Worzel's World - Have a Great Christmas

Phew, we’ve made it through another year – almost. Christmas is nigh and as Groucho Marx noted, time flies like an arrow but fruit flies like a ripe banana. 

Where does the time go? I am not sure, but if you find any significant quantity of it stashed away somewhere, please feel free to send me some. 

When children look back on an old year or forward to a new one, it looks almost as long as eternity. As age mounts though, the perspective alters. A year for me nowadays is but another sip from the teacup of time, which is already more than half empty. 

Life of course comes with no guarantees. If rapture, armageddon or apocalypse does occur on or about December 21 as predicted, we’ve missed completing 2012 by a fortnight. Just in case you’d better read this fast and get your affairs in order. It just may be that no matter how full your cup, teatime’s over and it’s time to get to work.

After all, it’s a big enough miracle that we live at all. If you are reading this column then you are alive and you can see. And although it has not been conclusively proved, there is broad consensus that this is preferable to being dead and blind. Moreover (I’ve always wanted to use that word but felt too embarrassed to do so, but now, I have no shame) the chances are that you live somewhere in the north of New Zealand. 

We have much to be grateful for. Take a look around, isn’t it great? 

Christmas is time when we celebrate life. Christians celebrate the birth of a saving Messiah. Those without faith can still celebrate the birth of the modern era and a calendar that has AD appended to the date. With spring, and the onset of summery days, new life flourishes everywhere in our temperate and fertile land. 

Despite reports of polluted waterways, climate change, species extinction and ecological disaster, around these parts nature thrives. It’s a job of work keeping the foliage at bay, lambs frolic, cows bring calves into the world and give milk for another season, Hochstetter’s frog keeps battling on in the bush, there is still a few fairy terns and petrels left. The increased price paid for fur has led to the best kicking the possums have taken for a long while. And if there is no longer ‘plenty more fish in the sea’ there is, off our portion of coast, at least still quite a lot. 

We have much to be grateful for. The quality and freshness of our food is second to none. If all our water is not as pristine as yesteryear, it is still potable. It will not cause illness from harmful bacteria nor poison you with toxic chemicals. The air, even in the cities, is breathable and in the bush or on the briny can even be described as fresh. We have timber enough to build the best of shelters, and sufficient firewood and wool to keep us warm. These are the basic necessities of life; the rest is only sauce on the sausage. 

We have much to be grateful for. We have plentiful resources and a sparse population. Our nation is large enough to gain respect as a country but not large enough to pose a threat to anyone. Hardly anyone hates us and the Pacific Ocean is a big enough barrier to discourage any that do from shooting at us. We have access to every advantage of modern technological innovation but remain in the remarkable and enviable position of still being able to avoid many of its pitfalls. But it’s not about having advantages, it’s what we do with them that counts.

New Zealand, Aotearoa, Godzone, ‘these shaky isles’ – a great land, it deserves a great people, yet I think it a great pity that we who by great good fortune live in such a great country have somehow failed to give it the great respect that it deserves. 

We can see the consequences of political, social, economic, and industrial systems elsewhere. Will we follow the failed lead of others? Or do we have the greatness to do it differently? With all our natural advantages can New Zealand and New Zealanders pull together and get it done, regardless of what ‘it’ is. If we cannot, then there is bugger-all hope for anywhere else. 

This Christmas I will have ham on my plate and beer in my glass, I will spend a little time with friends and family, I will have access to a comfortable dry bed and shelter should I require it – which, in a Northland summer, I may not. Should I get the urge, I can walk in the bush or swim in the sea, read a book in the sunshine, go fishing, ride a horse or raft a river. I could – and may even – do a bit of productive work. These are luxuries that wealth cannot guarantee; they are denied most people of the world, even those with power and position. 

We have much to be grateful for. Have a Great Christmas. 

prof_worzel@hotmail.com