A lament in our merriment

TERRENCE HONORE

ANOTHER new year is here. The promise of new things. But the present picture of our paradise is not nice. It has been marred by the ongoing state of violence in our country. It seems like we’re going around in circles.

For all of us, the time of merriment has been mixed with mourning. It has been a horrid time with all the murderous memories during the past year, with little promise of a change to come.

Even in the greatest season of the year, the murders kept giving us nightmares in the daytime. How can people give love when they are losing their loved ones. It’s the enigma that is life. A merry-go-round of joy and sorrow, an elixir of life mixed with the poison of death.

But even so our response to the predicament has been flawed. The case of crime has not been resolved. It would seem that "wrong and wrong and wrong we go…where it will lead us no one knows."

The drama that unfolds is like the story that is told by famed English poet John Milton in his epic work Paradise Lost. It is all so unkind upon our minds.

Our paradise is passing before our eyes like a public parade on a sunny day – looking good, but there’s too much decay.

How can we drink and be merry while the innocent continue to die before their time. Life is more than just another lime.

We are missing the pathos of our predicament as we write the story of our lives. We keep living for festivities, frivolities and loving less. What a mess.

So often when people go away, they return to say, "This is not the country I knew." The record murders show that people are running low on love and sympathy. Violence has become a pleasant pastime to some around us. As sordid as that may be. The tally of deaths talk to us.

But what’s the fuss, someone else will say, people die anyway, time to party, to dingolay.

Yet, each day newspapers headlines scream another death. Mothers cry for their little ones. Our vision is blurred by blood and our reality has been distorted, taking us into a state of apathy. The murder of the innocents is the side we would love to hide, while we continue to play ourselves.

All is not well on this Trini carousel.

As a child I enjoyed the experience of playing on the merry-go-round at Irving Park in San Fernando. It was a joy to be on, but it was not for the faint-hearted. Especially when the older, stronger boys would come around and ramp up the speed of the apparatus. Children would scream, others would fall off, while some would be desperately trying to keep up with the momentum.

Today, the world is like a playground, there are more people out "to do you in" rather than help you win. I see people trying to hold on for dear life, others tired and tripping up from trying to keep up with the pace of things.

With the abundance of Trini talent, we really should be doing better to keep up with the right rhythm of life....to reduce the violence.

Crime is killing us.

Yet we profess to be wise, but I surmise that many have become qualified fools in this round life, some more educated than others. Ever learning but never coming to the realisation of the truth, as the good book says.

We need to learn to use the gifts we got from God. But we keep doing the same things and continue to have the same results.

This is all so wearisome and worrisome. To hear our leaders parrot what was said before, like a stuck record on an old turntable. It’s a constant déjà vu.

Now we face a new year, but our minds are filled with pain and worry. Even as we continue to raise the felicities amidst our adversities. Atrocities, even. Yes, they are more than mere murders. The evil within us has been given room to play itself.

I am getting giddy with all that has been going on.

Last year things took a turn for the worse and time has taken its toll on everyone.

I am reminded of As the World Turns, an American television soap opera, that aired on CBS for 54 years (April 2, 1956 to September 17, 2010). The period spans the lifetime of many among us, but even that drama came to an end. It got the attention of many, focusing on the upper class and the many memories that money makes…that do not last in time.

But it was the late 2Pac and the Outlawz who brought out the raw and real rap version of the theme As the World Turns. That was back in 1977. But the lyrics live on. They sang, "Money comes, and goes/Ho-- come and go/Homes come and go/Friends come and go." The line that really got to me was, "Merciless thieves stole the best of me/I pray to black Jesus to please take the rest of me."

And so, the reality of the rounds of life continues to make us weary as we struggle to stay on the merry-go-round in this playground we call life. Like children with ambition, we must seek to raise our nation out of the "ghetto of depravity" to the height of an economy that makes life better for all.

Is it our fate to be carried along like children on a playground merry-go-round? We must make this right for the remainder of our days. We must strive for positive motion in all that we do, to fulfil the plan that God has set for each of us.

As the new year begins, let’s commit and prayerfully hold on despite the challenges that confront us. The important thing to remember is that we must respect and serve each other, as we seek the true source of our merriment – to be content with what we have while improving ourselves before God.

And in the midst of life’s melee, we must still strive to be merry, drawing from the joy that comes not from the money in our pockets, but from the wealth that is in each heart.

We must mortify the desires that are destroying us. And continue to comfort and encourage one another, even as we lament in our times of merriment.