Season’s greetings to all the readers of my blog, and I trust that everyone has not only enjoyed the season but also utilized the time in strengthening familial bonds and renewal of spirit in commitment to those things that honor and glorify God.
For all the mass profaning of the Name of God in our generation, especially this past year, God’s Name is still excellent, for those able to recognize it, in all the earth.
I am offering, in the spirit of the season, two video gifts that I encourage all and sundry to make the time during the season to watch. Although everyone who has followed my blog will have heard me repeat many times: ‘every adult member of a social collective is duty bound to engage in the institutions and processes of both religion and politics as both represent in essence the defining activities of their collective’.
Certainly this year, more so than any other, has demonstrated how corrupt those processes and institutions can become when leadership is blind or blighted, but there can be no scorning of either field without total surrender to nihilism. We who see what is wrong with the world are duty bound to play our role in addressing its evils and overcoming them through direct engagement with creativity and confidence,
For those who like myself have been grieved by the happenings this year in the arguably religious capital of the Western world, you will be blessed by a demonstration of cultural excellence in motive, message and ministry, still vibrant in sections of the evangelical church there. If you have not yet taken in Travis Green’s Christmas worship video, be blessed, inspired and uplifted. Take it in. There still is a generation who has answered the call to worship Jesus in spirit and truth, in purity of heart and conduct….with an excellent spirit. Travis, as many of you may know, is a multiple Grammy nominee and Dove award winning gospel artist whose personal testimony of resurrection has sealed in him an unwavering lifetime commitment to honor the Name of the God who granted him literally a second chance at life.
The thing to take note in this year’s US election, is how engaged its awakened population was in their electoral process. Recognizing all at stake in leadership solicited the greatest ever mass participation in the nation’s history. I have had several conversations focussed on addressing the need all Jamaicans have of creating a narrative that allows all our people to own our path….to understand and accept our history and find motivation to meaningfully participate in the unfolding saga of the development of our nation and region.
My exercise in taking advantage of the 50th year since the death of Jamaica’s founding father Norman Manley to focus on his life and leadership was intent on memorializing some seminal aspects of our political process that define both – our history and destiny, if we allow ourselves to be guided by a narrative of unity and victory, rather than descending into the crippling divisiveness and self doubt that inhibits strong nationhood.
I highly recommend everyone who missed the initial premiere on CDN to view Manley Memories before the season is out. Beyond narrow party politics, one gets a glimpse of the shaping factors in modern Jamaica. I also highly recommend to readers Norman Manley and the making of Modern Jamaica for greater depth of information – an absolute ‘muss’ecity for every Jamaican household and should you contact me, available at a significant discount.
May the new year bring clarity of vision and purpose both to those among us called to lead as well as those of us who follow.
Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hanukkah, Renewal of spirit and best wishes for prosperity in the upcoming year to all.
YeKengale
YeKengalé 