Tendernesses

Where you grew up, hugging was not reserved between people with certain closeness and affinities. In some instances, hugging and similar acts of tenderness was also common outside the circles of family and friends.

Back in your small town then, you witnessed hugging between Cursillistas, the members of a religious renewal group called Cursillos de Cristianidad that had their heyday in the 1980s in your parents’ ancestral house in Bagacay.

Probably a precursor of the Couples for Christ, or those of the Parish Renewal Experience (PREX), the Cursillistas, among others, displayed physical manifestation of affection during Sampaguita, the third day morning’s fellowship when the new members were surprised and greeted by their family and friends, the old Cursillistas and sometimes even the barangay community.

Sampaguita was always sentimental and emotional even as the new members were literally showered love and care in the forms of, leis, embraces and words of comfort by their fellow Cursillistas. After having been made to realize that God loves them “despite” themselves, the new members were hugged by the old members to make them feel the love of Jesus Christ the Saviour.

But in your clan, you had also seen from people how to be showy about their feelings for others. Among your uncles, it was the youngest Uncle Tony who literally showed his affection to his sisters, your mother Emma and your aunt Ofelia. He did the same to his mother, Margarita and his father, Emiliano. The youngest of six, your Uncle Tony joked his ways around his folks with ease, his naughty antics soliciting laughter or extremely otherwise annoyance from those who did not patronize them.

Your uncle even earned the bansag (moniker) lâya, perhaps corrupted from lâyab, which hardly translates to an English equivalent. Roughly, lâyab refers to someone’s inclination to be soft or weak in order to earn the sympathy comfort or even affection of somebody else, who is usually older—sort of lambing in Tagalog, but not exactly.

Your grade school had also taught you something on acts of tenderness. Whenever two pupils were caught fighting or quarrelling, they would be brought to the principal’s office for interrogation. After they were asked to air their respective sides, they would be asked to shake hands and put their arms around each other’s shoulders to indicate that they have reconciled.

Then, they would be asked to remain locked as they were asked to go out of the office for all the students to see. This practice had become legendary in your small town—something which had drawn innocent laughter but also admiration from the parents and the community.

Nowadays, you realize that more and more people are learning to hug more openly. In some communities these days, you are now beginning to see that hugging and other similar physical forms of affection are becoming the norm.

In June of that year

In June of that year, you started tutoring Seth, a freshman and Zandro, a sophomore—both were newcomers in the school where you chose to teach.

Seth appeared cool and quiet, but there was much eagerness when he started talking about himself, his participation in class and school activities, and other things he does in school or at home. He was a growing young boy whose parents whom you chanced to meet desired much good for him. Composed, serene, you saw in him a promising young man who will make a name for himself.

Meanwhile, Zandro was the bubbly type, always wearing a smile, and always less serious and preferred to read ghost stories, not to mention that he was an avid online gamer himself. He wanted to be a nurse because he wanted much money—lots of it. He said he would have to work abroad so he could always provide for himself. Also, he always wanted to eat. 

Every now and then you would excuse the two boys from their classes to chat with them. To you they always sounded hopeful—in anticipation of the chats with you. You would talk to them about how to help their parents do chores in the house, study harder so they would not flunk any class or be good sons to their parents. You also talked to them about how to gain friends in school. Seth said he had new friends—all of the freshmen were his friends. The playful Zandro confessed how he would participate in the sophomores’ horseplay in between class sessions or even during classes. 

In your chats, you approached them like they were your younger brothers. At first you mentally prepared your questions for them. Later, you would just talk to them very casually. Through the days, they had become your friends, so to speak. The chats you had had with them had gone smooth and personal, like they were your younger brothers. Your words would usually end up as friendly pieces of advice for these young boys growing up. And how they sounded so real, so convincing to them. 

Every time you talked to them, you thought you saw yourself in them. You saw enthusiasm in the things they did or wanted to do. They were struggling to become themselves. Full of hope and anticipation, the boys had a lot to live and to learn. They always appeared as if they had to know a lot of things. 

Continually you had told them how to be always good, and would always ask them about how they would fare up to virtues like charity and service, honesty and truthfulness, diligence and stuff. Talking about these virtues with these boys made you aware of your own shortcomings. It made you start to ask again your own life question. It made you want to quantify your own [sense of] achievement. 

Though you’d gone that far, you had not really gotten far enough to try to live sensibly—with a definite purpose. You thought you had to have a definite purpose. Just like them, then, you seemed to long to fling your arms wide open to the world and take on what life really had in store for you.

In June of that year.

Power of One

Power of One

If there’s one thing worth noting about Mahatma Gandhi, an Indian lawyer leader who lived through the years of British Empire, it would be his advocacy of world peace, evident in his influence to the world after tirelessly seeking to unify Moslems and Hindus in his homeland. 

Copyright. Ben Heine 

His nonviolent initiative to achieve peace between and among his fellow Indians took the world by storm and has been immortalized in the hearts of many peace-loving people, including political leaders worldwide.

Even when he was young, Mahatma Gandhi already naturally had an instinct to work to dismantle differences between people by taking efforts to liberate the oppressed from their oppressors. Inspired by his personal experience of discrimination by the British in South Africa, he rallied for equality between and among Indians and the white race. The initiatives he took created a large following in and outside the British colony.

Going back to his homeland India, Gandhi, now popular for his South African rights initiative, continued to work as a lawyer and journalist and vowed to address inequality prevalent in their country through nonviolent means.

Such privilege to be looked up to by the rest of the world as a role model virtually gave Gandhi the opportunity to cultivate his personal vision for peace, which is best seen through his conscious pursuit of dharma, the highest good in Indian belief—and his own desire to constantly set an example of sacrifice for the sake of others.

Through his own intermittent jail terms which he served for the cause he found worth fighting for, Mahatma Gandhi showed his followers and admirers how to consciously pursue the good—both in words and in action—by this time he had now become a person of great fame and influence, a personal icon for anyone on what is right and wrong.

Articulate as a lawyer and diplomatic in his relations with the affairs of the state, Gandhi constantly protested against hostilities and conflicts arising from racial and cultural differences and religious fanaticism. Fasting to stage protest against riots, Gandhi showed that peace can be achieved through inner peace.

In so doing, Gandhi’s vision for the world to become a more livable place had not gone unnoticed. World leaders began to recognize the importance of such an unassuming, merciful—similarly Christian—attitude in the conduct of human affairs.

By now, the British Empire, after not being able to find any way out to [stay in control of] India—ironically barraged by Gandhi’s quiet means of protest lasting through a number of years—finally granted independence to India.

Not long after, the Indian independence further gave way to more spaces where oppressed groups of people can voice out personal and national freedom—and this included the movement of the Moslem-dominated part of India to be later called Pakistan, which seceded from the Indian sovereignty, later creating more tensions between the two races.

While incessant conflicts between Hindus and Moslems still persist today, mahatma Gandhi’s consistent and sincere pursuit of the peace through nonviolent means in order to solve the issue of differences have simply been enormous to inspire people all over the world to similarly work for peace.

Solely, his life inspired other world leaders to properly address conflicts, discrimination, and social unrest between and among social and religious classes, paving the way for a more tolerant community living in harmony despite diversity.