THE METAMORPHOSIS
By
Ernie D. Delfin
FREEDOM, FAMILY, FRIENDS, FAITH: FOUR REASONS TO BE GRATEFUL THIS
THANKSGIVING 2012
Happy
Thanksgiving Holiday to all of you, dear readers!
It’s Thanksgiving week, just another month before Christmas Day! If you are reading this,
you are blessed and lucky that you are still alive and hopefully you can also
come up with enough reasons to be
grateful to your Creator----- if you are a believer---- and to your loved ones.
Like the change of the seasons from
summer to autumn, winter to spring, this
Thanksgiving-Advent Season is an opportune time to take inventory of what we have and be
grateful for having them. And this is
my philosophical subject for this issue of our weekly Asian Journal: Freedom,
Family, Friends and Faith, with the ardent
hope that the reader is also encouraged or inspired to come up with his or her
own personal reasons to be thankful this
season.
FREEDOM:
Just
recalling the origin (the Pilgrims
giving thanks to their God for their
survival and plentiful harvest and the new-found freedom with their new
friends, the American Indians) of the first Thanksgiving festival in America by these first European immigrants
(without greencards!) in 1621, who braved countless dangers and
uncertainties in their bold adventure from the Old Word to the New World where more
than half died along the way, is
enough reason to be grateful. These Pilgrims
started what America has become and paid dearly for it. Their dream and vision of self-government
became the solid foundation of democracy as the world knows it today. Re-reading America’s history, from the bloody
American Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Emancipation centuries ago, as
well as all the armed struggles and
bloody involvement of Americans in many wars in the world, we, the
living should be grateful. For instance,
just memorizing Pres. Lincoln’s immortal Gettysburg address of
1863 can stir one’s soul and can easily
relive and realize the steep price ---
over 60,000 American lives perished --- that our forefathers have paid for our freedom today that many
Americans voters now take for granted.
Fast forward
to the 21st century, our steepest
sacrifice now is to pay our fair share of taxes to our ”government of the people, by the people and
for the people” and our primary
obligation is to exercise our right of suffrage wisely in every election, with eternal vigilance not to allow any of these
hard earned freedoms taken away by anyone, including our own gullible
politicians who want to change or control our way of life. History is a great teacher, that can teach us
not only to be humble and gracious but also can and should inspire us to continue to be ambitious and
become better human beings.
* * * *
FAMILY:
Every time I participate in our Catholic
Prison Ministry (providing Bible Study and Communion Services to the inmates in
Orange County jails) I cannot help but
count my many blessings that
most people take for granted. Millions
of citizens (was one of these citizens before) do not even
know nor realize how inmates or prisoners live without the company of their friends and family, food,
recreation and above all the luxury and the FREEDOM to do anything that one
desires. Yes, they are given food and shelter and even medical care, but those
things are never a fair substitute for
the beauty of freedom and family!
Family is indeed the bedrock of any society. Prison statistics shows that the vast majority
of the prisoners come from broken families, households with no fathers and/or
mothers. Oftentimes, the inmates in county jails (by the way, inmates are called “prisoners” once they are convicted
and sent to state or federal prison) often times they have intergenerational relatives----from
grandfather to grandchildren--- in jails or prisons for one crime or the other.
Many come from dysfunctional families where the old fashioned values of
love and respect and industry were not
practiced every day in their lives.
Without stable families ---- ideally two
parent households where the young children are molded to become good
citizens----- a stable country is almost impossible to maintain. It is
the family, complimented and fortified by a good schools, that plants the first seeds in a child’s developing mind to become his own person, to reach his full potential as a human being
that is carried on upon leaving the parental nest till he dies. What is learned
and internalized during the first years
of a child’s life, good or bad, will
live forever.
Being
a part of our church Prison Ministry, like our Rotary work, is life-sustaining and quite a fulfilling volunteer work. Daily, I recognize
that I am truly blessed that I have a good family that I love
unconditionally, and that loves me too. I truly
believe that love begets love. Our family believes that even our 6-month old, grandchildren Sofie and her almost three-year-old sister Olivia
instinctively know and feel that they are loved, and are showing their love in
return. As they are learning that love starts
from the womb to the grave, we are confident that they too will do the same when they grow up.
