pagesbyike 1/25/19 pagesbyike 1/25/19

Orange is the New Knack

Have you ever heard about prison literature? It is a literary genre characterized by literary work written while the author is confined in a location against his will, such as a prison, jail or house arrest.

Counting and crossing out tally does get old.

Check out a list of books written in prison at the end of this article. I was surprised by the first one...

I didn’t know it was a thing! I guess if you’re locked up somewhere for a while, you’d maybe be forced to pen down your thoughts.

Counting and crossing out tally does get old. You’d probably write a book too or a song, like Tupac did!

Check out a list of books written in prison at the end of this article. I was surprised by the first one.

Anyway, the only Prison Lit I’ve ever read would be the books of Paul of Tarsus. He was in prison when he wrote a good bit of the New Testament. The best thing about those books was the state of his spirit. He seemed content, hopeful and joyful, probably more so than the people he was writing to. He focused on teaching them about God, with the hopefulness of his imprisoned life.

Imagine if he had chosen to focus on his problems and magnify them. We’d have something like this:

“Well guys, hey, I’m still in these chains. I keep telling these guards that I’m a citizen of Rome. I’m a real Jew. A Jew of Jews! What else do they want from me? From the tribe of Benjamin. Did I mention I was circumcised on the eighth day?
He-llo!
The press is outside, I’d like my voice to be heard about this injustice. The food is terrible and I can’t wait to be home again eating Sister Phoebe’s lamb stew.
The prison cell has mold clusters the size of Corinth.
I don’t mind being interrogated but the breath on these guards. Help!
So I mentioned the other day that Diotrephes has been acting up. What’s his deal? I don’t have time for his pettiness.
Anyway, I’m still here.
Sigh.
It’s ok that you haven’t come to see me at all. Just continue living your best life while your friend is here rotting in prison. Please tell Carpus I need my coat, the one with the invincible stitches which I left in Troas. I hope Atrius hasn’t borrowed it and gone on his fishing expedition. That’ll be gross. It’s tailored.
There’s this particular guard who seems to be going through a lot and seems interested in Jesus, but I told him, “Hey, at least you are free and you don’t have these miserable chains around your ankles.”
Am I right?
He’s here again mumbling about believing in Jesus. I should share the gospel but I’m just not in the mood, guys.
Did I tell you about the watery soup of minestrone they serve on Mondays? Not my favorite.
Guys, I can’t even in this place. Lord, help.
Stay woke. Stay ready.
The soldiers can arrest you at any time. I can testify. ”

Well, thank God he didn’t write any of that nonsense!

I say this from experience, seeing past your chains and limitations can be hard. I caught myself complaining a few weeks ago, I probably sounded like this rant above. Till date Paul is my favorite Prison Lit author.

Instead of ranting like me, he wrote these amazing verses:

“Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.” Php 1:12-14
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice.”
Php 4:4

Perspective. Chains. Optimism. And some more perspective.

Other works written in prison:

Orange is the new black

Piper Kerman

A Prison diary
Jeffery Archer

Conversations with myself
Nelson Mandela

Pilgrim’s progress
John Bonyan

The Travels of Marco Polo
Rustichello da Pisa

More…

Do you have a favorite Prison Lit? Which is it?

pagesbyike 12/31/18 pagesbyike 12/31/18

Glad For Some

It has been such a magnificent year. I turned 30, and I matured like a fine bottle of insert your favorite wine.

I met the most charming little boy who lived inside me for months, came out and now laughs and eats and poops. Babies are a mystery to me. I can explain it physiologically of course—the sequence of the birds and the bees. There’s embedding in the uterine wall, the development of the umbilical cord, the legal siphoning of my food without permission, the kicks, the getting on and leaning on my nerves(literally)in vivo. It still is a mystery. Did you know you can feel your baby hiccup inside you?

Fascinating.

One day, I’ll share my pregnancy journal on the blog. It’s hilarious. It has titles like “The war against umami”, “I can smell the toilet down the street” and “Chin hair—Becoming Gandalf.”

2018 was a fantastic year of self-reflection, discovery and love.

I made some new friends. I learned. I grew up! I relearned to love. I relearned to write.

And I have some people to thank.

Have you ever met people who you are just glad their parents made them? That daddy bought flowers(or suya) that night, that mummy flirted and pulled his mustache (or however mothers flirted in the 70’s and 80’s) and things happened and this awesome person was born?

I’m grateful to have you in my life. I’d say you know who you are and I know you do, but I’ll just call you out anyway:

Ed (I thank you in every language on earth and in heaven)

Itunu

Abidemi

Akofa

Damilola

Djeneba

Ehi

Thank you for being in my life and for a wonderful 2018. Have the best new year.

