Of Deaf and Missions
(Pastoral reflection on the Ministerial Work with the Deaf in the Visayas Area)
by PMS

Piccola Missione per i Sordomuti

"I came, I saw, but I heard absolutely nothing"
- Theme of the 10th Congress of the International Federation for
Pastoral Care to Hearing Impaired Persons at Samaritterhjemmet
17th - 18th March 1999

The task of proclaiming the Good News to men was entrusted to the Church. As he had been sent by the Father, the Son himself sent the apostles (cf. Jn. 20:21) saying, "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and behold I am with you all days even unto the consummation of the world" (Mt. 28:18-20). Jesus’ whole life and ministry was center in the proclamation of the good news of the Kingdom of God. As Jesus himself would say, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God for I was sent for this purpose” (Luke 4:42). With these words, the Church is for all intents and purposes missionary. As the universal sacrament of salvation, she is sent to the entire world to bring the good news of the Kingdom of God to all men being obedience to the command of its founder, "Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15). Lumen Gentium 17 clearly states the missionary activity of the Church. The Church has received this solemn command of Christ from the apostles, and she must fulfill it to the very ends of the earth (cf. Acts 1:8).
With this, the church is facing a great challenge of spreading the gospel to all creatures, (and at this point I would say) …including the Deaf. When Jesus gave “The Great Commission,” the Church defined this to mean delivery of the Gospel in other languages to other lands. Numerous churches are expending vast amounts of resources in foreign missions, while overlooking uncharted territories or "home mission groups" within their own area of influence. The Deaf[1] community is such a group that needs to receive the Gospel in its own language. There are now a large number of Deaf people that society and the Church does not know of. The Network for Strategic Missions reported that out of the 278 million individuals in the United States today over 16.6 million are Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing, whereas globally their numbers exceed 364 million.[2] The National Statistic Office during the 1995 census of population reported that there are 115,000 Deaf and Hard or Hearing individuals in the 68.6 million populations in the Philippines.[3] A study conducted by the Congregation of the Mission for the Deaf resulted to a ratio of two deaf people per 1000 population (2:1000) here in the province of Cebu. The demographical result of deafness is much higher compared to the epidemiological ratio of 1:1000 in the whole world.

In the gospel of Mark, we can see that Jesus heals a deaf person. With this great miracle, Jesus was able to impart to the Deaf person the gospel of salvation by opening his ear and loosening his tongue. "Ephphatha, be opened!" (Mk 7:34). The words spoken by Jesus at the healing of the deaf-mute ring out once more for us today, they are stimulating words of great intensity, which call us to open ourselves to listening and to bearing witness to the gospel. The challenge for us is whether or not we heeded the missionary call of Jesus of letting the Deaf hear his gospel. This would go back again to my question of how well is the church in fulfilling her missionary task and responsibility towards the evangelization of our Deaf brethren. As St. Paul would say, “faith comes from hearing” (Romans 10:17). How could our deaf brethren develop a sense of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and a sense of belongingness in the body of Christ if the church lacks in the fulfillment of her duty to these kinds of people with special needs.

"Go into all the world… and pronounce the good news to all people." That is the task Jesus gives us. This "all people" means not only people of various nations and continents but also the fellow human being who, due to a disability, is more or less prevented from participating in the life of our parishes and church activities. As Church, as sisters and brothers of Jesus, we must pay heed so that nobody is excluded from the Kingdom of God or is in any way discriminated against. This applies especially to disabled persons. Deafness is a disability (though Deaf people would not call themselves as disabled), which is often concealed by the afflicted person and thus easily ignored by the surrounding society. In the Gospel, we repeatedly hear that Deaf persons are healed. Jesus took this disability seriously. He knows that it can reduce the quality of life. Therefore, he was particularly close to those persons.

In our own local set-up, the urgent need and the constant call on the Philippine Church to be the “Church of the Poor” is very much concrete and real nowadays (PCP II 122). PCP II hopes that the Philippine Church is a Church in solidarity with the poor. This task of communion with the poor does not only mean to those people who are materially poor but also with those who are afflicted by human misery, suffering and destitution (PCP II 130). With this, we can say that people who are suffering from disability and are handicapped belong also to this category of “poor” that PCP II is reiterating. Given such perspective, we can say that PCP II is calling the Philippine Church to be also in solidarity with these unfortunate and disabled brothers and sisters of ours. Considering Deaf people as the poorest among the “poor”, I would say that there is also an urgent call in the Church to take care of the needs of the Deaf and of other people with disabilities. The Church has taken great care to announce the Good News that the life of each person with a disability is sacred and precious notably in Pope John Paul II's 1995 letter, Evangelium Vitae. The response of many of our dioceses and parishes in the Philippines Church to Deaf Catholics, however, gives a poor witness to the Gospel of Life.

