For Healing and Forgetting

Abandonment and Healing

I suppose everybody hurts in different ways, and the path to healing may never be a prescription like a pill to deal with a simple headache. Over the past year, as I have lived in the expectation of turning 60, I have also relived memories and events from my early childhood that exude all kinds of pain.

On several occasions, I have shared my experience of secondary boarding school and how the lasting impact meant I have no enduring relationships from that time, neither with friends nor teachers. Whilst there are occasional messages from old schoolmates, I received only one congratulatory message representative of my time in secondary school.

The Trauma of Boarding School

Whilst I was aware of the broader decision-making process my parents engaged in when putting me in boarding school far away from home, it was only recently that I began to appreciate some of the trauma associated with that phase of my life. The privilege of going to boarding school should not mask the lifelong consequences of that experience.

It was meant to toughen me up and give me a sense of independence, but it also destroyed my trust and willingness to confide in them about other aspects of exploitation and abuse that I had suffered before, during, and after the boarding school period. I internalised so much when I should have been screaming for help.

Even when I took therapy, it was limited to addressing the catastrophic loss of status, means, and livelihood after my first encounter with cancer. I still had to fight for that service because I presented none of the indicators of ideation that people typically display with depression or even suicide. Yet I was hurting and suffering, coping mostly through what I learnt in my religious beliefs.

Understanding Boarding School Syndrome

The psychologist Joy Schaverien, who died in 2025, described the hidden trauma from early boarding school experiences using four key elements: Abandonment (separation from parents), Bereavement (grief from loss of family), Captivity (powerless feeling in an institutional setting), and Dissociation (detaching from feelings to cope).

She termed this the ABCD of Boarding School Syndrome, though it should not be limited to the boarding school experience in England alone. I was in boarding school in Nigeria, and it extends beyond those institutional settings to family and life in general.

Abandonment came in many forms: the early months of incubation, being left with foster parents (a norm in the 1960s that acquired the term "farming"), even one 'caring' family starving me, the mental torture of being threatened with reliving a dreadful experience to buy my silence, the lack of curiosity when abuse was reported, and obviously the boarding school experience itself.

This was compounded by the refusal to bring me back after realising my coping mechanisms were highly stressed. [The Guardian: ‘Farmed’: why were so many Black children fostered by white families in the UK?]

Given time, I could develop the other elements of 'BCD', but there is enough in Abandonment to see how it can be the root of additional trauma. None of this has found any means of discussion between the affected parties, except in the catharsis of my writing over the last two decades.

Love and Protection

This is not to say that I am unloved. I am deeply loved, but trauma can set you up for feeling both unloved and unlovable. Love cannot be passive; it needs expression and the conveyance of tangibility and feeling.

Much as we do need a hedge of protection around us in all the issues of life, that hedge can easily look like prison walls, giving you the earnest desire to escape because you are caught in a claustrophobic enclosure that suffocates every facility of self-expression. Their protection becomes your prison, an overcompensation that does no one any favours.

Faith and Letting Go

In three situations, this aspect of hurt has been challenged: from preaching tapes I have listened to, in a sermon at the crossover service I attended on New Year's Eve, and from Brian. "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past." [Bible Hub: Isaiah 43:18]. You wonder, how do you let go of the past when it still has that much of a hold on you?

It involves taking your eyes off that and looking to see something else that God is trying to catch my attention with. "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." [Bible Hub: Isaiah 43:19]. This would suggest I do not need therapy, but belief, trust, and faith. A bit of empathetic counselling could help build that trust too.

Finally, much as it is difficult to explain, there is healing in reconciliation: just reconnecting and carrying on rather than raking over the coals of angst and trauma. Let God handle the broken wings, as we get beyond the narrative to become more than just Boarding School Survivors of childhood and adolescent trauma. The eagle will fly and soar again.

References

The Guardian: ‘Breaking our spirits was the plan’: the lifelong impact of having gone to boarding school

Bloomfield Health: Boarding school syndrome

LinkedIn: Boarding School Syndrome: Understanding the Hidden Trauma Behind Privileged Education

Hope Therapy and Counselling Services: Did Boarding School Shape Who You Are?

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Childhood: Concerns, memories, and traumas

Classic inadvertent abandonment

I happened upon a Facebook status at the end of last year, where there was a discussion about some parents sending their foreign-born kids back to Nigeria to apparently teach the kids discipline and resilience along with avoiding any possibility of their kids being dragged into inner city issues like drugs, gangs, and crime.

After reading some of the comments and one especially of a parent who had successfully reared kids in America and could not countenance the idea of sending their children into the care of strangers, be they relations, paid guardians, or strict/conservative boarding schools, I offered a perspective of my own experience.

The lifelong consequence

Imagine being sent from a private primary school environment with a majority international pupillage in Kaduna to a boarding school in Sagamu, Ogun State, at the age of ten. It could have been worse as I had admissions to even more remote places.

The lasting effects of that experience apart from feeling abandoned even if it helped make me both independent and resilient, not that it was unachievable at home, but my parents knew best.

As a child, I was quite outgoing, precocious, and inquisitive, with independent views. I have decidedly refused to associate with old student activities at my secondary school, nor do I retain any enduring friendships from that time. The scars are lifelong.

A rash of parental control

I suffered serious child psychological issues just months before I was shipped off and then in the first term at boarding school, that my parents' closest friends pled with them to bring me back home, those appeals fell on deaf ears, as if they had not learnt from the experiences of being placed with foster parents in England, one of such even starved me, much of that, I have blanked out of my mind.

