A Spider Amongst the Saints

A Restless Weekend

The quest for sufficient sleep is one goal that defines my weekends; the pall of nocturnal insomnia hangs over my weekday nights and threatens my efficiency and productivity at work.

Just as I was considering a lie-in on Sunday, I had a date in mind a week hence, when I was scheduled to read the second lesson in church. Just to be sure, I checked the rota, and it was for today.

I have gained more confidence to read publicly, with my voice regaining some timbre for short periods of time.

A Fright by Email

However, it was another email that gave me the fright. We were being invited to a "Celebration of Gratitude", which read rather like a "Celebration of Life", a confusion between a demise and a departure; we were seeing off a lady who had a long-standing relationship with the church, as she moved to a home in Cumbria.

The sender, an Englishman, should have known better, having received a note from someone who speaks English as a foreign language, and obviously, once we read the content of the email, we were better informed.

After I had read the lesson, with a slight hiccup where I corrected myself, saying "through" instead of "though", the service progressed to the serving of communion.

The Uninvited Guest

Then a creepy-crawly came down the aisle, its body about a centimetre square and its legs at least seven centimetres each; a spider unlike any you see at home.

People attending church for the fear of God were soon gripped by arachnophobia.

A man of the cloth boldly lifted his feet off the floor and onto the seats, obviously not to harm the spider, or perhaps he was one of the ilk of Little Miss Muffet, who is famed for the eponymous nursery rhyme.

Calm Restored

Then a lady of the sterner kind, with the cojones that men pretend they possess, picked up the spider with a piece of tissue paper, dropped it, but scooped it up again and relocated it outside to the church gardens.

Calm and peace settled on that side of the congregation, as we deigned not to point fingers at the affrighted.

The celebration after the service was a generous buffet, with applause from us all, bidding her godspeed and new friendships at the home by the sea.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

The way you make me smile

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Juggling words to give meaning to how I feel,
Is my mind at work to express and reveal,
For a moment comes in time and place,
Where one person does take centre place.

Your priorities are suddenly rearranged,
Making the space for what has changed,
Your loyalties you promptly realign,
Everyone else now has to fall in line.

To that one needs not preach a homily,
It’s redefining the context of my family,
I have entered this quite solemnly,
The occasion warrants some honesty.

The dawn breaks to the sweetest messages,
To which I respond with funny passages,
My day started to the fun of encouragement,
Then closes with a lengthy engagement.

I find myself now under obligation,
In response to my deepest emotion,
To guard my heart with the utmost vigilance,
As I am now lost in this crazy romance.

These things are borne of moments sublime,
For which could last quite a lifetime,
Daily we work on building a relationship,
That creates the very best of friendship.

The message of the massage

Rubbing and drubbing

For years, I have endured and suffered a niggling pain in my right shoulder blade, it has not been too uncomfortable, but I only had to swing my arm in a certain way to feel that sudden stab of pain that made you either gasp or groan.

However, recently, my waking moments have had that pain arrest my attention that no amount of posturing and stretching alleviated, I was beginning to accept it as a norm.

Last night, I decided to do something about it and I went online searching for locations offering deep tissue massages, but after reading up a bit about it and conjuring in my mind the idea that a 'no-hands massage' meant I could be both be elbowed and kneed in certain delicate places, I decided on the more common Swedish massage.

That muscle from another

I have had massages before, but I was more interested in the professional angle of things rather than those that purported to offer a happy ending. I settled on one that offered sports massages called My Sports Injury with the view they’ll probably know more about muscles and what to do.

Making an early appointment for 8:30 AM and paying through PayPal, I made for the clinic and met up with Ray, the therapist who was outside and probably waiting for me. Friendly and nice, he introduced himself and took me into the basement gym that had the therapy rooms.

I filled in a few forms about my health and regions where I was having muscular pain, the particular muscle I was told was the rhomboid muscles that connect up to the upper end of the vertebral column.

Stripping down to my underwear with my socks kept on, I lay face down on the massage table and as he moved my arms, I felt that stab of pain again, he provided some additional support for my arms and began to rub and knead my muscles.

