A season of small

Chapters are to a book as “Seasons” are to a life.

We go through many seasons, some outstanding and some seemingly insignificant. We record the seasons of joy, of laughter, of summer and of youth. We preserve them in photographs, fragrance, keepsakes and paintings stored in our minds.

Strange isn’t it that we really don’t “celebrate” or record the seasons of hardship. I don’t know of anyone who intentionally takes photographs or keep mementos of the times when there was no laughter, no reason to celebrate, no money and no food. Seasons, when the only abundance was in difficulty, sacrifice and desperate need.

Yet when we think of it, those seasons made marks and left scars deeper than all the joy we could imagine from the summer of our youth. Some scent may trigger fond memories, but we never need to be reminded of the sweat and the tears we shed during our season of tribulation.

I never really understood trial and tribulation until my Dad landed in jail when Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law. My Dad, Louie Beltran spent around 4 months in jail thanks to the handiwork of Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, who since then has become a friend. During that time my Dad’s mother had a heart attack and I ended up needing surgery on my spine. From the “lap of luxury” I was strapped to a bed for 6 months. My poor Mom who had made a lot of personal sacrifice suddenly found herself confronted with another round of humiliation.

After spending 16 years struggling and scrounging to support 5 kids, she now had to start all over by selling half of what she and my father had accumulated through the years.

That season of trial and tribulation lasted more than a decade. But it did not break us. There were no choices to be made. You simply did what you had to do based on what you believed. If you unfortunately did not have strong beliefs or a firm conviction in God and a set of time tested values, chances are you would fold and crumple. You would ask, “Why me?” and someone else would undoubtedly reply, “why not?”

Even before the advent of Michael Jordan and Nike we already knew that in order to survive, you simply “Just do it”.

At the moment I’m going through a self imposed “Season of honoring the small things”. Biblically speaking, God has pointed out that “if we are to be trusted in the big things, we must first make sure that we can be trusted in the small things”.

I remember in the “hard-up” days how my Dad and I went through the nickel and dime stores of Angeles City and when my Dad found something he liked but a bit expensive, he would tell me about the item and send me back to haggle the price to death. I was only too happy to please my Dad as well as gleam with pride every time I bought the item lower than my Dad would have paid for.

Unfortunately pride comes with promotion. As you go up the ladder and you hang out with well to do people, you also acquire behavior or mentality that is far removed from yours. You begin to enjoy what people tell you are “the finer things in life” and I’m sure they are. But enjoying them should not be equal to dumping the simple and the practical.

In the last seven months, I have spent a lot of study time with 10 to 15 men who have decided to review and reform their stewardship of wealth and GODs’ resources. As a result we have slowly realized how the “wealth” has been working on us instead of us using the wealth for good.

On one occasion I asked a young businessman if he would consider getting into a deal if he knew that the profit would only be a thousand pesos. In all honesty, the guy, like most of us said; “probably not”. But when I rephrased the idea and asked him what if everyday he did the deal he would earn a thousand times 365 days, would it be worth it?.... he got the point.

A three to five thousand peso “profit” or earning will pay for your maid or houseboy’s salary.

To give you an even “smaller” example of pride and waste, 2 Sundays ago, my wife took ten steps from our table to get a free parking pass because we bought enough to be entitled. I personally could not be bothered. Later in the evening, we had dinner with my Mom at a nice place called Shanghai Bistro at the Eastwood “mall”. The waiter was very attentive and advised me to order small portions because the food might be too much. He was right. If I followed my instincts, I would have qualified as a glutton.

After dinner, my Mom also took ten steps and got us “FREE” parking. The 2 women saved 75 pesos in parking that day. I finally realized that if I used the “Multiply by 365 days” formula, not walking 10 steps would cost 27,375 pesos in a year.

I have re-discovered the simple places, the fast-food places, but I have also rediscovered the purpose of the “rich” things like “jewelry” and stuff. Why do we only bring out the good stuff when guests are coming or when we get invited to a “special occasion”. I recently heard a preaching about GOD giving us the good things but we keep them in a vault, in a cabinet or some dark place and thereby defeating the very purpose of having them… to add value to our attire, our looks or to our experience.

We keep agreeing that dining is an experience yet when we eat at home we don’t even make the effort of having a nice table setting or ambiance. When the guests come we bring out the china, when the kids eat, it looks like a cafeteria. No wonder a lot of young people don’t know how to eat in a formal setting, the only time they get any practice is at the event itself!

Let’s all relearn about the small things and the fine things, because it’s another way of saying “Thank you” to GOD.