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The year 1998 has been a very eventful one for my country Nigeria, for my Church, and for me. It has been the year of a dramatic twist in the political fortunes of Nigeria, consequent upon the sudden death of the notorious dictator who was determined to rule this country until death do us part. It is the year of the curious death after four years in detention of Moshood Abiola on the eve of an imminent release by the successors of his captors.

 

All through the nearly five years of Sani Abacha's murderous misrule and reckless plundering of the nation, I had been rather passionately involved in social commentary and critique, determined as I was to be counted out of the madness of the moment, and identifying vocally with the much derided and maligned opposition, lest posterity should condemn me along with others for criminal silence and cowardly despondency in the face of monumental evil. But as a result of this passionate engagement with the tragic drama of our country's recent political history, I have suffered in the deeper recesses of my person the emotional trauma, the psychic pain and the existential anguish that have been the lot of all thinking Nigerians who refuse to tread the path of apathy and cynicism in the face of the triumph of mediocrity that has characterised Nigerian governance over the years.

 

1998 has been the year of the second visit of Pope John Paul II to Nigeria, and the beatification of Father Michael Iwene Tansi. This all-important event exerted enormous pressure on the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Nigeria, and on those of us who function at the administrative office. On the personal level has been a very significant year for me. It is the year immediately following my fortieth birthday. I had looked forward to this period which appears to me as the dawn of the second phase of my life with much anxiety, haunted as I was by the popular saying that "a fool at forty is a fool forever." The year has been a year of incredible demands on my faith, my time and my talents. With so much distress in the land, and with so much travel to do, meetings to attend, memos to draft, and numerous writing and speaking engagements, I had very little room left for the much needed reflection and relaxation.

 

As the year progressed and my programmes became more oppressive, I was constantly on edge. I was literally burning out my last reserve of physical, emotional and spiritual energy. I started losing concentration in prayer, defaulting in my usual calmness, sometimes becoming irritable in circumstances that I considered provocative. And after my examination of conscience at the end of each day, it became increasingly clear to me that something was going wrong. Was I passing through what they call mid-life crisis? Could it be that I was beginning to witness in my life symptoms of what Dr. Viktor Frankl (the founder of Logotherapy) calls "an existential vacuum?" Could it be that I was beginning to experience what Wolfhart Pannenberg calls "the loss of a meaningful focus of commitment." Could it be that I was becoming alienated from the centre of my being, which is also the locus of meaning? Could it be that I was becoming victimized by what some other psychologist has referred to as a tyrannical ego, an ego which has set for me unreasonably high goals that could not be realistically achieved within the context of such a distressed environment as ours?

 

Whatever the diagnosis may be, it was time to slow down, to stop and to pray, if I were not going to crack. I was resolved that I needed to switch off my word-processor, to put the books aside, to put off the appointments and to suspend the journeys. I needed time from everything and everyone. I needed to go into solitude. I needed to go in search of meaning. I needed what in Christian spirituality is called "a desert experience" for a qualitative encounter with my Creator and Saviour. I had talked and written too much these last few years, and now I needed to listen and reflect. I had been spiritual director and counsellor to many in the last few years, but now I needed direction and counselling. I needed to listen to my own heart-beat and to feel my own pulse. I needed to pay attention more seriously to the Word of Life which creates and re-creates. I needed to listen to the Master who says in Matthew 11:28-30 "Come to me all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am humble and gentle in heart, and you will find rest for your souls..." I knew I could not remain in Lagos for this exercise, for the entire environment is depressingly noisy. So I resolved on going for a week or two in the monastery.

 

I discussed my predicament and the desire to go into solitude in a monastery environment with Father Hassan Kukah my immediate superior, who responded only with a suspicious glance, not knowing at first what to make of the new development. I insisted that I needed to go on a Retreat and to do a general evaluation of the spiritual, moral, psychological and emotional dimensions of my life, in order to forestall a major mid-life crisis. I had been on a pilgrimage for forty-one years, but now it is time to ask myself very seriously where I am coming from and where I am going. He immediately welcomed the idea and even offered to give me his copies of Archbishop Fulteen Sheen's Retreat Tapes, in case I would find some use for them. Thus I abandoned everything and left for the Benedictine Monastery in Ewu-Ishan, Edo State, on Monday November 2, 1998, not really knowing what I would experience or what to expect from the spiritual adventure into solitude.

