Only the poor is possessed with demons in church.
Only the poor seem to fall under the anointing.
The rich keep their chairs.
Their bodies stay strong like pillars.
Their suits do not touch the floor.
Their wigs do not scatter.
Their phones do not fly from their hands.
Even the camera man,
walking up and down like a busy ant,
never falls under power.
His camera stands firm.
His legs stand firm.
His eyes stand firm.
Only the poor fall like cut grass.
The church is full.
The pastor is shouting like thunder trapped in a box.
He points.
He stamps the ground.
He waves his coat like a man chasing chickens.
People scream.
Women cry.
Men shake.
Children stare with wide eyes.
The room becomes a pot of boiling fear.
But look well.
It is the poor woman that drops first.
It is the jobless man that begins to roll.
It is the old man with torn slippers that shakes like a leaf in a storm.
It is the hungry one that becomes the drum
for the loud song of miracle.
The rich is never possessed in a church.
The rich man in front only says, “Amen.”
He sits near the altar like a chief near his throne.
His white cloth remains white.
His cap does not turn.
His gold watch still shines like a proud sun.
No usher runs to catch him.
No demon calls his name.
No hand pushes him to the ground.
And the rich women too sit like queens under the fan.
Their faces are calm.
Their bags are safe on their laps.
No spirit troubles their hair.
No power bends their backs.
Heaven, it seems, knows their seat number
and passes over them like rain passing over a roof of zinc.
Then the heart begins to ask questions.
Why does the anointing know only poor skin?
Why does heaven touch only empty pockets?
Why does power push only weak bodies?
The ushers do not fall.
The choir does not fall.
The keyboard man does not fall.
The man holding the mic does not fall.
The pastor’s driver does not fall.
Only the poor,
those with rent chasing them like hungry dogs,
those with school fees sitting on their chest like stones,
those whose soup pot sings an empty song,
only they fall.
Sometimes the falling is too neat, too quick, too timely,
like actors hearing a bell behind a curtain.
So a script is written somewhere,
in whispers,
in secret calls,
in small promises folded inside hands.
“You, when I touch you, fall.”
“You, when I pray, shout.”
“You, say your leg has been bad for ten years.”
And because life is hard,
because children must eat,
because debts do not sleep,
some agree.
Thus the altar becomes a stage,
and pain wears powder on its face.
The poor are turned into ladders.
The pastor climbs.
The church claps.
The camera records.
His name grows fat,
his pocket grows deep,
while the poor man who fell yesterday
still goes home to a room where hunger waits on the bed.
There was even a day when a dead man was said to rise.
The coffin was there.
The cloth was there.
The shouting was there.
But inside the coffin,
the so-called dead man was sweating.
Tell me, since when does a corpse sweat?
Still some shouted, “Power!”
Still some said, “What a mighty wonder!”
But the answer walks about in plain cloth:
many miracles are arranged.
The poor are brought out
to water the lie with their bodies.
And so the poor keep falling,
the cameras keep rolling,
the crowd keeps shouting,
the pastor keeps shining,
and truth stands outside the church door
like an old woman with a lamp,
asking,
“When will God enter this drama
and chase the actors from His house?”
EBIKABOWEI KEDIKUMO – writes from Ayakoromo Town, Delta State
