MANTAYUPAN Falls down in Barili town in Cebu is an oasis for tired, harassed souls in need of urgent relief. I experienced this first hand when the other day, taking advantage of a public holiday, I with friends went there.
Its 98-meter water drop, already quite voluminous compared with other waterfalls, immediately gave me an object of intense wonder that brought me, at least in my mind, not only to its geologic source but farther, much further beyond.
For sure, it was not only a feast to the eyes. It was more so to the soul, as I marveled at its natural beauty. It can come not only from some chancy natural events. It must come from the hands of someone more sublime than what our mind and senses can readily admit.
At first, we were just a few souls frolicking in its basin of fresh and gurgling water. Soon after, more groups came, crowding it almost to a Sarah Geronimo concert audience size.
Someone naughtily whispered to me the place was fast becoming like the Ganges, that sacred river in far India dirtied by millions who take their dip daily for some ritual cleansing.
It certainly was not like the Riviera, but I did not agree it was like the Ganges. This was just a simple place, so Pinoy in looks and character that manages to attract families and intimate groupings.
The reason, to me, was quite obvious. It was just the right size, in the right place. You don’t have to be an athlete or a mountain climber to reach it. It just required a very reasonable effort to get there. It was neither too near nor too far.
For the millions of middle-class where I belong, it offers genuine comfort and rest at very affordable prices. I would not be surprised if it’s promoted to stir local tourism to life. In fact, I saw a “Suroy-suroy” tarp, and I gave it a mental thumbs-up.
My heart swelled with tenderness to see families with their elderlies and their babies in tow, fathers carrying their excited little boys on their shoulders, mothers constantly calling for their straying kids.
I saw young men helping their lolos and lolas maneuver through the rocks and to the water. About the only flashes of the extraordinary were some boys of the place who showed their acrobatic leaps into the water from some height.
The experience was already heartwarming, and yet the place afforded me, despite the crowd and the engaging sights, a precious space to think, reflect and pray. This, to me, is very important, and I just hope that everybody else did not neglect this duty.
Otherwise, what is yet naturally clean, pristine and beautiful can easily be spoiled and corrupted. A place, a crowd, to remain human and more, always needs a soul. And that can only be provided if each one makes the effort to imbue it always with spiritual values with no let up.
Remember the crowd who met our Lord with “Hosannas” when he entered Jerusalem. A few days later the same crowd shouted “Crucify him.” That’s what happens when a crowd is not properly animated by the spirit of Christ, but by another spirit—of the world or of the flesh.
We should never allow a crowd to live and act on its own. It needs to be infused with the truly human substance. And that can only happen if we are firmly grounded on God, in spite of the glitter and allurements of the world.
Of course, this has to be done with adapting naturalness and flexible discretion. This is the essence of delicadeza. It enables us to remain in touch with God and the refinement it involves amid the rough and tumble of the world.
Now that we are approaching the election season, where crowds will be roused to vote this way or the other, we should not forget this virtue of delicadeza. It allows us to think, reflect and pray properly, and hopefully make our choices and pursue our goals properly.
My heart breaks to see people turned into a mob, supposedly exercising their right to protest and yet violating the fundamental requirements of charity to their perceived enemies.
Without delicadeza, persons who otherwise are simple and earnest in their intentions and efforts, become easily seduced by worldly values. The crowd would become easily manipulated.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
The higher, the lower
A LATIN adage says it all: “Corruptio optimi pessima.” The corruption of the best is the worst of all!
May we never forget the truth of this saying. We should be extra wary when in our journey in life, we, by a confluence of several factors, attain positions of power and prestige. That’s when we really have to be most careful and try our best to grow in humility, doing all that humility would require of us.
This sobering truth is behind the warnings and lessons embedded in many stories, both religious and secular. To cite a few, we can mention the following:
- The story of the race between the hare and the tortoise. From the Wikipedia, we have the gist:
A hare one day ridiculed a slow-moving tortoise. In response, the tortoise challenged his swift mocker to a race. The hare soon left the tortoise far behind and, confident of winning, he decided to take a nap midway through the course.
