Caribbean Moravian Devotions

When I lived in Trinidad in the early 1990’s Trinidad’s top designer Peter Minshall decided that year that he would give his carnival a name with just one word. So in 1995, Minshall named his carnival band HALLELUJAH! For weeks, Christians and Muslims alike voiced their disapproval of the word HALLELUJAH being associated with the playing mas’ at carnival. As a young pastor, though I understood the various viewpoints that were being made, I decided to withhold my judgment until the day in question when I could see what artistic concepts Peter Minshall had come up with that would merit using the word which is usually associated with praising God. So you want to know what happened on those carnival days? When I saw on my television the resplendent, kaleidoscopic blend of every imaginable color that Mishall had created against this lily white material in the midst of a cloudless, sunny Caribbean day crossing the stage at the Savannah, there was only one word that came out of my mouth. Can you guess what it was? HALLELUJAH! I wasn’t praising Mishall and his creativity. I was praising God for the beauty of God’s creation. So for our FF for today I invite all of us to adopt a bold attitude that is captured in a short chorus that begins HALLELUJAH ANYHOW! That’s today’s FF – HALLELUJAH ANYHOW!

Whether Mishall and those playing mas’ with him might have been engaging in blasphemy is not for me to decide. But as I reflected today on what unfolded nearly 20 years ago, I’ve learnt just how important it is to be able to praise God, no matter what. And that’s what HALLEULUJAH ANYHOW means to me. The ANYHOW serves as a reminder that we do not praise God with our HALLELUJAHS because everything is going as planned. The ANYHOW points to our being intentional in praising God! HALLELUJAH comes out from our lips because of who God is. It is a response to the grandeur and awesome majesty of God that is revealed to us. And because the focus is on God and remains on God then we decide to praise God anyway. It’s us being able to shout HALLELUJAH in bad times as well as in good. ANYHOW means that HALLELUJAH is still heard coming from us whether we are up or down. That is not always so easy because we tend to find it so much easier to utter our HALLELUJAHS not necessarily as a response to who God is but instead as a response to what God has done – especially the favorable things! But HALLELUJAH ANYHOW removes any limitation on when or for that matter how we praise God.

So, today the word of encouragement for us today is to look beyond the current state of affairs. DonÂ’t allow ourselves to determine that the conditions in life must be perfect or near perfect for us to shout HALLELUJAH. Instead might we adopt an ANYHOW attitude! Empty or full, itÂ’s still HALLELUJAH ANYHOW! Bitter or sweet, itÂ’s still HALLELUJAH ANYHOW! Yes or no, itÂ’s still HALLELUJAH ANYHOW! I believe thatÂ’s the message of Daniel even as he was faced with the prospect of becoming food for lions. And so too for the 3 Hebrew young men who refused to bow to King NebuchadnezzarÂ’s golden statue. They could boldly declare to the king that even if God doesnÂ’t deliver them they were still going to give God their HALLELUJAH right there in the furnace (Daniel 3). So I encourage you to make this day and this moment a HALLELUJAH ANYHOW time. Regardless of how things are going or not going, itÂ’s HALLELUJAH ANYHOW!

Mikie Roberts (Rev)

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