Titel: The Meaning Of The Beginning: A Perspective from an Igbo-African Popular Religious Philosophy
Verlag: AuthorHouse
Erscheinungsjahr: 2012
Sprache: Englisch
ISBN-10: 147725434X
ISBN-13: 9781477254349
Einband: Softcover
Zustand: New

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Inhaltsangabe

"The Meaning of the Beginning" is a mosaic of timeless wisdom hidden in nature and encapsulated in the folklores of the Igbo of sub-Saharan Africa. This book is a philosophical jab, a moral punch line, and a social commentary on the human condition. Curio

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The Meaning of the Beginning

A PERSPECTIVE FROM AN IGBO-AFRICAN POPULAR RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHYBy Isidore Okwudili Igwegbe

AuthorHouse

Copyright � 2012 ISIDORE OKWUDILI IGWEGBE
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-5434-9

Foreword.............................................................ixPreface..............................................................xiSection One God and Creation........................................1Section Two Differences in the World................................5Section Three Evil and Divisions in the World.......................11Section Four Society as One Large Community.........................15Section Five Respect for the Elders.................................29Section Six Continuity of Life......................................33Section Seven Injustice.............................................37Section Eight Equilibrium...........................................42Section Nine Diversity as the Basis for Harmony.....................45Section Ten Joy and Sadness.........................................49Section Eleven Caution..............................................51Section Twelve Power................................................55Section Thirteen Gratitude..........................................62Section Fourteen Tact...............................................63Section Fifteen Vices...............................................65Section Sixteen Indecision..........................................80Section Seventeen the Wisdom of the Snail...........................87Section Eighteen Perception.........................................90Section Nineteen Personal Secrecy and Esteem........................93Section Twenty Virtue...............................................95Section Twenty-one Protest..........................................104Section Twenty-two Death............................................106Section Twenty-three Our Daily Rule of Life.........................114About the Book.......................................................117

Chapter One

Section One

God and Creation

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING

i. When and how God lived in the sky

We thought and taught that God was the first, the middle, and the last. He made everything when and how he wanted them. In the great beginnings, heaven and earth formed one spherical whole. God lived with human beings and among them. Human beings saw, visited, touched, talked with and played with God. And because God lived with and among people, it was always bright in the world without darkness.

But one critical day, human beings committed an abomination. One stubborn man recklessly sat on God's stool and a woman carelessly poured water around God's throne. When God called them to order, they failed to respond with proper decorum.

God left his habitation among human beings and went to live in the sky. From that moment, there existed two worlds: heaven and earth. From that moment, there existed night and day, darkness and light. God chose to live up in the sky so that human beings could lift up their eyes whenever they wanted to talk to him.

It became a practice among us to look up to the sky as a way of communicating with God. Whenever there is lightning, people see and remember how bright their days used to be when God lived with and among them.

AS IT IS: to live is to look up to the Gods; to look up to the Gods is to plead with them to show interest in human affairs and to re-establish their dwellings among humans; to look up to the Gods is to look upwards, and to look upwards is to look away from what the Gods abhor—namely, those things that offend life; conduct that offends life suggests that human beings do not want the Gods in their vicinity.

ii. Origin of the sun and the moon

When God withdrew to the sky, the world of humanity was enveloped in a thick cloud of darkness. Humans cried to God for light. God created the sun and the moon to serve as his two eyes, to watch over humanity and their affairs. Whenever God opens one of his eyes, the sun to watch humanity, it becomes day among them. As long as God watches over them with this warm eye, people can work.

Whenever God closes this eye, it becomes dark in the world; then men retire from toil and rest. When God closes his warm eye, he opens his other cool and soothing eye, the moon. With this eye, God watches over men while they rest from the heat of the sun and from the heat of daily toil. God relates to men in such a manner that whether they are at work or at rest, his eye is always upon them.

Although God sees what transpires in the world, he does not always intervene. Men deceive themselves into thinking that as long as God does not intervene, they are doing what is right. But God wants them to take care of themselves, of one other, and to take responsibility for their actions.

AS IT IS: Divine silence does not mean divine consent or indifference. God knows and sees but trusts humanity to do the right thing. The worst form of self-deceit is thinking that one's motives or actions are not known. Knowing and pretending not to know become a wake-up call on the part of the one whose motives or actions are the objects of knowing and pretending not to know.

iii. Why the moon appears sometimes like a half plate and the sun with scattered rays

God gave authority to his two eyes to watch over humanity on his behalf. Sun and moon worked together until one day when they quarrelled bitterly over what punishment to mete out to a man who spilled blood in the community. They were in agreement that murder was a grave offence. While the sun suggested spilling the blood of the murderer, the moon suggested confining the murderer to live like an animal for the rest of his life.

The discussion developed into a heated argument and from a heated argument into a quarrel and from a quarrel into a fight. The moon poked the sun in the eyes with a stash of brooms and the sun retaliated by cutting the moon in two with a knife. From that day, the light emanating from the wounded eyes of the sun looked like rays while the moon is like a broken plate whenever it appears newly.

God decided that the moon alone should watch over humanity at night while the sun alone should watch over humanity during the day. Each alone should decide during its shift the appropriate rewards or punishments for deserving individuals. Till this day, the sun appears in the day and the moon at night.

AS IT IS: Those who work for the realization of a necessary and a higher cause though they differ in methods or part ways are truly united; what unites those who work for what is genuinely good and just is more important than what divides them. Failure to perceive the difference between persons and issues is immaturity. Most times, the enemy does not really exist, what masquerades as enemy is fear or suspicion.

Chapter Two

Section Two

Differences in the World

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING

i. Why there are many people in the world

Men think and act like children. Initially there were not many people in the world. It happened that men easily got fed up with one another and cried to God in their boredom. But life is a long journey. God did not want men to experience long periods of boredom.

He made and scattered more people in vast and different parts of the world so that men can always meet and find new, attractive and interesting playmates on the big stage of life. And so it is that men always meet characters different from those they had already met or...

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