One of the things that I find myself curiously pondering over, is what happens when we die. I have come a long way from hearing of, and believing in the pearly Saint Peter gates and the pits of hell with flaming fire that exist somewhere underneath this ground we walk. there is no real way to know the answer to this my question, and I dare not make as though I do. I don’t. I know only that which feels true to me, which could very well be my own make belief, but nonetheless.
I want to say I have always had an inclination to what is divine. to an idea of a god, or a God, a creator and shaper of sorts. I think perhaps in another life I could have been a theologian. This seeking for a higher power was the norm in our home, and I was raised in a family that still is largely Christian. as a child we mostly prayed from Catholic churches, mostly because in this life, our dad was a Catholic. our mum, despite being raised Anglican, or Protestant (as is the way we came to know it), came with us usually to the weekly Catholic masses which I always appreciated for being timely, just over an hour, except on holier days like the Lord’s birthday or Psalm Sunday. Eventually though, I found evangelism, picked up from a particular secondary school practice, just as I was looking for all the teenage reasons to question and rebel. My parents though religious also believed that a healthy dose of questioning and self autonomy were important, and while we were encouraged to remain Christian, we were not discouraged too intensely from questioning. as I asked, I found more questions but I did not always know what I could ask, or whom I could ask them to. My church going habits have since evolved, my faith shaken and changed by losses and miracles and in-betweens, my idea of God and what is divine changing too. In some ways, these questions stem from there, a continuing seeking of what is beyond this flesh, and as such maybe, what is the molder of all of things, us; you and me, and all.
Here I am asking, what happens when we die, because love this body of mine as much as I do, it is made of but mortal flesh. and so knowing that now truly, I ask about what else comes when this flesh passes. who or what remains, where does it go, who receives it? these my questions have led me back into asking even more questions about what then it means to still be alive, and in this precious mortal body. now that I, and we are here. how did we get here, formed by whom, and where did they too come from? It is through my parents, and their parents, and their parents, and theirs, and theirs, and theirs, and so many others that I am here.
This set has led me to others, the asks of time and body and spirit. I find myself thinking and questioning and trying to understand what else could exist just as much as I do what has. forming for myself what I believe to be actually true and mine as I go along, I have found myself with a renewed curiosity about God. I approach this with some caution of course, because my shaping and understanding of God too is distorted, changed, and I often find myself praying in a tongue that is not mine. so, I do not claim to know God, only to be curious about what God is.
I must stop here for a short interjection.
You see what I am really curious about is what happens when we die, and if there is anything at all. to want to know this, I find myself needing to know about what else existed outside what has been taught to me. who did my great great great grands pray to before they were introduced to God.
I must stop for an interjection because I know that these are not the kind of things that we so easily discuss, even in me, they stir up uncomfortabilities, and yet they are the questions that demand to be asked.
In another life, the missionaries did not come, and so perhaps still we pray to a god that knows our names, in a tongue that is our own. we have always prayed, we have always believed. and now I find myself searching to know to what and how. I search for these answers in the same way I do the rest of the questions that nudge at me, by listening and asking those who are still here, and those who are not.
Itwe abowitu, nyowe ahi’nkuruga, tugaba tumanyire Ruhanga. Ruhanga, if I were to translate, would come to, Creator. Ruhanga, Nyamuhanga. Ruhanga Katonzi. Ruhanga Rugaba. Ruhanga Mukamaweiguru. The creator who creates all. The creator who is all powerful. The creator who is the giver of all. The creator who reigns in the heavens.
We were introduced to God in the 1800s by the missionaries.
When I say we, I mean itwe, abowitu. The missionaries came as part of the voyages to our territories by their governments and were tasked with spreading the teaching of the Christian faith. Christianity, Civilisation and Commerce; the three Cs if you remember your history classes well. For these European nations, Christianity represented western civilisation and the basis for Anglo-Saxon morality. The definition of civilisation was tabled as “the triumph and development of reason, not only in the constitutional, political, and administrative domains, but in the moral, religious, and intellectual spheres.” The poet Koleka Putuma, in Growing up Black & Christian, writes “The gospel is how whiteness breaks into our homes and brings us to our knees.” And so, we were introduced to God, coming to us with a new language, norms, laws, customs, a change in territories and a complete reconstruction of what we had always known to be true.
And so now, when I seek to understand and to satisfy my curiosities about what Ruhanga is, or could be, my google searches appear under African mythology, and asking these questions makes me feel hesitant.
And yet, these are the questions we cannot avoid. Feeling this hesitation and discomfort is the other evidence for me that these are worth asking.
It follows that long before the church missionary, or those who taught Islam came, we were already gathered. Before we were converted, what was it that we knew and is it something that we can still come to. how does that coming back to, transform ourselves, how does it answer all these questions I have? More questions.
As I started to think and search my way through these, I found my paths leading back to the Creator. I began to think, Ruhanga owatuhangire, niwe omwe akugaruka akatweta. konkashi, kwatweta, tuzahi, ningashi, tubakyi ekyindi? Now when I pray, nshaba ngu Ruhanga amanya abowitu, abe niwe yagarukamu. this process for me is a reclamation of myself, and also of my people. of our truths. of a creator who knows and cares enough to answer when we call. to be as dismayed and intolerable at the distortions and violences enacted on us. Ruhanga amanya abowitu, owatumanyire abashungu batakizire leads me back to paths and roots that have allowed me to so claim a divinity that was was missing before in what had been offered to me.
My paths lead me to appreciating more my ancestry. When my dad transitioned from this life, after the aches had soothed such that I could hear, and be open once again to a belief that there could be good still, I wondered more about what the connections are, or could be, from this life and the next. for someone who had been raised in the church, I was always familiar with concepts of angels and magic and a sort of divinity that comes together to aid, support, heal. Lately, I have began to feel and know that in close relation to Nyamuhanga, are abajyenzi, our people who have moved on from this world. Our ancestors who too have formed us as much as the Creator has. there was never a reason after all why saints and angels should not be our own. ngu ekitiniisa na neiziina rirungi biryaguma aha itwe na’abowitu. If for nothing else, we honor the departed that we may honor ourselves too.
I come back then to the question of what happens when we die? I don’t know. maybe nothing, maybe something. maybe a reconnection to creation. Nonetheless.
I leave behind this prayer for me, and you today. Nshaba ngu Ruhanga amanya abowitu, nabowanyu. abowitu, nabowanyu, nabingi bona abatubanidiseho, abatuhura obutushaba, batugarukemu.