Poetic Thoughts
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM
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Adeshina Afolayan
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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM
Poetry is any writing done in poetic format.
God's anger can be assuaged by a plea of mercy, irrespective of the cause of the anger.
By the way, when a poet reaches a certain point in his/her career, he/she feels confident to jettison certain rules of the craft.
CAO.
Michael Afolayan
Cornelius Hamelberg
Lord Olayinka Agbetuyi,
Take off your shoes. You are now entering sacred territory. And this is supposed to be the greatest of the great secrets in Judaism: The Ineffable Name – which cannot even be pronounced by mortals like you and me - but, so I’ve been told, once a year, in the Holy Temple, in the Holy of Holies, by the High Priest on Yom Kippur.
Some say that the Most Great Name of the Almighty is found in the Torah passage which states the Almighty’s 13 Attributes of Mercy…
Verily, in his prayer to the Almighty, Habakkuk pleads, “In anger You shall remember to have mercy.”
Before Habakkuk, in Genesis 18: 16 - 33 Aba Abraham famously pleaded for some of his relatives and for the miscreants in Sodom and Gomorrah
Waxing a little pedantic, may I kindly remind you that once upon a time, St. John Maximovitch said that there are no “ minor prophets”.
Last night I read the following sentences on pages 15 - 16 of the introduction to The Orthodox Veneration of the Mother of God - by St. John Maximovitch
“For Archbishop John the theological “categories” of even the wisest of theological scholars were also “unimportant” — or rather, they were important only to the extent that they communicated a real meaning and did not become merely a matter of rote learning. One incident from his Shanghai years vividly reveals the freedom of his theological spirit: Once when he was attending the oral examinations of the senior catechism class of his cathedral school, he interrupted the perfectly correct recitation by one pupil of the list of Minor Prophets of the Old Testament with the abrupt and categorical assertion: “There are no minor prophets!” The priest-teacher of this class was understandably offended at this seeming disparagement of his teaching authority, but probably to this day the students remember this strange disruption of the normal catechism “categories,” and possibly a few of them understood the message which Archbishop John tried to convey: with God all prophets are great, are “major,” and this fact is more important than all the categories of our knowledge of them, however valid these are in themselves. In his theological writings and sermons also, Archbishop John often gives a surprising turn to his discourse which uncovers for us some unexpected aspect or deeper meaning of the subject he is discussing. It is obvious that for him theology is no mere human, earthly discipline whose riches are exhausted by our rational interpretations, or at which we can become self-satisfied “experts, “-but rather something that points heavenward and should draw our minds to God and heavenly realities, which are not grasped by logical systems of thought.” (Archbishop John Maximovitch: The Orthodox Veneration of Mary the Birthgiver of God )
When it comes to poetry and the English Pantheon of that genre, I guess that there’s no theologically based dispute about those considered minor poets and those that we refer to as the silver poets of the sixteenth century. I wonder what Chidi thinks about that. Well, who was it that said, “Poet is priest”? so, Chidi is a poet, is a priest. Some of his poetic thoughts are indeed poetic prayers.
But it is the miracle cure, the vaccine that can wipe out the coronavirus, that we are all praying for and in this instance, “all” means the Jews, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Mormons, the morons, even the atheists are praying that GOD will empower a scientist, a poet or a priest to come up with a vaccine ( Just imagine if Pastor Adeboye were to say “ God has given me the formula for the vaccine! Even Trump would be begging him for it…
Likewise, Bishop Sam Zuga should be making Nigeria famous by now and Brother Buhari should be sending everybody to him…
The approach to the coronavirus varies from country to country. What we have in common is the fear of death, the end of all enjoyment as we know it, and for the religious people, what may await us in the hereafter. The unbelievers don’t worry about that and that’s why they want all the enjoyment here and now, not later, after death.
Sweden which unlike Nigeria is not a particularly religious country has its own unique strategy for fighting the coronavirus. A complete lockdown is out of the question, that would be too totalitarian - but if that is going to be a future option, I don’t think that the military and the police would have to be out monitoring every street corner to enforce compliance as would be more likely to occur in Nigeria. This is probably because, unfortunately, unlike Sweden, Nigeria is far from being a digitalised society and the information age has not yet arrived in Nigeria. Over here we are being overwhelmed with information on what to do what not to do – my Better Half and I have been holed up at home for two weeks now. We have been out for long walks a couple of times – in the woods - and of course, when we see other people approaching, we have crossed the street to keep a safe 2 meters distance between them and us. It’s boiling down to the “survival of the fittest”
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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM
That "minor poet", "silver poet" and may be "gold poet" categorization is subjective. It depends on who is doing the categorization.
CAO.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Mazi Chidi Anthony Opara,
Another lockdown: Lock all the Gates
If It depends on who is doing the categorization, then whether it is beauty queens, the great African music, philosophy or poetry, the Swedish Academy and the Nobel Prize for Literature etc., it will always be subjective, no matter what the criteria of greatness could be.
Would you also say that if the Almighty (Hashem) is the Judge, then He is also only being “subjective”?
Well, He says that Moses is the greatest of the Hebrew prophets, and it is written in the Torah: Devarim 34 : 10 – 12 // Deuteronomy 34 : 10 - 12 :
“ And there was no other prophet who arose in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, as manifested by all the signs and wonders, which the Lord had sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and all his servants, and to all his land, and all the strong hand, and all the great awe, which Moses performed before the eyes of all Israel.”
I have said this many time in this forum, about the Blessings on the Haftarah.
So, it’s one more time Sam:
1. He (the Almighty) “granted His flow of prophecy
to His treasured splendrous people.
In Israel, none like Moses arose again –
a prophet who perceived His vision clearly.
God gave His people a Torah of truth,
by means of His prophet, the most trusted of His household.
God will never amend nor change His law
for all eternity, for any other one...”
(According to the Siddur notes on the above “God revealed His will
through His prophets. “Like Moses” - Moses' prophecy is peerless,
otherwise, another “prophet” could conceivably challenge or amend it,
thus, challenging the authenticity of the Torah”
2. “The theme of the Haftarah blessings is the integrity of the
prophets and their teachings. Even when it is their mission to
criticize and threaten, they are good to the Jewish people. Also, they
are chosen because they are good people: learned, righteous,
impressive, etc. Our tradition does not accept prophets who are lacking
in any of the attributes of Jewish greatness.”
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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM
Michael Afolayan
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
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