...FOR A HEALTHY FUTURE [click for audio]

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About seventeen years ago something for which many people and I had prayed for several years came to pass within the space of about two weeks. I remember being so absorbed and excited about it one day that when I drove down the road and stopped at the traffic lights showing red, their turning to green meant absolutely nothing to me. After what was probably about 20 seconds I realised I should move off (traffic was lighter in those days).

Clearly there was (and is) a distinction to be made between a red and a green traffic light. One tells you to stop and the other tells you to go. For several seconds because of my excitement at that time I was unable to discriminate between them. If I had not recollected myself, my loss of discrimination would have caused annoyance and perhaps even an accident.

It is therefore very puzzling to hear people, even some very highly educated and highly positioned people, keep saying, "Discrimination is always wrong." What can this possibly mean? Certainly one must concede that human beings often do discriminate wrongly. Sometimes we get it wrong by considering or assuming things to be different, that are essentially the same. Indeed, such wrongful discrimination has been, and still can be, very hurtful, when it is applied to human beings and our behaviour.

But of course, that is not at all the whole story. The greater part of the issue is how we could possibly live, day by day, without discriminating. As already noted, there is no person who drives a vehicle without mishap who does not discriminate at a traffic light. As a frequent driver, I wish that we drivers would be much more discriminating when we drive on roads that have speed limit signs, and wonder how it is that so many of us can be so negligent and undiscriminating. Have we never worked it out that our own individual neglect to observe speed limits contributes to the driver culture that kills people year by year?

What about the court room? Is it not the chief business of a criminal court to exercise a just discrimination between guilt and innocence? What about the school room? Do teachers tell their students not to discriminate between right and wrong, elegance and coarseness, the true and the false? I truly hope not!

For, as it is so rightly said, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." Yet without the power to discriminate, who could distinguish the light from the darkness?