The Signs of Time (Part 3) Hope

 “You can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, but how is it you do not discern this time? " Lk12:56

Introduction

As various protagonists get stationed in preparation for epic global dramas, the paradigm of which I shall attempt to describe from an uncensored perspective, through the lenses of my experience, taken by flesh from within my Yoruba race; by a personal and collegial union from my Nigerian entity; from an acquired discovery in science, through my Western education; and from a spirituality borne of my Christian experience.

Out of my four experiences, I hope to show how easily recognizable historical manifestations occurring in our age will be critical determinants of a civilisation and enlightenment that has dawned upon us.

1.       Yoruba

A People, The Curse and the Long War

The British Colonial masters, on entering the Niger-area, encountered little problem in penetrating the Yoruba hinterland because they met with an already disintegrated and divided entity torn in bitter rivalry that had become a norm for almost a century.

The Yoruba civil war was one of the longest of such in human history, the root cause of which was believed to be the consequence of a curse meted by a king who ruled Oyo, the Political capital of the vast race, a backlash of treacherous acts by his disgruntled Generals.

Yorubas, a people of over 50 million, domicile in at least 3 continents, emanated from Oduduwa, a spiritual protagonist who settled in Ile-Ife. Oduduwa’s descendants are as such a spiritual race and Ile-Ife, its primordial source is considered the spiritual capital of the Yoruba people.

Principalities and the New Religions

Latter religions in Yorubaland: Islam and Christianity, seem inept at engaging with its cultural norms and spirituality because of an entire scepticism and a morbid dread of its cultural reality from a faith perspective.

When we refuse to engage, we lose influence, when we lose influence, we become aloof from our environment and its cultural realities. This results in a perpetuation of spiritual crises between the people and the Principalities of the land to which their fore fathers have sworn allegiance, the result is a loss of meaning and an anthropological irrelevance prone towards being swept off by ever increasing foreign and alien forces.

Ojaja the Second

Last year saw the emergence of Adeyeye Ogunwusi, Ojaja the second as the 51st Ooni of Ile-Ife, a personality poised to stop the tide of this decay by public gestures geared towards freeing minds once shackled within an unspoken ideological and spiritual demagogue.

By publicly acknowledging Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour in church and bowing down in worship of one supreme God in mosque, Ojaja’s unparalleled gesture goes deeper than a mere ephemeral action, it is one of reconciling the past within the present realities of a new enlightenment.

I once met with an Ile-Ife Prince who claimed that the key which controls the destiny of the land of Cuba is in Ooni’s palace. I do not know if this is true, but his affirmation is a pointer to what I have in mind. We often do not realize what powerful grasp the principalities of a land have in relation to the well-being of its subjects, until they move to reconcile ancient pledges and oaths from past ancestors with present cultural realities such as this Ooni is doing.

Reconciliation: The Journey Forth

The initiative of humbly reconciling deep rooted animosity amongst various Yoruba Obas is another positive  gesture for posterity. Political disintegration can be repaired from a spiritual retraction, such that, a curse once emanated from Oyo, the Yoruba political capital would for once be repaired through the gestures of a king from Ile-Ife, the source and spiritual capital of the Yoruba people.

Unprecedented moves towards opening the Yoruba culture and its weird beliefs towards an engagement with the whole world would also prove very beneficiary. Let all ancient doors rise, and let Him enter, the king of glory.

Oduduwa is back to remake his root and to put things into their proper positions and order.

Something very necessary and spectacular is happening in our age.

2.       Nigeria

Wole Soyinka’s Abiku

I recently read a commentary on Professor Wole Soyinka’s age long poem ‘Abiku’, where the commentator claimed that Wole Soyinka had the Nigeria’s situation in mind while portraying the ‘Abiku’ phenomenon, and that the Nigerian case, borne out of a forced marriage between unwilling partners, is doomed towards an unending hopeless perambulation like the Abiku scenario.

 The case of  ‘Abiku’ was an inherent spiritual entanglement where babies were usually born to die soon after birth, such that no amount of medical expertise physical or spiritual, would prevent such repeated experience of child mortality. This was once prevalent in Africa, hence Soyinka’s perfect depiction of the hopelessness of the Abiku’s case in his famous poem.

While I do not share the commentator’s view, but the reality of the Nigerian project which seem at times to be swinging back and forth, may tempt many to lose hope and consider it an Abiku case. For me reality is positive, and I know Nigeria is destined to move and stay forward however the present situation may appear to the contrary.

Our Economic Ordeal

The current President may be faulted regarding his leadership approach but I do not see many faulting him on personal corruption. He inherited an economic malaise borne of an entity that has mortgaged its destiny on America’s caprices, such that when the latter raises its financial interest rate, it creates  fresh pangs, made worse by her capitalist shipping their funds back to yonder and its dwindling oil prices.

The process of reconstruction is painful and prolonged, and it is also not helped by a popular psyche that has crystallised within a culture of corruption. The shear system and structure of Nigeria is such that one is tempted to say that it is impossible to circumvent without an element of corrupt ideology. A country where the righteous few suffer more than droves who have taken corruption as a norm.

