Having gone through the poem here below, I committed it to my memory and have been reciting to friends several times who are interested in poetry; the poem embodies the idea that people are doubtful of the happenings around them and are afraid of their consequences.
Here, with my limited understanding, I venture to share with my readers the essence and the purpose of the poem to assist them to make the maximum use of the lesson the poet tries to convey.
What seems to be a stumbling block
May be a stepping stone,
What seems to be a solid wall May be a door unknown.
What seems to be a speck of dust
May be in truth pure gold,
So walk by faith and not by sight
No good will God withhold.
Man throughout his life is chained by fear. Since he is unconditionally under its control, fear interferes in all his endeavors and makes situations rather unpleasant. The bad feelings that the man has when he is in danger or the anticipation that something bad might happen, indicates the extent of how much fear and doubt sway his views of life. He fails to take things for granted as everything appears unreliable to make something out of it.
The world is full of competition. Man by nature is a creature that seeks love and acceptance to adjust in the social and emotional status of the society he lives in. Such desire is not achieved easily; the efforts exerted to own what one wants differs from person to person. The competitive pattern stimulates intense struggle to achieve reward and status.
Thus, the situation calls into play the emotions of fear, aggressiveness and of all anger. It is natural that a person gets emotional when he fails to achieve his desires. Because of this fact, doubt blurs his views. He gets confused and feels indistinct effects. A smear of inexactness fills his thoughts and imagination about something he has to handle.
He has no hope that obstacles along his path may help him advance to a higher stage given time and ingenuity; cleverness and skill are all demanded of the person. He should not sit back in apprehension that nothing will work out in his endeavors. Because he apprehends every difficulty rather than to stand a chance of success; otherwise success never comes his way.
The way of life is such that, situation present impossibility at every corner and the stride a person takes. He finds himself in an enclosed space from which he cannot come out. Every side and every direction he tries to advance to success never yields and he remains enclosed in the walls. Nevertheless, without giving up, if he focuses on the means that will help him escape to freedom, the solid wall will definitely become a door.
Under normal circumstance, our physical eye cannot see through solid objects; yet the inner eye, imagination, defies the law of nature and sees through the solid object and helps the person to realize his dreams. That is when the solid wall becomes a door unknown. In this case impossibility renders possibility and success.
Some people are gifted in evaluating and measuring things and circumstances. They are able to find out the amount or the value of something. How they see things matters a lot. They do not take things at face value; the reality behind the object or the circumstance appeals to their judgment. Things at first sight do not impress them; they take time to thoroughly estimate and come up with the true value of the object.
Gold is among the most precious metals; before the gold smith makes articles out of it in his workshop, it looks just as ordinary metal found anywhere. But the skillful hands of the smith, brings out the value and its beauty of that everybody vies to own it for ornamental purpose and for its expensive value.
Certain situations, likewise, appear useless and not worthy to try to own them. It is a matter of time until the wise person puts all his efforts to find out the viability of the situation for the benefit of the person who desires to gain something out it; a wise man after all, is bent on getting much benefits in all his endeavors.
He does this by focusing on his career and properly examining his professional steps without negligence. With such person, carelessness and recklessness are abandoned. Zeal governs all his
undertakings. Even if it is his private enterprise, due to his commitment to the work, he holds himself responsible for the minutest mistake that might occur in the process. This is all because he examines every move he makes to get the true value and gain the most out of it.
Hope and confidence is all a person needs to equip himself with. The determination to arrive at something concrete should be accompanied by the relentless pursuit of the person fully engaged in the career. Despondency, losing hope of the future and being chained by melancholy hold backs the person from achieving his objectives.
However hard the situation imposes fear, one should press on refusing to yield to it. Fear emanates from what we simply see and we naively convince ourselves that the situation
is impossible to handle. We are limited to the disheartening circumstance and sit back and look forward to what will happen next. One should cling to the feeling of expectation and one should desire that something good will happen. Trust in the Lord with unquestioning confidence that He will fulfill one’s desire no matter what; as long as one remains faithful to him, because of his eternal love and providence, there is nothing good that He withholds.
Thus one should undertake his activities with the hope that there is always God who comes for his recue in difficult times. The poem indicates why one should not trusts only what he sees. Hope in God’s intervention to make thing right should encourage us all. The person should be in the state of mind that he doesn’t know what the future holds but he knows who holds the future.
The Ethiopian Herald June 16/2019
BY JOSEPH SOBOKA