* * *
FRIENDS:
There is nothing more beautiful in
this life than a good friendship. It is said that if you find five true friends
in your life time, you will have lived a life infinitely blessed. That is a statement that I have often pondered as many friends come and go. Very few of them remain your friends for
decades, much less over a life time.
Once the glue that ephemerally binds both of you dries up with the summer
breeze or winter snow, the friendship fades away. What then is a true friend?
In his book, “Rediscover Catholicism” (highly recommended for Catholics or anyone)
the best selling author, Matthew Kelley describes about friends and their
attraction and influence in our lives. He writes: “As a child, I thought about friendship was about hanging out together
all the time and sticking up for each other when others were critical or cruel.
In my adolescence, I thought a true friend was someone who liked everything you
liked and never did anything that upset you. But as an adult, I have learned
that the defining characteristic of true friendship is someone who encourages you
to be all you can be and challenges you to become the best-version-of-
yourself. It is these people who tend to energize and invigorate us. What types
of people do you like being with? What types of people energize you?”
Mr. Kelley continues “For this reason, when I have time to spend with friends, I try
surround myself with people who make me want to be a better person. I admit
they are not easy to find, but when you do find them, they are more precious
than any treasure or pleasure this world has to offer. If you want a litmus test for choosing
friends, use this question: Will spending time with this person make me a
better person?” …. You will learn more from your friends than you will ever
will from books. Therefore choose your
friends wisely!”
What a profound advice to a man in search like me! At this stage of my life, however, I think
I am more discriminating in choosing my real friends who I want to be with, either in person or in cyberspace.
In the vacuum of true friends, I can still be with many “friends” dead
or alive, through their works or writings,
at will, by simply going to Barnes & Noble any day of the week!
I have enjoyed the company of a few chosen friends,
both the intellectual types like authors and philosophers and also the
humanitarian and/or religious people who find life’s meaning and purpose in
serving others. I am always in awe and find great admiration to rare
individuals like Mother Teresa or
Mahatma Gandhi, Rizal, Lincoln (see the movie!) and Mandela who strived to
love their God more, and did great
sacrifice for others. Their work
and contributions to the world even the blind can see! Collectively, these kinds of people inspire me to become a
better person that I want to be.
****
FAITH:
Faith like life is a mystery to be lived and
believed. It should never
be a problem to be solved during our lifetime. Like oxygen, it cannot be seen but can be felt deeply within us.
If we can remain still and quiet, and just ponder why we are here on
earth in the first place, faith and humility are automatically breathed into
our being.
It’s a fact of life, that our minds can never
fathom nor comprehend many things and events around us. Even scientists who are endowed with superior
intelligence believe that there is there
is Mighty Hand that causes all things to exist
and perform what they do even without
man’s guidance and control. These mysteries are manifested in the
harmonious order of our universe, the
magnificence of the galaxies in the sky
or the majesty of our solar system.
God’s creation are made more tangible for us to enjoy by the roaring of the sea, the flight of a bird,
the growing of a mustard seed into a huge plant and the birth of a baby from
the union of a father’s seed and the mother’s egg.
Faith is life giving; life without faith is a life without meaning
and purpose. Faith is not a religion but spiritual, a way of life. Faith is also
believing that things happen for a
reason, and accepting them despite the fact that we often do not fully comprehend. . Faith also provides us the humility and the
dexterity to accept that we are not immortal, that our physical
life has its beginning and ending.
Faith gives us hope for a better life
amidst the vicissitudes of life and our man-made vanity that contributes to our unhappiness and life
devoid of meaning. But faith also gives
us the humility to surrender to a Higher
Power, especially in moments when our body
and intelligence seem inutile to solve our own problems.
When all is gone, only our faith, our hope
and love (Love is God) remains. The first line of our Jaycee Creed sums it
all: “ That Faith in God gives meaning
and purpose to human life!”
HAVE A HAPPY AND BLESSED
THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY EVERYONE!
---- 30 -------
THE
METAMORPHOSIS FOOD FOR THOUGHT:
“A person is born,
starts to walk, goes to school, finishes college, gets a job, marries, raise a family, retires and then just reminisces his lifetime that may last a few decades or even 100 years!” Then,
he grows old and eventually dies! Is
this all there is to life?
Dr. Banna Tiran
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