Friday Sermon

You cannot take pride in having a mind of your own if you keep being a mindless robot for people - being as predictable and ‘abuser-friendly’ as an android run device is a terrible fate, because everything you do, say or put on is controlled or informed by what people think or say.

You know you've a mind of your own if you refuse to be confused by irreverent babbles, especially those aimed at talking you out of your fine decisions. You need to be able to separate sincere talkers from garbage talkers

HINT IS: garbage talkers will be all up in your grill not because of anything constructive, but out of extreme dislike for you and the life you live.

So know when to be a bit polite to say “I hear you”, and when to say “you know what! Cut the bomboclaat crap and get your annoying self out of my face, because I am going to do this” - let the person go ahead and talk, who cares.

Too many weirdos around.

Knowing every bizarre cuisine on a classy restaurant menu has nothing to do with being classy, and your friend that doesn’t know say ‘Bourride’ for instance is not behind the times. Usually, food is enjoyable when you know what you're eating.

So if you’re not French or familiar with 'Bourride', don’t force it because someone is. Take 'Yassa Ginarr’ or just anything you know. That way you’ll eat well and sa xell bi du teye.

And this sort of thing is not about food alone, I think pretending to know complicated stuff over basic and common things is becoming an epidemic, and for my part, it only exposes one's own ignorance.

Even amongst men, sometimes you’ll ask like: ‘Boy, who’s your favourite artist?’ and whilst everyone is talking about people that people know, some wannabe yuppie type will come up with a very weird artist name, probably one you’ve never heard of, or one who plays some tasteless shit for rich old folks.

Is like being weird has become fashionable, like someone that doesn’t know shit about wildlife commemorating World Rhino Day in Jollof, or going to the beach to tan a skin that is already as black as Shaka Zulu’s, or someone you know takes Nescafe at home, comes with you to some place saying he prefers Jamaican ‘Blue Mountain Coffee’ or the Hawaiian ‘Kona Coffee’…. too many weirdos around.

The world is stuck....

Sometimes I tend to believe I am reincarnated, because I just cannot be excited by the excitements that excite this modern world. But maybe this mysterious scar by my right eye is evidence enough. Maybe I sustained that during some holy war in 620something C.E.

To be honest, what has this contemporary world done apart from recycling ancient wisdom, paraphrasing and quoting ancestors like Kothie Barma Faal, Albert Einstein, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc, or reinventing the inventions of Alexander Bell, James Watt, Galileo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and the rest.

If you ask me, there is nothing new about this 21st century that y’all take pleasure in, except for ever-increasing ego serving conflicts and needless rivalries. Period!

The selfish-self and the selfless-self...

My friend Amadou says every human being is made up of two selves - the selfish-self and the selfless-self and I believe. The selfish-self is that self that is concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits and welfare, to the exclusion or detriment of others.

The selfish-self may cause a thoughtless admiration of oneself, tempting the ego into doing or urging others to do just anything, in so far as it promotes one’s own happiness, or singling out others just for the heck of it, and consequently making consideration a notion to be desired but unattainable.

Alternatively, the selfless-self is the self that is willing to get out of one’s selfish-self. It is the sharing and caring self - the self that does what is morally expected and not what it wants others to see or conceive. It is the self that demonstrates genuine concern for not only what is pleasing, but for the welfare of others in the pursuit of what's desirable.

It is the only self that can stop you from pushing others into deep shit, because it will force you to ask yourself: ‘what if he wanted me to do what I am asking him to do - will I do it if I were in his shoes - will the consequences of what I am asking him to do be more productive than destructive to him - what if I relieve him and be selfless enough to do it myself?’

If your selfless-self is too little, you may not love for your brother what you love for yourself, or even do as to others what you want to yourself. So you see, that’s double breach right there - violation of a saying from the Hadith and the Golden Rule. It doesn’t take an expert in the field of ethics to know that

Troubles will come to an end...

There’s absolutely no human being without troubles, but in peace is the one that overstands the fact that every trouble is bound to have a happy ending. With the exception of bad characters of course; theirs is a deserved retribution, poetic justice if you like.

I wish y’all the gift of patience and a happy ending to all your troubles, both covert and overt. The beloved Rasool (ﷺ) said: "No one can be given a blessing better and greater than patience."

Let the star in you twinkle..

Sometimes there's only a very thin line between humbleness and being cheap in attitude. Some of us fail to differentiate the two, and in the end we settle on the latter, taking our worth too lightly, becoming socially insecure or even bowing out of our birthright.

As far as I'm concerned, you’re not being humble by calling yourself a riffraff, as if you do not matter, or as if you have an awkward plaque. In fact, that kind of down-to-earthness is foolishness, and you’re only inviting people, including idiots to look down their noses at you.

Someone said: “Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact” – and perhaps that “fact” is the fact that there’s a star in you, me and everyone, but only waiting to be given its right to twinkle.

Folks will naturally try to discourage you from achieving what you believe, mostly by throwing gloom over everything you have in mind and making you feel like you’ll never make a difference; they'll point out your flaws, but will never offer any helpful inspiration. AND the funny thing is, when you start to do well, these same messiahs of despair will be the first to seek out relations with you.

IWD2015

For my part, I think every woman is amazing and I can also confirm that of all of God’s creations, women are not only the prettiest but the most special.

To validate that unexaggerated truth, just take a moment and think of your life without your caring mother, your sister that is always willing to help, your wonderful partner, your endearing daughter, your encouraging aunt, your sweet lil niece, your supportive cousin or even that ride or die female friend or colleague.

Wishing all women a happy International Women's Day, and paying special homage to all the ladies I have been seeing here on social media doing all they can in the interest of equal opportunity. It’s your day and has to be as special as y’all. Stay cute, stay classy and fabulous. I love y’all!