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Eternal viewpoint and orderliness
Our common lot is to be born into an imperfect world, filled with disappointment and unanswered questions. It is natural, in these circumstances, to worry about the future. We wonder if things will work out for us—and for our loved ones.
Too often we try to make sense of life based on a very narrow perspective, which is somewhat like trying to understand the plot of a novel after reading only one page. A perspective that is limited to what we can see, feel, touch, and explain right now will leave us unsatisfied and longing for something more, something deeper. A larger, more expansive, even eternal perspective teaches us that good can come of bad, strength can be borne of weakness, and joy can come on the other side of sorrow.
We are all called upon to overcome obstacles of various kinds. This is necessary in order to fulfill our life’s purpose. Each challenge we face here can prepare us for something much greater hereafter. This life is a laboratory for eternity: we learn and grow; in time, we become better, wiser, more understanding. Distressing questions are ultimately answered, life’s injustices are eventually resolved, and what seems impossible becomes reality.
So try to accentuate the positive, and hold on to the assurance of good things to come. We simply cannot cower in fear or let go of hope.
Frequently when we become aware of conditions that need correction, we wonder why the people who are responsible don’t correct them. In a home or a family, in a community or a commonwealth, usually it will be found that there is someone whose moral or legal responsibility is to see that questionable conditions do not exist, and we are led to wonder why they are permitted to continue. There could be many answers to this line of questioning, and to ascribe any one cause would be to oversimplify the problem.
It sometimes happens that those responsible for moral or legal action are lazy or indifferent; it sometimes happens that they are actually unaware of the condition that needs correction, even though it is their responsibility to be aware of it; and it sometimes happens that private and public opinion is against doing anything about it. Any of these reasons could be responsible for a person’s sitting by and watching things go on which it is his obligation to see do not go on. But beyond all these possible explanations, there is one reason yet unmentioned which is frequently responsible for failure to correct evils that need correcting—and that is the lack of moral courage that comes with the failure of a man to have his own house in order. He who is carrying a burden on his own conscience finds it difficult to set someone else right who is guilty of the same or similar offenses.
A prosecutor with a sense of guilt must feel that he is pointing the finger at himself every time he accuses someone else. A parent who corrects a child in matters in which he himself does not conform is almost always unconvincing. It is difficult to tell others what to do, with conviction, in matters in which we ourselves do not have a convincing record. It is true now, as it has always been true, that there is a lack of strength in anyone whose own life isn’t in order—which often accounts for lack of moral courage, and which is one of the reasons why more things that need to be set right aren’t set right. We can’t be weak inside and strong outside. We can’t be weak at home and strong when we are away from home. In other words, if we’d like to reform others, we pretty well know where to begin. There are more things than charity that begin at home, and setting things in order is one of them.
By Samuel Enos Eghan
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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BY ROBERT EKOW GRIMMOND-THOMPSON
