TELLING GOD’S HEIGHT
Let me for a moment pretend that I‘ve not been young all my life. I have an uncommon sympathy for short people and for not-so-tall people. Of course we have to make the distinction clear to you before anything else. This sympathy undoubtedly started when I first met their patriarch Zacchaeus from that Bible passage. Then I thought the Bible wanted us to take it out on anything that would stand in the way of meeting with the savior, including a short height or especially that. The sympathy grew as I got into my teenage; I figured girls didn’t fancy going out with shorties so they don’t risk having people think they are still kids going out with fellow kids. Everyone wanted to be a grown up.
I didn’t have to experience that humiliation because I was not short; I was rather small and teeny, and that means on an entirely different list or category in the demography. When you are little, you sort of have little problems and sometimes no problems. The girls, however, don’t grow so tall in comparison even when they make up for their heights with their stilettos. I was confident, though, that I would be tall, that I would rise one day because my maternal granddad (my godfather) was tall and common cultural sense assures you I don’t have a choice; you know, I can’t go against the grain.
And don’t bother asking how come I’m five foot seven. I believe my doctor - -especially the iconoclastic one that told me I shall keep growing till I’m forty. I believe him still even though I can’t find his new address so I can call in to know if new scientific discoveries have put something on top of that. Five to ten years on top of forty won’t be too bad.
Today, the pressure to be tall is more than intense. What with today’s teenagers growing so tall and so fast that their brains can’t keep up with their heights. My younger brother in his teenage is an honest- to-goodness example. You’d think he’s coming for a show of affection when he draws so close to you though he actually came to assure himself that your head can now get under his chin for shade even without touching the roof of it. Of course we wouldn’t be having squabbles with him if his brain is half as tall as he is proportionately.
In church today, this issue played itself out most awkwardly. Looking at the youth choir on the platform with the six foot six or so tall boy in the middle and you have a feeling you are looking at a spreadsheet representation of the trend the tall guy represents. Few of these teenagers have a straight answer about what they stand to gain as tall people. Fewer still have an idea what embarrassment real tall people go through all the time. Like being gaped at as if to tell them they are as tall as they are senseless, and as odd –looking as it gets.
So I find myself feeling more pity for the tall guys than for shorties. Especially for brainless teenagers who have to hit their heads at every door post before they can realize how tall they’ve grown in the past week. The twinge of that usually gets them to forget the advantage they had over others when they were in the crowd the other day. I guess that’s when they’d wish they were a few inches shorter. And often that is just a wish.
Sometimes, though, other people get affected in so many ways. We do. Like the other day at home when Victor, my teenage brother, made a pool out of our living room floor, rug and all, because we forgot to remind him he’d grown so tall that with that bucket of water on his head he’d need to kneel down through the door post to pre-empt any form of (excuse the term) inundation.
It’s that serious, really.
Having a tall person sit beside me in church almost always spoils my Sunday service. Why with the way they make you look so short in comparison, even shorter than you really are. It is often that I imagine we’d be better off without these tall people. I am sure my fellow short people won’t in any case give people such trouble; people who are anything but responsible for their heights.
The truth is some of these other guys have figured some big advantage could come out of this, especially in the playing field and particularly in basketball which is probably the only sport that welcomes humanoid iroko trees. And I usually wonder if they get those guys to take some things if they aren’t as tall as they want them till they won’t need to leap an inch to get a basket. Some people think that’s how they don’t get the best of life outside the basketball court. Little wonder I seldom see exceptionally tall people working for public or private corporations. May be employers figure clients may be uncomfortable around these brothers of ours.
Of course you know I’m kidding; both about short people and tall. In most cases neither you nor I am responsible for your height. You and I don’t necessarily have to believe it before it’s true that God made you the way you are and the way you are getting. The squeamish would have to forgive me when I say even God is as short as he is tall. Unless, of course, he created the one and not the other.
Uche Aniagu.
No comments:
Post a Comment