These seemingly benign parental decisions still affect my relationship with them, and they are both octogenarians. There might be an immediate benefit to fostering your children out to strict environments, but the long-term break in the familial bonds would scarcely ever be repaired.

While there are parents who still think the boarding school experience is a rite of passage that is wholesome and germane to child development, if I was blessed with offspring, I would have totally negated some of decisions taken as part of my upbringing. I know many parents of my generation did not repeat that vicious cycle.

I speak as someone who will be fifty-nine in less than a week. I charted my own course and chose what was good for me in the scheme of things. Some memories are best left unrecalled. [This was drafted before my birthday in December 2024.]

Thought Picnic: How cancer can change stories and perspectives

How times change the context

My autobiography has been a desire to complete for over a decade, yet my mastery of short-form writing in blogs has not particularly translated into the kind of story I have wanted to tell and have hoped others would like to read. I wonder if I need to go back to school for help with this.

Until a few months ago, beyond the bifurcation of timelines identifying life before and after cancer some 15 years ago, I felt I already had a compelling tale to share. Much of it has been articulated in blogs or in conversation, but in snippets of relevance or timeliness, depending on the setting.

Then, I guess I somewhat had the thought that I might encounter cancer again, but I do not think I prepared myself for what it might be. My greater concern was with living and living well. The things I sought to give me belief, confidence, and faith revolved around having the means and capacity to do things that were the substance of dreams becoming true.

How cancer redefines priorities

However, as time moved from March into April and May where tests and scrutiny had taken an unexpected direction in the prospect that my prostate gland might be misbehaving, the context of my thinking began to shift to healing and living.

The storytelling would obviously evolve in view of these new developments. Sometimes, it is an urgency to bring to a presentable state a work worthy of publishing and then the other is wondering what other stories one should wait to tell either because it is still raw or there are expectations for which one should account for.

I take each day as it comes, blessed and thankful for the gift of life and the engine of hope that propels me beyond the things that seem both insurmountable and impossible. The tendency to measure or compare against another brings foreboding or angst is one that should be consigned to what is written in the volume of the book about me. [BibleHub: Hebrews 10:7]

For it is indeed written, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” [BibleHub: Romans 1:8]

Thought Picnic: How normalcy helps the healing process

We need something holding up

Imagine being on a boat in a storm, the boat getting battered by waves and buffeted by the winds, as long as the boat is not disintegrating, you will probably stay on the boat with the hope that you can weather the storm.

It is the same with many other situations in life, during times of fragility and vulnerability you want to know that something is constant and sturdy. You appreciate the little joys and pleasures being thankful for the snatches of happiness that come your way.

With regards to others, the desire is that they are not also falling apart just as your world seems to be falling apart, they would sometimes create the normalcy you need in support, succour, encouragement, understanding, and comfort.

Little sacrifices go a long way

Every tendency to be impulsive is put aside so as not to cause upset, offence, or rupture. Knowing that in the earthquakes of living some things are immovable given the relationships you have gives you a sense that the turmoil is limited in its range and when put in perspective, things are not as bad as they seem.

Obviously, it is a bit much to ask that others abandon their individuality and engagements for you, though some would commit to more than that to help take your mind off things, they avoid where the many minor issues when looked at together seem like a pile on of the upsetting and the consequential.

Upset and offence is easy without care

You want to ask for a small thing and hope you have been heard. Yet, human nature, in its various inclinations of satisfying lust, want, or need can come across as uncaring, wilful, obdurate, and selfish.

That minor shift becomes a major upset, and you begin to lose essential concentration on the particular because the peripheral that you hoped was unshifting has become part of the storm indistinguishable from the rest and impactful in its effect.

Probably people do not realise how significant their role is in helping maintain some normalcy for others undergoing issues, even sometimes to their own detriment, for in keeping things as they are they become part of the healing process others need.

Thought Picnic: My strength in faith over adversity

And so I learnt

It was information I was already privy to due to indiscretions and the mismanagement of information from departments first and then blamed on computer systems. I suppose, unlike my first encounter with this experience, I was not going to approach it with denial and allow it to take hold to the point of a life-threatening emergency.

At the same time, I contacted the hospital to remonstrate the unfortunate abuse of process, someone should have been proofreading and assessing any communication before the send button was pressed.

I got an apologetic call from the doctor with the offer to have the said indication redacted. Well, how helpful is erasing information you have already read when you are not living in the reality of a “Men In Black” movie?

I know the truth

In any case, I took the information with the view that the battles ahead have been won for me, and my trust in Him will make a way. I will call those things that are not as though they were, rather than call the things that are as if they were not. [BibleHub: Romans 4:17]

This is usually the confusion of faith we need to unlearn, relearn, understand and reaffirm. In matters of life and death, you want to know who and what you believe and be sure that you are believing right.

On the cross of Calvary, He bore our sin and sins. Still, before He was nailed to the cross of agonising death at the hands of the Roman state, He took stripes, a relentless whipping that tore strips of flesh off his body that according to Scripture and observation, he was impossible to behold for the wounds on him. Those wounds represent every manner of disease and illness that visits humankind in its mildness and extremity. [Bible Gateway: Isaiah 53:1-5 (NLT)]

I know I’m healed

Jesus Christ was spoken of by the prophets, and when He came to the world, “He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick.” Matthew 8:16. This fulfilled the word of the Lord through the prophet Isaiah, who said, “He took our sicknesses and removed our diseases.” (NLT) [BibleHub: Matthew 8:17] Healing is present and available as it was then and it will be until He returns, I live in the truth of what Jesus did for me.

