Ancestry.com would start a revolution in Belize. Imagine a gathering in Government House on 21st September 2020 after each person in one room is handed a report stating that everyone there is descended from a king from all over the world. The room would explode with shouts of universal jubilation, except if my grandson Matthew is in that gathering.

Last week Monday he and his sister Mariette visited while I was having breakfast.

Mariette: “It would be nice to have Ancestry trace our lineage!”

Matthew: “…Ya, if you don’t know yourself and have no self-assurance of your identity!”

Grandpa: “Actually you two guys descended from Brodhurst, might find out that way down this line, you are cousins to Shakespeare, one hundred generations removed.”

I don’t think I would qualify, my name being what it is. I might be tempted to claim ancestry from Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote. But I’ll never know by way of Ancestry.com. However, I might be able to claim some kinship to King David of Bible fame. Walking back to my hotel one morning in Puerto Rico, a Mexican Ombudsman, asked my maternal family name….

My answer: “Baron”. His response: “The Barons of Cozumel are Jews.”

So, there you go, Mariette and Matthew. You may be able to claim nobility easier than you think. For some people it may arise from a need to claim superiority by race, while with an ever-swelling tide of humans there is emerging a sense of the true nobility of man, of woman — descending from above. This sense would arise even from politicians.

Monday last week on Love I heard Hon. John Saldivar laying out his vision of what a Corona-recovered Belize would need to regain its lost economic space. I’ll tell you what my immediate, instinctive reaction was: “Sir, you must have a lot of money stashed away. Take half of it and yield it to the public coffers. You have done no crime in Belize, as far as I know. On the other hand, which one of us does not have a history? Restitution may be a salutary act here and now and for the hereafter.”

Reader, please understand that I am commenting from a place within myself where our Belize Constitution has its true meaning. It is the only political one that declares man to be what he truly is. There is no other that clearly, concisely declares to me what the nature of the human being truly is.

To Mr. Saldivar, the corporal, physical facts of man, Belizean man’s being must be the political leader’s first and most important concern. If he is presuming that we know nothing about the human’s spiritual self, then he must open the cover of the Belize Constitution. It tells him clearly what the true nature of Belizean man is. I emphasize the fact and truth that we are body and soul.

It must be noted that the Annual Report is addressed to the President and the Speaker of the House as the primary officials of Belize’s National Assembly. Allow me to point out that the President of the Senate, nor the Speaker, nor the Prime Minister, nor the Leader of the Opposition, nor the Chief Justice contradicted the Ombudsman.

So, aspirants John Briceño, Cordel Hyde, Julius Espat, John Saldivar, Tracey Panton, I address you respectfully suggesting that in Belize at this time when many of us seem to be more focused on trivia than on lasting spiritual values, we need leaders who point us the way to the Judeo-Christian values expressed in our Preamble.

In the Postscript of this article, I shall try to fit in article (a) of our Constitution, for it convincingly tells me the truth of my identity and yours.

There is nothing common about human beings, for we are made in the image and likeness of Almighty God.

Listen attentively to what God Almighty tells us about ourselves, for the Psalmist in 139 says: “Truly you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb, I give thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made!”

Tell me of your marvelous ancestry; I’ll tell you of mine. The ancestry of every human being, no matter where you came from: 70 thousand years ago Homo Sapiens started spreading across the globe with the guiding finger of what we have become — one people, lovely children of God!

Postscript

Is the convention to be on 12 July?

Proposed is a quartet of mediocrity.

This should not tell you that the other side is preferred.

They too represent mediocrity, for though smart, they deliberately choose it over excellence.

If you want to lead, you must choose excellence, not mediocrity. If you want to lead merely to benefit self and/or relatives, you are choosing mediocrity.