Ancient of Days (1)

(Painting) Ancient of Days by William Blake

I watched till thrones were put in
place,
And the Ancient of Days was
seated;
His garment was white as snow,
And the hair of His head was like
pure wool . . .

And the books were opened.

Daniel 7: 9-10

It is rational to believe in the existence of God. Infact, it does not stand to reason if you do not believe in a Supreme Being who created the universe. Yes, we might debate about which way is the right way to approach Him or split hairs over some doctrinal issues, but there is a God. He exists!

I have never understood the flawed logic of the atheist, who proudly beats his chest in the “certain knowledge” that there is no God. Well, what can I say, . . . there are bounds of reason, but I guess all humans do not dwell within its confines.

At no time in the long history of mankind has the topic of God’s existence been more contentious than it is today – in this age of information. I do not propose to provide in this brief write-up an “undisputable proof” of the existence of God but rather to lay, however briefly, a rationality for the belief in a Creator.

It is imperative in this present age that christians educate themselves not only in scriptures but also in as many subjects as they may find time and means to study. It is a brave new world out there – a world of ideas – in our campuses, classrooms, lecture halls and laboratories and you must meet the opposing ideas and “always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you…”

Now, when I say give “a defense” I do not necessarily mean that it has to be “a scriptural verse” or “a passage from the bible”. I am talking about discussing philosophy with the philosophers, discussing physics with the physicist, and biology with the biologist . And no, you do not need to be a universal expert in all of these disciplines to confidently do so. There is a simple rational basis in all academic disciplines and that rationality is usually more than enough to state your case.

And why is this important you ask?

The story is told of a fourteen-year-old boy from a christian family who asked his father about the existence of God and the conversation went something like this:

“Daddy, God created the world, right?” the boy asked

“Yes my son, He did” the father responded “Why do you ask son? You have believed in God since you were ten years old. Are you having any doubts?” the father asked.

“No Dad. I got into a debate in school with some of my classmates about the existence of God and as hard as I tried to make them see my point of view, they were unyielding.” the boy responded.

“Just tell them God created the world and how it is well explained in Genesis chapter 1 and 2. Also mention John 3:16 and how God sent his only Son to die for the sins of the world” the father said

In exasperation the boy blurted out,

“I know all those scriptures Dad! The book of Genesis and John work very well within the confines of our house and in church, but these books do not do very well in my classroom.”

I will leave you to imagine the expression on the father’s face.


A fourteen-year-old boy has perhaps stated in plain words what you obviously must have experienced when you tried to talk about your faith from a strictly biblical perspective with your professor or your academic colleagues. The point is that they do not accept as valid the reference text (Bible) from which you are quoting. They wish to engage you at an academic plane, to make the discussion as intellectual, as logical and completely subject to reason and empirical evidence.

So what is the christian to do? Walk away?

No. No. A thousand times, No!

As a christian there is more rationality in your faith than in the fleeting convictions of an atheist. What is your faith? When I hear christians talk about faith, they speak of it as if faith is the same thing as some helpless belief that they have no option but to resort to.

When the apostle Paul defined faith, he called it the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So faith can have a substance, faith can have evidence. Have you noticed that Paul defended his faith before scholars and before illiterates, before Greek philosophers and before the academics and intellectual elites of his day; so much so that Festus cried out in a loud voice “Paul you are beside yourself! Much learning is driving you mad!

And what was Paul’s response?

“I am not mad most noble Festus, but speak the words of truth and reason”

Did you read that? …the words of truth and REASON! So there can be a reason for faith, a substance for faith, an evidence for faith. Faith is not some passive, weak-minded and whimsical belief that a christian should capitulate to because he has not made the effort to think. It is and can be rooted in REASON if christians would make the effort to read and to think.

Christians, I implore you all to Think, and you shall Find!

Of course I am not in any way suggesting that you will know all things. No man knows all things, but you will always know enough and more than you need to debate and to defend your faith in the battlefield of ideas. Yes it is a battlefield and the war has since started. On television, in university lecture theatres, academic fora and conferences, men from every field of learning are constantly casting doubt over the existence of a Supreme God.

You may say it does not concern you but O it does. You can already hear the questions being asked in every nook and cranny of university campuses and on the streets, and no doubt you will have children of your own someday and your children will ask you these same questions because they will hear it in school from their classmates and from their teachers. If you are not prepared now, you will not be prepared then.

