In Trinidad and Tobago, as with so many other parts of the world, the status of children’s education, other people’s safety, and the rights and dignity of communities are being informed by people who couldn’t be arsed to develop a thoughtful, Compassionate and informed opinion. Instead, the power to shape what kind of world we all grow up and live in rests almost entirely in the hands of groups of people moved by their own frightful imaginations, drawing real weapons at hallucinations, and more than willing to shoot into the real people that lie behind their falsehoods. Or perhaps worse - some people’s ability to live a safe, dignified life in the world we share depends on the decisions of people who are just straight-up lying. Lying about their hatred, lying about their love, lying about their care and their faithfulness and even their anger. For them, this deceit is not a sin but rather the key to salvation, the virtue they willingly wield against those who would speak and live their harmless truth in the open.

As a theatre director, poet and writer , I’ve come to learn a thing or two about suspending disbelief. After all, my job kinda depends on it. What folks might not know, though, is that my experience in that particular aspect of theatre actually predates me ever setting foot near a stage. It was, in fact, the first time I decided to stop stepping foot in church. And today, after reading an…interesting article by local Christian writer Akilah Holder, I’m reminded of all of those feelings.