Living (Thoughts on Turning 58)*

by EMMANUEL R. FERNANDEZ

 

          I am turning fifty-eight years old today.  My father recently passed on at the age of eighty, and his own father (my Lolo Nap) passed away at the age of eighty-eight.  Both of them died of natural causes.  If those who claim that longevity has a genetic basis are correct, there is a big chance that I will still have twenty-two years to live, and perhaps even thirty years if my paternal grandfather’s genes will have the upper hand.  But, my maternal grandfather (my Lolo Santiago) died in his sleep when he was only thirty-seven.  On the basis of the same genetic theory of longevity, there is an equal chance that I will take after my maternal grandfather and not really live very long.  On top of that, of course, I can actually die anytime (even within the next hour, in fact) on account of an accident, a heart attack, a stroke, a COVID-19 complication, or some other unforeseen cause.  After all, life can be taken away from us anytime, anywhere – often in ways, and under circumstances, we least expect.        

          Not only is our life in constant danger of being taken away from us, it is also painfully short.  In some sense, things have a much longer “life span” than us.  In my sojourns and travels abroad, I have seen monuments and edifices that have remained standing after thousands of years, surviving earthquakes and fires and wars and what have you.  Compared to the “life span” of things, ours is but a drop in the bucket. To borrow the words of the Argentinian poet Jorge Luis Borges, things “will endure beyond our vanishing.”** 

Life is short.  Time flies fast.  Life can be gone anytime. Yet it is precisely for these reasons that we must consider life the most precious gift we have ever received.  It is a gift because it is not something we earned a right to, in some previous life. None of us was “entitled” to be born.  God was in no way obliged to allow our birth into this world. We were born simply because God wanted to share with us the gift of being alive. And since the Giver of that gift can take it back from us anytime, the value of such a gift is literally beyond measure.  For what value is there in something that we know we will never lose, no matter what we do, no matter what happens?  But if we know that something can be taken away from us anytime, and that we will only have it for a limited period, and that that period is fast running out, then there will be no doubt in our mind as to the worth of that something.  

That’s, for me, the most important lesson I have learned in the course of my fifty-eight journey in this world: that life is a priceless gift.  It might have been given to us in a “package” that we think was “less attractive” than that in which the gift of life had been given to others.  We may think that the potentialities and opportunities we were endowed with at birth were not as “advantageous” as those of our neighbor. But we will only be partially right if we adopt that line of thought.  For the truth is:  it is not what we have been given at birth that shall determine what we shall become later on.  Rather, it is what we do with what we have been given at birth that shall shape the kind of person we shall turn out to be. 

But there is more.  When God decided to allow us to be born, He gave us exactly what we would need to fulfill a unique mission He would like us to accomplish in this life.  Contrary to what existentialist philosophers claim (that we were merely “thrown” into a “meaningless world” and it is then up to us to “create” a meaning for our own lives), nothing about the circumstances of our birth was accidental.  Everything – including the apparent “disadvantages” we had to begin our life with – was placed there for a purpose.  We will not be able to see the purpose (or purposes) right away.  But, at some point in the future, we will understand why God placed them there, and then we will appreciate the awesome wisdom behind it all.  

Which brings me to the next important lesson I have learned in my journey so far:  our fundamental stance towards life should be one of gratitude.  Life is something we should always be grateful for. We should thank God first and foremost, but immediately afterwards -- we should thank our parents for being the channels through which we were given this most precious of gifts.  Our parents may not be perfect; but then, where can we find a perfect parent in this imperfect world?  All parents are imperfect simply because all of them are human beings like the rest of us.  Yet most of them, despite their imperfections, sincerely want to do their best as parents.   So if we think our parents have done us wrong at some point in our lives, we would do well to assume that much of it was probably unintentional (a case of good intentions gone awry).  We will also eventually find that even the emotional hurts that our parents have unintentionally inflicted on us as children, even the mistakes which we think they have committed against us, have actually done us good in some way, if we will but look more closely at how our lives have unfolded as a result thereof.  

