METANOIA

At what point is a U-turn, which is a complete turnaround, necessary in any course of action? It is exactly at the very point where one discovers that an indispensible item has been left behind or a wrong route taken. And so doing it the ‘U-curve’ way becomes inevitable picking along the indispensible or getting back on track. Employing an illustration here would do. You have just taken the left turn at the roundabout when the only road that leads to your intended destination lies left. On discovering this, you would agree with me that the only valid course of action is a complete turnaround. Again, you are dressed up and already headed for the British High Commission to apply for visa only to discover far into your journey that you left your passport way back at home. Retracing home the ‘U-way’ to pick along the one single most important document for visa application is non-negotiable. That is how it works, and is as true for getting on track as it is for finding the kingdom of God.

The word is metanoia and is at the very heart of the road to the ‘Father’s House.’ This is because wandering off ‘the way’ that terminates in paradise has proven to be habitual for many a man who, more often than not, compromise the kingdom ideals by trading them for earthly pleasures. It connotes repentance for the sinner and steadfastness for the saint that falls. It is the amazing grace that sees that we are never out of supplies as we individually and collectively journey to enter the rest promised us by God. It is the chisel with which heaven is hewn from earth, the fountain of divine love.

In experiential terms, at what point is metanoia called for? Let’s situate it in the context of different circumstances.

1.      In your life as a parent, what is your reading on the parental responsibility scale? Is the best you’ve ever done for your children giving birth to them and ensuring they are not suffering the lack provision and protection? If that’s your level, then you are the least of parents as you are functioning at the default setting of parenthood. What about apostolate of presence? What about posing as a shoulder to lean on amidst the challenges of growing up? What about going the extra mile to finding out why your baby isn’t laughing asmuch as she does on a normal day? How about their friends, how much do you know them since they pose as a compelling influence on your children?

Metanoia calls you to rethink how well you have been ‘pastoring’ the flock of your household with a view to making a U-turn if you have not been doing it fine.

2.      As a student that you are, how far? What do you do with school hours and reading times, how well have you been relating with your books? Do you possess studiousness (painstakingly applying oneself to studies), which is supposed to be the virtue of an ideal student? Or do you lazy around in plugged ears and dancing steps? How many dosages of lies have you feed your parents to extort money from them aside their regular bills they are obliged to pay? Have you practically become a thief instead of a promising student that you ought to be?

Today that metanoia have come calling, endeavor to harden not your heart.

3.      Dear teacher whose difference with capitalists isn’t clear enough, how far? How much pay would you be offered for imparting knowledge on young minds and you will be satisfied? Shame on you. It seems you are the only one that doesn’t know that teaching is a vocation, and as such is one of the very heights of service and for which there is no monetary equivalent but a stipend, which of course should secure one basic comfort and usual charities. How much extra effort do you make to ensuring that they are no discrimination between your carriage of the best and least of your students? Can you even contemplate a generous overtime to ensure that the various mental capacities of your class get the gist of your lesson? Or do you have your heart and mind glued to the clock so that a dime of extra time is no offered? Yes, you deserve a just pay because you have to survive and lead a good life as much as everyone else but not in comparison with anyone else so that you are not tempted to thinking that you contribute more. And I wonder if you have contributed more than a typical Catholic priest, who gives it all in obedience, poverty and chastity.

If you have not fared fine in the teaching ministry, then metanoia needs you to do something: follow the U-curve for good.

4.      And to those that thread the corridors of power, whose duty it is to shape the destinies of their countrymen in definite directions by deciding their fate through the various and varied laws they promulgate and the policies they initiate; how is the going? I hear it usually said that you never can know a man well enough until you have given him power, and I guess we now know you well enough, as one who is confidently and comfortably feasting on the future of our children and their own children after them. There appears to be no plans for a sustainable economy, the roads are a deathtrap and nobody is talking about them, the educational sector is dwindling and the best you could do is send your children to join the Oxbridge tradition, the youths are jobless and all you do is call them leaders of tomorrow, etc.

Metanoia needs you to change something.

5.      While Christians chant the Golden rule as, ‘do to others what you want some others to do to you,’ capitalist render it as, ‘he who has the gold makes the rules.’ It appears that there is a marked difference between when a fellow cues up for communion in church Sunday and when he mans the scales or dishes out the measures in the market. For him, the business of business is business and is necessarily different from the pursuit of piety and the exercise of religious duties. At the slightest opportunity he cheats his customers and outsmarts his competition and goes to the bank smiling as a consequence, the reason for which the business environment is described as hostile.

And when Christ came calling, Zaccheus offered to pay back to each in a fourfold, and Matthew left everything and followed him, and since Judas Iscariot refused to be converted he knew a sad fate. Now is your turn, and metanoia has come calling. Say, yes!

6.      Whatever situation you are in, you alone know, judging by the kingdom standards, where you have faltered. Just turnaround, not either way but the metanoia way, which is depicted in the curve of the letter ‘U.’