BY Dare Oduwole
“Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: and salute no man by the way. And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house. And if the son of peace is there, your peace shall rest upon it: if not, it shall turn to you again.” (Luke 10:4-6).
Good morning! (English), Bonjour! (French), E kaaro! (Yoruba), Ina kuana! (Hausa), Otutu oma! (Igbo). These all convey a message of goodwill to whoever it is directed to at the onset of a day and whatever your nation, tribe, or race, there is certainly a phrase for conveying best wishes of the day to others at the beginning of the day.
What a lovely global culture of verbally being our brothers’ keepers. ‘If only wishes were horses even beggars would ride’, goes the old English adage.
Unfortunately, wishes don’t always come to pass for if they do, most people would certainly be highly successful in life considering the amount of salutation conveying best wishes which they receive daily.
Despite this sad reality however, people continue to appreciate the salutation, ‘good morning’, and are often offended or concerned when it is not duly offered to them, for at the least, it represents an acknowledgment of the presence of another.
There is however the minority group who cares less about ‘good morning’ and can potentially ruin your day for offering this salutation and in this category falls a former lecturer in my department, back in the day when I was in college.
He was Ugandan and a brilliant teacher of Monetary Economics but quite queer in his lifestyle with alcoholism occupying a special space in his sacred corner.
A ‘good morning sir’ would easily draw the response, ‘What’s good about the morning?’ on a good day; or no response at all on a not-so-good day. All students in the department feared this brilliant lecturer because of his anti-social and unpredictable attitudes, and for this reason, I refused to take monetary economics as an elective course but opted for Economic geography since the teacher seemed to belong more in my world, ignoring the fact that a degree in Economics without an appreciation of monetary economics is hardly an excellent degree.
I just wouldn’t spend a whole semester dealing with this respectable but weird fellow. This example indicates how important salutation is and how influential the manner of greeting or response can be on people’s judgment.
Moreover, there is another group of people who would maintain that salutation is not love and are therefore indifferent to it. This is a subconsciously defensive reasoning to carefully protect the mind from the potential warmth that salutation tends to elicit which may lead to poor judgments.
This type of attitude often stems from some bad experiences, leading to a ‘once beaten twice shy’ disposition.
Nevertheless, there is also the category that offers salutations to accomplish evil purposes and this group represents the raison d’etre of the Bible text quoted above.
Considering that Christianity is a religion that encourages socialization, evident in the emphasis laid on loving one’s neighbours coupled with the plethora of scripture texts encouraging adherents to offer salutations to people including those perceived as enemies, a text like the above curiously discouraging salutation appears to be a contradiction of the value that Christianity represents and therefore calls for attention. Interestingly, these words were spoken by Christ himself who is the epitome of righteousness.
For several years, I read this portion of the Bible without ever truly understanding the meaning but then such is the case with some portions of the Bible which requires the direct interpretation of the Holy Spirit for good comprehension.
As regards the text above, the disciples were being sent on an evangelistic mission and this necessitated the instructions above. In a nutshell, they were not to salute anyone on the way but reserve all salutations to the time of arrival at their destination.
This is because there were and still are persons who would sabotage a mission by merely lingering to acknowledge them. Indeed, ‘as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be: world without end, Amen.’
These persons who are possessed with some devilish powers can merely and intentionally walk up to you, say ‘good morning’ to you, and once you respond accordingly; you are stewed for the rest of the day. How can this be? You may want to ask. Well, it is all about human energy transfers. When you respond to his salutation, he takes advantage of your unopened third eye, wickedly connects to your energy field, and commences a process of siphoning your life energy to himself and as a result, your day is messed up and missions unaccomplished.
I come upon persons of this nature daily and have learnt to ignore their salutations for the sake of my peace of mind. Yes, my third eye is not opened for I’m purely Christian and not meant to know good and evil according to scriptures, but then I know intuitively when harm is walking towards me.
I’m certain that as a Christian, you have this inward intuition too, you’ve probably not been paying adequate attention to it, and herein lies the weak point on which the enemy would capitalise.
For instance, a couple of months ago I was at a popular department store and was shopping right with my guards let down when this smartly dressed young man breezed past me and briskly said, ‘Afternoon ma’am’ and I responded even before thinking.
Well, that was it: for beginning from the till; I began to experience issues with everyone until I returned home, a sure indication of energy transfer. Attention should be paid to the fact that many of these people could be strangers with whom one has no business. They simply salute you and move on leaving you robbed.
Here is the point, to protect yourself, whenever persons you hardly know or have business with suddenly decide to salute you just for the sake of salutation as it were, be assured they are seeking something, and as such you should learn to walk away without responding.
This may prove difficult initially but in good time you’ll master the art of ignoring them. If on the other hand, the ones siphoning your energy via salutations are friends and associates whom you necessarily respond to, then you must learn of the Lord to recall your energy. How? Well, consider Psalm 25:14, “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will show them his covenant.”
This portion indicates that there are aspects of Christian Spirituality that are secret and may not be presented in the Bible but exist anyway. You learn these aspects in the course of a close walk with the Lord or from Christians who are knowledgeable. If you ever watched Wendy Alec, the co-founder of GOD TV in presentations, you might have noticed that she often wore a ring of stone which she would twist continuously as she spoke. This is one of the easiest ways as a Christian to recall your energy.
There are, however, other methods that I wouldn’t consider sharing on this platform but then be advised that Christian Spirituality certainly has much more to offer than Biblically presented.
Dare Oduwole is a Nouthetic Christian Counsellor and founder of Godly Counsel Christian Foundation, Abuja. She can be contacted via 08027291632 (text messages only).
