Our Homes In Times And Tides
By Taiye Olaniyi
For whatever reason, times and tides will always remain two sides of the same coin, allied forces and a barometer for the measurement of human life and experiences therein.
Time, which is regarded as the " duration of consciousness" not only uploads one to the realization of self and realities that surround us, but it also downloads into our being whatever we perceive to be living in which one is lonely and enveloped.
Time determines the transiency of human life for nothing with man is of permanent nature.
Because the soul that determines man as a living being is enveloped in the physical and has to journey from place to place in time perspective, I take pride in Jesus Christ's true acclamation that: "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head".
This physical entity that embodies the soul is no permanent shelter for you and me. It can not be the home where moths and other insects cannot reach nor should be where we vault our treasures.
Sometimes and severally we are told,
"North-South, East-West, home is the best". Then the question is, what makes a home or the home?
We are by this question likely to trace our home to a place of origin from the race, continent, region, subregion, and country down to the remotest of it to the family house.
Some take pride in the house as the home so we hear them say that they are going home which means to them the hue attached to the minutest of mud houses to the gold-plated mansions in which many either reside, let out, or outrightly sell to others.
Ebenezer Obey once sang; " Yee Africa, Ye, ye, ye Africa, Africa is our home." From another perspective singing about the confluence of ironies, Idowu Animashaun observed in the song " Ojo to go to wo Ile Olowo to fi ti Talika sile a bi e ko ri aye lode?" This is sort of, "a great marvel at the rainstorm that wrecked the mansion of the rich but left untouched that of the poor."
Hmm! Yoruba also lay claim to the fact that Mother Earth is merely a market but the Heavenly realm a permanent place of abode.
Jim Reeves one of the greatest minds in music also once concluded; " This World is not my home am just passing through, my treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue, the Angels beckon me from Heaven's open door and I can't feel at home in this World anymore."
Have you equally noticed that many houses so beautiful within and without are sometimes not happy homes where the consciousness of occupants could be sheltered as harmonious surroundings? On the other side of the divide in juxtaposition, we find even the mad ones sleeping and snoring without a capsule sinking through the oesophagus.
Hmmm! One may be privileged to either appropriate or misappropriate security votes of all sorts, the question still is what makes the home where the true treasure of life is placed in custody, especially as the years roll by?
This writer joins our Lord Jesus Christ to say lay up your treasure where neither dust, moth and Shekau of this world cannot vandalize.
I mean Home, Sweet Home that radiates and relishes in the Light, Life, and Love of God, the Creator of every being.
Taiye Olaniyi, a retired Postman of the Nigeria Postal Service, is based in Lagos.