By Stanley Seshie

On a clear dark night, the sky is dotted with "small" twinkling
objects. The brilliance of these heavenly bodies up there amazes
humanity from time immemorial. They have inspired and lifted our
collective spirit and engendered a profusion of magnificent artistic
works, songs and poetries. (You remember the poetical song "twinkle,
twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are....."). Our forebears
look up to the Heavens for their believed inhabitant Gods to come and
take them there. They also dreamt of going there on their own. You
remember the story of how the ancient child engaged himself in
building a very tall tower, almost reaching the Heavens, and nearly
succeeded if not for that jealous deity. Yeah, the Tower of Babel
story and how the jealous deity in particular got threatened by this
resolve of mankind and supposedly confused them till they gave up.
Well, it is a fairytale. But the dream to get to Heaven on our own is
still alive today and has even materialized. Yes, it had materialized
since 1961 when Yuri Gagarin made the first trip.

At the other side of the coin, these heavenly bodies have equally
implanted superstition in all cultures of the ancient child. These
heavenly bodies have become abodes of the Gods and Gods determining
what happens in the life of man. Well, astrology is the belief in and
the search for hidden influences of positions of these heavenly bodies
on human lives. You remember the famous story of a star in the Heavens
that went ahead of the three wise men from the east and stopped far up
there, pointing down to a house somewhere in Bethlehem, indicative of
where Jesus Christ was born. Yeah, that is astrology. Another
fairytale for that matter. They abound in all cultures, holy books and
even in our modern generation despite the growing knowledge of
astronomy.

The fact is ever since Man stood up in those forest plains of Africa
(not a garden with a superior intelligent talking snake leading him
astray) he never seized looking up. In his ancient model, the Universe
is a three storey-structure with the Earth sandwiched between Heaven
above and Hell below. After imagining himself in the image of the
Gods, somehow, he declared himself incapable of ever making it to the
Heavens. When the Tower of Babel staircase project failed, he
crucified his mind and immersed himself in some abracadabra beliefs;
death becoming the spiritually refined staircase leading to Heaven.
Never forget the rapture. Yeah, how adherents of particular faith
shall cling pyramidally onto their deity in the clouds, who shall take
them out of the Earth to Heaven. In other words, the ancient child is
cocksure, that, outside and above the Earth is the home of the Gods.

Well, thanks to astronomy, the modern child now knows better. The
Universe is not a three-storey structure of Heaven, Earth and Hell. It
is a collection of star systems. We call ours the solar system. The
Heaven which was above the Earth per the ancient model and forever
forbidden to him except via death, understandably due to religious yet
superstitious beliefs stifling any conceivable effort, is now a common
ground full of the crafts of mankind. Not only that, when he got there
via his spacecrafts since 1961, there was no evidence of any Gods,
kingdoms with thrones let alone to talk of prepared mansions for the
adherents of the abracadabra faith except the Universe itself.

The modern child has successfully littered the vicinity of the Earth
with his cratfs, collectively called satellites, used for different
purposes back home on Earth. The grandeur of all these engineering
marvels of the human mind is the amalgamation of these purposes into
one giant laboratory orbiting the Earth, called the International
Space Station, ISS. The splendor of this giant ISS and other satellite
up there are equally visible to the naked eyes on a clear night. In
other words the twinkling heavenly bodies dotting the night sky up
there that have dazzled our forefathers, now have among them, some of
our own handiworks. Therefore, like the ancient child, the modern
child will equally never stop looking up.

However when he does look up, he is no longer looking up to the
Heavens for the day of rapture. He is no longer looking up to the
Heavens for the Gods to come and take him there after death. Rather,
he is looking up to see his own crafts that he put there for his own
admirations. The ancient dream of visiting Heaven, outside the Earth
had been achieved. Hmmmmm, contrary to the expectations that gave
birth to this dream, Heaven is as silent as the familiar cemetery here
on Earth. Heaven is as silent as a cemetery. Until further and better
concrete evidence are provided than that from the ancient world, the
days of delusion and illusion are over.

The challenge for many is trying to recompose the poetical song
"twinkle, twinkle LITTLE STAR, how I wonder what you are...." to
"twinkle, twinkle BIGGER STAR, now I know you are a ball of gases. As
we now know, that a star is a ball of gases even bigger than our
Earth. Never mind the congnitive dissonance prone nature of scientific
findings. Music is a different thing altogether. It is about the
melody. So we shall forever sing "twinkle, twinkle little star, how I
wonder what you are...". Maybe, so is belief. In the same vein, most
shall forever have faith in the ancient belief that, Heaven is still
the home of the Gods (or home to only the God of your religion). Even
though, on the International Space Station outside the Earth, are Men
(six in number as of september, 2015) working in the deafening
cemetery silence of the Heavens.

Email: seshiehanku@gmail.com

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