Considering our Lord's Gospel of Life, it would be reasonable to assume that the Deaf would feel more welcomed within our parishes than within the world in general. However, in reality, we can see that Deaf Catholics are much more likely to be inactive Catholics than their non-Deaf counterparts in our dioceses and parishes, because our church is not ready for them. One good reason is that there are no personnel, which means that there are no priest, religious or lay church workers competent enough in these field of pastoral work. Such was a majority comment of the person I talked to in the Dioceses of Talibon and Maasin, which do not have a Deaf Ministry. This also holds true in the parishes here in the Archdiocese of Cebu in which we are encouraging them to start a Deaf Ministry in their respective parishes wherein there is a big number of Deaf in their area.

The absence of these Ministries and Missions in the local churches is very detrimental to the faith of the Deaf, since how can they call to Him for help, if they have not believed? Moreover, how can they believe if they have not heard the message? And how can they hear if the message is not proclaimed? And how can the message be proclaimed if the messengers are not sent out? As the Scripture says, "the foot step of those who bring the good news is a welcome sound" (Rom. 10: 14-15). Like their handicap, the Deaf people are hidden. They are not visible in a crowd or stand out as the blind or those with orthopedic handicap do, except when they begin to communicate. We should not forget the fact that they are not only equal in all respects but also normal in all aspects, just like any other member of the community. The difference is that they do not hear. There is still the need to bring them into the mainstream of our parish community and address their special needs.

Significantly, I notice that many of the parishes here in the Archdiocese and its Suffragan are hesitant to the reach out to these Deaf individuals or communities. It is because that they themselves are either not competent in their skills nor they have sufficient staffs and personnel ready and willing to work for these people with a special need in their parish and try to mainstream them in the congregation. What is the implication of such realistic comments coming from the people working in the Church? What we have here are people looking for training and skills in special ministries. Since Deaf people are people with special needs, people that will be working with and for them should be properly trained. Priest, seminarians, nuns, and church lay leaders are at least informed and knowledgeable to some degree about Deaf Ministry and other special ministries.

The challenge here is education and advocacy; we have to teach our servant-leaders the proper skills and expertise needed for such special ministry. This initiative should start from the Diocese itself by creating a diocesan office that would look after the needs of special people. This office will be responsible for encouraging parish priest to start special ministries in their parish and implementing diocesan-wide programs for the disabled with the support, of course, of the Bishop. The Diocese would see to it that its seminaries must have pastoral programs that would expose seminarians to special centers, schools, and organization of disabled people. The St. Joseph Regional Seminary in Jaro, Iloilo City has this similar program, wherein, seminarians that chose to work with special kids like the Deaf and blind are being expose every week as part of their pastoral formation. Seminaries, as part of their pastoral programs, should have their seminarians taught sign language (as what the seminarians in Tagbilaran are undergoing) and braille writing as part of the training in special ministries and be expose to deaf, blind or other disable groups and teach them catechism (like in Jaro). A seminarian, well trained and well informed about the needs of these special people would later become a priest who is pastorally aware of the significance of special ministries in his parish.

In the parish level, the parish priest should create programs in his parishes such as awareness seminars and programs to help the parishioners realized that disable people are also members of the mystical body of Christ, letting them aware of their special needs and challenge them to do something about it. There should be programs that would tap existing agencies that are involved with these special groups to help the parish in facilitating their activities for deaf and other disabled people. Furthermore, though catechetical instructions are provided by the parish to nearby public schools ironically, catechist disregard the special centers in the public schools since they are not equipped with proper skills and training to deal with this kind of people in the first place. Such nonattendance should be always be keep in mind or else without proper people teaching the Deaf around the truths of our faith, we will have Deaf who are either infidels or non-Catholics. An important more would be to create a group of catechist set aside and trained for giving catechetical instructions to people with special needs. The parish could sponsor a basic sign language course for its catechists who are interested to teach Deaf kids.

