I LOVE CHRISTMAS more than any other holiday. The music is like magic, the decorations and lights are heart-warming, and there is no sweeter smell in a house on Christmas Eve night than sweetbread and ham baking – nothing!
I also enjoy the hustle and bustle involved in shopping for food items, drinks and gifts.
But most of all I love going to the 5 a.m. service on Christmas morning. There is something serene about it. It is as if all is calm and right with the world. As a boy I got particular delight watching people all dressed in their finest but constantly fidgeting as if their dress, shirt, suit or shoes were too tight.
As I matured, I realized the real event on Christmas morning was the service. Singing those inspirational hymns, particularly age-old favourites with solid choir accompaniment, stirs your soul and leaves you with a sense of gratitude for the sacrifice Jesus Christ made.
The icing on the cake is, of course, the sermon. That message from the word of God should leave you with a sense of optimism and a desire to do more and live a righteous life. I heard quite a few such sermons and after listening to them I felt as if the world could truly be a better place.
Not always simple
But as the good book says, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
Today, therefore, I realize that such inspirational sermons have little lasting impact unless people are moved to act on the message. And most people don’t as nothing is as straightforward as it is often presented.
As part of that realization, I have come to recognize, too, that it is never a case of just right and wrong and black and white that informs decisions, but rather the many variables involved and the shades of grey. And as for the truth, I’ve learnt that what usually matters to those who peddle this concept is what they can get people to believe.
I’m not being cynical here, just realistic about what humans do.
The evidence of this abounds. We see it in the promises of aspiring politicians to do a better job than the incumbents, only for their pledges to come to naught as well.
We hear it in the public pronouncements made, and the backtracking that follows after the first statement is challenged. We see it in the policies enunciated as being the best way to go, and the shift to what has been suggested by others; I can go on.
Current examples of this abound. To mention just one, we have only to consider the Government’s move to put CLICO under judicial management. Former Opposition Leader Mia Mottley advised members of the governing party to do this more than a year ago, but her suggestion was decried. Eventually Government put in place a somewhat toothless watchdog called an Oversight Committee for three months.
Now six months after the demise of that committee on June 12, 2010, and with no watchdog in place to say what has been going on at CLICO – how many cheques have been written and to whom; what assets stayed in CLICO and what were transferred out – the decision has been taken to put it under judicial management.
If the decision was not necessary a year ago and was just a case of Mottley playing politics, as was said, why does Government think it is such a good idea now?
Thank God that in the story of Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate at this time, we have an example of someone who grew into a man whose word can be taken as, yes, gospel – no self-serving spin, no expediency, no doublespeak. Merry Christmas.
