NO SATANIC POWER IS IN CHARGE

This is a rather catchy shop (actually just a roadside kiosk) name I remember from when I lived in Ghana in the late 1990s. I was recently sent a link to the site of Trevor, a Peace Corps volunteer who worked in the same town as I did, a dusty but wonderful backwater called Tumu in the Upper West region. Seeing the photos again nearly broke my heart as I miss those days so much. (Funny that, in my last months there, I was crossing the days off the calendar... See my entry on sleepwalking.)

Trevor also did a good job of collecting the shop names below, which are all genuine. I'm not sure whether the idea is to have God's blessing on the business, or whether these were just dreamt up in fits of fervour? I love the typically African juxtaposition of the spiritual and the absolutely mundane.

Bride of Christ Aluminium Works
In God We Trust Fast Food
My God Is Able Plumbing Works
God Did It All Fashion Centre
Anointed Fashion
In Step with the Spirit Enterprises
Anointed Hands Furniture Works
I Can Do All Through Christ Strengthened Me Fashions
Blood of Jesus Electricals
Lord Is My Shepherd Hotel
God Will Provide Supermarket
God's Time Barbering Shop
Jesus Is Evergreen Enterprises
God First Carwash
God Bless You Modern Fashions
Lord J Clinic

The photos are here:

Trevor’s Peace corps site

INSPIRED?

I came across this thought-provoking idea on a website about plants, amongst other things. It's a proposal for a new religion.

http://deoxy.org/t_ppp.htm

"A non-theistic mythology that inspires awe in the mysterious, reveals cosmology through science, provides social cooperation in the form of compassion and a pedagogical foundation is indeed the natural course of our development. Obviously, the myth must be simple in its minimalist form, imaginative and yet profoundly sublime."

While I don't agree it's "the natural course...", I do think the writer has made the important points about the things a post-religious society lacks. What could such a new myth consist of? Could it ever be designed, or must it just grow? Or is the whole idea misplaced?

HOW SLEEPWALKING CAME TO BE SO PAINFUL

The essentials were hatched by two of a little coven of devils working under a distant hill, moulding the fate of men from the base metal of their dark kingdom. Crouched in a hole, warming his claws against the licking flames, Verhanorath first had the idea:

“Let’s fill their idle hours with longing for the things that were and the things that can never be!”

“And let’s make sure their wisest books tell them in grave and inky words to live in the eternal moment…” added Septeroth, his green eyes glinting. “They’ll want to work on this, but we’ll make it tedious and time-consuming to master.”

“And useless,” chuckled the first, “for these fully lived days will be as spent matches to them. Not so the days they sleepwalk through: rainy October evenings, attentive lovers not appreciated, idle pavement strolls in early summer, hated lessons at school, bus journeys on streets so familiar that they've long ceased to make any impression… these are the ones that shall sting their drab hearts ever after! And they'll be counted in years."

He rubbed his talons – click click - in quiet mirth, but Septeroth looked uncertainly at the flame-lit walls and wondered if they dared let such a thing loose.