Other people have also touched our lives in some other way and helped us become better persons: our siblings and friends, our teachers and mentors, people we hardly know but whose hidden and unrecognized deeds have made it possible for us to continue on our journey.  We ought to be grateful to them as well.  Our spouses, of course, deserve a special place in our hearts’ hymn of gratitude, for the Divine Potter’s hands often make use of them to mold us into the persons He wants us to become. 

But gratitude is not just a matter of saying “Thank you.”  Neither is it just a matter of feeling thankful.  Gratitude – especially, gratitude for the gift of life – must be concretized.  And the way to show our gratitude for life is by spending it in furtherance of the unique mission God wants us to carry out in this world.  Each of us, as we said, has a mission that no one else (not even those who appear to be smarter or more powerful than us) can accomplish.  That mission is something broader than the conventional careers, professions and vocations that society offers us to choose from.  It is a lot more than choosing to become a doctor, or an engineer, or a businessman.  Yes, choosing to heed one of these “callings” is often part of the process of fulfilling our unique mission.  But – and I must underline this – these callings are just the implements by which we can accomplish our true mission in life. 

No one is in a better position to tell us what our unique mission from God is than we ourselves.  At best, our parents, our teachers, our parish priest, our spiritual director, and our friends can only offer us their opinions as to what our mission might be.  They often mean well when they give us their opinions, so it will not hurt us if we listen to their opinions and give them some thought.  Sometimes, in fact, their opinions may turn out to be the marks on the road that God uses to lead us to where our mission is.  But, at the end of the day, we must realize that we – and we alone – will know exactly what our mission is. 

Some of us discover our life’s mission early enough.  Some take a longer time to discover it.  Others think they have finally found it, only to realize later on that they have to resume their search.  Not a few have to try one or two paths first before they finally find the right one.  But, whether we discover our life’s mission right away or only after a long search, it is important to remember that every stage of that discovery, every moment of that journey – including those that appear to be the “wrong turns” we have made along the way – forms an essential part of our personal odyssey.  Not a bit of it has been a waste of time.  Every detour, every U-turn, every flat tire, and every tank that suddenly runs out of gas and forces us to stop and delay our trip, is essential.  Although, of course, we can only say this if we have consciously embarked on the journey of discovering our life’s mission with a view to carrying it out.  If we have not, then everything has been a waste of time. Living life without a clear idea of where one is going is like riding on a rudderless ship that moves everywhere but arrives nowhere. 

Speaking of life-missions, ours may not necessarily be a grand one by earthly standards.  Not everyone has been charged by God with the task of changing the world by means of some history-shaping act or some paradigm-shifting intellectual discovery.  Our life’s mission may simply be to make a difference in a particular person’s life (one’s spouse) or in the life of a particular family (one’s own), by means of words and deeds that probably mean little to other persons. But, in God’s grand design, that mission is by no means less significant than the other missions that appear more remarkable in the world’s eyes.  No one else can fulfill that mission but we; and it cannot be fulfilled if we do not agree to carry it out.  And whether our mission is to make a difference in one person’s life or in an entire nation’s life; whether it is to come up with a better way of teaching basic math to schoolchildren or to construct a philosophical paradigm that will change an entire generation’s way of looking at things; whether it is to be the head of a small household or to be the head of a huge organization, we must never doubt that each mission is important in God’s eyes, because each plays an indispensable role in the gradual unfolding of His divine plan. 

I must forthwith add, however, that although God allowed us to be born into this world in order to fulfill a unique mission, it does not mean we have to go through life “laboring” for the sake of that mission.  God is not a taskmaster whose eyes are focused mainly on the efforts we are exerting to carry out our mission.  On the contrary, He wants us to enjoy the journey of life itself and not to preoccupy ourselves too much with the destination. He wants us to relish every moment of that journey -- the joys and pains of loving, the excitement of trying and failing and trying again, the adventure of winning or losing and bouncing back.  And as regards the mission He wants us to accomplish, I have learned that He wants us to enjoy that too, and that the key to enjoying our mission is to love the things that God wants us to do. Or perhaps, the better way to put it is:  to do what God asks us to do -- for and with love.  The moment we do things with that motivation and attitude, even the most thankless task required by our mission, even the most boring part of what we have to do becomes a source of joy. 