It is also important that christians educate themselves so they do not make statements that are to say the least “totally outrageous”. I listened to a radio programme recently where a christian lady called in to express why she believed in God/Bible. She started off by making certain assertions about cloning and to quote her, called it “crap”. As a fellow christian, my sympathies were with her but I cringed at her utterance; anyone who says cloning is crap (perhaps suggesting that it doesn’t work) certainly doesn’t know anything about cloning in the first place. It is statements like these, made by this caller that leaves the christian faith open to assault by non-believers who call us a bunch of mythologists.

The caller was not lacking in passion, but passion without facts and reason is not enough. You can pound on the table and speak at the top of your voice from sunrise to sunset that “I believe the Bible!” “I believe in God!” I believe the Bible!” I believe in God!” but that alone will not be admissible in an intellectual argument. That approach may work in church but it will find no acceptance against the logic of your professors or your intellectual non-believing colleagues.

I am by no means saying we should not quote the bible, what I am saying is that as christians we should be wise enough to be mindful of our audience and how best to engage them. You might need to engage people in an intellectual debate of your faith before you introduce the scriptures because that might be the only way you can get past the walls they have erected in their minds.

As christians we must read far and we must read wide, and not just the bible but other books as well. When was the last time you read a book on history, geography, government, or theology? Have you read an account of the history of the church (and I don’t mean the Acts of the Apostles), I mean the history of the church from the time of Polycarp, through the dark ages and the enlightenment period in Europe.

You have lived in England for five years perhaps, but do you know the history of that country from its Celtic inhabitants through the Roman occupation and the Anglo-Saxon invasion to present day or have you taken a scholarly tour through the “Egyptology section” of the British Museum?

Do you know what a gene is and how it affects our existence as humans? If you don’t know, what are you waiting for before you do? How do you expect to debate atheist like Richard Dawkins, an Oxford university professor or Christopher Hitchens for that matter.

Get a library card and read for goodness sake!

When was the last time you read a book on christian epistemology or apologetics? Why are the only books christians ever read always “Seven steps to …… (fill in the blank).

Have you listened to a theological discourse by Ravi Zacharias or John Polkinghorne? It would not cost you a cent to. An archive of Ravi’s apologetics can be found on his website.

There is a battle of ideas going on in the world right now, in society at large but particularly in our citadels of learning – the psyche and the instincts of people – students and children especially, are been turned further and further away from a belief in God.

Do you even have a library card?

Friendly Fire

Those friends thou hast and their adoption tried,
grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel . . .
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment . . .
This above all: to thine own self be true,
and it must follow, as the night the day,
thou canst not then be false to any man.

William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1 Scene III

Do you know what it means to be criticized? I am not talking about the opinion voiced by one of your friends about why the colour of your shirt does not match the colour of your trousers or why you have chosen to wear the same dress you wore to class to a birthday party.
I am talking about a criticism that assaults your dreams, your ambitions and your hopes; the stinging attacks against your aspirations – that rips to shreds the blueprint (or a blueprint) you have drawn up for your life. That insistent myriad of voices that bombard your consciousness in the guise of friendly advice and at times, outright hostility:

“you are aiming too high”
“you are taking on too much”
“you cannot”
“you are a dreamer”
“this is a stupid venture”
“you are not ready”

How many times have you heard these from well-meaning friends and acquaintances? How many more times in your journey through life will you feel the piercing darts of the critical tongue? It might be useful to remind yourself in the midst of scathing criticism, especially of the type that queries your abilities or that continually insists that “you are not good enough” that the cautious approach of a tiger is not an indication of weakness but rather, an intoxication of strength.

Hostile critics are perhaps the easiest to deal with (they are not any less stinging) but they are easier, because you know, at least, that their intentions are opposed to yours. It is indeed a curious thing and I dare say this in all sober earnest and with all the humility that I can glean from my arrogance, that if you are alert to the possibility and can adequately gauge the stubbornness of these hostile critics by the measure of your own obstinacy, these critics can very well be your greatest cheerleaders.

But, the gentle suggestion of friendly criticism, now, that is a whole different matter altogether; the gentle hand of a friend on your shoulder, the clear, unwavering eyes staring directly into yours, coaxing you with all the honesty that friendship grants it liberty to, a critic that does not wish you ill, infact oftentimes, a critic whose intentions are noble – that my friend is a much more perilous sea to navigate.

