Healing us

No Baby Talk

By Georgene Rhena P. Quilaton-Tambiga

It was astounding.

I am referring both to Fr. Fernando Suarez' audacity on God's healing power and his being an effective instrument.

But it was unnerving.

This time I am referring to our people's utter lack of discipline and their despicable desperation. I know, I know that I could be hurting some hearts by nailing this in the head but there is no other way of saying it. I and two friends were perched on three plastic chairs, trapped and shoved, and almost bribed, by the relentless stampede of people who refuse to understand simple instructions.

Refuse to understand-yes, they all understood that they were supposed to wait in line on their seats but they shook that understanding out their heads.

It was with much frustration that Fr. Suarez asked if the crowd could calm down, go back to their seats and wait for their turn with patience. But not an inch was budged. Everyone kept pushing forward, feigning sick and weak faces along the way to convince volunteers to let them have their turn up the stage for the priest's blessed touch.

More than the physical ills listed on each name tag, it is this general malady of lack of discipline and patience that must be cured. For as long as we refuse to patiently wait in line, choose to bribe our way to the top, and conduct ourselves in wanton dishonesty, no amount of healing prayer and masses, and sessions can cure our sickness as a people.

Perhaps we should all come to grips and admit to ourselves that we are generally sick as a people as much as we had admitted to the registration volunteers at the City Auditorium our individual ills.

But my rant over the people aside, I would like to express my impressions on Fr. Suarez’ healing and reflect a little. It had been too unfortunate for me that I was not able to catch the last throng of people who received the healing touch. But, I take to heart what the healing priest said over his sermon and during our brief while-on-the-way-to-auditorium interview that the medium of healing is faith. It is with one's faith that healing will come in the form of a creeping cure to physical disorders or the instant click of emotional release from depression.

Many may have received the best medical care and treatment but still they have not experienced the cure they had been rooting for. It could all boil down to the body being ill because the spirit and the mind are in chaos. Fr. Suarez crisply admitted that they are all connected.

Similarly, no amount of medicine and healing session can cure one who refuses to leave behind an unhealthy lifestyle. I regret so much to say what is already obvious, that many of our sick today were mainly crippled by a lifestyle of drinking, smoking, drugs and utter lack of regard for our physical, emotional and spiritual needs.

And, with much faith, I am hoping that we all have learned these seemingly simple yet difficult to live-by lessons from our experience with Fr. Suarez.

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An odd call woke my brown-out reverie at the office the other day. It was from Joseph, an English-Australian, who read my article on the previous edition. He called to react to that article, Cutting Classes.

He pitched-in that locally there are also students who are throwing their opportunity for education to the air. He pointed that internet cafes here are crowded with students in uniform during class hours; some play virtual games, others surf the net.

And yes, I agree with him, not only because he reads my articles and the NRWP but also because he is right.

What better way to waste time and opportunity for education than by cutting classes to play internet games! And what better way for internet cafes to thrive than to cater to these students in a city that has no computer establishment regulation, let alone enforcement!