By Peter Paul Marcelo, BCBP Pasay
A good friend raised this question while we were watching a senate inquiry on TV: “Is there anything good that will come out of these seemingly endless legislative hearings on corruption scandals involving our lawmakers, local government officials, and law enforcement officers, and now the Mamasapano Incident?” I was quick to reply, “Of course, there is. We just need to be patient. For now, we are getting a goldmine of information that can result to better understanding of our current issues.” But deep inside, assessing whether our legislature could attain any positive results by way of true closure is an exercise that can disappoint many optimists. With difficulty disguising his annoyance, he argued that I was acting naive and that nothing will come out of these activities. They should stop wasting people’s money and, as closure, just throw those people in jail.
In Ecclesiastes 1:2, 10, Qoheleth exclaimed, “All things are vanity! … There is nothing new under the sun!” Many people have become a Qoheleth. These are the people who are cynical about life, not only towards the secular world but towards community life as well.
There may have been a time we experienced dryness in our prayer life, that we are not growing in community, or the charismatic sessions have been boring. Indeed, these things happen. In the midst of disappointments, we struggle to find anything new and so its but natural to be cynical. But at the end of the day, we always have a choice. We can always choose to be a pessimist like Qeheleth or be someone who constantly prays to God that he will find new opportunities to experience His love.
If you have gone through those personality tests for job application, the experts who designed these tests can tell whether you have a natural tendency to be a pessimist or optimist. But they will never shackle you from making a choice. So while we may be hard-wired to be more cynical than most people, we are not imprisoned from exercising our choice to see the brighter side of life.
Christian life is not meant to blind ourselves of the realities of this world. It does not restrict us from speaking up and have righteous anger. It means none of that. Christianity is a choice to beg God in prayer to help us see realities with His eyes.
No matter what is bringing us down in life, we should always pray to the Lord to help us not to be sucked up in the wave of sad abandonment – that all things are vanity and that they do not matter anyway. We need to pray that He will help us to see these events anew – as opportunities to give Him the praise He deserves, to share His love and to be thankful.
Allow me to share this prayer: “Lord, let me see today as an opportunity to grow closer to You as I move one more day towards spending eternity with You. Help me not to see events as mere nothing or a waste of time and energy but to see them as You do – as source of love and blessings, and as things that people need to be blessed or be encouraged. Help me to see them in Your eyes especially in times when I’m being cynical. It is only through You that I can see everyday as an opportunity to share Your love. Amen
