As we breathe our breaths each day we always dedicate it for the compensation of yesterday and for the betterment of tomorrow. Resulting to the making of the present a mere intermediary to what has been and what is to be. With this mindset, we come to conceive of time of having the past, the present and the future. With mechanical time to govern our everyday lives- to set what is past, what is present and what is future. But, the problem is that we no longer live the present but instead engross ourselves to what is the future.
Our existence is not that of early video recorders wherein in it is composed of different slides to project. What has been projected is the past, what is being projected is the present and what is to be projected is the future. I come to points of my life wherein I look at myself in the present not focusing on it but focusing on what I have been and what I am to be. Neglecting altogether my present and never living it.
Imagine a potter. He has clay in hand and facing his spinning wheel. The clay is so simple and irrelevant coming from the roads we tread, from the gardens we toil and from other uninteresting locations. But there the potter is, never stopping of dreaming of forming something beautiful and precious from this irrelevant clay. He put the clay on his spinning wheel and began to spin it. With his bare hands he began to form the simple clay into something different. With the simple spinning and with the graces of the potter’s hands comes out from earth’s clay something unique- a jar.
I spent the last 3 years of my elementary education in a rural school in Laconon, T’boli because of my parent’s teaching work. My classmates were natives of the T’boli tribe with only few of us from the lowlands. My earlier elementary schooling was spent at Notre Dame of Norala, Inc. After graduating from that school I proceeded my high school at Koronadal National Comprehensive High School. At first my parents are not confident of my status taken that I am only a graduate of a rural school. So, they comforted me that I should not hope too much of getting into the honors of that school. They are not even hoping that I get into a higher section. But then I realized that its not about which school you were really from but it’s about how much you value education and how much you value learning.
If the potter did stop dreaming and instead of thinking of forming something unique from that clay but focused on the irrelevance and ugliness of the clay he will find himself not forming something appreciative but instead stuck in his folly with nothing to accomplish.
Life is like that, at certain times we take time blaming and blaming the cause, things that have been done and cannot be undone, for the mistakes of the present that we neglect the things that we can do to better the things of the present. We take more time blaming who is responsible that we realize that we have spent all the time with nothing more to do because the time that we can spend in making things right we have already used in blaming who’s who.
Life will not always be perfect. We come to crossroads wherein the choices to choose is never positive. All four corners of the road are in flaws. But, the thing is that we are gifted with creativity for us to use. Besides, because of this creativity of man do all priceless possessions on earth arose. To name a few does from the sands of Egypt arose the pyramids and the Great Sphinx of Giza, from the clays of Yuang tze, the great yellow river of China, does came the great Chinese porcelains and from the great Alps of Italy came the raw marbles that became sculptures donning the great halls of Italy and the Vatican.
We can never choose which part of history does destiny wants us to place. We can never choose who we are and what we are on the day we were born. The thing is that, wherever and whichever part of history we are in we can always change the world. Remember that He who is the prince of the world was born in a simple manger but his love became the epitome of love for mankind- He has changed the World. Why don’t you?
Apr 26, 2016
The Question of Man is Across Time
Most often than not, man has always been imposed with this question: “What is man?”
For centuries, answers to this single question were given varying from culture to culture, custom to custom, from philosopher to philosopher and even from man himself to another man. Some of which gave answers starting most often with the self, grounded from his own existence. Others gave answers starting with the statements of those claiming to have possession of an interaction with the absolute.
This act of man questioning his nature does not only imply man’s curiosity and awareness of his existence but presupposes a certain search for meaning. A search for meaning in his existence.
The answers to this question started with Greeks whose view of man as part of the Cosmos (Cosmo-centric) gave fame to the Socratic motto: “Know thyself.” Man was seen as a microcosm, and the search for truth about man was simultaneously the search for truth about the universe.[1] Therefore, man is everything.
