ON RENEWED HOPE AND FEARING WHAT TO FEAR.
Who would help renew our hopes in an indivisible and united nation and give us the true palliatives of raising and building a virile nation?
By Taiye Olaniyi
The Fear of Fear.
Fear is said to be anti-progress and sometimes an act of cowardice and unmanliness. Those who fear are regarded as weaklings and at times called women if even when a man.
The question then is, "is fear an anomaly or something to refrain from?"
I may be seen entwined in madness presenting a scenario of fears when indeed it should be otherwise, asking for courage or courageous phenomena.
Please don't pardon me for fearing fears when fearful things are happening around us in this world of woes and especially now in Nigeria where the courage to suicide bomb appeals more than the fear of Almighty Allah who only creates but has no hand in destruction.
Fear nurtures emotional instability, anxiety, despondency, helplessness, and hopelessness and is very disharmonious to one's health. Yet, we could not or/ and cannot but fear. In many circumstances, fears have made a mess of the courage of the Son of Man just like you cannot lay claim to never being implicated in one fear or the other.
When the good life is turning bad we must learn to nurture some fears lest it gets worse before our very our eyes.
"The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom" so says the Scripture, this intends us to appreciate the awesomeness of only the "Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End" and as a mystical ontology emphasizes the Creator in Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, therefore, "The Beginning.'
Jesus the Christ, the greatest Mystic, Redeemer of Mankind, and Reconciler of Humanity back to the process of reintegration, equally admonishes us not to fear he who though can kill the body but not the Soul. But we are to fear He who can cast our Soul into raging hell fire. Note, Jesus though mindful of this aforesaid statement, but equally manifested both the fear of pain of crucifixion and the casting of the soul to hell so he yielded to the WILL of our Father in heaven, the utmost and the why of positive fear in fearing.
Hmmmm! Do you ever nurture and should you fear fear?
Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, as manly as he was, seeing discordant tunes in his society of old, disparaging his father Unoka for being fear personified, still was humbled in fear when he stated, "I fear for the people, I fear for the clan."
Restructuring, ethnic cleansing, gangsterism, and religious intolerance are gathering clouds of bombs, the old ones in our midst have no relics of leadership qualities worth emulating in their ruler's apparel, the young are though youthful only full of exuberance, and thus, their today implicates helplessly their tomorrow’s next step.
Who would help renew our hopes in an indivisible and united nation and give us the true palliatives of raising and building a virile nation?
Why Nigerians, why the hell, maiming, moaning, and then killing and wailing of fellow citizens?
Taiye Olaniyi,a retired Postman of the Nigeria Postal Service, is based in Lagos