One important aspect in Deaf Ministry also is to cater the needs of the Deaf in their sacramental life! Our parishes and local churches should provide sacraments readily available and accessible to their Deaf parishioners. There should be Sunday Masses in the parish wherein the priest signs or if not should have sign language interpreters for the Deaf parishioners going to their church. While blindness as a disability cuts blind people from things, it does not cut them from people, while deafness do. Blind and orthopedically handicapped people can be easily mainstream to the parishes with minimal adjustment like accessibility and the likes, the Deaf community, however, is complicated when it comes through mainstreaming into our local church because of the language. Deaf persons feel a strong identification with the sign language as their language. A mastery of sign language with its subtle nuances and graceful fluency is a must for any person wishing to do meaningful pastoral service for the Deaf. Voltaire says that the ear is the road to the heart. Sign Language is more visual but it is taken to the heart by the Deaf. The moment the Deaf know that we are able to converse in their language, the sign language, we will be able to win their respect and confidence.

Exclusion of persons with deafness or other disabilities from church activities and church ministries in most cases are not intentional, but it occurs because people are either unaware of the needs and their means to meet these needs. It is our job to enthusiastically take a role in initiating the inclusion of children and adults with disabilities, and their families into the mainstream of our local church.

There are many implications for priest, nuns, and other church workers regarding those families whose children with disabilities are living at home, hidden from the mainstream of the church. The challenge of the local church is to locate these families, welcome them into the parish community, and then enable them to participate in the life of the church especially in the celebration of the Eucharist. It is said that a child with a handicap makes a handicapped family. The disability not only affects the child but also the whole family. So it becomes imperative that the Catholics of a parish under the initiative and leadership of their priest goes in search of those persons who are most in need of pastoral care.

It is also imperative that the Church not only focus her training and preparation for herself for such mission only but also to prepare the Deaf community which she will give her life. It is not only that the Church should be strengthen but that the Deaf community themselves also will be empowered to help and collaborate in this effort of mainstreaming themselves in the greater society. We must help both sides i.e. the caregivers and those needing care. Helping the Deaf at this point is very crucial. Being sensitive to the sign of the times; today is the right time in helping the Deaf. Now is the time, where the Deaf community experiences the rising of consciousness about their rights and their “being”, a realization of their potentials, abilities, capabilities and talents. Now is the time, wherein they know they have a language to be called their “own”, the Filipino Sign Language (FSL). Now is also the time, they realized that they can do more not only for themselves but for the whole society, if and only if society will just give them that chance. That the Church, Government and primary service providers would give them the needed assistance and support to development themselves and equipped them with the needed abilities and capacities and prove themselves wise. The tide of opportunities is rising and now is the perfect time for us to ride the waves of development and venture out for more experience that would help us achieve these goals.

Indeed, now is the “right” time and the “ripe” time to give them all the best we have. Let us assist them realize their potentials, helping them discover their identity and personhood as Deaf, in advocating for their Deaf Rights, by giving them independence and Deaf liberation, by understanding their language and Culture, by having their voices (signs) be heard (seen), by letting them speak (sign) up, by letting them lead their group or become leaders themselves, letting them decide for themselves, in uplifting them from their oppressed and marginalized situation. These are the goals and much of my realizations in the work, which we (religious and volunteers alike) are very much involved in and in these, the Deaf and the volunteers were able to encounter the saving presence of God in the midst of our work and also in our lives! It is really a life changing experience working with/for these people! God is not in the heavens like an absentee landlord who just checks us every now and then, rather our God is a God who works in our midst as we struggle to fight for justice and liberation of the Deaf people in their oppression and marginalized situation.

Ultimately, our care for the Deaf should not be confined or limited to just advocating their rights of health services and accessibility but should permeate through the fabric of our Church community. We read in the gospels that every time Christ touched those with disabilities and healed those with illness, he was setting a model to be followed in our pastoral care for the handicapped. Justice and love will triumph only when the segregating walls are knocked down, the communication barriers removed, our churches and altars become more accessible to the handicapped, and the Good News is heard by all including the Deaf. In accordance with the call of the Holy Father and the call of the PCP II, it is not enough merely to affirm the rights of the Deaf, but we as the people of God must actively work to realize these rights in the fabric of our parish community, and society.

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[1] The word Deaf (with the capital letter D) referred here is a politically correct term denoting to those individuals that are born with hearing impairment, or deafened at a very early age which has sign language as his/her first language. These Deaf are considered belonging to an ethno-cultural linguistic group. Late and adventitious deafened people are not considered in this category.
[2] http://www.tfwm.com/twm/articles/general/0501_Kogelschatz.html
[3] Source of data taken from the Philippine Federation of the Deaf Office.

