REFLECTIONS: Arsenal Versus Chelsea
 

When I am not going about my basic duties (studies, community tasks etc.) and I feel the need to �unwind�, I love to listen to the guys discuss football, or is it soccer? It is interesting how stimulating and emotionally charged the conversation may become. If you are the kind that cheers repeated runs of success, coupled with the fact that a side has an �equal to the task� kind of coach, you would agree that Arsenal is the place to be (no hard feelings, but �Gunners for life!�). But if you choose to be on the same page with a staggering side like that formerly manned by Mourinho, crumpled by an epileptic supply of much needed victories, then you may want to stick with Chelsea. As stimulating as such verbal exchanges can get, one thing runs through it all, the fact that some would want to stick by a winning side only if the run of successes is not cut short by some unrelenting side. Still others will stick by their favourite teams for better or worse, like tea and sugar. We find a similarity in life-situations. Some people seemingly enjoy an uninterrupted flow of immeasurable success, while an unprivileged others seem to be the refuse dump of every kind of misfortune.In every facet of life, we struggle for the best spot. We want to be on top, we want to be in the �comfort zone". But does the best part, the largest piece of the pie, go to the strongest? Nay, the most fortunate seem to be those who have made the least effort. Some of these, others claim, have gotten to where they presently are by dubious and malevolent means. Life for them is smooth sail� a 100 percent painless pleasure spree. On the other end of the table is the group we sometimes want to call �suffer head� (pronounced in pidgin). Some of these work 9 to 5 and even have to take on extra hours on another job, just to make ends meet. Is it fair?

A friend, seemingly repressing this concern, but finding no room to further contain it, once expressed in an outburst, �Why do bad times only come my way? Nothing I do seem to be yielding results. My friends try the same things I do and they succeed. Why me? This is only one out of so many similar outcry heard everywhere on the lips of poor, low-class and even some middle class people. Some of them have found solace in exclamations like, �e go better� or �God dey� and the like. But there is a Biblical dimension to all this.

�Let us exult, too, in our hardships, understanding that hardship develops perseverance, and perseverance develops a tested character, something that gives us hope.� Passages like this one from Rom.5:5,6 should serve to give meaning to the hardship and struggle that we go through. We should gloss over or take lightly the words of Habakkuk in Hab 1:2, when he says, �how long, Yahweh, am I to cry for help while you will not listen; to cry, �Violence!� in your ear while you will not save?� because beyond this lies the words of St Paul who says, �...all that you suffer in the present time is nothing in comparison with the glory which is destined to be disclosed for us.� (Rom 8: 18). To the latter I add both in this life and in the world to come. Did I hear an Amen?

Patience and perseverance are two new words we should, therefore, add to our dictionary of virtues. They will see us through the storm to the warm embrace of victory in the end. Like true Chelsea fans, stick to your team, the next match may be the victory you have long desired. Up Chelsea!!!!

Jude-Mary Owoh, 2007.