Turning Twenty-Eight

Few weeks ago, I attended two wake masses. One is a friend of my friend who died during typhoon Frank's rage. He was the mountaineer who was found three days after he was declared missing. He was found in one island in Zamables, on the day of his birth. And the other one was a classmate of mine in Ateneo, which really suprised me upon knowing his demise.

But it gave me cause for reflection.

A couple of years before he died, the novelist, Morris West, wrote a remarkable autobiographical piece he called, A View From the Ridge. I like what he says in the preface of that book: Once you reach a certain age, he suggests, there should be only one phrase left in your vocabulary: Thank-you! With every birthday, gratitude should deepen until it colors every aspect life. I'm not sure that I am there, but at least I know where I should be going.

Reading Morris West's autobiography, reminded me of a conversation I had with an old Jesuit Priest, which I will not name, when I asked him during lunch on how he feels reaching an old age. He said to me "I love living and I hope still to live for a long time, but if I died today it would be okay. I'd be okay - because I'm loved. I know people who love me, and that's enough." That's a wonderful realization.

I will celebrate my birthday soon, though I know that this will be a lot different, it will be just an ordinary day without the usual celebration or fancy dinners (and that will be another blog entry). But like Fr. X who have grown with such grace, I'd still like to live for a long time, but if I died tomorrow, I'd be okay, because I too know people who love and have loved me. I didn't always feel that way, about dying, or about being loved, when I was younger.

And what have I learned over twenty seven years?

Luck has been with me and, among other things, I have been given the opportunity to belong in a group of religious men, though aware that we are sinners but still being used as God's instrument in this world and spread His love to His people. I was given the chance to study under some first-rate scholars and mentors who occasionally were also saints (I know some of them) and co-community members. Belonging a company of religous men, at least I hope, taught me some of life's real lessons.

So what have I learned after twenty eight years?

First, that there is a God, though not everything we do in his name honors that. Bertrand Russell, in a famous debate with Frederick Copleston, once stated: "If the universe makes sense, then there is a God!" The universe does make sense, though not always on the surface of things. But deep down things make sense, especially morally, and we know that whenever we don't lie to ourselves. There's a law of karma, operative at every level of things that lets us know that the air we breathe out is the air that we will re-inhale. There is an ultimate justice in everything.

Second, the mystery of God, the universe, and human life are far, far bigger than we have ever imagined and can ever imagine. The older we get, the more we know how little we understand, how far beyond us is the great mystery, and how we need, as John of the Cross says, "to begin to understand more by not understanding than by understanding." When we are little children and we ask our mothers where the sun goes at night, the best answer they can give is that it goes down behind the trees to take a rest. Later we learn about stars and planets and the big-bang theory and we graph it all out on PowerPoint. We need that sophistication. But there comes a time again, beyond Einstein, Stephen Hawkings, PowerPoint, and age, when perhaps the best language of all is, again, the language of children, where the sun takes a sleep behind the trees. This is especially true about God and the great dogmas of our faith. God is ineffable and all of our language about God is more inadequate than adequate and the great dogmas of our faith are more items of the heart and gut than objects of the intellect.

And one last bit: We need more and more to trust love and surrender (I am still learning), to let go of ourselves, especially of our pride, our wounds, our hurts, our mistakes, our past, and our weaknesses, to give ourselves over to forgiveness (and I continue to learn this). Morris West said that, at a certain age, it should come down to one word: "Thanks!" He's right, but to say that one word and mean it we need three other words: "Forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness!"