Finally, today, as I look back on the life I have thus far lived, there is one other lesson that fills my heart with profound awe:  God’s patience, understanding and mercy literally know no bounds. There had been times in my journey when the marks that God placed on the road to guide my way were quite clear and easy to understand.  Yet, I chose to ignore them. I would have lost my way altogether if God did not persist in (as it were)  reconfiguring, again and again, the geography of my life so that, whatever road I took, I would ultimately find my way back to where I should be going. 

____________________ 

            *Written in October 2020, in celebration of my 58^th birthday. 

**Jorge Luis Borges, “Things” in Collected Poems, ed. Alexander Coleman (London:  Penguin Books, 2000), 277.

Remembering Father Viktor Holobrady, SVD

 by EMMANUEL R. FERNANDEZ

Describing the late Father Viktor Holobrady as a “terror teacher” would be like describing a tiger as “a large cat.”  It would be a correct description (for tigers do belong to the family of cats), but it would be an understatement of the highest order. Father Holobrady -- the Czechoslovakian missionary-priest of the Society of the Divine Word who served as Rector, Procurator and English grammar teacher of the Mary Help of Christians Minor Seminary in Binmaley, Pangasinan for many decades -- was not your typical “terror teacher.”  The moment Father Holobrady stepped inside the classroom, he transmogrified into Terror itself – in the flesh!

His classes always had a graded recitation portion which never failed to make our small palms sweat and our young hearts palpitate.  For if you gave the wrong answer (or worse, if you did not know the answer) to the questions he asked, you would get both a rebuke and a punishment.  The rebuke would come in the form of a one-word insult:  he would call you “bagoong” (the Filipino word for the native shrimp paste, famous for its good taste and its rather peculiar smell), and he would say this with a look that would make you feel like you were the dumbest boy in the neighborhood.  The punishment, on the other hand, would depend on the gravity of your mistake, and it usually consisted of writing down the correct answer from ten to fifty to a hundred times or even more on a piece of paper.  The whole thing does not look that terrifying to me now, but back then when my classmates and I were young boys aged between eleven and twelve, being called “bagoong” in front of one’s classmates and having to write down the correct answer up to a hundred times were prospects we dreaded each time we stepped inside his classroom. 

            Yet, Fr. Holo (as he was called for short) was a totally different person outside the classroom. He was soft-spoken, he had a shy but warm smile, and despite the fact that he had an imposing height (he was more than six feet tall) and that as the Rector he was actually the highest official of the minor seminary at that time, he was as lovable as one’s favorite grandfather.  In fact, you could joke around with him just before he stepped inside the classroom and he would not mind it at all.  The skin on both his elbows sagged from age, and I remember that some of my classmates used to pull the skin playfully while he waited for the bell to ring for the start of his grammar class.  I don’t remember a time when he took offense at that.  On the contrary, he always laughed when they did it. 

            But the best time to be with Father Holo was on Wednesday nights.  Being the night before Thursday (which was our free day in the minor seminary, in lieu of Saturday), we seminarians were allowed to watch TV, play indoor games or engage in any other form of legitimate recreation every Wednesday night.  In addition, Father Holo’s office was also open for those seminarians who would prefer to sit and read while listening to classical music.  Father Holo himself would be reclining on his grandfather’s chair reading a book, and from the corner of one’s eye one could see him happily waving his pencil like a baton every time he heard a musical phrase that he liked on his record player. 

            On other days, however, Father Holo’s office was a clinic of sorts where one went to for all kinds of medical concerns.  I do not recall hearing that Father Holo ever went to medical or nursing school.  But he was an infirmarian, and an excellent one at that!  He had a cure for anything, from the common cold to ringworm to what have you.  Even those of us who had a difficult time growing taller swore that Father Holo had a cure for that too.  I was not one of those who availed of his much-talked about growth-boosting injections, but many of those who did claimed that it really worked. 

