PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

Every time Christmas comes around, I remember my maternal Grandmother. She took care of myself and my younger Sister while Mother worked in a desiccated coconut factory in a nearby town all through our childhood  and adolescent years. How she would prepare us for Christmas day made up a large part of what I remember of those early years.

First, she made sure that poor as the family was, we would have something new – new pair of shoes, clothes, as it was the case with other families in our barangay. Christmas is the time when family members ought to have something new. Whoever started that tradition was a marketing expert. With the chilly air of the season, the Christmas songs filling the air, and the gift-giving parties in schools, offices and localities, we all ended up as willing victims of marketing in preparing for this celebration of our faith.

I recall our Inay Tanda – that’s how we call our grandmother, accompanying us to our relatives both in my father’s  and mother’s sides one after  another on Christmas and the days before the New Year.

All through our high school years, the routine remained practically the same, preparing for these visits by buying something new to wear, visiting relatives and receiving cash gifts from them which would usually compensate for the amount spent for the new items that Inay Tanda would buy for us.

Indeed preparing for Christmas was much, much simpler when we were younger.

 Life has become complicated in succeeding decades and, at first glance, with all the elaborate decorations in the homes, offices and in the streets, families and local communities have missed out seemingly on the simple message of Christmas – to rediscover our affinity with Him who was born in a manger.

Our faith is anchored on this hope for redemption, something we can realize by doing good for ourselves and our neighbors through deeds which reaffirm our common humanity as defined by enduring values during our temporal existence here on Earth.

Sounds a mouthful, but I have come to believe that the best way to prepare for Christmas is to be alone with oneself for at least one or two days and do some meditation not only how personal and family goals have been met , but how we have tried to help those who are in need.

It is almost Messianic, but this is the only way we can reaffirm our common bond with the rest of humankind especially with those who are more burdened than others.

How can we be a person for others while we pursue goals specifically for ourselves and our immediate family? This is the key question that we need to ask during meditation. Caring for others, especially the poor, is quite a difficult task . It requires vast investment in time and money that otherwise will be used for personal pursuits. In this sense, helping others will mean quite a sacrifice on the part of the person or a group.

In the essay on “Self-Reliance,” Ralph Waldo Emerson, guru of Transcendentalism, had this to say on this matter:

“Do not tell me, as a good man did today, of my obligation to put all men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent I gave such men do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go to prison if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which they now stand; alms to sots, and the thousand-fold Relief Societies; - though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is  wicked dollar, which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold.”

This is an extreme option to take but some people prefer this based on the Darwinian principle that only the fittest survive and those who are “helpless are and ought to be doomed to extinction.” 

 Which is, of course, contrary to the belief of most religions.

To most people, the ability to help is not a philosophical question. Nor it is a question of motives behind the gesture of helping that by-standers delight in speculating. Whatever the motives as long as the service is delivered to the intended beneficiary is commendable in itself.

 More often it is question of finding the time and other resources to help that is the primary concern.  Unless one belongs to an organization that is financially endowed and capable of mobilizing paid staff to facilitate delivery of much-needed services, it will always be a competition for time, money and other resources between personal and social goals.

 Having social enterprises is a worthwhile strategy to pursue for some development organizations. They earn profit from their businesses which enables them to avoid extinction, but they also manage to pursue development objectives in terms of actual service delivery to specific disadvantaged groups or provide skills and employment to families in need.

In preparation for Christmas, a season for cleansing one’s soul of multiple sins, e.g., self-conceit and arrogance, I will try to resolve through meditation some of these issues related to the survival of local organizations, specifically those pursuing self-help initiatives among disadvantaged groups.

I would like to explore more deeply this practice of  sharing personal experiences which I have seen in all organizations of varied persuasions: from the Legion of Mary in my adolescent years, to the Nationalist Corps and like-minded organizations from the political left in those exciting days on the campus, to all sorts of religious or faith-based organizations, including those affiliated with Habitat for Humanity International, in meetings of Narcotics Anonymous I was invited to observe, and now with the Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals (BCBP). Indeed all religions are correct in the pursuit of self-transformation goals.

I have just finished a three-month orientation course and I was amazed at how virtual strangers would share their experiences in their own families, the problems they encountered and how they were able to overcome constraints through application of spiritual values. Outside this particular organizational context, it would be embarrassing to tell stories about family quarrels, marital infidelity, addiction to gambling, a personal quest for meaning and salvation, but for the first time in my life, I was hearing their stories of human frailties and the heroic struggle to overcome these with courage , the help of family and friends, and the guidance of  a Higher Being “who was made Flesh and dwelt amongst us,” or conceptualized in so many ways by so many creeds and religions through the ages.

Now I must go back to this meditation mode the week before Christmas and, hopefully, gain insights on what has eluded us through forty years of professional community development work – a network of people’s organizations able to decide on their own to create a powerful social force that we may have this sought-after kingdom of equality, justice and prosperity for all.

Spirituality or adherence to common human values has been the missing link through all the past efforts and sacrifices of development professionals and workers we have had the privilege and honor of working with in the past. Now a new journey begins as we prepare for this blessed season. #Development+spiritualvalues