Pins and needles

In our earlier consultation, he talked about acupuncture and I related an experience when I accompanied a friend to see his acupuncturist. Each needle being tapped into his back was exaggerated in my mind as a re-enactment of the crucifixion, big crooked nails being hammered into flesh with humongous mallets. That impression kept me off accessing this ancient Chinese therapy for my muscle pains.

He worked my shoulders down to my lower back before he suggested acupuncture to ease the tension in my upper back, he assured me it would not be painful. Meanwhile, he had also done some deep tissue massage that did not involve being kneed or elbowed, I was beginning to trust him.

So, I let him put in the first needle, a bit of a tinge, but no pain, and before I knew it there were 6 needles in my upper back. Then working on my lower back, he tapped in another few needles into my back and at final count, there were 16 needles in my body. All the while, we were talking about life experiences and how to approach issues, he was a listening and interested therapist.

Cups and mats

I had pictures taken of the needles because being subjected to the acupuncture therapy has never been something I would have considered ever, and here I was the literal semblance of a voodoo doll, only that I was both the doll and the target. Working down to my legs, he introduced suction cups to my calves before removing the needles, offering a final rubdown and then a few exercises on a floor mat.

One must always be open to new experiences and this was both relaxing and rejuvenating, Ray was a consummate professional with an easy and persuasively encouraging bedside manner that eased me into situations I would never have countenanced. I’ll be back for another session, a massage done by those who know what they are doing, is good. The message in the massage is, muscle, shape up.

I would never have thought I would allow this to happen to me, acupuncture, that is a story for a blog to be written later. I feel amazingly good after it. Ray was exceptional, professional and just the best.

A post shared by Akin Akintayo (@instaforakin) on May 27, 2017 at 2:15am PDT

 

Thought Picnic: Knowingly breaking the rules

An Englishman in Scotland

With respect to my new odyssey up in the beautiful climes of Scotland, I must confess, every day has been brilliant, bright and beautiful in Edinburgh, I am beginning to disbelieve my new colleagues who have constantly suggested the weather would change in 15 minutes. Maybe there is a different clock mechanism working in the country of our cousins up north, because going by English time, that 15 minutes of changeable weather has been running for almost 5 days.

Considering what they say about the weather in Manchester, Edinburgh could as well be in summer already, however, I guess by the time I return next week, I might arrive at a rude awakening.

I updated my LinkedIn profile with sketchy details of my new role and soon after congratulations and best wishes came flooding in. Contacts from way back asking after my health and welfare amongst other things. Good thoughts and prayers, news and anecdotes coming in that you can only feel liked and loved.

The workplace relationships we rarely cultivate

We forget we have an amazing community in the workplace, people we interact with, day-in-day-out, we probably spend more productive time with people at the workplace than anywhere else, it makes me wonder why some people end up being nasty to other colleagues. You step away and conclude a dark soul would never be a spring of laughter or humour, they are harbingers of ill will, stress, and discontent, wielding power without either a sense of responsibility or humanity. In the end, they will not be remembered fondly or happily, they are the scions of perdition.

Yet, in the little notes we exchange of reconnection, friendship and reminiscences, you are heartened that your friends are doing well, living well and happily well.

Breaking rules properly

One such remembering a working relationship over 14 years ago commented on some influence I had on him to the effect that I apparently said, “Learn the rules well so you can break them properly.”

Now, I cannot remember saying that, but on reading it bad to myself, they do sound like something I would have said, both seriously and in jest. I would not consider myself a rule breaker per se, I could be quite conformist, yet, in knowing the rules well, you have every opportunity to test its breaking points and dare to experience the daring-do of living free of constraints.

In another way, a lack of understanding of the rules of doing things, of engagement, of conduct and many other things not only symbolises incompetence, that incompetence is compounded by ineptitude presaging absolute chaos and worse.

As I have been reminded, I should keep this in mind. As an Englishman, I was looking forward to the Early May Bank Holiday on the 1^st of May. Alas, it is not that strictly observed where I work in Scotland, so no long weekend for me, I’m back in Edinburgh on Sunday. Finally, I did not know TransPennine Express trains offered wireless connectivity in motion, I noticed someone else connecting and so I got to post this blog.

Social media is not the message

Getting a context of social media

It is beyond dispute that social media had a great role to play in the revolutions that have swept Tunisian and Egypt within the last few weeks.

