The Choirmaster: Honey, I'm a Priest

“Honey, I’m a priest; I wash my hands with sin, stuff my pillow with sin, and rest my foot on dark sin. They ordained me to walk among sinners, eat with them, sing with them, dance with them, and still come out praising God. I’ll attend the Calebs’ party. I’ll not spoil Jane’s day. After that, my destination will be Michael and Eva’s home, if they’re still together. Do you want to join me, dear?”

“I don’t want to be intoxicated on palace wine. Moreover, unlike you, a priest, I’ve no insurance against sin.”

“Well, the Cross is your insurance.”

“I don’t want to be like Disciple Peter who overexposed himself and denied Christ, thrice, as a result. Honey, if you choose to explore the muddy waters of Mud Valley, I’ll escape with my children. They’re beginning to ask questions, hear things from their friends, and talk their language.”

“You’re becoming a bigot, honey.”

“No. It’s about 2 Corinthians 6:14. You’re trained to handle the hazards, my children aren’t.”

Joseph R. Alila, The Choirmaster (A Spiritual Tragedy).

The Choirmaster (A Spiritual Tragedy),

By Joseph R. Alila

ISBN-13: 978144992798-1

This novel is not an easy spirit-lifting book to read. It is captivating if you’re attracted to the drama of human life; it may be repulsive if you already are wired to praise theology. The novel is full of imperfect tragic individuals in a church; that is why it’s a spiritual tragedy. Hard as it is to read, it teaches about leadership and how not to lead a people in search of a moral path; it is about human sin. Go ahead and read it; it could be about you and me—two imperfect people in an imperfect world. You’ve issues with sin? So am I, and so does your pastor or priest. A church is a house of sinners who are full of some Hope in the Cross, but most of whom still falter along the winding path up the mount because they keep dragging their heavy earthly baggage along, believing that there is a place for material wealth and power in the journey. That is the tragedy. That is what The Choirmaster reveals.

“The Choirmaster” addresses human folly and moral weaknesses—small errors that translate into corrupting moral rot when allowed to fester. This book is about the ways of the rich and powerful except the setting is a church in the idyllic enclave of Mud Valley, and the protagonists and antagonists are the church members.

The principal folly by the powerful church board—a body seeded by the rich and powerful of Mud Valley—is the belief that errors whitewashed and left uncorrected are a favor to the powerful sinner and the church whose images thus remain perfect.

Then there is the folly that the choirmaster is a man of God with superhuman musical talents; a moneymaker, and soul winner, whose services to the church at Mud Valley are indispensible. The church forgets that this larger than life individual is at the core a child. The choirmaster, the subject of every spinster’s wild imagination, becomes every mother-in-law’s imagination and soon he is every elder’s imagination. They forget that Michael the Choirmaster is a mere child who still needs molding, nurturing for good spiritual growth; a child who still needs to play among his youthful equals; who doesn’t need the elaborate dinner-settings every other day—all aimed at winning over to a particular spinster.

Add to the fact that Mud Valley was conceived on moral quicksand—a city with a history of sexual oddities; a city in which each family had to change its surname in attempts to break away from its sinful past, then we meet Mud Valley Church—a church unwilling to speak to any truth on any matter and dismisses any pastor who speaks to the rot in its sinful past. Mud Valley Church has wealth, yet it’s poor in all that matters for her mission to save souls—love and spiritual leadership. In Mud Valley Church, a rich woman steals another woman’s husband and the pastor blesses the move and the church choir sings to the robber’s praise. No wonder, few pastors set their roots in Mud Valley Church.

But nothing is new in this book that humanity hasn’t seen: there are powerful women who’d put Eve of Eden to shame; these are women who get their ways whatever what. Mud Valley is a community in which the moral miscues we shrink at are laundered in public and partied over.

There are a few people with the guts to challenge their situation: There is Ezekiel, a fallen man who rises to the occasion when sin must be called sin, but he dies as a casualty of his past moral burdens; there is Eva the victim who refuses to keep quiet and shouts when Jane (a woman from the house of rich Caleb) robs her of her husband (the Choirmaster) and one Saul robs her of her decency. Talk of Pastor David, a man who has taken it upon himself to seek the truth, even if he has to study Mud Valley Genealogy to get there. Not all hope is lost in Mud Valley.

http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-R.-Alila/e/B002QD5TDM

The Thirteenth Widow (A Novel): The Story (Part 2)

You, Tom Okoth, accepted your new circumstance as a two-woman man, and you drowned the sounds of protests and disagreements from your friends and family in alcohol and more alcohol, and before you knew it, waking up in houses of widows, near and distant, became a habit; before you knew it, waking up in emergency wards with stitches across your face became normal; before you knew, it inheriting widows became a habit; before you knew it missing school became a habit. With a few years you lost your job: first as the headmaster of Soko Intermediate School, then as a teacher. Chief Omolo, your “friend,” chaired the school board that sacked you. At a local bar, he fed you some beer then hired a cyclist to drop you somewhere behind your home. What a fried you had in Chief Omolo! You left home the day after, never to return for another three years!

