Jesse Ojuka

God spoke through my dad today.

I woke up angry at the world. Glum. Not in the mood for anything. Maybe it was hearing Aidan’s voice, a reminder of what I lost, what I’m missing. Not being in New York. Walking through the grey streets of Drogheda to the post office to collect social welfare. Three weeks ago, I was in Manhattan, eating a sliced pizza in my own apartment in Astoria, Queens, working for one of the most successful AI companies in Europe. “Finally”, I thought. “I have made it”.

This morning, I was just a frown. Trying to remember that I am not the mood, I just feel the mood. Still, I avoided eye contact with Arnell and the lady at the gym who always smiles at me. The pros and cons of being an open canvas, whatever colour I feel is laid bare. Red, blue, or grey.

Inside my mind, my anger took aim at my parents’ relationship. “Both of them can fuck off”. It’s weighing me down. The mood of the house down. But suspicion tells me I’m just projecting, looking for an easy target.

I move through the morning. Mum and Dad are in the kitchen as I make my usual breakfast, one banana, three boiled eggs. After eating, I grab my Bible, my journal, my book, and my notepad and head to the reading room. The sitting room with no electronics yet. It had been a dormitory for years. Mum rented it out to pay for Owanari’s med school fees. The couches are firm, the room is tasteful and minimal, untouched, unclaimed. A perfect solace.

I sit. I listen to my body. I tune into the pulse of my heartbeat. When you sit still long enough, you can feel it through your whole body, pulsing with life. The body loves attention being paid to it. A grounding practice mentally and physically.

I’m in the final chapters of Ego is the Enemy. I remember why this book is one of the most important for me. Funny, the year I didn’t read it was the year I climbed to my highest heights—then fell.

Today, God reminds me through the book: Love. Maintain your scorecard. Your standards. Any attempt to vilify a person, place, or thing when faced with a fall is just the ego trying to protect itself. Love is the only way to vanquish an enemy.

I step into the kitchen. The sky is still grey, but I feel slightly lighter. My father sits.

He looks at me and begins to speak.

“Don’t worry, my son.”

He tells me how he obeyed my mother when she asked him to stay in Ireland longer so he could pick me up from the airport. “If I didn’t stay, I would’ve regretted it,” he says. The fact that he was there to receive me is profound. I hadn’t seen my dad in ten years.

“That alone,” he says, “is enough.” And I know he’s right. Even in the midst of my processing, I feel it. He says, “God brought you back to receive blessings from your father. Now that I have seen you, the doors to where God wants you to go have unlocked.”

He urges me, repeatedly, to be humble, as if God is speaking through him directly.

I stand there, hand over my mouth, listening.

“All men are born stubborn and can kill,” he says. “It is humility we must strive for.” There is no finish line in humility. We can never be God. The process is endless.

“Make yourself low,” he says. “Don’t talk.”

As he speaks, I feel the divine. I see it in his eyes. He sees it in mine. Tears swell behind my eyes, but I’m not ready to cry in front of him yet. I can’t believe this man is my father. He’s one of the biggest blessings in my life.

He rises to his feet, still speaking.

He tells me I had to go through this. That God is preparing me for something greater. If God didn’t put me through this, I wouldn’t be equipped for what’s coming next.

Now I am a dove. I walk into the supermarket, and the sun breaks through the clouds, landing on my head.

I smile at God.