THE EDITOR: Christmas offers the world a glimpse of what is possible if we were to love and care for each other.

Christmas Day comes just about three days after the northern winter's solstice. The northern winter's solstice this year is December 21 at 2100 hours and 48 minutes. This is when the northern sector of the Earth is at maximum tilt away from the sun. It seems to the onlooker that the sun is at its lowest elevation.

On Christmas Day, however, three days after the sun seems to lie at its lowest elevation, it is seen to rise again. To be reborn. To the ancient onlooker it is a symbol of hope of warmth replacing the coldness of winter as the sun starts on its journey upwards, leading to spring and summer.

Christmas is a period of hope, of indicating what is possible if only we were to celebrate the birth of a celestial entity with hope, with belief in the goodness of man, with giving and sharing, and with love. It is a magical period. It allows us to see our best potential through music, sharing, cleaning, decorating and sharing good tidings of great joy.

Any great scientist, physicist, theologian, doctor or philosopher would find it very difficult to dispute that the Earth, its plants and animals, including man, were put together by a superior being or beings.

The precise nature of everything, like both eyes focusing on an object and allowing for that object to be seen as a single item in a clarity beyond anything available electronically, or the tender design of a flower allowing for the perpetuation of plant life, all indicate a level of intelligence and technology way beyond the understanding of even our most brilliant minds.

Despite our general acceptance that there may be a superior being, we find it difficult to put that possibility into perspective. Being human with our very limited knowledge, we seek to humanise that entity into a person who makes one human superior to another and promises them great wealth on Earth, or perhaps greater wealth after passing on.

Or perhaps a person who rewards us with gifts on Earth or thereafter for worshipping that entity. Such simplistic approaches can be seen by some as simply being human.

Christmas offers a different perspective. It allows us for a short period to see what is possible if we give love instead of sowing seeds of hatred and divisiveness. It allows us a glimpse of the happiness that mankind can experience from giving, sharing, cleaning, singing, loving and embracing each other as children of this great universe.

As we enter this period still struggling with wars, crime, political divisiveness, racial hatred and despair, let us pause for a moment and recognise that if the world were to embrace and expand on the true spirit of Christmas, then our poor would be fed, our families allowed to exist in peace and there would be joy throughout the world.

Merry Christmas all.

STEVE ALVAREZ

via e-mail