You never returned home the day after the sack, not because of your shame as the man and headmaster of a school who had drunk away his job, but because you met a jewel bedecked, pearly mermaid in a Homa Bay hotel. Yes, you met the mythical mermaid, except yours was not a myth. She was a real woman with flesh and blood: She was intelligent, ingenious, and beautiful, and apparently wealthy. That was your mermaid. The morning after you met, you thought she was not real; she had suited you and dumped thousands of shillings on you. Her name was Luna Green. She hence gave you the name Mr. Tom Green. You were her new husband, and more. You had found yourself in Luna’s arms in a classy hotel in Homa Bay, where you’d landed the day after the sack, having filed an appeal against your dismissal by your school’s board at Ndhiwa KNUT (your local teaching trade union) office. Well, you had filed your case, then visited Homa Bay to drown your shame—once and for all—in the may many bars in town. Then you met the mermaid known as Luna Green. By midmorning of the morrow, you (now Mr. Tom Green) were touring the waters of Lake Victoria in Luna’s personal motorized boat, The MV Lunar Rock.

A week later into the whirlwind of a tour, dazed, dazzled and believing that you’d met a mermaid out of the Lolwe, you wedded Luna or she married you (if you get my Luo sense of the verb ”marry”) in Ahero Town—some bishop presiding. A day later, you were in a dreamy mansion in Ngong—that famous land of the Maasai. You would lead a dreamy three-year life as the husband of Luna the Gemstone dealer. By the end, that came, suddenly, you’d a degree in business administration.

Then your life with the gem dealer known as Mrs. Luna Green came to a screeching halt, when she disappeared while in advanced pregnancy with your child. Within a short order you watched and listened as Green Gems Inc crumbled. The mansion you called yours was put on sale by creditors of Green Gems Inc. Apparently still controlling events from her hideout, Luna, willed that you be paid 39000 shillings, and that you left home immediately. In no way were you to leave with any other clothes except the ones on your back.

Scared, you scampered off with your life after a brief enquiry with Nairobi Police let you know that there was no person in Kenya known as Luna Green or Tom Green. Even you didn’t exist. If you had suspected that Luna was a genie or mermaid, you’d no more reason to doubt. You’d be back to Korondo Village to your longsuffering wife and your children, never to use the name Tom Green again. In three years, you, Tom Okoth, had travelled to hell and heaven and back to another round in hell!

(To be continued).

JR Alila's Luo Dreamers' Odyssey: A Novel For the Moment

THE MAN, A BLACK MAN, sat behind the Ageless Desk, reading from a pile of odd news clips that the web-crawling boys and girls of the Communications and Propaganda Bureau had fed him earlier that morning. He scribbled remarks and question marks around the paragraphs as he read a publication titled One Man’s Improbable Journey, which had summarized the circumstances of his history-making political feat. His morning reading completed, he picked up a basketball ball from a six-ball rack he kept by his side and threw it effortlessly into a practice bin set five yards away at a corner of the office. Satisfied, he reached for a world map, a ‘globe,’ on his desk, turned it anticlockwise and stopped with his left fourth-finger pointing at a spot near Juba in southern Sudan. He visibly shuddered with his finger still on the volatile region of Sudan. With tremulous hands, he traced a direct line from Juba to Kisumu, Kenya, and continued his trace to Nairobi, then stopped for a minute of meditation. Remembering that his Kenyan father wasn’t alive to celebrate his triumph, his left eye betrayed a teardrop.

Reining in the sudden bubbling of emotion, the man turned the globe clockwise as he traced a line from Nairobi, Kenya, to Anchorage, Alaska, symbolically re-enacting, in spirit, his late father’s flight in what Kenyan historians call ‘Mboya Student Airlifts,’ and the Americans call ‘Kennedy Airlifts.’ He stopped in a reverential pose, remembering that he was a product of the airlifts, and that both of his parents never lived long enough to witness his history-making triumph.

Turning the globe anticlockwise, he traced a line from Anchorage, Alaska to Omaha, Nebraska, his political home base, then onward to Washington, D.C., the seat of world power, and stopped. Lowering his head, the man volunteered a silent prayer “Lord, give me the wisdom to know Your will; give me the power to execute Your will; give me the courage to stand with the weak and poor; give me the voice to speak against evil; Lord, protect me from my desires; Lord protect me from my friends.”

