It was a touching Saturday, and there was a lot to think about.
(I wasn't able to attend the processing session this morning, so I'll just share my reflections here. Sayang at hindi ko maririnig ang karanasan ng iba pang AtSCAns at mga nanay at tatay sa Area.)
Yesterday was ACET day, and my Facebook inbox was sprinkled generously with status messages about the test and the expected heavy traffic along beloved Katipunan Avenue. One could not help but reminisce. Five years earlier I was one of those thousands of high school kids who were causing the traffic. To me I was just taking a chance, only casually hoping to pass. Little did I know just how important passing the ACET would mean to me today. Little did I know that doing good on that test, on that day, was one of those acts I would most thank myself for.
This Saturday morning I volunteered to facilitate a faith sharing session for seniors just coming from Immersion. The seniors lived three days and two nights in different depressed areas in the Philippines, as a requirement for Theo 141. Some lived in Urban Poor areas, some lived with fisherfolk, and farmers, in areas near dump sites like Payatas, in prisons like Bilibid, and with indigenous people like the Aetas. Most in far places like Batangas, Nueva Ecija, and Zamboanga.
To some these were life-changing experiences. To some this was just a requirement. Faith sharing was always bound to be rich, as the seniors came with varying experiences. I've been challenged by atheists, and there are many of them, but I've also seen a minority of seniors disturbed and touched enough to cry. The first impulse that most felt was wanting to help the community. It seemed an instinctual reponse. Some were saddened because they were almost sure this was just another experience they would forget soon after the weight of Ateneo academics come rushing to them again. That seemed natural as well.
But some wanted to make something of this experience, by resolving to make something of their life. This, to me, was not natural. This was rare. It was surpassing the animal. Few animals want to make something of their life. Many animals want to live for themselves. Eating, sleeping, reproducing. Building habitats, maintaining communities. All for survival and self-preservation. But to desire to make something of their life for people they do not know - to me, that is unnatural; it was transcending nature, transcending the animal - this is being super-natural, it was being human.
An article by Dr. Rodriguez on the value of the Ateneo education reflected on how there will be, inevitably, Ateneans who will become rich and successful only for themselves and their families. But there will also be the core of the Ateneo people who will remember. Who will not forget the voices of the people who talked to them in the depressed areas in immersion. To the ears they taught in NSTP, to the people who they shared sweat with in their JEEP as corn vendors, jeepney barkers, and street sweepers. There are those who will use this education for themselves. Like animals. But there are those who will remember what the Ateneo is trying to teach us. To be humans.
Last night I went to Kaingin Uno Block Six, an Urban Poor community. I missed the people there. So much. Too much. I missed them and I wanted to embrace them. Tightly. I wanted to talk to them. My introvertedness stopped me, but when I was alone with Nanay Rosie we talked like we were never going to stop. We talked about our lives, about crocodiles, about the street children I befriended along Katipunan, about the abuses done to her, about some things in her life that wasn't normally shared to people who weren't trusted, about her problems, about my academics. We talked and trusted each other. We talked for hours, and when I finally decided to leave (because I also wanted to visit other friends) I hugged her tight. I looked at her, that old, stressed face, with gray hair and resilient smile. It was then that I was reminded how much I loved them. I loved the kids in her house. I loved Nanay Rosie's dog who couldn't stop licking my hands, or snuggling in my stomach. I loved her humble home. I loved the dinner she served me, a can of sardines with lots of rice. I wanted to see old Nanay Fanny's childish smile. I wanted to go back to Ate Baby's house again. I loved meeting jolly Ate Inday again. I wanted to play with Ate Gha's sons again. I loved everything, I was so full of it. A part of me wanted kneel down and kiss the grounds of B6. I loved those grounds. I loved it.
In my first year in the Ateneo Student Catholic Action (AtSCA), my understanding of why we helped the areas was simply because that they were in need. I grew older in AtSCA and I learned that perhaps they didn't need anything, and that we went there because we were the ones in need. They knew how to be humans. It was not they who needed us, but we who needed them. They loved and shared, and were happy. They lived simply and accepted everything as grace. They live on less than minimum wages while we rant about the taxes in our salaries.
It took me until the last months of my time with AtSCA before my understanding of why we went to the area, changed -maybe finally, for the last time. What all this education is for. Why we went to Immersion, why we went to the area. It was because we love them, or at least ought to love them, in order to be humans. That the Ateneo hoped we would come to love them. That, perhaps an ambitious hope, but maybe, at least some of the 2000 seniors "coming down the hill" would wake up in the morning once in a while thinking about those people they met, and thinking, 'I love them... I want to work for them... I want to be successful for them... I want to make something of my life for them. Love is that one thing that separates humans from animals. I want to be human.' And the ability to love the poorest and the marginalized, the dirty and the spiteful, is something distinctly human.
Last night we drank with the men in the area. Laughed. And shared our ambitions for the community. Jeff told them about Dr. Guev, about the Theology of Social Justice. "May ganun?" asked Kuya Alvin. "Akala ko ang Theology about God lang, about the bible." I understand now. What was unique in Ateneo Theology and Philosophy. "We cannot separate action for justice from the proclamation of the Word of God" ~ Fr. Arrupe, SJ. "If any thing, Filipino Jesuit education just means to teach people that the love of God means nothing but to love the people who suffer forgotten in the margins..." ~ Dr. Rodriguez.
They are not armed with Philosophy and Theology but I feel that they are more human than us. Perhaps God is not elitist. God does not give heaven only to those who have had the opportunity to study the bible, or morality and ethics. Perhaps the key to being human is something accessible to all of us.
"Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything" ~ Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