Opinion: Exploring a new level of grace in infidelity

Vile chattering

The Nigerian Twitterverse was caught lapping up the salacious detail that graced the pages of a newspaper with regards to the excessive caring of a pastor to the deeper attentions of lasciviousness on many levels of grace yet not understood. [The news story]

In what appears to be a confessional exposing the dynamic of power and authority over vulnerability and victimhood, depending on how you look at it, a lady laid out in exhaustive lettering the trysts that led from catching the eye of the parson to when she was persuaded to join the Pastoral Care Unit.

Good temptations

Out of sight and the purview of the handlers and sycophants back in Nigeria, the pastor let loose his charm offensive, playing on the reverence that was already accorded him by the lady began an incipient ploy that lured the lady from doing ordinary favours with attendant scoldings of not doing much more until somewhere in the penthouse suite of London hotel, mesmerised out her gumption, she was sitting on his laps, then kissing him and by the time we knew it, the bed was defiled with the romping of two people who morally should not be in copulative abandon.

Now, there will be many angles to this story with the likelihood as we have seen before than only one side will gain a full hearing whilst the other regardless of the truth of the matter will go the way of stone-faced denial stringing it out until the lady is labelled every contemptible name from Jezebel to witch.

Tolerating abuse

It does not really matter the whats, hows or whys, but we need to address some fundamental issues within our society where those in authority or leadership have the impunity to abuse or exert influence without question, be they parents, elders, bosses, lecturers, leaders religious or otherwise.

We are inclined to give the aggressor the benefit of the doubt long before the detailed experiences of the victim are given any consideration – we see this in child abuse cases, brutalisation of others, sexual harassment scenarios, institutionalised bullying, academics demanding sexual favours for marks and everywhere else where the respected absent themselves from being accountable for their deeds and being responsible for their actions.

We need to advance beyond the dread of criticising those who have done wrong just because they appear to derive authority from an institution or a potentate. There are things we as a society need to challenge of what we have accepted before that perpetuates egregious abuse from which victims find no fair hearing nor justice.

Influence of authority

Beyond this, the matter of consent is not really cut and dried, power and authority can override the resistance one might normally have in a different setting, the setting usually beyond the scrutiny of others can be hypnotic or cajoling – when a mentor or leader in the midst of manifest wrongdoing says, “I will teach you a level of grace that you don’t understand.” It will take a superhuman presence of mind to snap out of the spellbinding influence of making the abominable look like a worthwhile service to a cause.

We must be able to call out those who should by their status and standing know that they have been called to a cause greater than themselves to set example of moral rectitude beyond reproach and odious accusation that can bring the ministry they oversee into threatening if not debilitating disrepute.

Wayward moral compass

Cover-ups can only do so much but when the stench of corrupt enterprise becomes the incense funnelling the fires of hell rather than redounding to the sweet fragrance of heaven, those who have become too accustomed by acclimatisation to this environment better beware that their discernment has not lost direction and they are caught in an evil delusion thinking they are doing good religion.

In less than two weeks I have found myself questioning the moral standing of institutions that have allowed controversy and opprobrium to dog the leadership – it is time for a greater level of accountability to register in these places with no one being able to act above question, principle, tenet and accepted moral guidance just because of the position they hold.

The trustees have a duty to protect the institution they hold in trust above fallible people and founders, that is what they were elected or selected to do for the sake of the institution and the people who gather as part of the flock of that congregation.

Mud, glorious mud

Even if the mud does not stick, a big mud bath has been stirred and there is a good bit of washing and drying to do before the matter can be cleared up, what even matters more is the hope that if there be others so abused, this is a time for them to stand up and speak up to prevent situations where new victims suffer from what could be been completely avoidable if the timing and courage linked up with a clamour for fairness, justice and truth to do right.

Finally, even if the lady were a woman scorned, the question is what really happened and how far was the authority figure ready to try their luck before it all blew up? For morality and justice, the truth must be made manifest after this salvo.

