It may take Father Vincent “Udo” Ogbuji longer than the rest of us to do some things in this world — walking leaps to mind, thanks to the 2007 car crash that almost killed him — but writing books isn’t one of them.
Less than two months after his first book “The Peace I Know” was released in February, Father Ogbuji is already three chapters deep into its follow-up.
“I envision this as a series,” he said. “The second one is called ‘The Love I Know’. I’d tell you what it’s about, but I think I’d rather you be surprised when it is finished.”
It wouldn’t be first surprise Father Ogbuji has been a part of in his budding life as a writer. For starters, he hated school as a boy in Nigeria until a teacher shocked him by awakening a love of literature, particularly Aristotle, Orwell and Shakespeare.
Then there was the matter of not having the hand strength to write or type in the conventional manner. As a result, the 300-plus page “The Peace I Know” was, in a very real sense of the word, painstakingly entered into Father Ogbuji’s Blackberry.
“I had been typing my thoughts and devotions into my Blackberry and then I would e-mail them to myself,” he said. “One day, a friend told me since I had so much saved already I should just go ahead and put it into a book.”
Those snippets became the beads through which Father Ogbuji strung the narrative of “The Peace I Know.” While not a biography, it draws heavily from the various stages of his upbringing, his vocation and his path back from the crash that nearly took his life.
The theme — peace can be divined from suffering; in fact, it is in these times that we are nearest to Christ who suffered for all.
The moral? That was another surprise.
Lost for how to complete the work, Father Ogbuji celebrated Mass at Holy Angels Convent, where he has been assigned since 2010. As he read of Jesus silencing the doubting Thomas, the words took on new substance.
“In the Gospel, Jesus came to the apostles and said ‘Peace be with you,’ and he showed them his hands and the nail marks,” he said. “I began to think why he did that. The apostles recognized him, he didn’t have to show them his hands. And it came to me that every gesture Jesus makes has a deeper meaning and when he showed them his hands, it was to say that to accept peace, you also have to accept your cross.”
His prepared homily gone by the boards, Father Ogbuji preached his newfound understanding on the spot. And, he said, “There was the ending to my book.”
Acclaim for the work has come swiftly. Some readers describe laughing, of tears running down their face and how he captured his authentic voice, which, as any writer will tell you, is no easy trick.
“My first draft was so abstract. I wrote like a philosopher,” he said. “A good friend of mine read it and asked me ‘Who is your audience?’”
“I said, ‘You.’” A laugh, then, “We went back to the drawing board.”
The resulting work reads like conversation with an old friend over dinner. Stories flow in an easily absorbed concoction of memories, reflection, spirituality and humor.
“Anyone who knows me knows I can’t go five minutes without laughing,” Father Ogbuji said. “Life is so much sweeter and so much more beautiful with laughter.
“I don’t like to bring people down, so when I wrote the heavy stuff, I imparted humor so that I could pull the reader along with me and that they would want to read to the end to get a message.”
That message is proving different for each reader. For some, it is simply a roadmap of one man’s walk on the line between life and death en route to a profound fullness of spirit. For others, it inspires deeper questions of faith and the inevitability of suffering.
Ultimately, Father Ogbuji said, the book reminds that wherever we find ourselves, it is but a way station for attaining the profound peacefulness that God wishes for us.
“You know, when you are living your life, you live it, you deal with it and you move on and you don’t have a lot of time to reflect on what you just did or what it means,” Father Ogbuji said. “The peace I have now is far more than before the accident. The bigger the cross, the more grace, the more fortitude we are given and the more peaceful we become.
“Peacefulness is the foundation for happiness. And happiness has a way of sustaining peace.”
For more information on the book and to order a copy, visit www.thepeaceiknow.com. A soft-cover book is $19.99 and the electronic version is $3.99.
