OUR life can be described in mathematical terms, with constants and variables making up the elements and factors in the equation. Of course, this is just an aid—not meant to capture all of life’s nuances--but it can give light to our situation.
Yes, we have constants and variables in our life. It’s good to know them as well as how to blend them together. There are things that are absolute and others that have a relative value, things necessary and contingent, fixed and movable.
We have to outgrow the predicament of the ancient Greek world where one camp, headed by Parmenides, said everything is permanent, nothing changes, while Heraclitus of the other camp said everything changes, nothing is fixed.
Among the constants in our life is God, his existence, his goodness, his power, his mercy and love for us, etc. He is the absolutely necessary being in whom we should trust and love all the time. In fact, our sense of what is constant and what can be considered variable depends on our faith and love of God.
We should not allow this faith and love of God to be diluted by our purely human affairs and concerns. Whatever be the twists and turns of our life, may it be that our faith and love of God always remain, and can even grow stronger with every trial.
We have the capability for that. Our faith tells us that God never scrimps on his grace for us. He is quite lavish in giving it—“Where sin has abounded, grace has abounded even more.” And our nature has the capacity to be raised beyond its usual limits, because there’s something spiritual in it that is open to infinite possibilities.
This faith and love of God should be with us to resolve everything in our life, no matter how humanly insolvable it is. We need to be reminded more often and more deeply of this truth, since we tend to get stuck with the uncertainties of our human affairs.
Our present culture tends to exaggerate our urge to manage and control everything, such that we can fall into the funny situation of thinking that everything absolutely depends on us. There’s no more room for a sense of abandonment in God’s providence.
The ideal attitude, to my mind, is that given our nature as free and intelligent beings, it’s proper to think that everything depends on us. But since our intelligence and will have God as their source and object, we should always realize that everything first of all depends on God. We have to find a way to merge these two mentalities in us.
Anyway, this tendency to control everything can start imperceptibly in us in that almost automatic reaction of always making rash judgments on anything we see. Many times these judgments go uncorrected and made to end in more bizarre conclusions.
Instead of seeing things with the eyes of God, that is, with love, with understanding and compassion, with eagerness to forgive and to help, we just allow our own weaknesses and biases to guide us.
We mistake our spontaneous thoughts to be the sincere and fair thoughts, not realizing that these thoughts often spring from our own limitations, not mention, our own sinfulness.
Since our thoughts are very private and personal, they can tend to grow simply on their own, fiercely defending their so-called independence and autonomy, again not realizing that they need to be conformed not only to the rules of logic, but also and most especially to the requirements of faith and charity.
Given our congenital weakness, we need to educate ourselves to think properly, always infusing it with faith and charity, so that even in our inevitable conflicts, we would know how to resolve issues.
Perhaps we would not be able to put closure to these issues in the political, economic or social sense, but with faith and charity we can manage to have some resolution proper to our true dignity as persons and children of God. This is always possible.
This is something we have to learn well, and quickly and massively. Our present world cannot help but develop into ever more diverse cultures, mentalities and styles. These things have to be respected and even promoted. But we have to learn how to hold everything together by adhering to our faith and charity.
These are the constants that bring all the variables of our life into one working, healthy whole that all of us should be aiming at.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Leadership unmoored, adrift…
THERE are, of course, many bright spots insofar as leadership is concerned in the world today, be it in the field of politics, business, economics and finance, culture, social life, etc. That we are still a functioning world, despite errors and defects, can only bespeak of a leadership that’s still floating.
Leadership and the use of authority are a dynamic thing. They can have their ups and downs, their highs and lows, their boom and bust. We just have to understand that a lot depends on the kind of people involved in them, and especially on whether they understand the true nature, origin and end of power.
And this is none other than that leadership, authority and power can only have their source in God, their purpose also in God, and the proper way to handle them in God as well. It cannot be any other way.
The other way, which can only be by making ourselves the be-all and end-all of power and authority, can spell disaster, trouble, endless strifes and rivalries, no matter how successful so far we may have been able to govern ourselves through different systems.
Leadership, power and authority cannot be other than our participation in the leadership, power and authority of God. They come from God. They can only be exercised in him, and for the purpose God has for them.
This does not mean that we have to have a kind of theocracy as our form of government, or fanaticism and fundamentalism as a way of life.
We know enough that God does not mean that, since human affairs can involve a wide variety of positions, ways and means that can even be conflicting with each other and that need to be respected.
It simply means that in any exercise of leadership, power and authority, while a lot depends on us, the primary role of God should always be acknowledged, respected and defended. It’s not something to be afraid of or to be ashamed of.
But this is what we are seeing these days. Religion, faith or any reference to God and to things spiritual and supernatural are often accused these days as divisive or as downright irrelevant to human affairs. At best, they are meant to be strictly a personal private affair of an individual.
This goes precisely against the very nature of God who is God not only in our private life, but also in our public affairs. He is a God of everyone in all levels and aspects.
This is the essence of the feast of the Epiphany of our Lord—Jesus wanting to manifest himself to the whole world. We just have to learn how to do this crucial aspect of our life properly, looking at the example of Jesus always whose theophany was done always in a discreet way.