 

On arrival at the Monastery by 7.15 p.m. on that day, I felt quite intimidated by the extreme silence and serenity that reigned on top of the hill that is thickly populated by robust oil-palm trees. It happened that the monks had withdrawn to their cells after dinner at 7.00 p.m. They were due to be out again at 8.00 p.m. for Night Prayers. At 8.30 p.m. however, the monk's day usually ended, and everyone was expected to sleep. With no TV, no radio, no street lights, no sirens, and with the observance of absolute silence among the human beings that inhabited the hill-top monastery, 8.30 p.m. appeared like mid-night. Of course I could not sleep at 8.30 p.m. Besides, the silence in the place was for me frightening. I could almost hear, feel, smell and touch those powerful words of the Lord in Psalm 46:10 saying "Be still and know that I am He," and that was terrifying. The silence was too much of a contrast for one coming from Lagos and accustomed to the cacophony of bus-stops and the deafening noise of vehicular horns. The serenity was too much of a marked departure from the harassment of siren-blaring bullion vans and sundry vehicles conveying our oppressors or their wives, children, stewards and nannies to and from work, with trigger happy orderlies driving dangerously, frightening other road users with guns loaded with live bullets, and trashing those who can not get away quickly with the horse-whip.

 

The Guest Master who met me at the gate of the Monastery whispered something to the effect that they had got a prior information about my coming, and so my room was ready. I settled myself in and felt quite comfortable in the rather austere guest room that had all I truly needed - a bed, a chair and a table. None of those toys and gadgets that were a source of distraction in my room. I now believe that many of the goods we acquire and hoard in our greed and blindness often serve to dwarf our spirit, for the human being does not really need much to live a wholesome life. Perhaps the quality of our "being" diminishes in consonance with the quantity of our "having." This message came to me very powerfully as soon as I settled myself in the monastery. The food served at the Monastery was once again a significant departure from what I was used to. It was rather frugal and on the vegetarian side. Yet, I enjoyed every item laid before me, especially the simple boiled beans with red oil we had for break-fast and the boiled yam with oil which was often served for dinner.

 

I fitted myself into the rhythm of the monastic life, rising at 3.50 a.m. and retiring to bed at 8.30 p.m. In-between were six community prayer sessions that took place in the chapel, the rest of the time left for private prayer and reflection. I was assigned a retreat moderator with whom I had two sessions a day that consisted of spiritual direction and general counselling. As I got myself into the cycle of the Benedictine life of contemplation, I could sense God's gratuitous visitation amidst the gentle breeze that swayed the palm fronds on top of Ewu hill. I soon discovered that I was enwraped in a divine milieu, in the company of about twenty-six monks whose every breathe is prayer. In this providential milieu, I experienced a peculiar peace and restfulness, and like Peter on mount of transfiguration, I was momentarily overwhelmed with the desire to remain on the mountain top, and never to come down.

 

I knew however that I would have to come down from the mountain of silence and serenity, and to face the challenges of witnessing to Christ within the context of a world that is deeply wounded and fragmented, a world that longs for healing and wholeness. I was conscious of the fact that I would soon have to come down from the mountain of peace and security and once again be confronted by the multiple contradictions that plague our world, a world seemingly held down by a complexity of evil forces. Recent political and social events in our country Nigeria are a testimony to the reign of darkness in the real world where human beings interact and where Nigerians hate, cheat, deceive, oppress and exploit one another. The manipulation, repression and monumental fraud that defined the Abacha regime, and the sycophancy, the complicity and the acquiescence of a large chunk of civil society during the period, sufficiently demonstrate how low human beings could descend when the fear of God is not the foundation or the centre of their lives. And yet I painfully recalled that many of those who sustained and promoted that rogue dispensation were Christians who seemed to have sold out their consciences for the blood money that mammon could offer.

 

My adventure in solitude offered me a unique opportunity to look critically at the plight of humanity on the eve of the third millennium. My reading of the situation was that humanity is experiencing a most profound hunger - the hunger of the heart or the hunger of the soul, a peculiar hunger which our hi-tech civilization and our profound philosophies and lofty ideologies have failed to address. There is no doubt that ours is a world steeped in sin. Sin abounds in the individual heart as well as in the very structures of society. Our generation has the reputation of not only making war like previous generations, but with our modern communications technology we can now bring the horrors of war to each person's living room. Today we do not stop at just being promiscuous like the fun-loving men and women of primitive times. No, we have become enterprising with our promiscuity. We now have a way of entertaining people in far away lands with the shameful and dehumanising acts of our promiscuity, thanks to the television, video and the Internet.