That the words “Your will” had come from his mouth surprised him—a man not known for much religious fervor. Even if he had any guilt on his tongue, the words IN GOD WE TRUST that greeted his eyes from a polished brass plaque before him—reminding him that he was the President of the United States of America—assuaged him.

Standing up, he picked up a second ball and executed another scoring throw, inhaled deeply, and then said in an emotion-filled whisper, “I’m one damned lucky black man.” Again, the man known for his cold detachment while under pressure betrayed another teardrop. The frequent welling up of emotion that morning surprised him. It was unlike him, the man who joked that among his Luo people, men don’t shed tears at funerals; they don’t wail either, they sing war songs instead.

Any observer watching that morning would have taken the seven-feet-tall man to be a volunteering-basketball superstar grading mediocre sophomore essays in a middle school. But this was President Hank Hassan Ajwang’, a black man from Alaska, the first black President of the United States of America. Ajwang’ was on his first full day at work in the Oval Office.

The man had watched him that morning. Ziki, the White House Chief of Staff, had wished to see the president, but had retreated on realizing that his charge was in a prayerful mood. Something about the scene had bothered him: the president was tense, even using the globe as a prayer-aid. As Ziki retreated to his office, he gave the man he now served as White House Chief of Staff a knowing bye on sanity. Ziki rationalized that even the unflappable Ajwang’ had the right to feel overwhelmed by the challenges promised by the Presidency of the United States of America.

There had been challenges along the way: the toil of a two-year campaign, and the unusual odds that had marked Ajwang’s candidacy.

Ziki, who had served as Hassan Ajwang’s Communications Director during the campaigns, understood the broiling public scrutiny his boss had endured, and he knew the toil in emotions the up-and-downs of the campaigns had exerted on his man. Then there were the toxic myths and innuendos to have visited his candidate under the glare of the insatiable 24/7 instant news cycle, fired by the intrusive electronic mass communication media of the day.

Retreating back to his office, Ziki rambled in his heart, “Give the man a break; he was the unlikely candidate, who beat all the adversities put on his path, to become the President of the United States of America. Let him pray in whatever way, in whatever language, and for as long as he likes, on this first day at work. He needs it before he confronts the mounting uncertainty in the world. If he breaks a glass window in the Oval Office with an angry basketball, the taxpayers can pay.”

Sure, President Hank Hassan Ajwang’ had come to power in a world at war, and during a period of worldwide hunger. He took his oath as the leader of a world under great economic distress worldwide.

In Kenya, the land of his late father, hunger stalked mothers and their children as cornmeal disappeared from the shelves—thanks to a mushrooming cabal of virtual briefcase millers overnight—and whenever cornmeal was found, it was more expensive than meat. In Zimbabwe, political leaders still held the people hostage, as mothers scavenged for wild roots and herbs to feed their emaciated babies. In the Middle East, Gaza was a city under rubble and rot, thanks to an on-and-off battle between two cousins fighting for land. In Congo, Darfur, and Somalia, women and children hadn’t known peace in generations, as women continued to bear their sons in chaos, some of whom married amid chaos and died amid chaos. In Rome, Paris, Berlin, Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York, Moscow, and London, the stock markets had collapsed, turning royalty and millionaires into paupers, overnight.

Yet the world had welcomed Ajwang’s Presidency in fetes and balls because in him desperate mothers saw the hope of their infants, and millionaires saw the security of their gold and diamonds; the world celebrated his triumph because it was as historical as it was improbable.

Ajwang’s election to the office of President of the United States of America was as odd a chance as the sun rising from the west, to paraphrase a Luo dream. Here were the odds: Fact, six hundred years before, his Luo people had no permanent homeland; they were semi-nomadic clans fighting their way out of the Sudan southward along the shores of the River Nile, as they searched for the next suitable land and pasture for their cattle. Fact, six hundred years before, his American ancestors were still in Europe; six hundred years before, Columbus and other seafaring nuts, were not born yet. Fact, when Ajwang’s father left Kenya in late 1950s to study in the United States of America, the East African Nation was still a British Colony.

Fact: no black man before him ever held the seat in America—a majority-white country that had enslaved black generations before him.

So even in twenty-first-century America, Ajwang’s victory had busted long-held myths and attitudes on race and political leadership. That he won by a landslide meant that the electorate had seen him through a social prism that filtered off race, and left only the person and his word. His victory meant that the electorate had peeled and examined him, layer-by-layer, and reduced him in their minds to the essence of what man is, which is the quality and worth of his words.