ABU BEN ADHEM
Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)

Abou Ben Adhem may his tribe increase
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace
And saw within the moonlight in his room
making it rich and like a lily in bloom
An angel writing in a book of gold,
exceeding peace made Ben Adhem bold
And to the presence in the room he said
"what writest thou?"The vision raised its head

and with a lookmade of all sweet accord,
answered "the names of those who love the Lord."
Is mine one said Abou?""Nay not so" replied the angel.
Abou spoke more low but cheerily still he said,
"I pray thee then write me as one who loves his fellow men."

The angel wrote and vanished,
the next night it came again,
with a great awakening light
and showed the names whom love of God had blessed
and lo Ben Adhem's name led all of the rest....

DISTURB US LORD
--Sir Francis Drake - 1577

(another inspiring poem for me)

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst for the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

IF
by Rudyard Kipling

(this is one of my favorite poems which i learned from my father
and it gave a different perspective in life)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise.

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

THE PARADOX OF THE MODERN TIMES
(from “Observations of George Carlin")

The paradox of our time in history is that we have
taller buildings but shorter tempers.
Wider freeways but narrower viewpoints.
We have more degrees but less sense;
more knowledge. but less judgement;
more experts but more problems,
more medicines, but less wellness.

We drink too much. smoke too much,
spent too recklessly.
We spend more, but have less;
We buy more but enjoy it less.
We have bigger houses but smaller families;
more conveniences but less time.

We laugh too little, drive too fast.
get too angry too quickly.
stay up to late, get up too tired,
read too seldom, watch TV too much
and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values.
We talk too much, love too seldom and hate too often.

We’ve learned how to make a living but not to live life.
We've added years to life, not life to years.
We've been all the way to the moon and back,
but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbour.
We've conquered outer space, but not our inner space.
We've done larger things but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul

We've split the atom but not our prejudice.
We write more, but learn less.
We plan more but accomplished less.
We 've learned to rush but not to wait.

We build more computers to hold more information.
to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication.

These are times of fast foods and slow digestion:
Of strong men but weak of character,
steep profits and shallow relationships.

These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare:
more leisure but less fun; more kinds of food but less nutrition.

These are days to two incomes but more divorce;
of fancier houses but broken homes.
These are days of quick grips, disposable diapers, instant coffee.
throw-away morality, night stands, overweight bodies
and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill.
It is a time when there is much at the show window and nothing in the stockroom.

A time when technology can bring this article to you and a time when we can re-examine our lives, share this insight with others, or just hit delete.

REGISTERED NURSES WANTED

• Must be able to work long hours with frequent mandatory overtime and regularly missed meal and coffee breaks. Few holidays or weekends off.
• Must be able to keep massive amounts of paperwork up to date while making split second life and death decisions.
• Must be unaffected by frequent verbal abuse and able to neutralize occasional physical assaults.
• Must display patience, kindness, and understanding at all times. The ability to effectively communicate with people who are illiterate, uneducated, insane, hysterical or enraged is required.
• Must show no aversion to blood, vomit, oozing infections or human body waste. Job involves daily exposure to infectious bacteria and viruses as well as radiation and carcinogenic medications.
• Frequent staffing shortages necessitate your ability to prioritize and efficiently carry out the work of 2 or 3 people. Applicants must possess a keen interest in coping with grief, uncertainty, depression and loss on a daily basis.
• As a part of the multidisciplinary team you will be expected to collaborate with clerical and janitorial staff, physicians, respiratory technicians, social workers, Chaplains and Priests security guards, physical and occupational therapists, laboratory and x-ray technicians, maintenance personnel, and dieticians. You are required to have an understanding of all the roles and responsibilities of this team, as you will be required to carry out most of their duties in addition to your own.
• Must show humility and accept blame when frequently asked to be the scapegoat for the failures and frustrations of doctors, administrators, supervisors, and co-workers.
• Must be willing to confuse your body clock and abuse your body with frequent shift rotations and malnutrition due to gorging on fast food when you finally do get to eat in the car on the way home from work.
• Must have 3 sets of legs and ten hands so you can be in 3 different places at a time and Juggling a variety of tasks to make up for the 3 missing nurses that administration says you don t need for a safe patient-nurse ratio.
• Must be willing to risk losing your job when you are out with a disabling back injury or acute hepatitis C infections acquired on the job. Even if you win your fight to prove it is job related and collect your workers compensation, your employer will do their darndest to find a loophole and try to get rid of the “burden”. Don’t expect full pay and benefits for up to two years the way other hazardous jobs like policeman and fire man get.
• Oh, and of course, even though you work in a germ factory, abuse your physical and emotional health through work conditions and are regularly plague with low morale, don't EVER, EVER expect to call in sick to work unless you have the bubonic plague or in a coma.
• Must be a SAINT.
• Salary is in no way commensurate with knowledge, ability or experience. Due to the frequency with which employees develop physica1 injury and emotional breakdown we are pleased to offer a comprehensive benefits package.

