I dedicate this script to Yaw Nsarkoh, who has taught me in many ways to think like an eagle, and not a grasshopper.
Moses had been called by God in Scripture to lead the people of Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land, Canaan. After a long period of sojourn in the wilderness, the Israelites were getting closer to the land of promise, and had to start encountering the peoples of the new land, to conquer and occupy.
In the book of Numbers, chapter thirteen, it is recorded that acting on the instructions of Jehovah God, Moses selected twelve men, one each from the twelve tribes of Israel, everyone a prince among them, all of them ‘who were heads of the children of Israel’. These men were Shammua, Shaphat, Caleb, Igal, Hoshea (also called Joshua), Palti, Gaddiel, Gaddi, Ammiel, Sethur, Nahbi and Geuel. Moses sent them forth from the wilderness of Parah, to spy out the land of Canaan, with this instruction: “Get you up this way by the South, and go up into the hill-country: and see the land, what it is; and the people that dwell therein, whether they are strong or weak, whether they are few or many; and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it is good or bad; and what cities they are that they dwell in, whether in camps, or in strongholds; and what the land is, whether it is fat or lean, whether there is wood therein, or not. And be ye of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the land.”
“They went up, and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin unto Rehob, to the entrance of Hamath. And they went up by the South, and came unto Hebron; and Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were there. And they came unto the valley of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it upon a staff between two; they brought also of the pomegranates, and of the figs”.
The spies spent forty days on this mission. They returned with the fruit of the land, and with their report.
And they told him, and said, “We came unto the land whither thou sentest us; and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it. However, the people that dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there.”
“And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.
But the men that went up with him said, ‘We are not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we’.
And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had spied out unto the children of Israel, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come of the Nephilim: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”
19 June 2009, Khartoum, Sudan. Ghana was to play Sudan as part of the qualifying series towards FIFA World Cup 2010 to be held in South Africa. Before the match, listening to discussions in the media about the strengths of the Sudanese team was enough to demoralize even a hardened Asante warrior, with almost everyone touting the magnificent, exceptional qualities of the Sudanese players, the fact that most of them played for Al Hilal and Al-Merreikh, played at home and knew each other well.
The Stars were indeed going into that game without the full complement of the team: John Paintsil did not make the trip to Sudan after picking up a second yellow card in Bamako, swelling the number of first-team absentees from Rajevac’s side that also included captain Stephen Appiah, Inter Milan’s Sulley Muntari, Laryea Kingston and Asamoah Gyan. We literally painted the Black Stars as grasshoppers in the sight of the mighty Sudanese Desert Hawks. In the end, the Black Stars chose to behave like Caleb, believed and shot the Hawks down, two-nil. The Hawks failed to soar in the desert. In the return leg on 6 September 2010, Ghana won again in Accra, by the same margin, to become the first African country (aside South Africa who qualified automatically because they were the hosts) to make it for the global tournament.
During the World cup 2010 itself, in the run-up to our game against Germany in particular, it was as if our Black Stars were going to be mauled! Indeed, the doubters had facts to back their positions: the German machine was well-oiled and firing on all cylinders. We could have won that game, losing by a slim one-nil margin. Again, we were not the grasshoppers in the sight of giants.
The story Fly, Eagle, Fly was told by Dr James Kwegyir-Aggrey:
A certain man went through a forest seeking any bird he might find. He caught a young bird, brought it home, and put it among his fowls and ducks and turkeys, and gave it chicken’s food to eat. Five years later, a naturalist came to visit the man, and noticed the bird. He said to the owner; “Look here, this is an eagle, not a chicken.” The man replied “Yes, you may well be right, but I have trained it to be a chicken. It is no longer an eagle; it is a chicken though it is enormous”.
Said the naturalist: “No, it is an eagle, it has the heart of an eagle, and I shall make it soar high to the heavens”. The owner comes back with a retort: “No, it is now a chicken, and it will never fly”.
They agreed to test it. The naturalist picked up the bird, held it up, and said loudly: “Eagle, thou art an eagle; thou dost belong to the sky and not down here. Stretch out thy wings and fly”, and with that he hurled the bird up. The eagle turned this way and that, and then looking down, saw the chickens eating, and came to join them. The owner said: “I told you it is now a chicken”. “No”, said the naturalist, “This bird is an eagle. I shall come back and prove this to you”. The exercise was repeated three times, with the same result. The bird always came back to feed with the chickens.
The naturalist returned yet again, chose a hill, and held the bird aloft, pointing it to the rising sun, and shouted “Eagle! Thou art an eagle; thou dost not belong down here. Thou dost belong to the sky; stretch forth thy wings, and fly!” The eagle looked round, trembled as if new life was filling it, and suddenly it stretched out its wings and with the screech of an eagle, it mounted higher, and higher, and never returned. It was really an eagle, though it had been kept and tamed as a chicken!
“My people of Africa” Aggrey continued “we were created in the image of God, but men have made us think that we are chickens, and we still think we are, but we are eagles. Stretch forth your wings and fly! Don’t be content with food of chickens”.
There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living, Mandela admonishes us. In his inaugural speech, Nelson Mandela used a quote by Marianne Williamson in her book Return to Love: Reflections on a Course in Miracles: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Our point of view affects how we behave in many situations. If you see yourself as a grasshopper, you will be one. And it will even be worse if you assume that others see you as you see yourself! This is no time for us, especially in Africa, to play small. It is time to dismantle the shackles of the past in our minds and liberate ourselves from those mental dungeons and go forth.
You are no grasshopper, you are an eagle. Fly, Fly, and move on to the promised land of your life, taking the land and dominating it. If you are still seeing a grasshopper with your name tag, perhaps it is time to change your spectacles or your eyes!
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By: Nana Awere Damoah
Author, I Speak of Ghana