What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9

He sat still, the buzz of activity lost to him, unacknowledged. His eyes remained downcast, lost in the prismic patterns of the courtroom furniture as his head sunk lower into his chest. He seemed lost in thoughts that only he could discern. The verdict that would decide his son’s fate was minutes away. Trying to draw parallels between the actions that had led to the day’s happenings with the choice of an ancestor to release the bullet that had felled a native, centuries earlier, I wondered at the replicating nature some actions.

In the scriptural book of Genesis 20 Abraham pretended that Sarah was not his wife so that he could gain favor with the King of Gerar; an action that would have drawn the wrath of God and caused the death of many in that land had the King laid hands on her. Many years later, his son Isaac lies in the same way in Genesis 26 about his beautiful wife Rebekah to King Abimelech of the Philistines; this too almost bringing dire consequence to the people of that nation. Despite decades of life and living, the lies remained ethereally similar, the motives and pattern of thoughts selfishly genetic.

There are many stories of men who are fostered by relatives or strangers and despite their never having made the acquaintance of their fathers, display characteristics that strangely resemble those of errant, yet absent, fathers or relatives. When a neighbor’s teenage son in a seasoned and practiced lock jaw move connected a sharp knife to the jugular of a peer and curtailed on the latter’s life, the police were heard questioning the relatives on possible similarities of previous actions by some deviant uncles or relatives back in the African village; these bordered anywhere from suicides to crimes of passion or simply to delinquency.

I am persuaded to think that sin or crime is embedded in the DNA. We do have the confirmation that we are born of sin after the fallen man, Adam. Our hearts are said to be wicked and sometimes deceitful. However certain of our actions that are controlled by the choices we consciously make seem like the replicating kind. Therefore, just like we pass on the physical characteristic traits to our offspring, so too do we spew into them our dark murderous thoughts and obsessions. And these, they will sieve for themselves in the way that we hand down to them.

It is therefore imperative that we do not break God’s laws because the choice creation that follows our uniqueness also seems to harbor, for hereditary purposes, the ability to pass on all that we are to our children. The question of course remains in deciding whether or not we therefore have any control whatsoever as to who we become thereafter. In this we are hard pressed to tighten the seal of the wicked abyss that is in dwelling in our hearts.

By the time of a man’s death a lot of his potential is buried with him. This could either be the good potential whereby we fail to utilize our skills and brains or the bad type characterized by darker thoughts that we consciously choose to kill for the good of humanity or to avoid sin. We therefore should think twice or even thrice before engaging in any vices for our God has done His part in creation; the living is really left to us and by the look of things, it too remains as timeless as the author of life Himself.