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A Minute Late or A Minute Lucky?
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Oliver Mbamara
After a fatal accident, the crew of one of the popular television stations in the locality was at the scene talking to the bewildered crowd. A car had jumped off the main road and rammed into a newsstand, destroying the newsstand and everything in its way. One of the witnesses of the incident was an elderly man who walked rather slowly than others. He was a few yards away from arriving at the newsstand when the car rammed into it.
It was interesting to note the gratitude in the old man’s voice as he spoke to the TV crew. He categorically stated that he was still alive at the moment because he was delayed by a few seconds from arriving at the newsstand where he regularly bought his lottery tickets. He was grateful that he was delayed, but he was particularly wise enough to realize that the incident that delayed his arrival was a blessing in disguise. How many of us have the same extensive view of things in and around our lives?
We have heard many stories of how people were saved from danger due to one unusual incident or the other that delayed them from arriving in time to meet a danger or even removed them from the spot of danger. For instance, a man bought a shoe that turned out to be too tight as he walked to work. Upon having blisters on his feet, he stopped to buy a bandage to tie over his blisters. That stoppage prevented him from getting to work in time to be in a collapsed office building. A woman decides to check her mail after getting dressed to go shopping at a landmark trade center. That made her late enough to watch the news on television about the horrible loss of lives at the place she had wanted to go shopping with her child. A security guard leaves his security post to go buy a cup of coffee at a nearby coffee shop. Minutes later, he watched as disaster struck his workplace including the very spot he was standing moments before.
There are many more of such stories. How we have been saved by the whiskers and in a manner sometimes too close as to astound our ordinary senses. Some of us are aware of these manifestations and therefore apt to show appreciation and open ourselves to more of such protection and blessings of Spirit. Some of us fail to be that cognitive even when the signs are so obvious.
Indeed, there are also stories of those people who were seemingly unlucky, perhaps by just a second, a minute, a day, etc. Note should be made that there are situations where actually “lucky” incidents have appeared or seemed unlucky and vice versa. The emphasis here is on the phrase “appeared or seemed.” People have gone through seeming mishaps only to learn some serious lessons of life that they would never have learned otherwise. Others have gone through the comfort of a seeming good time in one moment only to be consequently plunged into a seeming perpetual agony the next moment. As a popular axiom says – “no condition is permanent.” The truth of that statement on earth seems to be so underrated.
So, what is luck (or bad luck)? Is it something we earn, deserve, or inherit? Does it really exist? The answer would always vary and every reader is free to come up with his or her own answer. However, in this dual world, there is always a contrast or comparison to every concept we conceive. The difference could really lie in the awareness of the cause and the recognition of the effect. This is only my understanding, and I am still learning.
Luck,
Reward, or The Deserved
By a minute the man is late
And by a minute the man is saved
By a minute the man is early
And by a minute the man is doomed.
So the Seeker may question ask
If the minute is a kind deserved, or
Freely granted by luck and chance,
And to these queries the answers vary.
But the prudent and the thoughtful
Must have come to some knowing
That beyond the seeming, reality lies
And sometimes the ugly beautiful turns.
A case of awareness of the cause,
And the recognition of the effect.
©Oliver O. Mbamara,
2003
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Oliver Mbamara is an Administrative Law Judge with the State of New York.
He is also a filmmaker and a Published Poet and playwright. For more on Oliver, please visit
www.olivermbamara.com
For background/research reference on this
piece, click on this link
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