Other periods in the philosophical landscape emerged and gave rise to new thinking of what is man but this know thyself has and will always leave its mark. With the coming and predominance of Christianity on Medieval Europe, this “knowing thyself” has somewhat found its new perspective. “Know thyself” in the perspective of faith. Philosophy became the handmaid of Theology (Theo-Centric or God-Centered). Reason was the companion of faith, its task was to make faith reasonable...Man was viewed still as part of nature but nature now was God’s creation.[2]
The change of focus began with the philosophizing of Rene Dascartes...Everything was dubitable...all except for one fact- the fact that he was doubting.[3] From this criterion, Descartes has somewhat established of understanding man in the standpoint only of himself. In the standpoint of the ‘I’ taken in itself. (Anthropo-Centric)
Yet, the zeitgeist is so alive that new ways of understanding man were born. From the standpoint of the I, where modern philosophy established man, emerged Martin Buber’s ‘Thou.’
[1] Dy, M. (2001). Philosophy of Man: Selected Readings (2nd edition). Philippines: Goodwill Trading Co., Inc.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
For centuries, answers to this single question were given varying from culture to culture, custom to custom, from philosopher to philosopher and even from man himself to another man. Some of which gave answers starting most often with the self, grounded from his own existence. Others gave answers starting with the statements of those claiming to have possession of an interaction with the absolute.
This act of man questioning his nature does not only imply man’s curiosity and awareness of his existence but presupposes a certain search for meaning. A search for meaning in his existence.
The answers to this question started with Greeks whose view of man as part of the Cosmos (Cosmo-centric) gave fame to the Socratic motto: “Know thyself.” Man was seen as a microcosm, and the search for truth about man was simultaneously the search for truth about the universe.[1] Therefore, man is everything.
Other periods in the philosophical landscape emerged and gave rise to new thinking of what is man but this know thyself has and will always leave its mark. With the coming and predominance of Christianity on Medieval Europe, this “knowing thyself” has somewhat found its new perspective. “Know thyself” in the perspective of faith. Philosophy became the handmaid of Theology (Theo-Centric or God-Centered). Reason was the companion of faith, its task was to make faith reasonable...Man was viewed still as part of nature but nature now was God’s creation.[2]
The change of focus began with the philosophizing of Rene Dascartes...Everything was dubitable...all except for one fact- the fact that he was doubting.[3] From this criterion, Descartes has somewhat established of understanding man in the standpoint only of himself. In the standpoint of the ‘I’ taken in itself. (Anthropo-Centric)
Yet, the zeitgeist is so alive that new ways of understanding man were born. From the standpoint of the I, where modern philosophy established man, emerged Martin Buber’s ‘Thou.’
[1] Dy, M. (2001). Philosophy of Man: Selected Readings (2nd edition). Philippines: Goodwill Trading Co., Inc.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
Philosophy and a Better Place
It is said that Philosophy has three main branches, namely: Metaphysics, Epistemology and Ethics.
Metaphysics, as said, is the branch of philosophy that deals with the fundamental nature of reality. Epistemology is said to be dealing with the theory of knowledge. And lastly, Ethics is said to be the one concerned with the actions of man.
All three, in my opinion, does not only stop at looking and staring at reality. Not that Metaphysics should only tell us what is reality, Epistemology telling us what are we to know of reality and Ethics as telling us what is our reality and how should we conform to it. Instead, we can make a better world out of these three. Not of course if we only codify it in books and make that book as precious as the Bible and fossilize it in our mere memorization of quotations from the greatest of Philosophers and walk in the corridors of NDMU as though “the future is in your hand.” Of course, I am not telling that the future is not in your and our hands but what I am telling is do not fool yourself that by mere memorization of these quotations will you ever change the world. For even dogs live in memory. Instead, live it. The future will certainly slip in your hands if you only live in fooling yourself.
These three branches of Philosophy can make us a better place. It is like making from the sands of Egypt rise the pyramids and the Great Sphinx of Giza, from the clays of Yuang tze, the great yellow river of China, the great Chinese porcelains and from the raw marbles of the great Alps of Italy the sculptures of Michaelangelo donning the great halls of Italy and the Vatican.
