History cycles and providence

OK, times have shifted. The American landscape has changed, and that of the world, including ours, obviously will be affected. We’re into some exciting period of liberalism, we are told.

That seems to be the unstoppable trend especially in Europe and the so-called developed countries now. They’re into same-sex unions, assisted suicide, assisted drug use, other than the usual agenda of abortion and contraception.

In our country, we are still largely virginal, since these practices are still euphemistically branded as reproductive health. We need some more years of moral deterioration and warped reasoning before we start to openly embrace these practices.

 Now it’s the turn for the social and political conservatives to rest and hibernate. For how long, we don’t know. I suppose they tried their best, but human shortcomings and other adverse factors cannot be avoided. Out of the public stage, they need to return to the straight and narrow, and retool themselves — and wait for better times.

There are those who characterize the conservative period as a total disaster, a certified failure. I prefer not to enter into the debate. While I cannot deny the bad spots, there still were instances of solid accomplishments especially in areas which I consider most important.

 But life has to go on. I don’t care much if what’s coming is good or bad. Good and bad times depend on what we make out of things. I prefer to look at it as another history cycle that reflects how people, at least the American majority now, feel and think. Don’t ask me if the pulse shows health or sickness. We all are a work in progress, easily affected by all sorts of conditions. We just have to move on.

This history-cycle theory is more like the old Greco-Roman attitude toward history. It’s not completely right, nor is it completely wrong. We just take advantage of what in it can be helpful. We have to learn how to go with the tide without losing one’s sense of direction.

 In the forthcoming liberal times, there still are wide spaces of hope that can be useful. We just have to be quick to take advantage of them. No matter how sharp the differences among ourselves are, we share many unavoidably common values. For example, there’s earnest desire to improve economic life and social justice, liberal style. Now, that is not a bad idea.

 Of course, this is no declaration that we be passive in this flow of alternating cycles. On the contrary. We ought to take a most active part, since while there is some kind of oscillating law in history, there is also a need to energetically shape it according to one’s guiding ideology or faith. This is just how we are.

The Christian attitude to history always includes a spiritual and supernatural principle often missed out by man-made philosophies. God intervenes in human history, and actively and directly at that, though in very mysterious ways. He is the lord of history. We are his stewards who have to learn to concur and cooperate with God’s actions.

It’s for this reason that anyone who is guided by this Christian view is both confident and tense, because he knows everything is under God’s control while also requiring full human responsibility. Things depend completely on God, and also completely on us. It’s a 100-100 proposition, not 50-50, or 70-30. Of course, this would break our mathematical frame of mind. But that’s how things are.

 Christianity considers history not as the product of blind forces nor of chance. It is a manifestation of divine providence and human freedom. Christians are expected to be the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world.” Ideally, there has to be concurrence between the divine and the human. But that will require us to live by faith, a truly demanding task.

 The shape of history is made in the hearts of men, and not so much in politics. And in the Christian view, it is the saints, the holy men and women down the ages that figure prominently in shaping the course of history. While important and indispensable, politics can only reflect what’s inside people’s hearts. Its perfection cannot be achieved here. We have to wait for heaven for that.

 In the meantime, let’s go on with our show here on earth, doing our best to concur freely with God’s providence. — Fr. ROY CIMAGALA, Chaplain, Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City. E-mail: [email protected]