            But the medical procedure that Father Holo was most famous for was the “lavativa” (or the edema, as those who want to sound more medical prefer to call it).  For some reason other than its obvious health benefits, it was widely believed by minor seminarians in those days that one had to undergo the “lavativa” at least once during one’s stay in the minor seminary.  It was an initiation of sorts. Somehow, you were not considered a full-fledged minor seminarian if you had not had it at least once.  

            Nevertheless, Father Holo was not only an excellent infirmarian.  He was also a musician who taught us how to sing all those Latin hymns that we still remember so well up to now; a seasoned seminary formator who helped train many future priests for the Archdiocese of Lingayen-Dagupan; and a dedicated missionary who left his home in Czechoslovakia to spread God’s word in a foreign country several thousand miles away from his own. 

            In 1993, following the Fall of Communism, Czechoslovakia (which used to be a part of the Communist Bloc) was split into two sovereign states:  the Czech Republic and the Republic of Slovakia.  I do not know on which side of the divided Czechoslovakia Father Holo’s birthplace is now located.  But when I visited the Czech Republic for the first time in 2015, I could not get Father Holo out of my mind.  As I walked Prague’s ancient streets and crossed the renowned Charles Bridge, I imagined the young Father Holo walking the same beautiful streets and crossing the same spectacular bridge, and I began to wonder what made him decide to become a priest, to leave his homeland and become a missionary in the Philippines, to spend a large part of his life in Binmaley, Pangasinan teaching English grammar to young seminarians like myself who both feared and loved him at the same time.  And I realized how amazing indeed is the manner in which God makes people’s lives converge, oftentimes in very surprising ways, for reasons that they will begin to understand only so much later.  God, The Divine Weaver, makes the threads of our lives intersect so He could bring to fruition His wonderful designs for us and for humanity as a whole. At the moment, we may not understand what His hands are up to.  But later we shall be given a glimpse of the finished Tapestry, and we shall finally understand the whys and wherefores of our lives’ unexpected interfaces.  As young seminarians, we dreaded Father Holo’s grammar classes.  We feared his rebukes and the punishments he imposed if we did not study our lessons well.  Yet, many years later, we all began to realize how immensely fortunate we were to be the taught the rudiments of English grammar by an exacting teacher who expected nothing less than the best from each of us.  

            Father Holo literally served the Mary Help of Christians Minor Seminary until his health made it impossible for him to continue doing so.  In the early nineties, he suffered a stroke and was brought to a place at the Christ the King Seminary in Quezon City where elderly SVD priests are cared for.  He died shortly afterwards, leaving behind countless priests and ex-seminarians who swear that they owe the better parts of who they are to the formation they received from the unforgettable Father Viktor Holobrady.

Book of Regrets

by EMMANUEL R. FERNANDEZ

 

     One Saturday afternoon, during my diplomatic posting in Jordan, I decided to while away the sweltering summer hours in the English language section of a bookstore inside a mall near our neighborhood.  There, I stumbled upon a little book whose title immediately caught my attention – The Book of Regrets:  Thoughts, Memories and Revelations from a Celebrated Cast  by Juliet Solomon.  It was a compilation of the regrets of a number of famous people that included writers, politicians, captains of industry, sports and showbiz celebrities.  Their regrets were varied and immensely interesting.  I finished browsing over the book with the comforting realization that even people you least expect to have regrets do have their own regrets.

     The truth is, most of us keep, inside some secret vault in our hearts, our own little “book of regrets.”   In our moments of solitude, we struggle to overcome some regrets, or try our best to live with them at least.  Allow me to share with you some lessons I have learned over the years about dealing with regrets.

     I learned that the first thing to do when dealing with regrets is to determine exactly what kind of regret is it that we are dealing with.  Is it a regret about something we have done, or is it a regret about something we have failed to do?  If it is about the latter, then we would do well to remember that it is never too late to try doing it at last.  We have all heard about senior citizens who decided to go back to school in their retirement years to pursue the course that they really wanted to take when they were young, but which they had to forego for one reason or another.  We have also heard about mid-career executives who opted to quit their high-paying jobs in order to indulge in full their true passions for music, for writing, or for the fine arts. If they could do it, so can each of us -- if we are courageous enough to lose sight of the shore in order to discover new oceans (to paraphrase what the French writer Andre Gide once said).

