JUSTIFICATION

I don't know if you've ever heard ringing phrases in your ear. You know, words that just keep looping in the ears, repeating themselves over and over again.

As I thought on what to share with you this weekend the words of an African proverb kept ringing in my ears. The proverb says in essence that the market is shutting down and the sellers must pack their wares and go home. As I ruminated over the strangeness of those words, looking for the meaning this interpretation came to my heart.

There's an issue you've been carrying in your heart for years now- a relationship issue. Perhaps you had a breakup of a long standing relationship; you feel you wasted your years- you're full of regrets. Or you went through a divorce last year or some years back. Your marriage crashed, after years of mental agony. Or you got pregnant for someone who then turned around and repudiated responsibility, amazingly! Or you got pregnant for someone you thought you were exclusive with only to discover otherwise. Or you got pregnant, and while he acknowledged paternity he then broke up with you. Or you got pregnant for someone who confusingly accepts biologic consequence but repudiates responsibility for your state! Or you got pregnant for someone who made promises, but who then vacated the promises and vacated your life.

You've been dealing with pain and anger, self recrimination and bitterness. You habour tears of anger, beneath your surface. Your eyes get wet when you think about your treatment and sequence of events. You feel like crying but the tears will not form in significant quantities. Sometimes you swallow the saliva of impotence. And sometimes the lava finds a crack and you lash out. You don't mean to, but you can't help it and you don’t care.

You've been rolling over the issue in your heart's mind, from year to year, You can't seem to let go of the cocktail of pain and anger. Can't let go, even after so many years.

Surprisingly some people have judged you without knowing the facts; without even hearing your side of the story. You're been castigated by the haters... And so you want justification. You keep replaying your justification in your head. You keep arguing with invisible accusers who are real but not real. There's no one to engage. Your accusers prefer to diss you out of accessible context behind your back. They won't confront you to give you an opportunity to state your case. Cowards they are!

That puts you in a limbo of some sort, - a medium in slow motion that can't really hit whatever it is. You're in this suspended animated state of existing, not moving forward though the years carry you by. You sense the busybodies condemning you don't actually want the facts. And how many will you explain to? And how many have you explained to? They listen to you but it's just fodder for gist.

You sense they're not really for you, that you're not getting through and it feels weird. Even your so called "friends" joined the circus of highwire condemnation. They bounced your history with them. And the people you expect will stand up for you have become political, ducking support. And your ex? He keeps playing to the gallery, with subtlety instigating the court of public opinion against you......feeding lies and misleading half truths to the republic of haters. He is now the victim! It's a vindictive PR war.

Your accusers have found a common cause. They are now a federation, though ordinarily they have nothing in common. It's a mixed multitude out there- the envious, the scornful, the haters, the malicious, the grudge bearers... The real pain for you, the nagging pain is a strange denial of opportunity to state your case. And so you keep addressing people in your heart, talking to imaginary people, trying to convince enemies who laugh at you.

Like a barrister in a law court you've been making your case every waking moment, walking through the aisles of facticity. If you pause to think you'll realise this argument, this justification exercise has been going on for years!

Even when you've moved on the federation keeps dragging you back, to answer unending charges. Silent accusations- like a grey atmosphere is hanging over you, is all around you, inside your head. And when you did get a chance to state your case to one of them every answer you gave generated additional accusation.

The truth is, you're wasting your time with the mixed multitude - the federation of accusers and traducers. You'll never get the justification you want, the justification you deserve. These people know the truth in their heart. They just choose to take a stand against you. It's malice aforethought.

And you wonder: Where were all these people in your years of suffering?! They had turned a blind eye to the obvious. The fact is, some are actually projecting their problems unto you. People with relationship issues sometimes do that. And it can be jealousy at play. You can't understand jealousy. You just accept it. Jealousy is not a rational emotion. You can't counter jealousy with facts. That's like stirring a large pot of soup with a screwdriver.

Some hate you because you had prison break- you courageously broke out of your situation. They're stuck! And if you've moved on and now have a wonderful relationship or marriage they view you like you got away with murder. Deliverance is not celebrated by all. Neither is progress. Stop seeking justification from unjust men. It is God that justifies.

Shut down the stalls. Don't ever discuss the issue again. Not even with your friends. The market is over. Only make sure you're a good mother to your kid(s). That you can't compromise. But it's time to totally put the past behind you, to truly move on. Shut the stalls of attempted justification for life. If you want the wound to heal stop peeling at the scab.

The more you talk about it the fresher it becomes, like a pain from just yesterday. If you're not careful it will go on for life. Witness how old people still talk with bitterness about a painful divorce. You don't owe any one of them an explanation on your life. You only owe your God and God is NOT condemning you. Let bygones be bygones. Stop meditating on the issue, seeking how to even the score.