That he was born in the faraway State of Alaska among people who played by their own rules of existence, was an extra hurdle he had to surmount in order to reach the hearts and souls of the majority mainland American electorate. Ajwang’s hurdle was the higher, given that his father was an alien, a Luo, born in Africa. In the minds of the pundits of his nation, he had too fresh an association with aliens to become the President of the United States of America.

When his pundits from the Caucasian side of his ancestry were through with analyzing him, new and unexpected hurdles would pop up on his political path—these were hurdles in apathy and doubts among his brethren of color. There were whispers of discomfort with his candidacy in churches, barbershops, and salons patronized by his brethren of color. Their concerns were of two types: First, was Hassan Ajwang’ like them at a human level? Was he black physically and mentally? Did he think like them? Did he suffer their pain, given that none in his known lineage ever experienced slavery as its subjects?

Second, was the political reality check: Would the young man from Omaha, Nebraska, lead the charge and bear the heavy burden to fulfill Dr. King’s Dream? That was the big question in every black person’s mind. They also had doubts about Ajwang’ because past politicians of color had tried and come far short in their courtship of the presidency. Was the relatively young, soft-spoken poet, and community activist, from Omaha, Nebraska, made of the tempered steel required for the tough fight ahead of him? These questions bothered every man and woman of color in barbershops and salons nationwide.

Ajwang’s brothers and sisters of color were also challenging him publicly to discard his intellectual nuance, and sharpen the edge of his poetry to the point where these brethren would say Amen at every stanza, even if he did so at the risk of alienating his white constituency.

In churches, barbershops, and salons in the land, Ajwang’s brethren of color had wondered aloud as to whether he would prevail in his presidential quest in a land in which subtle and obvious racial schisms still existed, and social integration was still a work in progress. They wondered aloud as to whether the soft-spoken poet and lawmaker from Omaha, with neither the fire-spitting tongue of a rap star nor the damning quotes of a religious preacher, was the man to deliver them to the shore yonder.

Ajwang’ would prove them wrong. The allure of his soft poetry would win where his brethren of color had demanded fiery rap rhymes. Ajwang’ would sit at the citadel of world power—a power on wings; a power greater than the one, which his fifteenth-century ancestor, namesake, and fellow dreamer, Ajwang’ the Dreamer, was shown.

Yes, Hank Hassan Ajwang’ was a damned lucky black man.

Just when President Ajwang’ started to wonder why the Chief of Staff hadn’t bothered him with the day’s public agenda, there was a knock on the door.

“Mr. President, do you’ve a moment?”

“Of course, Mr. Chief of Staff,” President Ajwang’ responded without any complaint for having been distracted from an interesting line of thought. "The First Lady of the United States of the United States is here to see you in her role as a public advocate for White House Staff.”

“What is amiss on Day One? Jeez! Ziki, hold her off a minute as I put on my jacket,” the president said before adding, “Tim, I want you to read this essay once every week for the next four years. Pass it around to all of my staff; it should act as a constant reminder of the improbability of our journey as an administration headed by one lucky black man kept sane in the hands of a wonderful First Lady, who happens to be black, too. Ziki, we promised the people gold and diamonds; the people expect nothing less!”

“Mr. President, with due respect, the campaigns are over. It is time to govern, and you won’t run a country by listening to every rant off the blog.”

“Mr. Chief of Staff, I just gave you the First Presidential Order to execute; the year two-thousand-and-twelve is less than four years away.”

“Order received, Sir!”

“Tim, this one is easy to do: I need a real basketball net installed at that corner.”

“Mr. President, you want to trash the Oval Office?”

“Tim, do your job, which includes keeping the president sane.”

Just then, The First Lady of the United States strode into the Oval Office.

“Good morning, gentlemen!” said The First Lady of the United States.

,p>“Tim, excuse us,” the president ordered his Chief of Staff.

“He beat me to your office, Mr. President?” said The First Lady of the United States.

“Well, he’s the Chief of Staff.”

“The power structure has to change in this place.”

“The roles are contained . . .”

“Sh . . . !”

“Why did you do that? There is a video feed from this office.”

“Have a good day, Mr. President. Some overworked White House Staffer won’t scoop The First Lady of the United States in this place. By the way, your good friend, the Chief of Staff, bribed the cameras,” Linda Ajwang’, The First Lady of the United States, said and left the oval office.

