³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Good morning,

For those not glued to such things, over the weekend Miss Nigeria narrowly missed out on being crowned Miss Universe, losing out to Miss Denmark.
There’s something anachronistic, and in my opinion vacuous and sexist, about beauty contests, but I was drawn to the headlines about this one because Miss Nigeria – Chidimma Adetshina – bears a name from the same ethnic group as my own – the Igbos of south-eastern Nigeria.

It also caught my eye because over the weekend, my family and friends gathered for an elaborate traditional Igbo wedding to mark my youngest sister getting married. Two hundred people wearing bright fabrics with shimmering gold sequins and prints, with headties and coral beads. A celebration of Nigerian culture, in the middle of Hampshire.

Our culture was also celebrated during the Miss Universe competition, with Adetshina sporting a headpiece – crafted with more than 10,000 coral pearls, cowrie shells, stones and feathers. Honouring the traditions, cultures and spirit of Nigeria, it’s intended to be a vibrant symbol of unity.

The headpiece is called an Njikoka – taken from the Igbo word that means ‘unity is better or unity is best’.

These positive symbols of unity – both the headpiece and my sister’s wedding celebration – get to the heart of the intention described in the gospels, where Jesus tells the story of a king who throws a wedding banquet for his child as a way of describing what the Kingdom of God is like. Everyone’s invited – he sends his servants out compelling people to come, irrespective of their differences.

The book of Ephesians too speaks of the good news of Christ as signalling the breaking down of what’s described as the ‘dividing wall of hostility’ – a wall that separates and fragments and divides.

The early Church in many ways reflected this unity – people from different backgrounds coming together. But in many ways it was also like our culture today – fractured, isolated, polarised.

My sister’s Nigerian wedding was a feast for the eyes and the belly. It represented a fusion of cultures – a melting pot of different identities, languages, nations and dance moves. Guests came from London and Lagos and Leeds.

For a few hours we were able to forget that outside – both in the UK and in Nigeria – the world isn’t always a place where we come together despite our differences. Beauty contests and dancefloors feel a long way from climate catastrophe, riots and death tolls.

But maybe there’s something special in recognising that in these pockets of forgetting, there’s a way of seeing things differently, even if just for a few hours.
And maybe one antidote to existential dread and anxiety, conflict and polarisation that we should embrace from time to time is … a whopping great big party.

Show less