Sometimes we have unblemished visions of our lives- no breakups, no divorce, no child out of wedlock... Our pain is sometimes the fact that this vision became blemished, turning us into subject headers of discussions. Sometimes the very fact we're being discussed brings pain. Until this incident you didn't know how private you were.

Let it go. Let him go. Let her go. Stop discussing him. Stop discussing her-  what he did to you, what she did to you. You've got to learn to let go of hurts in life, or you'll become petty, mean, stubborn, hard, sensitive and vindictive. I wish you love, and I wish you all the happiness you deserve

TIME TRAVEL

Today I want to talk about time travel. I know... Sci-fi right? But Physics is such a titillation for me. You should study it. The notion of time travel however presents a paradox - the Grandfather Paradox: Can one go back in time and kill one's own grandfather before one's father was conceived? This is the great paradox and scientists are grappling with it as with so many other bizarre realities of life.

Do you know there's a theoretical framework in Physics that says you can arrive from a journey before taking off? There's so much we don't know about life, so much to discover. Time travel of course raises questions about the nature of time itself. Is time linear like an arrow, or is it a constellation of spheres of existence, like planets as some suggest?

There's also the theoretical possibility of parallel universes. Does a "you" exist in another universe? What is Physics without exciting crazy possibilities! I wish it were properly taught in schools! Through Physics we peer into the brilliant mind of God! Theoretically, there's nothing limiting time travel, either to the past or future. Reality is another thing entirely though. But suppose we can indeed do time travel. How wonderful that would be!

Imagine if we can actually go into the past, to correct our paths in order to avoid the mistakes we have made. Or go into the past to amend our track so as to escape the trauma visited upon us. If Molly can go into the past, she could make herself one minute late to Joke's party - just one minute! Then she'd have avoided meeting Emeka the Barbarian, and all the trauma and drama. What if Justina could make herself go to the other party? She would then have avoided being raped by Sam. If Kenny can adjust the course of history, she would avoid meeting John in the present. He drained her account. And if Labake can also adjust her timeline not to sleep with Tunde. Then she wouldn't have been pregnant. Suppose, what if, perhaps, if... All these are suppositions and hypotheticals.
 
Scientists are battling with time travel not knowing we already do time travel. We undertake journeys into our past with suppositions and hypotheticals. I know Clara does time travel. She told me her aborted fetus would have been three years old now! She keeps punishing herself with that thought. We can be so harsh on ourselves, flagellating our souls in search of penance for restitution. We beat up ourselves so much for mistakes of the past we become too weak to make the journey into our future. As if doing injury to the fleshly stock of our soul would edit the past. The past is the past. No amount of recrimination we visit on ourselves will change the past. What has happened has happened. The problem most times is that we're unwilling to forgive ourselves. That unforgiven can be worse than not forgiving others. Both are terrible variants of one another. We all make mistakes. We've all made mistakes. Except hypocrites of course. Their pasts are perfect.

Amazing how God can graciously spare a man what he can't handle and he imagines himself a superman; begins to judge others! Sometimes we feel we've done such terrible things and God won't forgive us. Means you don't know God! He'll forgive anything. He’s not a man. God forgives! And he keeps forgiving! Men of course won't forgive. It's why they say terrible things about you, such horrible things! Yet their opinion is irrelevant. The only opinion that counts is God's and he's NOT judging you! Forgive yourself!

Let me quote an excerpt from David Jesse's Book of Poetry & Wonderments: "God makes everything come out right; he puts victims back on their feet... God is sheer mercy and grace; not easily angered, he’s rich in love. He doesn’t endlessly nag and scold, nor hold grudges forever. He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, nor pay us back in full for our wrongs. As high as heaven is over the earth, so strong is his love to those who fear him. And as far as sunrise is from sunset, he has separated us from our sins. As parents feel for their children, God feels for those who fear him. He knows us inside and out, keeps in mind that we’re made of mud. God’s love... is ever and always, eternally present to all who fear him, making everything right for them and their children as they follow his Covenant ways..." Psalm 103:6-18 MSG. This coming from a man who slept with another man's wife, impregnated her and tried to obscure paternity. He didn't stop there: he arranged the gentleman's murder; then he married his wife. If a murderer can script the foregoing, surely YOU can forgive yourself for being raped. (And how is that your fault?!)

Forgive yourself for making wrong choices in life, for stupidities of youth, for willfulness, foolishness... Stop traveling into the past. Stop visiting the mistakes of your past in the vehicle of "If only..." The island of mistakes in your past is not a good tourist destination. God loves you because of your past, not despite your past.