IT’S CHRISTMAS Day!
There is a mountain of wrapping paper and ribbon in the living room this morning. What a mess! Suddenly, the tree looks desolate. It is still all lit and decorated, but there isn’t a single package left underneath.
The season that started as early as September should be getting ready to wind down. But it is far from over. Celebrations continue and will escalate to a noisy crescendo with the revelry of New Year’s Eve.
It is like no other holiday. We make time for eating and drinking, hugging and kissing, giving and getting. Families reunite, friends re-bond, enemies make peace, people who can’t carry a tune brave it through Silent Night, and even bad mouths learn to talk nice. Wherever we go, it looks festive and friendly and our faces are wreathed with smiles.
The only thing we thought we weren’t too happy about this year was the horrendous traffic.
And then came the news from Mindanao. Typhoon “Sendong” had made landfall. These were not tidings of joy.
While we prepared to tell the story about angels singing on high, we heard the voices of anguish and despair rising from the broken hearts of weeping mothers and fathers in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City.
“The mountains melted in the rain.” This is how one evacuee described the night of Dec. 16 when raging rivers of mud reduced their homes to heaps of rubbish.
The floodwaters rose fast and families barely had time to climb to the rooftops. The less fortunate desperately fought the ravaging currents. Children were torn away from the arms of parents who, one minute clutched a frightened baby and the next instant knew that the blanket they held was empty.
Tragedy struck at the darkest time of night. Life was extinguished and property completely destroyed.
Blame game
What happened? Experts blame gold miners whose methods have “changed the natural landscape and stability of the mountains.” They say the rushing muddy waters came from upstream. We hear talk about silt deposits seriously clogging the rivers.
A recent news story tells us that this type of calamity was foreseen three years ago; and that legislators were warned. But nobody listened.
The blame game goes on; but it helps no one. All the victims want to know is how and when they can start rebuilding their lives. How can they gather enough courage to survive their pain? Where will their help come from?
Listen up! Their need is our call.
Graphic scenes shown on television and the worldwide Internet are heartbreaking. It is difficult not to look away.
But in the middle of the devastation, there was one woman who, when approached by a TV crew, briefly stopped digging for remnants of her life, and bravely smiled for the camera. Asked how she was coping, she answered: “Pasko pa rin po!”
That is the spirit of Christmas. And I do believe this is the spirit of the Pinoy. There is always hope!
Messages of love, joy and peace have filled e-mail inboxes all over the world. Back in the day we had to buy stamps to send Christmas greetings across the sea. I prefer the old way. It had a more personal touch.
This year I received a video called “Where is the Line to See Jesus.” If you missed it, you must visit YouTube. It’s worth the trip.
Standing on one’s head
But the best Christmas thoughts this year came in an e-mail from one of the nicest couples I know. It is an article written by the late Fr. Horacio de la Costa, S.J.
“Christmas—and Standing on One’s Head”
Christmas is when we celebrate the unexpected; it is the festival of surprise. This is the night when shepherds wake to the song of angels; when the Earth has a star for a satellite; when wise men go on a fool’s errand, bringing gifts to a Prince they have not seen, in a country they do not know.
This is the night when one small donkey bears on its back the weight of the world’s desire, and an ox plays host to the Lord of heaven. This is the night when we are told to seek our king, not in a palace, but in a stable.
Although we have stood here, year after year, as our fathers before us, the wonder has not faded; nor will it ever fade; the wonder of that moment when we push open that little door, and enter, and entering find, a mother who is virgin, and a baby who is God.
Chesterton has said it for us all: The only way to view Christmas properly is to stand on one’s head. Was there ever a home more topsy-turvy than on Christmas, the cave where Christ was born? For here, suddenly, in the very heart of Earth, is heaven; down is up, and up is down; the angels look down on the God who made them, and God looks up to the things He made.
There is no room in an Inn for Him who made room and to spare, for the Milky Way, and where God is homeless, all men are at home.
We were promised a savior, but we never dreamed God Himself would come and save us. We know that He loved us, but we never dared to think that He loved us so much as to become one of us.
But that is the way God gives. His gifts are never quite what we expect, but always something better than we hoped for. We can only dream of things too good to be true; God has a habit of giving things too true to be false. That is why our faith is a faith of the unexpected, a religion of surprise.
Now, more than ever, living in times so troubled, facing a future so uncertain, we need such faith. We need it for ourselves, and we need to give it to others.
We must remind the world that if Christmas comes in the depths of winter, it is that there may be an Easter in the spring.
