It is not the time of year to tax oneself with too complex or controversial matters. For believers it’s the time of year to reflect on God’s great love for each and every one of us and reciprocate it by loving especially through others. For non believers it has become just another holiday season. That’s perhaps the biggest inflationary exercise ever done. Let me share some random thoughts on diverse subjects.

Salt’s sweet taste

I am not the kind of guy who would attend the Bay Music Awards. The blame lies on my age not on the BMA’s. But I got interested this year because of a student of mine - Gerhardt Camilleri - who attends one of the courses I teach at the Faculty of Theology. He introduced me to SALT, the Christian Power Pop/Rock Band. This year they won the Best Newcomer Award at the BMA. You might remember that I had criticized the Malta Television Awards because they dish out 37 or so Awards. An exaggeration by any reckoning, I guess. The BMAs give only six or seven. That’s a respectable number.
SALT is made up of seven band members; Joe Gauci (pianist/backing vocalist), Janice DeBattista and Louise Ann Bugeja Tate (vocalists), Jude Carabott and David Schembri (guitars), Karl Galea (bass) and Manuel Pace (drums/percussions). These young men and women try to spice up our lives by the fantastic flavour of the Gospel and the medium they use to do this is rock. Their songs are a mixture of personal experiences as well as a voyage through life.

SALT knows their origin to the Youth Fellowship community which is a ministry of the Charismatic movement in Malta. They started up in the sacristy, so to speak, but their professionalism landed them in the piazza. SALT are a very young band and the future is promising. They compose and play very good music which they then compliment with meaningful lyrics.

Gerhardt told me that in December 2006 in SALT teamed up with the highly talented producer/musician Boris Cezek and finally released their much-anticipated debut, ‘Hello Truth’. He described this as “a work that breathes with hard hitting, spiky power-pop anthems such as Want To Be You and delicate, moving ballads such as Take Me and Undivided Heart. Whatever your tastes may be, SALT is one band that will surely add more taste to your life!”

Click into their website (www.saltband.net and www.myspace.com/saltsound) and listen to their beautiful music and read their inspiring lyrics. You won’t regret it.

PS. Since I mentioned the BMAs I cannot not congratulate Ira Losco for her success. She is a colleague in this blog section on timesofmalta.com and a former student of mine. Well done Ira.


Christmas in Bethlehem

My most beautiful Christmas ever was the one I spent in Bethlehem in 1999. I was one of the journalists accompanying President Guido de Marco during a short visit to Palestine on an invitation from Yasser Arafat.

Istill cherish the moments spent in the grotto where Jesus was born. One enters the place through the small door of the Orthodox basilica. You have to bend to get into the church and then have to take a similar position in different parts of the cave. The action is symbolic as much as it is physical. Our Lord shed the glory of His divinity and took over the limitedness of our humanity so that we can now share in the glory of His divinity.

Bethlehem evidences love and hate; wisdom and folly. It shows great love of God and the great folly of humans. The signs of division surround you. The enmity between Jews and Palestinians is still a gaping wound. The division between Christians tarnishes the beauty and the sacredness of the site. The ancient Orthodox basilica and the more recently built Catholic church stand side by side – a monument to our betrayal of what is most basic in our beliefs – love and unity. The Orthodox had forcible driven out the Catholics from the basilica. It fell on the Muslim emperor to bring some form of peaceful arrangement.

More evidence of these two great divides (Jews/Palestinians; Catholic/Orthodox) can be seen in Jerusalem. I visited the other site of the Great Love – the Calvary – and then the ultimate prove of Love’s victory – the empty tomb. You are allowed to spend only a few moments in the tomb but the effect of this last forever. You stand alone in the place where Light vanquished darkness; Love defeated hate and Life won over death.

We are witnesses of all this.

Only the Irish

I received this through an email:

At a U2 concert in Ireland, Bono asks the audience for some quiet.

Then he starts to clap his hands slowly.

Holding the audience in total silence, he says into the microphone...."I want you to think about something. Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies."

Suddenly, a voice from the front of the audience yells out...."Then stop clapping, ya barstard!"

Ah ... Ya gotta love the Irish.

The Golden Compass

The true Golden Compass for humanity is Jesus Christ. He is not just the Compass. He is the way who leads us to the Father. May we all discover that He is madly in love with each and every one of us and reciprocate his love; and not just during Christmas time.

Happy Christmas.

PS. Unless anything of greater interest happens I will next week discuss another so called The Golden Compass – the one being shown in our cinemas.