They say we are beings without a
choice because the Giant wheel of time keeps turning... That down the hallway
of reality, everything is constantly moving - That’s the standing, or rather, moving rule of reality I guessed..!
That we all keep moving no matter what we choose to do – standing, walking,
running… All because that Giant wheel keeps moving..! Guess what? I have come
to believe it too… I believe their sayings very strongly now that like water
lettuce I drift, carried on the wave of time... now that like a wanderer I
stand puzzled down the hallway of reality.
That truth comes out even harder
in these shadowed days. Even when I know I’ve stopped moving, I see myself
drifting with the current, watching others moving faster or passing those that
drift leisurelier (they must be heavier than me for the current to move me
faster – high school physics!) In this hallway of reality, during these slow,
dark moments, a lot is happening. I seem to look back a lot these days so I
know they are correct.
There were moments – mornings I
call them – I’d wish should never come to an end. There were also times of
total darkness, nights, when I wandered where the sun had gone to… if it would
ever rise again. Sandwiched between the above moments is one I call the
twilight. That time when in the horizon the sun peeps at me, at humanity, with
a brilliance that does not burn… in rays that purge all the beauty of the
universe to the outside, to reality in the full glare of all humanity.
I make claims too that we all are
clogged to the Giant wheel of time… that we all experience a ‘drifting’
sometimes and very importantly, that we have all seen light and shadows down that
hallway. After all, is shadow not the
product of light? If you have not, you may choose to discontinue
discomforting your eyes and brain cells. I also claim that we have all seen the
twilight in our lives. Have your ever seen the sun set in Nigeria, in Africa? I
have. I have stood with beauty behind a river, behind the sun as it gradually
set before. I have been at the foot of the great hills in Enugu, in a moving
vehicle, splashed with the setting sun’s golden rays. I have seen beautiful
documentaries of the sun staging a beautiful performance for the lion king in
the savanna. No beauty compares to the twilight.
Within the hallway, the twilight
is experienced twice: at the beginning of our journey, leading us to our
moments of blazing brilliance peaked at noon and burning hot by three; and
towards the end of our star streak, when our sun gradually rests in death,
birthing darkness untold, thick at midnight, blinding all hopes in the third
hour. Look at the river, does it not ebb and flow twice every day? Does the
shoreline not move father and draw nearer twice a day? Dawn the first, dusk,
the second and real twilight.
The first twilight, which we call
dawn, we may not notice, but the second definitely, the true twilight, we all
see it approach… we are conscious of its coming. The second twilight is
sometimes a game of chance - Divine providence, seemingly. We may be lucky to
have a long and blissful twilight, like in the harmattans, or a sharp, painful
one, like during the rains.
Knowing where we are clogged on
this wheel of time is itself a Divine gift, and knowing how to restart the wheel
for another cycle is Divine grace. What constitutes Divine treasure is the
knowledge of how to make our twilight last forever, how to make our sun forever
give forth its golden rays at twilight for all eternity. This first twilight is
one we all want to blossom and attain full maturity. We never wish it to set at
its peak. When it eventually does, we may plunge sharply into darkness untold
or experience a blissful twilight, which we wish should never end because we
are sure of the darkness that follows.
It is currently not clear from
this hallway as we drift how to freeze twilight and prevent nightfall, but we trust
that as we reflect on those moments in our lives when light overshadowed
darkness, and on those other moments when darkness tried to regain control, we
will one day become convinced. Convinced that we still drift even if we choose
not to move, and so continue to move no matter the odds. Amen!
