Dawn, love, many thanks for reading and for responding. This dynamic, this process is precious, is priceless. My thanks to Cecil as well, for visiting and reacting and for translating that reaction into words.

Debate must order our new day and must order a new world. What I wrote is rather stream of consciousness and might mislead as it might not be entirely clear. And what I'm writing here might be more of the same.

Forgive me therefore if this is so. I am most definitely not advocating the modus operandi of those protesters though events throughout history and the world over have taught them well and reinforce their process of protest.

Christ crucified though is antithetical to all these and is the most revolutionary as well as the most efficacious change-bringing act in the history of our species - to my knowledge, I must add. Anything less therefore, is to my mind impure and ineffective.

My spotlight therefore was not at all on their behavior or misbehavior. All that I wrote was instead an attempt to assess Perry Christie's heart - and only because I consider him a good man - an extremely moral person.

My suggestion is that his notion - his sensitivity is entirely correct only that very same sensitivity and protectiveness, rightly placed, for his wife, himself and his children must, as prime minister, extend to the whole Bahamian family - every Bahamian home and those therein, must be as sacrosanct as his own. The love I here invite, is the love of Christ who weeps over Bethlehem.

If not our prime minister, who is to care for one and all? There are those who suggest only God but he must have representatives here on earth.

My article attempts to commend our P.M. but to invite him to multiply his deep affection for family to include the families of the 300,000-plus Bahamians. My own love-exercise is a much larger one. My attempt is to include the entire six-plus billion of out species in my heart at once as I am convinced that all of us, excluding no one, is the holy family and every square inch of earth, excluding nowhere, is holy ground.

Is this any clearer? I am an advocate of love and nothing less. Love looks far ahead - sees far and wide to umbrella those resting upon its palms for care - like eggs so very delicate in nests - with leaves for shade beneath a mother's breast - in the crotch of limbs of a tree growing from an earth whirling a-thousand-miles-an-hour.

Love oversees all this and protects us. I would not wish to be in a thing - call it nation or whatever, if who runs it is not wise enough or does not love enough to guarantee a certain degree of safety and wellbeing.

Dawn, apart from your misunderstanding what my essay was an attempt to debate, I must disagree with you. That accident is not to be excused as belonging to natural disaster. It should never have happened. That ship with those persons should never have left the harbor - like so many other things happening in our so called nation, which should be disallowed - often allowed because some one is paid off or because someone knows or is related to someone. Such occurrences indicate that our governments are either impotent or irresponsible and we must look elsewhere for leadership or leave home like Haitians who suggest that their overcrowded sloops offer more hope, more safety than Haiti, their country offers.

Nation is a place of law and order. Though not as dysfunctional as Haiti, there is too much jungle allowed in our Bahamas, and that it is allow more and more to spread, is frightening to me and is criminal on the part of those whose job it is to organize and to run this society with its small population and its many islands.

Again I've opened this debate, like thighs, too wide to close them, to conclude here. We'll need another ten hour conversation - concluding some morning just before dawn.

No, Mr. Prime Minister. I say, “No!” to what you said and didn’t know you said.

But what is true for Adam, your other children, your wife and you, must be true, not just for y’all, not just for your family, it must be true for the Bahamian family – for this entire country of which you’re Prime Minister. We must all have that right you described – to the Good Life – to life away from nightmare.

This is what Gandhi advocated for India. This is what Christ and what I advocate for mankind – something in which we can all participate fully and equally. You are elitist otherwise as people with education, with affluence are usually inclined to be. Deceived, they see themselves among those who have. The rest of us are among the have-nots – the unfortunate – the misbegotten – les damnés de la terre – the wretched of the earth.

We though are all cells of one body, literally – as body politic implies and means figuratively. But this is how it is. Individuals and families, like prisoners, all live in cells. This though is true for prime minister – church minister – bank manager. We all live in cells. But these are all cells of one body – the body that’s nation or the body that’s mankind. We all belong to one species. Place these cells in a single organism of this species and we see the dynamics in the species clearly.

Cut your toe or cut your finger; bite your lip or tongue; slip and fall or buck your toe; catch a cold or eat something which results in stomach upset or diarrhea and the entire system’s out of whack.

This is where you must exist as Prime Minister or as the lowliest person – as this is what it means to be human. Could you possibly promote or advocate for your body or in your body – well cells and sick cells – rich cells and poor cells? Whether that cell is in the brain or in the bladder or in the spleen (wherever that is), it is equally significant to the wellbeing of the body – of the body politic or to the family of man.

This is Christ’s message. This is truth and cannot be made or made to become false in our present dispensation. We are not now living in heaven and hell though many imagine we are.

What happened on that ship to persons off to an excursion was hell, Mr. Prime Minister. It was hell and it was The Bahamas – our Bahamas – your Bahamas. But that is where some in The Bahamas live 24/7 – in hell and that should not be, especially not in such a small country.

But there are those – you and I among them – who want heaven for ourselves and so what if others catchin’ hell. Let them catch hell eternally – is the attitude of some of us but here and now – here on earth – we want our bit of heaven for ourselves and for our families.

When one cell though is sick, the entire body is unwell. When one person’s in prison or on an unsafe – uninsured ship – just as we were once in misery in holds of ships – the entire body suffers – in spite of our buffers – in spite of our imagined comfort zones. Asses in vehicles with their music loud come to mind, imagining they’ve enclosed themselves – imagining they’re encased in a bubble – traumatizing whoever is on the other side of their wall of music.

The cells of our bodies like the cells we live in – as family or as individual – are encased in what are not cases at all. Cells in our bodies as well as we ourselves, are walled in semi-permeable membrane. Osmosis is without end occurring. And osmosis is the process by which a weaker solution passes through a semi-permeable membrane into a stronger solution. Equilibrium is what is sought as well as promoted in nature – in an amoeba in a pond – in the human body – in society – in the human family – in creation because as large as creation is, it is one thing. It has one God who spoke it into being and who sustains it.

We, Mr. Prime Minister are his agents or are we? Some are paid to be. All are called to be – to create harmony. Is this not what music is – a fitting together of sound?

We in society, Sir, must fit together – must sit together. Not some high and some low. Not some on cushions – some on fire – some on ice. We all want and deserve what’s nice. Some arm themselves with education. Others arm themselves with knives, others with guns. Some arm themselves with peace, others with war; some with honesty others with trickery and with lies. But the wellbeing of the entire body is what each cell must desire just as must every member of society.

A Prime Minister as well as other such leaders must set the example – must promote this spirit. I know Perry Christie has been called. I know you’re on your way. The hand of mercy upon you – upon us – invites you – invites us to extend our hands in mercy – to rest them upon all the suffering.

We need more love in our land and on earth – more wellness – more harmony. Everyone and every family, deserves that zone – that sense of wellbeing you claim for you and yours.

Who, this instant among us is without it? Who in our country at this present moment has something extremely dangerous hanging, hovering over their heads which might, any instant, fall upon them – upon their babies - upon their loved ones to maim them for life or kill them? Wherever this might be so is your concern – is my concern. 6:17 a.m.

Obediah Michael Smith
Saturday, December 23, 2006