Two days ago, I saw something on the social media that reminded me profoundly of who we are and should forever be. Before telling you what it was, let me say that no human being who truly knows God would watch or listen to it and not determine to become a better brother or sister or friend or colleague.
A beggar went to a home, seeking food. The homeowner invited him in, but asked him to take the backdoor. Inside, he was asked to sit on the floor and was served right there.
However, before starting to eat the beggar was to repeat a prayer after his host. As all mealtime prayers go, it was supposed to be a short, drama-free exercise. But, no, this one became an experience the world should hear. Three times, the host said, ‘Our Father, thank you for the food,’ and all three times the beggar said, ‘Your father, thank you for the food.’
Exasperated, the prayer leader asked the man why he couldn’t repeat a simple prayer. He received a shocker for an answer. ‘I cannot say “our Father” because you and I don’t share father. If we ever did -let alone still do- you would not have asked me to come in through the back and I would be sitting at your dining table, not on this floor!’
I wish I could get this message into the agenda of all the primitive, ungodly, and stupid ethnic meetings going on across Nigeria. I wish church leaders who are busy bickering over the size of their church and pocket and mansion and car, rather than over how much of Christ they had successfully preached to hungry souls could meditate on the message of that footage. I wish runners of government, at every level, could for once imagine having this same damning conversation with a beggar who hails from their jurisdiction. I wish this message could ring in our heads every time we grow too big-headed.
I wish the beggar was ubiquitous, and present at every human assembly whose objective is to steal, to destroy, to kill. I wish the beggar was a teacher or a preacher, a journalist, a broadcaster, a president, a governor, a parliamentarian, a political champion, or someone with a platform. I wish, I wish, I wish. I wish those of us who people the ground floor of life could think about our joint fatherhood when we insultingly malign our leaders, in the name of criticism.
Which reminds me and I believe this is the perfect juncture to chip this in: two days ago, I cringed when I read a publication by a young woman (whom I have always seen as a friend) despising and disrespecting her home state governor. I know she belongs in another party. I always knew, also, she had those unpredictable tendencies but this particular display went totally over the bar. Reading through her invective-laden, purposeless analysis of a particular speech by the governor, I could not but wonder about the beggar and his message; I could not help but think about our shared fatherhood.
When I (we) grumble against my (our) parent(s), leader(s), priest, colleague, family, country, state, race, local government area, clan, village, senior, colleague or subordinate, as I (we) almost always do, do I (we) ever spare a moment to think about the fact that we (all of us -black, white, green, yellow- all of us) are sons and daughters of one Father? Secondly, how did man miss the way so far off to the point of forgetting not only to inherit the sweet nature of his Father but also to never remember that there’s just one Father? Or, was the beggar right? That is, were human beings created by other than the one, true God?
Strangely, the foregoing is neither a rhetorical nor a hypophora question. Let all of us keep our answers to ourselves. Instead of hypocritically providing so-called possible solutions that are long on words and short on action, let us remind ourselves that every injustice, every dishonour, every inhumanity that we show to the other man or woman or child is to our blood -to us. That’s it: there’s no single inimical human action or inaction that is not internecine.
For instance, if the Fulanis, the Ibibios, and the Tivs like, let them kill or suppress all the minorities in their respective purported fiefdom. At the end, they would discover to their eternal shame and chagrin that they shared common kindred with all those they cheated or mistreated or wasted. No savvy, but perhaps this is the missing link of humanity that the world needed to hear, all this while. Would the earth then see less murderous idiocy, less dastardly greed, less egoistic fights, less meaningless crises and less manipulative ungodliness when everyone comes to the knowledge that we all have only one Father?
Alas, is our father one? That is, does everyone in this world belong to God? Did He create you and them and me? Please, leave religion out of this.
This might sound too elementary, too puerile, too simplistic but if the world has not found the much-needed solution after all these years spent on rocket science, what’s wrong in trying basic arts? In conclusion, the beggar who set us off on this mental expedition was -directly and indirectly- advocating a world of love, equality and simplicity. Surely, that’s not too much for people who share Father to demand and receive -is it? God bless Nigeria!