“Jeez! Who knew that the woman, who beat me up at my own game, and secured me within my own skin twenty years ago, would be the first black First Lady of the United States of America?” the president whispered to himself in reference to an event that had changed his life, and made him secure in his own black skin. Until then, he had been chasing after a nonexistent, metaphorical white woman, who only existed in his dreams. On that day two decades before in Omaha Central Park, Omaha, Nebraska, one clever black woman caught his wandering spirit and wouldn’t let go until she successfully had guided him into the house of power and pearls.

The new leader of the free world put the romantic thoughts behind him, and for the second time that morning, stared at the bust of his favorite past President, posted at a corner of his desk. After some five minutes of reflection on the life and times of his political idol, he whispered, “Abe, how were you able to balance your life as a President? How were you able to hold a national crisis in one hand and creativity in the other, and still follow the desires of your heart and the rigors of family life?”

Just then, two courting doves in beak-to-tail formation made two quick diving passes by his window, reminding the president of what is socially common among animal species, namely, language of communication, active relationships, play, and procreation.

A knock on the door, brought the president back to the present.

“Mr. President, The First Lady of the United States of the United States will be receiving her neighbors in a few minutes,” announced the president’s Personal Assistant.

“O tradition! I’ll be out in a minute, Sam!”

How did a black man from Alaska become the first black President of the United States of America at a time of great military and economic perils worldwide?

Destiny.

Hassan Ajwang’s story was part of a long tale, which had journeyed across the globe, traveled some tortuous six-hundred years, outlasted colonization and human bondage, and brought down many racial barriers.

Six hundred years ago in the Sudan, Ajwang’s black ancestors were nomadic people following the Nile, inching incrementally southward ahead of the encroachment of the Sahara against their livestock. Their flight south would be hastened by a new threat in a new religion and complicated by internal family conflicts.

Leading and guiding the flight south were men who rose to the occasion and acted when the challenges of their times demanded courage, and challenged personal honor, common wisdom, and established tradition. The mention of their names sent shivers down the spines of fellow men. Each would etch an indelible mark on their time, and leave permanent footprints for fellow men to follow.

Leading in the odyssey out of the old Sudan was a dreamer, a nomad, a man of the wild, a man of rare wisdom, a man named Ajwang or Ramogi. Ramogi (the wrestler) was a man guided by his dreams, a man of courage, who never blinked at danger, and the father of all Luo nations, from Sudan to Tanzania.

Hassan Ajwang’ would live the dreams of his famous Luo ancestor. Though Hassan Ajwang’ was born to meager resources, he would be schooled in the Athenian tradition, would volunteer in the service of the poor, but he now mingles and dines with the rich of his time; he’s a man for the times, who wields Spartan Power in his hands and debates doubters at the Citadel.

His Luo people call him The Ajwang’. In their minds, he’s the promise in their long and storied journey that dates back six centuries. They see in him their rendezvous with destiny, and a prophecy fulfilled, and not just a historical accident.

There was a dream and there were many dreamers.

Source: Joseph R. Alila's "THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY: From the Sudan to American Power."

ISBN 13: 9781441483119.

http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-R.-Alila/e/B002QD5TDM

MAYA, Joseph R Alila, author of “Birthright (a Luo Tragedy),” brings yet another narrative about the lives of ordinary people with human flaws, from which each of them can only run away, or ignore, at his or her own peril. Maya Boone faces a legal quandary over a death she has witnessed from her hideout on Eagle Street, Harmony, New York. First, she watches Raul, the troublesome husband from whom she is hiding, kill a bulldog. When Maya crosses Eagle Street to inquire whether the dog’s owner (Mike) is suing Raul, she instead falls in love with the heartbroken man, lures him to her bed, and even contemplates witnessing against Raul. The brief affair ends quickly because Mike becomes a victim to an enraged boyfriend’s arrow of passion. Wounded and helpless, Mike falls into the hands of a moonlighting evangelist named Booker who has a score to settle with him. There is no mercy for Mike, only a slow death, because Booker wishes to maintain his cover while moonlighting at Bar Delirium. With Mike dead, Maya’s distant past soon confronts her because, also witnessing the events leading to the murder on Eagle Street is Officer Jimmy Depuy—a child Maya abandoned at birth forty years before. Neither Raul nor Maya nor Officer Depuy knows about their shared bond. Then one Detective John unearths the blood knot linking Jimmy Depuy to the Rauls, and soon District Attorney Hess is advancing criminal motives against the trio. In MAYA, JR Alila weaves yet another intricate narrative that should appeal to those readers who seek to understand, in human character, matters beyond the mundane of daily life.

