged and regarded with esteem.

 A friend could risk the executioner’s axe, the stake and the gallows for another friend. Those were days of untainted innocence, heroism and bravery, loyalty and integrity. Such a time it was when great men of valor walked the face of the earth and exhumed honorable traits but treachery also did abound. Phenomenal plots that chronicled the fall of many great kings and tore kingdoms apart. Such was the time of the great Julius Ceaser, the roman god, the holy emperor Otto the great, the ancient city of Gondolin and the historic Troy. These men were exceedingly great and so their empires. Some were regarded above mortals but all had an Achilles heel that facilitated their untimely fall to treachery, mistrust. All of these quaint events brought to life something in me as I pondered over the tale of this young serving boy who lived in those times.

Remotely in a kingdom far away, long extinct, lived a lad. Orphaned at childhood with no one in the world to turn to, he mastered the act of sole survival at a very tender age. At fourteen, he fended for himself any way he could both legitimate and crooked. He lived on and off the streets until fate caused him to witness a scene that brought about a volte-face. One sunny day, he tended to the crops of a wealthy merchant. He was assigned to till and make a hundred ridges before sun down. The young lad worked tirelessly but at sundown, he had yet another thirty ridges to make. He couldn’t leave the farm out of the petrifaction, for the merchant was extremely cruel and unjust. Leaving the job half done meant no pay at all and so kept on late into the night. It was a beautiful night and nature consented to his dedication as a full moon lighted the entire farmland but at about midnight, something strange happened.

From the horizon emerged three men, he couldn’t quite make out their faces in the dark but they looked like royal guards. Quickly with stealth, he disappeared into the bush from where he listened attentively. Alas, his suspicion was correct. He identified the trio as the chief commander of the king’s army and two other trusted soldiers. They had a plot to assassinate the king on his wedding which was to take place in a fortnight as the king had being previously made widower by losing his queen to childbirth. They had a scrupulously orchestrated arrangement to use the potential queen as the carrier of the deadly poison that will eliminate the king in no time. She would be burnt at the stake for treason and consequently, the commander of the kings army would be crowned king as it was in the constitution.

The poor lad had to do something and with exigency, but what? He had not the slightest inkling because no one would take the words of a peasant over those of a royal commander. He needed a royal emissary to carry his missive but whom? Lost in the maze of excruciating thoughts, it hit him like a little stone thrown into a stream and as the ripples broadened so did the smile on his face.

For the king, the status quo had changed. He didn’t care about the fairness of the maiden; no virgin could measure up to his deceased wife. He sought a lady with a pure and true heart, kind and witty and so he had instructed that all maidens go through a test, whoever passed it would become his new queen but how could anyone tame a beast!
Ten virgins had been selected-royals and nobles, pure breeds that had the purple blood running through their veins but amidst the ten was an ordinary girl or so she seemed but immensely witty. All had been given thirteen days to tame the beast, whoever succeeded became the crowned queen on the fourteenth day. Young poor orphan set out in his mission to save the king. For ten days he helped the ordinary maiden and each day the beast was calmer with her but not any of the other virgins.
 
Eventually on the twelfth day, they broke through; the beast was tamed by the duo. The lady inquired of the lad what he needed as a quid pro quo but his desire wasn’t for himself. He asked for just one thing, that the chief commander of the king’s army taste the ceremonial wine. The lady was astonished, but she had no other choice. The matrimonial ceremony began in earnest on the fourteenth day in an immaculately adorned palace filled with royals, friends and subjects. In no time, the zenith of the day was reached, the king had to complete the marriage rites by drinking the wine carried by his queen who approached steadily in a breathe taking white dress but stopped a few feet from the throne, tears rolling down her eyes.

The music stopped abruptly as the king rose from his throne. He was already impressed by her ability to tame the beast and so he declared that she named anything she wanted, so far it stills the river flowing steadily down her cheek and he would give it. At her request, the palace became pin silent. The king couldn’t fathom it out but he already gave his word. The commander was summoned and asked to sip the wine. He vehemently refused. Catastrophe had struck, the plot had been uncovered. The commander confessed treason and his accomplices were arrested. The king was devastated for trusting his foes but profoundly grateful to his new bride. He thanked providence for bestowing him with a rare gem but she didn’t forget the orphan. He served the king faithfully and was the youngest commander in history.

When we hear treason, we think about the national acts of disloyalty but the heart stinging truth is this- we all are guilty of some measure of treason. It is not about plotting against the president but it is in the seemingly unimportant things- a wife who scorns her husband behind his back is a traitor just as the private soldier that answers “yes sir” and calls the general a moron. A friend that breaks news told him in confidentiality and denies it. A child that deceives the father and an employee that engages in office gossip and slander. How about the sexton that assassinates the character of the cardinal?