The laps of God are ready to deliver a coarse spanking to anyone who has thought they have found all the levels of grace like in some video game because, there is a grace too fiery for words and hell will look like a cooler to those who should have known better but chose for the worse.

Thought Picnic: The New Parable of the Prodigal Son

Angels of gathering

For angels abound that walk the earth in the form of people you and I see on the street, whose humanity has heart and soul, beating with compassion and empathy, leaving you speechless in gratitude, disarmed in thankfulness and helpless in the tenderness that can expressed by those who in their time have become another narrative of the Good Samaritan story.

As he left that office yesterday, having bit his lip in utter regret of the experience he had just suffered, you found on the busy street, a bench to sit, famished for hunger, he sat to gather his thoughts.

The gathering of the shards of his life shattered in a history that really had become a drama almost too liveable for words.

The new prodigal son

He left his country which had become his fatherland full of health, full of promise, full of hope and much else to the land of a different tongue, he lived, he prospered and he wasted his means – prodigal he had become that all he left with and what he had gained was lost – health, promise, prospect, status, job, home and desire – as each day appeared to hold no tomorrow, he came to himself like the prodigal son and decided to return home.

For he thought, at least at home they speak his tongue, his fatherland, maybe he might find shelter, boarding, sustenance and some new hope, he was not expecting open arms, but there were many open to arm him with much to see beyond the morrow – it started well, though with difficulty.

The truth is, unlike for the prodigal son, there was no father that ran into the fields having sighted his son from afar to fall upon his neck and cry for joy that the son that was lost was now found, no new robes, no welcome feast but a resentful and judgemental big brother with a long checklist of eligibility for this and for that.

Checking the boxes to hell

Single, no dependants, no local connections, able, no proof of address, no bank account, no local references, no recent utility bills, no priority, not eligible for security clearance, not our business, no way here – the list was as long as judgement day had arrived and the only way was the way to hell or without saying the words, what he did hear from them was – Go to hell.

And hell it would have been because as he sat on the bench before nightfall yesterday gathering his thoughts until his angels came by to bear him away to safety from crawling with the swineherd and enjoying the Michelin star gourmet of pigswill, he would have been on a bench through the night drenched by the watering of the heavens that fed the trees and he would have found no tears to flow with the flood of sorrow that would have overcome him.

Barely netting the whale of the problem

The times have changed, the rules have toughened, the righteous are resisted and the cunning have run rings round the system, whilst England has no place for prodigal sons – it is mercy of angels, far and near, in kind and in means that ushered in another day.

The new parable of the prodigal son is not reading like happily ever after, the assumptions we made about safety nets are fallacies because the below on the jagged rocks of life lie those who have fallen through holes bigger than the size of elephants, we see them daily, the ones that checkboxes discarded without consideration, the ones society forgot and the ones that have become invisible but are there, in rags of clothing and prospect, in hope for the next meal having had none for longer than they can remember – they probably were not prodigal but have been put on the speedway to hell by a system bereft of heart and soul.

Yet, the politician and the comfortable mounts soapbox, rostrum, podium and lectern preaching about those abusing the system but saying nothing about those abused by the system and they be many too bruised to ask for anything but for some spare change from you and I – what will be done for them – he asks, what?

England: How Lewisham Single Homeless Intervention Prevention humiliated me

Dead with connections

It was a shortcut, leading to a park and then a station unto the road I needed to walk up a hill to the place I had stayed until today.

On both sides of the path that seemed to split an old graveyard into two were tombstones of the long dead and buried, remembered by the names and the dates of birth and of death, sometimes with the years numbered, maybe with other family or information of relationships to those who put them there.

A father, a mother, a sister, a brother, a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, there were connections, with the place, with people and with a time, that is why they were there.

No protection for the living

Even then gravestones followed a trend, some were shaped in stone like Egyptian sarcophagi, maybe in celebration of the eternity of burial exemplified by the Pharaoh’s tombs of old, protected with curses and scripts that have no significance to the grave tampering archaeologists who brought us the remains of Tutankhamun and that cohort.

