BEHIND THE FINE FACE
EPISODE 21
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“What was that they said about a fly that has refused to heed advice, Godwin?” Uncle T asks.
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“I… Uncle, I’m not sure. I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“How will you know? You won’t know. You can’t know, Godwin. And because you aren’t expected to know, at least not by yourself, I took it upon myself to be that voice of reason; the voice that attempted to shed light on this mystery.”
“Uncle, what are you talking about?” I was rather confused.
Uncle T sighed deeply and looked at me with genuine concern and, most importantly, pity. “Even with the best of intentions, a man must know when to let go sometimes,” Uncle T said, shaking his head.
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“Let go of what, Uncle? You are speaking in parables. Nothing you are saying is making any sense to me.” I said, almost pleading for clarity. “How are you even here with me right now? How am I addressing you? Wait! Is it possible that I’ve died? “Is this a dream?”
Uncle T gave a smirk.
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“I told you not to go. I sent your wife to you, and you had the audacity to dismiss my words as nonsense? I told you to avoid a situation you had no knowledge of, a situation God had already delivered you from in the past, and you stubbornly refused. I asked if you wanted to experience what happened to me. It was a simple question, and your response is primarily why you are standing in front of me right now, my son.” Uncle T said this while staring at me, as if hoping to jog my memory.
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“Did you believe you could have done better than I could have? Godwin, I had more eyes than you could count, and yet I died at the hands of those evil forces, and you thought your case would be any different if you kept pushing? You thought every ostensibly successful, well-known man of God on TV was everything he claimed to be? Do you truly believe that everyone who binds and casts in Jesus’ name is truly of God? Godwin, I was very clear in my warnings. I told you that your phone would ring; confirming the appointment you’d been trying to make for quite some time. I specifically warned you not to accept that invitation. I told you to cancel it for your own good and safety, and for the sake of my sister’s and your mother’s peace of mind. How did you react to any of those warnings, Godwin?”
Uncle T continued to chastise me for going against his warnings. He continued to explain in words I couldn’t understand.
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The more Uncle T spoke, the scarier I became.
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I had no memory of what had happened prior to waking up to bright lights at this point, but I had a bad feeling about all of them.
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Uncle T has so far refused to be honest with me. All I knew was that I’d done something wrong; I’d ignored his advice.
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“How could you have ever believed that Esther was capable of allowing any harm to come to you, Godwin? How could you have imagined that a woman who adored you as if you were her own son would be able to stand by and watch you suffer for so long? The same woman who went to great lengths to ensure you remarried after Rachel divorced you? Godwin, you couldn’t sense manipulation? You couldn’t sense being deceived? You don’t have a mind of your own, so whatever you’re told becomes the thought you hold?”
“It’s not like I don’t have a mind of my own, but…”
“But isn’t he a spiritual leader? He can see what you can’t, right? Isn’t he closer to God than you are? Isn’t it true that when he opens his mouth to pray to God, God listens differently than when you pray to him?”
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Uncle T continued to ask me questions that I suspected were rhetorical, designed to mock me and my reasoning.
Uncle sounded as if he knew what was going on in my head, and as much as I hate to admit it, he wasn’t entirely wrong.
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I like to think of myself as a good Christian, but I also believe that we are not spiritually equal. Spiritual leaders must be treated with respect because they hold a different place in God’s heart than others.
Uncle T burst out laughing, as if he had just read that thought from my mind.
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“Poor kid. Is this why women of your faith now cherish their supposed spiritual leaders more than their own husbands?” Uncle T asked, with a slim smile. ”Is this why, to avoid getting on their bad side, you stay in marriages, enduring the worst of the worst, simply because he preached against divorce? Was this the reason you hit your wife for the first time since marrying her?”
“Haba, Uncle. What does Prophet U.C. Kenneth have to do with the fact that I hit my wife?”
It was at this point that everything that had happened before I awoke to bright lights began to come back to me.
Damn!
To be continued…
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Moshood Avidiime
