A Holy Christmas 2015 and a Happy 2016 to All

Re reading some previous blog posts made during some  Christmas times past, one can become pessimistic by the thought that many concerns expressed then as facing humanity are still with us, including for example,  global warming.  The floods affecting large areas of South America as well as Lancashire Yorkshire and Cumbria in the UK  as recently as yesterday, where a months rain fell in 24 hours must surely be caused by changes in the planet's weather, in turn brought on by mankind's dependence on oil.

The salutary  message this Christmas  from the CoE Archbishop of Canterbury, expressing grave concern that ISIl might remove the last vestiges of Christianity from Palestine, where upon  Christ's birth in Bethlehem 2015 years ago, the events of  the Biblical New Testament began, touched  an even  deeper pessimistic note.

And yet - the deep rooted concern and love that most individual members of mankind have for their fellow men and women in distress will not be extinguished. The reports of individual Syrians in that terror stricken land at great personal risk, rescuing prisoners of ISIL; the support for those affected by the floods this month; huge sums generated for charity  each year by individuals in the London Marathon; food banks which  mainly comprise private and charitable  support for UK society's poor; attempts at helping those fleeing  mass murderers  in Syria; more locally, Christmas parties for the lonely; HCPT's annual pilgrimage for 5,000 disabled and able bodied children and young people to Lourdes; the countless numbers of  unrecorded  individual acts of compassion and kindness that occur daily and everywhere in the World and ending this list perhaps on a note of optimism, the consensus reached in Paris  in December 2015 by 195 nations, which  the BBC recorded as:

On Saturday evening - to claps, cheers and tears - a new landmark deal was born.

It was agreed by 195 nations. They will attempt to cut greenhouse gas emissions to a level that will limit the global average temperature to a rise "well below" 2C (3.6F) compared to pre-industrial levels - a level of warming deemed to be the point when dangerous climate change could threaten life on Earth.

Mankind in time does learn.

 Despite the  pensive nature of this post I do hope that everyone who happens upon this blog has  a very happy Christmas and New Year.