Ano ang PEG mo?

Reflections on Deuteronomy  26:16-19 /   MatThew 5:43-48 
By Frank Savadera, SJ

ANO AT SINO ANG PEG MO?  When I say PEG KO si Anne Curtis for a girlfriend ... what you’re saying is that you are setting a standard for yourself.  My next girlfriend should and must be like or at least at par with the qualities of Anne Curtis.  

The ELECTION SEASON has arrived in the Philippines ... and always, as some of us may had been involved in the past ... we get into a lot of voters’ conscientization programs which hope to evoke from participants their PEGS ... in terms of traits and qualities they wish to see in an elected official.  In the past, we had so proudly formulated our PEGS ... the standard to which candidates whom we will vote must subscribe.  Thus, we say: those candidates should exhibit the following basic qualities:  MAKADIYOS, MAKABAYAN, MAKATAO at MAKAKALIKASAN.  Perfect SOUND BITE isn’t it?  MAKADIYOS, MAKABAYAN, MAKATAO at MAKAKALIKASAN.  A PERFECT PEG. A great slogan and even a battle-cry ... that can also make good GET BLUED T-shirts.  

PEGGING as we know helps us set our ideal.  But will we actually meet someone really like Anne Curtis?  Will any candidate truly fit our PEG of being MAKADIYOS, MAKABAYAN, MAKATAO at MAKAKALIKASAN. 

Our Gospel today sets for us a very HIGH PEG:  “Be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  What a PEG?  You may agree that our BASIC PEGS for behaving in our communities are themselves already difficult.  Robert Fulgum’s “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”  suggests some basic rules of living (those that may sound easy but often taken for granted).  PEGS for community living says Fulgum include the following:  Share Everything; play fair; don’t hit people; put things back where you found them; clean up your own mess;  don’t take things that aren’t yours; say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody; wash your hands before you eat; flush;  live a balanced life – learn some and think some; and draw and paint and sing and dance; and play and work everyday some. Take a nap every afternoon.  Basic as these rules are ... we acknowledge that we take the simplest rules for granted.   What more for a very HIGH PEG suggested in the Gospel: “Be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  Given so ... are we bound to fail?  Who can be perfect as the Father is perfect?  Even the scholastic notions of the TRUE, GOOD and the BEAUTIFUL are traits ascribed to the transcendent God.  Is there anyone that we’ve met who is totally TRUE, totally GOOD and totally BEAUTIFUL?  How can God be our PEG and be at PAR with Him?

I think we are called to ASPIRE ... and to aspire is for FREE.  To follow the suggestions of the Father is to keep a closer relationship with Him.  He vows to call us a people peculiarly his own, his own children.  In aspiring ... we behold always that which we aspire to become. 

Dealing with the Bi-Polar God

1st Week of Lent

Reflections on JONah 3:1-10  /  LuKe 11:29-32 

Dealing with the Bi-Polar God

by Frank D.B. Savadera, SJ

There’s a new restaurant somewhere in UP Teachers’ Village that caters to people who are Bi-Polar.  What is bi-polarity?  A psychological syndrome marked by extreme mood swings ... sometimes being extremely overjoyed and manic or sometimes being extremely down and depressive.  A colloquial term we use for bi-polarity, though less grave in intensity is called “moody ness.”  Who amongst us are the moody types?  Perhaps we can go to this restaurant ... which by the way is aptly named: Van Gogh Bi-polar (of course, after the great starry starry night Dutch artist).  The place promises to serve health food that help keep people afflicted with bi-polarity or extreme moodiness be more balanced ... or normal. 

Why talk about bi-polarity and mood swings?  Classic theology tells us that God is impassible – that is the UNMOVED MOVER, the monolithic God who is unaffected by pain, sufferings or any forms of emotion.  It is easy for us to affirm an image of God who is impassible ... for in truth, He is truly beyond what any being can experience.  We are to assert the utter transcendence of God.  But if we do so ... isn’t it also true that God can seem so distant and unaffected by us?  How can this God care?  How can that God love?

