Times have indeed changed!

THAT’S, of course, an understatement. As someone said

before, change is the only permanent thing in this life. That might be

a bit stretched, but, yes, just the same it contains a lot of truth.

            I say this because the other day I had this amusing

experience of being seated in the plane between an elderly woman, at

least 70 years old according to my estimation, and a young boy of

about 9 or 10 years old.

            The woman, already with grey hair, was wearing denims with

several tears in them, much like what you see among the millennials.

And the boy, so small and looking innocent yet, already was wearing

earring on his left earlobe.

            Then, in another occasion while doing my brisk walking in

a park, I saw a pair of young ladies who looked decent enough and the

type that I usually see working in places like Jollibee or 7-Eleven.

But they wore shirts that shocked me. Printed on their shirts were the

words “I (heart) sucking head.”

            I immediately thought if there was another, more

acceptable meaning to those words than what I know. I must confess

that I was bothered for the rest of my exercise. Did they know what

those words meant, I asked myself. Flashing through my mind was the

thought that I am getting to be a stranger to the places I usually

find myself.

            Indeed, times are changing, and with them, many other

things are, too. I have to make adjustments in the way I see and judge

things. I know this should be an abiding concern, but sometimes I feel

like I have neglected this duty.

            Yet, in spite of all these observations, I took pleasure

in what Pope Francis said recently to those aspiring to become

priests. He told them “not to be scared of young people and of

tattoos” and to use these tattoos as a talking point to encourage

dialogue. He said that even behind the things that are not so good,

there is something that will bring us to some truth.

            That is, of course, a good idea. St. Paul told us that we

have to be all things to all men to be able to save all. (cfr. 1 Cor

9,22) And Christ, of course, is the prime example for this.

            We have to understand though that we can only live that

ideal if we are truly identified with Christ. Otherwise, there is no

other way but for us to ignore others, to find it difficult to adapt

ourselves to others, or worse, to be scandalized and be influenced by

them instead of us influencing them for the good.

            Toward this end, we cannot exaggerate the need for us to

truly be with Christ all the time. This will also require of us to

live a certain healthy detachment from our own ways and style of doing

things, of our own culture and tradition.

            In other words, we have to learn how to transcend beyond

the many conditionings we are subject to, no matter how legitimate

they are, because these conditionings do not have the exclusive

ownership of what is right and proper to us.

            In this regard, we have to be most careful to distinguish

between what is really essential and not in our human dignity as

persons and children of God. And we have to remember that even in the

essential things about us, there can be several ways and forms of

living them out legitimately.

            The essential things need not be lived in a uniform way.

There can be a great variety of living them. Obviously, we need to be

most discerning so that we do not end up compromising these essential

things.

            We have to learn how to be adaptive and flexible without

sacrificing what is essential in our dignity as a human person and a

child of God.