The Milayi Curse (a Novella)

In The Milayi Curse, Joseph R. Alila (the Author of “Sunset on Polygamy”) tells a story about a centuries-old conflict between two ancestral cousins, the Jamokos and Milayis, both members of the Jokamilayi—a fictional Luo (Kenyan) clan. The conflict is of a spiritual as well as social nature, with one early Christian Priest (Father James O’Kilghor) struggling to make sense of an alien culture and reconcile the Jokamilayi. It is a tale about spirituality, honor, betrayal, pride, poverty, wealth and uneasy kinship in fast-changing times, with Christianity and formal education breaking class barriers, bursting myths, and “turning things upside down.” Poor Charles Milayi graduates out of middle school with excellent grades. Just when his widowed mother (Consolata Milayi) has lost hope of her gifted son ever stepping into a high school, he becomes a beneficiary of “a secret enemy hand of providence” only known to Father James. Father James protects the identity of Milayi’s benefactor because a Jamoko publicly sponsoring a Milayi child could unsettle many souls on either side of the unhealthy blood divide in Jokamilayi, more so because the benefactor’s son (Thomas Jamoko) cannot graduate out of middle school. Charles Milayi excels in his studies, joins college, and becomes a lawyer, a businessperson, and a cabinet minister. Having broken through the economic class barrier, Charles marries none other than the Prime Minister’s daughter. However, back home, Hon. Milayi’s people remain bitterly divided along bloodlines, thanks to the century-old curse with origins in old wars, pillage of war spoils, and ancestral wealth. The so-called “Milayi curse” feeds a social schism and spiritual war blamed on the unsettled spirit of a fallen war hero named Milayi Raburu. The endless cold war among ancestral cousins has made Father James O’Kilghor’s ministry to the Jokamilayi a trying experience, even for a man known for his controversial “Africanized-evangelizing strategies” that allow active traditional priests and witch doctors to receive baptism. CreateSpace eStore: https://www.createspace.com/3448088

Birthright (A Luo Tragedy)

Literary Breakthrough:Joseph R. Alila's newest novel BIRTHRIGHT (a Luo Tragedy),ISBN 13: 978-1456382254(see here http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-R.-Alila/e/B002QD5TDM) has been adopted by an IVY League School to be part of its African Cultural Anthropology curriculum.

Birthright (A Luo Tragedy)

When you read JR Alila's novel, BIRTHRIGHT (A Luo Tragedy), you feel the pain and hear the groans of a hurting Aura, smell the refuse of a rural people, feel the shame of a father who continues to walk with a moral baggage, feel the solitude of a rogue woman who has set her son on a path to hell, empathize with a son who has been shortchanged by his father, feel the suspense felt by a young woman who is gradually sinking into a quagmire as she awaits the return of rescurer who has gone for a fishing pole, and hear the cry of angst of a young woman who realizes that the bird in her hands is untouchable, after all. That is a tragedy! READ it here: http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-R.-Alila/e/B002QD5TDM

THE CHOIRMASTER (A Spiritual Tragedy)

By Joseph R Alila

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002QD5TDM


2


A Raging Heart


Eva drove home in a dreamy state of mind. The man she had left in the hostel had remained with part of her heart. She felt in love. She had been in love before, but this one was special. She had felt secure in the presence of the stranger. If Michael had asked, “Can I marry you?” she could have responded, “Yes,” without a thought.
“Mama! Mama! I think I met my future husband!” she cried as she made her way to the kitchen where her mother was laying out the table for dinner.
“Eva?”
“Yes, Mama! I met my future husband.”
“You are not a teenager. You know the ways of all men!” Deborah warned.
“Mama, this one is special.”
“Eva, my dear, how many reliable men have you met in Mud Valley?”
“Mama, his name is Michael. He is from Tanners Valley.”
“You must have mistaken rural subservience for love, my dear. I never met a man from Tanners Valley who could hold a knife and a fork the right way. Be careful about what you are running into. Tanners Valley is a leather-tanning town. Do you know what it means to live near a tannery? It snuffs all sense of civilized behavior from a person’s head.”
“Ma!” Eva cried in anguished alarm. She realized that her mother had become what she, Eva, never imagined; her mother was a proud bigot. Her Michael did not fit the image of the dumb rural breed from a stinking leather-tanning town Deborah was trying to paint.
“Eva?”
“I am talking about the new choirmaster at Mud Valley High School. He is a Christian, I love him, and he happens to be from Tanners Valley.”
“He sounds to be a material for the choirmaster of the Youth Choir.”
“Mama, you are not being helpful. I’ll be taking him to church tomorrow. Second, I’ll bring him home to dinner tomorrow evening.”
“Eva, take that man to church tomorrow and you will have lost him. If I were you, I could have dug in my heels and hooked the fish first, before exposing him to Jane Caleb and the Jacob Twins,” Deborah said. She was talking in reference to three prominent spinsters in Mud Valley Church, who, like her Eva, were on the hunt for suitors.
“Ma, he is hooked as of now. The best you can do is to pray for us.”
“Your Michael is hooked in one day, Eva?”
“I read somewhere that if you don’t hook a fish on the first try, you won’t catch it.”
“In which pond is this fish resting tonight?”
“At the church’s Youth Hostel.”
“Eva, believe me, you lost the fish already.”
“How, Ma?”
“If Ezekiel, your supervisor at the hostel, mentions to Monica that there is a new music master headed for Mud Valley Church, Mrs. Risper Caleb would be printing dinner invitation cards for tomorrow evening.”
“Ma, I have a head start on Michael. We will be in church tomorrow. The two of us will do a duet, and I won’t move an inch from him the whole time. I’ll bring him home tomorrow evening. Never mind, I’ll do the cooking.”
“What bit you, Eva?”
“The world, Mama. Since losing Doug to that loser whose name I can’t pronounce, I learnt my lessons. This one is a heart I must protect.”

