With Koko Kalango
This year’s Valentine’s Day was unique because it was also Ash Wednesday. Someone said the last time this coincidence occurred was 1945.
February the 14th is set aside to celebrate love. It is a period of high expectations and a big deal to many who are in love or would love to be in love. Whether you believe in commemorating St. Valentine’s Day or not, you cannot escape the aura it attracts and the build-up to the day. Love, as a theme, dominates the media, retail outlets, leisure and entertainment agendas, everything. But it is as good a time as ever to ask the million dollar (sorry, 360 million Naira) question “What is love?â€
We use the word love rather loosely; we say we love ice cream, we love the West African coastline, we love jogging, we love Tom, Dick and Harry etc. A general definition of love is ‘a strong feeling of care, liking, pleasure, enjoyment towards a person, an idea, a place or a thing’. Love stirs us to compassionate acts toward others. Love makes us protective over what is important to us like family, friends, and possessions. Love endears a person to another who shares similar tastes, inclination, experiences etc. Love could also result in sexual attraction and may even lead to the altar. But most times our love for one another is conditional. This kind of love says ‘I love you because you are my blood’. ‘I love you because I enjoy your company’, ‘I love you because you make me happy’ etc. etc. etc.
Sometime in 1986 I got familiar with a book that changed my life. I had always known it existed and read from it every now and then. But on the 1st of May that year I got to know the Author personally and the book came alive to me. In it I discovered a fascinating definition of love – “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy; love is not proud or arrogant, does not behave itself unseemly, does not seek its own, is not easily provoked, does not think evil; Love does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all thing, endures all things…†(1 Corinthians 13:4-7) Tall order? You bet! Impossible? No.
The First Corinthians thirteen love goes beyond positive feelings. As a matter of fact it demands we act in a charitable way towards others even when it is difficult to. Love in this form is unconditional and it is oftentimes a struggle. This Valentine’s Day fell on Ash Wednesday, the first day of lent. Could there be more to this than meets the eye? Ash Wednesday marks a 46-days countdown to Easter. For many Christians it is also the beginning of a 40-day fast in preparation for Easter. The 40-day fast is a practice in the steps of Jesus who fasted 40 days. A time of fasting is normally a time for sober reflection and penitence. It also is a time for mourning as we remember the gruesome death of Jesus on a cross for our redemption. On Ash Wednesday, Christians symbolically use ashes to draw a cross on their forehead to remind mankind to ‘repent and believe in the gospel’ and to remind us that ‘we are dust and to dust we will return’.
Nigeria is going through a trying period. The events of our day call for putting on of sackcloth and applying ashes. We are at this time a nation in mourning. Innocent citizens are being killed and there seems to be no justice in sight, with the devaluation of the Naira cost of living is becoming unbearable and the hardship is biting. Little wonder suicide, violence and crime is on the increase.
The unity of the country is threatened and the polity is heating up as we approach election season. As citizens, there are several lines of response we could adopt. Whatever course of action we take to address our present predicament, we must also put on sack cloth, ‘cover’ ourselves in dust and ashes and travail in prayer till the injustice, hardship and despair upon the land is redressed.
14 February 2018 – Valentines Day & Ash Wednesday is a symbolic time to combine love and ashes. The unconditional love described in 1 Corinthians 13 is connotative of love and ashes, it portrays the pleasure and pain of true love. True love is not superficial and wishy- washy, it is tough love. This love beckons on us to do good to our enemy, it demands that we bear up at all times. Adhering to it will help us pay the prize for real change by humbling ourselves, repenting and praying according to 2 Chronicles 7:14
Again while we are frustrated over our national challenges, we should remember that the nation is made up of people and people make up communities. In addressing national issues we should also address issues at the local, familial and individual level.
An appreciation of this kind of love should see us through tough times whether as individuals or as a nation. It should encourage us to not give up on that stubborn teenager. It should help us manage that rebellious child. This love should strengthen us to work at that estranged partnership. It should give us the resolve to keep that sinking marriage afloat. It should cause us to tolerate that obnoxious subordinate and submit to that tyrant of a boss. It should make us pray for our leaders and our nation as well. And when it is difficult to love, let us remember the Ashes of this Valentine day; a sign of sobriety and empathy. Let us choose to show sacrificial and not the superficial love. True love, after all, is a decision.
