God or god?

“When sad thoughts seem to put you down paint a smile on your face and thank god you’re still alive and around.”

I found this sign posted on one of the doors inside the women’s restroom at the departure area of Terminal 2 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. The person who thought of putting up this sign must have noticed the sadness of people leaving or the rudeness that a lot of persons are prone to when they are tired or in a hurry. I’ve always believed that airports bring out people’s worst behavior.

What struck me about the sign was how someone used a black marker over the small letter “g” in “god” and wrote a capital “G” in its stead. I guess that that person’s reason for the correction was not grammatical because he/she did not bother adding a comma after the word “down.” Most likely, he/she was not comfortable with the idea of god in lower case. For him/her, “God” is a proper noun, the name of a specific person.

The day after, I saw this sign posted on the doorway of the room where the image of the Santo Niño is kept for the devotees to visit at the Santo Niño Church:

“What do you think would Jesus like to hear from you? Jesus especially likes to hear Words of Contrition. Words that come from the heart like: Lord, I am sorry, please forgive me.”

I laughed when I read this sign because it reminded me of my friends who went to Catholic schools and who, as children, believed that they had to invent sins so they would have something to say during the weekly confessions that they were required to undergo. It also reminded me of skits by American comedians who make fun of Catholic guilt.

The two signs illustrate how the same Christian God being referred to can be perceived in very different ways. The first one emphasizes God as the creator of everything, someone to be grateful to for just letting us be. The second one pictures Jesus as a recorder of sins and who, in effect, tells believers to feel bad about themselves because they are sinners. Both signs picture God as an entity separate from human beings—a contrast to the ideas in the books labeled as “New Age” that I have been reading a lot of lately.

Most of these books speak of “the illusion of separation” and argue that the world’s major religions teach that human beings are one with God/god. Social, political and economic expediency emphasized the teaching of other doctrines, the spiritual essence of “oneness” forgotten. I guess this has basis.

My Roman Catholic great-grandmother, for example, believed that reading the Bible was a sin because the parish priest said so. She was from Boljoon and I wonder if she would have believed the same if the Spaniards never got here. After all, archaeological diggings have shown that the pre-colonial inhabitants of my town buried their dead with goods for use in their journey after death. This must have been a common belief among pre-colonial inhabitants from all over the country. A coffin for secondary burial shaped like a boat is on display at the Museo sa Sugbo. Burial jars with boat motifs can also be found at the National Museum.

Whether or not God is a proper noun or a common noun is a matter of faith. I just know that I’d rather put a smile on my face and thank god I’m alive than beat myself up for all the mistakes I’ve made.

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