The need for anchoring

THIS is what we should never forget to do. If in our physical world, we need to have some foundation to keep ourselves stable and well-grounded, much more so would we need a clear foundation as anchor in our spiritual world.

            Our thoughts and desires, our pursuit for knowledge and love, which constitute our spiritual world, just cannot be done without due concern for some stabilizing anchor, since we can easily get lost there.

            That’s the reason, for example, why we build a house so we may have a home not only to come to at day’s end, and to eat and sleep, but also and, in fact, more importantly, to grow and mature in our humanity, both in our material and spiritual aspects.

            And that anchor is none other than God himself, our creator and the very foundation of reality. He is the beginning and the end of everything. He is the ultimate home for us, our ultimate anchor and foundation.

            That’s why it is always good that we develop a sense of the beginning and a sense of the end of our life and of everything else. This sense of both beginning and end will surely guide us in our day-to-day affairs.

            This truth should not be left in the realm of theories alone. It has to be brought down to concrete reality. It has to be cultivated and lived. We have to start with our own individual selves and then try to spread it around, helping one another attain this very crucial necessity in our lives.

            We, of course, have some ideas of God, however imperfect and even wrong they may be. That we do what we think is right and good is already an indication that we believe in some God. That’s because man is basically a religious being, regardless of what atheists, agnostics and skeptics say.

            History can attest to the fact that in different people, times and places, there has always been some effort to discover and deal with a God. The challenge now is to discover the one true God.

            This is where we have to distinguish between man-made natural religions and a supernatural religion that is revealed to us more than is developed by us. The Christian faith is of the latter type whose central figure, Christ, is the fullness of the revelation of God.

            It is Christ who tells us that we have to seek first the kingdom of God before we get immersed in the things of the world, no matter how valid they are. He reassures us that these things of the world would be given us besides, as long as we seek God first.

            In this season of Easter that celebrates and makes present Christ’s victory over sin and death, we are reminded in so many words of how he continues to be present in us, how he continues to guide the world with his wise and merciful providence, etc.

            This is a truth that we should never miss, but rather relish increasingly deeply, so that we can always find meaning and have a sense of direction in life, never feeling lost, especially in our moments of human darkness, when problems and all sorts of contradiction baffle us.

            That’s why we should try to refer and relate everything to God. In our work, for example, we should not just be contented with efficiency or profitability as our guiding criteria. Though in themselves they are not bad, they can easily turn against us if they are not founded and oriented toward God.

            Without God as the clear foundation and anchor, our pursuit for efficiency and profitability would be very vulnerable to the subtle workings of greed, vanity and pride. Our concern for the common good would not be consummated. It would easily be trapped by our selfish interests.

            St. Paul told us very clearly: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Cor 10,31) We have to discover the presence of God in everyone and in everything.

            In fact, we have to familiarize ourselves with his will and ways in our worldly affairs, since with his abiding providence, he is always intervening in them. To be able to do this, we need to be born again, to be born in the spirit, as Christ told Nicodemus one time. That’s when we get vitally connected with God.

            For as Christ said: “What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the spirit is spirit.” (Jn 3)

Faith, fiction and the imagination

HUMAN as we are, we are always in some need of imagination. We cannot rely on our senses alone, or only on the things that we see, touch and smell. There’s a far richer universe than the physical and sensible world.

            Neither can we be too dependent on abstract ideas. These concepts need to be embodied somehow to be truly enjoyed. What is usually termed as intellectual joy would be greatly enhanced if what causes it is also enfleshed or put, at least, in some sensible form.

            This is where imagination comes in. The physical gets conceptualized, the material is spiritualized, on the one hand, and the ideas assume sensible shape and form, the spiritual is materialized, forming an image, on the other.

            I believe we all realize how important it is to develop our capacity to imagine. In fact, we have to make it as powerful and rich as possible. But, of course, we also need to take precautionary measures so as to avoid going into extremes, resulting in some obsessions and perversions.

            In this regard, we have to help one another—the elder, like the parents, taking care of the younger, the children; the more knowledgeable and better endowed taking care of the more simple ones among us.

            It’s important that as much as possible we get to know each other well, entering into each other’s inner world of thoughts, desires, and yes, the imagination. That’s because that’s where we can truly say we are in communion as we ought to be.

            Our unity and being together simply cannot be a result of a physical grouping or of blood and social relation. Our true unity is forged when we enter into each other’s inner world, and despite our legitimate differences, we are united in the basic, absolute truths.

            Anyway, with regard to imagination as a result of putting some sensible form and image to abstract ideas and spiritual realities, we have to learn how to distinguish between an imagination driven by faith and the one driven by fiction.

            The two, the faith-driven one as well as the fiction-driven, have their proper value. It’s good to develop them to the max. But we need to distinguish them and try to avoid mixing them indiscriminately. Yes, they can be mixed as long as we don’t forget what is of faith and what is of fiction.