 

In my solitude, I took a closer look at the Nigerian society and its problems, and I saw that we are truly suffocating under the enormous weight of the seven deadly social sins identified by Mahatma Gandhi as: Politics without principles; wealth without work; commerce without morality; pleasure without conscience; education without character; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice. I reasoned that the only way forward is the way of repentance and conversion. No amount of rhetoric will change our situation if the demons of hatred, greed and ethnic bigotry are not exorcised. While on the mountain I knew that all hope was not lost. I saw our generation as one that is full of fear and anxiety, but also one that is full of hope and expectation of a new world order. We are full of expectation of a new order of love, when swords shall be turned into ploughshares and javelins into pruning hooks.

 

In my sacred hour on the mountain top I also took a look at the Church that is supposed to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, but one that is often unable to witness perfectly to the light, the truth, the justice, the charity and the holiness of Christ. The Church I saw is a wounded healer, at once in need of healing, and yet empowered to be the sacrament of healing, reconciliation, hope and salvation to the world. I stood there on top of the mountain of serenity, representing this Church of saints and sinners, that is nevertheless the bride of Christ whom he loves so dearly. In the divine milieu of the mountain top, I looked at the Catholic priesthood which has got its own fair share of the multiple crises of our age, a priesthood that is today challenged by an unhealthy alliance with extreme secularism and the widespread devotion to materialism and the idolatry of science and technology. I saw the priesthood as one that is in every sense a wounded healer. In fact it occurred to me in God's providential presence on the mountain that the Catholic priest perhaps suffers much more than anyone else the tensions and anxieties brought upon 20th century humanity by the forces of change that are unprecedented in human history. The Catholic priest perhaps more than anyone else feels the pain and suffers the agony of a humanity at war with its God and with itself, a world alienated from its life-force, which, failing to find fulfilment and satisfaction in all the alternative gods and idols it has erected, now exists in absurdity.

 

It is within this scenario of the world of multiple contradictions, the Church of saints and sinners, and the Catholic priest that is a wounded healer, that I evaluated my own life in the presence of the Holy of holies. I stood there like the Publican in Luke 18:9-14, and bowed my head in shame when I heard breaking through the silence of the mountain top: "Who shall climb the mountain of the Lord, who shall be admitted into his presence? The man with clean lips and a pure heart, who desires not worthless things..." The Lord convicted me for my lack of faith, for my disobedience, and for my unhealthy compromise with the world of darkness, but at once he comforted me with his powerful message of mercy, compassion and forgiveness. In this providential encounter the Lord challenged me to take the path of fidelity, charity and hope, promising to be always there with his grace which is sufficient for me. The Lord made me appreciate a little more the gift of the Christian vocation, the grace of ministry in his vineyard, and the profound mystery of His person in whom is my ultimate fulfilment.

 

Before I came down from the mountain I was encouraged to persevere in hope, for God is still the one in charge. He has not surrendered the world into the wicked hands of the devil. And with the words of Thomas Merton the renowned Trappist monk, I was assured that "the human soul is still the image of God, and no matter how far it travels away from Him into the regions of unreality, it never becomes so completely unreal that its original destiny can cease to torment it with a need to return to its God, and become, once again, real." Then I remembered the conclusion St. Augustine arrived at, after years of searching for God. He said: "the Lord has created us for himself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in him."

 

I left the monastery with the assurance that the human search for God shall not be in vain. I came down from the mountain somehow convinced that God himself who has already taken the initiative on the cosmic level by the event of the Incarnation, will in his own mysterious ways see to the salvation of all those who genuinely seek after him. With this assurance I was ready to come back to the real world, and to my noisy Lagos residence, equipped with the grace of God to face the challenges of a life of faith in a world of multiple contradictions. I came back, ready not only to live my life to the full in this sinful world and in this distressed country, but also to minister hope to my weak and vulnerable fellow-travellers in the capacity of a wounded healer.

 

November 1998

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