?I have been pray­ing and med­i­tat­ing on the way things have be­come in our beloved coun­try of T&T. As a mem­ber of the cler­gy of the An­gli­can Church, I wish to of­fer my hum­ble sug­ges­tions to­wards a more lov­ing, car­ing and safe so­ci­ety. I have gained my bish­op's ap­proval to share these thoughts with you. Many of us have be­come so very dis­il­lu­sioned that we throw up our hands in de­spair and sit and hope that things would get bet­ter. But we are the ones to take hold of the sit­u­a­tion and make a turn­around for the bet­ter. It can­not hap­pen un­less we each take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for our ac­tions. It seems like the days are gone when we lived as a "fam­i­ly" in the com­mu­ni­ty, when I could help in the up­bring­ing of your child, and you with my child. I want to be­lieve that no amount of plan of ac­tion, by the Gov­ern­ment or non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, could come up with any kind of so­lu­tion if we our­selves do not take in­di­vid­ual and per­son­al own­er­ship of what is hap­pen­ing in our so­ci­ety, and make that per­son­al com­mit­ment to bring about change for the bet­ter.

The ba­sic tenet by which we are to live a use­ful and pro­duc­tive life lies in our love for God and love for each oth­er. And in the midst of all this, we must love and re­spect our­selves. This, I be­lieve, will help us to make a turn­around in our so­ci­ety, a pos­i­tive turn­around–start­ing with our­selves. Could we not re­cap­ture the ba­sic and fun­da­men­tal ways of how we were trained by our grand­par­ents, par­ents, god­par­ents, teach­ers and lead­ers in our homes and com­mu­ni­ties? Could we not strive for pu­ri­ty of thought and ac­tion in our lives? Could we not en­joy the gifts of dai­ly life with­out be­ing vul­gar? Why do we have to put our­selves on "dis­play" by wear­ing less at work and in the pub­lic, and es­pe­cial­ly as a par­tic­i­pant on Car­ni­val days? Are we so un­com­fort­able or un­hap­py with who we are that we have to seek to be­come some­one else? What are we re­al­ly striv­ing for? Where do our pri­or­i­ties lie?

Women of T&T, can we not see that this in­ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iour is caus­ing a ter­ri­ble break­down in our so­ci­ety, putting our­selves "out there" to be the tar­get of rape and kid­nap­ping and to­tal dis­re­spect? Come on peo­ple, we can en­joy our­selves with­out be­ing out­ra­geous. Do we not care about re­spect and dig­ni­ty? Take a stand for some­thing, or we will con­tin­ue to fall for any­thing. Why do we have to be so dis­con­tent with who we are, or what we have? I do be­lieve that dis­con­tent­ment can work in pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive ways for us. If we view our life and set about striv­ing to work to­wards a pos­i­tive im­prove­ment, then that's com­mend­able. But if we view our life against what oth­ers have, and set about to take from them through neg­a­tive means, then we are head­ed for chaos and de­struc­tion. As adults, we are to lead the way. Let's do it in pos­i­tive ways. Look at what we are do­ing, or not do­ing, by way of show­ing the ex­am­ple. Our chil­dren need dis­ci­pline.

Our chil­dren learn what they live, what they see by way of ex­am­ple every mo­ment of their lives: at home, at work, at school, at play, and even at church. Are we set­ting the right at­ti­tude and ex­am­ple? We have an ex­am­ple in Cho'late, the 13-year-old, who took a stand pub­licly, not too long ago. A line of a song sums it up very sim­ply for us: "Let there be peace on earth, and let it be­gin with me." We are our broth­er's and sis­ter's keep­ers. We must take a stand! Lent is up­on us, let's make some pos­i­tive changes.

How about bring­ing back the ba­sic prin­ci­ples of good be­hav­iour and man­ners, start­ing among our­selves in our home; it will fil­ter out:

1. Al­ways con­duct your­self in an ap­pro­pri­ate man­ner.

2. An hon­est day's work for an hon­est day's pay.

3. Re­spect for each oth­er, re­spect for self.

4. Kind­ness to all, es­pe­cial­ly the el­der­ly and hand­i­capped, the dif­fer­ent­ly abled.

5. Every­day man­ners: "good morn­ing," "ex­cuse me," "I'm sor­ry," "par­don me" etc.

6. Hon­esty with each oth­er.

7. Hon­esty to our em­ploy­er.

8. Less hos­til­i­ty to­wards each oth­er.

9. Cour­tesy on the roads.

10. Show­ing the ex­am­ples to younger ones.

11. Tak­ing turns, stand­ing in line.

12. No ob­scene lan­guage at any time.

13. Re­spect and love for God and our broth­ers and sis­ters, as we love and re­spect our­selves.

14. Fam­i­ly pray­ing to­geth­er.

15. Fam­i­ly eat­ing to­geth­er.

16. Fam­i­ly talk­ing and shar­ing time to­geth­er.

This list can go on. Our bod­ies are God's gift to us–be care­ful how we ex­pose and use them at all times. The an­swer lies deep with­in each and every one of us. We hold the an­swer. We are the an­swer! Can we come to­geth­er to make it hap­pen? I do be­lieve we can. I am will­ing for us to make a start. We can make it if we try. Be­liev­ing equals re­ceiv­ing. If we be­lieve we can achieve. We can make it hap­pen. To­geth­er with God, we make an awe­some team. Let's make a start with self and God.

?Rev Pam Padaraths­ingh-Greaves

Christ Church Parish, Cas­cade