That is why I am not afraid but emboldened to face the hours, the days, the weeks, the months, and the years ahead. I will constantly be encouraged by the Word of God, and by the anointed preaching of the Word on faith, healing, living, and prospering in my soul and body.

I will frame my own world by the Word of God [Hebrew 11:3]. This is His will for me, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” (KJV) [BibleHub: 3 John 2]

Ìjẹ̀shà-Ìjẹ̀bú: A time for healing

Part I: Ìjẹ̀shà-Ìjẹ̀bú: A town of pain

An appreciation of Baba Cole

Joel Adebambo Idowu popularly known as Baba Cole, that was his nickname and I never met him, he died 4 years before I was born, he was my maternal grandfather. I have only recently begun to hear much about him. There are many ways we are supposed alike, he was an anglophile and an archivist, some sort of encyclopaedia of knowledge.

From what I have learnt and there is much more I need to flesh out, he was a literal man, of considerable influence, a prince of the town and a member of the ruling council of the town. He had three daughters, my mother being the middle one, there is a rumour that there might have been a brother, but no one has confirmed that to me.

Standing true for justice

Much as he respected traditions and conventions, he was not ready to sacrifice people for those causes and for that, he paid the ultimate price. As it transpired, an emissary was sent to our town from the neighbouring town just at the time when certain fetish practices required a stranger to be sacrificed to the town’s deities.

My grandfather made the case that an emissary from the neighbouring town who was to deliver a message and return with a response could not just disappear somewhere between the towns separated by 5 miles of forest and lands, it would be incomprehensible and incredulous. He won the argument, and the stranger was spared to return home.

Sacrificed for integrity

However, some traditionalists took umbrage at his intervention and through a combination of mystical and malevolent acts, my grandfather took on a sudden fit of involuntary body reactions and died. I inferred the rational and the irrational becoming a narrative and that has become the story of my grandfather, he was sacrificed to the malevolent forces in Ìjẹ̀shà-Ìjẹ̀bú when he stood in defence of an innocent person against the system.

That is how at around the age of 19, my mother lost her father and strangely at 19 I also had this break from the concept of Ìjẹ̀shà-Ìjẹ̀bú that grew to epitomise my reticence to visiting Nigeria. If I were to create a narrative, I embody the spirit of my maternal grandfather who is owed more than an apology for the wickedness meted out to him when he rationalised against the irrationality of traditions that should have gone into abeyance.

Beyond redress to healing

I cannot say if one needs to ask for an apology from Ìjẹ̀shà-Ìjẹ̀bú for what happened to my grandfather, much as I am not asking for an apology for what I have experienced with my father. Some things we cannot change, but there is much we can work towards reconciling that we might have the courage to do the greater thing, the boldness to write better stories, and an acknowledgement that we can find some healing after all the real and perceive hurt.

Ìjẹ̀shà-Ìjẹ̀bú has been a spectre, a haunting, a looming danger, sometimes a fearsome place that suggests a mountain of the strangest beings seething with malevolence and evil, or we have just allowed our imaginations to get the better of us and our rationality. It is a process calling for progress. I think my journey has begun.

Narratives matter and they have consequential significance even if they might seem trivial to others. I have had experiences dismissed when what I heard and saw changed me into a completely different person. Much as there are perspectives to have, the more important thing is to seek the good rather than foster the bad. Beyond my introspection and the times, I have had people counsel me, I hope I am amenable to guidance and instruction. One should never be in a position where the only resort is for God to send an ass to talk to you. [Bible Gateway: Balaam, the Donkey and the Angel]

Ìjẹ̀shà-Ìjẹ̀bú: A town of pain

A cause for appreciation

Waking up this morning from a dream that left me thinking I could do better with courses and causes, and I meant the kinds of courses of choice to travel and the causes that should be supported, the focus came back to myself.

When I spoke to Brian yesterday, I found every excuse I could, not to call my father on Father’s Day, I even checked as we were speaking if it was really Father’s Day in Nigeria, and then I got two Father’s Day messages from my brothers. Meanwhile, everyone online was celebrating Father’s Day and more poignant were those who shared memories of their fathers who had passed on, either recently or a long time ago.

In my wakefulness, I realised there was a lack of appreciation for the fact that I still have both my parents and they are thankfully doing well apart from the vagaries of old age. However, there are issues that I need to address about relationships that I only began to review as I stepped out for my walking exercise.

The town of my parents

I have a consequently very useful and good relationship with my mother, I cannot say that much about my father, and I think I know where that stems from, it goes way back to one event that seems to have defined so many things. It is the confluence of the irrational and the rational in what we call our experience that becomes the narrative whether it is plausible or not, makes no difference to the existential relevance of that perspective to the person involved.

My father, our little town of Ìjẹ̀shà-Ìjẹ̀bú with its big history, my maternal grandfather, some aspects of numerology which could just be coincidental, but one cannot ignore patterns of a sort.

Ìjẹ̀shà-Ìjẹ̀bú or Òdo Àyányẹlú in Ogun State is not to be confused with Ìjẹ̀bú-Ìjẹ̀shà in Osun State exists with a history that could hair-raising as much as it is intriguing, that it leaves people from there either quite passionate about the place or seriously averse to being there. We all have been touched by an enduring aspect of that town that even my mother would pass through the town on her way to a consultation without stopping to see anyone.

It is the retirement home of my father and many of his peers, yet you can mistake the place for a stairway to heaven, but like my paternal grandmother who lived to over a hundred years old, longevity has blessed many even as tragedy has befallen some.

