The Power Of Kindness -By Marie Obiora

I got into a conversation with a young man Sam (not his real name) who had recently concluded his NYSC. I asked where he had served and he replied Jos. I am somewhat familiar with Jos and so I went ahead to ask where in Jos he had served. He replied that he had served in a missionary school and that he had enjoyed his service year. I got really curious and asked why his service year was enjoyable. Sam began by letting me know that he was given a room in the mission house right next to that of the priest. After he had spent some days in the house, one Friday evening, he heard a knock on his door, he opened it to find the priest standing in front of it.

‘You do not go out much,’ the priest said. Sam replied that he had no where to go. The priest invited him to the parlor to watch television.’ Have you eaten?’ the priest inquired. ‘no Sir, came the reply. The priest asked the cook to add Sam to the dining table list. He went on to say that over the weeks and months, the priest would give him items of clothing and even foot wear. At the end of his service year, the Priest gave Sam some money for transport fare back to Lagos. I wanted to know whether the priest asked him over to his (the Priests’) church. ‘No’ he replied, in fact, he said, if he (Sam) met the priest on a Sunday morning whilst leaving the mission house to attend his (Sam’s) church, the priest would assist Sam with transport fare to attend Sam’s own church. Sam then added that if it rained or he was unable to attend his church, he would then attend that of the Priest. What surprised me the most was that Sam said that till this day, if he is unable to attend his church, he would go to that of the Priest.

In Sam’s opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Priests’ church. For clarity sake I asked him which denomination he belonged to, Sam replied that he belonged to a different denomination from that of the Priest but had no problem attending the Priest’s denomination. He ended by saying that he will never forget the Priest. Many days after this conversation I was still thinking of Sam’s loyalty to a denomination he does not belong to. It occurred to me that there are people who resort to violence in order to get other people to be this loyal to their beliefs. I do not think this Priest set out to convert Sam to his (the Priest’s own) denomination but he was simply extending brotherly kindness to a well-behaved young man far away from home.

There are people who in the name of religion, kill, burn houses, shoot, stab, kidnap, rape, slice into pieces other people who they feel do not serve God the same way they do. These people might want to borrow a leaf or learn a lesson from the encounter between this Priest and Sam. Anyone who is violent or inflicts terror on anyone or community only sows’ seeds of hatred, resentment and disgust. No one wants to listen to a violent person or people, no one wants to know what they have to say or join in their violence. Let’s paint a different scenario from what we have today, imagine that a group of people arrive at a village with bags of rice and some sheep. They pay some women in the village to cook every day for one month and serve lunch to the entire village, a plate of rice with a piece of meat. The villagers will eat and after some days will want to know who is feeding them and why. This will be a good opportunity for those hosting the community to preach to the villagers about their beliefs and their way of life.

It will be necessary to point out that not everybody will be converted by free lunch but at least they will all listen; some will consider the other religion and some might even criticize them for trying to buy the village over with plates of rice. All this is human nature and brings up another very important point. Respect. Sam in the above encounter, respected the way of life of the Priest. He did not bring other youth Corpers to his room to shout and talk about their school days, neither did he keep late nights and come back late or drunk. He paved the way for the Priest to express his kindness. Likewise, the Priest did not force Sam to attend his church even though he was feeding Sam and assisting him in other ways. It is very important that we respect other people’s points of view on religious matters.  Let us know that everyone has the right to worship and serve God as he or she so pleases, as long as their mode of worship does not infringe on another’s fundamental human rights.

If someone plants a tree for example, and decides to call the tree God, we might laugh at his behavior but no one has the right to beat him up, harm or destroy his property or person or discriminate against him. If, however he decides to sacrifice a human being to the tree, then he needs to know that he will go to prison for attempted murder if he attempts to kill the person and he will be hanged for murder, if he succeeds in sacrificing the person. The same applies to anyone who kills another person for not practicing the others’ religion. It is murder and there is no justification for murder.

This new year 2021, we should try to draw the attention of violent and destructive people to the fact that there is a better way of getting their opinion across to others. They should be encouraged to try kindness, they might try donating food items or items of clothing as opposed to buying and using weapons, they might help farmers weed their farms and feed the weeded grass to their cows rather than walk the cows through the farms. Society should lay a good example for them to follow by practicing kindness ourselves. Let us open food banks and free food restaurants (soup kitchens), let us put up bill boards and radio jingles encouraging one another to lend a helping hand whenever we can. Lending a helping hand does not necessarily mean giving money away all the time, we can give someone a free ride, babysit for a neighbor whilst she runs an errand, point someone who is lost in the right direction. Let us try to help others in their need, whatever that need might be.

Let us make 2021 a year of KINDNESS, and as the old saying goes,’ what comes around, goes around.’ The kindness might flow from society into the minds of these violent and destructive people and they might give up their violent ways for benevolent ways.