Faith by the sides

At a street corner near The Freeman offices, towards the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral, there’s a row of stalls displaying holy images by the sidewalk. I often go there as soon as my eyes get strained from hours of looking at the computer screen and a short break becomes necessary. These past few days, the spot has become my stimulus for reflection.

It’s an interesting sight. It’s not the usual stalls that only sell statuettes of saints and other sacred icons. There, the stall attendants also fix broken statues and refurbish old ones.

More interesting is the way those guys go about their trade. It’s nothing about faith. It’s purely business.

My line of profession is different from theirs. I edit stories while they spruce up worn-out, broken-down reboltos. We differ in our outward looks and bearings, as well. They dress up in any way they feel comfortable; I have an official image to uphold.

I do my job in an air-conditioned office, while they do theirs in the open, dusty space. We probably eat different meals, sleep in different beds at day’s end. But all these are superficial distinctions.

We are alike in essence; alike in our search for meaning in our activities, in our pursuit of what’s good for ourselves. We are probably very much alike, too, in the way we conduct ourselves on the matter of faith. I do not see piety in their economic endeavor of feeding to the religiosity of others; neither do I claim of my own faith as my main guide on the job.

I am a Roman Catholic. But I do not conscientiously follow the guidelines of my religion. I don’t make a sign-of-the-cross when getting on vehicles or when passing by places of worship, not even before a meal. At times I even feel that the celebration of the Holy Mass on the first Friday of the month in the office is a disruption to official functioning, like God is not worth the little time spent in the rite.

But it seems that God still speaks to people today. Not by spoken language anymore, though. God communicates his message by putting individuals in situations where they cannot ignore what He wants to tell them. In my case, God strains my eyes so I will be forced to momentarily leave the office and take a walk to where He has a message waiting for me.

And so I get it. I see my own reflection in the people that God wanted me to meet: the attendants at the sidewalk stalls. Busy people like myself, whose only motivation is to make a living. I am disturbed; I don’t like what I see.

It has been said that the human being is not necessarily his body. The physical body is only a shell encasing the ultimate being inside, the very one created in the image of his Maker. The shell soon gets wasted and perishes, but the beloved child of God inside lives on.

Evangelists preach that eternal life is a gift we are given, that it is never something to be earned by our own good deeds. But for sure those that are destined for the gift want to do good deeds – not because they have to, but because they want to. Then they become all the more deserving of God’s grace, even if their efforts may not matter at all to God.

I am disturbed to realize that my faith remains in its eternal infancy. My biggest prayer is for God to help me in my doubt, in my unbelief. I pray for my faith to be moved from the sides and into the center of my life and being — that I be moved closer to God. (E-MAIL: [email protected])