Dear Editor,

It is strange that only about a week ago I had occasion to stand and listen to our national anthem being sung and I thought, “How beautiful.” I’ll make two points about the composition.

I am no musician but I easily feel the movement in the music; I certainly feel how it increases in intensity as it moves to a resounding crescendo, which is what you want to do with a national anthem – inspire.

Second, the writer of the letter, “Ditch the national anthem”, in the Observer of December 3, seems to be in the minority where appreciating the anthem is concerned.

Let’s take a trip back to 1997. The Reggae Boyz are on the verge of qualifying for World Cup Football in France. This is a critical game at the office, and the National Anthem is being sung. Listen to the people respond to the music, not prompted, not trained, not coached; observe how in concert they respond at specific points of the anthem. I rest my case.

Writer Michael Dingwall may, however, have a point where the God element is concerned, for I do not know that anyone can empirically prove God. The Bible itself says that without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith is the absence of empirical evidence, albeit that the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. Any kind of confirmation is, at best, personal. The proof of God’s existence comes by personal experience, and often occurs in the answer to our prayers. That has been my undeniable experience. But let’s take closer at prayer, what is and what isn’t.

Outside of eliciting a miraculous intervention from God, where there is little for the petitioner to do, outside of praying, prayer is a very action-oriented exercise. For you see, prayer doesn’t change God – it changes us. It aligns us with the very things we pray for. It focuses our minds on the issues that concern us. Prayer is very specific, and as we make these specific requests of God we soon discover that we have actually stumbled upon the solutions to our challenges. What prayer then does is that it solidifies our resolve to pursuing that desired outcome in cooperation with God. So then prayer becomes a way of life, not the mere utterance of rhetoric. Of course, one could say that they could find solutions without prayer, and that is true, but then there are those days when you need a special miracle, and prayer is all you have recourse to.

Therefore, if we could align ourselves to the national anthem we’d soon find Jamaica would once again become a beautiful place to live. The pursuit of God through prayer is a life-changing experience. Let us pray.

Charles Evans

Corporate Comminucations

Northern Caribbean University

charles.evans@ncu.edu.jm