A Strange Encounter Of The Spiritual Kind
A Touch Of Nokoko By Kofi Akumanyi
"At a press conference in Los Angeles in May 1982, I revealed that the Christ was living as an ordinary member of the Asian community of London. And I appealed to the world's media to investigate and he would allow himself to be discovered.****
"For three years my colleagues and I have sought to inspire the media to take this sufficiently seriously to enable Him to emerge into public life without infringing human free will. Only through an invitation from the media who control the communications net- works can he address the whole world and prove His free status as a simultaneous, pentecostal type experience for humanity.
"At long last an internationally representative group of influential journalists gathered on July 31 at 8pm. The advent of a being of the stature of the Christ is an event of planetary and is governed by certain laws. Inevitably it also inspires the opposition of those materialistic forces, seen and unseen, planetary and cosmic, who stand to lose the power which has kept humanity in thrall for untold ages.
"On that day, an initiative was launched by these forces which took the total attention of Maitreya the Christ and His "brotherhood of light" to contain. This possibility was not taken into account and from our point of view the evening was a disappointment. From the viewpoint of the Christ, however, it was a great success. For the first time in three years, a truly representative group of world media men was available to be contacted."
Now the Sunday Times is a highly respected paper and holds its own among the quality newspapers in the world. Consequently, stories and opinions published within its pages are not to be taken lightly and ought to be carefully considered. That was why instead of saying bollocks to the above-quoted story, I decided to check it out and be the first journalist to interview the Christ.
My first problem was how to locate the Messiah as Mr Crewe could not provide me with an address. Through a series of coincidences and a huge amount of luck (you definitely do not contact the Christ through investigative journalism) I finally tracked him down in Tower Hamlets. He was (surprise, surprise) practising the trade that his "father" taught him - carpentry.
I observed that He did not look anything like the traditional image of the Christ we are used - to a tall man, with gentle eyes and bushy beard, a moustached guru. This Christ is under six foot tall, clean-shaven, a tough-talking character. After a long wait while he completed a table that he was making he wiped the sweat from his forehead and beckoned me to follow him into a sparsely-furnished bedsitter.
I fired the first question as he prepared tea. I wanted to be assured that I was talking to the real Christ. How could I be certain that he is the Messiah? He was shocked at my apparent impertinence.
"How dare you question my credibility? I'll tell you what; I really do not care to reveal myself now until the time is quite right. Then and only then would people appreciate the full power of God..." He continued, "all the signs are there. Didn't I say I would come at a particular time when brother will rise against brother and nation against nation; when there would be wars all over the place, famine, chaos...?"
"Yes, but that still does not mean you're the Christ..."
"Just watch this." Then, with a wave of his hand over the tea pot, he poured out excellent vintage wine.
"Well, I don't want to sound like a Doubting Thomas, but a man called Paul Daniels has been entertaining television audiences with that trick for years.
"You man of little faith, I don't have to prove anything, you know, when the right time comes I shall burst out of this obscurity and the world would fall at my feet," he intoned with an authority which surprised me.
"My Lord, if I may call you that, why have you remained silent in the world when you have the power to influence things in the proper direction?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Take your people, the Israelis, for instance. They have been waiting for centuries for the Messiah to come and deliver them from their problems with the rest of the Arab world. But here you are hiding in Tower Hamlets of all places."
"One major correction. I'm not a Jew; and another point is that I'm not in hiding."
"You're not?"
"God so loved the world that He sent me back as an Indian to show that the Third World shall dominate the world one day. The time is not conducive for me to come out."
"Good Lord! Everything points to the fact that this is the right time to step out and help Asians and other minority nationals being persecuted by the National Front and also silence all those thousands of people who claim to be speaking in your name."
"My dear fellow, you must realise that current happenings which to the uninitiated are sure signs of Armageddon are in fact just a foretaste of real horrific events to come. When the right time comes you shall hear of me, he insisted.
"The other Christ we know always spoke in parables, but you don't, do you?"
"I thought you would never ask. 1,985 years ago when communication wasn't as sophisticated as now, I used parables, stories that the people could identify with. There is no need now. Different times, different tactics."
"I wonder whether any parables could be told now?"
"Well, there is the Parable of the computer expert who, having built a computer which could do everything man can think about, proceeded to build one which would replace him when he dies so that eventually the world would be 'populated' by such humanoids," he began. "But there was one very important part of this marvellous machine he could not manufacture without falling back on the ageless source of power known to man - the Sun."
"So, believing in his deep wisdom he finished his product and soon after he died. Then the weather changed and the sun did not come out for a year..."
As he quietly told the parable a halo appeared on his head or was it a trick of the light?