Happy New Year, Everyone!

pagesbyike 2/22/17 pagesbyike 2/22/17

The Queen of Sheba | In Pursuit of Wisdom and The Ladies' Man

In my books, the top 3 fashionistas of the Bible, would have to be The Queen of Sheba, Queen Vashti and maybe, the virtuous woman, maybe. The Queen of Sheba (QoSheba) has my vote as number one.

In my children's bible, she rode into Jerusalem on this magnificent elephant draped with Persian rugs; jewelry dangled from the elepahant's large ears and a huge jewel sat between its eyes. She, of course, was fabulously beautiful. She sat in a shaded carriage on the back of the elephant, her shady, ebony skin peeked from underneath a long, gold, silk dress, her neck was wrapped in a gold neck piece that sat just above her clavicles. Hair was endless, nails coated, lashes for days. Wrist, arm and ankles clasped in gold cuffs, huge hazel eyes peered from behind the gold frills of a sheer veil. The Bible's number one stunner—or so she thought, until she met Solomon.

I've been a little obsessed with the Queen of Sheba in the last few weeks. I love her story because it is unique and because I'm very much in her shoes right now (I'll get to that later). She's my Bible crush these days because she did a remarkable thing and because of that got her name into the most read book on the planet.

But first, my personal thoughts about her, I think the Queen of Sheba was a hater— beautiful and stylish—but a hater, nonetheless.

It's recorded that she traveled a great distance to test Solomon with hard questions. She wasn't going as a fan, she wasn't going to hang out with the coolest king on the planet, she wasn't going for a snapchat-story or so she could tweet about it. It seems this queen was coming to Solomon to debunk this larger-than-life reputation of his. Uhh..feisty.

Note, she was traveling on an animal, which is no Bugatti. Travel time must have been months or even years. She was coming to see who this Solomon-guy was. Wisest man her foot.

I imagine her rolling her eyes when her courtiers talked about Solomon and how awesome he was and the splendor of his palace, his city, his servants, his clothes, his God— his God had given him so much peace, even the most violent kings loved him. His food, his chefs, his gardens. Oh...and when he spoke...all the court maidens swooned and the girls couldn't keep their hands to themselves.

"I heard he is the wisest person that ever walked the earth!" Her court gossip-blogger would have said with twinkling eyes,"I also heard...he's dating 700 women...all at the same time! And his 300 wives know!" This was probably the moment the Queen of Sheba said, "You know what, I can't...I'm going to meet this guy you're all talking about, 1000 women! Yeah, right! And they all know?! Unbelievable."

She got to work with her "philosophers" and "wise men", did some research and came up with some difficult questions for Solomon, which must have taken time and considerable effort.

Her plan: She'd ride into his city, find at least 1 fault, stun him with her questions and leave. So girlfriend got on a horse, donkey, elephant, something, and began her journey.

Her entourage was unmatched. She traveled in style. She was there to impress, her defenses were probably up, so she didn't become Girl #1001. When she got there, it turned out all she had heard was a lie and that his kingdom was even more awesome than described! Even his servants looked great! Everything was functional, hinged on the wisdom God had given Solomon for administration and governance and she was so impressed that she praised HIS God. She couldn't help it!

Even though she may have started out planning to test this wisdom, she later opened up to Solomon. She chose to be vulnerable and asked him some personal questions that she needed answers to. He answered those as well! I think at that point she became even more beautiful to me.

QoSheba made it into the Bible because she sought out wisdom. She could have stayed back in good ol' Sheba, gotten a manicure and chewed on red grapes and we would never have heard about her . I love that she saw the value of wisdom, and put in quite the effort to uncover it.

Whether or not she was a hater initially, it doesn't change the fact that she traveled thousands of miles to see Solomon, to hear this man who everyone talked about and to witness the awesomeness of his God. She stopped being a hater (hating is so pre-historic-era anyway) and honored God by giving him praise for Solomon's success. It take a whole lot of character to thank God for another's success. I just love this girl.

This journey was life-changing for her. It must have changed the way she thought, the way she governed, even the way she would choose her King (if she didn't have one already). She left Jerusalem with so much stuff, treasure, gold, I-love-Jerusalem T-shirts, precious stones. It's recorded that Solomon gave her everything she asked for. That's the thing about wisdom, if you seek it and treasure it, it will give you riches, that's in Proverbs 3: 13-16. I'm not making this up! An encounter with God's wisdom changes everything!

