Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me!

On two different times and two different worlds

OUR grandson Tomos is eight and growing fast! Coincidentally his birthday is the same date as my mother Myfanwy. Both were born on November 21, my mother in 1911 and Tom in 2013, more than 100 years apart. What different worlds they entered!

In 1911 Marconi received the first radio signal from Italy and the British Empire which had colonised twothirds of the world still held sway. Britain was the industrial hub of the world and its worldwide influence was at its height. In August of 1911, Llanelli would make world headlines when two young men were shot and killed by the military at the height of the Llanelli riots which alienated the town from royal and national patronage for many years. In 1911 the only climatic concerns would have been be any sudden change in the weather, a tablet was nothing but a remedy for illness and if a schoolchild was asked what sound a mouse made the answer certainly would not have been ‘click’!

Tom and his contemporaries have lived their short lives in a world where climate change is no longer a matter of debate but of scientific fact and will have little recollection of life before the devastating effects of Covid-19.

Two different times and two different worlds.

Looking back, our parents and grandparents endured the hardship and turmoil of two World Wars yet never lost the optimism and hope of better days to come. They believed the Biblical truth of a time for every season under heaven and that God in his unchanging love would always be part of those times both good and bad. This season of pandemic has brought us to the edge of catastrophe and yet within us there is the Godgiven gift of hope that eventually it will pass.

There are issues which need to be addressed for the sake of Tomos’s generation and all who will follow. How slow we are in following the command to love God and our neighbour and enacting the love and example of Jesus which always breaks down barriers of hostility and hatred.

My mother and grandson never met but are of the same family – we too are of the family of God, made in his image and created as the Bible says to do ‘good works’. Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me! Happy birthday Tomos!