The evil of goodness

No, this is no reverse psychology, neither was the last entry. However, this and that are five and six; this being the continuation. This -if you like- is the B-side of the goodness of evil; that we served penultimate Monday. Goodness is not a hundred percent good; the same way evil is not wholly evil.

Just as every cloud has a silver lining, every light has its shadow. By the way, talking about light, darkness might be all-evil as you think but it is the father and mother of light. Light existed before darkness all right but it took darkness to introduce it. It takes darkness for people to recognise and appreciate light.

The foregoing is tantamount to saying that there’s a certain level of evil embedded in the goodness that light represents. It is so true. Light, on stage, in photography or naturally, can be evil. Too little or too much of it can mess up a stage performance or a photo or the human eyes.

My “personal friend,” Vintage Pat, the other day, reminded me of Ecclesiastes 7:16. It is something you should read for yourself, even now. It fits perfectly with my message, today. As my spiritual father, Global Ba’aba, Dr. Abel Damina, has taught me, here are the pre-text, context, and post-text to help you better understand the matter.

Ecclesiastes 7:15-17 (MSG) should hang on the walk of every heart. Here you are. “I’ve seen it all in my brief and pointless life -here a good person cut down in the middle of doing good, there a bad person living a long life of sheer evil. So, don’t knock yourself out being good, and don’t go overboard being wise.

“Believe me, you won’t get anything out of it. But, don’t press your luck by being bad, either. And don’t be reckless. Why die needlessly?

“It’s best to stay in touch with both sides of an issue. A person who fears God deals responsibly with all of reality, not just a piece of it. Wisdom puts more strength in one wise person than ten strong men give to a city. There’s not one totally good person on earth, not one who is truly pure and sinless”.

I leave you to wonder whether and how best you have to stay in touch with both sides of an issue eg., goodness or evil. If you need my advice though, I would simply say: be careful. No, be tactful. No, be wise; always remember there’s goodness in every evil and vice versa.

Don’t be judgemental. Don’t be hasty. In every matter, exercise uncanny restraint. You never know if the rain that locked you in will bring great harvest or if the so-called clement weather will at the end herald famine.

Talking specifically about good people, good things, good situations: how exactly have they ever affected the price of fish -locally, nationally and globally? Take the good man, for instance, he’s more often than not disrespected, passed over, and above all, never feared. Almost always, the good man is dismissed as weak and therefore unindispensable. This, for me, is the number one evil of goodness.

Even more annoying, you can spread that side by side with the goodness of evil. An evil man is considered by even the church and sundry places of worship as a strong man. That is, a strong man of Satan is recognised and celebrated by people of God. Alas, the devil and his team are ever so disdainful of good men and women and children.

It might seem frivolous but can you please point at one good man that Satan has honoured? Yet, you and I can list many evil people honoured and idolised and promoted by the church. What abominable twin evil! Father, can you please come now and take all of us with you to teach us moral sense?

Furthermore, another goodness that evil enjoys is perpetual fanship. We all hate evil but it daily multiplies in leaps and bounds. We celebrate evil news more than we do the good. In fact, evil has greater fanbase than goodness.

We talk more about evil than goodness. We claim to love God but Satan is our main man. We fear Satan more than we fear God. An eight billion-strong electorate have shamelessly awarded popularity contest bragging rights to Satan, against their Maker.

Everywhere on the face of the earth, evil no longer hides. Talk about the audacity of evil. That’s some goodness, right? The murderer, the thief, the destroyer who ought to be afraid of the law are instead the scarecrows that the law and its agents hide from.

There’s one more goodness of evil I know you would love. It is the effrontery for me, really. Where and when evil ought to fold away in shame, it rather stomps about flaunting nonsense. Imagine the evil called corruption; when challenged, it fights backs like a wounded tiger in the full glare of an applauding public.

In my country, in addition to the goodness of fighting back, evil also attracts. It is almost like sugar or honey to ants. Our people flock too easily into evil enterprise such as cultism, the occult and drugs than they do good. Pray, what else can it be other than goodness for anyone to see fire but still put in their fingers?

Finally, let’s break the remaining table; after all, of what good is it? Goodness magnetises too much evil: anger, betrayal, exploitation, hate, jealousy; name it. Too many beneficiaries of goodness end up returning evil while only a handful of evil recipients ever contemplate doing good in return. Truly, goodness can as well be a unique piece of evil.

God bless Nigeria!

The Ekweremadu in all of us

For sometime now, former Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, and wife, Beatrice, have been in hot soup -as we say in Nigeria. Trouble started when their daughter, Sonia, took ill over kidney. A judge in the United Kingdom, where they had taken a young Nigerian male donor, found the serving Nigerian senator and wife and a medic accomplice guilty of an organ harvesting plot and sentenced them heavily. Sen. Ekweremadu got nine years and eight months in prison; his wife four and a half years while the doctor who assisted them, Obinna Obeta, got 10 years.

Since then, as happens all too often, things have tended to fall apart and the centre cannot hold. Even those who should look at the matter with the eyes of a big man have instead descended to the lowest rungs of life, joining the global jungle justice mob peopled by hypocrites, shouting kill-and-bury and casting the first-stone. To be sure, trying to exploit another man’s son for own daughter -as we are being made to believe- is a horrible offence. However, who among us -dear fathers and mothers- won’t get desperate in the circumstance?

God -the father of justice and morality- gave own only son to save the world. He gave one for others. He can also give others for one. Rather than arguing, please read the Message Translation of Isaiah 43:1-4 and whatever you make of it, keep it to yourself.

Whenever I see or hear people condemned for say, stealing to feed their family, I always wonder about what I would do if it were me. Sssh: never swear never, my dear. All you can do is pray that loyalty or desperation never tests you. Imagine having babies almost dying after crying for days because of food or the lack of it.

I put it to you, Messrs Saints & Co., that if you had or knew where you could steal food in that instant and for that purpose, you would sans hesitation without minding the consequences. No, I am neither validating what you call evil nor prophesying doom. I am just reminding us that these things can happen to anyone, to everyone. Many must learn and ensure and remember empathy and sympathy, every time.

I, Michael BUSH, am 52 in August this year. I have just one biological child. There’s nothing -plus including anything and everything- I won’t do to keep Winnie alive if (God forbid) push developed wings and became shove. You are not qualified to be a parent if you cannot do even the impossible to keep your child alive.