No, there is no protection for the dead as there seems to be no protection for the living if they do not tick the boxes of eligibility even if the person is in dire need representing an exception to the rule.

My grave circumstances were brought into stark relief when I strode down to the Lewisham Housing Services and there was nothing in my story, voice or plea that could made me a priority in their eyes, I had no connections with Lewisham apart from 5 weeks that I have lived here, but then I have no particular connections with anywhere else in the UK, I am as good as a just returned Englishman.

I’m no prodigal son

Maybe the lady was exasperated with the audacity I had to walk into any council office, talk less of the one she sat in to ask for help, I could have another set of phone numbers to add to the 5 I had called for advice and help – I was fast becoming a homeless switchboard.

Then I was asked why I had not made plans for my resettlement back in the UK before leaving the Netherlands last August, it is like asking the prodigal son in the Bible why he had not made plans for settling back at home when he literally had no claim to anything but the mercy and kindness of the people he left behind, especially his father.

The questions plumbed the depths of absurdity, there was no room for embarrassment but to state the facts and the fact is an Englishman who has generally lived an independent life and has now only resorted to state help in an emergency and desperate situation has no chance on God’s good earth of getting help today – there is no face of humanity or compassion to register in sympathy or empathy, rather you are met with obstinate indifference, apathy and checkboxes.

Scolded in my adversity

My humiliation was completed like the exhumation of the graves of yore when after I asked to make phone calls in a quiet corner of the empty waiting room, with the unfortunate result of not getting through a legal advice service but then called the hospital for help, I was curtly asked to leave, in the eyes of the doorman, I had become a vagrant, a nuisance and an inconvenience.

My voice trembled as I stepped out apologising profusely for taking up their time. I will come through this with my head held up high and for those who staff the Single Homeless Intervention Prevention office in Lewisham – I am single and homeless but you did little to intervene or prevent the predicament I was facing – we will meet again, God willing, I will be in better circumstances to say I saw the next day, in spite of and despite you.

Thank you.

Thought Picnic: More Tests ...

Of expectations

The day came with uncertainties and the answer to yesterday’s question is, I am sad. The first meeting was laden with expectations, at least that is what the nurse and the psychologist suggested, these people are clued in, they know what to do and they have solutions, the urgencies and immediacies will be assuaged with ease.

I soon became aware that they do not talk to each other and the view that things might have moved on from where they were left soon was discarded – I had to tell my story again, a third time to people who seemingly interact, but the object of interact is not the files, data or notes but the subject – I was the subject in this case.

Apparently, having lived on continental Europe for 12 years and now returned for the UK for one long year, left me rather bereft of some of the rights that UK residents would have been able to subscribe to – it was disheartening.

Of options

The picture painted even got gloomier as my countenance changed, I could feel the welling of my tear ducts but, I held it all back, I am the cast of my macabre drama, I cannot inflict any more hurt on myself than what I have suffered apart from a looming prospect of destitution and vagrancy – has it really come to this? The way it seems, it has.

There is no breeding, class, education, life, luck or fortune that is not represented in the homeless class and they all have stories just as good as mine, if not better of events in their lives that led to where they have found themselves.

The meeting ended with a list of numbers, addresses and ideas but without certainty, assurance or confirmation, I was forlorn. As it transpired, he had enough examples of people in my situation they could not help, I should have asked myself aloud – why am I in this meeting?

Of strangers

I gathered my thoughts in a few tweets as time passed, another 40 minutes before I meet my new consultant; at least that is what I expected.

She came to get me from the reception and as she introduced herself, confusion clouded my face, I had to interject – that is not the name of the person I was expecting to see and no one informed me in the almost 7 weeks since the appointment was made that the consultant had changed.

She was to do his rounds and by interference she had only leafed through my medical notes that appeared to contain the amalgamated detail from the Netherlands, Wales and the new interactions I have had since June.