God cannot be a cause of division, since he is the principle of unity and the end of everything and of everyone. At least, this is what Christianity and practically all religions are all about. Christianity does this by showing the extreme of charity—to the point of dying for love of God and of souls.
It upholds truth and justice, but it does this always in the context of understanding, compassion, quickness to forgive and forget, willingness to drown evil with an abundance of good. The only violence involved is the one inflicted on oneself rather than on others, of the kind that is more moral than physical.
There are also those who think that an emphasis on religion in wielding power in our human affairs will make us awkward and even incompetent. This, of course, can happen precisely if religion is misunderstood and mishandled.
But it need by like that. In fact, it should not be like that. If anything, what an abiding relation with God does is to give us a greater sensitivity and firmer determination to identify, assess, solve our problems thoroughly.
It would truly be funny, if not utterly dangerous, if we just rely completely on our own resources and devices, independently of God. We would have every reason to worry and fear, because no matter how smart and clever we can be, such qualities are nothing compared to the challenges we have to face.
Even without mentioning our spiritual enemies, our natural and infranatural challenges alone can already be so daunting as to guarantee our defeat and failure. We need to hook our exercise of leadership, power and authority on God always! We just have to learn how to do it with naturalness.
Leadership and the use of authority are a dynamic thing. They can have their ups and downs, their highs and lows, their boom and bust. We just have to understand that a lot depends on the kind of people involved in them, and especially on whether they understand the true nature, origin and end of power.
And this is none other than that leadership, authority and power can only have their source in God, their purpose also in God, and the proper way to handle them in God as well. It cannot be any other way.
The other way, which can only be by making ourselves the be-all and end-all of power and authority, can spell disaster, trouble, endless strifes and rivalries, no matter how successful so far we may have been able to govern ourselves through different systems.
Leadership, power and authority cannot be other than our participation in the leadership, power and authority of God. They come from God. They can only be exercised in him, and for the purpose God has for them.
This does not mean that we have to have a kind of theocracy as our form of government, or fanaticism and fundamentalism as a way of life.
We know enough that God does not mean that, since human affairs can involve a wide variety of positions, ways and means that can even be conflicting with each other and that need to be respected.
It simply means that in any exercise of leadership, power and authority, while a lot depends on us, the primary role of God should always be acknowledged, respected and defended. It’s not something to be afraid of or to be ashamed of.
But this is what we are seeing these days. Religion, faith or any reference to God and to things spiritual and supernatural are often accused these days as divisive or as downright irrelevant to human affairs. At best, they are meant to be strictly a personal private affair of an individual.
This goes precisely against the very nature of God who is God not only in our private life, but also in our public affairs. He is a God of everyone in all levels and aspects.
This is the essence of the feast of the Epiphany of our Lord—Jesus wanting to manifest himself to the whole world. We just have to learn how to do this crucial aspect of our life properly, looking at the example of Jesus always whose theophany was done always in a discreet way.
God cannot be a cause of division, since he is the principle of unity and the end of everything and of everyone. At least, this is what Christianity and practically all religions are all about. Christianity does this by showing the extreme of charity—to the point of dying for love of God and of souls.
It upholds truth and justice, but it does this always in the context of understanding, compassion, quickness to forgive and forget, willingness to drown evil with an abundance of good. The only violence involved is the one inflicted on oneself rather than on others, of the kind that is more moral than physical.
There are also those who think that an emphasis on religion in wielding power in our human affairs will make us awkward and even incompetent. This, of course, can happen precisely if religion is misunderstood and mishandled.
But it need by like that. In fact, it should not be like that. If anything, what an abiding relation with God does is to give us a greater sensitivity and firmer determination to identify, assess, solve our problems thoroughly.
It would truly be funny, if not utterly dangerous, if we just rely completely on our own resources and devices, independently of God. We would have every reason to worry and fear, because no matter how smart and clever we can be, such qualities are nothing compared to the challenges we have to face.
Even without mentioning our spiritual enemies, our natural and infranatural challenges alone can already be so daunting as to guarantee our defeat and failure. We need to hook our exercise of leadership, power and authority on God always! We just have to learn how to do it with naturalness.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Memory and foresight
I SUPPOSE we did some reviewing and forecasting during the New Year celebration. That’s what is expected. A little of looking back and of looking forward.
Actually we need to do this all the time, and we need to do it well. We have to be wary of influences that tend to tie us down to the present alone, making us unmindful of the past and of the future, and especially of eternity.
The growing cases of Alzheimer’s disease and of autism may just reflect a trend of self-absorption gripping many people these days. You see them plugged to their mp3s, computers, etc., veritably establishing their own parallel realities, with themselves as their own suns around whom everything else revolves.
Of late, I’ve been hearing some persons complain that we as a people seem to be short of memory. I’ve taken that lament with a grain of salt, though I’m also sure there are also grains of truth contained in it.
I understand what they mean. When people do not cultivate their memory, they tend to have a shallow culture, one that is stuck in the surface and the appearances, but hardly any soul that serves as its principle of life and unity.
