Six decades and a year! That’s if you want to be dramatic which I have an inclination to be every now and then. I marked another birthday last week in the midst of hearing of death everywhere. Life continues to happen and we have to be a part of it the best way we know how. This wasn’t one of those birthdays I had thought much about. It just seemed to creep up on me and there it was! I have always been a joyful person who truly loves life, loves being in the world, loves thinking of ways to be a part of making the world a better place in some small way. I am that person with a glass half full rather than half empty. However I have to admit that all my innate ways of making the world feel and look harmless, of thinking of humanity as fundamentally good have all been deeply challenged over the past year. Coming to terms with the not so Cherie view in my own internal world, I have had to literarily step back, take a deep breath, regroup, dig deep and find another layer of that inner optimist to arm myself with as I continue on this next stage of my life.

Life is simply too precious to squander whatever time we have. As we all know none of us is promised any quantity of time, so it has to be about the quality. This becomes even more pertinent after attaining a certain age. In our world today one must truly find reason to be full of gratitude every day and to be able to appreciate the small meaningful things that might actually make our lives sweeter.

My own Personal Rant!

Nigeria’s Handmaids Tale

I was reading in the press about the recent ludicrous ‘genital testing’ proposed by a Pentecostal church. It was also beautifully and creatively examined in Loud whispers last week. I simply couldn’t help but add my own two cents to this debate. Genital testing…what does that even mean in the 21^st century? It’s one of those stories that if you heard, ordinarily you would fall over laughing in hysterics as some outrageous bad joke. The problem sadly is that we all know these clowns (yes I called them clowns…what else can you call them that is printable), really believe this crap! We also know exactly what their evil intentions are. The even more egregious, incomprehensible part of it is the women who are supporting it. I was watching on an early morning Nigerian talk show some mindless (I’m deliberate in my condemnation), misguided women trying to defend the church for what they were arguing to be a well thought out, much required ‘solution’ to an ‘identified  problem in marriages’. The mind simply boggles!

I recently read somewhere that a pastor asked his congregation to eat grass which they did. Will he then ask them to drink poison like the lunatic Jim Jones in Guyana? Or did I just make that up? I don’t even know what is real or not anymore. As they say truth is stranger than fiction…more so than ever before in these weird, befuddled times we are living in now. I digress; it’s hard to keep up with this stuff, it just keeps coming at alarming frequency and absurdity!

I’m likening this new church pronouncement to the spectacular drama being shown on British TV in its second season called The Hand Maids Tale. I wonder if anyone here has seen it. It’s one of those dramas that on first viewing makes you think you are looking into something futuristic, an alternate universe. However on closer examination you realise that a lot of what is being portrayed on screen is actually happening here and now in our own existence, only more extreme. It’s all there, the sexism, the raping of women in the name of religion, the homophobia, the gender inequality, the suppression and oppression of the masses by the state, the conflating and misrepresentation, misinterpretation of religion for self gain and illicit pleasure.

Does any of this sound remotely familiar? Well we are heading down the road to our own Dystopian like existence if we are not careful.  The Yoruba’s say ohun tio da o da…what is bad is bad! There is just no other way to call a spade a spade. This is sexual abuse by any definition! The interesting thing is in all the discussions I keep hearing that this activity is going to be practiced on both the man and woman; that it is a precaution to safe guard the sanctity of their marriage (Please God who comes up with these things!). However when you listen closely there is no real explanation of how it will be carried out on the man. So let’s think about it for a minute and do forgive me if I offend anyone’s sensibilities here but it’s already out there! For arguments sake, to check the man to see if he can function will they ask him to masturbate or will they ask his intended to masturbate him. Who will be watching this activity to confirm it happened. It’s beginning to sound like some twisted form of porn. It’s not rocket science to figure out how genital testing will be carried out on the woman! The apologists further try to convince us of the efficacy of this proposed madness by siting the use of medics to carry out said testing. Two problems with that are: How can we be sure it will be genuine doctors who if they are, should refuse to carry out such a practice for ethical and moral reasons; and secondly even if they were bonifide doctors, surely it wouldn’t be long before it is some senior male member of the church takes over this ‘delicate’ role.

Whatever happened to saving souls? Please, I beg the church should stay in its own lane o!  All roads shouldn’t always lead to the nether regions. We have so much work to do in looking after the mental health, spirituality of the congregation; na wetin consine you with specific parts of the body that should only be accessible to the couples themselves. This is not God’s work it’s guided by that other fellow who lives in hell! The irony of this whole debacle is that by the very act the church is proposing it puts marriages in jeopardy by default. This is a traumatic thing physiologically and psychologically. It’s invasive, it’s an assault, its de humanising, it’s shaming, and it’s humiliating. There are no redeeming qualities to this really barbaric non idea.  Come on people stop this insanity and do God’s work or get out of the church!!