We are not just ‘dust in the wind’

IT was the 70’s. I was still in my early professional life

and in the middle of some gripping spiritual discovery. At that time,

I was battling in the area of humility. When in your growing years you

are often regarded as very special by the family, relatives and

friends, you cannot help but get swell-headed. That was my case. What

was worse was that I managed to hide it, and so the anomaly festered

until it was unbearable.

  

            It was at this time that a song caught my attention as it

did many of my generation. The title of the song was “Dust in the

wind,” by the American band Kansas. The music and the lyrics of the

soft rock just captivated me, since it offered me some answers and

relief to the inner tension I was suffering then.

  

            “All we are is just dust in the wind…,” it plaintively

said. “All we do crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see…dust

in the wind,” it continued. The words simply told me not to take

myself too seriously. In my thoughts, I realized that in the end, we

are nothing regardless of our many accomplishments. I found comfort in

that thought.

  

            Then fast forward. I have gone through a lot of drama in

life, and yet I managed to stay afloat, thanks to what I considered as

the strength that flows from the virtue of humility. I felt blessed!

   

            Then I discovered something else. While it’s true that we

are indeed nothing without God, we are actually something when we are

with God. In fact, we are a great thing when we truly are with God,

for we indeed are his children, his own image and likeness.

            Of course, we have to continue being humble, since

everything that we are and all the good things that we have come from

God. There is no good thing that does not come from God. It would

indeed by crazy if we expropriate as our own something that can only

come from God.

  

            With God, even the most insignificant thing that we are,

or that we say and do, can acquire a tremendous eternal value. With

God, everything that happens to us, no matter how small and ordinary,

has the potential of bringing us to our eternal life.

   

            A passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes is very apropos to

this point. “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose

under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant,

and a time to pluck what is planted..” (3,1-2)

            The same Book of Ecclesiastes says that in our life there

seems to be a monotony, a sense of meaninglessness. “What has been

will be again, what has been done will be done again,” it says. “There

is nothing new under the sun.” (1,9) But this is only apparent. We can

fall into this thinking precisely when we fail to see things with

faith, when we are not with God.

  

            In the end, the happy conclusion that we can get is that

we are not actually a mere ‘dust in the wind’ that will just be blown

away into total insignificance. If we see things with faith, if we

strive to be with God, we will realize that even the most

insignificant things we have in this life, even the worst mistakes we

can commit, do have the tremendous possibility of bringing us to God,

and of enhancing our dignity.

  

            That is why, in dealing with the drama in our life where

good and evil co-exist, we should do our best to be with God, no

matter how unworthy we feel we are with him. Let’s always go to him so

we can see things properly and hopefully react accordingly. With God,

everything will always work out for the good. (cfr. Rom 8,28)

Let’s build a beautiful world

THIS should be our burning desire. And we should put all

our strength in this direction. To be sure, it is for the good of all.

Yes, we can and should build a beautiful world. But we have to start

with our own selves, and then from us, let’s spread the fever around.

  

            And by starting with our own selves, we mean that we have

to make sure our spiritual life is first of all in order. That’s

because failing in this, no matter what we do outside us, it is not

going to be a beautiful world we will be building, no matter how we

manage to project some signs of beauty in it.

  

            We have to understand that beauty, the real beauty that

can take on any condition we can find ourselves in this world, can

only be found in God. And for his part, he is most willing to share

that sense of beauty with us who are his image and likeness and

children of his.

  

            To build a beautiful world, we have to learn to connect

the often hidden dots between the material and the spiritual, the

temporal and the eternal, the mundane and the sacred, the inside and

the outside. We have to learn to find meaning in every situation in

our life, be it pleasant or unpleasant, joyful or sorrowful.      The

big problem we have today is precisely our failure to connect these

dots.

  

            As St. Paul would put it, “I have learned to be content

whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I

know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being

content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry,

whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him

who gives me strength.” (Phil 4,11-13)

  

            We need to understand that beauty is a matter of love that

comes from God and that brings us back to him, transforming us into

his image and likeness. Beauty is not just mainly physical or

mathematical. It’s not simply a matter of proportion, of texture, of

feelings and the like. It’s a matter of love. It’s not meant to fade

and die. It’s meant to last in eternity.

