That which comes out of our mouth defiles us, not what goes into it, the Lord Jesus said. Out of the depths of our hearts come corrupt things like lust, hatred, slander, envy, cursing, rebellion and murderous thoughts. How such things arise in the hearts of those who were once such innocent infants or children is a process not many of us understand. It also pictures the transformation that our nation went through when we lost what Rizal described as our Eden-like past.
In the early ‘70’s, I was a lad fresh out of high school, just starting to enjoy and endure college at the same time, together with my bosom friends. It seems, we never had a day without our usual jamming with a guitar and a Jingle chord magazine (which was optional for most of us). In the midst of the seething and growing political turmoil that would divide many of us un-politicized and nearly-politicized Diliman citizens into many factions, we strove to derive as much fun from the free time we had away from calculus computations and philosophical speculations. We had no idea our growing-up years would be accelerated in tempo with the literal staccato noise of Armalite gunshots. Within two or three years, we would see the worst of what a government can do and what depths of suffering a nation could go through before marching into a zombie-like existence during Martial Law years. By then, many of us were political or spiritual renegades, not knowing what to believe in or, in many cases, whether we needed to believe anything at all. Many of us found solace in the Gospel.
EDSA ’86 was a chain-breaking event whose euphoria lasted shorter than it took many of us to await its coming. What many do not realize is that many years before EDSA, the Gospel had already gained a strong foothold in the hearts and spirits of spiritually hungry Filipinos who attended Bible studies in almost every corner of towns, cities and inside stores and office buildings. The confetti that rained in Makati prior to the departure of Marcos were literally those of renewed or born-again believers who put their hopes in God to set them free and not in the ideologues or the politicians. Still, the freedom we thought we had gained remains as elusive as before.
Not many of our youth today understand what the ‘70’s meant to our generation, just as not many of my generation did not understand what our parents went through in the ‘40’s during World War II. If the youth of today could learn to see and appreciate their parents’ strivings to give them the best they can with their meager means, then they would know what we, the parents of today, feel for our parents as well. The cycle of life revolves no matter who sits in Malacañang Palace or in the White House. Each generation’s task is to form a society that works for the common good from top to bottom.
The relative peace and uneasy freedom we have we owe to the people who actively fought to establish our institutions: from the time of our ancestors who set up the villages in these islands and farmed the fertile soils beside the unpolluted rivers to the time of the revolutionaries who took up arms to regain our lost sovereignty. The heart of the Filipino is no different from the heart of the Hebrew during Moses time when they built the pyramids of Egypt. The sugar-cane planters of Negros slaved to maintain the haciendas of the Spanish rulers. Even today, they continue to live the same kind of life of our ancestors in the present haciendas of Negros and Tarlac. The massacres that happen there today are mere spasms of the continuing injustice Filipinos go through till now.
The heart of the Filipino is a patient heart. Like the timid carabao whose only sense of relief from the burden of work is to wallow in the mud after toiling in the sun-baked ricefields, he sits silently in his home waiting for a chance to rise above his dreary existence. The factory worker goes home to the squalid slums with the bright thought that someday, one of his children will work as a nurse abroad and finally give the whole family the comfort and peace of owning their own house. Thousands dream a similar dream in an oppressive landscape that remains etched forever in the conscience of those who desire to provide relief to the weary of body and soul but end up offering only prayers and consolation. In a world where poverty and relief work are daily realities, calamity is nothing more than a vacation from monotony.
When given finally the chance to express his anger, the Filipino rises to the occasion: the Katipuneros, the guerillas, the rebels and the student activists, among others. Each time, the heart marched or marches to the call of freedom and the desire to claim one’s destiny in this world. Yet, so much like the Hebrews who suffered silently and lived to see their freedom given to them through divine grace, Filipinos, in general, desire a peaceful resolution of things that beset them. The heart may rise up in protest but the spirit subdues the violence that emanates from the heart and seeks heavenly wisdom which alone can institute desirable, permanent change. God has honored such pacifism by sparing our land from complete civil strife.
Even before the colonizers arrived, the Filipinos already had a deep spiritual awareness of their role in this world. The Aetas of Zambales recognized the power that reigned over Mt. Pinatubo and called Him “Apo Namallari” – the God Who owns or the God Who is Almighty. The Igorots embalmed their dead in the hope that one day, their bodies would be reunited with their spirits which they believed remained with them, roaming in the forests and mountains and not to be disturbed or desecrated by those who destroy Nature. Perhaps, our ancestors believed in a Heaven somewhere but preferred to believe that the spirits of the dead lived among them and offered cañaos (meat sacrifices) when they had dream-visits from their dead relatives.