LIfe is grace for it was GRACED
by PMS

Paul in his letters to the Romans said that the law of God is written in the hearts of wo/men. The yearning for God is already inscribe in our hearts before we even knew God. If such is the case, I believed that life and everything in it is grace because God graces everything.
There are many experiences in my life wherein it seems that God has abandoned or rejected me. It is due to the fact of the struggles, hardships, and difficulties I have encountered in life would always be interpreted as a sign of misfortune, abandonment, or punishment from God for all the sins and bad things I have done against Him and others. These feelings and thoughts are for me very valid since it is not only I who would look at these life heart-rending experiences as such. I knew several people who would encounter the same difficulties that I have encountered and would say that God has abandoned them.
However, as I grew in my awareness in my journey of faith towards God, I reflected and realized that such trials and predicaments in this life are but steps to a deeper relationship with God. Such suffering leads me to understand that even in this difficult times God has always been there to me. Such sufferings leads me to perseverance, leading to character which gives me hope, a hope that leads me to even greater and deeper love of God and my neighbor.
On time during a spiritual reading, I encountered a beautiful article which eventually change my perspective of suffering, pains and life itself. It was really a grace-filled moment. There’s this one paragraph that really struck me and it says: “To lived the ‘be-attitudes’ of Christ is to take a positive side of life or of living. How we live our lives depend on how we perceived it. Therefore, we must turn scars into stars, obstacles into opportunities, problems into possibilities, stumbling blocks into stepping-stones, dead into resurrection. When never these difficult and heart rending experience comes to our lives, we should see them not as demons of destructions rather as angels of annunciation.” This really struck me deep down and eventually changed my perceptions about life’s struggles. Now, everything is life seems so positive, so optimistic and that this gives more meaning to my life.
It is in this point that I have reckoned that it is all the work of God’s grace in my life. I have come to realize that everything in my life is grace and a source of grace because he has beforehand has graced it. I now even regard the many sufferings, dilemmas, and undertakings in my life as grace; as well as sources of God’s grace which helps we more worthy of the salvation he has already promise to me. Moreover, this life of grace in itself because it is a graced life. How did I know such? Because I could see it in the many grace-filled moments that I encounter each day of my life. My journey of faith keeps me ever responsive to the presence of this grace transforming this present this present situation with grace to become in itself grace and a source of grace leading to the life God has promised to all his children.

MOMENTS OF GRACE
(This is a reflection paper I made in our class in Grace)

“I no longer deserve to be called your son”
- Lk. 15:19

There are many instances when it comes to human weakness and frailty that I am no better than others, or on second thought, worse. My experience of sinfulness always has been confronting me. And when it comes to the story of the prodigal son, I may say that I am torn between the two sons. In the first place, I really feel that I am like that younger son, who, acknowledging the love and understanding of God wantonly abuse it, of course with that thought that he would understand me. Then in my wretchedness and downfall, I would call upon Him and start compromising and in the midst of my sinfulness and transgression, I feel that God would still loves me and accepts me despite of all the things I have done.
On the other hand, I would also resonate or likened myself to the elder brother who often feels that I am “righteous” or “holier” than others because of the state of life I have chosen. And when if everything went well with others and not with me, then I feel awkward and try to argue with God that I had been doing this, that, and God is not much of a help. Therefore, making me sour loser!
Nonetheless, the Father’s love and acceptance to both sons is incredible. His seemingly favoritism on the younger son may have other people disgusted about it. In the human level, I think people would really be scandalized of the situation, the same reaction we have from the elder son. However, come to think of it, if Jesus is using everyday life situation in teaching the love of God. I think this story would help us rethink our idea of a vengeful God to a God who more loves that any human father or mother could love his/her children. If the father in the story showed that much love to his two sons, well bring that love into perfection and that would be God’s love for all of us, a love that is beyond measure.
We could see here that God’s grace is poured out to all of us, whatever state we are in, either the arrogant and righteous elder son or the prodigal younger son who does not deserve to be forgiven. The important thing here is that we recognized the state where we are, acknowledge it, be remorseful about and God will do the rest. What is essential here is we must return to God. For it obvious, that we cannot be with God if we refuse to, however, God would still be waiting for us always every time we go astray just like the father in the story.
With this, in my personal life, I have done many sins and transgressions before God and to the people that I am dealing with. Some of these wrongdoing are repetitive no manner how many times I made a resolution not to do it again. Every time I ask for forgiveness and resolution (especially in sacrament of reconciliation) from God I would feel comforted and it is as if God is telling me that no matter what condition and circumstances, God would still loves me. I know that I maybe unworthy of God’s love but I could feel the love and comfort he gives me always. It is always a matter of hope and trust in the loving kindness of God. As the first letter of John would say: “This is LOVE: not that we love God, but that he loved us first. So let us love each other for love comes from God and that GOD is LOVE.”