But then, our readings today seem to project a God who is indeed affected by the experiences and travails of his people.  In the Book of Jonah today, we see a God who changes his mind and relents.  After seeing the people of Nineveh putting on sackcloths and turning from their evil ways, God spares them ... He relents and forgives and withholds his blazing wrath versus his people.  Is this the impassible God or does God have mood swings after all? Does he need Van Gogh Bi-polar food?  But then, look at this ... if God can be too affected by the goings on in the lives of people, such that he relents and changes his mind ... isn’t this undermining his power and firmness ... his being an unmoved mover ... his being God?  God can be swayed ... worse God’s emotions can be manipulated.

We know all too well that we are to be careful assigning human attributes to God. God is beyond the qualities we can attribute to him.

The question remains?  Is God bi-polar?  Is he on one hand firm, unchanging and unchangeable ... and on the other hand,  can he be passionate and emotional ... ever  involved in the life of his creatures.  Which is which?  It’s easy to say:  Moody sya! Bi-polar siguro ang Diyos!

One thing that is surely precarious is for us to assert one image of God at the expense of the other.   Yes ... we can say that God is loving.  God is kind. A heart contrite and humbled, he will indeed not spurn.  God is merciful ... but we cannot affirm so without saying that he is totally against sin ... that his judgment against sin is unmoved and absolute.  

I think no matter how confusing and mysterious it may seem, we are asked to affirm all positive traits we can attribute to God.  I think this is what the Gospel is trying to assert for us today.  There is a God who is utterly transcendent and mysterious ... whose wisdom is greater ... untouched and unfathomed by any human person ... and definitely greater than that of Solomon’s.  And isn’t this what we are trying to discern ... and understand ... a piece ... a tinge ... a foretaste of God’s wisdom ... that is just simply transcendent and beyond us.

But then much like the story of Jonah (but greater than Jonah), there is a God who consistently toils and sends us his powerful word ... the word that is so passionately involved in the life of his creatures ... the word so powerful and influential that makes the barren ground spring to life anew and become fertile ... that which has the power to penetrate our barren hearts and make them spring to new life again.

Is God therefore moody?  I think it’s not about God shifting from one mood to another.  I think it is a matter of affirming the qualities of a God who is EVERYTHING to EVERYONE  all at the same time.  He is transcendent yet ever involved in the life that we live. 

And so ... why don’t we pray to experience this wonderful God of ours ... mysterious ... yet by choice ... involved.

Learnings from the MEERKATS

1st Week of Lent

Reflections on Deuteronomy 26:4-10 / ROMans 10:8-13 / Luke 4:1-13

Learnings from the MEERKATS

by Frank D.B. Savadera, SJ

There is this interesting group of animals that I’ve encountered in the ANIMAL PLANET website.  They are called Meerkats – a mixed cat/rat-like animals that are indigenous to the African deserts.  Meerkats apparently have one of the most cooperative societies in the animal kingdom.   In order to survive the harsh realities of the desert, the MEERKATS had to learn to live in communities that protect and watch over each other.  They forage for food in groups and while they do so, researchers found out that one MEERKAT ... and this need not be the same MEERKAT all the time, STANDS GUARD ... and thus is called a SENTINEL – the one who looks out at the horizon to check if an enemy of the pack lurks by.  When the sentinel sees an enemy approaching, he lets out a loud cry to signal all his fellow MEERKATS to scamper around for safety.  As I mentioned, it does not need to be the same MEERKAT standing always as a sentinel.  Researchers say that no one in the pack assigns a member to be a sentinel.  Somehow, according to researchers, the appointment becomes automatic.  Whoever is there at the right time and place becomes the SENTINEL – the one who looks out for the safety of his entire pack.  The sentinel need not be told what to do. 

Apparently, the same group of animals – the MEERKATS – have this peculiar way of taking care of their young.  Since everyone will need to look for food, females meerkats after delivering their young begin scavenging for food.  Everyone will need to work.  What happens to the young?  Again, someone – perhaps another who had just delivered her own offspring - volunteers as caregiver to all the young meerkats, gathering them all in one nest, nursing them all and exhausting her milk for all.  Who assigns the MEERKAT “yaya” or caregiver?  Apparently no one!  