So, how do we live it? We should do it. We should be the one looking at reality. We should be the one facing reality. Vis-a-vis. So as to know what are we to know and live conforming to what we know. We must know how to connect these branches into a unified working on reality. We must know how to transcend our dealing with reality in Metaphysics into strengthening and verifying it in Epistemology and thus apply it in our Ethics.
The greatest tragedy of man is selfishness. Few are the songs and literatures that youth listen to now that pertains for the longing of the common good. Nationalistic songs are becoming things of the past. Even the Aglipayan church whom I admire much in their patriotic cause have stopped wearing their Philippine Flag as vestments. Most students would choose listening to ‘Pusong Bato,’ ‘Boom Panes,’ etc. They would even choose to read ‘Hopeless Romantic’ of Marcelo Santos III neglecting that we have a greater tragedy to face than the tragedy that happens in their puppy love escapades.
Who would dare to listen to this song now with its heavy use of patriotic words and even with its use of native musical instrument?
Saan Ka Patungo
Joey Ayala
I would dare, would you?
Metaphysics, as said, is the branch of philosophy that deals with the fundamental nature of reality. Epistemology is said to be dealing with the theory of knowledge. And lastly, Ethics is said to be the one concerned with the actions of man.
All three, in my opinion, does not only stop at looking and staring at reality. Not that Metaphysics should only tell us what is reality, Epistemology telling us what are we to know of reality and Ethics as telling us what is our reality and how should we conform to it. Instead, we can make a better world out of these three. Not of course if we only codify it in books and make that book as precious as the Bible and fossilize it in our mere memorization of quotations from the greatest of Philosophers and walk in the corridors of NDMU as though “the future is in your hand.” Of course, I am not telling that the future is not in your and our hands but what I am telling is do not fool yourself that by mere memorization of these quotations will you ever change the world. For even dogs live in memory. Instead, live it. The future will certainly slip in your hands if you only live in fooling yourself.
These three branches of Philosophy can make us a better place. It is like making from the sands of Egypt rise the pyramids and the Great Sphinx of Giza, from the clays of Yuang tze, the great yellow river of China, the great Chinese porcelains and from the raw marbles of the great Alps of Italy the sculptures of Michaelangelo donning the great halls of Italy and the Vatican.
So, how do we live it? We should do it. We should be the one looking at reality. We should be the one facing reality. Vis-a-vis. So as to know what are we to know and live conforming to what we know. We must know how to connect these branches into a unified working on reality. We must know how to transcend our dealing with reality in Metaphysics into strengthening and verifying it in Epistemology and thus apply it in our Ethics.
The greatest tragedy of man is selfishness. Few are the songs and literatures that youth listen to now that pertains for the longing of the common good. Nationalistic songs are becoming things of the past. Even the Aglipayan church whom I admire much in their patriotic cause have stopped wearing their Philippine Flag as vestments. Most students would choose listening to ‘Pusong Bato,’ ‘Boom Panes,’ etc. They would even choose to read ‘Hopeless Romantic’ of Marcelo Santos III neglecting that we have a greater tragedy to face than the tragedy that happens in their puppy love escapades.
Who would dare to listen to this song now with its heavy use of patriotic words and even with its use of native musical instrument?
Saan Ka Patungo
Joey Ayala
Chorus:
Saan ka patungo panganay ko.
Ano ang hinahanap mo sa ating mundo?
Ako’y tutungo sa siyudad upang hanapin ang kaluluwa nito,
Papasukin ang mga pintuan at gusali niya at hihiga sa kaniyang semento.
Ako’y tutungo sa siyudad at sasagupa sa dahas nito,
Ako’y sasama sa kanyang mga pulubi at pusakal at yayakap sa kaniyang aspalto.
(Chorus)
Ako’y tutungong katedral upang tumitig sa mukha ng Diyos,
Isasaulo ko ang bawat guhit sa kanyang mukha at dadalhin ko siya sa aking puso.
