In an age when there is no lack of information and when that information can dart about at astonishing speed, it is not surprising that there can be sometimes too much of it and much that average citizens can do little with.

Take as an example the pictures taken at the hanging of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein which appeared in various media all over the world.

And yet with so much information around, people still manage to hold on to it for no good reason – often selfishly – but sometimes out of fear. Information strangely has the power to imprison.

With all the many available vehicles of information, it is still possible in our country of 1.3 million people for persons to be snatched and hidden away for weeks while perpetrators of the crime control what and how information is made public. Information can mean hope but those who hold it can be defiant.

Following 9/11, the New York transportation authority began a campaign with the theme: “If you see something, say something.” It is a call to be vigilant.  The invitation, here at home, to call 555 speaks a similar language. These programmes promote the idea that information shared can save lives.

The care and consolation of God

Information and more information is not, however, the solution to our problems. Information is not knowledge. The question still must be asked: “What does the information, or even the knowledge, mean?”

If Trinidad and Tobago is to grapple with the particular problems it faces at this time, then the leaders of the nation and its people must be able to ask the right questions about all the bad news they receive through the media.

To come to an understanding of the meaning of the high murder rate, ongoing kidnappings and any of the ills which dog our development as a society, it is necessary to ask hard questions about these unwholesome patterns. What do they tell us, what do they mean? The questions must seek after truth.

The search for truth will help us to arrive at meaning. We put off asking these serious questions at our own peril. It is truth alone that will move us from the position in which we found ourselves at the end of 2006.

On this the first Sunday of the year, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, recalling the visit of the wise men to Bethlehem as recorded in St Matthew’s Gospel.

These men set out with the aim of finding the infant king, they went prepared to do him homage and were not distracted by Herod and his court or fooled by his trickery.

They travelled to Bethlehem and in the humbling circumstances of a manger recognised the one whom they had been seeking and the purpose for which they had set out. They experienced the powerful presence of God in the family gathered there.

In 2007, we all must believe in the care and consolation of a God who desires to show himself among people who have been burdened as we have been in our society today. The message of Epiphany is that a diligent search for truth will bring wonderful rewards.

Hidden in the guise of the wise men who come from afar is the good news that our country, and our people, are not beyond the reach of a caring God.