By Fr Pat Amobi Chukwuma
Recently, someone brought me a small carton of little bottled sweet bitter wine as gift. The carton contains twenty-four bottles of the sweet bitter concoction. He explained clearly to me that the content of each bottle, though small in size, is nutritious and good for health. According to him, the sweet bitter wine is also excellent for ageing.
Each little plastic bottle contains 20% of alcohol. I accepted the unexpected gift and expressed my immense gratitude to him. From the label, I read that it is best served chilled. Thus, when the donor left, I hurried into my room and inserted six bottles of the little sweet bitter wine inside my fridge and waited for them to chill.
After supper on that appointed day, I washed down the sumptuous meal I ate with one chilled bottle of the sweet bitter wine. Indeed, it was more bitter than sweet. Little did I know that the sweet bitter wine in small plastic bottle is what my people refer to as ‘odimkpumkpu na-eme ire.’
This means little but mighty in power. Hence, after some minutes I began to see minor visions. In order to diagnose the visions more accurately, I jumped into my bed and dosed off. Later, I woke up bubbling with vitality. In order to be healthier and to age gracefully, I now drink the sweet bitter wine with short glass at intervals.
Since then, the ridges and pot holes in my face started smoothing like that of a baby. The name of the sweet bitter wine is Bittter-gluco wine. If you cannot afford it, just mix one glass of bitter leaf first water, three spoonsful of glucose and half glass of akpuruachia. A trial will convince you.
Everything in this physical and imperfect world is soaked in sweetness and bitterness. However, before the unfortunate fall of humanity from grace to grass, it was all sweetness in the Garden of Eden. As punishment for their disobedience, God decreed that Adam and his successors must experience bitterness in the form of sweat before food comes on the table.
Thus sweet and sweat are found in the blood system of all men from one generation to other. On the part of the woman Eve and successive women, they will undergo bitterness in form of pains during child birth. No wonder a certain pregnant woman during her labour pains was shouting at her husband standing by, “Idiot! Idiot!! Idiot!!!’
He is an idiot for putting her into the laborious family way. But immediately after she put to bed, she smiled at him and exclaimed, “My sweet darling, I love you so much! You have reincarnated in my baby.”
Many marriages these days break down due to the rejection of bitterness and sole interest in sweetness. The divine ordinance has decreed that marriage is for better and for worse. It must be contracted with the spirit of freedom and commitment. Hence, during solemnization of Christian Marriage, the intending couple is asked one after the other, “Have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?” Each answers, “Yes, I have.”
Then follows the marriage consent: “I…take you…to be my wife (husband). I promise to be true to you in good times (sweetness) and in bad times (bitterness), in sickness and in health. I will love you and honour you all the days of my life.” The officiating priest blesses and seals the bond.
I have observed that during the declaration of consent, some of the bridegrooms and brides pronounce ‘in good times, in health and in richness’ loudly while they lower their voices in pronouncing ‘in bad times, in sickness and in poverty’. They want only sweetness in their marriage and abhor bitterness in any form. That’s why when the tide rises their marriage crumbles.
A certain bride during the exchange of ring said, “My sweetie, accept this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity….” Just few months after the wedding, things fell apart. She started to call her husband ‘my sorrow’. According to her, she entered a one-chance vehicle as marriage.
When my immediate junior sister and I were living with our paternal grand -mother, the home chores were telling on two of us. On daily basis we woke up very early to fetch water down a hilly stream, sweep a large compound and then prepared for school or went to farm at weekends or during holidays. Before enjoying our meals, we worked like bulldozer. Thus, my sister wrote on the lintel of our kitchen door, “No sweat no sweet.”
Saint Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians without mincing world says, “If you do not work, do not eat” (2 Thess. 3:10). A popular saying goes this way: “There is no food for a lazy man or lazy woman.” One man was chewing a bitter kola with a cheerful face. One of his little children asked him to give her one. He obliged her. She chewed and vomited it out instantly with an outburst of “Tufiakwa!” (God forbid!).
One of my parishioners gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. On the naming day the parents meditatively called the boy Bitterness while they named the girl Sweetness. The twins are growing up well and are shinning like stars of hope to the family.
This world is not a bed of roses. In order to achieve something good, bitterness must precede sweetness. A good and hardworking student must burn the midnight oil in order to enjoy the sweetness of his or her labour. In other words, success is not achieved on a platter of gold. Unfortunately today, many students avoid the process of bitterness by going to examination magic centers to “write” their exams.
There, they use money to buy success. Some irresponsible parents encourage and finance their children to undergo the magical examination process. For them, the end justifies the means. In moral law, the means justifies the end.
Nowadays, yahoo boys enrich themselves through dubious means. They hate anything bitter and enjoy the sweetness of life. Various occult doctors champion the process of ‘Oke ite’ or ‘Ego mbute’ in this one wounded country called Nigeria. They become wealthy without working. The days are evil. Instead of planting and harvesting crops, evil persons in our society today harvest human parts for sale and for making quick money.
Many innocent people are declared missing here and there. Some of them might have been used for sacrifice or butchered for meat. Beware of the meat you buy or eat these dark days. Human suya tastes sweeter than cow suya. We are once again in the age of cannibalism. Instead of sweating for sweetness, the evil men of among us engage in kidnapping for ransom. Human beings, created in the image and likeness of God, have been reduced to brutes by brutal men. Human blood is flowing here and there like mighty floods.
The lands are angry. No wonder houses are falling and killing the occupants here and there. Builders construct living houses with substandard materials to become billionaires. Petrol tankers are crashing and bursting into flames in many places all over Nigeria. Hundreds of petrol tanker fire victims have been roasted like yams. In Nnewichi few days ago, an unknown assailant invaded a private home and murdered three innocent siblings aged 5, 7 and 9.
The blood thirsty assailant went further to dump the lifeless bodies of the innocent kids in a deep freezer. Last Sunday in Abakalili, some Fulani herdsmen allegedly shot dead some innocent residents preparing for Sunday worship. In fact, our Nation today is soaked in bitterness. The country is bleeding profusely.
Sweetness has disappeared entirely. The daily news from the radio or television nowadays is soaked in satanic bitterness. We are in trouble. Is the world coming to an end? God, where are you?