Ìjẹ̀shà-Ìjẹ̀bú became a project and a dream, its children, many of whom from my parents’ generation travelled abroad for studies returned with aspirations to build their village, give the upcoming generations better opportunities, and infest their children with the same enthusiasm. We all seemed to play along, as it was where we met with cousins, developed new friendships, and had amazing conversations with lively elderly people. We looked forward to visiting, but the novelty began to wear off.

The schism and falling away

In my case, it was sometime in the middle of 1985, we had gone to Ìjẹ̀shà-Ìjẹ̀bú for some event and then some of my friends invited me to party in another town. I went to ask my dad and he might have had his reasons, but he did not grant the permission for me to go, and I shamefacedly passed my regrets to my friends who from what I learnt had a very good time.

Much as I was a difficult teenager, I was not given to vices or the kind of criminality that would involve the law, I can say in many ways, I was quite restrained and more so with my religious inclinations, but between my father and I, there has always been this simmering conflict that by the end of that year, I left home and did not see my father for probably another 18 months after.

For that refusal of permission to go to that party, I swore to myself that if I ever were to return to Ìjẹ̀shà-Ìjẹ̀bú, it would be in a box. I have not returned for 37 years and in that time, I missed many significant events that would have required my presence there or thereabouts.

On reflection and possibility

Then maybe as I thought about this morning, there is an undercurrent of fear that if I do venture, that might be the case, I do not know, and I have not attempted to test out the premise. It has become a kind of handicap, and this is the first time I am sharing this information, for what it has done in terms of our relationship is my seeking to define myself so differently from my father as much as possible without totally succeeding in being that different.

However, with that recessed in my memory commanding my inclinations, great import has been that distance has helped avoidance along with other explanations that could be summoned to protect the situation I have created for myself.

After a morning of introspection, I did give my father a call, I might even see a path to visiting Nigeria after 31 years, I don’t know if I will see Ìjẹ̀shà-Ìjẹ̀bú again, but I can understand how a complete breakdown in communication and relationships can instigate lifelong consequences. Gosh, I have nieces and nephews I have only met online, I am known of, but who knows me?

Postscript: My father launched a book about the history of Ìjẹ̀shà-Ìjẹ̀bú in April this year, there is much to learn about who we are, where we are from and what defines us. I saw the draft and my copy is wending its way to me, he is a formidable and quite accomplished gentleman.

Part II: Ìjẹ̀shà-Ìjẹ̀bú: A time for healing

We lose more than virtue without feedback

Encouragement and peace

When the woman with the issue of blood as was related in 3 gospels of the Bible determined to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment, she believed she would be made whole. Whole, as in healed and fully restored to good health, but Jesus also gave her more than she was looking for, he said, “Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace.” [Bible Gateway: Luke 8:43-48(NKJV)]

Those were very comforting words; first of great encouragement and then of full absolution that she did not have to worry that she had surreptitiously acquired her healing without asking or getting permission from the healer. There can be a lesson here about our interaction with God, but this is not what the blog is about.

The drawing of virtue

In another rendition of the same story, Jesus said, “Who touched me?”, He was in the press of a crowd, thronged and jostled, everyone and anyone could have been touching him, at least, that is why Peter was baffled, that he inquired, “Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’” To which Jesus answered, “Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me.” Another translation used virtue rather than power.

Everyone was touching Jesus, but this woman had a different touch of determination that drew healing power from the touch of his garment to cure at an instant a woman who had suffered a debilitating condition for 12 years.

I have none of that virtue or power, but sometimes, someone would approach from something they might have observed about me for something they need, like help, advice, comfort, encouragement, for something to quell their uneasy sense of angst, concern, or fear.

Feedback helps all

Generally, I would volunteer what I have to share in the experiences I have learnt, the choice of words I have been given to speak or write, or any other means by which I could be helpful. I guess everyone including Jesus needs some feedback and a backstory that gives context to the demand so that a full narrative of the human experience is not like a chance of fate or some hit-and-run encounter.

It is draining and exhausting when you readily and openly give that good cheer and peace into the turmoil of existence and you get nothing back in regards to whether they have been helped or not at all. Then, one does not want to become parsimonious with the blessings we have enjoyed that could be employed for the good of others, however, feedback helps encourage all participants. We are encouraged to be more helpful as much as we hope that our encouragement is of great help.

My experience giving hope

In one situation, I was approached by a young man who in his 30s was experiencing his first encounters with sex and an idea of his sexuality, he was bothered he might have contracted HIV and he was ready to do himself in if the test he was going for came back positive. Providence brought him to me to encourage him on many fronts, the necessity for the test even as he was asking if the symptoms, he was experiencing meant he had contracted HIV.

I categorically told him, that only a test could confirm his status and to go by his symptoms which could be indicative of something else would just create unnecessary anxiety. That medical result was a critical indicator of what should happen next. Then, regardless of what the test result is, it was not the end of life, rather it would mark a transition of knowledge into what to do beyond that realisation. There were examples of people who went on to do remarkable things after an HIV diagnosis.

There was extensive medical help and expertise to manage HIV so he could expect the best outcomes for both his health and his life prospects. Apart from the fact that he should not go down the avenue of blaming himself and falling into depression, but he should be prepared to face up to the interesting life ahead, that sex is there for enjoyment and not as a taboo that gives life a guilt-ridden existence.

What happened after?