Ako’y tutungong mesquita upang tumitig sa mukha ni Allah.
At kung matuklasan ko na ang Diyos at si Allah pala’y pareho ang mukhang pinapakita,
Aking imumungkahi na dapat magkaisa ang lahat ng mga Muslim at Kristiyano sa lupa.
(Chorus)
Ako’y tutungo sa ginintuang palasyo ng mga hari,
Titingnan ko kung ang kulay ng mga haring ito ay tunay na tulad ng kulay kong kayumanggi.
At kung matuklasan ko na ang tunay na kulay nila’y pintura sa mukha’t balat-kayo,
Makikita ng mundo na ang nakaupo sa trono ay di hari kundi manika lamang.
(Chorus)
Ako’y tutungo sa parang upang hukayin ang dunong sa lupa.
Isip ko’y bubungkalin diwa ko’y itatanim at aanihin ko ang katotohanan.
Ipamamahagi ko sa aking kapwa tao ang mga bunga ng aking diwa.
At kung may hahadlang sa pagbungkal ng isipan awitin ko’y magsisilbing sandata.
(Chorus)
Saan ka patungo, panganay ko.
Tila mpanganib ang adhikain mo.
Ita’y ako’y patungo sa dulo ng mundo.
Ang aking hinahanap ay ang kalayaan ko!
Ito ang aking pakay at ako’y nakahanding ipagpait ang aking buhay para sa KALAYAAN...
I would dare, would you?
Know Thyself!
Everybody who knows Socrates will surely recognize the words which he uttered almost 2,500 years ago yet still gives out a challenge to every man of this modern time: "Know thyself!"
What does really make a better you? What makes a good life? Most of us would think it would be things, material things.
During my childhood years, we lived at a subdivision in Norala. Some of my friends came from well-to-do families and they have as it seem everything they want. They have computers on their homes. Encyclopaedias don their living room. Bulky dictionaries would be their companion during studies. Their “yaya’s” would even accompany them going to school with their cars to bring them to and fro. At a young age they have cellphones to call their own. To sum up, they are rich while my family is only from the middle class. Though our everyday life is alright, not as bad as others, to dream of someday also becoming rich was implanted to my being. I was taught that if I study harder, someday I will also have these things and my life would be better. Better if I also have those things.
At first I succumb to that temptation of dreaming of having also those things. I wished I also live on a big house; I can be brought to school with a really nice car. I also dreamed of reading those thick encyclopaedias in our home and scan that dictionary everytime I have assignments. I really thought happiness, before you will have it, you should have these things also. But it is not.
I was transferred school when I was in Grade 4 because of my Mother’s work. It was really a new life where I transferred, totally a new life.
I was transferred to Laconon Elementary School. It was actually the second largest school in T’boli but still a few kilometres from the town proper. We will be trekking an 8-kilometer road with 2 rivers just to get there. Our house there is made of nipa. We live in a compound where teachers are boarding. Our water supplies come from springs. There are springs there where you can tap a hose up to your house and would be the source of water for your house. Sometimes if our tapping system would break we will be most happy because we will have no water and we will be washing ourselves in a river at the back of our house. The water is so pure and clean and it is literally as cold as water with ice! We used to heat water first before bathing.
Life is very different from that of Norala. Everything my classmates at Norala have, that’s the very opposite of what my classmates in T’boli has. Literally, small houses, no cars and we don’t even have books from the school. My classmates would start “walking” from their houses at 4 and still they would be late for the first period. Our school also practice an “early dismissal system” so that those who live in the barrios can reach their homes early. At 3:30 pm we are already dismissed. Life is just so simple in that mountain. But, one thing makes them superior than my rich classmates before. They truly know life.
With all the scarcity of what they have, they would still share, laugh and enjoy each day. You would even think if they have problems at all! They are all relatives by the way; they can trace every member of their clans though they do not have the same surname. Even those whom you would expect to be “siga” can be so gentle in his sister, can share the little he has with his friends and can be of company for his brothers in walks miles away.
