Marlon Vickerman, Features Writer

Canon Weeville Gordon (left) leads prayers at the National Leadership Prayer Breakfast 2008 in the presence of Prime Minister Bruce Golding, wife, Lorna Golding, and Robert Pickersgill (right), at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer

The call for unity saturated much of the 28th staging of the annual National Leadership Prayer Breakfast held at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel, New Kingston, yesterday, as main speaker, the Rev. Dr. Roy Notice, pastor of the Mandeville New Testament Church of God, emphatically charged the nation and its leaders to address caste divisions in the country.

Rev. Notice, addressing the gathering, inclusive of Prime Minister Bruce Golding, former Transport and Works Minister, Robert Pickersgill, who represented the Opposition Leader, Governor-General Sir Kenneth Hall, and a host of other government officials and clergymen, said the society would not change for the better until Jamaica embraced the biblical principle of loving one's neighbour as oneself.

"Loving (your) neighbour demands of us as leaders that we engage all our neighbours on the platform of respect and loving regard. We are all neighbours. Our neighbour is the family in Flankers, Montego Bay - even though I am living in Coral Gardens, my neighbour lives at the University of the West Indies, even though I dwell in August Town. We have to merge the two Jamaicans into one neighbourhood. If one community is excluded from the neigh-bourhood, then the whole neighbourhood is under threat," he said. "No matter how much we spruce up the neighbourhood, if the soul of the neighbour is still contaminated by self-hate, self-contempt and the need for vengeance, the neighbourhood will remain dirty and bloody."

Biblical principle

Rev. Notice stated that, going back to biblical principle, which would ultimately heal the nation, would involve Jamaicans listening to their neighbours before they blocked the roads, protested and bellowed the familiar cry of 'We want justice!' Rev. Notice also appealed to leaders to listen, not only when or because the tourism product was threatened, but because the Jamaican neighbourhood was threatened.

The clergyman went further to note that personal greed had captured the hearts of too many in the island, from Parliament to the pulpit.

"We must expose evil, not in order to gain mileage, but because we desire that all in the neighbourhood reap the benefits of the good life. Wherever we see evil and corruption, we must expose it - in the workplace, in the Church, in government, in the security forces, in the judiciary.

In his closing remarks, the fiery, no-nonsense churchman charged the Prime Minister to hold firm to his commitment to work alongside the Church and other agencies to form a national partnership "focusing on the family, emphasising the responsibility of the family, training and strengthening weak family units".

marlon.vickerman@gleanerjm.com