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For all of those who know me, I am the son of a teacher from a family of teachers. Please if you notice anything wrong about my grammar or punctuation, let me know before Mummy sees it.

ANGER - AND FORGIVENESS

It has been a while since I posted my blog. There have been a number of reasons for this but I am not sure I can remember any. Last year, on my 50^th birthday, I wrote what turned out to be a 3000 word meandering mass of nothingness which I gave up after 6 weeks.

However, in that time, I went through a couple of life-affirming experiences, mainly when I went back home to Ghana for my sister’s wedding – and renew bonds with my father.

There seems to be an unspoken rule, actually a two-part rule – which says that you can gush unashamedly about your children and their antics but you reserve the more interesting stories about your parents until their obituary or memorial. Well, I am going to break this rule today. It is not my hope to embarrass Daddy unnecessarily in anyway but just use his life to reinforce a point about forgiveness, something very important in light of the anniversary of unsavoury events of the history of my country, Ghana.

I will start by referring to a story in the Bible which I hope is relevant to any of my readers, whatever their belief is. In Luke 17:3-4, Jesus talked about forgiveness. In those verses, He encouraged us to rebuke anybody who trespassed against us and then - and then if they repented, to forgive them. And if they trespassed 7 times that day and they repented, I should be able to forgive them 7 times that day. The disciples’ response was typical – and human. C’mon, Man, what kind of faith am I going to need to be able to do that? Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and the third time – well, that is definitely enemy action. 7 times requires increased faith.

Jesus' response on the other hand (as usual) was not human. You do not need increased faith, He said, you just need faith the size of a mustard seed and you will be able to forgive 7 times a day, and start all over the next. You would be able to uproot a tree – with its roots, entrenched ideas, past wounds, roots of perceived hurts and branches of anguish.

So back to my Dad. Years ago, somebody once said something very incendiary, rather inflammatory, derogatory even in a public meeting, something that any of us would not have been able to bear in private, let alone in public. Anybody who knows my Dad in his past life would have known that he had more responses in his little finger than the accuser had in his whole history. (In defense of the younger man, he was young and therefore lacked wisdom – one preacher said youth is wasted on the young, why was God going to add wisdom? That would just be an insult to old age!).

My father kept his dignity and refused to dignify the unsavoury comment with a response and walked away. So here comes the forgiveness bit. I rather stupidly took the whole matter to heart. For over 20 years, I have walked around with a growing baggage that kind of weighed me down anytime I heard anything about this individual. How dare he? What does he know? In the words from the good old days, when they were they, where was he? Would he have dared talk to his own father this way? This bothered me for so long that it affected other areas of my life. Funny thing about unforgiveness and bitterness is that it is just like rust. It starts off with one pan, and then you see signs of where the rusted pan rests on the shelf, and then the lids, and then other saucepans, and if you do not remove the source, you end up with a whole lot of rusty cookware. Then I started to ask myself, why didn’t Dad fight back? He could have destroyed that young whippersnapper’s confidence with a well-placed remark. So my resentment was now moving in a different direction, unjustifiably towards the one person who had been hurt.

Then, in January, earlier this year, I sat on the front porch with him and had many conversations of times past. We learnt a lot from each other but I also learnt something about the extraordinary individual who was my father – he was at peace with himself with regards to the issues in his life, including that particular incident. It was then that I understood Jesus’ comment, He did not really mean that you had to wait for your brother to actually offend you 7 times, He just meant you had to have enough to forgive them this time round. Until the next time. Not to keep count. That was the small seed you required to uproot a tree, roots, branches and all. And once I understood that, I felt at peace with myself and realised what a youthful idiot I had been till I was 50. This is just one of many tales of a remarkable man who I have learnt to understand more with every passing year. King David has always been my hero, but King Josiah is a hero closer to home - and to my heart.

FRIENDSHIPS

The best friendships during my Ghana trip I experienced was being with all my siblings under one roof. And then I met up with my cousins and my family just seemed to explode in a kaleidoscope of fun and laughter. The brilliant thing is that we are now in touch on social media and there is so much fun in finding what each other is up to almost on a daily basis. And then I met up with cousins from my wife's family. Circle just keeps growing. I hope our children keep this up on a regular basis so that it is not only at special occasions.

GHANAIAN AND/OR NIGERIAN MOVIES

I have been a movie buff for years but I have recently shown an interest in African movies. To enjoy African movies sufficiently enough, I have drawn up a few rules which I hope will enhance your viewing experience.

1.      Suspend belief. Movies are make believe, African films, doubly so.

2.      Retune your hearing. You may hear well-worn phrases used out of context that would make you doubt whether you ever studied English. It may be the use of idiomatic expressions, or very thick complicated accents. Whatever it is, just rewind, listen again and move on.

3.      Enjoy the stunts, do not make fun of them. This is not real-life, it is meant to be entertainment. If it seems like a stunt man was blown over by mystical forces, then so be it. If they fell out of a moving car, but it seems interminably slow, then you are right. It WAS slow. Deal with it.

4.      So all the actresses seem to be squeezed into costumes half their size revealing bits that you would not wish to see on a good day. Or a bad day. Deal with it. Who invented stretch jeans and is this what they were invented for?

5.      Subtitles are just that. They are not made to enhance your understanding or enjoyment. Trying to understand the subtitles for some African movies is like trying to read a spoiler plot before a film. Sometimes. At other times the subtitles of the English dialogue will be shown until the actors launch into a tirade of Yoruba, Akan, Igbo, Ewe soliloquies – for which there are no subtitles. Again, deal with it.

6.      Romantic scenes – can be a bit confusing. Remember back in the day when you would be watching a movie with your parents and then the sex scenes would cause an embarrassing silence and then everyone would look away at everything except the screen? Well, this is worse. And exactly the opposite. You find your eyes drawn to the screen in horror. A bit like teenagers at a school disco with a lot of fumbling under the sheets, you are best advised to fast-forward those scenes. Eugh.

7.      If a movie is advertised in the schedules as part 1, 2 and 3, never naively assume that the movie titles would be the same. Whilst you are used to Rambo 5: Wrath of Satan or Rambo 8: The Burst Prophylactic or Rambo 10: The End….of Bruce Willis, African movies have a different interpretation of the sequel. Each sequel may have a completely different title from the original movie. So you get The Marriage of Lydia, where innocent Lydia marries a royal Prince banished from his kingdom; then the second movie is The Voice of the Angels, when the Royal Prince (the princes are always royal) leaves Lydia to marry a dwarf lady with a sweet voice but who prefers to play the saxophone which is invariably higher than her - and the third movie is Igwe’s Food For Chop, which is when Lydia’s sleepless nights are tormented by the visions of the dwarf lady – who turns out to be Lydia’s mother.

8.      All movies end with To God Be the Glory. Especially when the plot is completely incomprehensible and the movie ends on a cliff hanger with no sequel….

9.      The main cuisine in all African movies is rice and chicken stew. Or jollof and Chicken.

10.    There are some truly fake accents, American usually or British. Think Tom Cruise in Far and Away or Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker’s Dracula and then mash them up real good.

11.    Finally, suspend disbelief. Which is quite different from No. 1.

Do not let my advice ruin your viewing. Get the popcorn out. Or Jolloff, or chicken or whatever.

JAZZ ALBUM OF THE MONTH

Finally, I have decided to add a recommendation of a CD I’ve enjoyed immensely for Jazz fusion
fans out there: Straight No Chaser by Thelonius Monk.