In the bigger picture it may not be great news internationally after all more people die daily in Baghdad or Pakistan but it should scare us a lot more! The world has come to terms with the poison of religious fanaticism and violent crime is often no longer shocking but an emergence of killers like Derrick Bird should scare all of us.

The countryside in any part of the world is an area that is considered more relaxing, comfortable and quiet, compared to the bustling cities that have emerged in the cosmopolitan areas of the world. The countryside is the retiree’s haven, a place to escape the pollution, noise and crime of the major cities.

A robot is wired to function in a manner that is time and energy efficient. Its sole purpose is to make life easier for the owner. When it is assigned a task, it gets it done to the best of its ability and once done, it moves on to the next task or conserve its energy till the next time it is called upon.

A man takes his children on a weekend of camping; they have a beautiful time, meet others and are about setting off back home. To round off the trip, the elder daughter decides to go for one last boat ride with her brother and as they head back disaster strikes.

A man at an airline counter was frustrated at the lack of assistance he was getting and decided to get on the said counter and take off his clothes one at a time to make his point. He got the attention he was seeking a few seconds before his boxers came off and left a number of us wondering whether he was mad or a genius.

A name is a label for a noun normally used to distinguish one from another. Names can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context.

The most common definition is that of a condition or state of being that surpasses physical existence and in one form is also independent of it. In almost all the major religions the Divine is the one transcendental force that is both within and beyond the universe; its very foundation is a core of emotion/faith that continuously perpetuates its existence and longevity.

A very skinny and almost haggard looking lady walked into a gathering of some friends just as last year was rounding up and quite a number of people were concerned about her appearance. Not being a close friend I had kept my opinion to myself but listened to those who voiced out theirs.

From all indications what we fear most is what our eventual reality is. My closest friend and I share one thing in common and it is the realisation that most of our fears have all become reality; in the process of disappointments, failures and countless heartbreak, we both agree that we seem to have inadvertently attracted all that we dreaded.

A spiritual journey is an adventure of sorts and it is where experiences and real life events can shape anyone’s perception of the divine. In the course of one’s life, God will become real at some point in time and the quest for more meaning is moulded by manner/religion.

Adulthood is supposed to be the period in our lives when we take full responsibility for our actions, our responses to other people’s actions and general well being. It’s that period of our lives when we determine who and what we are on our own terms. The choice of determining how we are treated is not ours as children but emancipation should ideally come at the onset of adulthood.

I remember Tosin Sangonuga who died at 21, Toyin Onagoruwa, cut down by a hail of bullets in his twenties, my baby sister Modupe Ogunjobi, dead at 10years and so many others and I begin to thank God and celebrate him for the privilege of grey hair. There may be wear and tear showing on us all but they are testimonies of all we have seen and conquered!

It is easy to be lost in a sea of faces, to be surrounded by people who make so much noise that you become deaf to the isolating emptiness that is just beneath the surface. I admire the people with busting social diaries and address books as much as I pity them. Where interactions with our fellow men are concerned we sometimes forget to test for depth of feeling, preferring to enjoy the surface glitter.

There are many things that are automatic for most people. We take everything for granted: we breathe, eat , walk and go about our everyday lives like it’s the norm, like nothing we do is special.

The perfect expression of God’s love would be heaven, not just a destination we end up in after death (touch wood) but a world where the common expression is love, where the atmosphere is saturated with harmony among all of God’s creations. I sat down in a huge garden or should I say a mini forest and pondered the beauty of a landscape that had incorporated man into nature in complete harmony.