We’re staying with our Sri Lankan family in Aberdeen right now. It is very sobering to hear about the corrupt government in their homeland, and the way it is effecting large swathes of the population in terms of the very basics of life needs right now.

Things are worse than when we visited last year. And Sri Lanka is a country that has all the resources it needs for everybody to live well.

The history and conditions of our nations and communities, including our own, go backwards as well as forwards. It is so easy to think that our present comforts are a given. But they aren’t.

And it is so easy to think that the changes that occur, for better or worse, are out of our hands. They aren’t. We might not be able to have a big effect. On anything. But we do have an effect.

I hope we, I hope that I, can have a good effect today., small and seemingly insignificant though our actions be. They won’t feed the world, or bring world peace. But they will always count for something, even if that effect cannot be measured.

Having this freedom to be able to act in a way that benefits the wider world, somebody other than just ourselves, albeit in a small way, is a great privilege in itself.

And as this year we call Two Thousand And Twenty Three comes to a close, we can be grateful for that privilege, and resolve not to abuse it in the year to come.