Bring on the Christmas pudding!

Christmas.

What is it? What does it mean? What does Jesus have to say about celebrating His birthday on this time of the year? Let’s take this time to read up on what is going on.

For some of us, Christmas is about a time of celebration of something. Sometimes, a lot of us do not even know what it is that we are celebrating. We came up with our parents celebrating it and we just followed suit. Some of us see Christmas as a time for togetherness and family. A time to relax and show our appreciation for one another by telling them, giving them presents and feeding them at their houses. Perhaps a time for giving to the community; maybe feeding the homeless or visiting children’s homes. Whatever it is, people are sure not to miss Christmas.

Where I come from in Barbados, Christmas is a time for taking all the hard-earned money that you have accumulated during the year and blowing it like an addict blows cocaine. For those of them that do not have money, they borrow and take out loans and get themselves in a heap of debt just so they could join the hundreds of thousands of Barbadians in the hectic days of shopping before the big day. By the way, not all Barbadians are like that. Some of us see Christmas as a time of remembering the greatest gift from God but we will get to that later. The ones in town, on the other hand are the ones that amaze me the most. As to how you can fit over one hundred thousand persons on two roads, 100ft each, amazes me greatly. As this is my blog, you have two choices. One, you can sit there and read my opinion or you can go back to your boring Facebook timeline where you already know that nothing has happened since you opened the new tab.

I hate going in town. I go when I need to and that’s the only time. At all costs, I avoid the area. That’s just me. I’m not telling you to do the same nor am I looking on those who go. From a child, town was the place that always repelled me and even now, as a young adult, I find that no matter in which direction I go or in which street, it seems to me that the majority of Barbados is going the opposite direction. This causes me to be weaving and bopping and ducking through all manner of people, some of which have been in town from morning and are all sweaty and greasy like Legendary Fishcakes. For those of you who haven’t noticed, Christmas shopping season usually starts from September 30^th. For those of you who have, you should be chuckling at least because you know it’s true.

What is it that they buy when they go town and what are they buying them for? From what I’ve observed, they are gifts that are bought for the children of people we do not like so that they could be under the impression that we like them so that they could buy us gifts for our children that we could believe that they are falling for the same trick with which they are tricking us. This whole deceptive cycle does not apply to everyone, though, hence the beginning of sentence two of this very same paragraph. Luckily, amidst the deception of the adults, the children are showered with gifts, things that they asked for and even things that they did not have to ask for, they get. Everything can be a gift, from toys and clothes for the middle and upper-middle class to bling and gear for the others. (to avoid being called prejudice, I won’t specify which class I was thinking about)

Speaking of gifts, there is one gift in particular that is the most special gift to me.  For those of you who are not as spiritually inclined as most, still read though I wouldn’t mind if you switched tabs to see that someone you don’t know has invited you to play a game on FB that you have no interest in; neither them or the game. In fact, I’ll wait……………………………………………..okay enough waiting. This special gift that I’m going to talk about now was foretold by a guy named Isaiah. This gift is something that men have sought throughout the ages, from King Tut, to Vegeta. Eternal life. Everyone who wants anything in life knows that if they were to die, they cannot enjoy the things that they have. Wealthy men like Mr.Simpson, that could afford to buy out a HOTEL for his children know that one day they will die. People leave wills in place so that they could still have power over their possessions after they are dead. But what if they didn’t? what if there was a way for people to live and not die. Eternal life is the wish of all who walk this earth. The ability to be forever laughing, travelling, eating and drinking…for some, like my Cuban friend and my Honourable friend from St.Peter…forever being in power is something that would put a smile on the face of any who think of it.

God, the Almighty Creator of the heavens and Architect of the cosmos, took it upon Himself to have pity on the specks of dust, whose lives are but a vapour. He saw that man was dying and that the world he was living on was cursed because of the filth that man has brought upon it by his own actions. He, being love itself, did the only thing love could do, sacrifice Himself for us and take the punishment for what we did. If God, whose words alone put the galaxies in place (funny how I more use that word to mean phone as opposed to a set of planets) says that the greatest love of all is laying down your life for your friends (John 15:13), then it has to be true. Never mind the recently deceased singer who says otherwise, the grass may whither, the flower may fade but the words of the Lord will stand (said by the same Isaiah in ch.40 v 8). Simply put, the great gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. Yes, I said it: Eternal life is available for all who choose to accept Him. Christmas is about celebrating that gift and specifically how it got here.