I had the feeling that I had both encouraged him and given him a sense of peace, he was ready to take the HIV test and whatever the result he would make the best of it. On the day of his test, I sent him some words of encouragement, wishing him all the very best. Then I heard nothing, no communication or indication, a week passed, and it was going into the middle of the second week when I decided to send him a message.

Well, our young man was off to Malta for a holiday, and I was left none the wiser as to whether this was to celebrate or commiserate on his HIV test result or life was just going on as normal. Much as I was curious, I did not want to dampen the moment with apathy borne of my sense of losing virtue in giving encouragement but not being intimated of the consequence. I kept ruminating about it and the many other times when you give out of your deepest experiences to lift people out of despair and then just move on.

Go in peace

Now, I doubt if the woman with the issue of blood would have lost her healing if she had slunk back into the crowds and not revealed herself to Jesus and the thronging crowd. She might have had a pang of conscience, but she would have been fine. It was her prerogative to reveal or conceal herself. However, if she had concealed herself, her story would never have been told, even as Jesus knew that virtue had left him.

None of the gospel writers even bothered to ask about the woman, her name, where she was from if she had family or any other history. Her story is narrated in a few verses, she had a condition she had suffered for 12 years, she determined Jesus could help, she touched him, and she was healed. Indeed, if there is any healing we can offer humanity around us, we should continue to give liberally and generously, a lot more is contributed to that activity if we know the help offered has been helpful in any way.

As for our young friend, I do hope whatever the result, he has decided to live and live well, beyond which he can be a great blessing to others.

Thought Picnic: The healing that comes with telling

We don’t tell enough

I could almost feel envious of those who have been able to make a living out of the narrative. The narrative being the stories of their lives, their experiences from childhood to the present, bringing recognition and resonance to audiences who can both identify and commiserate.

In fact, I believe we do not all tell our stories enough for too many reasons to mention as we adjudge what we might have been through to be too mundane, lacking in drama and having nothing exotic.

The amazing thing is, the bleeding obvious when repackaged and rephrased, given context and purpose can so easily be profound.

Finding healing beyond abuse

I find myself writing this from the perspective of two sets of stories that need telling, the first I read yesterday of men holding up placards, not in protest or as part of a demonstration, but just a statement, one that went from what they heard to what they experienced – abuse.

You can read their stories here - 27 Male Survivors Of Sexual Assault Quoting The People Who Attacked Them – I cannot add much more to their stories apart from the fact that this is part of the bigger cause called Project Unbreakable, started by 19-year old, Grace Brown in October 2011; “to increase awareness of the issues surrounding sexual assault and encourage the act of healing through art.”

I added two memories of mine to the mix with the following tweets.

"Put it here, you will like it." She was 14, I was 7.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) September 24, 2013

"If you love me, you will do it, I love you very much." I was 10, he was 28.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) September 24, 2013

We must blow the lid off the secrecy, stigma and shame of child sexual abuse.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) September 24, 2013

To Fathers and mothers of ourselves

The second story came from relationships we have with our parents concerning our upbringing initially and then the sharing of the secrets of our lives, many of which following the context of my last few blogs are difficult for our parents to understand.

Many of us still harbour too many secrets and are yet to come into the fullness of who we really are to those closest to us by blood – some wait for the release that might come when our forebears have passed on – in all, there is loss and there is regret, fulfilment and closure are not that easy to obtain.

Here in The Power of Storytelling on the OutTales Around the Fire blog that I follow, I could really identify with the three elements of ‘Killing My Mother’ that the author, Ade Adeniji narrated. I am sure many Nigerians can relate to this - The Father+Mother Project - Storytelling Performance takes place on the 5^th and 6^th of October, 2013.

A journey we must make

The most profound part of this piece can be found in the comment left by Pauline King, and she said, “I believe that we all gain enormous gifts from our traumatic childhoods and relationships – if we can but move from blame and despair to forgiveness and hope.”

I dare say, in the process of understanding our lives, probably too many of us are still in the blame and despair stage and the journey to forgiveness and hope is like one of a thousand miles through dreadful places the boldest angels will fear to tread.

If anything, we must embark on that journey, if we are to find healing and a new fullness of life.

Opinion: Miracle Cures and Against Religious Abuse of the Vilest Kind

Where I stand

There are some things are really get me seriously agitated and they pertain to rights and abuse. In the body of work I have produced over almost 9 years, I think these particularly stand out - human rights, injustice, child rights, women’s rights, sexuality rights, child sexual abuse, sexual violence, cultural and religious abuse.

There is no doubt that I also cover very controversial issues; it is just my nature to tackle those as passionately and objectively as I can.

Too vile for words

This morning I found myself on a Twitter soapbox dealing with religious abuse of the vilest kind. A church had concocted a cocktail of fruit juice and olive oil then marketed it as a cure for cancer or HIV; the prayer component of the product making up about 50% of the price.

People with chronic and terminal illnesses are desperately in need of succour and hope; they are vulnerable to the machinations of those who portend to offer palliation or cures for their ailments.

Hope like greed is easily exploited and nowhere is that best manipulated than in churches where the leaders with ethereal provenance and esoteric rituals that could border on the macabre but pass off as spiritual hold sway.

Your church as a ghetto

These churches serve as both communities and places of worship but the community aspect almost turns the congregants into members of a ghetto that project practices very different from the wider communities in which they exist. Like Nigerians in the United Kingdom doing only Nigerian things.

People need to feel comfortable wherever they go but to be exploited in this way is unforgivable.

There should be a number of inalienable facts that people should have when attending these churches which on closer scrutiny are more like sepulchres of despair engaged in commercial activity for the aggrandisement of the church leaders.

