Although I have definitely forwarded in my music appreciation, in my effort to keep up with my growing children and lessen our generation gap, I still maintained my love for the music of Basia, Sade, Enya, The Beatles, Cascades, etcetera, etcetera, but most of all The Carpenters.
Visiting my “teen life chapter”, especially when I feel senti (read: dramatic reminiscence), I could only smile to my tearful reaction then every time I heard Karen Carpenter on the radio singing one of my favorite songs, Bless the Beasts and the Children. The song did not really sell well understandably because it was not romantically worded and its music was a bit flat. But to me it brought so much pain. It seemed somehow the song was written for me including the unfortunate children of my kind.
The “beasts” I used to refer literally to the real beasts. But now that I have considerably grown up (I hope I have), I think the songwriter referred it more to people who act and treat people like animals, beastly – without a heart and a conscience. Some of them appear clear-cut beasts while some, who are the most dangerous kind, appear cool, calm, and collected, like angels or saints. My heart goes out for both.
Human degeneration has been very remarkably rapid and seemingly unstoppable that for most of the times all we can do is to cry and pray hard…and hope! It is in one of these moments of sad contemplation that I decided to offer my thoughts through this. Little did I know that that maiden contribution will catch the attention of PLAN-Philippines (an NGO), Catbalogan, Samar Office, Project Officer Ms. Angenic Garcia – a fairly tough young woman who certainly knows what she is doing, what she wants, and how to get there. In short, she is a much-focused service-oriented woman and very straight forward also. We met only once and did not talk much. We immediately connected though since we were looking at the same direction.
In a very short period of time, however, during our initial implementation for batches 1 and 2 (which success I credit most to Ms. Angie’s patience and guidance and the awesome assistance of her very active Community Worker, Mrs. Luchie Rosales – who came in as my bonus. Talk about interdependence. Praise you, Lord!), my reflection was focused for both sexes of humankind. Both sexes because I still am convinced that God made only men and women; that the so-called “third sex” is the effect of the numerous cultural dictates. Everything is our fault. So we must also get what we deserve. We must not forget though, that their (the third sex/gender) being what they are does not at all make them lesser children of God. We are all one and the same in God’s loving grace.
A battered person for most of my “growing up” years and emerging a finer person (please bear with me, friends.. I have got to believe in me first to effect belief in you, I think) after those years of emotional turmoil, I have developed a very deep observance of different people. My partnership with Ms. Angie, thus, was my culmination to thinking about “people empowerment” – not just a specific gender.
Going back to the basic for the protection of our environment and health has done great things for us. We must congratulate the good-hearted people and organizations behind those noble undertakings. But it is also along this line, of going back to the basics, that we must address our people to empower them. We have to teach them back the “basics” of our being human. Of why we are here and what we are made of basically, stressing God’s plans and intentions for our basic component as His special creation.
Development and modernization have brought about so many complexities in our lives resulting to rampant secularism and cynicism bringing us farther and farther apart. We don’t talk about us seriously anymore because we didn’t take us seriously for so long already. We have been so desensitized by modern technology. Family members have become strangers in their own families. Our confusion grows harder and harder each passing day, generation to generation, because there seems to be no one to talk to anymore who really cares. If I couldn’t even care for me, how could I care for anybody?
So I am simply just here, existing but not living.
Our growing separation from one another has resulted into an indescribable loneliness manifested into different addictions escalating into obsessions such as: drinking, drugs, sex, smoking, caffeine, money, cars, houses, hoarding, shopping, gossiping, gambling, wrong relationships, work, food, very structured lives, ultra neatness, power, fame, position, and many, many more. Our remarkable ability to deny and avoid our self to remain in our comfort zones made us appear to be self-sufficient on the outside. We have become so distant to one another and prideful to commune for personal check and balance. We have become impersonal and rigid. “If we see each other let’s talk about mundane things, you or the others, not about me”, the unspoken message of our time. Why? What is there to fear about?
The batterer is just as confused as the battered. The oppressor as lost as the oppressed. Going back to the basics, into knowing our common denominators as God’s people will help us back into shape again. Let us do our part by reeducating ourselves and sharing this education to others towards a LOVE that is a relationship based on ACCEPTANCE and RESPECT. Let us be there for all our brothers and sisters to make them know and feel we sincerely care no matter!
Allow me to remind you of Albert Einstein’s words in parting: “this world is a dangerous place to live not because of the people who do evil but because of the people who sit and do nothing.”
My love for all of you!
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