However, it would be disingenuous for anyone to suggest that posting a tweet, a blog or starting a group on Facebook is the catalyst for change and the impetus for the gathering of people to a cause.

A microphone is not a message

Analogically, social media is just like another medium; a microphone; putting a microphone in a hands of mute will achieve no purpose, just as putting it to the mouth of a rambler would achieve just as much to be noticed to prepare the listeners to ignore the person.

A microphone to a speaker is only of value if the speaker has a message at first, then a message that resonates, a message that inspires, a message that encourages and a message that galvanises to a cause and purpose.

It takes a message to benefit from social media

In the same vein, that is the lesson we should learn of what social media means to rallying people to a cause; social media in and of itself does nothing of the sort that is attributed to it – it codifies, amplifies and relays what has been given to it.

In other words, it requires people who have their ideas sorted out and their message clearly stated and most of all, it must be a message whose time has come – that way, it will ride the moment to create the situation we hope for and maybe result in the unexpected.

Social media cannot bestow you with talent

So, if you are naturally not a communicator do not be deluded into thinking social media will suddenly make you one just as holding a microphone does not make you a talented singer just because your croaky voice can be amplified to the hearing of others who might heckle you off stage rotten eggs and tomatoes.

With that analogy, I hope we can put social media in context and perspective – it is about the message, the medium is just a facilitator, it cannot become the message, that would be utterly absurd.

In search of a humorous God

Messengers are not the message

The religious fervour that feeds activism leading to disorder as emotions becloud reason brings great concern.

It transpires that the adherents of Mohammedanism have taken serious exception to a number of cartoons depicting the pioneer of their following in sometimes unpalatable poses.

It makes one wonder though about the message, the messenger and who it is all about. When the messenger becomes the message and story, there is need for a reassessment of priorities.

Authority of the messenger

With Christianity, the message comes through a messenger that is part of the fulfilment of the message itself. The claim that Jesus Christ makes as first the Son of God and then a first son of God gives him that authority.

Comparatively, no other messenger lays such a claim, hence, they probably should be less vilified by the machinations of men and seek less validation since the message itself comes from some higher authority – as it were.

Basically, a son delivers a message in the name of the father whilst an adopted but honoured servant delivers the message as a representative of the master.

In both cases, if the messengers do then encounter difficulty, they are either empowered to act on authority of the father/master or the father/master takes the slight and makes adequate redress for the son/servant.

Let the master defend his integrity

It brings to memory a story in the Great Book where someone had desecrated the altar of a god and all the adherents of that god came out in arms to take the life of the desecrator.

Some elders intervened and said, if the said god were so incensed about the desecration then the god should act; however, it might appear the god was merciful because the desecrator lived. [1]

Jihads and crusades which in principle are well-meaning have done much to excite plunder, destruction and misery such that the good news is lost in the suffering that then portrays the message as that of sorrow.

Religious activism wins no converts

In many of my blogs I have strongly suggested that religious activism is a lightning rod for social ills, it does coalesce adherents but does nothing to help in proselytising.

The best message any religion can give is the power of example from the adherents; examples that make people ask questions about your happiness, your amazing success, your overwhelming peace of mind, your enduring patience and manifold wisdom.

Brawling, flag-burning, singing, boycotting and shouting insults at pickets and rallies are for all other kinds of endeavour but definitely not religion.

The matter is simple; if you want people to believe as strongly as you do;

·         show us the example that makes you a disciplined and reasonable family person even if your family consists of just one person

·         show us consideration, courtesy and comportment in all your undertakings

·         show us you are a respected and valued member of your community as an externalisation of your beliefs

·         show us, you practise what you preach

In search of a humorous God

As for the cartoons, let the messengers and the message they preached speak up to the shame of the irreverent cartoonists.

Showing up in anger and rage would do nothing to win the argument, rather, others like the press and haters of your religion would use your raw emotion very well against you, your message, the messenger and the father/master.

For once, let us see the lighter side of the insults and humour the ignorant into realising that our adherence is of sterner stuff than their cartoons can enrage a mouse.

References

[1] Let the gods fight their battles

BBC NEWS | Europe | Muslim anger at Danish cartoons

BBC NEWS | Europe | France enters Muslim cartoon row