Dear Editor,
As I lie awake, pondering all of the different strains converging on our nation’s landscape, two statements come to mind – “Life can be beautiful” and “Life is what you make it”. We all know the competing scenarios – COVID-19 and for some, “lockdown”; election results and for some, “lick down”; ICJ, CCJ and for some, luck down! (we can still laugh, right?). May God Almighty look down on us all and have mercy!
I long for the day when, as a nation, we can put aside our differences and work together for the good of all and for the future of our children and our children’s children. We have been living in Bel Air Village for over 22 years. There is understanding and togetherness in our community of mixed races. We rejoice with each other (eg at weddings and thanksgivings), mourn with each other (at funerals) and celebrate each other’s successes! We share with each other the fruits from our yards, and look out for each other when there may be impending danger. We “lime” in the streets, hail out to passersby, and even looked out for the recently deceased neighbourhood vagrant. Would to God that our community could be a microscopic reflection of our society.
Describe for me a beautiful garden and you will be describing a well-cultivated patch of earth with plants of different hues and flowers of various colours – red, yellow, white, blue, purple…
Beautiful Guyana, blessed with the beauty of blended races and cultures, when will we stop destroying each other and instead work together to fulfil the national destiny? May it not be said of us: “…every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand (Matthew 12:25). But rather, as was said of the people of old, working together to build a tower: “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them (Genesis 11:6 NIV).
That sounds like the realisation of our national motto: One People, One Nation, One Destiny!
Sincerely,
Claudia Heywood
