Sundiata is an interesting text to read due to the fact I was never really exposed to any African literature. I have only read one other African work of literature, Things Fall Apart. I knew some concepts were going to prevail such as deities, religion, and magic in Sundiata due to my exposure to Things Fall Apart. However, Sundiata raises an interesting concept of destiny or past causing the future. The Griot states that due to the fact that one has blood within them that has done great things, they are meant to be great. There are often times where the Griot makes things appear as free will when he tells Sundiata’s father that he must marry the ugliest woman so that his child would be the greatest ruler that has ever existed. This really got me thinking about fate vs free will and I applied it to my own life. All your actions lead you to the future you essentially constructed, but what if you are to take those actions in order to lead to your destiny? For this is presented to me in a manner of religion and Church. I have a calling to be a Pastor, I personally don’t want to be one due to the task entailing me leaving all of what I have constructed behind to preach the word of God throughout the world. So even though I believe God, His calling for me is something that I have not been fond of. I’ve been resisting but as time progresses, I find myself more and more inclined to the thought of being one. It really makes me think if that is what God wants for me then it’s for the best, right? However, I choose not to go forth with it because I want stability, I want my degrees because what if I need a backup? But how long can I just keep on running and running? AT some point I’m going to have to make a decision. What if I embrace my calling and become someone so powerful, used by God to save souls? What if this is my destiny, to be grand in that manner like Sundiata in his respective story.

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.