Ronovan is handing out tougher prompts with glee. I thought last week was hard, now he gives us wonder & spy 😉
Jason’s expectant eyes opened in wide wonder
as he unwrapped his gift;
daddy just bought him a spy kit.
©
Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Category: Challenges
What Are You Willing To Give? #SoCS
Giving my thoughts free rein this morning, my mind automatically rests on thoughts of Jesus Christ and yesterday’s sermon of Good Friday where we recalled how he was betrayed by Judas and crucified.
His Life was traded and given away for 30 pieces of Silver and though it happened over 2,000 years ago and for many, it reads like an old tale from the storybooks, it’s a fact and always leaves me in shivers.
I wonder to myself how horrifying and beyond pain it must be to be clubbed to the inch of one’s life and nailed to a cross to slowly die.
From the beginning of time, man’s attitude towards what they don’t understand has always been to destroy it because it just doesn’t fit into the frame of their mind and plan.
We forget that the minds we’ve been given can only grow in proportion to our way of thinking, that our sojourn on Earth is only for mere years and that there are things that our human mind may never, ever comprehend.
I ask myself, would I willingly give my life and submit to such inhumane treatment for the benefit of others and I don’t have a ready answer to such complicated question though a little part of my mind whispers ‘you are not Jesus Christ.’
How difficult it is for us to give a neighbor a helping hand in their time of need, to give out of what we have, yet we willingly take and take.
Yet in a split second, selfish and savage tendencies can overpower the thinking faculties of men that they bay for the blood of other men whom we didn’t give life to.
Crucifying has not gone out of fashion, it has merely morphed into different ugly methods. Just take a hard and long look around you.
We’ve been given so much by life, what are we willing to give?
Most times all we are required to give is to love while we are here and to stop thinking of only how we can receive. How difficult can that be?
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Warble, Warble…Ronovan writes weekly haiku challenge
Ronovan’s prompt for this week’s haiku ‘chagrin & joy’ was a bit tricky. My thoughts were a bit garbled like Joy’s own, but I managed to get it together 🙂
To Joy’s chagrin,
only a croaky warble escaped;
she couldn’t sing.
The audience stared,
the room silent in anticipation
Joy’s discomposure doubled.
©
Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Ever Fresh…Ronovan Writes Weekly Haiku Challenge.
She is no longer a Spring chicken
he loves her all the same
her beauty ever fresh in his eyes’
©
Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Spring & Fresh – Ronovan Writes Weekly Haiku Challenge
March Along… #SoCS
March is the month of my birth so I have a fond affinity for this month. It’s also my mama’s birthday and one of my younger brothers. March is quite the month in my family.
Of course, people do talk about the Ides of March, which was the usual way of saying March 15th, but I don’t identify with the superstition attached to it. A soothsayer’s dire warning to Julius Caesar and several other mishaps of centuries past is insufficient to make me live in fear of a particular date in the calendar.
Superstitions are quite the thing and in some places, superstitions weigh in so strong that it’s almost difficult to outmarch the people stuck in time and to move on with logical reasoning.
Isn’t it amazing how fast time runs? Sometimes, I feel as though time is frogmarching me through living at its own pace with barely enough room to exhale. Well, we’ve got no choice, but to march along and make the best of it while we can.
Jacqueline
The Fowls Buttocks…
When I saw Ronovan’s prompt for this weeks’ haiku ‘ Breeze & Blow’ an immediate chuckle escaped my lips. My mind automatically transported itself to an Igbo adage that is often used back home.
The adage signifies a general truth that whatever is hidden will certainly come to light with time.
We’ve got a certain silly saying that;
when the steady breeze blows
we will see the fowls exposed buttock.
∞
Jacqueline
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Managing Life… SoCS
‘Managing life,’ that’s the way people back home tend to answer you when you ask them how they are doing.
How I dislike that phrase!
Life is meant to be lived with all your senses wide awake to it and not to be managed. Life has manifolds that could take you on a surprising journey. It’s not something that you can command or manipulate.
In my opinion, managing life sounds as if you are simply gritting your teeth, hanging in there by your mandibles and just existing.
Almost as though life is such a painstaking experience that lacks all manners of joy in it and only meant to be endured. I honestly don’t know why this phrase manifests negative connotations of life in my mind.
I am thinking that maybe it’s because the word ‘manage’ is used in a myriad of things that present difficulty, such as: manage pain, manage weight, manage health, manage illness, manage work et cetera.
Life is certainly full of mangy issues, but you can definitely try to maneuver through the routes that the journey of life presents you with some joie de vivre in your survival kitty and instead of ‘managing life‘ I’d rather think that I’m a mastering living a conscious, mindful, and spirited life.
Jacqueline
Don’t Get it Twisted!
When I saw the haiku prompt ‘twist & shout’ I first thought of dancing, then another seed of thought planted itself in my mind and I went with it.
There’s no need to shout,
or getting your panties in a twist.
You got it all wrong!
©
Jacqueline
The Tall and Short of Things…
Shortness is something that I don’t experience in most things except being short of funds and short of time. I am hardly ever short of thoughts, ideas and things to say.
I can’t quite recollect when I became physically conscious as a child that I’m not short. At 5 ft 11 inches tall, I remember my growing up years of gangly arms and long legs and standing a head above my peers.
The height invited teasing and taunting from male peers who for some shortness of genes didn’t get to grow tall fast enough. For a while, I recall praying not to grow too tall and hunching to appear shorter to blend in with others and not get teased as such. My mother and grandma used to straighten out my shoulders and reminded me often to stand tall and look the person in the eye.
Eventually, I grew into the arms and legs and became comfortable with my height especially when I got invitations to model clothes and calendar pages.
Fast forward to my present day, the roundness of motherhood and age has made me shorter especially in the presence of my young 14-year-old son who’s 6 ft 4 inches and growing and his siblings who are fast catching up.
I am no longer bothered about my height since that was long settled, I am more concerned with the plumper parts that jiggle and wobble these days.
I am fighting the gravitational force of nature to keep the jiggle-wobble on a short leash. I guess nature will take its course eventually though we must do our best in a healthy manner to help it along and prolong the shortness of things. I guess I’ve got that figured out if only I can get a handle on my shortage of funds and time.
P.S. I couldn’t resist adding this throwback photo of mine that my husband dug up from God knows where.
Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
The King and I
When I saw Ronovan’s haiku prompt for this week, ‘King & Day’ I couldn’t resist being naughty and poking fun at a certain ‘King of The Free World.’
Forgive me 😉
Should the arrogant naked King and I
spend a jolly day together
I would tell him ‘you are ignorant.’
The King would probably be so mad
yelling ‘off with her head,’
‘cos he hates the truth any day.
©
Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Image courtesy: Pinterest
a cooking pot and twisted tales 