When he awoke, he found that his competitor, crawling slowly but steadily, had already won the race.
- From the Gospel of St. John, we have the story of the blind man cured by Jesus and causing unbelief among the Pharisees. The story concludes with Jesus saying:
“For judgment I am come into this world, that they who see not, may see, and they who see, may become blind.”
“And some of the Pharisees, who were with him, heard, and they said to him: Are we also blind?
“Jesus said to them: If you were blind, you should not have sin. But now you say, we see, your sin remains.” (9,39-41)
- We are, of course, familiar with St. Paul’s words: “The foolish things of the world has God chosen, that he may confound the wise. The weak things of the world has God chosen that he may confound the strong.” (1 Cor 1,27)
- Still another Gospel story, from St. Matthew: “When an unclean spirit is gone out of a man he walks through dry places seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says: I will return into my house from where I came out. And coming he finds it empty, swept and garnished.
“Then he goes, and takes with him seven mother spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there. And the last state of that man is made worse than the first…” (12,43-45)
These, and many more, simply tell us one common lesson—we always need to be more humble the higher we get in any aspect of our life. Greater humility means having greater trust in God and less in ourselves, having bigger recourse to the help of others than depending solely on our powers, etc.
The more we lead, the more we should follow. The more free we are, the more obedient we should be. The greater honor and power given to us, the more willing we ought to be to serve others.
Remember when Christ washed the feet of the apostles at the Last Supper. St. Peter could not take it, and at first refused to be washed. Our Lord insisted, saying that what he was doing was meant to be an example to be followed by them.
This Christian truth applies to all, but most especially to members of the clergy who possess a special dignity. Priests and bishops should be the first ones to take extreme care of their spiritual lives before they can dare to take care of the spiritual lives of others.
It is undeniable that precisely because of their—our--position and exposure to things, the clergy are subject to the most vicious and subtle evil that can ever visit man. The devil works hardest on those who are closest to God or to the divine things.
For this, they—we—should be the first to avail ourselves of confession and spiritual direction before we dare to dispense these means of sanctification on others. It would really be funny if all that preaching and counseling we do, often with bombast and bluster, is not supported by a solid personal spiritual life.
This would certainly require a deepening and constantly-frontier-breaking kind of humility on the part of the clergy. Without this, forget it—all would be a sham, a hypocrisy, deserving of being branded by Christ himself as frauds, whitewashed sepulchers, serpents, etc.
May we never forget the truth of this saying. We should be extra wary when in our journey in life, we, by a confluence of several factors, attain positions of power and prestige. That’s when we really have to be most careful and try our best to grow in humility, doing all that humility would require of us.
This sobering truth is behind the warnings and lessons embedded in many stories, both religious and secular. To cite a few, we can mention the following:
- The story of the race between the hare and the tortoise. From the Wikipedia, we have the gist:
A hare one day ridiculed a slow-moving tortoise. In response, the tortoise challenged his swift mocker to a race. The hare soon left the tortoise far behind and, confident of winning, he decided to take a nap midway through the course.
When he awoke, he found that his competitor, crawling slowly but steadily, had already won the race.
- From the Gospel of St. John, we have the story of the blind man cured by Jesus and causing unbelief among the Pharisees. The story concludes with Jesus saying:
“For judgment I am come into this world, that they who see not, may see, and they who see, may become blind.”
“And some of the Pharisees, who were with him, heard, and they said to him: Are we also blind?
“Jesus said to them: If you were blind, you should not have sin. But now you say, we see, your sin remains.” (9,39-41)
- We are, of course, familiar with St. Paul’s words: “The foolish things of the world has God chosen, that he may confound the wise. The weak things of the world has God chosen that he may confound the strong.” (1 Cor 1,27)
- Still another Gospel story, from St. Matthew: “When an unclean spirit is gone out of a man he walks through dry places seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says: I will return into my house from where I came out. And coming he finds it empty, swept and garnished.
