Christmas for me this year was not a merry one, I could not in all consciousness enjoy the celebration of the birth of Jesus as I have in the past.

Everything I have ever believed in was sullied by the horror in the Holy Land with some of the participants apparently being God’s chosen ones, a message relayed in the bible.

There can be no justification in the murder of children by anyone, the very thought an abomination to a Christian mind.

The atrocities perpetrated upon millions of Jewish people in the second world war horrified the whole world and rightly so.

It seems that the message of peace and reconciliation has become lost and history may not be as forgiving to those who lose their credibility by inflicting the suffering on others today as they endured in the past.

There is one thought that lingers in my mind, if you constantly poke a stick at a chained up dog you will risk sending it mad and if it bites you, you will only have yourself to blame.