But, the noblest intentions, contrary to all expectations can smother the best of dreams – the noblest of your friends can actually kill your dreams with too much love.

So, should you not listen to your friends, or should you only have friends that agree with you all the time? The short answer to both questions is “no,” but the long answer to both questions are two questions, “Who are your friends?” and “Do you know what you want?”

The advice of friends can be useful and there is nothing wrong with one seeking wise counsel from those you have chosen to call your friends. But, there are certain friendships that you need to strengthen and there are other friendships that you simply have to say “bye-bye” to.

A wise man once said, “Choose your friends wisely, if you don’t choose, you will lose”

The keyword there is WISELY, and “wisely” does not mean based on social, economic or religious factors but rather based on your core values.

So, what are your core values?

Choosing your friends based on your CORE VALUES and having a well-defined set of goals are indispensable preambles to accurately judging and handling whatever criticisms may come from them when they offer you advice.

There is no prescription that can be written to tell you “when to listen to your friends” and “when not to listen to your friends” but if you have chosen your friends wisely and know exactly where you are in life and know exactly where you want to get to, Providence will always lead you along the right path. It is an uncanny truth but true all the same, that Providence always seems to throw its weight behind the man or woman who knows exactly where he or she is going.

Ultimately, the buck stops with you and you alone will live in whatever reality you choose to create.

Living in the Present

“Now, is the accepted time” the lawyer from Tarsus boldly proclaimed about 2000 years ago. You will find layers of meaning compressed in that singular statement, which for the brevity of this post I will not go into. For many people the past and the future are always a constant companion and not very pleasant ones at that; they are either relieving over and over again the mistakes of the past or fretting constantly about what the future might bring (or might not bring). For such people, the present never really exists – they are caught perpetually in a time loop – swinging on that obsessive pendulum between the tears of yesterday and the fears of tomorrow.

But, . . . “Now, is the accepted time”

There is nothing wrong with thinking about the past, infact you should give the past a considerable amount of thought. The past holds your memories, your joys, your friendships, and your successes but it also holds your mistakes, your regrets and your failures. There is nothing wrong with thinking about the past, to draw courage and belief from your successes and to learn valuable lessons from your setbacks. It only becomes a problem when you focus on your mistakes and regrets so much that it numbs you from daring to go forward.

The same is true about the future – your dreams are yet unborn, you do not know for certain what form the offsprings would take but remember that reality is the offspring of dreams, and it is within your power, and within the latitude of your ability to dream dreams that would shape that future reality.

Two things come to mind when people hear the name King Solomon; firstly, the fact that he was an extremely wise man and secondly, The Temple that was built during his reign, called Solomon’s Temple, was perhaps one of the most magnificent structures ever constructed by man. But, how many people realize that both King Solomon and The Temple are in a sense the consequences of two mistakes in the past of King David.

Solomon was David’s son by his wife Bathsheba whom he took through dubious means from Uriah the Hittite (Let’s call this David’s first mistake). The site on which The Temple was built was the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, the same location where an angel was restrained from carrying out destruction when David erroneously numbered the Israelites (Let’s call this David’s second mistake).

Only God can take a man’s two greatest mistakes from his past and build a magnificent Temple out of it in the future.

As obvious as it may seem, people should always remember to live in the present while garnering wisdom from the past and dreaming about the future. Let go of the nightmares of the past and dream great dreams about the future; see clearly in your heart and in your mind what your goals are because knowing what you want and defining it clearly, has a way of rallying Providence in your favour.

Always remember the words of the lawyer from Tarsus: “Now is the accepted time”

Moreover, if we are to consider the issue just a little further, there is no such thing as yesterday, today and tomorrow anyway. What we call the past, the present and the future is actually just one, vast, and eternal NOW!!!

A Dance of Light

Wonderful, Counsellor, be born in my heart,
Though I know that it has great lacks;
For you would find it an even more wretched place
Than the manger where you once lay.

Wrapped in swaddling clothes, attended by donkeys,
I offer Thee a home with greater poverty;
O Stem of Jesse, be born in my heart,
This is my wish, my hope, my cry.

- Eyitemi Egwuenu from my poem, Star of Bethlehem

He wants to take us by the hand, to retrace our steps to where it all first began – to the very beginning – before those words that still echo to this day were spoken – “Let there be light”.