Well, that is philosophy. It teaches us how to truly live our lives. They would say, “Philosophy is so hard!” Others would ask, “If you graduate the course, what good will it bring you?” Well, it is bringing good to you now.
Philosophy is never detached from the world. It actually gives balance and meaning to the world. As a telescope would help astronomers venture the heavens, know the vastness of the cosmos and discover the deepness of the universe so is Philosophy leading us to discover what life truly is, the life itself. It leads us to our most being. If you look into the heavens under a light post, that artificial light from the post may blur our eyes from seeing the very beauty of the moon and the stars. If we look into what happiness in life is through the lenses of material things, we may be disillusioned from what real happiness is.
Our life is like the universe, so vast and full of wonders yet unknown. It may be discovered but still there are more to offer. The stars, the moon, the comets and many other wonders lie beneath the dark spaces. We are told that these wonders are only fragments, debris; trash of what happened millions of years ago. If this debris would fall so beautiful, what more is that very nucleus which happened long ago? Philosophy does that; it makes us discover that very beautiful self of us. That very nucleus of ourselves which if discovered is so beautiful.
So let us anchor to Philosophy and let us live life itself.
What does really make a better you? What makes a good life? Most of us would think it would be things, material things.
During my childhood years, we lived at a subdivision in Norala. Some of my friends came from well-to-do families and they have as it seem everything they want. They have computers on their homes. Encyclopaedias don their living room. Bulky dictionaries would be their companion during studies. Their “yaya’s” would even accompany them going to school with their cars to bring them to and fro. At a young age they have cellphones to call their own. To sum up, they are rich while my family is only from the middle class. Though our everyday life is alright, not as bad as others, to dream of someday also becoming rich was implanted to my being. I was taught that if I study harder, someday I will also have these things and my life would be better. Better if I also have those things.
At first I succumb to that temptation of dreaming of having also those things. I wished I also live on a big house; I can be brought to school with a really nice car. I also dreamed of reading those thick encyclopaedias in our home and scan that dictionary everytime I have assignments. I really thought happiness, before you will have it, you should have these things also. But it is not.
I was transferred school when I was in Grade 4 because of my Mother’s work. It was really a new life where I transferred, totally a new life.
I was transferred to Laconon Elementary School. It was actually the second largest school in T’boli but still a few kilometres from the town proper. We will be trekking an 8-kilometer road with 2 rivers just to get there. Our house there is made of nipa. We live in a compound where teachers are boarding. Our water supplies come from springs. There are springs there where you can tap a hose up to your house and would be the source of water for your house. Sometimes if our tapping system would break we will be most happy because we will have no water and we will be washing ourselves in a river at the back of our house. The water is so pure and clean and it is literally as cold as water with ice! We used to heat water first before bathing.
Life is very different from that of Norala. Everything my classmates at Norala have, that’s the very opposite of what my classmates in T’boli has. Literally, small houses, no cars and we don’t even have books from the school. My classmates would start “walking” from their houses at 4 and still they would be late for the first period. Our school also practice an “early dismissal system” so that those who live in the barrios can reach their homes early. At 3:30 pm we are already dismissed. Life is just so simple in that mountain. But, one thing makes them superior than my rich classmates before. They truly know life.
With all the scarcity of what they have, they would still share, laugh and enjoy each day. You would even think if they have problems at all! They are all relatives by the way; they can trace every member of their clans though they do not have the same surname. Even those whom you would expect to be “siga” can be so gentle in his sister, can share the little he has with his friends and can be of company for his brothers in walks miles away.
Well, that is philosophy. It teaches us how to truly live our lives. They would say, “Philosophy is so hard!” Others would ask, “If you graduate the course, what good will it bring you?” Well, it is bringing good to you now.
