‘Bring them to God’ – Dec 14 |
Regenerating the Moral and Spiritual Values of our Society By Vernon Khelawan Eternal optimist that I am, I saw a flicker of hope in statements made by the mothers of two young men who were murdered recently in different areas of the country. I read and re-read the positions articulated by the hurting moms and told myself that maybe, just maybe, our society will return to its former values. One mother, Angela Joseph, admonished parents to “take a more active role in your children’s lives. Go with them to church and things like that. Bring them to God. That is where it would help”. In that plea there is the recognition that without God, there is little we, as citizens, can do to regenerate the moral and spiritual values so badly needed in our society. The second mother, Beverly Murray, pleaded with the youth to put down their guns “and turn away from a life of crime”. She added, “The young people are just throwing away their lives and we need to get Trinidad and Tobago back to the way it was.” The two women are advising today’s parents not to make the same mistakes they might have made and to begin from early to take greater interest in their children’s lives – where they go, with whom, and what they are doing. In my humble view however, the best piece of advice was the call to “bring them to God”. We should not allow these admonitions to be ‘wasted on the desert air’ as it were, and should launch ourselves even more seriously into responding to the call of the Third Pastoral Priority. The effect of not doing so is already quite evident. It is incumbent on all of society to work towards re-establishing the values and standards which we once observed. With Christmas just around the corner, parents can offer to their children the gift of helping them become better individuals, enkindling in them the desire to practise good moral and spiritual values, making T&T a better nation one person at a time. |