  

            With this love, we would know how to derive good from

evil, how to purify what is dirty, how to supernaturalize what is

simply natural. We would know how to deal with our limitations and

weaknesses, temptations and sins.

  

            With this love, we would know how to handle the many

differences that we can have among ourselves. These and even our

unavoidable disagreements and conflicts would not compromise our

charity towards others. We would be most understanding, compassionate

and forgiving. In fact, we would try our best to be helpful to others

without expecting any reward.

  

            Yes, these are some ways we can build beauty in this world

as we should, because the world itself comes from God and thus also

belongs to him. We have a tremendous responsibility in bringing it

back to God as he wants it to be.

  

            The beauty of the world depends on the love-driven beauty

of each one of us. We have to help one another in pursuing this goal

of building a beautiful world. Thus, we have to do a lot of

apostolate, mainly through friendship and confidence even as we take

advantage of the many technologies now available that can facilitate

our relation with others.

  

            Let’s be sowers of goodness and love, for this is how we

can truly build a beautiful world.  In other words, we simply to have

to become genuine saints, because that is the only way we can such

sowers.

Keep the music playing

I AM referring to our relationship with God. We always

have to find ways of how to keep that relationship strong, vibrant and

abiding, one that would truly bring us in such an intimate contact

with God, our Father and Creator, that we would vividly know his will

at every moment and would love to do that will of his.

             Let’s remember that when God created man, he entered into

a personal relationship with him precisely because man was created by

God to be his image and likeness, to be a person with whom he can

share his very life and nature.

  

            As we often hear, we, among God’s creatures, are not just

something. We are a someone, a person, with intelligence and will. It

is with us, together with the angels, that God establishes a personal

relationship. We have to learn how to do our part in corresponding to

that God-initiated relationship.

   

            That is why in the narration of the creation of the

universe, God simply said “Let there be this and that…” and those

things simply appeared and started to exist. But in the creation of

man, he just did not say, “Let there be man.” He took some clay, gave

it some form and breathed into it and it became a living being. And

then God started to talk to the man.

  

            That God-initiated dialogue between him and man should, as

much as possible, not be broken. It should be kept going for the whole

duration of the life of man who is meant to live not only in time but

also in eternity, precisely because man is like God, meant to share in

God’s life and nature.

  

            The fullness of our humanity, the completion and

perfection of our creation is when we truly become like God, fully

sharing in his life and nature, something that can only happen at the

end of time. In the meantime, we are still being created. We are still

under construction.

  

            We can say that in our case among God’s creatures, we are

the only ones together with the angels who are meant to be co-creators

with God of our own selves. And since the original creation of man was

messed up by our sins, and we now need to be redeemed by God who did

so in Christ, then we have to understand that we too are also

co-redeemers of our own selves with Christ.

  

            This role of being co-redeemers of our own selves would

make it more imperative that we keep the music playing always with

God, with Christ and with the many instrumentalities that God has

provided us so that we can always be with and in him.

              We have to realize that without God, without Christ, the

only possibility we have is to stray, to deviate from the proper path.

In other words, the only possibility is for us to sin. This happened

in the case of our first parents who, in spite of the ideal condition

in which they were created, preferred to listen to the devil than to

stay tuned with God.

  

            In our case, we are already quite handicapped even from

our own conception and therefore more prone to prefer to listen to the

devil more than to God. We cannot exaggerate the great need we have to

really find ways of how we can keep listening to God so we do not get

distracted and carried away from God.

  

            That is why we cannot overemphasize the need for us to

really pray all the time, knowing how to convert every situation in

our life, every activity, concern, project, etc. we have in life as an

occasion to relate ourselves to God.

  

            Let’s humble ourselves to realize that we need all this,

since it is pride that would lead us to think that we would just be ok

by being on our own, distancing ourselves from God.