The disconnection of what was originally natural ties happens in various ways. We shall examine this in three main settings: the family, culture and Christianity.

Think of the breakdown of families: A once lovely family of five. Everyone gets married and have their individual families. Parents now dead. Some of the kids travel and gradually reduced communication with one another. They get influenced by other events, other experiences and other persons. With siblings it is now about the scramble to get something of whatever is left by their parents. Then the war begins: it gets bitter, some go diabolic, some go spiritual. The one who called the man of God was informed that it is this brother or sister of yours that is responsible. The war rages on! Or you get successful and begin to think of how useless your other siblings are. Or you see your younger sibling getting success and you become either envious; you begin to order him or her around as if your being elder gives you absolute control over his or her life. And the war continues! Everyone is in a raging match. No one listens to another. No dialogue. No openness. No forgiveness. Suspicion everywhere. Brothers and sisters gradually become strangers. The childhood memories of a once happy home mean nothing anymore. Things fall apart!

Think of people who abandon their culture: Someone who once respected his or her culture. Now you get baptized or ‘born again’ and suddenly every person who worships God differently than you, particularly in the traditional way, becomes an agent of evil. The war begins. You change your name from ‘Ifeoma Okonkwo’ to ‘Destiny Wisdom’. What is ungodly with Ifeoma? What is wrong with Okonkwo? Okonkwo which links you with the lineage through which God brought you into existence is severed. Sad! Or you travel overseas, and then decide to speak other languages and to teach your children to do same. You prefer ‘pasta’ to ‘ugba’. Everything local becomes nauseating to you. You gradually become uprooted from your tradition and culture, yet you are the first to carry placard for #BlackLivesMatter in Brussels or in Charleston. If you cannot preserve and pass on what God gave you and the culture in which you were born, how would others respect your identity? Yet you want to be buried in the land of your ancestors when you die. How can you lie in the same land with the same people you never honoured? I wonder how you will rest in peace in a land in which you always feel like a foreigner. Things keep falling apart!

Think of the disintegration and discord within the Christian community: Once together, one faith, one baptism, one Eucharist, one church. Today thousands. Someone gets angry and opens his or her own. On the other hand, someone gets angry and no one cares about why he or she is angry. If he or she complains, he is sanctioned rather than listened to, engaged, and called to dialogue. As the breaking-away continues, the Gospel and doctrines are equally broken into pieces, one contradicting the other, and another. It continues. But let’s accept that the fact that we are now many – different styles, different understandings, different approaches, different interpretations – is supposed to be a good thing, some sort of richness. Yet why do the differences result in quarrels, intolerance and war against one another? Why is it hard to love despite our differences? Yet we preach that love is the center of our faith. If this center is terribly lacking, then things have fallen apart!

These three examples represented the disconnected umbilicus of our generation – the breakdown of families (mostly in the African extended version, where one’s cousin is considered same as one’s brother or sister – nwanne m), breakdown of cultural communities, and the breakdown of the common witness of Christian communities. Love is the answer. No matter how hard, difficult or painful, we need to overcome our fears, pride, and insecurities to work for a better world where we are united in care for one another. The umbilical cord is natural, it predates family, culture and Christianity, yet it is the symbol of communal unity in each of these settings. 

Do not join hands in disconnecting the umbilicus!