The following morning, Eva took Michael to church. Nobody appeared to have noticed him until Elder Ezekiel, who was leading the services, asked, “Do we have any first-time guests?”
Michael was among the three guests in church on that Sabbath. There was a husband-wife pair from a distant province too. Elder Ezekiel introduced the couple first. The woman explained that they were retirees born in Mud Valley and were thinking of returning to their roots.
Elder Ezekiel introduced Michael as the new music teacher at Mud Valley High School, and that he came from family of lay evangelists. “Michael, stand up so that your sisters in Christ can see you.”
Michael stood up, then Eva stood next to him saying, “Michael and I will do a duet from the Hymnal.”
They walked up to the front and sang Just As I Am. Michael’s baritone was adorable. They sang so well that by the last stanza, the whole congregation stood up to sing with them. Then they were greeted with Amens.
At the end of the Sabbath, the Choir Director was enlisting Michael for a role in training the church choir.
“Caleb, you must invite Michael for dinner soonest possible,” Mrs. Risper Caleb said, entering the Treasury, where Caleb was tallying the day’s collections.
“Why the hurry, Honey?” Elder Caleb asked, yet he understood why Risper was in a hurry to invite the new school choirmaster home. He understood that Eva’s manipulation of the situation to her advantage had raised the ire of Risper, his wife, who had been working too hard to get Jane, their only daughter, a suitable husband.
“You ask ‘Why the hurry,’ Dear? Are you blind? Didn’t you see what the Joseph daughter just did?”
“I see. Can we discuss this later at home?”
“Mama, Dad, I am on my way home,” Jane announced, opening the door.
“Have you greeted Michael already?”
“Ma, please, I’m not cheap!”
“Jenny!” Caleb whispered in suppressed anger, remembering that he was sitting next to the Sanctuary.
“I am sorry, Dad. If Michael has brains, he must be reading the tea leaves already.”
“If Michael has brains? What a choice of words, Jane. Of course he has brains. No one gets a Master’s degree in Music unless they have a lot of brains,” Risper offered an informed assessment of Michael.

Thanks to the impression Michael made on Elder Ezekiel, the latter talked about him during dinner with Saul, his son. Monica, Ezekiel’s daughter-in-law, had listened as he heaped praise on Michael’s professional, personal and ancestral pedigrees. Even though it was late in the evening, Monica’s rumor mill began to churn in earnest.
“Mrs. Caleb, Happy Sabbath,” Monica said. She had called Risper to raise an alert about Michael.
“Monica, Happy Sabbath. You sound excited.”
“There is a special young man in town, in whom Jane should be interested.”
“What kind of man is he that he should make you that excited?”
“He is single, a Christian, and well cultured in our faith. He has a degree in music.”
“What makes a man with a degree in music special, Monica?”
“How do you expect a woman to answer such a question? But he is the new music teacher at Mud Valley High School.”
“Goodnight, Monica.”
Risper had not admitted it, but her heart too was racing. She was anxious to host the new high school choirmaster even before meeting him.
“Who is that Risper?” Elder Caleb asked.
“She is Monica, dear.”
“Anything amiss?”
“No. She is reporting that there is the new choirmaster at the high school who is a member of our faith.”
“The music teacher must be a man.”
“He is a single man, dear,” Risper clarified.
“So what is the excitement about?”
“Caleb, have you stopped praying for luck to come Jane’s way?”
“I do, dear.”
“Thank you. We have to have him over for dinner, soonest possible. I don’t want to risk him associating with wrong characters before Jane interviews him.”
“I get the idea, dear,” Caleb concurred, afraid to contradict Risper on any matter about Jane.

