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From the Dean.... |
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“I am MAD” “We are MAD also”
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| MAD stands for
‘Making A Difference’
and that is what we intend doing
for the foreseeable future. We intend to be openly,
unselfconsciously and demonstrably M.A.D. If there is one thing about life in Bahrain that infuriates me it is the relatively trivial (on the surface) matter of having plastic carrier bags ‘thrown’ at me at the super market checkout, by young men who insist on packing the shopping. Personally I prefer to pack my own shopping, but that is obviously not the case for everyone where some need help for practical reasons. I do object to the way so few items are unnecessarily put in each carrier bag, sometimes one item per bag (packaging in packaging). I am told all this plastic could take over 500 years to degrade and the more we use, the more we pollute the environment. Someone recently quipped that the national flower of Saudi Arabia (and Bahrain and UAE and…) is the good old ubiquitous plastic carrier bag. It thrives prolifically in the desert and apparently in the sea where it pollutes the ocean. This, along with other manifestations of environmental vandalism, must stop. It will probably require a whole change of mind set before it does cease, but nothing will happen unless individuals help to change the culture. Those individuals are ‘us’. We must Make A Difference to urge governments and industries and eventually whole nations to change their attitude to the way we care for the delicate balance of nature for which we have been given the stewardship by Almighty God. Various groups, including the cathedral, are exploring the provision and urging the use of biodegradable shopping bags, but that must just be the beginning. It may not be orthodox Christian theology (but who cares!) to state that the one person in the whole of human history who was supremely MAD was Jesus Himself. Here was God, himself the creator, coming into the world and Making A Difference. This is the essence of the message of Christmas…’God in Christ reconciling the world to himself.’ (2 Corinthians 5:19). Isn’t it time we got behind the tinsel, trimmings and trivia of Christmas and took to heart the real implications of the child in the manger who is a sign of the fragile but profoundly precious nature of the gift God has entrusted to us? This Christmas resolve to start to be M A D, making a real difference to the world in which you live, in as many ways as you can and encourage others to follow your example. In this way we shall each be making a small contribution towards handing to future generations the world as God intended it, not as we have profaned it. We wish you and yours a very happy, peaceful and blessed Christmas. Alan Hayday |
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