God’s blessings
When we were kids my sister and I would stuff some sacks with straw and make a crude ‘‘guy’’ that we would load into a wheel barrow and go about the neighbourhood on November 4 chanting . . . ‘‘Christmas is coming and the geese are getting fat, please put a penny in the old man’s hat. If you haven’t got a penny a ha’ penny will do. And if you haven’t got a Ha’penny then God bless you.’’
We all, it seems, think, rich food, (maybe not geese) and drink and partying is the essence of Christmas. And yes we dust off our ‘‘pennys’’ to buy presents that sometimes we can ill afford. But the ‘God bless you’ bit?
The Christmas story infiltrates the minds of billions across the globe and manifests itself in many and varied ways. Coloured lights on homes, white bearded men dressed in red in shopping malls, pilgrims visiting Bethlehem, revellers drinking into the night.
The bible’s account of the events is crazy. A baby born in poverty, amongst smelly animals, gifts from the rich, hatred from the religious, stars that align, many comprising songs of wonder and awe, claims of Jesus being God’s son.
Jesus, in his adult life warns us of the consequences of following a selfish nature and our ending up in a mess individually and collectively. 2017 has brought us to the brink . . . a crisis of the survival of the planet. World leaders weapon up, hatred has no borders and the United Nations goes into another crisis meeting reduced by self-interest to a mere talk fest.
Christmas reminds me that as long as we have a heartbeat we have an invitation. That being, to take both hands, the light and the life of the living God, offered to us, and live the adventure in the years ahead in a way we never could have contemplated. God’s blessing on you, and through you.
Peter Yarrell
Waikawa letters by Jan Kerr and Judy
Shone ( Express, December 20) as regards the siltation of the Marlborough Sounds in particular the inner Sounds of Pelorus, the Mahau and Kenepuru Pelorus Sound.
The crisis has been evident for several years now. The main causes are so obvious, i.e. over-allocation of aquaculture ranging from salmon farms for a foreign-owned company and excessive and still increasing numbers of mussel farms plus siltladen run-off from wholesale clear felling of forestry.
The aquaculture that is in shallow low tidal areas of the sound do not have the flow for distribution of waste (faecal ) that these farms generate. This waste converts the seabed under and adjacent into toxic wastelands that no marine life can live in needed to create a healthy ecology.
The fact is that any ecosystem has a finite carrying capacity and we have reached the tipping point into the life or death of parts of our beautiful Marlborough sounds. This basic fact seems to escape council.
Councillor and chairman of the environment committee David Oddie lauds the proposed study.
But in 2010, Oddie said ‘‘a coordinated management plan was needed for the Marlborough Sounds, from d’Urville Island to Port Underwood, which protects the Sounds’ unique qualities for future generations’’.
This all sounds great for votes, but that was seven years ago, add another three for the study, a couple more to set up a committee and well over 10 years will have elapsed.
Another three years for a study on top of work that’s been done, is very arguably tantamount to procrastination.
Meanwhile the Sounds habitat will get a further three years of smothering by aquaculture gunk and silt.
I continue to dive and examine the buildup of silt and waste. It is horrifying. In my opinion, procrastination and further dithering is irresponsible.
Peter Watson
President Marlborough Recreational Fishers Assn.,