This is the art of life and living. Narokobi says, "Welcome birth, Live Well, Love Well, Have something good for every person, and Die a Happy Death! (Welcome birth is my addition)
I stated this as a comment to a video which was shown on a facebook page of Port Moresby, the capital of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea (PNG), Here is the note written when posting the video
Port Moresby city 1985 when we had very few settlements, no public markets, no rowdy public gatherings and filth, very low crime rate, and the residents were clean, tidy and well mannered. I was a teenager and life was sweet.
My answer is not just based on this scene, but also based on our common experience in responding to current situations: how we feel and what we say when we interpret or struggle with current life dynamic. The old guys always speak of how good the past was. On the other spectrum, there are people today, who speak to this life about the future. They always look forward to a better future, a bad past, a worse today.
When I hear what Christians speak about life and time, about time and space, they speak about God's time, i.e., Kairos time of God. They say, God's Kairos is done and complete work, it is here and now, it has no past, no present, there is no bad, no good, everything is good right here, right now.
Many of you are new generation individuals. I was born in stone age, almost 60 years ago, before all things that we have today come into being. I grew up in stone age world, that I call my World One. Then I came to a bigger town to do my school, leaving my village. It took me 1 hour to fly with small airplanes to get to this town. This is World Two for me, where I had my own people speaking my vernacular around, but we were all living in a foreign land, a customary land belongs to other tribes, far, far away from my own tribe.
When I was in my World One, I was living in PRESENT TIME all the time. Everyone was at present time. Nobody was talking about the future, other than talking about things written in the Bible. There is no business plan, no school schedules, no general elections, no government visiting time, nothing, no one, other than ourselves.
When I was in World One, I was thinking about what to eat today, what to do today, and then tired, and then slept.
When I came to World Two, then I started to know Timetable for Lessons at Schools, starting to count days and dates, began to think about what to do in the morning and afternoon and evening. At the same time, I started to think about what to cook and what to eat, today and tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow.
When everyone is World One, i.e., the place where we originate from tribally, then everyone is already in Kairos Time, the present time, all the time. When one looses home, the person starts to get out from the Present Time, and begin jump into the past and future. It depends on the exposure, one will be retrospective or prospective.
Being retrospective, thinking and talking about the past is not a bad thing. It is not a sin either. Being prospective is very good. However, when one starts comparing the past with the present, and begin to weigh with duality of good and bad, then that is the problem.
We are not responsible for the past, which means we did not determine the past. We cannot do anything to the past. We are not fully responsible for the present because the present is being here on its own, by its own, and for its own. I am here witnessing the present. I am not doing anything to the present.
But there is something that I can do, i.e, to stay here, at the present, ight here, right now. That means not going back in order to compare it to the present. It also means not going forward ahead of the present. But just stay here. That is the way God operates. That is also the way Melanesians have been operating in World One. That should be the way Melanesians operate whether we are right now in World One, World Two, World Three or World Four.
We have to remind ourselves, that our grandchildren in year 3033 will watch our videos and see pictures and read books or articles and will be saying, "The past was so good, my ancestors used to live in Port Moresby city, it was so good, the sea was clean at Ela Beach, we can still see a lot of grass and trees surrounding the city, but right now, everything is concrete jungles, cannot see any living being around!"
Surely, the past is always nice to remember! And the future is nice to look forward to. But remember, God operates on present time, present tense. Melanesians did operate in God's time, but now this generation has departed from it. It is time for us now to take one step backward, and look around, and live, and enjoy this life, in fullness, in harmony!
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