The Christian community will observe Ash Wednesday tomorrow, marking the commencement of the Lenten Season that culminates with that all-important festival in the Christmas calendar, Easter.

Shortly, our Muslim brothers and sisters will celebrate Youman Nabi, and the very next day will be the Hindu festival of Phagwah, the spring festival in which devotees sprinkle each other with bright coloured abeer, symbolic of the rich colours of spring and symbolising new life and new beginnings.

This splendid commingling of national and religious happenings, the multicultural and diverse threads that make up the weave of our uniquely Guyanese social fabric, all come together at this time of year, and we rise to the occasion with joy and thanksgiving, forgetting the acrimonies of government and opposition and crime and all those things which will probably be with us for all time, for a while secure in the knowledge that the one in whom we have our being will see us through, moving us relentlessly to the light at the end of the tunnel.

Yes, the churches and temples and mosques that dot the cityscape and other communities across the length and breadth of our beloved country testify to the faith of our people, a faith that sees us through the many trials that come our way, allowing us a resilience and strength and determination to rise above it all and come out victorious.

Let the economic downturn do its worse. We are told by the economic wallahs that it will not go away soon, that the effects will filter down to this part of the world.

But so what! We have gone through more trying times than could be expected from what is coming.

And like the mythical phoenix, we always rise from the ashes with a greater determination to succeed.

As we go back to our jobs today, with the excitement of yesterday’s Mash fever still burning in our hearts, let us look forward to the religious festivals coming up smartly, and let us determine, each one of us, to follow closely the tenets of our religion, whichever one it might be, and vow to obey those commandments common to all of them, the commandments that urge us to love our fellowmen and to work relentlessly for the good of all.