Monica called Mrs. Rhoda Jacob next. Monica spoke for a minute, before Rhoda said “Thank you,” and hang up the phone.
“What is that Rodi?” Mr. Jacob asked from his side of the king-size bed. He was reading a passage from a Men’s Daily Devotional. The topic was “Parental Responsibility.” The example was Abram’s effort to get his son Isaac a good wife, while he, Abram, was old and far removed from his nativity (Genesis 24).
“It is Monica, dear.”
“Why do you still listen to that woman whose tongue could one day destroy our church?”
“Dear, what is the judgment for on Sabbath Eve?”
“I am sorry, but that is not the woman I want to talk to on any Sabbath eve.”
“You are still judging, dear.”
“Okay, what is she talking about?”
“There is an impressionable young man, in whom the twins could be interested.”
“Impressionable young man? He sounds cheap. Why should Mara look at him?” asked Mr. Jacob.
“Dear, wealth cannot buy a good heart,” Rhoda chastised her husband.
“I am sorry, Rodi.”
“Can we suspend this discussion about a hypothetical man we have not seen?”
“Let’s pray, Rodi,” Jacob said.

So on day one, hardly six hours since Michael’s arrival in Mud Valley, the struggle for his heart had started in earnest. He had not seen the classroom where he would teach fifth-graders music, yet his name was on the tongue of every significant family in Mud Valley. The mention of his name was causing nightmares to mothers of daughters he had not met.
At the end of day two, Michael’s melodious voice constantly rang in every spinster’s ears, and one woman named Eva was provoking the ire of other spinsters, who were grumbling, cursing, and calling for fair play.
As the head of the Youth Movement, or rather, exploiting her position as the Director of Youth, Eva took charge of Michael, who was twenty-four years old and wasn’t exactly a youth, though he found more comfort among the youth. At the end of the Sabbath, she introduced Michael to Pastor David, who had broken the spiritual bread, and Mrs. Kay David. Eva referred to Michael as “a dear friend” and “a future director of the Youth Choir,” even though the position was not open then.
Following a path of least resistance, Eva shepherded Michael out of the church. By the time Mrs. Caleb came out of her husband’s office, Michael had gone.
Eva drove Michael to her mother’s house, where she cooked dinner for him before taking him back to the hostel, late in the night.
So far Eva was a step ahead of the other spinsters. But time would tell as to how long she would maintain her advantage. So far she was happy to be the hand that made sure that the single man ate properly. Eva promised in her heart to keep him engaged, help him settle down, and make sure he was supplied adequately with essentials.
In addition, Eva made sure that Michael was in church from where she could monitor the activities of rival forces around him. She would continue to be close enough to him, not only to keep the gossip going, but also to make others really uncomfortable. But she promised that she would not be the one to propose to him.
That had been Eva’s resolve, eleven years back, before other characters joined her to create the story ahead; that was Eva before Michael was a music superstar; that was Eva before Michael became her husband; that was Eva before the world played its dirty hand against her; that was Eva before she met and knew a snake known as Saul; that was Eva before Elder Ezekiel overplayed his hand and revealed his sordid past.

JR Alila Books

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002QD5TDM

The American Polygamist

When Chief Chuki gets entangled in a business deal with rival Goldian Army Generals, he finds himself held hostage in a land in which he is revered. Yet even with his proximity to the wheels of power on both sides of the pond, he cannot shout for help because of the desire to keep his good name. Second, his Goldian wife has delivered a son and uses the unique circumstances of his captivity to demand part of his wealth in exchange for his freedom and her silence over his marital status.

Now, a desire for secrecy demands that Chuki engages the expertise of a fellow Iraqi War I Veteran and his high-tech buddies, who have created a lucrative business niche negotiating the release of Western hostages from the high-risk world of African warlords, terrorists, and sea pirates.

In THE AMERICAN POLYGAMIST (ISBN-13: 144992798-1) , J.R. Alila weaves a story with many twists and turns as family betrays family, honor is traded for wealth and an honorable man becomes a prisoner of his own secrets.

Enter Chuki’s American wife, Patty, who suspects that he has at least one African wife and child in Africa. Mrs. Patty Chuki is ready to revisit old Brooklyn-High-School romance with a Major Frank to get to the truth while in a Harvard reunion with her billionaire husband in the Masai Mara. But will Admiral Ndeki of Goldian Navy let Patty taste the forbidden fruit in peace in Nairobi?

COMING SOON at:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002QD5TDM

www.createspace.com/3413870