God makes sure that there is no ambiguity or doubt in this whole plan of His. He sits Isaiah down and talks to him about the plan. The plan is that he is going to send His son in the form of a human, in the lowliest of circumstances known to man, a barn. This would be a tad convenient for some persons I know because when their mother says “turn back off the lights, were you born in a barn?” it would be nice to be able to say “as a matter of fact...I WAS!!!”  Anyhow, God tells Isaiah that the world would not accept Jesus because there was nothing about him that was appealing enough for us to consider him the son of God. (Is. 53:2)

Even though we celebrate Christmas in December, it’s not when Jesus was born. I’m not saying this as controversial Christian, I’m saying this as a person that likes to make people think about the things of God. Now think, remember the song we sang at school. “While shepherds watched their flocks by night all seated on the ground, the angel of the Lord came down and glory shone around”. Here is the part where we apply our common sense (brace ourselves, people). Who do you know in their right minds, sit on the ground in the middle of winter? Who do you know that keeps sheep out in the open with snow out? That does not seem to make a whole heap of sense to me. December 25^th is merely the celebration date and not the actual date. I’m not going to go into any details about the whole Pagan thingamabob because, I’ll lose my readers, and I know that I have lost a few already because this blog is quite lengthy, plus I have mentioned spiritual things. That tends to discourage some readers.

Another thing that is quite funny is that people believe that there were three wise men. [some of you just said “oh dear”] The Bible mentions three gifts but who is to say that five people brought gold, seven brought frankincense and one person brought myrrh? These are just minor things that the belief of either one or the other has no benefit or detriment to one’s salvation. This means that if you are a Christian, you are not going to be sent to hell because you thought there were three wise men.

As I approach my conclusion, we spoke about the foretelling of Jesus’ birth, we spoke about the true meaning of Christmas but there is still a question that needs to be answered: why is it important? Yea, we know that Jesus came to save us from hell and blah blah blah but why did he have to come down? Why could he not do it from on High? Why did he have to diminish Himself as low as human status just to do something that could have been done by the snapping of a finger from the Almighty?

As the more perceptive of you would have realised by now, there is sin in this world, a lot of it. It came here because of Adam and Eve. To divulge on that now would be another four hours of discussion. The rule from the beginning was this: without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. Meaning, blood must be spilt in order to appease the Most High. This is the reason we have the big bunch of sacrifice rules in the beginning of the Bible given to the Isrealites, so they could do the right sacrifice for the sin they committed. God looked and saw that the time for sacrifices will come to an end. He knew that His love extends to everyone and that not everyone could afford to sacrifice a sheep or a bull. Most of us don’t know what a turtledove looks like, but we have the same access to His love.

But you see, the blood had to be of the best. Only the best sheep of the flock could be sacrificed, a sheep without spot or blemish. That is why the Lord had to come down in human form, among his own sheep, so to speak, because all the other sheep had spots and blemishes seeing that all had sinned and all had the curse of sin which was paid with death. We were all born in sin and that is why Mary was not impregnated by Joseph but by the Holy Spirit, because if he was born from man and not from God, he would have been born in sin just like the rest of us.

The Lord God of Love could not sit there and watch us die for it is not His will for us to perish but that all should come to repentance. He gave His life for us. He had to die for us so He would not have to live without us. He had to do it himself, the greatest sacrifice, the greatest gift of all... the greatest love of all...

The End of the World...really?

This blog now concerns the end of the world. It’s supposed to be tomorrow but I’m not as excited as I thought I would be…neither is the rest of the world apparently. I don’t see anyone jumping off any buildings or selling their possessions and what-not. For those of you that are in my boat, welcome aboard! Thinking that the world would end tomorrow would have some sort of changing effect on one’s psyche. I don’t think that a lot of persons know what they would do if they had the slightest belief that they would die the next day. For me, I would just lie down and cross my arms and wait for the Lord to come for me. I even think that I would be excited to experience it. From a cataclysmic point-of-view, I would go outside and watch like the man in the 2012 movie.

Now, we head on to the meat of this matter. I did some research about the whole Mayan prophesy. I would hate to believe that we who think that we are oh so evolved would even give a second look to a “prophesy” of a calendar created by a tribe of primitive sun-worshipers who also believe that the sacrifice of humans gives power to the sun. I would hate to believe that we as the most highly intellectual beings, of imaginations to create the most innovative things could EVER in our right minds believe something that was prophesied by a set of people that couldn’t even see their own extinction coming.  That’s just me; I’m not asking you to agree, just keep reading.

Firstly, the ‘Long Count’ calendar, as it is called, was developed in 355 B.C and yes it does have some merit. They were able to use their observations and mathematic prowess to calculate the future movements of stars across the skies. Thought this is really impressive, there is no proof that the movement of stars in the sky has even the slightest effect on human activity or history, even if you subscribe to the horoscope.  Also, according to this same said calendar, life began at 3114 B.C and whether you are an evolutionist or creationist, you’d agree with me that there is all manner of evidence that points to the contrary, in fact, both theories indicate that life started way earlier.