He wants to take us to before the beginning, before space, before time – before the singularity of the big bang – to the very origin of a dateless past, when our formless eternal souls were sheltered in His thoughts. He wants to show us what we are, who we are – our heritage, our ancestry.

Often we catch glimpses of it in Nature – in the regal swirl of whistling pines in the winsome winds and in the guileless smile that ripples a baby’s face. Even by night, we still see Him in the beauty of the moonlight as we roam the landscape without a care, walking in the beam of that polished disc of silver.

And even more, He wants to show us the Seed that rests quietly in our hearts – “The Kingdom of God is within you” He says. The Kingdom of God, The Kingdom of God – what a birthright, what an honour – what glory, what majesty – it should be music to our ears – it should be melodies in our hearts – melodies that crisscross each other in a dance of light.

In my mind’s eye, I can see it – the fluttering wings of Divinity that dwells in every human heart. Our duty, our responsibility as humans is to pray – pray – pray, that Heaven grant those wings the strength to fly.

In Our Stars or in Ourselves

Men at some time are masters of their fates;
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Cassius from Julius Caesar Act 1, scene 2

Often times I have wondered about the nature of destiny and predetermination and I find it curious that I never arrive at a consistent conclusion every time I do. Certain situations have inclined me to the belief that a person’s fate is nothing more than the outcome of a series of choices he made before that point. But, no sooner have I grasped this conclusion than I feel my hands been prised open by other ideas when I hear of certain experiences that make me wonder if there is an unseen puppeteer who pulls at the strings and that we, helpless humans that we are, are compelled to nod, dance and even scratch our buttocks, when the puppeteer bids us to.

The more I think about it however, the more it is impressed on me that it (fate or destiny, whichever is your preferred label) might actually be some curious mixture of both predetermination and choice. But, how? You might ask. Are predetermination and choice not mutually exclusive? Aren’t they for all practical purposes diametrically opposite? The short answer to these questions is “yes” and the long answer is “no”.

First, the short answer: Yes, taken literally, "predetermination" and "choice" are opposites, like “up” and “down”, “short” and “long” and “yes” and “no”.

Second, the long answer: No, predetermination and choice are not opposites; it is a trick of our minds, conditioned by our own sensory experiences in the natural world that compels us to make that assumption; we simply do not have enough information from our sensory apparatus of sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell to arrive at the correct conclusion. Humans are so used to their senses and have come to rely on them so much that often times we forget that there are a lot of other modalities around us that we simply cannot sense and that concerning the sensory modalities that we can perceive, we cannot be absolutely sure of what our senses tell us.

I will give examples:

Everyday, we all see the sun rise in the east and set in the west, but anyone who has paid attention in a high school geography class knows that this is not really true; the sun does not rise and the sun does not set; it only gives the illusion that it does. The truth is that, it is actually the earth (which our senses tell us is immobile) that actually moves (rotate) on its axis. This may sound so very obvious to many people now, but don’t forget that not quite three centuries ago, men like Galileo, Copernicus and Giordano Bruno were tried by the Inquisition for heresy and were put in prison and in the case off Giordano Bruno burnt at the stake for espousing such “obvious” ideas.

So, put succinctly, we cannot be completely sure of what our senses tell us no matter how believable it appears– we may only sense things as “they appear to be” but not really “as they truly are”.

If we didn’t know any better, I bet everyone alive today would swear to it that the sky actually touches the ground at the horizon – but we know it doesn’t, though our sight still continues to insist that it does. As usual, I digress; what constitutes reality as adjudged by our senses is a whole new topic of its own.

So, how is destiny both by Choice and by Predetermination? I see two possibilities:

First, all that will happen in a man’s life has already been predetermined by the Creator, but if that predetermined fate is to be played out exactly as it has been scripted, it will depend on wether that man validates that destiny by the choices he makes or alters it (for better or for worse) by making a different set of choices. In other words, what is fated is not necessarily inevitable – a man can, quite literally change his predetermined fate (again, for better or for worse) by his choices.

The second scenario is actually a bit subtler and more difficult to explain. In this case, a man does not have a predetermined destiny, so he is more or less writing up his destiny as he lives out his life but, there is a catch somewhere though – in this case, the man has no predetermined destiny, however there are certain events in history that are predetermined and unalterable and those events, depending on when they happen, may directly or indirectly by their ripple effect, influence a man’s destiny depending on how he responds to them or irrespective of how he responds to them. These predestined and unalterable events I believe are mainly associated with the birth of specific individuals into the world or some natural events. These predestined events would nudge subtly or overtly, directly or indirectly, the lives of everyone who comes under their latitude of influence.

