It’s the coined term that I see posted several times on my newsfeed. Probably because many of my friends on Facebook are former students. So as they grow older, they chronicle their sometimes painful journey of what it takes to be an adult. Traditionally, one turns into an adult at age 18, sometimes 21. Except that there are days in my life when I feel very much that I’ve still not just gotten the hang of being an adult. In fact, there are many moments when, in the middle of a particular crisis at work or in my personal life, I look around waiting for an adult to fix a problem only to realize that I am the adult in the room.
I always thought that once I get a certain age, I’d have everything figured out. I’d know exactly what to do in every given situation. I now know that’s a myth. No one can ever really prepare for everything. We just wing it. In many ways, we will all just be as clueless as we were as children.
This whole paradox of being both adults and children, innocent and experienced at the same time is perhaps the reason why the devotion to the Sto. Niño is very popular. Sometimes, I think it strange that we would choose a devotion to a stage in Jesus’ life where he is still a child. I think: do we hope that he is more easily moved if we think of him as a child? Do we find him less threatening and more likely to answer our prayers? Do we believe that having him as a child makes him more immune to our sins?
Or do we find comfort in reminding ourselves that this great God who can calm the storm and walk on water also knew what it felt to be powerless and weak? Does it make us feel closer to God when we tell ourselves that He humbled himself to start out in life as a baby just like the rest of us? Do we need to see God as a young child to remember that we too are God’s children?
Perhaps there is no one answer to this. Maybe we do secretly prefer a child-God because He feels more accessible to us. And at the same time we find comfort knowing that God knows exactly how it feels to be overwhelmed by the great big world out there. The truth is, when I wave my hands to sing the “Bato Balani” and when I clap as the emcee says we should all give a big hand to the Balaang Bata, I don’t try to intellectualize my faith.
I am just in that moment, along with hundreds and sometimes even thousands of people, asking God to hear my prayer. Whether we’re all praying for healing, comfort, forgiveness, blessings or gratitude, all devotees, the older we get and the more adult we become, understand the inescapable reality that we are nothing without God.
And maybe admitting that is really what it means to be an adult.