Rather than minister to their flock, their flock ministers to their every greedy need for ostentation and hedonism which they suggest are the fruits of service to God – they are not shepherds but wolves conducting assemblies with grandiloquent names that will be redolent of B-movie thrillers.

Miracles are free

Now, miracles do exist, but never for a fee, the best example of a miracle was when Jesus raised Lazarus who was 4-days dead petrifying and decomposing in a tomb for free. Neither did he charge for converting water into wine at the wedding feast where one would have expected at best a donation. It is implausible that those ministering in the name of Jesus will then demand some payment directly, by gimmickry or through the sale of potions to offer healing to those still alive but with terminal illnesses. Miracles are free, every time and always.

People should be very lucid about the function of the church and the function of medicine. They are not mutually exclusive. Using medicine is not a sign of the lack of faith; in fact faith and medicine can make the medicine more efficacious.

My testimony is that I had cancer and went on chemotherapy, according to the oncologist and nurses that came daily to dress the cancer lesions, it took up to six months for lesions as mine to dry up and disappear, but in my case, the lesions were all gone in 8 weeks. The doctors considered my response to medication and the result miraculous.

The church and healing

The church should not replace your hospital neither should your pastor replace your doctor. They have their roles. If your pastor does say to you, you are healed; you have the right to a second opinion, a medical opinion to confirm you are healed.

In all cases where Jesus healed lepers, He told them to go and show themselves to the priests, this, I believe was to fulfil all righteousness as they’ll say in religious parlance – or commonly, to ensure all boxes were ticked to allow their re-admittance into society.

Ultimately, if you are paying for any treatment and it is not to a professionally accredited medical practitioner, to a hospital or to a pharmacy for medicine, you have been swindled by a confidence trickster impostor masquerading as a pastor when they are in fact no better than bush witchdoctors.

Your pastor is not your doctor

Your pastor should have nothing against the use of doctors, hospitals or medicine, not everyone exercises feats of faith that at an instant will manifest as lightning bolt miraculous cures. Any assurance of healing should include the advice to have the medically competent confirm the change in physiology indicating healing – it is NOT a sin to do so.

As I have written many times before, never ever discontinue your medication without first consulting your doctor and only on the advice of the doctor and no other. If the pastor did not prescribe your medication the pastor does not have the authority or capacity tell you to discontinue your medicine – do not had your pills over to be destroyed as if you are attending a magician’s show – medications should be properly disposed of by pharmacies or given back to hospitals to be used by those less fortunate than yourself.

Beware!

Just be wary of those who take advantage of you in the religious space, demanding always but never giving, selling goods and snake oil remedies not independently validated by the authorities and whose rituals defy explanation whilst not informing of other reasonable choices or options you should have in this amazing vibrant world we live in today.

Source

Church slammed for selling blackcurrant cordial and olive oil drink as a 'miracle cure' for cancer and HIV : Mail Online

C3 Encounters 2012 Conference: Day 1

How it began

We kicked off our C3 Encounters 2012 conference in Amsterdam to much funfare and activity with a great praise and worship session that soon moved into a time of prayer for Europe led by Pastors Simon and Valerie McIntyre who are the C3 Directors for Europe.

Pastors from sister churches around Europe were called to pray in their native tongues and we were given historical perspectives of German influence on European Christianity that gave birth to the Reformation movement through Martin Luther, the Swiss and Calvinism, the Dutch and the New Zealanders who feature strongly in our movement through Abel Janszoon Tasman and much more.

We heard prayers in German, then in French – In fact, I have never heard anyone pray in French, it was moving, I was overcome and then in Bulgarian for the Balkans, for Scandinavia and for all other European nations.

Making disciples – Pastor Simon McIntyre

The first session then had Pastor Simon McIntyre preach from the text of Matthew 28:18-20 where he stressed that disciples were made and not found, highlighting the fact that the seeds for church growth were in the local church itself but they had to be developed. We were to look for what was within and amongst us using that to grow our local churches.

He then extended the command to baptise through immersion to immersing people in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, immersing people in the word of God, immersing them into our lives through modelling the word and thereby being an example to others.

Disciples are chosen

Disciples, he said are chosen by reason of leaders identifying faithfulness or giftedness, it is usually incidental and it involves building on that identified potential.

There is a tough love aspect of making disciples, it is direct, strong, loving and confronting – good disciples respond well to rebuke and it works best when passed from generation to generation.

The lesson to take away from this message was the goal of a good leader is to see potential in others and work on making new leaders by example, deed, lifestyle and conduct.

The extraordinary in the ordinary – Pastor Steve Warren

The host pastor, Pastor Steve Warren took on the second session with a message titled – Recovering the extraordinary in the ordinary.

He exhorted us to have a childlike expectation of the extraordinary in the ordinary, working on text from the Acts of Apostles 2:38-47. A case of ordinary people who being empowered by the Holy Spirit sent to them on Pentecost suddenly performed the extraordinary; speaking in different tongues and adding 3000 followers at the first event.

He illustrated the concept better when narrating the tale of Syrophoenician woman who came to Jesus seeking healing for her daughter. She was at first ignored, then told He only came to save the Jews and went on to tell her it was not right to toss the children’s bread to dogs to which she responded the dogs do get to eat the children’s crumbs under the table – with that she got what she wanted.

Crumbs are as good as the loaf

However, the context was that she did not see the ordinariness of the crumbs but was able to rationalise that whatever was in the crumbs also came from the loaf of bread and therefore was just as good as having the loaf.

