Once upon a time, in a land not too far away and closer than you may think, there lived a community of people who were in dire straights. They did not have the foresight and did not have the commodities, goods and services to attract enough income to provide for their basic needs. One day, a lawyer from outside came across one… Read More
Lately, in my attempt to come to grips with the root causes of many of our financial, social and ecological crises, I have been drawn over and over again to our dysfunctional neo-liberal economic system, and at its core was a grave misunderstanding of the role of money, debt and the banking system and how they play pivotal roles in the mis-allocation of goods and services in our economy.
Many of us may have been distracted during our life journey to not see that physical infrastructure that perfuses and “guides” the world and whose processes are the foundations of all life, and have missed the immeasurable uniqueness and interconnectedness of all things. Absent this spiritual insight, many of us became rudderless and were blindsided by fear and misunderstanding of it all, and in its absence manufactured a worldview of ideas and theories that we now know is antagonistic to the sustainability of all life, be it at the cellular, organ, individual, family, community and planetary level. It is at these levels we more likely than not engaged in activities, be they in thought, word or deed, that ended up hurting ourselves, each other and the planet that supported us. It is this veil of ignorance coupled with fear of the unknown that has undermined the life-supporting and empowering networks in our midst, and our modern political and economic theories have evolved to the point in which we put individual pleasures above collective wellbeing, and the directive of profit-maximisation over and above everything else. It is when our individual and collective activities celebrate and resonate with these life-enabling activities that we become an instrument of all that is good in this world. The flip-side of this statement is that when our man-made rules conflict with the rules of nature and do not synchronise with them, then we in effect become instruments of all that is evil in this world.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light (FIAT LUX): and there was light. And God saw… Read More
Coming off the heels of my blog article last week ‘On Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Grace’, and trying to grapple with the local crime situation, the regional reparation and disenfranchisement issues, and the global climate change and sovereign debt crises, I am coming to appreciate another form of contract that was gifted to us which is crying out to be rediscovered. This contract or covenant can be seen as a special one that is unlimited in its scope and its benefits, and is available to all of us, if we so choose. It complements mankind’s “greatest” invention and is the unseen “big elephant” in the room.
Like finance, it does two simple things, plus more. It acts as a time machine of the past, and a safety net of the present and the future, in that the distilled wisdom of the life-supporting systems within our bodies, among our communities and in our environment can be studied and tapped to help create a more wholesome and healthy world. The fruits of finance over the past 7000 years pales in comparison to the fruits of Nature. This is testified by the billions of years of “research and development” reincarnated over and over again by the unconditional Love bestowed on us by the cells and organs of our bodies, our families and our communities, nurtured and sheltered by the the four basic elements of earth, wind, water and fire. Even more remarkable is the fact that we live in a zero-waste biosphere embedded within a sustainable solar system, galaxy, and supercluster of galaxies which all work harmoniously with each other, testifying to the efficiency and resilience of our universe, as we stand in awe and wonder at the diversity and interconnectedness of it all.
On the ward round with my students at the hospital this morning, I saw a female patient with newly diagnosed diabetes. I explained to her and the students, that if her diabetes was not properly controlled, she may develop the complications of blindness, stroke, heart attack, kidney failure and gangrene. During our discussions, she mentioned… Read More
Yesterday, I came across a speech entitled “GRAND CORRUPTION – THE NEW CHALLENGE” that was delivered by José Ugaz, the chair of the leading anti-corruption group Transparency International to their Jamaican chapter National Integrity Action in Kingston, on 15 March 2015. It poignantly states: “Corruption is a tax that is paid by the poorest in… Read More
Three years ago, when my wife was pregnant with my first daughter, I had a dream in which my daughter who was ten years old appeared and was looking sad and crying. Things had deteriorated in St. Kitts-Nevis as crime was rampant, diseases and health issues were not being dealt with, and the structure of our schools had deteriorated and the standard of our education was at an all time low. Albeit we were boasting of the economic and physical achievements and developments in our midst. Then she said to me, “Daddy, if you know better, that we can do better, why are you not speaking up? What are you doing to make St. Kitts-Nevis a better place for me and my generation?“ At that time, I had no idea that two ministers would have left the government, a MONC would have been put forward and not debated, and we would have become a rogue nation in terms of our disrespect for democracy and our Constitution, and be condemned by Canada and the USA for our sanction evasive Citizenship by Investment Program.
This is the 3rd public lecture in a series on issues of ageing given on October 22nd 2014 at the UWI Open Campus St. Kitts & Nevis in collaboration with The Ripple Institute SKN. I would like to thank Mr. Anthony Jarvis for making available to me the audio which was incorporated into the youtube… Read More
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a young girl who was raped by one of the soldiers of an occupying force. She became pregnant and given the purity customs of her time, she was ostracised by her family and cast out by the community to fend for herself as… Read More
Source: Holt-LunstadJ, Smith TB, Layton JB (2010) Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review. PLOS Medicine 7(7): e1000316.
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316