Of preparedness

Again, by the first question, it was not so much my filling in the gaps but a new narration of the same tale that was already becoming a recital and performance at each gathering, I was not too pleased.

With time, I commandeered the notes myself, linking the data from the Netherlands to the information from Wales, whilst charting a historical progression of the tales of the bloods which on a chart would have looked like a jagged-saw graph, the current readings on a depression after what was the best indicator noted in almost 4 years.

Eventually, we warmed to each other, though not to the level I was accustomed to in the Netherlands, we discussed my drug regime, my options and additional tests.

Of innards

To be honest, I was not keen on being probed or prodded any further today, I was barely keeping up with myself on a mentally distressed level but in the process, we settled for 2 vials at the phlebotomist’s, prescriptions to last 4 months, which is unusual because beyond 3 months in the Netherlands, insurance requires you pay for the extra and then be reimbursed. I did not have €2,700 in my pocket in December when I was last in the Netherlands, so I left with 3 months of medication even though my consultant had prescribed 6 months with consideration of the fact that I was then resident in the UK.

I will also be visiting the imaging department, having secured an appointment for a month hence, I am to fast for 6 hours ingesting nothing but fluids prior to the largest organ in my body scanned – Gosh! I have pretty much really mucked my life up too seriously to unravel in one short afternoon.

In between all this, I also saw the pharmacist who ensured my prescription went ahead to the pharmacy that I did not have to wait as long as 30 minutes to pick them up.

Of life

At the end of all these meetings, I was not in the mood to socialise, I got on the train and made my way home, burdened with an existence that clouded the glimmer of hope I had earlier in the day and smarter for the fact that I refused to take on more than what I thought I should handle in one day as advice from other friends came in.

As I stepped out of the station, a man approached me, “Please can you help a homeless man with some change for a cup of tea?” He said. But for his skin tone, I might well have been looking in a mirror, though, it was a mirror of circumstances looming as I emptied the coins into the palm of his hand, I said to him, “I will be homeless from tomorrow.”

I made for the place I had called home for the last 5 weeks, tomorrow being my last day, found a short break from my turmoil with some sleep and woke up to write this before I start to pack my bags and think of what really will tomorrow bring – there is no point asking if I will be happy or sad, any comfort will do to find a place to lay my weary head.

Thought Picnic: Traversing a wilderness to wonder

Estranged in stranger places

As the morrow comes, I will be seeing two strangers, people who I have never met before but will have enough knowledge about me to hopefully help and care, even though that appears to be what they get paid to do.

However, there is more to it than getting paid to do a job, the sense of sympathy, probably empathy and dare I say compassion comes from the inner recesses of our humanity, it is not what determines remuneration but it can endear the person to whoever they interact with and that is a good thing.

A difference in manner

Even though I did receive a very professional service when I sought help in Wales, there was something quite impersonal about our engagements, the meetings were not properly broken up and even though I received all I asked for, I was left with a sense of uneasiness that I just determined to endure because I could not change the circumstances.

Compared to when I used services in the Netherlands, my consultant who basically is a world-renowned authority in his field, exuded a very comforting bedside manner that always left you at ease, the decisions completely involved me to the extent that I was given choices, information and references.

It’s my body, first

Beyond that, where I was uncomfortable with a course of action, the situation was reviewed for the most convenient accommodation on my side; it determined the number of chemotherapy sessions I eventually had and it countermanded the demand for a neurosurgeon to perform a lumbar puncture I was not convinced was necessary.

I am no medical expert, but there is one inalienable truth, it is my body first before it is a specimen for medical analysis and that was quite well understood, appreciated and respected by everyone I dealt with in the Netherlands.

Let’s see what’s up

Now in the UK, upon meeting these strangers, I will have to determine what comfort levels I will have in allowing these experts to take over my medical care to the extent that they can provide medical, emotional, psychological and sociological succour in the ordinary times and at the less than salubrious times.

I am open-minded though a bit apprehensive going into these meetings, my bloods have told stories, my notes have painted a situation and all need urgent attention.