APOPHAINESTHAI TA PHAINOMENA
(To let what show itself be seen from itself, just as it shows itself from itself applied to man, world, God and myself)
by: Peter Miles


Life is a journey into a mystery in which life itself is a baffling thing. The mystery of life is a dynamic path on which each of us is journeying into the unknown recesses of our own being. We are cruising life’s highway searching and hoping to find some answers to the various questions that have been puzzling us. So I thought, that life is always this way, a continuous search for meaning and solutions for the many questions that come our way.
And so, we pack our bags, making ourselves ready for a journey of a lifetime, to find meaning in this road called life. Hence, crammed in our life’s luggage are questions like: Who am I? Why am I here? Is there meaning in this thing called life? If so, how can I find it? What am I going to do with this life? What has life to offer me? Where am I going? What happens when I die? Is there something we can look forward to after this life? Is there somebody out there? Is there God? These are only some of the questions we stuff inside our luggage in the journey to life.
Thus, here I am, scouting for answers in life’s busy highway awkwardly because of the several heavy baggages that I am carrying in this journey. So in the midst of the hustles and bustles of life’s pathways, I grow tired and preoccupied in my search for answers that I miss the joy and excitement of the journey. I stop by the roadside of life and start reflecting on what I am doing. I am too engrossed seeking myself that I realize I am just creating a self that is unfamiliar and strange to me. Realizing that it’s not me anymore, it comes to my senses that in order to fully grasp who am I, have to let go of myself and allow it, in its time to unfold before me. To let my true self be shown from itself, just as it show its realness from itself. In order for me to see my true self, I have to see it as it unfolds and opens in front me. I realize that in not searching for the answers to the questions in life, the answers came to me. Sometimes we are so much engrossed in looking for the answers that we forget what the question is. Through the revelation of myself, my life becomes the answer to its own question. In my dealing with other people, I do the same, instead of having a constructed and conclusive idea about someone, I should allow other people to reveal themselves to me just as seen from itself. I believe that in this manner I would see their true self unfold before me, leading me to understand them better and deal with them without biases and prejudices.
It’s also the same way of how I understand the world around me. Since reality to me seems to be very mysterious, I made my own concept of reality, my own worldview, making the world fit to my own needs and cares. Slowly I understood that this is not the world I am looking for and I found my life meaningless in this made-up, make believe world of mine. So I pondered, that in order to find the true meaning of this world, I should forego my own concepts of the world, living this reality here and now as it slowly reveals itself to me. Life is best understood if I allow myself to be absorbed and subsumed by its whole. As reality overwhelms me, I become part of that reality and gradually its very essence seeps in the recesses of my own being. Therefore, making me fully aware of Reality as it is, being seen from itself, just as it shows itself from itself. As always, on my way of searching for the meaning of life, I end up seeking God. But as my journey of looking for God continues, the more I get lost in the way. In my journey of finding for answers of who God is, I wind up lost in the different ideas of God that I found, leading me farther and farther away from the real Supreme Being. For the more I discover something about Him, the more I become confused. Thus in the midst of my confusion, I dismiss my preconceived ideas about Him and permit Him to seek and find me instead. As I allow him to dawn into my life, His light is like the wonderful aurora enveloping the evening of my life, lighting up my morning. For instead of me seeking Him, He searched my heart and revealed Himself to me. I know that He came into my life, for my life has become fuller than ever. I experience this fullness of life only through Him, with Him and in Him. For He came and shared his life to me, for this I have come to know Him in His fullest for He has found me and revealed Himself to me as seen from Himself, just as He shows Himself from Himself.