Philosophy is never detached from the world. It actually gives balance and meaning to the world. As a telescope would help astronomers venture the heavens, know the vastness of the cosmos and discover the deepness of the universe so is Philosophy leading us to discover what life truly is, the life itself. It leads us to our most being. If you look into the heavens under a light post, that artificial light from the post may blur our eyes from seeing the very beauty of the moon and the stars. If we look into what happiness in life is through the lenses of material things, we may be disillusioned from what real happiness is.
Our life is like the universe, so vast and full of wonders yet unknown. It may be discovered but still there are more to offer. The stars, the moon, the comets and many other wonders lie beneath the dark spaces. We are told that these wonders are only fragments, debris; trash of what happened millions of years ago. If this debris would fall so beautiful, what more is that very nucleus which happened long ago? Philosophy does that; it makes us discover that very beautiful self of us. That very nucleus of ourselves which if discovered is so beautiful.
So let us anchor to Philosophy and let us live life itself.
Mar 13, 2016
Just a meter away
He was there…and I am here…just a meter away.
He was there…and I am here…just a meter away still. But, I just felt the presence of a father so alone, so weakened by days and weeks and months of longing for his loved ones. I felt the love of a friend from this stranger I just know. He confided me the things that is happening in the center as if I am that trustworthy to keep his little secrets. With these, I realized we are the same. He is still a man and not some mischievous monster ready to devour the flesh of mine which I adore as so pure and precious than theirs. How proud I am as I enter the center. But, how ashamed I am as I bid them farewell for they seem to be more human. For they pose true signs of hope in the Lord in which mine a hiprocrisy of stage plays.
Simply as our time to depart comes to a close, he gave me his little flower made of drinking straw. At no cost he gave me this little treasure in where he live up his life now. I in turn took it and appreciated it feeling ashamed for not doing my part of bringing something for him. I apologized for not bringing something but then he expressed himself consoling me: “What is important my son is your presence and your visit.”
He was there…and I am here…just a meter away still…but I can feel my heart beating for the heart of this saint. This saint of conversion.
11 Fascinating Quotes from Elizabeth of the Trinity Everyone Should Read
Tap into the heart of our newest Carmelite saint, Elizabeth of the Trinity. Add more in our comment box below.
2. “May my life be a continual prayer, a long act of love.”
3. “May nothing distract me from You, neither noise nor diversions. O my Master, I would so love to live with You in silence. But what I love above all is to do Your will, and since You want me still to remain in the world, I submit with all my heart for love of You. I offer you the cell of my heart; may it be Your little Bethany. Come rest there; I love you so…I would like to console You, and offer myself to You as a victim. O my Master, for You, with You.”
4. “It seems to me that I have found my heaven on earth, because my heaven is you, my God, and you are in my soul. You in me, and I in you – may this be my motto.”
5. “What a joyous mystery is your presence within me, in that intimate sanctuary of my soul where I can always find you, even when I do not feel your presence. Of what importance is feeling? Perhaps you are all the closer when I feel you less.”
6. “Make my soul…Your cherished dwelling place, Your home of rest. Let me never leave You there alone, but keep me there all absorbed in You, in living faith, adoring You.”
7. “Here in Carmel, there is nothing, nothing but God. He is all, He suffices, and one lives for Him alone and for His glory… this life of prayer and contemplation, interceding always for His people before the Face of God…”
8. “My mission in heaven will be to draw souls, helping them to go out of themselves to cling to God, with a spontaneous, love-filled action, and to keep them in that great interior silence which enables God to make his mark on them, to transform them into himself.”
9. “A soul united to Jesus is a living smile that radiates Him and gives Him.”
10. “I can’t find words to express my happiness. Here there is no longer anything but God. He is All; He suffices and we live by Him alone.”
11. “Believe that He loves you. He wants to help you Himself in the struggles which you must undergo. Believe in His Love, His exceeding Love.”
Feb 12, 2016
Be the You
“To understand the world,This reminds me to be one with myself and to discover it not theoretically but instead discover it as one should employ every faculty.
knowledge is not enough,
you must see it,
touch it,
live in its presence
and drink the vital heat of existence
in the very heart of reality.”
