Between The Emblem of Relevance and The Embrace of Agape

by Eromose Ileso

Life is a bundle of what you experience, and what you never get to experience. The things you do not experience, you can only imagine, and while there is actually no limit to what a person can imagine, imagination not wrapped in the willows of experience, remains like an inactive volcano. 

It is mostly in the wheels of experience that you get to grasps the meaning of certain things in life. The scientific exertion of Newton’s third law of Physics that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction holds sway when you consider how weighty any experience could be. The reaction of any action could either vary in size or direction.

There is nothing in life that is not relevant. Without which it would be difficult to actually bring yourself to attach true importance to such a thing. 

The relevance of anything is directly proportion to how often you get to use such a thing. Be it an animate or inanimate substance. The frequency at which you use it accords it a measure of relevance. Such relevance extends to our everyday life, our inter-personal relationship with others and those within our immediate environment. 

There is always this sub-conscious nature in man that is inbuilt that copious attention is paid to anybody or anything that is relevant. If a vehicle is important to the fortunes of a delivery outlet, there is a tendency that the vehicle would be maintained with the highest of standards to prevent anything that would prevent orders from being met. 

The same extends to a human relationship, when a person is relevant there is that tendency that communication would naturally flow all the time. Either one of the parties would be meant to carry out a job for the other or to get something that would be of benefit to the other person. It just like two lawyers, one lives in Benin, and the other in Abuja, when there is a Corporate Affairs Commission job. The one based in Benin would call the other in Abuja to aid in fast tracking the necessary searches and documents to get the papers done in good time. It is the relevance of the lawyer based in Abuja that elicits him/her to be contacted by the Benin based lawyer. This also extends to other professions in the circle of life.

Taking it further from another angle, the question then is assuming the other person on the end of the street or phone is not relevant what would happen? Certainly the call to a lawyer in Abuja would not be based primarily on just an exchange of pleasantries; there is a hint of business relationship in there. However, when the former is not relevant to the fortunes of the party that made the call, would he/she still make the connections?

In today’s world, it is what most relationship are premised on, be it in friendship, family or in communities and the larger society. The way and manner you are handled in some ways is based on whether you are relevant for the relationship to last the distance or whether you are relevant in a community to warrant being called upon when something wants to hold.

Going back to the question: what happens if the person is not relevant? Naturally, there is the tendency that such a person would be forgotten. And he would not be remembered when anything is to happen, no matter the occasion. 

This is where agape comes in. It is agape that makes the natural human mind to look beyond the fact that a person is irrelevant and has nothing to offer. It is the same agape, that makes you call that friend, family member, community neighbour, group member and colleague of yours to check how he/she is faring not because you intend to request for anything, but to exchange and extend pleasantries.

How a person that is not relevant could be forgotten can be gleaned from the Biblical account of a poor man, whose wisdom saved a city that came under attack, he was forgotten because, according to the Bible, he was poor. And being poor means he was seen as irrelevant. Assuming he was somebody that has wisdom that was wrapped in riches, and riches that the city would benefit from, he would never have been forgotten. It is however the manner of men to become easily amnesic to one that does not have a corresponding facet of relevance in terms of what he or she can offer.

A cursory look at the Newton’s third Law of Physics, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction reveals some observations. 

In the first instance, there is a mention of equality in the first action. In such a scenario, it means both parties in such a case have the same equilibrium of relevance, and as such their actions are equal in their site. The professional that picks up his phone to call the other in the Capital for a job engages in an action that is equal which brings about the equilibrium of relevance in their behavioral patterns and communications.

However, on the other hand, the other part of Newton’s law mentions an action that has an opposite reaction. This is also apt because when a person is seen as not relevant, the action that would be taken about him would be opposite to his person. Just like the poor man in the bible that got an opposite reaction of being forgotten despite his action of using his wisdom to save a city.

In hindsight, it takes agape for any relationship to go beyond the formal circles of relevance that is common place in the business world. The importance of relevance in any relationship is not being relegated to the back burner here, relevance is the key to making choices. 

But the message being passed across here is that sometimes, it becomes imperative to modify the rose tainted spectacle of relevance, by using agape as another standard to measure a relationship. Notice the use of the phrase ‘another standard’ because for all intent and purpose, relevance would remain the standard of the world as it is an inbuilt human behavioural pattern.