For the day after looms with wonder and wondering, where will I find to lay my head in peace? And after all that, will I be happy or will I be sad?

Childhood: Yikes! A snake visiting boarding school

Preserved for posterity

That night, there was much clamour as much of the boys' hostel emptied to chase after what then happened to be a yellowish tanned snake with a white belly - as I can recall - Poisonous snakes of Africa and Asia.

It measured about 2 metres and it was eventually preserved in formaldehyde in a large jar and put on display in the biology laboratory where specimens of other once wild and dangerous but now dead animals were racked on shelves to fill anyone with dread and fear.

Our biology teacher was a Canadian, much unlike other teachers, young, agile and rode a motorcycle, generally friendly and never menacingly cruel nor wielding a cane as the other sociopaths masquerading as teachers that our parents entrusted our care and education to.

Named for discipline

The aftermath of that night would have been grave for some, the commotion at close to midnight when lights were supposed to be out had roused the principal, a matriarch with omnipresence and omniscience that saw through you with a gaze that made you dissolve into nothingness in her presence; strict and motherly, Mrs Adebambo defined the regime of a tight ship.

She called out the sleepers; the spies and the eyes of the authorities, prefects in other words, to gather the names of the noisemakers who had breached every rule of discipline and order, that list almost as long as an arm included the great and the small, we only had to wait until the morning for the verdict which was most likely going to be a suspension rather than interminable hours of bush-clearing.

Bamboo and palm fronds

The grounds of the school were on the edge of a forest and it only had walls on the sides bordered by roads, the forest itself stretched for kilometres, I do not think we were ever sure of where the grounds ended and when we had begun to trespass on the property of neighbouring farmers.

For our annual sports days, each school house; Falode, Mellor, Igimisoje and Adedoyin built huts of a bamboo framework and palm fronds made up the walls and roofs, gathered from the surrounding forests though not too far from the hostel was a bamboo bush, probably decades old, a good few metres wide and a haven for much more than could be imagined.

Fire raiser

I had happened upon a box of matches, exuberant and carefree, as I walked past the bamboo bush, two fingers slid the match box out of its sheath, picked out a match, struck it on the igniter coating and threw it – the fire caught like kindling to tinder and I hurried my steps with the innocence of an idle pedestrian.

As the boys gathered in front of the staff building to receive the verdict of the council who were not aware of the cause of the commotion, the snake was laid lengthwise on the steps at the main entrance of the staff room, mercy came, relief came but why that all happened is only revealed today, I set fire to the habitat of creatures that could have brought a much different story than one told now.

The mischief of almost 35 years ago and that was a typical boarding school day.

Opinion: Redeem your integrity not the auditorium

¹¹ And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, ¹² for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; Ephesians 4:11-13 (NKJV)

Religious chicanery

You get to a point where certain events in religious circles begin to create the impression that a particular portion of their holy scriptures has been misread or that the reading to our hearing and the actions that follow are completely opposite to that intended piece.

As the convention of a renowned and popular church with a following seeded around the earth in the millions drew to a close, the leader of the congregation launched into an appeal to extend the current auditorium where the people were gathered to a 3 kilometre square tent of proportions that will make the eyes water that those who have the misfortune of sitting at the back might well need at least high-powered binoculars or dare I say a telescope to see the pulpit.

Crowds are masks for trouble

Surely, there is a need to gather for fellowship but there comes a time when size becomes an unwieldy exercise in gargantuanism that other issues of health and safety are a foreboding for a dangerous experiment in crowd control and egress if an emergency occurs - this could spell disaster.

Even in religious settings, we are not given the licence to discard logic and reasoning for the sentimental belief that all is well when the intellect is given to perform a ready and needed function.

Evidence of the fact that things can go seriously wrong was revealed when a 5-year old was apparently abducted from the vicinity of that convention, called Redemption Camp.

