The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I sing our National Anthem quite often, either at an opening to a swim meet or leading our swimmers to sing along with the playing of the National Anthem when we are receiving a medal at an international meet.

But recently I have been thinking more about the words in our National Anthem and the fact that we do not measure up to them as a people.

Do we really want The World to mark the manner of our bearing? If so, we need to change course now!

We are marching away from Glory and from God. If we continue along this present course, in the near future, if God tarries, we will ask ourselves, “Where was our moral courage, and how did we get here?”

There won’t be any need for the world to mark the manner of our bearing.
The old saying is true: “Sow a thought, reap an action, sow an action, reap a habit, sow a habit, reap a character, sow a character, reap a destiny.”

We are as a country, sowing a destiny of criminality, laziness, and hopelessness.

Legalising gambling will hurt all Bahamians. It will hurt families, not heal them.

It will desensitise our work ethic, and lead to hopelessness as disappointment after disappointment sets in every time you lose. A gentleman on one of the radio talk shows today captured the true essence of our destiny when he admitted that he gambled for 30 years, but has now stopped because he lost so much more than he ever gained. It is true when you gamble, you will lose.

You lose financially, spiritually, and emotionally. Everywhere you look we are giving up morals for money. It all reminds me of a statement written by Randy Alcorn in his book “The Purity Principle” that says, “Violating God’s moral standard is like violating the law of gravity, you can’t get away from it”.

We are marching away from glory when we have a top government leader pushing for the acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle.

I don’t want to leave a Bahamas where my grandchildren or great-grandchildren grow up in a society that accepts men marrying men and women marrying women as okay, or where sex between two men or two women is okay because the world endorses such foolishness.

The notion that one’s sexual orientation is as natural as one’s DNA make up, such as the colour of your skin, is as foolish as someone saying I have no control over whether I am a paedophile, philanderer, rapist, thief, or murderer, it’s just the way I’m made up.

Bahamaland we are losing our integrity, we are no longer marching together to a common loftier goal. We say that honesty is the best policy, and that we should pay our taxes, but then we find that those in authority who should be pledging us to excel, are actually destroying the very fabric which lays the foundation for love and unity that we sing about, which is trust.

Instead we set examples of stealing and lying by our leaders, who are not paying their national Insurance, real property tax, or even custom duties.

The road we are treading is not leading to our God, unless our God is Mammon (money).
BahamaLand let’s change our destiny by putting morals over money, and honesty over hypocrisy. Then we can truly see our Bahamaland march on to glory.

ANDY KNOWLES

Olympic Swimmer and Coach

Nassau,

March, 2014.