Toothpaste row in Marriage Breakup

by Eromose Ileso

It is no longer news that marriages in Nigeria are collapsing like a pack of cards. The ratio of divorce has increased like the regular storms finding expression in the Pacific. 

A couple of years ago, you would seldom find matrimonial cases on cause list of matters in States High Court, but with the changing times, our High Courts and Customary Courts have a bevy of matrimonial cases at their disposal. 

While the reason(s) for the collapse of most marriages vary according to the parties on a case by case basis, in most instance, an inability to tolerate the other party is a prominent factor in most breakup. 

The culture where would be couples spend so much time, energy and resources preparing for a wedding, while neglecting the most important aspect which is the marriage has become prevalent.

Yet, you cannot rule out the fact that most of the things that have caused the breakup of marriages are at best trivial issues borne out of the inability of one or two of the parties to exercise restraint. 

Though what is trivial varies according to the character of an individual.

Ordinarily, it is virtually impossible for something as trivial as an inanimate object, toothpaste to end a living institution of a marriage. While on the other hand, cases abound where it has indeed led to the breakup of a marriage, and at other times, it has almost led to the breakup of a marriage.

This was how a row over toothpaste led to the breakup of a marriage.

There are people that prefer to press the rear of a tube when putting a paste on their toothbrush, while other people prefer to press the tube of the paste from anywhere, whether it’s the rear, middle or at the top.

In this particular case, the husband prefers to press his from the rear of the tube, while his wife does hers from anywhere in the tube. So on this fateful day, he complained that his wife was always fond of pressing the tube anywhere as it makes the tube undulant, her reply was that whether there was anything wrong with it, the response of the man's wife seem to exacerbate the situation which led the man to slap his wife, and the woman retaliated by slapping her husband back. 

The man's response was to beat his wife black and blue, which led to a swollen face and several bruises all over her body.

She packed her baggages and went to her parent's house. Her father's response was that a wife should not leave her husband's house just like that, he sent her back, but the woman's mother did not take the assault on her daughter likely, so he got her daughter's husband arrested. 

When he eventually got out of jail, he simply told his wife that since his mother-in-law arrested him, his wife should leave his house, and go and stay with her mother. Just like that, the simple act of how to use a toothpaste led to the breakup of their marriage, and to this day they are still separated.

There are people that would have reacted differently to such a situation. Obviously, no parent would take the assault on their daughter likely, especially when you take into consideration that one hit could lead to the demise of a person, cases abound where this has happened. So it is understandable that the mother-in-law got her son-in-law arrested, and the response of the man was to send his wife away after he got bail.

It is out of place for a man to hit his wife no matter what, the man obviously should have exercised restraint instead of beating up his wife over the use of a toothpaste, when just buying another one for himself would have solved the situation of whether pressing the tube of the paste from a particular position is acceptable to him or not.

It was this solution that a clergy proffered when he preached on a particular Sunday morning in church. In his congregation there was a couple that was going through the same situation of a where and where not to press the tube of a toothpaste, they were having the same issues that the couple above have had, the clergy simply said, instead of arguing over such a thing, while not you (the man) buy another one for yourself, 'is it not just a toothpaste' he said.

Certainly the easy way out in such situation would be to simply buy another toothpaste to avoid arguments, as there are habits which some persons exhibit inadvertently that you cannot change. It just sticks, there are some that leaves the lid of a toothpaste open after using it, and they also press it from anywhere, it is not as if it is deliberate or an act met to offend the other party, it just an act that has become innate in them that you cannot be changed.

Bishop (Mrs.) Peace Okonkwo of TREM, mentioned at the 2015 National Women's Conference of New Covenant Gospel Church that though, she has been married for almost 40 years, she is the kind of person that likes to press the tube of a toothpaste from anywhere, but her husband has learnt to live with it, though he was initially at variance with it. Yet it is little things as this that has led to the breakup of marriages and heated arguments amongst young couples.

On the issue of one of the couples getting their own toothpaste to use, some would say since an husband and wife are one, majority of the things they use should be one, that they should use the same toothpaste. 

In hindsight, it is better to toll the path of wisdom to avoid a larger problem, and get another toothpaste in such a scenario, if any of the couple cannot cope with such a situation, as "Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established:" (Proverbs 24:3).