Purity and a purposeful life

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God (Mtt 5:8). Among the eight beatitudes, this seems to be the scariest for some obvious reasons.

For all people of faith, God’s existence is not a debatable question. So also is the hope of meeting God at the end of the earthly sojourn which is present in many religions. Jesus in this particular  beatitude sets a condition that is worrisome with emphasis on the purity of heart. What does a pure heart entail? The ability to keep all the ten commandments without faltering? Maybe! But our experience as humans indicates our daily struggles in that regard. The heart of a child will come close to what a pure heart looks like but certainly not that easy for an adult.

Arundhati Mukherjee (a Hindu monk) in his article, Life is a journey of discovering your true self opines thus: “All knowledge is within us. All perfection is there already in the soul. But this perfection has been covered up by nature. Layer after layer of nature is covering this purity of the soul.” Many of us are more interested in the pursuit of intellectual training and education that have no place for the “training” of the human heart. “Ït is the heart which takes one to the highest plane, which intellect can never reach. It goes beyond intellect,and reaches to what is called inspiration.”

The misery of the world is incubated in the human heart (Mark 7:20-23). It is capable of turning the world into flames. It can even at some point give a very negative image of persons and communities. One of the national ills that has grown loud in the hearts of some Nigerians is the online fraud known as Yahoo Yahoo. Hushpuppi is the prime example of many Nigerians who  are engaged in internet fraud and scam. This cybercrime reveals the murky state of the heart of many young Nigerians. A few of them in our cities and towns have become infamous by means of this crime. Their criminal minds with the associated activities, have sadly rubbed off on many innocent Nigerians who are carry stigma simply because they are Nigerians. The Nigerian society appears to have to lost its moral bearing since it celebrates criminals and accord them places of honour instead of putting them behind bars.

Unfortunately, our politicians and religious leaders are not inoculated against this Nigerian craving for materialism and instant wealth. In many instances religious leaders become accomplices through their silence when they accept donations both in cash and in kind from people with dubious and questionable means of livelihood.

The hearts of the leaders and the led, appear irresistibly drawn towards ephemerality that comes from easy wealth since it is not the fruit of hard work and sweat. Some religious leaders are mute on this fact because they too are clients of the men and women of instant wealth. Consequentially, the voice of the prophets becomes silent in the faces of corruption and “national bazaar” that is free for all for those with access to cookie jar.  This has been made manifest in the cases of allegations and probes of the EFCC, NDDC, etc, etc. The average Nigerian heart needs surgical cleansing because leaders emerge from the people. If the hearts of average Nigerians are clean and pure, it stands to reason that those who emerge as leaders at different levels, may likely be good leaders with the right intentions to do what is good and wholesome for their communities. The flimsy excuse that poverty induces people to do evil is not sufficient because by any conceivable standard, Nigeria is not the poorest country in the world. Those who rape and steal the country do not come from the poor classes of Nigeria. They are to be found among the elites of the country for whom Nigeria only exists as one big carcass to be devoured without the slightest qualm of conscience.

Life surely is more than eating at the “national bazaar”. Living a purposeful life is still possible in Nigeria. In the words of Joseph Jacson: “The greatest sorrow in human life is to die without doing what God wants you to do on earth.”  Reckless acquisition of wealth at the expense of one’s neighbour and country is certainly part of God’s plan for His creation. A purposeful life is not about stealing from the scarce national resources that are meant to serve the common good. It is sheer madness to worship the false idols of money and wealth while impoverishing one’s country and its people. A purposeful life is lived in solidarity with others and in service for others especially at the margins of society. And ultimately, it is not “wealth without work” and “knowledge without character”.

Fr Stephen Ojapah is a priest of the Missionary Society of St Paul. He is equally the director for Interreligious Dialogue and Ecumenism for the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, a member of IDFP. He is also a KAICIID Fellow. ([email protected])