The following is the Christmas message from Bishop Joseph Atherley,
Leader of the Opposition.
Fellow Barbadians, I wanted to take a few moments today to wish you and yours a very blessed Christmas and to assure you of my prayers for our nation and yourselves for good health, and both spiritual and material wellbeing in the new year.
Our nation is going through some tough times. This is likely to be the case for the foreseeable future. There are too many among us whose lot is the daily circumstances attendant upon poverty and lack of opportunity. There are many who, during our celebratory month of Independence, were relegated to the status of newly-dependent through loss of their jobs. Families and communities too continue to feel the pain and sense of loss resulting from violent resolution of conflict, especially among our young.
I say these things not only simply to reflect negatively upon our circumstances, but only because they constitute our reality as a people, and perhaps yours personally. As such, I seek to point out that in fact, Christmas is Heaven’s response to humanity’s varied and total need. The peace proffered is the divine alternative to conflict.
The goodwill promised is the assurance of the wellbeing possible, no matter what the circumstance of mankind universally or in his universal situation. To actualise that which Heaven offers and to access its benefits, it is incumbent on each of us to care meaningfully for our fellowman, our spirit of compassion being ignited; to share measurably with those in need in light of the current economic context; and to bear manfully the faults and failings of our neighbours in the face of increased conflict.
Christmas certainly is about celebration of family. The Christmas story is that of a peasant family from a rural region bonding together in the face of struggle. It really is the string of the trumpet of the family spirit and will even the negatives of the unforeseen. It is the story of favour, fatherhood and the puture promise of fragile and threatened offspring.
Christmas is about consideration of our fellow man. His plight and how we identify with that. His particularities and our acceptance and appreciation, and of our diversity. His potential for good and our realisation that in that, we find prospective benefit as a community, as a nation, as a people.
Christmas is about contemplation of the future of our children. It is about the hope we as parents, teachers, models, leaders give to them. It is even moreso about the hope they bring to us of a better today, of a brighter tomorrow.
How can I care meaningfully? By reducing the distance between me and my fellowman. By touching a life or lives personally and beyond family. How can I share measurably? By giving tangible evidence of my sense of neighbourliness, of brotherhood, of friendship. By giving out of my own situation of need.
How can I bear manfully? By my willingness to reduce tension; by my wisdom in resolving conflict; by my walking away from the moment of impulsive rashness, the promptings of angered passions, the urgings of inflicted pain and hurt.
Let us indeed make it this Christmas season and the coming year our resolve to endeavour just a bit more, indeed to care more meaningfully for others, to share more measurably with others and . . . more manfully despite others.
Barbados needs the contribution of all of us. Barbados needs the productive contributions of all of us in order to optimise the potential of our economy. We need the steadfast vigilance of all of us in the effort to building up and out even the political system, governance architecture and both safeguarding our democratic privileges and maturing our democratic process.
Barbados needs both you and me to be the authors of responsible action in restoring to good health our sense of community; our respect for systems of justice, law and order; our regard wisely for good care of our environment; our regard for our inherited platform of spirituality, good morals and cherished values long held.
I urge each of us to do these things personally, in our family life, institutional life and community life. We get it right at the country life when we get it right at the personal level, the family level, the constitutional level and the community level.
May your celebrations this year be rich with blessing. May they be measured despite the liberalities of festivity. May the good tidings of great joy reach even those ears somewhat deafened by the thick pain of misfortune, sickness, loss and uncertainty of circumstances.