It might well be a rarity, but for the parents and relations of that little girl, it is the closest thing to hell on earth at a place when heaven was supposed to meet with the congregants. If the girl does end up being found, and I hope she is promptly reunited with her family, the happiness that ensues should not overshadow the reality of the fact that crowds make it almost impossible to guarantee the safety and protection of little ones, as it also offers cover to those with ulterior motives to operate.

A public relations deficit

Now, this is not the first time that a child has disappeared from a gathering of believers. In another mega-church, the child was missing for two long years until it was returned to its family just recently.

These megachurches whilst majoring on selling the elixir of hope within grasp but out of reach also seem to be poorly equipped for dealing with these matters, as the news story suggests, “It was not the wish of the church that the news of the abduction be leaked to members of the public.”

It begs the question how you intent to find an abducted child without informing the public and engaging the public because, short of a miracle of sorts, it might well require sighting and eye-witnesses as far afield as possible to get that child back.

Poor social responsibility

This theatre which by its size will be larger than any sports stadium in the world might well be the size of some of the largest calderas of mainly dormant volcanos and dormant volcanos are not by any means extinct.

Besides this, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway that services this camp and many others that line up that road does not have the capacity today to handle the traffic and movement of people and goods for these meetings with tailbacks that upset the already poor traffic conditions in the Lagos megalopolis.

To literally triple the crowds that throng that camp borders on the highest level of community social irresponsibility that has been witnessed in that country where religionists had attained an exculpatory status from being questioned about what they do – it is as appalling as it is atrocious that this idea was conceived, it would be like tripling the size of a body without consideration for the arteries necessary to keep that body alive and well.

He gave some opportunity for show

More galling is the way the appeal was made for funds to build this monstrosity whose idea will give the Tower of Babel a run for its money, in fact, I am now of the persuasion that they all be inflicted with a confusion of tongues so that this hare-brained and ill-thought out scheme is abandoned with the urgency with which it was announced.

From what was reported, no idea was given of the total cost of this project, but the words of the leader were transcribed as follows:

“We need N1 billion from ten people. If you are one of them, please see my personal Secretary after we finish today, we also need N100 million from those who can afford it, if you are in that category. Please see my personal Secretary as well.”

“Nonetheless, we need everyone’s involvement. If you can afford N50 million, N20 million, N5 million, N1 million to as low as N100, kindly make sure you participate.”

Money, just money

If by that token, 10 people each stepped forward to donate these sums, the total will come to NGN 11,760,001,000.00 or at today’s exchange rate $73,280,622.39 and that is if 70 people stepped forward for that challenge out of the thousands gathered there.

The real money and pledges could easily take that to multiples of a hundred, just because they all want to see one man talk, you wonder whether the concept of delegation is anathema, for someone opined recently on Twitter that the organisation has produced more pastors than Nigeria has produced doctors since independent, I presume that is just anecdotal, it could be researched to ascertain its veracity.

Subscribing to the basest of our human instincts, I would suspect the billionaires club will have all the accoutrements of privileged access, helipad to land their choppers, fast-track to their thrones ensconced in the altar – they all have their reward already.

What we heard

But back to the quote that sits atop this blog, what we heard from that reading was more like – And he required some to give 1 billion, some 100 million, some 50 million, and some 20 million and 5 million, for the competition of the saints for the work of his ministry, the building of a larger temple for Christ, till we all come to the unity of derision of the excess and wanton abuse of responsibility in the name of Christianity.

This is not what we should hear, but as they act and do, this is what is happening as one preacher said, it is the junk religion in the celebration of Mammon.

My view

Now, is nothing wrong in building a large auditorium but that should be with reference to more than just putting up the building. One would have thought the reason why private jets are acquired by the glitterati of the preachers world was to visit parishes and outposts rather than attempt to create a new Jerusalem place of pilgrimage in Nigeria which has no particular significance apart from what is beginning to look like catering for the cult of personality.

And before anyone attempts to post a comment on this opinion, engage the reasonable side of your disposition before you script the objectionable side of your views, allow the latent Christian attributes to gain ascendancy over sentiment and emotion expressed with fanatical abandon.