May 24, 2015
A Third World Version of 'The Lord's Prayer'
who is in us here on earth,
holy is your name
in the hungry
who share their bread and their song.
Your Kingdom come,
which is a generous land
flowing with milk and honey.
Let us do your will,
standing up when all are sitting down,
and raising our voice
when all are silent.
You are giving us our daily bread
in the song of the bird and the miracle of the corn.
Forgive us
for keeping silent in the face of injustice,
and for burying our dreams;
for not sharing bread and wine,
love and the land,
among us, now.
Don't let us fall into the temptation
of shutting the door through fear,
of resigning ourselves to hunger and injustice,
of taking up the same arms as the enemy.
But deliver us from evil.
Give us the perseverance and the solidarity
to look for love,
even if the path has not yet been trodden,
even if we fail;
so we shall have known your Kingdom
which is being built forever and ever.
Amen
May 23, 2015
What is Spirituality?
These are people who, legitimately, shun old and new spiritualisms, unreal abstractions, and see no reason to waste their time.
The word "spirituality" derives from "spirit." And for most people, spirit is opposed to matter. "Spirits" are immaterial beings, without a body, very different from ourselves. In this sense, what is not material, what does not have a body, would be spiritual. And one would say that people are "spiritual" or" very spiritual" if they live without worrying much about material things, even about their own body, trying to live only off spiritual realites.
These concepts of spirit and spirituality as realities opposed to material and bodily reality come from Greek culture. From that, they moved to Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, even English and German So that whatever might be labelled "Western culture" is, in effect, as it were infected with this Greek concept of what is spiritual. The same is not true, for example, of the Quechua, Guaranf or Aymara languages.
Neither did the ancestral tongue of the Bible, the Hebrew language, the Semitic cultural world, understand "spiritual" in this way. For the Bible, spirit is not opposed to matter, or to body, but to evil (destruction); it is opposed to flesh, to death (the fragility of what is destined to die), and it is opposed to the law (imposition, fear, punishment). In this semantic context, spirit means life, building, power, action, freedom. The spirit is not something that is outside matter, outside the body and outside tangible reality, but something that is within, that inhabit smatter, the body, actuality, and gives them life, makes them be what they are; it fills them with power, moves them, impels them; it propels them into growth and creativity in an impulse of freedom.
In Hebrew, the word for spirit, ruah, means wind, breath, exhalation. The spirit is, like the wind, light, strong, flattening, unpredictable. It is, like breath, the bodily wind that makes us breathe and take in oxygen, lets us go on living. It is like the exhalation of our breathing: while we breathe, we live; if we don't breathe, we die.
The spirit is not another life but the best of life, what makes life be what it is, giving it love and strength, looking after it and moving it forward.
We can say that something is spiritual in that it has the presence of the spirit in it. So, from now on, we abandon the Greek sense of the word "spirit" and will take care to use it in its biblical, indigenous, African, not its split "Western," sense.
+Bp. Pedro Casaldaliga
Excerpt from The Spirituality of Liberation, Int. pp. 1
The Despised
Today we come to you, Lord, we, the despised.We are not a sorry procession, but a repugnant one.
We do not even arouse compassion, or hatred, tenderness or sympathy.
We are simply despised; we disgust people.
The leper arouses compassion.
The fiercest criminal stirs up hatred or terror.
But there is no place reserved for us in the catalogue of the works of mercy.
I, Lord, am a drug addict.
For all practical purposes, I have resigned from the human race.
I have lost all hope of regaining my self- control, of becoming myself again.
There are other people who have drugged, not their bodies, but their consciences and hearts.
But nobody despises them. At worst, they are feared.
I, Lord, am a homosexual.
I don’t like women.
Now and then, I go with another man.
I commit fewer sins than my brother who certainly does like women and who even takes up with other men’s wives.
