About three thousand odd years ago, one day, it was a hot afternoon, and the King was compelled to walk on the balcony of his Palace for some fresh air. Suddenly, directly below, in the soldier’s quarters, he saw the extraordinary beautiful figure of a naked woman having her bath.
King David sent for her made love to her and when she became pregnant the king killed her husband, Uriah, and took her for a wife.
Almighty God was furious. He punished King Davidin a terrible manner but had mercy on him and made it possible for the next child of the adulterous woman Bathsheba, called Solomon, to become King of Israel.
God gave Solomon what every mortal desires, supreme power, monumental wealth, glory, wisdom, with 800 wives!!! Every day the King slaughtered 50 cows, reader, 50 cows to feed his household.
At the end of it all, with his heart filled with all the desires of his soul, the King concluded that VANITY of VANITIES, ALL IS VANITY……
Nothing endures in this world. All shall pass. What you hold so dear becomes rubbish on the morrow, vanity of vanities, all is VANITY.
The mighty Israeli Empire collapsed and their King was manacled as a slave to Babylon. The Persians, the Carthaginians, the Romans theTurks, the British, the French, and now AMERICA DOMINATES WORLD AFFAIRS.
A black African from Kenya went to USA to hustle got a white girl pregnant and brought forth a mullattoe, BARACK OBAMA. He grew up in predominantlyblack dominated Chicago, became a Senator and at the age of forty something, not yet fifty he became the President of the United States of America, the most powerful Job position in the world today.
For eight years, Barack Obama dominated the streets of America, moving with a convoy of God knows how many cars, with a super executive state of the art aircraft Air Force One as his presidential plane.
After 8 years in office he handed over to Donald Trump, and writing his memoirs, Barack Obama borrowed thewords of King Solomon….VANITY OF VANITIES…ALL IS V ANITY….
All this running around, speeches at the United Nations, toursin here and there, killing Osama Bin Laden….all is vanity.
Barack Obama writes:
When I think of the depth of the grave and the pounds of sand that will be thrown at us, no need to hurt my brother.
When I think of the darkness that will invade the grave at the closing, no need to hurt my sister.
When I think of the heat released by the soil and the Grant of water that will drown me during the rains in the tomb I cannot make my neighbor suffer.
When I think that I will be alone, abandoned by all, I prefer to enjoy communion when I am alone.
When I think that my relationships are moved by my past, I vision to perfect my fate.
If I could be reborn to resume everything from scratch, I would no longer make mistakes in my actions. Because after a long meditation I understand that all is vanity on earth.
May God help us to cultivate humility and love our neighbors because VANITY OF VANITIES….ALL IS VANITY.
When I was growing up in Jinijini, near Berekum, in the 1960’s the public cemetery was directly opposite the Presby Primary School.
Today, 50 years after, what used to be the public cemetery with all its beautiful flowers is a heavily built up area, with the clinic and other structures. Don’t ask me to show you the graves of my father and mother, all consumed by buildingsof man.
I saw Odorkor Cemetery, now completely disappeared.
I saw Mile 11 Cemetery, where I went, burying Cristiana Yaa Otoo the GNPC workerTordimah but all is now completely built up areas.
Barrack Obama need not to worry, because as former President of the USA, when he dies, he will be buried in an executive tomb, fully cemented, concrete, where ordinary soil and rainwater cannot touch the corpse.
But not you and I.
I left Ghana for a UN sponsored workshop in Senegal in 1986. The very day I left, that same day my father died in Jinjini. The family decided to bury him the very next day, and someone higher up in the family said they should let my father “sleep on the ground” in plain grave – but my younger brother screamed: “if Kwame comes from Senegal to hear that we could not build a tomb for father, there will be war……………
But even so, forty years after, that whole cemetery with tombs and all, is gone. Reader, NOTHING ENDURES. All is vanity……
There once walked this earth a super military conquering General, called JULIUS CAESAR, historians agree that perhaps he is the greatest political figure yet……….but his own son, BRUTUS, led a group of conspirators to kill him, to death. Where is his grave?
JOSEPH STALIN dominated Russian landscape for thirty years, ADOLF HITLER, the half mad German colossus, the legendary CHAKA the Zulu, the greatest pharaoh of all time TUTANKHAMEN, who had 58 wives, two of whom were his own daughters……reader,
Kwame Nkrumah of blessed memory, NELSON MANDELA……vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
Reader, in 1998, the mother of my secretary died and we all went to Somanya for the funeral. After the funeral service, we all followed the corpse to the cemetery for burial. It had rained all night, making wake keeping impossible. We got to the cemetery to see that, reader, the grave was FULL of WATER!!!
They put down the coffin somewhere, and as the few of us stood by in grim silence, they brought buckets to scoop up the water, then dumped the coffin into the messy muddy grave.
I was so overcome with emotion that when I got back to Accra I wrote an article: “Psalm 49” where it is written……” man, proud man, will die like an animal……”
From the richest man, Solomon across 3,000 years, to the most powerful man, Barrack Obama, the message is the same: VANITY OF VANITIES, ALL IS VANITY……….
You have 15 cars with 8 land cruisers……..so what? You have mansions in Accra, Kumasi and East Legon…..so what? You have three wives and countless girlfriends…..so what? You are this, you are that………..so what?
Col Muammar Gaddafi of Libya was so powerful that for fear of popularity rivalry, he forbadefootballers to be referred by their names, in favour of jersey numbers. He had himself crowned at an elaborate ceremony as African’s KING OF KINGS……………..within a year, he was shot to death in a GUTTER!!!!
Vanity of vanities ALL IS VANITY.