Why do we talk about MEERKATS during this first week of Lent?  I think this has to do with what we’ve read in the book of Deuteronomy:  “The priest shall receive the basket from you and shall set it in front of the altar of the LORD, your God.”   When is a basket passed around in Church?  When is a basket offered and set in front of the altar?  Isn’t it that this is done during  the OFFERTORY,   the Presentation of the Gifts.  Oftentimes ... nagiging pa-bonggahan ang offering of gifts ... palakihan ... padamihan ng puede mong ibigay.  Is this really why we make an offering?  Sometimes it happens as such. 

I think during this 40-days of Lent, we are being called to ask:  Lord ... what can I really make as an OFFERING to you during this Lenten season?  I think this is not so much the kind of offering that will make life hard for us (fasting til death) ... or that which will make us experience so much pain and GUTOM.  Much like the MEERKATS, I think ... the OFFERING comes out of an experience of living life in a community.  The Meerkats need to protect and take care of each other.  Don’t we all?  So someone volunteers his time as SENTINEL or her time as YAYA or caregiver of the pack.  Our offering comes out of an experience in community.  What is this experience for us as a community says the Book of Deuteronomy?  The book tells us that when we make an offering, we remember that our “father was a wandering Aramean (referring to Abraham) ...  that as a people we’ve gone through times of enslavement ...  and that as a people we’ve walked through and crossed the desert.  And all through out those times, God helped us out with his strong and outstretched hands  ... and brought us where we are right now.  ISN’T THIS NOW THE REASON FOR THE OFFERING?  We had been saved by God  ... and so now, we make an offering ...before the Lord’s altar ... we bow and acknowledge his presence with much reverence.   WE ARE CALLED TO MAKE OUR OFFERING and LITTLE SACRIFICES THIS LENT because of a REAL and COMMON EXPERIENCE ... God had saved us and he continues to do so.  WE COME AND BOW DOWN BEFORE THE ALTAR OF THE LORD and acknowledge his saving presence.

And MORE ... not only had we been saved ... God continues to enrich our lives all the more.  Who would like to be enriched by the presence of God?  (Ang hindi marunong ngumiti ... ang laging nakasimangot ... how do you say that you are in the presence of God??)  God continues to enrich our lives evermore and we find this in the very Paschal mystery of Jesus ... that which we are asked to most descriptively experience during Holy Week ... that is, the WORD OF FAITH that we are to receive says Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans.  What is this WORD OF FAITH?  As we would experience this Holy Week, that Word of Faith is our very proclamation that Jesus will suffer and die on the cross, he will resurrect and ascend to the Father ... to PROVE that he was not an ordinary human being nor a mere prophet.  HE IS GOD ... and whoever believes in him, utters his name and maintains an intimate companionship with Him will not only be saved but as well be enriched by his presence.     HOLY WEEK – a time to renew our intimate companionship with Jesus (WORD of FAITH) and be enriched by his mighty presence.

We had been saved by God and we have every capacity to make our own little offering out of thanksgiving.  The Word of Faith – the name of Jesus and our companionship with him ... enriches our lives. Those without Jesus are poor ... poor in spirit.

It is in this context, I think that we can make good sense of our Gospel today.  With the Spirit of God by our side ... then it is   possible ... and this is our faith claim ... to overcome all worldy temptations.  Can you think of one temptation that compels you to sin sometimes ... those that make you choose riches, honor and power and give in to your many other worldy compulsions?   Much as the Spirit filled Jesus in our Gospel today ... we are asked as well to experience God’s spirit filling us and helping us overcome all worldly temptations.  We cannot do so on our own of course.  Other than God’s spirit aiding us ... we are asked to learn from the MEERKATS ... to make an offering of ourselves ... either as SENTINELS ... keeping one another away from danger ... or as YAYAs and CAREGIVERS ... sharing FOOD and MILK that nourish us.