I speak and write in English today largely because my country was colonized by Britain. I probably would be writing this essay in French or Portuguese if it were colonized by France or Portugal. However, I can choose to learn French or Portuguese and write in these languages but I have chosen not to, largely because my anglophone upbringing and environment did not require me or make me see the need to do so. If it was predetermined that my country of birth would be colonized by the British ( I am not saying it was, I am only using this as an example to make a point) that event has influenced the lives of countless individuals and the choices they have made years after the actual event – these individuals are more likely to live in English speaking countries (UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Parts of Canada) and most of their academic choices and by extension, life choices will always be influenced by the language they speak.

Another way to look at this is to ask, “What would the world be like today if say, Jesus and Alexander the Great were not born?” You would agree with me that it would be a very different world indeed. The birth of Christ was foretold, that we are certain of but here is where it becomes tricky; though Christ was destined to be born, He still had a choice to make as to the path He would take. He Himself said that he laid down his life willingly and that He can take it up again. He could have chosen not to go to Golgotha. Do you remember the travail He went through in Gethsamane and His prayer? “Father, let this cup pass over Me” the good news is that He did not end the prayer there, He added “not My will but let Your will be done”

In the case of Alexander the Great, we have no way of knowing if his birth was destined, and that is the tricky thing about this second scenario, we actually have no way of knowing which events are destined and which ones are not – the birth of Alexander the Great may not have been destined, rather it could be that, his becoming a pupil of Aristotle was the fated event – in other words, Alexander the Great may not have influenced the world the way he did even if he was born but did not come under the tutelage of Aristotle. He would have been just another man from Macedonia who was born and lived out his time on earth and passed on.

In this second scenario, there is no way of knowing which event is a critical or a destiny-defining event; something as trivial as waking up at 6.30 a.m. instead of 6.32 a.m. could be a predestined event while something as globally news-worthy as Angola winning the world cup might not be fated even if it happens.

Ultimately, whichever scenario you look at, the choice of the individual still takes centre stage – it may sound like a paradox but the one thing that I believe is fated for all humans is Choice – all humans are destined to choose – they must choose whether they like it or not, - and choosing not to choose, in itself, is a choice.

Childhood to Adulthood

What is man? Is he not more than a highly refined extract of dust? Agreed, that man fell from the pinnacle of perfection on which the Creator placed him but must he by his actions, still, pull an already fallen race even lower than Eden's tragedy? Must he by his atrocious whims force the obscured vision of a lost paradise further still into the dim recesses, even the abysmal darkness of the nether regions? Must man continue to be the reason for a baffled creation?
It is no wonder that he has lost touch with Cosmic Intelligence; no wonder that nature has refused to open up her treasure houses to divulge her eternal secrets to him. Is it any wonder then, that while the trees understanding the music of the wandering wind, joyously dance to its rhythm and the melody of a gentle flowing stream still drifts into the heart of an overflying swan, he, the appointed lord of creation, still wallows unashamedly in pitiable ignorance of all that lies under his survey

At birth, he exerts himself in that first cry of life, forcing fluid from his lungs, creating room for in-rushing air that would sustain that newborn spirit - an innocent spirit, undefiled, unpolluted and unspoiled by earthly conferences. This is the spirit lurking within that fragile child that carries that seed of greatness which bears the capacity to feed a starving world. This is the spirit, pure and noble, which all mortal children are born with but which no one ever carries wholly into adulthood (only a handful succeed in carrying a portion of it, and today they stand as Nature's elected noblemen). Each cry he uttered while he laid supine in his cradle was a pledge to the Creator to do the bidding of his mortal destiny and each smile was a starry-eyed declaration of eternal devotion and love. The Truth lived in him and abundantly so too - much so that it picked him up to sit, taught him to crawl, urged him to stand up and helped him plant one foot in front of the other in a walk; each of these developmental milestones was a prompting by the Creator to him to find and fulfill his destiny.
This pure, innocent and divinely endowed child grows up and accordingly, he is tutored in several schools - the school of "social manners", the school of "civil politeness" and the school of "mastering the art of not being himself." Along with the incessant practice of the creeds of these earthly "schools", comes the ebb and death of that divine seed of nature that was buried in his soul. Gradually, through a series of choices, he forsakes the noble path to greatness, choosing rather to tread the path of least resistance where every selfish whim is gratified and every ill desire is satisfied. He forgets in the moments of his earthly reveling the admonition of his Guardian Angel, who whispered in his ears while he was in the womb for nine months. The more adept he got in the practice of the creed of these "earthly schools", the farther away the voice of the Creator that kept him company in his maternal nidus waned. The voice grew fainter and fainter and faded out altogether.

