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.
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