“Then he goes, and takes with him seven mother spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there. And the last state of that man is made worse than the first…” (12,43-45)
These, and many more, simply tell us one common lesson—we always need to be more humble the higher we get in any aspect of our life. Greater humility means having greater trust in God and less in ourselves, having bigger recourse to the help of others than depending solely on our powers, etc.
The more we lead, the more we should follow. The more free we are, the more obedient we should be. The greater honor and power given to us, the more willing we ought to be to serve others.
Remember when Christ washed the feet of the apostles at the Last Supper. St. Peter could not take it, and at first refused to be washed. Our Lord insisted, saying that what he was doing was meant to be an example to be followed by them.
This Christian truth applies to all, but most especially to members of the clergy who possess a special dignity. Priests and bishops should be the first ones to take extreme care of their spiritual lives before they can dare to take care of the spiritual lives of others.
It is undeniable that precisely because of their—our--position and exposure to things, the clergy are subject to the most vicious and subtle evil that can ever visit man. The devil works hardest on those who are closest to God or to the divine things.
For this, they—we—should be the first to avail ourselves of confession and spiritual direction before we dare to dispense these means of sanctification on others. It would really be funny if all that preaching and counseling we do, often with bombast and bluster, is not supported by a solid personal spiritual life.
This would certainly require a deepening and constantly-frontier-breaking kind of humility on the part of the clergy. Without this, forget it—all would be a sham, a hypocrisy, deserving of being branded by Christ himself as frauds, whitewashed sepulchers, serpents, etc.
Friday, August 28, 2009
The cut-and-paste generation
OR how Beethoven and Mozart got mixed with Yoyoy Villame and Max Surban.
The other day, a freshman student leader asked me to give the invocation at the opening of our technical school’s Olympiad.
I was, of course, happy and eager to do it. I consider it a great fringe benefit to get a chance to see some games with young people. That would be a welcome change from my routine, I thought, as long as it is only from time to time.
My age and temperament seem to prevent me from getting into this kind of events. Some people have wondered how I could stay aloof to a Manny Pacquiao fight, for example. I just tell them, it must be the grace of God. Then we switch topics.
When I saw the program, I was amused to note that I was given 15 minutes to do the invocation. What did they expect me to do, I asked myself, as I immediately realized these were young people organizing this event and they must not know what an invocation is or how long it usually lasts.
Anyway, I did not complain. What came to my mind was to say some prayers and then give them a 10-minute reflection on the proper spirit of sports. I knew I had material for that.
So as the students entered the gym amid the hoopla and fanfare and fell into formation, I did my part and was pleasantly surprised to see they were listening. The place became quiet. I felt my words sank in and I thanked God.
Then came the national anthem, and the games started with a contest in cheer dancing. I was not prepared for this. My jaws just dropped as I saw a dizzying variety of creative dance steps performed by 16 to 17-year-old boys, mostly coming from the province, whose background I thought was not that rich.
I knew most of them. They come to me for chats and I am familiar with their situations, mostly hard and difficult. But there they were, completely transformed into focused artistic performers. I was very happy for them.
They were jumping and tumbling and spinning around. They made mock macho and effeminate poses. They flowed into different formations—circles, triangles, pyramids, etc. Some were thrown into the air. I felt I was seeing the opening of the China Olympics.
They executed difficult movements like break dancing steps or even what they call as extreme dancing arm flares and hands wildly gesticulating to the beat of the music. And the music! For a 5-minute number, they managed to mix about 20 songs.
That’s where I noticed that the classical music of Beethoven and Mozart interspersed with the comic foolishness of Yoyoy Villame and Max Surban. All these left me wondering how they ever got to know all these things. My generation was never like this.
Then at the back of my mind, I retrieved some lines from a song of my time, What a Wonderful World!, now revived by Michael Buble. “I hear babies cry / I watch them grow / They’ll learn much more / Than I’ll ever know…”
That’s it! This is the dynamics of life, I concluded. I have to learn how to adapt myself to this fact of life and to do whatever I could to help. Truth is these kids are bursting with energy and creativity, now revved up to the max because of our new technologies.
