Pastor Bell's Words To Live By

If I chose to forget who I am then I will act as someone without responsibility and direction. Without hope we act irresponsibly with short term goals. Short-termism is a methodology that allows us only to live for today and suffer the consequences of tomorrow when they arrive. This operation is a long way away from what Jesus taught his followers and goes against the grain of what was practiced by the ancestors of those taken to the Caribbean as slaves. For each male child to become a man and enter into the clan of adulthood, they had to go through a rite of passage. This would involve an initiation ceremony and briefing about what is required to maintain the legacy that is being passed on to them.  The whole community is involved in this process and so the person undertaking the ‘rite of passage’ is beholding to that community. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade demolished this and caused countless numbers of young people to grow up without a sense of belonging or an understanding of who they really are. The problem is compounded by these youngsters progenating and bringing children into the world without the necessary tools to navigate through to adulthood.  We need to reverse this trend and take our youngsters through this process so that they know and realise who they actually are. I chose to accept Jesus as my model and saviour. This gave me the spiritual connectivity with the past that I needed to establish myself as ‘saint’ whose destination is fixed. However, I still need to locate myself and my cultural identity. So I need to know about my mother and father and grandmother and grandfather so that I can understand where I am coming from. This knowledge gives me hope, a sense of belonging and the responsibility to know that one day I will be passing my baton to my progeny and will be influencing at least the next three generations to come, even though some are not yet born.  So rather than just living for now, let me
live for those who will be around in a hundred years time. Let me construct a story that will convey the essence of who I am and the truths of what I have committed my life to. And so I chose to remember that I am: African-Caribbean, Black, Christian, male, a father, a son, a husband, a brother and someone who carries an enormous amount of potentiality. The Israelite slave community knew who they were and was able to pass this information on from generation to generation until they reached their Promised Land.  Today, let us not forget who were are, and neither whose we are also. Read Deuteronomy 1:11.