(2015)
Author’s Thoughts:
I was brought up in a practising, High Church Anglican, Christian family and community. Christened a fortnight after I was born I regularly attended church and by the age of eleven had played a number of meaningful roles in the congregation of my church from choirboy, Sunday school pupil, altar server to communicant and even that of god-parent.
My religion, family and cultural upbringing are the indestructible bedrock of core values that from birth have profoundly shaped my life and still do. No proselytizing or religious zealot me I even so exist comfortably and assuredly in the Castle of my conjoined Christian and ethical beliefs and which have always stood me in good stead when faced with particularly trying situations.
And the purpose of this poem isn’t to convert you or anyone else to Christianity or any other religious faith for that matter, less so to implant in you my moral concepts, which you don’t know of anyway, but simply to tell you if you didn’t already know or else give you a gentle reminder, if it has conveniently slipped your mind for whatever reason, that life is about choices. And since each of us who is psychologically sound in mind is still in possession of that freedom of choice accorded to everyone of us from birth, what decisions we make are our own and for which, successfully or disastrously so, we must ultimately face up to reality and take full responsibility at all times for them; either in this life or the next!
Have a Happy Christmas and a rewarding New Yea! And Very Best Wishes – Stanley V. Collymore, Snr.