He said, “The level of your hunger will determine the level of the extraordinary that will happen in your life.”

Praise, he said opens the gates of heaven to the extraordinary and he exhorted us to give thanks in everything according to I Thessalonians 5:18. Other text references he used in his sermon in relation to the usefulness and efficacy of praise and thanksgiving in creating the extraordinary from ordinary circumstances included Psalms 100:4; Psalms 95:2, Ephesians 5:20 & Psalms 34:1.

The Power of Commitment – Pastor Peter Paauwe

Pastor Peter Paauwe, a guest preacher continued from where Pastor Steve Warren left off with a message titled "The Power of Commitment."

He started by saying that problems and challenges are our stepping stones to breakthroughs.

Then he based his text on the narrative in I Samuel 30:1-15, the story being, David returned home to find that his city had been raided and razed with families of both himself and his men taken captive, though they were unsure of what had befallen them.

Pastor Peter made a number of assertions that prayer does not move God but that God is constant, unchanging and is always committed to us. However, prayer can allow us to change our perspectives radically to see and appreciate God’s cause for us.

As David and his men realised what had happened, the story says these mighty warriors wept sore until they had no strength and got to the point where they laid the blame of their predicament on David and were ready to stone him.

We were to reflect on the number of times were we met with adversity and looking for people, issues, situations and even God to blame for deserting us in our time of need.

Count your blessings

David however took a different tack, he strengthen himself by encouraging himself in the Lord, that is, he recognised the many times God had been good to him – in modern parlance, he counted his blessings reassuring himself of God’s commitment to his cause.

II Chronicles 16:9 says, “The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.”

The context of commitment suggests a heart at rest, a heart at peace and a heart confident in God rather than in panic, frustration and turmoil. We have to be fully trusting in God.

He said, “Our problems say nothing about how God is committed to us.”

The text goes on to say David enquired of the Lord if he should go after those who raided his city and he was told to go and he would without fail recover all.

Act decisively and promptly

The pastor then said God does not speak in long sentences and the opportunity to take advantage of a word from God is only there for a season.

Case in point was when the Israelites were refused to step forward to take the Promised land at the first opportunity and judgement was visited upon them that they roamed the wilderness for 40 years before a new opportunity to possess the land.

In essence, we need to be decisive, prompt to act, maintain a spirit of compassion for within our doing right and doing good might lay the solution to the once insurmountable problem.

A fleeting moment of opportunity

They found an Egyptian who for three days and three nights had not taken food nor drink and he had been left for dead because he took ill and as it transpired when he was brought to David, he was fed and watered. On recovery and interrogation, it was discovered he was a servant to the people who raided the city, he knew what they had done and where they had gone.

The lesson here was that God’s keys to our solutions usually appear weak, for instance, another day of waiting, grieving or being inconsiderate would have had the Egyptian die with David and his men none the wiser as to how to obtain a fulfilment of God’s promise that they will recover all.

He averred that, “All the power of God is displayed in the weakest things.”

We need to be committed to compassion, committed to people and committed to recognising God’s commitment to us and it is in making that a lifestyle that we can obtain our breakthrough.

The offertory – Pastor Thierry Moehr

Before the evening message, Pastor Thierry Moehr from C3 Lausanne shared from Isaiah 54:2 for the offertory.

“Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes.”

He said we have an invitation from God to live a big life, we are all extendable but God can only take the space we give Him.

We need to give God the chance to be a big God in our lives and that can only come about when we decrease ourselves to let God increase. It is about stretching, extending, sacrifice and letting go, all that allows for God to do what he is good at – being God.

Forgiveness and healing – Pastor Phil Pringle

The final session of the day came with Pastor Phil Pringle, the leader and founder of the C3 organisation preaching from Luke 5:17.

“Now it happened on a certain day, as He was teaching that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was present to heal them.”

He preached the gospel of grace signifying who and what we are in Christ is not as a result of what we have done but by reason of our taking on what Christ had done for us.

Conversely, the learned scholars of the law could not comprehend the essence of Colossians 1:21-22 “And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight.”

It is accepting the sacrifice of Christ that allows us to be presented holy, blameless, and above reproach in the sight of God.

Achievement is the work of many

Then using the passage of Luke 5:17-26 he expatiated on how the power of God to heal was of no benefit to the scholars who had crowded out the place such that those who believed the power of God might help their paralytic friend had to find alternative ways to get to Jesus.

He assigned roles to the four friends of the paralytic; Leader (Had the idea that Jesus could heal his friend and proposed all the strategies to get to Jesus.), Helper (Joined in to follow the leader in what he had to do.), Intercessor (Arranged for the bed to convey their friend.) and Evangelist (Persuaded their friend to get in the bed to be carried to where Jesus was.)

In setting out this scenario, he said no one could achieve their full potential without the help of others stressing that unity is the place of power and the fulfilment of any destiny in the church is done in the context of connections and relationships with others.

Forgiveness presages healing

Having found they could gain no access to Jesus they let the man down through the rooftop having removed the tiles and the story says, Jesus saw their faith and then addressed the man that his sins were forgiven and thereby he was healed. [Note that it is the faith of the four friends Jesus saw in ministering to the paralytic - sometimes we need a helping hand to access the free mercies of God.]

As the scholars questioned what Jesus had done reasoning with their hearts about how he could forgive sin, the man who had believed with his heart that his sins were forgiven picked up his bed and walked.

One notable statement Pastor Phil made was that, “People are attracted to a non-judgemental environment.”

