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As a child, I had this notion that the affluent were the religious ones. I never had a doubt that all paupers were unbelievers and that serving a supreme being was the gateway to success. But then with age comes knowledge and with knowledge comes enlightenment, at least for those who are willing. I had the opportunity to chance on the principle of sowing and reaping and then realized it had no such faith attached to it but a natural phenomenon which is no respecter of persons. Jesus even attested to the fact that his father rains on both the clean and unclean to demonstrate his undying love for even the lost. So then, I purported to dive into such a phenomenon that constitutes one of the things I got totally wrong as I aged into my niche of knowledge and enlightenment. Guided by my field of study, I chose to use the human male and female as my point of reference.
The human female has a total of about 300,000 eggs at the time of birth. This reduces to about 400 by puberty and there is no stopping its reduction day in and day out. This brings to play the whole biological clock and how women have to marry and procreate as early as they can to reduce their chances of delivering all sorts of babies with all sorts of congenital anomalies.
The human male on the hand is rather privileged in the sense that, he has the ability produce sperms throughout his lifetime unless some pathology sets in.
So I reasoned that, in the act of sexual intercourse, the human male gives whereas the female receives. So I’m i right to say the human male is blessed in this sense? I say this because blessed is the hand that gives than the one that takes.

It’s pretty amazing how the female being gets all the blame when there is no cry heard in the house. I sometimes weep for the many subtle hearts that passed in the age of darkness when inability to conceive was the fault of the human female. Thank God the sun has shone on the continent with a question mark and such vain ideologies have somehow being corrected in the hearts of the willing. Men on the other hand boast of their prowess in bed and how their actions multiply the already populated universe.

So, I decided to look at this from another perspective, research has proven that men die at an early age as compared to the female counterpart. Why is this so? The simple reason I got based on the blessed blah blah blah principle is that, the human female gives to the world in that she bears a child for 9months after which she goes through a painful delivery session to bring forth a baby. Thus, blessed is the human female who gives to the world than the male counterpart who takes all the compliment.

So then, I realized that there are certain things that goes beyond religion or faith or confession. Such are the natural phenomenon and there is nothing that can cheat it.

The concept of faith is one of the various religious dogmas that intrigue me a lot. Its basis is believing what you have not seen no matter how bad the odds are against you. There is this popular Christian saying, “For we walk not by sight but by faith”. This is where the paradigm comes in. There is no doubt about this saying because I have seen the blind walk all by themselves without assistance. That is an impartial exhibition of faith here. So does this make faith a substance for the blind alone? In Hebrews, James defines faith as a substance of things hoped for and an evidence of things not seen. This confirms how unrealistic faith is and how blind one can be in this era of illumination on the account of faith. Faith makes you do everything the other way. It makes you put all your eggs in one basket, makes you give your all even when you are the world’s most dependent being. It makes you pray instead of learning for that exam and makes you wait for that lover who has abandoned you and enjoying somewhere else. It makes you disown the womb that formed you, the breast that fed you and the tears that filled the breast. So what then makes FAITH sacred if all that it teaches is rebellion, neglect, sorrow, cruelty and dishonesty among the many I cannot even remember?
Nevertheless, there have been many instances that people have exhibited faith and the end was something worthwhile. Like the woman with an issue of blood, the soldier whose child was dead, Abraham who left his home though he never knew where he was headed. In all these instances, we see people who though they had no hope nor knew what was in wait for them but took a bold step in believing the impossible and it actually worked for them. So then where does faith lie? Is it that abstract figure that leads people astray or that which gives them hope, peace and a kind of satisfaction that many lack?

Who knows where we come from or where we go? As a clot of blood we are formed knowing not whence we came from and beneath the earth we are buried knowing not where we go to. So is there any need craving for all that last but for a time? What makes you think that what you believe is even right? What do we gain by being faithful in a house full of whores? Everything that is done under the sun is meaningless as the Preacher rightly said. Under the sun, we are governed by theories, conspiracies, beliefs, conventions, and laws that we know not the origin neither the originator. Everyone believes in or not in something and they cannot be blamed for who they are because no two are the same even if they are, periodic chemistry teaches us that they have opposite spins. As such it will be very wrong to judge someone with what you believe in or not. We work so hard to achieve a better tomorrow which we are never assured of seeing. Seeing tomorrow is not by deeds neither by any qualities we possess. It is simply chance or luck as some say. Others attribute it to the benevolence of some divine entity.

Even with the concept of the divine, everyone has his or her own to whom honor is due. So even with divine, who is supreme over then other? Who orders and who follows? We love and we are others beloved but somewhere along the line, there is hatred and envy and malice and whatever vice you can think of. Can love and hatred coexist? If NO, then why do we love some and hate others? If YES, then what do we stand for and to which one do we make obeisance because to my best of knowledge, no one man can serve two masters. There is no part of man that is content with what it has. The eye is never content with seeing neither the ears hearing. The mouth together with the tongue never ceases to talk likewise the belly is never filled. Human needs are insatiable and forever so shall it be. All these somehow attest to the fact that everything under the sun is meaningless because something meaningful needs no further elaboration. Belief is like the skin of a leopard; it is if not impossible, very hard to change.

We are born tabula rasa and like a machine we are programmed by what surrounds us. We are made Christians, Muslims, Atheist, educated, whatever by where we find ourselves or by whom we find ourselves with. We do not determine our race, ethnicity, ego, sex or whatever that makes us so why racism, ethnocentrism, egocentrism? If we had the chance to choose even if at random, there is a probability that you wouldn’t have chosen what and where you are now. As such there is no need to consider oneself better than others because all that we have is by chance. No one wished to be born into a poor family neither into a race that is despised. Just be content with whom and what you are and never look down on your neighbor. Humans are all one and just as phones are made with different colors, so are we. Black, white, red or yellow doesn’t change the fact that humans are same and just as the stars fade when the sun appears, we shall also fade from earth to the grave.

If we are born to die then we can compare ourselves to a stranger. A stranger arrives to leave no matter how long he or she may stay. One of the few people on earth who plan their life well is strangers. A stranger knows he has but a short time to stay so he doesn’t bother himself with the things of settlers. He is always prepared to be on the move and is forever ready for any eventuality. He doesn’t consider his race because he can find himself in any country and will need help. His ethnic group is the last thing he talks of because ethnicity is not empathy. His ego, he steps on it because it will take him nowhere. His belief, he shares and doesn’t enforce, hoping to get a soul to join him. That is a stranger and so is everyone who lives. Strangely we find the otherwise in many that live under the sun. Many go to the extent of getting what they want even if it needs be that the person kills. This is vanity and such is everything under the sun.

We are like pilgrims and strangers passing through this land unknown. We all came through one channel which no one ever dare despise. One day or another we all, one by one will leave one way or another. We may be aware of what goes on here on this earth but on the other side we do not know. If therefore there be anything necessary, let us live like there is no tomorrow, let us esteem every little creature and let us be upright before God and man. I may not be able to convince you that there is life after death or judgment or even hell or heaven and I don’t intend to. One thing that is expedient is that let us live right that if there is such thing like judgment after death, we wouldn’t find ourselves wanting. Life is not how you live it; life is living in full exoneration. Live it in such a way that few would love you for who you are and that when all said and done, and you have gone the last mile of the way, you will find rest at the close of the day and also know that there are joys that awaits you. We cannot be light to people’s darkness all the time but we should endeavor not to be darkness to their light.

There is no greater sorrow than regret, no greater power than love, and no greater gift than forgiveness. May the Lord forgive us and may the gods be witness.