Bur no one at home or outside turns their nose up at him; they don’t find him repugnant; on the contrary, sometimes they even admire him.
But everyone, both men and women, shy away from me.
And I am acceptable only to someone who, like me, also feels that he is cast off by normal society.
I, Lord, am a drunkard.
But a poor one.
I’ve been on the bottle for many years.
They don’t want me at home because they’re ashamed of me, and so I’m left to stagger around the streets like a sick dog.
When people see me coming, they hastily cross to the other side of the street.
Even a beggar occasionally has the consolation of having someone approach him and, although hurriedly, put a small coin in his hand, which, as you yourself had told us, is also in your hand.
But nobody comes near me; except perhaps a policeman to hustle me off to jail.
Yet, Lord, there are others who also get drunk, but they do it at exclusive parties in the suburb and, because they are influential, people only laugh good- naturedly at their drunken antics.
They are readily forgiven and, if necessary, excuses are found for them by their hangers-on, who covers up for them.
No policeman ever lays a finger on them.
I wonder – am I more repugnant when drunk than they are, just because I get loaded on cheap wine, while they do it on expensive whiskey, vodka and gin?
I, Lord, am a prostitute.
I can’t claim to be one of the girls, not any more.
Because now I’m old and fat and tired.
I have no one now to pay the rent of an apartment for me and buy me nice things.
I am one of those who have to satisfied with what the ‘customers’ feel like giving them.
I no longer have a nice apartment to entertain my clients in, and I don’t have the money to advertise in the newspaper as a ‘masseuse.’
I have to be satisfied with hanging around cheap bars in the slums or on street corners in the cold and the rain, hoping that some poor wretch will be willing to pay me a few coins for the remnants of my favours.
People passing in their cars look down their noses at me and quickly turn away so as not to meet my eyes.
I am despised even by the high-class call-girls who, glittering with jewels and wrapped in furs, glide by in big cars driven by their very respectable ‘patrons.’
I, Lord, have been excommunicated in your Church.
I can’t receive the sacraments, as do the criminals and money-grubbers and oppressors of the poor.
Nobody even dreams that I may perhaps be at peace with my conscience.
Didn’t the Church of your day excommunicate you?
There are others who defend more heresies than I; who even boast about their atheism; who exploit your Church and who live off her without believing in her.
But they are admired and respected.
They don’t carry the shameful mark of excommunication in their foreheads, as I do.
Perhaps this is because they have friends who stand up for them, or because they know how to be more diplomatic than I, professing in public what they betray in private or in the dark places of their consciences.
We and so many others whom the society does not even pity; we, the despised of the earth, who arouse neither hatred nor pity nor fear, but only disgust, today we come to you, who are sinless, because we believe that, if you do exist, you will not despise but will even forgive us.
We aren’t trying to hid or make excuses for the sins that have caused us to be cast off by society.
We only hope that perhaps you, who not only forgive but also excuse, will be able to avoid humiliating us further and to tell us , as once you told the man possessed by the devil, that saving us will let others see your glory and mercy in us.
Remember, you said you came to save what was lost.
And who is more lost than us who do not even arouse pity?
Sometimes, a ray of hope lets us dream for a moment that perhaps you may bring yourself to love even us and to find under the filth and grime some traces of your own likeness.
Forgive us, Lord, if we are sometimes tempted to think that you do not exist.
It’s not easy to believe in your, whom we cannot see when all our fellowmen, who we can see only too well, turn their eyes away from us in disgust so as not to have to look at us.
Forgive us also if, as very seldom happens, we find someone who does not despise us and even hold out a friendly hand to us, so that we feel tempted to confuse him with you and adore him as our God.
Forgive that idolatry.
But would it be really idolatry?
If someone succeeds in loving what everyone else despises, doesn’t he thereby become you yourself presented and living among us?
O Christ, have pity, at least you, our Lord and our Brother – have pity on us, the despised of the earth.
+Juan Arias
Prayer without Frills
May 21, 2015
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