Ending and beginning

NOW that we are again ending a year and beginning a new one, we have to remember that the event is not simply a matter of changing the calendar. We have to see the bigger picture. We should not be economical with the truth involved.

This ending-and-beginning routine strongly reminds us of the value of time, of its relation to eternity, of the kind of being we all are. These are the kind of truths—ultimate, some people call them—that seem dead and buried, victims of our daily grind of earthly and temporal concerns.

We need to resurrect them once in a while. In fact we need to have an abiding sense of them, as vividly as possible, for they play the crucial role of giving shape and direction to our life. They are like the rudder in a ship, unseen, insignificant in size, but completely indispensable.

Have you been in a rudderless boat? I once was. It was in a voyage from Manila to Cebu many years ago. I will not mention names, I will seal my lips until kingdom come, since it’s not public knowledge as of now, but at one point the captain realized the rudder fell off.

It was a nightmare for all of us, the passengers. A very messy operation of being towed and transferred in the middle of the sea to another boat got me praying like it was my last. I conditioned myself to have an early watery grave.

The New Year should bring us to considering more deeply, more seriously, questions like where did we come from, where are we going, and who and what really are we?

We cannot remain in the state of ignorance nor bound to the externals, the peripherals and the surficial. We need to touch base with the essential and even the eternal. We quite know we are not just material beings, nor purely social and economic creatures. Much less are we merely political animals.

There’s a lot more to us than meets the eye. Since we can think, reason out, plan, talk and communicate, since we can choose, love and be free and responsible, there must be something spiritual in us.

This is because we do things beyond the material natural laws of physics, chemistry and biology. We are governed more by moral law that recognizes our spiritual dimension and, in fact, our supernatural goal.

We are material, yes, but we are not supposed to be stuck in that dimension alone. And if we look more closely into our spiritual side, we realize that we are not just left in a kind of void for us to fill up in any way we want, nor in an infinite space for us to cruise in any direction we like to take.

Somehow deep in our heart, something tells us that all this infinity we are exposed to must have a beginning, purpose and meaning. It must have a creator. It’s hard to conclude that these things just came to exist spontaneously, since from nothing, nothing can come out.

This is where we can entertain the possibility of a God, completely supernatural. We somehow feel he’s around, but we cannot reach him, much less see him, precisely because he is supernatural.

This is where we can get entangled with our doubts and uncertainties. We can say that our mind is just playing tricks on us. But even that option cannot banish the doubts. It cannot dispel the darkness in our mind that will always try to penetrate that infinite space.

It’s just hoped that at this point we realize the need we have of the gift of faith, something given to us in a gratuitous way that strengthens, purifies and directs our spiritual powers, so they can run home and avoid getting lost in the infinite void.

That’s why religions rose over the years in different cultures and civilizations. The distinction of the Christian faith is that it is based on a revelation, a historical event that captures a supernatural phenomenon.

We don’t have space to discuss this point at length now. But the important thing to remember is that the New Year is supposed to bring us to back to the basics, so we don’t get lost in our daily activities, doing many and even great things that in the end will just be dust in the wind.

We need to develop the appropriate attitudes, skill and habits so we can have a rudder in our voyage through the vast ocean of life.