The other day also, some youngsters when asked what kind of movies they like to see, proudly replied, the ones that don’t require thinking. Sorry, but in my calculation, that can only mean violence-and-sex movies. Many are now averse to use their spiritual faculties. They’re hooked on the purely carnal.
The truth is we need to work out our memory and our foresight. These are an integral part of our human condition. We are meant to remember the past and to construct the future. More, we are meant to work for our eternity. We cannot ignore this duty. This is part of our being persons, with subjectivity.
But we have to understand that the foundation of our memory and our foresight cannot be other than God. It cannot be our own selves alone, our own ideas, our own preferences, or our own ideologies and philosophies, no matter how helpful and indispensable they are.
God is the source, measure, pattern and goal of reality. We are supposed only to reflect and correspond to the will of God. We did not generate our own selves, much less, the world we live in. God did it all, my dear.
Thus, we need to develop the basic attitude of being reflective, even contemplative, and at the same time, of being active and cooperative. These two sets should go together, like the two sides of the same coin.
Our creativity and originality can never be absolute. They cannot fly or float in a vacuum. They require a reference point, an environment, and that reference can ultimately be God, not something of our own making, though we are capable of producing one, at least for a while.
We have to understand that our sense of freedom should coincide with our sense of obedience and docility to God’s will in the end. Unless we realize this and try to achieve this, we might be having some blast of an adventure in life, but for sure we would be going nowhere.
No, one set of qualities without the other results in some anomaly. We can easily fall into the irregularity of quietism and indifference on the one the hand, and of activism on the other. The two should be together, never decoupled.
With God as the constant and ultimate reference point, and with the basic attitude of humility, obedience and reflectiveness, we can go far in rectifying and enriching our memory, and in clarifying what is truly essential to guide us into the future. Our foresight would take wing.
We precisely would know how to resolve past troubles, ultimately reconciling us with God and with others, even if there are still items that need to be solved. This is how our memory is cleaned and put to its proper condition so we would be filled with nothing other than sentiments of gratitude and fulfillment.
We also would know how to look at the future, learning how to judge the variable elements that come along the way, since we already know our constants—our beginning, our end, our pattern, our source of energy, etc.
We have to work on our memory and foresight! This is not optional task. It’s a must for all of us.
Actually we need to do this all the time, and we need to do it well. We have to be wary of influences that tend to tie us down to the present alone, making us unmindful of the past and of the future, and especially of eternity.
The growing cases of Alzheimer’s disease and of autism may just reflect a trend of self-absorption gripping many people these days. You see them plugged to their mp3s, computers, etc., veritably establishing their own parallel realities, with themselves as their own suns around whom everything else revolves.
Of late, I’ve been hearing some persons complain that we as a people seem to be short of memory. I’ve taken that lament with a grain of salt, though I’m also sure there are also grains of truth contained in it.
I understand what they mean. When people do not cultivate their memory, they tend to have a shallow culture, one that is stuck in the surface and the appearances, but hardly any soul that serves as its principle of life and unity.
The other day also, some youngsters when asked what kind of movies they like to see, proudly replied, the ones that don’t require thinking. Sorry, but in my calculation, that can only mean violence-and-sex movies. Many are now averse to use their spiritual faculties. They’re hooked on the purely carnal.
The truth is we need to work out our memory and our foresight. These are an integral part of our human condition. We are meant to remember the past and to construct the future. More, we are meant to work for our eternity. We cannot ignore this duty. This is part of our being persons, with subjectivity.
But we have to understand that the foundation of our memory and our foresight cannot be other than God. It cannot be our own selves alone, our own ideas, our own preferences, or our own ideologies and philosophies, no matter how helpful and indispensable they are.
God is the source, measure, pattern and goal of reality. We are supposed only to reflect and correspond to the will of God. We did not generate our own selves, much less, the world we live in. God did it all, my dear.
Thus, we need to develop the basic attitude of being reflective, even contemplative, and at the same time, of being active and cooperative. These two sets should go together, like the two sides of the same coin.
Our creativity and originality can never be absolute. They cannot fly or float in a vacuum. They require a reference point, an environment, and that reference can ultimately be God, not something of our own making, though we are capable of producing one, at least for a while.
We have to understand that our sense of freedom should coincide with our sense of obedience and docility to God’s will in the end. Unless we realize this and try to achieve this, we might be having some blast of an adventure in life, but for sure we would be going nowhere.
No, one set of qualities without the other results in some anomaly. We can easily fall into the irregularity of quietism and indifference on the one the hand, and of activism on the other. The two should be together, never decoupled.
With God as the constant and ultimate reference point, and with the basic attitude of humility, obedience and reflectiveness, we can go far in rectifying and enriching our memory, and in clarifying what is truly essential to guide us into the future. Our foresight would take wing.
We precisely would know how to resolve past troubles, ultimately reconciling us with God and with others, even if there are still items that need to be solved. This is how our memory is cleaned and put to its proper condition so we would be filled with nothing other than sentiments of gratitude and fulfillment.
We also would know how to look at the future, learning how to judge the variable elements that come along the way, since we already know our constants—our beginning, our end, our pattern, our source of energy, etc.
We have to work on our memory and foresight! This is not optional task. It’s a must for all of us.
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