Let there be light

Oct 28, 2019 Editorial

Then there was light. A festival of it. And it was good. May it always be so.
We need that light now more than ever before. This country and every citizen, regardless of religious following and devotions, could use every sliver of light that shines to touch one and all.
For this dismal society continues in its deepening states of darkness. The light, a true and shining light, has always eluded. Seems so. For here in this brightest of blessed lands, there is always this sorry existence within a realm of the noontime nocturnal.
For here in Guyana, there is impenetrable darkness that hovers immovably, that enshrouds almost completely. The light, any light and all light, struggles to inch forward, to make a distinguishing palpitating registering on the hearts and minds of sisters and brothers locked in the grimness of unrelenting grappling.
Who can exist like this? How has this country that dares to call itself a nation managed the scantiness of bare continuity for so long? That is one of many mysteries. For amidst the tempests and tumults, the unending heaviness of things gone awry, there is simply one constant. It is the constant that corners, that confines, and that ultimately cuts deeply over and over again.
For here is a people, a hodgepodge collection of a tapestry of peoples, that live for one thing and one thing only: the political. The political consumes the social, it devours the moral and ethical and, not content with those earthly deviltries, it contaminates all the way to the celestial.
The religious, the lights of its teachings and callings, should have illuminated all before it with that extraordinary sacredness of how special we are. There is none beyond the lights that glow and sparkle (and crackle) with the enlightenments of the way matters ought to be, and then deliver the motivations to work to make them be. And yet we are heedless in our refusal to stretch forth hand and mind to bask and wash ourselves clean in the pureness of the holiness that flows from somewhere. From above, is the best of places to start.
Are we willing to start? If yes, then, restarting is called for, demanded from where all things should have begun. All the sacred texts teach them: brotherhood of man, fellowship with friends and all the way to those considered to be enemies.
There are no enemies must be the first contemplation, the last conclusion. It is the way it must be if we-all of us-are going to partake of the generous, if not lavish, bounties heaped upon us. If we are going to afford ourselves a constructive chance to capitalize to the full on what is there in front of us.
Things worth achieving are always worth striving for with determination and wisdom. That is the first light that should come on the eve and dawn of Diwali. And the next light is that each and all must be less of the self-centered and self-serving, and more of the expansive and all inclusive. From there an array of lights are sure to come. Not just on Diwali. But on every other day that graces this country in its now proven lush richness.
We have been given much. Not much is asked of us. What will it be? How will we be? It is the thinking of this paper shared with fellow Guyanese that it cannot be of one, or for one only.
It must be that widest of nets that casts an inviting arc and gleam across 83,000 square miles, which attracts and welcomes into the ambience of a special time, and a special understanding in this country.
There is that peculiar, and delightful light: the wisdom of understanding and the greater wisdom that follows from the willingness to reach for neighbor and stranger and say this: this is of you, too. Because it just has to be that way for the blessings that stir restlessly and readily beneath the expanse of the waters.
This country has been endowed beyond what it can appreciate. That much is clear. It must see that light. On this observation of Diwali may just such a light pierce and embrace.

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