New Years Day, Kiburara raw tales and the eternity of time

My health started failing in October (and on November 1, I declared myself indisposed). Hospitalised from far away climes, I really didn’t know I would reach the end of 2022. I returned in mid December and I am afraid I may just reach 2023. Takbir.

Those who write about the ministry of my life on Mother Earth 2,000 years later may say: ‘as was tradition, he returned to Kampala to celebrate Jesus Christ’s Birth Day’. But waaa…? I must confess as late as December 1, I was not sure to live beyond the next day.

The Year 2022 (what a year!) has been unkind. But we still live with the grace and hope that 2023 may offer better; which is why we should welcome 2023 with open arms. Tomanya, the long awaited blessings may come in 2023.

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I have been reading stuff on astronomy and the universe. Stuff is scary and if one has perspective, one would accept that humans are just a small thing in the greater scheme of greater things.

When scientists, with their penchant for exacting exactness, say the universe is infinite, you should reflect on your sorry ka-life of 100 years (an emperor or porter).

Something that was humbling for me was the magnitude of a Light Year as a unit measure of distance. Dear reader, do you know ‘how long’ a Light Year is? Don’t hold your breath, because you really don’t matter in these matters: one Light Year is 9.46 Trillion Kilometres. A Light Year is the distance light travels in one year. And it is humbling to know that there are stars (complete with orbiting planets like our Solar System) that are over 2000 light years away from us.

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On many of my New Year’s Days in Kiburara (where else?), I always have some me-time to reflect on life. I have come to recognise ‘time’ as the original constant. You can measure time in years, decades, centenaries, millennia, billenia, trellia, etc, but that is always an attempt to fit in what I will call the constant phenomena of ‘time’.

You can live your life, do stuff like capturing power in a poor backwater country and lord it over the population lakini ‘time’ will sort you: you can only live (or have some much of the time. It is indefinite and constant). Time is unquantifiable; neither is it qualified. It is time. Time is the God thing; as Kinshasans would say: ezalaka, ezali mpe ekozala (it was, it is and it shall be).

The calendar is a human creation and the weeks and years in it are just that: creations. They are matters of convenience to humans. We could as well turn December 25 into January 1 and that won’t change time.

When will humans appreciate that they are just a minute part of something so great? One of my Islamic teachers once told me ‘Alhah Akbar’ denotes the infinite grace and power of God beyond the characterisation humans associate with life here on Mother Earth.

Time is the original constant. Light can be switched off. Matter can change form. But time, in its infinite materiality will remain time: the original constant. The God Thing.

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I expect to be in Kiburara for New Years Day. I have been spending New Year’s Day in Kiburara for over 15 years (and Christmas in Kampala).

In Kiburara, the rains fell in the wrong months (November and December); and with it a negative impact on our cotton harvest. May God bless our #January2023 cotton in Kiburara and may all Ugandans (and all humanity) have a Happy New Year.

Mr Bisiika is the executive editor of the East African Flagpost. [email protected]