By Fr Pat Amobi Chukwuma
A baby is defined as a young child under the age of reason. It can be male or female. Although its umbilical cord has been severed from the mother, it depends totally on the mother for survival. The father stands aloof while the mother breastfeeds the baby. The father helps when the time matures to feed the baby with industrial milk or liquid baby food with the aid of a feeding-bottle.
A hungry and selfish father often feeds himself from the feeding-bottle when the mother is not around. A bad baby-sitter does likewise. This starving attitude keeps the baby crying. The baby cries when it is either hungry or sick. When a crying baby refuses to suck the mother’s breast, then sickness is probably the curse.
There is a plastic or toy baby with in-built attractive sound which is used to comfort a baby when it cries or used as a playing instrument. The baby exhibits much interest at the sound. He or she plays with the baby toy while sitting, crawling or walking. Children also use the baby toy to imitate the mother by carrying it around, feeding it artificially and cuddling it in many ways. Unfortunately, cultists also use baby toys nowadays to perform evil acts.
Today, the meaning of baby is no longer tied to a young child. Some husbands and wives call themselves ‘Baby’ to show the rate of their intimacy. Even some boyfriends and girlfriends call each other Baby. Something strange happened somewhere. A certain girlfriend saved the name of his boyfriend with ‘Baby’. Unfortunately, the boyfriend saved his girlfriend’s name with ‘Ekeuke’ (a useless dog).
On that fateful day, both lovers were together in a mechanic workshop to repair their broken car. The boyfriend left his mobile phone in the troubled car where his girlfriend was waiting. Suddenly the phone rang and it was her number saved with ‘Ekeuke’. She was extremely annoyed and her blood pressure rose to the highest point. She angrily confronted her malicious boyfriend with the ringing phone still displaying ‘Ekeuke’. She angrily broke the phone into pieces on a strong iron.
A fierce fight ensued between the two lovebirds. The mechanics abandoned their work to separate the fight. The boyfriend lost one of his eyes during the violent show of might while the girlfriend lost her three front teeth. The estranged Baby and Ekeuke (useless dog) ended up in the hospital on that fateful day. Their friendship ended in enmity. The rest story is for another day.
So far, I have been clearing the bush where i’m about to cultivate my crops for today. The cultivation follows instantly before the soil gets cool. Indeed there are babies and there are babies. The meaning of baby has been mutilated. When I was doing my post-secondary school apostolate in a junior seminary, I and my colleagues were housed in an extra-large room which we called ‘the room of one thousand’.
It happened that one of us dressed his bed with different colours of wrapper. The wise one among us described the bed as “multi-coloured bed.” Likewise, a baby has assumed multi dimensions. Hence, we have small baby, adult baby (couple or friends), artificial baby and mobile baby.
I have singled out the mobile phone which I describe here as the notorious mobile baby. It has become a global phenomenon. Everyone is now a baby-sitter, including the rich, the poor, clerics, lay persons, politicians, sensible persons and idiots. It is being carried in the hand like a baby, in pockets, bags and so forth. Even some persons hang theirs over the neck, as necklace or on the waist.
This notorious mobile baby is even carried while defecating or urinating in the toilet. An unfortunate incidence happened somewhere few years ago. A mother of five was taking her bath in the bathroom. Then her notorious mobile baby in her bedroom started ringing. She rushed out to receive the call. The soap on her feet pulled her mercilessly down on floor slipping tiles. She broke one of her knee bones.
All efforts to heal her proved abortive. Unfortunately, the leg was amputated from that knee. She is now limping with clutches. You see what her notorious mobile baby caused her. Even while sleeping some people place the notorious mobile baby beside the pillow or beside the bed. One stupid boy ties his own over his ears with binding wire while sleeping, so that he can promptly answer whenever it rings.
Few days ago, I was lying on a long cushion chair with my notorious mobile baby kept close to my chest. My heart beat and the phone beat produced a harmonious sound. Suddenly, sleep caught me unawares. I dosed off and entered into the unconscious world. Sweet dreams followed. Later it turned into a bitter dream. I dreamed of something sad. In the dream I was sitting and kept my notorious mobile baby on a table in front of me.
From nowhere a strange boy rushed in, grabbed it and disappeared in a twinkling of an eye. I pursued him immediately without knowing the direction he took. I was highly disturbed and was panicking that my intimate mobile baby has been stolen. Thus I entered into restless sleep because I thought the dream was real. I was running up and down until my notorious mobile baby rang at my abdomen. I woke up instantly and exclaimed, “Thank God! So this is a dream!”
Nowadays, the illness of insomnia is rare. What many of us suffer now is ‘mobilephonia’ which is a dangerous disease caused by the illegitimate use of the mobile phone. Some make phone calls up to the late hours of the night. In those days, when there was free-call from midnight, many people kept awake making or receiving calls till daybreak. The side-effect is sleeping off in the offices, schools, churches and markets.
There was the case of a farmer who made calls throughout the night. As soon as it was daybreak, he took his hoe and went into a far distant farm to cultivate. After few minutes, he lost control of the hoe and slept off on the ridges. He was sleeping there till 9.00p.m when his wife and children came to the farm to search for him.
They found him sleeping and snoring in darkness. The tsetse flies from all over the world, feasted on him. Consequently, he suffered from acute sleeping sickness for the rest of his life and died of it. He is now sleeping in his grave; waiting for the day of resurrection. Who knows if he will wake up on that day?
Most people no longer have time to pray because they are with their notorious mobile babies at every minute. The last daily engagement is to make calls until they fall asleep. Such people wake up from to time during the night to check messages or unheard missed calls. As soon as they wake up in the morning, they check their phones and whatsapp messages. Then, they return the phone calls or reply text messages. This serves as their morning prayer. Indeed, this is a form of idolatry.
Many are guilty of it. In few parishes I have worked, I always place a conspicuous notice board at the major church entrance doors, which reads: “Switch off your phone. You cannot serve God and mammon.” The mobile phone turns into a mammon when it is wrongly used. Even many users answer calls or make phone calls during prayers in the church or at home. God can wait but the caller or receiver cannot wait.
I was praying in our public Chapel of Adoration on a certain day. A middle-aged woman was also doing her adoration before the Holy of Holies. Suddenly her unmuted notorious mobile baby she kept in her handbag sounded like a bush baby. She abandoned her adoration and rushed out to answer the call. When she returned she was filled with rage and was murmuring because the caller provoked her to the point of no return.
When she came back into the chapel, she started crying before the Lord. If you were God, would you wipe away her tears or increase it? There is time for everything: time to pray and time to make or answer calls. Making or answering phone call while driving is suicidal. Abuse of the mobile phone is an incurable disease. Prevention, they say, is better than cure.
