We enter a new Church year on Sunday 3rd December, the first Sunday of Advent, and we hear the Gospel cry to “Stay awake”, be vigilant, be cued in on happenings in the external and internal fora. As Jesus offered those words of warning and invitation, in the external forum it was in the context of the intimidation and domination of the Roman occupation. His words were also in the context of negligences and abuses that had crept into the religious practices of the time and he cautioned people to be aware of and alert to those elements. In the internal forum, his words were consistent with his constant call to conversion and repentance; the wake up calls, the changes of the human hearts, that would lay greater claim over what is of God, what is true, what is genuine, what protects and nurtures human integrity.
This Advent we are coming out of the period of COVID which, for those of us who are still here to look back on it, ought to have been wake up call. COVID raised the questions about meaning and vulnerability of life, we had to do specific things to protect the gift of life and look after each other. Let us now heed the call to “Stay awake” and continue watching over the sanctity of life and looking after our brothers and sisters.
The very day that we begin our Advent journey a referendum is being held in neighbouring Venezuela; an attempt of that nation to give legitimacy to a claim over the county Essequibo. “Essequibo ah we own” say the bumper stickers and so say all of us. But as we lay our own claim to border integrity let us do so in a spirit of “referendum”, a clear and strong disposition of heart and resolve about who we are as a people of this nation and as a people of God. “We are the clay, you the potter, we are all the work of your hand” (Is 64:7), the words from the Isaiah reading for this first Sunday of Advent. Whatever our neighboring nation may have in mind let us as the Body of Christ and as a nation assert our place and our being coming out of a rich and unique history with a future blessed with immense possibility, given the gifts of a people and multiple resources in this Dear Land of Guyana. Let us stay awake to our positive attributes so that we can bring them to their fullness.
While the issues pertaining to the border matter with Venezuela are worthy of our concern and attention, and I encourage participation in the present nation-wide activities to join hands, wave flags, sing patriotic songs and anthem, let us also in this time of Advent bring into our gaze what I would refer to as the “internal border issues”. These days of Advent coincide with the Global sixteen days of activism to challenge violence against women and girls. The sixteen days run from 25th November – the international Day for the Elimination of Violence against women – to the 10th December – Human Rights Day. The data/statistics reveal that the evidence of Gender-based violence in Guyana places our country among those with the highest number cases or such violence . This is eye opening and needs from all quarters of the nation a “referendum”, a concerted focus on what this is and why it is so prevalent among us and what is our “vote”; the changes we are ready to make, in order to bring protection, healing, peace and deep respect to the “frontiers” of gender.
It was very good to see our Government and Opposition sitting at a table together and holding a united position of the Venezuela-Essequibo matter. May those in leadership “stay awake”, keep those portals open and bring the collaboration, unity, shared governance to what too often seems to be a political divide.
Let us keep all of the “border” issues in our prayer and, with Isaiah, take up the cry: “Oh, that you would tear the heavens open and come down!” (Is 63:19) and as we ready ourselves to welcome your Son Jesus among us, may we make his ways our own so that through our lives we can give increase to peace and good will among all God’s own.