This season, I have so many questions I'd like answers to—just like QoSheba— hard questions; I have to make decisions that require the application of wisdom. Do you have some too? Some funky dilemma getting you down? You need to choose between Richard or Debo; or both Joyce and Temi were your Valentine's, you just couldn't decide; or you need to choose between two job offers, or three schools or you just need direction in a situation. Instead of traveling to see some wise man these days, all we need to do is ask for wisdom for ourselves, so we can make better decisions. We need to see the value of wisdom like the Queen of Sheba did, then ask for it.

Just ask him for wisdom. He knows the outcome of every choice. Still your troubled mind and ask.

If you ask, you will receive.

What are your thoughts? Wasn't the Queen of Sheba everything?! By the way the BBC thinks the Queen of Sheba may have been Nigerian! Read here!

If you know this could help someone, please share!

Cover Art by the wonderful Nigerian artist, Ruthie Akuchie! This Queen of Sheba piece was one of the 29 art pieces painted in 28 days to honor black, female leaders Ruthie's inspired by, honoring the Black History Month. Read her feature here!

pagesbyike 11/23/15 pagesbyike 11/23/15

PGI's November Girl: Laju

One toasty warm Saturday afternoon in Lagos and by contrast a windy fall day in Madison, i had the awesome pleasure of chatting with the beautiful and talented Utseoritselaju Omagbitse Joanne (popularly known as Laju) via FaceTime. We have no photos from this event because we both were in Saturday-chill-mode. Pardon us.

Laju is a successful Lagos-based artist who has been sketching and painting for as long as she can remember. Last September, she had her first art exhibition themed: "Woman in Bloom" along with other artists who were involved in this event, which sought to contribute to the discussion on the process of self-actualization for the woman in a typically patriarchal society. It's wonderful knowing people who use their talent and passion to develop and improve their community. It's what we all strive to do. It's what we are all made for.

Let's meet Laju!

Hey, Laju! What's "Laju" short for and what does it mean?

Utseoritselaju which means the work of the Lord is too great

Where are you from?

Warri, Delta State, Nigeria

What is your morning app sequence?

Hmm… Instagram, WhatsApp or iMessage…. Instagram…again.. *laughs*

What do you do?

I'm a banker with Heritage Bank

Describe your art?

My art is mostly acrylics on canvas. I started with charcoal but then again, i love color! Right now though, i paint acrylics on canvas.

Acrylic paintings dry fast and that works for me. Oil paint is beautiful but I'm not that patient. *laughs* I'm thinking about working with charcoal and acrylics.

I work with female subjects, i find them easy to relate to and for now, African females because the color of our skin is just beautiful in real life and on canvas!

How and when did you start painting?

I actually started very young. I remember in primary school, I’d draw match-stick people, then they evolved into box-like images. I was always fascinated by the cartoon images I saw on TV, and wondered why I couldn’t make my drawings look like the cartoons, so i'd trace directly from the TV or from Archie comic books. That really helped. And of course, my art teacher in college, class mates and even family recognized my talent and kept urging me to do better. Over time, I’ve nurtured this skill and improved on my style and techniques

Most interesting muse?

I’d say female mannequins. I fell in love with them recently; the fragility of their posture amazes me. They've opened my mind up to a thousand ideas. Hopefully you’ll get to see what I come up with in my future artworks

What does your creative work space look like?

*laughs* That’s funny because my work space is my bed and the floor of my room…. That’s where the magic happens. Haha. To answer your question, Newpapers on the floor of my bedroom.

What do you do when you have a creative block?

I just stay away from trying to paint or sketch, because the more I try, the more I end up making everything worse…which is deeply depressing, although, sometimes I go online and view thousands of images related to the ideas I had in my head, to come up with something unique. *laughs*. Apart from these two, I just lay in my bed and stare at my ceiling.

But on a more serious note though , what works most times is staying away completely, it helps me cool off and also gives me a different perspective on my work

What are your creative work must-haves?

An old piece of cloth to clean my brushes, my iPad/phone to refer to my saved ideas or the internet for clarification (when I get stuck)

Longest & Shortest time taken to complete a work

Longest, 1 month; Shortest, 4 hours

Default nail polish color

I usually don’t paint my nails *covers face* but if i had to choose, nude or purple

Who is(are) your greatest support system?

Family and close friends. They make me believe in myself

What song describes you at 5.30am?

Don’t wake me up by Chris Brown

I'm more of a 6am person

Quirkiest thing about you?

I like to sleep with the lights on. When I wake up in the middle of the night and there isn't power, I turn on the flashlight of my phone and fall asleep

Favorite cake flavor?

Red velvet

Favorite artist

Joseph Eze, Sara Golish, Nelson Makamo

Most frequent Lagos-traffic purchase?

Plantain chips, Super Yogo! *laughs*