Soon, that pure child becomes an impure man, skilled in the world's many chicaneries - the beauteous harmony of childhood is lost in the distorted spectacle called adulthood. The starry-eyed declaration of eternal devotion and love then takes on the tangible reality of a treacherous betrayal. He still seeks a destiny but a destiny that desires to please one person and one person only - Self. The whisper of the Creator in his ears is lost forever but the the solemn Truth of his eternal mission permanently resides in him. Now and again, that Truth stirs in him and urges him to ascend above his base existence but he fails to arise each time, not because he is totally destitute of the wherewithal to honour such noble promptings but because there is so much that belongs to the earth within him. And as a consequence, a man that was born with that mystic seed of greatness innate, a man that was meant to be part of the whole of nature, perpetually remains a spiritual midget - a dwarf god! - subsisting at the brink of existence. A man, whose place is with the Creator, to feast at the table of noble spirits, still remains trapped down below by his choices - groping through life's dark maze and groveling for the dross of the earth.

Man's destiny is untouched and intact - that is, to seek The Truth, as Heaven would have him know The Truth, assured that in its pursuit, divine assistance is undoubtedly attainable. Nature is alive and remains ever true and pure with a song in every flower and tree branch that sways and a poem in the oblation contained in the whistling of a bird and the laughter of a child.

But man?

His soul is disturbed and quite unblessed, with deception without and decay within. That deception pressures him into a hapless mould, while the fulminating decay deforms what it sees, deceives when it talks and destroys when it acts. The Creator is all-seeing, all-wise, with depths of knowledge beyond fathom. Man is in no way a pawn in the hands of the Creator. Options are laid out before him and it is his responsibility to choose. Let no man say that he has no right to choose, for in every man, there lies the potential for the making of something that exceeds mere earthly brute. Destiny is not some abstract disembodied force - it is people and the choices they make.

Man's face may appear calm, his nature, serene and his eyes, lit with excitement. Man's features may look so but oh, they lie! Look well, and look carefully: behind that face lurks a monster, within his placid demeanour rages a tempest and close at the heels of that ocular light is the furtive encroachment of darkness.
The tempest rages within him - listen as it blows away every noble entrenchment in him and with uncanny selectiveness leave only that which corrupts and destroys. Listen and you shall hear the howl of whatever bit of divinity that is left inside him which has been made almost completely destitute of the will and courage to seek out and follow The Truth. Listen to the battle of the winds within him and you shall hear the tumultuous conflict of love, hatred, excitement, joy, pleasure and pain. Listen to the battle of these elements, hear the shrieking of the blast while the palace of his soul rocks unsteadily and great stones are torn from the crags and forest pines are hurled north and south and east and west. Hold your breath a while and listen. Oh mortal, wretched, wretched mortal; what pain . . . what ecstasy . . . what anguish . . . what promise . . . what bumpy rides he must take between sloth and glory, between glory and sloth.

Who will still his raging storm? Who will calm his angry sea? Who will shield his eyes from the blast of this bitter wind and make him catch a glimpse of what Divinity has made him a repository of and by so doing start a quarrel? For if there exists a difference between what a man is and what by the potentials resident in him, he knows he could have been and can be, there would always be a conflict, a quarrel within him - a righteous quarrel that starts out as a smouldering ember, and engenders into a burning flame, granting him no respite or lease of ease till he escapes the tenacious cling of the earth and takes up his rightful place in the assembly of the stars.
If immortality is to be attained and Heaven won, he must listen to the quarrel within him - these battle of the winds. He must seek the child that is lost in him: he must sit at the threshold of twilight by gently whispering waters, breaking in diamond radiance upon a pebbled beach, he must seek the hills, draw strength from the silent grandeur of the mountains and commune with nature. Beyond the hills lies the pearls he seeks, beyond the hills lies the peace his heart pants after. He must look beyond the hills and call upon Heaven to save him from his one true foe - himself.