He developed this by saying, “Unforgiveness lies at the root of many people’s illnesses,” and that “forgiveness and healing almost always go together.”

As he shared a story of forgiveness and healing he said there are three main blockages to forgiveness.

• Not accepting forgiveness from God.
• Not accepting forgiveness from others.
• Not forgiving oneself.

He closed by calling people forward to be prayed for.

Conclusion

It was a very busy day, well organised and everything seemed to work as planned, I am sure most attendees were mightily blessed and all this was just on the first day of the conference. There is excitement in the air.

C3 Encounters 2012 is on a roll.

Editorial: Taking Medicine and Talking Miracles

It is an outrage!

There are very few occasions that I am so utterly incensed about some situation and those are usually with reference to child sex abuse, injustice to women, homophobia and religious abuse.

To varying degrees, I could either submit a whole range of opinions on Twitter or in the heat of the moment craft a blog on the matter.

This morning I overheard on SkyNews that some churches had been advising people with apparently incurable and sometimes terminal illnesses especially those infected with HIV to come off their pills because they had been healed.

I believe in miracles

In the interest of full disclosure, I was brought up a High-Church Anglican but converted to Evangelical Pentecostalism almost 3 decades ago. Within this setting we have a whole range of belief systems that allow for supernatural intervention in natural circumstances in matters of prayer, confidence and miracles.

However, I subscribe to that leaning that engages the intellect fully, demands deep religious scholarship and mixes all the vicissitudes of faith with an abundance of reason.

I am wont to using a very basic analogy on the matter of the interaction of medicine and miracles. If you need A wheelchair and after prayer you cannot verifiably discard of THE wheelchair, you still need THAT wheelchair. In essence, you cannot pretend you can walk if you cannot walk.

When it comes to the miraculous healing by reason of faith and all the ceremony that could include the laying on of hands and other obscure activities beyond the understanding of outsiders, some things are self-evident.

The use of medical opinions

Before the person seeks healing, that person would probably have obtained a medical opinion, will most likely have a confirmed diagnosis and usually have begun a treatment regime.

The desire for healing is not an alien thing to human-beings; people need succour, respite, palliation and possibly cures for their illnesses – some of these can be achieved through medicine over a period of time, if medical science offers that prospect or the good grace of a miracle may offer either accelerated improvements in welfare or a sudden change for the better.

The most important thing to know is that a medical opinion remains the certified opinion until a new medical opinion is sought signifying a change for either the better or the worse accompanied with the particular instructions of the medical expert, the condition is technical still the condition before the "miracle".

Medical science must validate miracles

The faith healer, no matter how sensational, amazing, wondrous or even magical the performance that suggests a person has been healed is NOT a medical expert and as such because the same cannot offer certified confirmation of changes to the physiology and state of health of the person supposed healed – the faith healer MUST NEVER assume the role of medical expert and offer medical advice like stopping the usage of medication.

The faith healer can trust that a person is healed, the person may feel in themselves some change either real or imagined but this all must be verified (to fulfil all righteousness) inconvertibly by the medical profession even with the option of a second and third opinion for the certainty and assuredness of the supposed miraculous healing work.

Unconscionable religious irresponsibility

In terms of the news story - Church Tells HIV Patients To Stop Treatment [1], the church after having engaged in their esoteric activities assumed the role of a medical expert service advising those infected with HIV that they had been healed and urging them to stop using their medication.

The story suggests that six such persons who presumably had received healing had needlessly in my view died because the church in a callous, irresponsible, outrageous and reprehensible egregious extension of influence overstepped its remit as an unregulated religious organisation to become an illegal laboratory for guinea-pigs of snake-oil miracle healings.

The law must act

The church failed woefully in its duty of care to its flock and the health of those concerned to ensure that those who they considered healed should first sign-off with medical advice that allows for such people to then come off their medication.

In an ideal world, such an organisation should be proscribed forthwith and the cop-out that they do not heal but God heals cannot hold water if they as intermediaries between God and man portend to speak in God’s name when projecting themselves as a faith healing organisation and then shirk from responsibility when faced with scrutiny for practices that are at best fraudulent and plain deceptive or murderous at worst by reason of the fact that people had placed their lives in the trust of leaders of those churches.

Miracle happen, medicine works

Now, there are records of people who have obtained amazing miracles in this modern age but they all have medical proof of the changes and the medical advice that allows them to discontinue medication because the need for such had been miraculously removed.

On the matter of medicine and miracles, medicine is NOT evil, it is NOT witchcraft and it serves a purpose in the management of illness. Many people of faith have combined their beliefs and medicine to have accelerated results from the use of medical science.

There are amazing advances in medical science that allow for people with HIV to live productive lives with the virus in the blood diminished to undetectable levels, there is no particular reason not to use medical science and religious beliefs in the finding solutions to illness.

Bunkum!

Reading the detail of the news story, the said pastor suggested persistence of diarrhoea and vomiting show the virus is leaving the body – Bunkum! That is probably evidence that the condition of the person is rapidly deteriorating and such a one is in need of immediate medical attention.

I will to God there was a law of the land to bring those people to book and punish them severely for being quacks, charlatans and dishonestly assuming roles of a qualified medical practice.

These people give Christianity a bad name, pervert the gospel for the spectacular and they are sepulchres for the macabre masquerading as churches – their cultist activities must for all that is good, safe and tolerable in modern society be shutdown with immediate effect.

Sources

[1] HIV Deaths: Church Tells Patients To Give Up HIV Drugs After Claiming They Were 'Healed' | UK News | Sky News