Online Reporter
Stephen Mpofu, Perspective
WHEN, in the beginning, God created and breathed life into His image and likeness, He did not act like someone who, in a fit of rage, hurls an inflated football against a wall, thorns, or spikes — knowing it might bounce back, and not minding if it doesn’t, since its pressure can be restored. But when a human life is lost, it cannot be restored like the air in a football. Yet, disturbingly, we continue to hear daily reports of individuals who seem to believe that life, once taken, can somehow be recovered.
It is to this misguided group that the custodians of law and order in our country, including national police spokesperson and Commissioner Paul Nyathi, recently issued a heartfelt appeal to uphold the sanctity of life. In an interview with this communicologist, Commissioner Nyathi spoke of lives being needlessly lost in various places — tragic losses of the sacred gift from our Creator, often in moments of uncontrolled rage.
He cited, as one example, the senseless violence that erupts in drinking establishments, where individuals, under the influence of alcohol, fight or even take lives over something as trivial as a chair.
In homes, too, rage has replaced love, and sacred life is endangered when disputes or disciplinary actions are handled in ways that destroy rather than preserve.
Daily reports on radio and in newspapers highlight threats to life or actual loss of life, showing how, in moments of fury, people forget that their Creator is watching every act. They mistakenly believe that the distance between Heaven and earth separates them from God. But the truth — which must be known and remembered by all — is that God is omnipresent. He is “all-present,” silently watching us, with only silence separating us from Jehovah God.
We Zimbabweans, like other nations, pride ourselves on being civilised and on valuing life as sacred. Yet the threats to life, as lamented by our police commissioner, should serve as a wake-up call. We must resolve disputes and misunderstandings in ways that reflect our professed civilised standards — recognising that life, given by God, can only be taken by Him, in His time and will.
This is a challenge to all who have ears to hear: we Zimbabweans must not live like barbarians.
