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RW DGM' s MESSAGE FOR JANUARY 2009

FLOODS AND FLAMES 
 

      Over the past few weeks we have had cyclones and consequent flooding in our part of the World while in the West of the country, our commercial capital, Mumbai has had to suffer firing and flames.

      Heavily built-up urban areas with population therein matching figures appropriate to whole countries, suffer maximum damage from acts of God – and sadly, also of Men.

      In recent times I have not, alongwith many others had cause to be more depressed than by these events, some totally outside of our control, to which we can only react – with sadness, despair and pity – at the waste of it all.

      Acts of God such as floods are more often caused not by the Almighty Architect but by us Citizens and authorities not observing environmental standards for the evacuation of excess water during the monsoon, or even creating and strengthening storage systems.  Water courses lakes and tanks have been neglected or built over with the consequent flooding of particularly, new neighbourhoods.  So the neglect of Men is laid at the doors of the Almighty who very often is blameless.

      On the other hand, violence can only beget violence and it’s most appropriate at this moment in world history, to return to the exhortations of such men and indeed icons of peace, as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.  Indeed it is also a moment for us in the Masonic brotherhood to remind ourselves of the over-arching superiority of the Moral Law which should take us up and over parochial considerations of revenge. Pouring a tear of sympathy over the misguided practitioner of terror may be a big ask, but let the State and its mechanisms handle these aberrations, while we ordinary citizens go about our lives, observing the decencies of  social behaviour and working for the welfare of our fellow-men.  .  Crisis also provides opportunity to help – find one and give it your all.

      Let us hope that we can leave behind in the calendar year just past, these horrible experiences and look forward to a Happier, Brighter and More Peaceful New Year.  May the GAOTU aid our united endeavours in working towards a better society.