BREAKING FREE OUT OF “ME” GENERATION

Our society today has a perilous attitude toward its past. We are made to think that we are better than people who lived hundreds of years ago. We are made to believe that everything about the past is irrelevant to us. The beliefs of our grandparents, their values and their cherished rituals and traditions can be easily dismissed because we are being fed with the idea (together with genetically modified foods and sugar spiked drinks) that we can totally cut our ties from the past, and still say “Look at us, we are generally OK.” Nah, it’s actually “Look at me! Me, me, me. I can do whatever I want so long as I am happy and not hurting anyone.” In Filipino “Basta wala akong natatapakan.” Most of the time this frame of mind is said out of convenience, for, how broad are our considerations in deciding to really see the consequences of our acts for which we can truly say “Wala akong nasasaktan or natatapakan”? By removing the past we end up with ME.

By removing the past we forget that the world has a story: the world neither begins nor ends with us, nor with ME. When Jesus called Simon, Andrew, James and John and told them that they will become fishers of men, Jesus did not say it arbitrarily. Jesus first of all did not come out of nowhere. He has a reason for being in Galilee. He has reasons for calling disciples. Never in the lives of the apostles do we see the attitude that everything starts with them, nor did they bear the attitude that they are the center of the world. When Christ called them they saw that their lives are involved in a much greater reality, that their lives are part of a much bigger and exciting story. When Christ called them He was like saying “Come be part of my life. Be part of My story.” And that story is God’s story, a story of love. Today we must bow humbly to the people who lived before us. We have to regain the humility to learn from them and to cherish too their values and faith; most especially, to see their lives as very much part of our lives. Because when we answer the call of Christ we too become part of God’s story. Let us include others as well.