Chill it, please!

NOW with all the heat of passion and temper building up in the impeachment proceedings, we need to remind ourselves to be moderate, sober, restrained. In fact, we need to remind ourselves that more than talking and blabbering our views, we need to pray.

Appeals to fairness, rule of law, human rights, equal protection and many other legal, political and social concepts that are now bandied about by our so-called leading lights would amount to nothing, would even become fuel for more conflagration, if we just allow our emotions and passions, and our partisan politicking to dominate.

Common sense would dictate this, even without having to plead for the generic cause of humanity and Christianity. Those directly involved in the case—the prosecution, the respondent and the defense, the senator judges, the president, etc.—should heed this call seriously.

Obviously, the people in general, too. We don’t want mob rule to take over. We have learned enough bitter lessons of our People Power that has degenerated from its original albeit imperfect version. Precisely its imperfections seem to be more fertile than its perfections, since the former have multiplied more than the latter.

There are now moves even by so-called respectable men to flout the basic standards of decency and fairness by recommending illegal and immoral means to ferret out the truth. “The issue of authenticity was no longer relevant to the trial,” one honorable congressman said. Are we going back to life in the jungles? Does any end now justify any means? Unbelievable!

We need to think and weigh things slowly and thoroughly, listening to both sides, always rectifying our intentions, and employing legitimate and ethical means in pursuing our positions.

Courtesy should always be observed, passing over minor, irritating details, while earnestly working toward what would really serve the common good, something that we have to re-assess many times along the way given our human condition.

And our words, our tongue! How important that we have a good, firm grip on them, for as St. James said, “the tongue is a little member and boasts of great things.” (3,5) We have to be most wary of a loose tongue. It only means trouble, unnecessary trouble.

Most importantly, we should be ready to forgive and forget, and just move on, repairing what needs to be repaired, but never wavering from our focus on the goals we need to reach.

Just look at the example of Christ with regard to the woman caught in flagrante in adultery, the repentant thief crucified with our Lord, our Lord fraternizing with sinners, etc. Our problem is that we often consider these examples irrelevant in our political life. We prefer to burn in our own anger and vengeance-prone sense of justice.

We should not dwell too long in the past. We have to look forward to the future. And it’s childish to hostage the whole nation by considering the impeachment of an official indispensable for national progress. Tell it to the Marines! There are many ways to skin a cat. We don’t have to resort to crazy ploys.

It’s really a question of the heart, of where our heart is engaged, and what condition it is in. Is it with God, trying to conform itself to God’s laws, or is it only functioning by our human ways, easily held captive by our emotions and passions, our biases and prejudices?

We have to be most careful with our emotions and passions, because aside from being blind to reason, incapable of discerning the truth and the values of justice and fairness, they have the nasty habit of building up on their own until they become an overblown blob ready to explode on everyone.

We need to pray. Prayer has the instant effect of cooling us down, allowing us to think calmly and extensively, letting our spirit to plumb deep into the issues and concerns, referring them always to the source and end of everything and that’s God.

Prayer broadens our mind, expands our heart, setting it always on the right albeit at times difficult and tortuous path. It allows us to see things more objectively, and more importantly, letting us see them with God.

Prayer keeps us away from the blind impulses of our human condition, and purifies our intentions. It helps us to give and discern the true spirit, the scope and range as well as the limitations of our human laws. It makes us more broad-minded. It knows how to handle human mistakes and offenses, how to be magnanimous.

So can we chill it, please, and pray more instead?