Sunday Thought: This past week brought back memories of my earthly father in more ways than one. It is four years this September since he passed on. I got reacquainted with a childhood friend I last saw 30 years ago. We talked updates: where everyone is and how all our parents have since gone. A poignant reminder of the passage of time. Then the week closed with a graphic illustration of the wisdom that was my dad’s trademark: Nuggets of truth. Not a day went by without him throwing around a proverb or story laden with a lesson from the past. I listened curiously as a child and intently as an adult but as a teenager, I rolled my eyes mostly. “Not again,” I would mutter under my breathe and see precious minutes that comprise my valuable existence pass me by. That is what my teenage daughter does now. Yes, karma has a name.

“Elyatto lifa magoba” he once quipped at the dinner table. That’s luganda for “a boat capsizes at shore.” I don’t remember the conversation that brought on that seemingly far-fetched truth. Well, this week, that happened. Literally. MV Nyerere, a ferry in Tanzania overturned only 50 metres away from the dock at Ukara Island. Rescue efforts are underway but close to 200 people are feared dead. The tragedy of life.

What got it to topple? At this point, no one can say for a fact. It is thought that it had something to do with the distribution of its human cargo; that the crowds on board moved to one side as it docked. Yet again it could have been a myriad of other reasons. Overloading? Engine problems? Complacency perhaps? The ticketing officer must have loaded this vessel countless times before. The passengers must have been used to being squashed, like tinned mackerel, into that restricted space. To them, it was what it is. Only none of them saw this day coming.

Isn’t that like life? What makes us complacent when we are well on the path of achievement, when we are ahead in the race of life? It’s Judas giving up eternal life for 30 pieces of silver. It is the CEO’s little lie (and corruption) that brought down the 158 year-old investment bank, Lehman Brothers – the biggest corporate collapse in modern times. It’s the mountaineer giving up on the climb 50 meters to the summit. It’s the dreams that we give up everyday, that we were so close to attaining.

The writer of the New Testament letter to the Hebrews had something to say about it: Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

Tripping up on the finish line. That is the wisdom that my father wanted me to understand.