By Barbara
Fitz Vroman
I would like to introduce you to Oluwadahunsi.
The name is almost unpronounceable for someone who has not heard it spoken. It is mystic
and mysterious. Who and what is named Oluwadahunsi? Who is this man with a name like a poem?
First of all I will tell you that Oluwadahunsi can never be grasped. He is full of
wisdom and seeming contradictions, though actually he has none. His work invites you to go to a place where you have no contradictions,
as well. He preferred not to send a picture so below is the cover of one of his books instead.
Olwadahunsi’s book Little Pieces of Heaven, like the
illustration on his cover, draws you into the white light within you. It is a book not to be gobbled or set aside after a
quick reading. It consists of a series of aphorisms. Though Oluwadahunsi has a fierce Christian faith, it is almost like
having your own Buddhist master to hand you one koan after another. Each “little piece” seems to be a simple pronouncement
of wisdom, but many are like a rubic cube that has to be turned this way and that because it not only instructs, but it challenges.
Do I really believe this? Is this true?
A few illustrations: The beauty of a thing is not in how it looks but how it
is treated. At first that seems a simple and true enough statement, but it is the “how it is treated”
phrase that begins to demand greater attention. Does that mean that if you take a horny old crocodile and you declare it a
God and induce people to worship it that it will become beautiful? Is everything already beautiful depending on how we see
and treat it? What is ugly in my life that I could make beautiful by the way I treated it? etc. His aphorisms have a way of
beginning to bend one’s mind, to lead to contemplation.
Another example: Love is always good. Well sure, of course, and then
oops there comes that bend again. Is it? What about smother love? What about illicit love that destroys a family? He forces
you to take nothing for granted. Then you find yourself thinking that smother “love” is really jealousy and illicit
love may be lust and so maybe the aphorism is true after all.
Beware the crutch of prayer! He who spends his day saying “I’m
praying. I’m praying” is talking to himself.
I’ll let you wrestle with that one yourself. St. Paul said, “Pray without
ceasing”, but here is this devout and burning Christian advising us to look deeper into what prayer means. What is real
prayer? What sort of contemplations does that arise in your mind?
Lots of my students tell me that as writers they like to have assignments that spark
their creativity and encourage them to write something they would never have thought of otherwise. It occurs to me that for
a writer, Oluwadahunsi’s book offers 528 themes to write about. Can you think up plots, stories, poems that would occur
from contemplation of the above themes? Of course you can. Below is his bio and you can find out more about him on his
web-site www.mybookoflife.org He has written an essay about facing the special fears that confront a writer, which will be our lead story for the
June issue of The Writers Round Table.
Barbara Fitz Vroman