     If the regret we are dealing with is about something we have done in the past, then we must ask ourselves if there is still something we can do about it.  Chances are, there is no longer anything we can do at this point to “undo” it.  All we can do is to find a way to repair the damage it has done to us and to other people, ask for the latter’s forgiveness, make amends, and help them (and ourselves) move on.

     Second, for both kinds of regret, it would help us if we called to mind that our decision to do or not to do something in the past (which is now the cause of our regret) was actually “the best decision” we could make at that time.  From the standpoint of the present, our past decision now appears unwise, irresponsible and wrong.  But we must remember that our past decision did not appear to us that way at the time we made it.  On the contrary, we probably had all the reasons to believe at that time that it was the best thing to do, and that it was right for us to do it.  Maybe other people believed otherwise.  But we still went ahead with the decision because our personal paradigm at that time had convinced us that, all things considered, it was indeed the best thing for us to do.  Given the same set of circumstances, we would probably be making the very same decision that we made then.  It would, therefore, be unfair for us to condemn and ceaselessly punish the young man we once were for something he honestly believed was the best thing for him to do at that time.

     Third, we could cushion the impact of our regret if we helped ourselves realize that, in fact, we could have done worse things than the ones we now regret having done. Human nature being what it is, there is literally no limit to the bad decisions we could have made in our past life.  If we regret the fact that we got married too young, long before we were ready for the responsibilities of having a wife and children, let us remember that we could have done worse things than that.  We could have become irredeemably hooked on a vice when we were young, or we could have done something that really ruined our young lives beyond repair.  That we did not go that far is reason enough to be grateful, and to be kinder to ourselves when making an assessment of our past lives.

     Finally, we must learn how to extract the gold inside the ore of our past mistakes.  The things we did or did not do in the past, which we now regret, must have inadvertently affected someone’s life (including our own) in a positive way. Even the pain that resulted from our mistakes has probably made us better persons, in ways we have neither intended nor have hitherto been aware of.  Our actions can have (to borrow a term popularized by the American sociologist Robert K. Merton) “unanticipated consequences.”   Even negative actions can have unintended positive consequences.  More importantly, we must remind ourselves that ours is a God who can write straight with crooked lines.  He can help us turn our past mistakes into stepping stones to a   better life. We just have to be open and attentive to His silent promptings.  In fact, He has probably done exactly that many times in the past without our knowing it.  He has woven our mistakes into the fabric of our life in such a way that instead of ruining it, they have made it even more sturdy and more beautiful to behold.

     Several years ago, young lovers in Rome had a very interesting way of sealing their love for each other.  They would go to an old bridge in the city called Ponte Milvio bringing with them a lock with their names written on it.  They would then attach the lock to one of the lampposts of the bridge and throw away the key into the Tiber River underneath. It was their way of saying that the love they had sealed would never be unlocked, because they had both made a decision to let go of the key for all eternity. The practice became so popular that the lampposts eventually collapsed on account of the weight of the locks (which were fondly called lucchetti d’amore or “locks of love” by the locals).  After I left Rome for good in 2009, I heard that the city government eventually penalized the practice because of the danger it posed to the old bridge.  But I also heard that young Italians, being the hopeless romantics that they are, still continue to do it despite the ban.

     We can adopt the same practice when dealing with our regrets.  After exhausting all the possible ways of overcoming them, or at least of coming to terms with them, we can make a conscious decision to lock them out of our minds and throw away the key for good.  After all, there is indeed no use crying over spilled milk. No amount of wishing that we could turn back the hands of time and redo things the right way can bring the past back.  At some point, we need to achieve closure from whatever we did yesterday, forgive ourselves and move on. Of course, even after having made such a decision, some of our regrets can still find a way to come back and haunt us.  For even lovers who have thrown away the key to their locks of love into the Tiber River can still be visited afterwards by doubts about their love.  But lovers who remind each other of the lock they have closed and the key they have thrown away eventually manage to triumph over their doubts.  So too shall we triumph over our lingering regrets if we remind ourselves of the lock we have closed and the key we have decided to hurl away into the flowing river beyond our minds.