Enter the colonizers who taught us a devitalized form of Christianity. (To prove the ironic point: Luther defended the Reformation in the year Magellan arrived here. What Europe was beginning to throw away, we were only beginning to learn.) Thus, instead of showing our ancestors genuine freedom and compassion, they exploited them and educated them in their decadent ways. Thus, unlike the Japanese and the Chinese who preserved their identity, we lost our native character. We had the heart of a person rooted in tropical lands and seas but our hearts and minds were somewhere in the temperate continents, imbibing the soul and the spirit of the ruler who himself was once a slave but learned to conquer. And conquer he did -- or they did.
How do we free ourselves from such a confused experience? It is a task next to impossible. Many have tried to make us aware of this reality (like Rizal discovering and uncovering the writings of de Morga in London or Sionil-Jose writing about what we can do with what we are and have to improve ourselves); but, so far, we have failed to make a concerted effort to harness the gifts we have received through our revolutionary spiritual experiences. Instead of looking into the lessons of our past and charting our future upon our own unique identity, we move forward like dressed, headless chicken – naked and blind.
Yes, the heart may hold much of what we know and desire; but it is the spirit – quickened by the Spirit of God – that will overcome everything, according to the promise of Him Who overcame death itself. The human heart, after all, sees and feels what is right for us and our children. However, the heart, blind to the teachings of Heaven, will march ahead toward perdition in the belief that humans can steer their own destiny. Such were the colonizers who shaped the lands they conquered through their idea of governance and exploitation. They believed in their supposedly manifest role to mold others according to their image. They fancied themselves gods with a mission to save the world when they really needed salvation more.
We have fallen victim to the idea that our salvation is in the material advantages derived from industrialization and commercial progress. We want to be world-class and so we build bigger houses, condos, malls, churches, hospitals, monuments and institutions. Is it not those very nations who usurped our freedoms and stole our innocence who continue to burden the globe in the political and economic sense? Ironically, they also arrogantly assume that they hold the key to our spiritual well-being. The latter is the worst kind of deception our nation has gone through. For more than four centuries, our nation has remained hostage to the spiritual slavery which Rizal sought to free us from. Yet, today, we remain blind and enslaved spiritually. The so-called spiritual leaders are as confused as the people they lead. In many cases, they are as corrupt or even more so.
The heart, the soul and the spirit of a nation that remains enslaved to spiritual, economic and political imperialists, can only attain its freedom from the God of Heaven. It is not from its leaders or from its so-called allies. It is God alone Who can cause a rebirth of our nation. How He does it is clearly seen in the events that are transpiring in our midst today.
The signs of a deteriorating Earth are obvious. Forget about global-warming or climate-change brought about by CO2 emissions. This is already a discredited belief. Other alternative causes of the climate-change are equally viable. The point is: It is not us humans who are causing the deterioration for the signals are those of the End-Times. The problem is not merely social, industrial or economic; it is spiritual. The spirit of humans is what is at stake – not the Earth or the Universe even. If we continue to be deluded that science and technology can help us solve all problems, we are grossly mistaken. If we continue to think that good politics and governance alone will bring about real change in our societies, we are pitifully shortsighted.
The time Noah began to call for riders of the Ark was just before he began building it. More than 100 years earlier. Whether the end of this present world comes in 2, 10, 100 or 500 years from now, today is the right time to tell all that a Judgment Day is coming. We will not mince words; nor will we apologize for our doomsday message.
Many Filipinos escaped sure death when the Ondoy floods came; but, today, they are back to their usual ways – dancing to the lewd tunes of material and carnal pleasure. Whereas they shed tears of fear or of gratitude for having been saved, they now smile smugly in their slavery to worldly passions. We live as if, like the Hebrews, God never showed us His power to save and transform us from within. The TV networks become compassionate and civically-minded when disasters come; but when summer vacation comes along, they purvey us with indecent shows as if the disasters never came about because of our immoral ways. Sadly, the spirituality of Filipinos has descended to a very low point that it is no longer a surprise when calamities visit us with a vengeance. For what the great and powerful media instill in our hearts and spirits is corruption (disguised as entertainment) that leads people to disobedience and further rebellion against God’s laws.
Yes, the average Filipino is corrupt or corrupted by the ideas he or she imbibes from the environment. The total decay we see is merely a manifestation of the corrupting evil spirit that rules over the nation. The only way God can purge such evil from our land, just as He did in the wilderness of Sinai, is to send more plagues. But plagues or disasters will never stop the businesspeople from making more money over the dumb souls of hapless and witless Filipinos who patronize their programs and products. Even the pure and wise may find it hard to escape spiritual annihilation.
Our present political leaders do not have the answers to all these problems we present. They only have answers to those problems they see immediately around them. They are blind to the spiritual decay around them for they themselves wallow in the mire of corruption and refuse to take the only way out. We need a more drastic, inner revolution. It begins with genuine education of the heart and the spirit that can only come with the intense desire to follow God’s life-principles.
I Corinthians 2:6-16
However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
But as it is written:
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
(Photo above: Is it possible for an innocent child to teach an adult?)
(To be continued)
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