            That way, we don’t get lost and detached from reality. We avoid making some fantasy world without anymore realizing it is fantasy. That’s when we fall into some mental disorder.

            But if ever we want to invent, it is enhance our appreciation of the truth and the real, still knowing that we are using some fictional devices. We should be wary of the usual pitfalls of the artists and the artistically-inclined people who so rev up their imaginary powers that they can hardly distinguish between the real and the fiction.

            To be sure, again because of our weakened human condition, there will always be some gray areas where we the distinction between faith and fiction, the real and the invented, becomes unclear. But let’s hope that they are just in the minor points.

            What we should try to avoid is to fall into things like heresies, superstitions, forms of fanaticism, bigotry, self-righteousness and the like. That’s why we need to examine ourselves both individually and collectively.

            What is important is that we be clear in the essentials, the basic doctrine of our faith, by studying the catechism very well as well as always trying to be in tune to the continuing teaching of the Church as articulated by the Pope and the bishops united to the Pope.

            Individually, we have purify our dispositions—a lot of humility and respect for the authorities and fidelity the sources of our faith. We need to be true souls of prayer, because, no matter how imperfect, that is the usual way to have an abiding contact God in our present earthly conditions.

            What for sure would also help is to have recourse to the sacraments, the usual channels of grace which is indispensable to sustain our Christian and spiritual life. Then a life-long ascetical struggle of resisting sins, temptations and occasions of sins, as well as the effort to grow in the different virtues, especially charity.

            These are good means to keep us safe in cruising this increasingly complicated world of ours. They offer us a safe path amid all sorts of things that often we do not have time to evaluate.

            These intact, we can inflame our imagination safely.

Tolerance, flexibility fruit of charity

GIVEN our current situation, we cannot expect our present life to be simple, filled with peace and harmony. We should rather expect it to be complicated, full of tension, and that is because we are complicated ourselves. We have to be prepared to handle this predicament.

            Our Christian faith tells us that such complication springs from our separation from God who, as our creator, is the very foundation of reality, the source of everything true, good and beautiful. Everything ought to be referred to him to know what is true and what is not.

            This is how we can aspire to achieve a state of unified vision and understanding of things amid characteristic variety we can find in our life, given the many legitimate differences among ourselves. But this truth requires faith, a free gift from God which we can either accept or refuse, or worse, be indifferent to.

            As we can readily see, the as-is-where-is condition of the world today is far from the ideal. Many of us, even those who profess to be pious and religious, not to mention those who openly claim to be sceptics, agnostics and atheists, are not in working unity with God.

            Thus we have to learn how to cruise in our complicated world without fleeing from it and at the same time without compromising the truth. That, indeed, is a combination very difficult to make. But with God’s grace, it is not impossible either.

            We just have to learn how to be patient and tolerant, open-minded, slow to judge, with a good grip on our emotions and passions, and ready to understand, to disregard irritating details and to forgive and ask forgiveness, as well adept in the art of congenial dialogue, avoiding being abrupt and abrasive.

            Obviously, what should drive all these qualities is our growing and deepening love for God whose love for us precisely goes all the way in spite of our lack of correspondence and even open hostility to him.

            Absent this love, we cannot really go far in our effort to understand one another and achieve a measure of unity and harmony among ourselves. Sooner or later, we will end up squabbling that can degenerate into bitter conflicts and almost irreparable divisions among ourselves.

            Very crucial in this regard is the ability to handle what is absolute and relative in our life, what is dogma and what is opinion. Many times, these distinctions get blurred, leading to confusion, and often explosive confusion and conflict.

            We need to look at Christ closely and see him as the perfect model of how to handle our complicated life, how to be faithful to God in spite of the many elements that tend to bring us wildly everywhere and nowhere.

            He was clear about what he had to do, say and accomplish in his earthly redemptive life. He was open to all the possibilities that man exercises his freedom, whether rightly or wrongly. He was forceful with the forcefulness of charity that knows how to be patient and merciful.

            We just have to learn how to incarnate this example of Christ who is our Way, Truth and Life. And so we need to learn how to be tolerant but also single-minded in our purpose in life.

            We have to be wary of our tendency to fall into bitter zeal, a kind of misplaced zeal to defend the truth but sacrificing charity. This bitter zeal can be manifested in our proclivity to simply dominate others, to score points, to be the one to say the last word, and to consider oneself the standard and measure of things.

            It’s a zeal that does not know how to wait. It does not see the value of suffering in all of its forms, including being misunderstood and misrepresented. Remember that Christ many times did not mind being misunderstood.

            While it’s true that we too have to live by the tenets of justice, we should also see to it that our sense of justice springs from a vital union with God in order to know where justice ends to let charity play out its fullest range in our life. This way, we can act more fully according to God’s plan for our redemption.

            Otherwise we will puff up justice without anymore the substance of charity. And even if God can always countenance this and do something about it, we somehow would be adding to the complications in the world.

            We really need to learn how to be tolerant and flexible which only take place if we are driven by true charity.