But they are in great need of guidance and direction, and that’s what the elders, like me, are for. For all the good elements brought about by one’s youthfulness and the current level of development, there are dangers that need to be identified, exposed and neutralized or even taken advantage of.
Our young today are prone to acquire a cut-and-paste mentality and lifestyle. They can easily fall to improvisations that can become a habit.
For sure, there are many advantages in that, but it’s not supposed to replace our youth’s need for a deep and solid grounding that would give them a coherent and correct understanding of life and its many elements.
This is the challenge I realized as I excused myself after their third number. I noticed I got tired for them, after seeing those vigorous and strenuous moves they were performing.
They need to know the skills for study, prayer and the continuing pursuit of virtues.
The other day, a freshman student leader asked me to give the invocation at the opening of our technical school’s Olympiad.
I was, of course, happy and eager to do it. I consider it a great fringe benefit to get a chance to see some games with young people. That would be a welcome change from my routine, I thought, as long as it is only from time to time.
My age and temperament seem to prevent me from getting into this kind of events. Some people have wondered how I could stay aloof to a Manny Pacquiao fight, for example. I just tell them, it must be the grace of God. Then we switch topics.
When I saw the program, I was amused to note that I was given 15 minutes to do the invocation. What did they expect me to do, I asked myself, as I immediately realized these were young people organizing this event and they must not know what an invocation is or how long it usually lasts.
Anyway, I did not complain. What came to my mind was to say some prayers and then give them a 10-minute reflection on the proper spirit of sports. I knew I had material for that.
So as the students entered the gym amid the hoopla and fanfare and fell into formation, I did my part and was pleasantly surprised to see they were listening. The place became quiet. I felt my words sank in and I thanked God.
Then came the national anthem, and the games started with a contest in cheer dancing. I was not prepared for this. My jaws just dropped as I saw a dizzying variety of creative dance steps performed by 16 to 17-year-old boys, mostly coming from the province, whose background I thought was not that rich.
I knew most of them. They come to me for chats and I am familiar with their situations, mostly hard and difficult. But there they were, completely transformed into focused artistic performers. I was very happy for them.
They were jumping and tumbling and spinning around. They made mock macho and effeminate poses. They flowed into different formations—circles, triangles, pyramids, etc. Some were thrown into the air. I felt I was seeing the opening of the China Olympics.
They executed difficult movements like break dancing steps or even what they call as extreme dancing arm flares and hands wildly gesticulating to the beat of the music. And the music! For a 5-minute number, they managed to mix about 20 songs.
That’s where I noticed that the classical music of Beethoven and Mozart interspersed with the comic foolishness of Yoyoy Villame and Max Surban. All these left me wondering how they ever got to know all these things. My generation was never like this.
Then at the back of my mind, I retrieved some lines from a song of my time, What a Wonderful World!, now revived by Michael Buble. “I hear babies cry / I watch them grow / They’ll learn much more / Than I’ll ever know…”
That’s it! This is the dynamics of life, I concluded. I have to learn how to adapt myself to this fact of life and to do whatever I could to help. Truth is these kids are bursting with energy and creativity, now revved up to the max because of our new technologies.
But they are in great need of guidance and direction, and that’s what the elders, like me, are for. For all the good elements brought about by one’s youthfulness and the current level of development, there are dangers that need to be identified, exposed and neutralized or even taken advantage of.
Our young today are prone to acquire a cut-and-paste mentality and lifestyle. They can easily fall to improvisations that can become a habit.
For sure, there are many advantages in that, but it’s not supposed to replace our youth’s need for a deep and solid grounding that would give them a coherent and correct understanding of life and its many elements.
This is the challenge I realized as I excused myself after their third number. I noticed I got tired for them, after seeing those vigorous and strenuous moves they were performing.
They need to know the skills for study, prayer and the continuing pursuit of virtues.
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