My Belief

I believe, I know, that at the trench of this dark tunnel of recession and corruption lies the bright tunnel of liberation. Nigeria crouches smartly as a protagonist of goodness and progress, even while many so-called champions of civilisation are obviously petrifying amidst evils positioned for a cosmological rivalry with goodness. Nigeria I see, is poised to shine as a harbinger of universal goodness that many  nations shall look up to in time not very far off.

3.       Science and Technology

Those who see absolutely  no connection between science and religion, be they People of faith with a disgust of science or scientist who loathe faith, may be on the path towards grave errors, because there will always be a close connection between reason and faith.

Science -to me- is not spelled to be a champion of the forthcoming civilisation, but it shall increasingly be a valued and more relevant pointer back to the clarity of mind, consciousness and faith which shall see its rise.

The Rise of the Inanimate

Technology and the inanimate are taking control. the possibility of the inanimate controlling animate seem confusing to many and can be put forward as a revisit of the many Science fictional plots, but an inanimate civilisation is already in place, and not only are the they taking over, but we, the animates are being directed and made to think as them which are the works of our hands. Humanity is already crystallizing and mortgaging its consciousness to technology.

Man and the Other-World lings

10 years back, ideas like UFOs, aliens, extra-terrestrials, find more reality in the context of science fiction, but today, many Scientists, including NASA believe that before the year 2030 there would be an official confirmation and pronouncement about the existence of extra-terrestrials and their interrelationship with us.

It is believed that the U.S intelligence are already in close communication with extra-terrestrials. Not that these are particularly surprising to me , I grew up within an extra-terrestrial cultural reality, but we shall have to reconsider our place within their universal reality and clarity if they are regarded as far more intelligent than humans.

The question we shall have to consider quick is whether these extra-terrestrials are angels or demons, or a combination of both.

Global Warming

Global warming and the rise of its sceptics may be another pointer to an impending inferno. The denial of global warming by a minority of scientist would find an escalation by Trump’s ascendancy, the latter has bluntly denied the impact of fossil fuel on global warming and has vowed to overturn any progressive overture towards ameliorating its effect. This is worrying because America is the world’s highest environmental polluter, and when America does not support sustainability, the next highest polluter, China, is sure to back off too, then every other person’s effort at curbing global warming would then be Infinitesimal.

The God Particle

There is a seemingly silent, hidden but apparent revolution from science that to me is having and would have far greater effect on the destiny of humankind than any that I have described so far.

Switzerland’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and its accompanying God Particle project is a frivolous quest with a curiosity only reminiscent of the biblical tower of Babel. And it appears the Babel effect is already at play as events in the world delve deeper within the sub-normal quantum particle rules of the LHC discoveries. Events manifests, from playful issues as Leicester winning the EPL to very serious matters like Trump winning the US election.

Education presents the capability of forecasting the future and preparing accordingly a challenge against militating issues, and by so doing, create, acquire and formalize the capacity to transcend and surmount these rules that may militate against the learned. But, down within the quantum world, the rules that apply are no rules.

These are bad times for the extremely formal and methodical; and for forecasters, poll experts, fortune tellers and gamblers.

4.       Christianity

If there is anything called the Christian spirit, it is the fact that Christ has come to gather everything in authentic unity, freedom, peace and happiness. To any authentic inclusive effort therefore, a Christian must adhere. Giving as excuse the potential threat of any inclusive effort in the name of preventing the emergence of an anti-Christ, one-world government is itself an anti-Christian rhetoric.

The Francis’ Effect

The emergence of a star genius, Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis in 2013 immediately portrayed an unbounded concept mercy and a limitless integration that I can only refer to as a drastic opposite of the excess of our modern-day materialism and consumerism.

The Francis’ story finds a good parallel with the Ooni phenomenon regarding inclusivity, but on a much larger scale. I may never know if the Ooni actually has the key controlling Cuba, but I know these Popes have the key governing humanity’s destiny.

Rich in Mercy

Can there be a limit to mercy? Francis, not only includes, but makes champions of outsiders: Non-Catholics, Non-Christians, Polytheists, non-Deists. Conveying synods, embracing every Christian charism, promoting peace within religions, admitting the remarried, ‘not judging the gays’, unifying and befriending every creature, and even writing a scientific encyclical towards the prevention of our environment. It’s a sort of mercy sometimes bordering on embarrassment.

In 2015 he proclaimed an extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, giving free passes of mercy to even the most addicted of sinners; but wait… within this plane of existence, is there really anything like a free lunch? Can there be anything like a reaction without an action? Does not, even the mercy of God require faith and trust to function?

I trace the present quantic consequence within the English world, to the effect of a replacement of 'all' to ‘many’; of 'you' to 'Spirit' and of 'I' to ‘soul’, at Mass.

The Aftermath

Francis is performing his God given mission and will go, but we that remain shall have to clear up the mess produced as an aftermath of this radical form of mercy to an unbelieving generation.

A created form of apostasy shall reign which would further launch us deeper within uncontrollable quantum realms, previously unchannelled regions that are necessary to be crossed towards the dawn of a new enlightenment and liberation.

Conclusion

What is at stake within this Signs of Time, is the unity of the material and the divine, it is about progress, it is about commonwealth, it is about hope, it is about the Christmas we celebrate today!

Merry Christmas to you all