What’s really funny is that the Mayans don’t claim to be prophets at all, neither have I come across any evidence to suggest that they declared their calendar as having predicted the end of the world. It could be the end of a cycle of astronomical proportions, or according to Facebook, they thought that Mitt Romney would win the Presidential elections. There isn’t anything more to this than wildly speculative extrapolations, based on the yet-uncertain interpretations by scholars of Mayan hieroglyphs.

Now, I have to bring some Bible into this. Hopefully, by this time you’re still reading and haven’t switched tabs to Facebook more than twice. Face it, nothing new has happened and you have no new notifications. Now back to the Bible. Some of you that know the Bible has made it known emphatically that no one knows the day nor the hour for the end. The Bible even goes so far as to say that not even Jesus knows when He’s coming back, or scheduled to come back. Only the Father knows (Mark 13:32) and to explain this would take another 4 hours of discussion. Why would the Almighty God allow these cruel, brutal tribesmen to discover the long-awaited secret about the end-times and nowhere do any of His most trusted prophets make the slightest mention of a date? Isn’t it He that made the world in the first place? (Genesis 1:1, John 1:1-3)

As I end off, one has to take everything as it is. If you subscribe to this prediction, you would also have to take into account that our sun is a god that feeds on the blood of human sacrifices. Seeing as we have stopped worshiping the sun for a good while now, I think it should be either dead or angry. I can only hope that those of you, who were gracious enough to read it, allow some of it to sink in even though you may not believe in the sun-god like the Mayans do.

PS.The movie Apocalypto was really good and was based on a Mayan, a must-watch.

Late Start

Late Start

Forgive my late start to this new blogging, ladies and gentlemen, but I had been doing some thinking as to what I really am desirous of blogging. 

I was motivated to start by a blog that I had read and I decided that I should start writing. 

I have recently read an article that I found online, that a friend had sent me the link to read.  I proceeded to read said article and it got me to thinking about my own culture.  If you notice any grammatical errors in my sentences or you come across a sentence that might is not to make as much sense as you would think, it is because I am using windows speech recognition software.  This allows me to dictate to my computer without having to type; and although I give it a brief review before and let me go on to the next sentence and correcting it, there is still that element of technical difficulty that would allow certain things to go unchecked.  With all of that out of the way, let us continue on smartly.

The article was reading had a lot to do with the words and cultural colloquial phrases that are indigenous to my country Barbados.  And this being the month of our independence, the month of November, I have much obligation to sort of discuss another set of words that are indigenous to my country and perhaps by extension the other parts of the Caribbean.

A phrase that is very popular especially among the young people is “starve-out” (wait, dah girl cross dey so look real starve-out yuh!) This phrase that was in the parenthesis is speaking of the young lady who looks slightly malnourished and her small figure brings into question the amount of food she is fed and the number of times she is fed.  At first glance, one can quickly deduce that this particular phrase is derived from some manner of the word starve.  So therefore it is reasonable to suggest that this person in particular has long passed the level of starvation and is no longer starving but starve-out.

This next word is known throughout Barbados and is used in widespread language.  The problem comes in trying to define such a word.  This war has been used in many varying contexts used to describe people, but no one really knows what it is.  The word, ladies and gentlemen, is “Maguffy”.  Of course this particular word sounds negative and if it sounds negative to you then you are correct in assuming that has a very negative connotation indeed.  If I had to describe one and will probably describe it as being a big black hairy animal that walks on its two hind legs with big ferocious teeth, or something of the sort, really-anything to scare little children into behaving themselves. (he really cuh stop getting on like a igrunt maguffy) without knowing the meaning of the word, one can aptly deduce that this is referring to something that is negative.

My final word for this evening is the word that was used in the previous example.  The word “igrunt”.  This one will present some manner of difficulty in explaining for the simple reason that has many differing definitions.  In most contexts, this word is used to describe someone who has been little or no regard for the rules.  For example, if someone threatens to confront a man of such a description someone warning him may say “you, leff he, yuh...he cuh be real igrunt when he ready” or “big man, people in dah country does be real igrunt when dey ready hear?” warning them that it would be unwise to confront such a person.  Another example of how this may be used as in describing someone who knows nothing of what is going on someone was described in this manner could also be described as being oblivious in English contexts. (you’s goh be suh igrunt doa?).

I am certain that most of you have never really even given any real thought to the actual definitions of the words and phrases we use daily.  To my fellow Barbadians, and to all those who read this blog, I pray God’s riches blessings upon you in this, our Independence season.