Smelling the flowers

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Smelling the flowers
Sunday, 12 03, 2006

Baguio City; December 3, 2007. — December has come and in a twinkling of an eye, it soon will be Christmas. Today is the first Sunday of Advent, and it is at this time of the year, more than Christmas Day itself, that we take stock of the year about to end.

All things considered, we have had 48 weeks of a turbulent political atmosphere, a murky economy, an explosive security situation, murderous weather and, above all, a rollercoaster journey to an uncertain future. Our Christian faith teaches us that Advent is the coming of Jesus the Christ, which we commemorate on Christmas Day. How then must we prepare for that day?

Never mind the past, as my daughter Kara, a psychologist, would counsel me. An unhealthy preoccupation with days that have come and gone would only burden on your ongoing journey to the next turn, she says. That should be well and good, if only lessons learned from the past could come full circle and be the norm for the future.

Kara is getting married on December 21, in Baguio City, where she practically grew up into a fine young lady whom my wife and I will soon miss. Which explains our presence here. And yesterday, at the first tee at the Baguio Country Club, it was with a mixture of amusement and paternal fondness that I observed Kara revert to a ritual she assiduously performed every time we come up here: She stooped down to smell the flowers. A line from Wordsworth flashed through my mind:

"What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind . . ."

For Kara, the simple gesture of smelling the flowers is an act of affirmation of life, a life that must be lived with love, with inner strength, by reason of the “soothing thoughts that spring out of human suffering,” as Wordsworth had said. Little does my daughter know that by her annual ritual, she had taught me an enduring lesson: appreciating life, like smelling the flowers, requires neither extra effort nor additional guile. It takes but a split second; appreciation of this God-given gift, and thanking God for it, is all there is to it.

Life is the spark of godhood within us. And if we are as gods, we might as well be good at it. So we must see ourselves in this light. Appreciate the life that we live, and thank God that we are still alive to move forward to the next turn, while spreading love along the way.

This perspective offers us no more than a salve for the challenges we face. The acerbic language that we have used in this space for 48 weeks has been nothing more than expressions that must somehow be articulated, in anger and often in sorrow, for national tragedies that have been and may come to being again. The tongue, somehow, has to take a pause and command the pen to lie still. There are still many good things around us. Was it not said that with all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world?

My musing is cut short by the stern voice of Anthony de Leon, the country club manager, who, I discovered, has admonished Kara for plucking a single flower out of that dazzling display of efflorescence. It is one of those things, I assure myself, that Kara will own up to and be responsible for. I am unable to clearly hear the excuse Kara gives to Anthony, but the symbolism of Kara’s act of picking one blossom among many is not lost on me.

In our lives, something – or somebody – always stands out. We pick on them, either out of appreciation or out of disapproval. We praise them, or condemn them. So it is in writing this weekly column. We praise the members of the Opposition for their principled stand against the Administration, while we condemn the Administration for its misguided governance of our lives. We appreciate the hard work that Alan Peter Cayetano and Rolex Suplico have put to their crusade for good government, while we shout ourselves hoarse in deriding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her husband for the misfortunes they wrought on our country.

In the fashion that flowers wilt for having bloomed under the sun for so long, so will our acerbic language – which we hope had at least struck discomfort and guilt in the hearts of some people – give way to a conciliatory tone under the luminous light that precedes the coming of the Lord.

From gagging at the stench of corruption to smelling the flowers – who would have thought I would arrive this far in 48 weeks? Leina de Legazpi, my reluctant critic, had once challenged me to come up with “something coherent and beautiful.” My Kara, who grew up smelling the flowers, had unknowingly become my collaborator.

Leina de Legazpi and Madame President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, go smell the flowers, please.

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