The Last Place

I was supposed to go back up to BC today, but, as always, things have a funny way of working out.

Solitude has been a rare commodity these last few weeks – I’ve hardly had a moment to myself since Holy Week. Even my morning prayer time has been compromised by other people’s constant and overwhelming presence and need for attention; e.g., early last Saturday I’d planned to spend some quiet time with God before service at He Cares, a plan foiled to some extent by my US-bound sister who realized too late that she’d forgotten, of all things, her laptop bag which of course held her plane ticket. So I spent my conversation time with the Creator in the car, rushing to and from the airport. Before that, during the last four days in Singapore, I think that my only time alone (aside from my bathroom time, and even that was frequently interrupted!) was the hour and a half I spent walking up and down Joo Chiat Road to buy palengke stuff to take home.

So today, despite telling 3D the previous evening that I’d be staying in the lowlands for a while, I decided to go up to BC for a few days. To pray, reflect, listen, and hopefully pay some household bills. But then again, you know what they say about the best laid plans… (not too well-laid though, as I was a little wishy-washy about going up and was playing things by ear).

Turns out that I didn’t have to go up into my beloved mountains to listen, because I heard what I believe I needed to hear quite clearly today. Even over the cacophony of the city. At the 11:30 charismatic Mass in Project 6, Father Aloy Alino spoke about witnessing to the fact that our God is a living God, and that if we truly believe that, we should reflect it – through our inner joy that spills out into our outer countenances, through living lives of faith and confidence and evident JOY despite our trials and not through displays of lukewarmness or depression or lethargic self-pity. A welcome surprise after the celebration was the congregational honoring of Sister Angela of the Sisters Adorers of the Blood of Christ, who is returning soon to Italy after 15 years of serving God by caring for His poor in this country. And of course, her fellow Sisters Maria and Elena, both of whom I hadn’t seen for quite some time, were there too, and it was such a blessing to catch up and share some grace-filled moments with these women who have given their lives to unconditionally loving and serving the Lord.

Unconditionally loving and serving Him. Sometimes I think about how much simpler it would have been to do that if He had called me to a religious vocation. And many times I’m envious about the unequivocal surrender that many of our religious, especially the Sisters, have made to Him. Then again, He calls each of us to walk a path that may be different, but leads just as well to His Kingdom.

He shows Himself to us in many different ways too. All throughout the Mass, I was reminded of how He made Himself known to me through some very precious channels – His littlest and weakest. Last Saturday Kenneth, He Cares’ special child who is not quite like the other kids, smiled at me in recognition, cake crumbs all over his face, and even waved happily instead of sullenly retreating into his own world. He let me stroke his hair and acknowledged affection, a very rare moment and a true blessing. A little while back, a stuttering, mentally challenged little boy was talking to me after Mass at UP and, after our short “conversation,” suddenly reached out through my open car window and touched my face as an affectionate gesture of goodbye, right before I drove away. It’s hard to explain, and perhaps even harder to believe, but I knew without a doubt that I was touched by the Lord. He likes to do that a lot, especially when I’m particularly “open” to His touch and not hurriedly rushing about. He ran up to me out of nowhere in Sagada and impulsively gave me a hug as I was walking back to the lodge. He looked up at me through scraggly hair and a greasy face while He was scrounging through trash in Pangasinan. He is in the He Cares’ household now, in the boys that I’ve seen grow and change and whom I’ve grown to love, and in the newest addition: the worst street urchin who can try the patience of a saint and in whose desperate eyes so in need of love we can recognize the One who loved us so desperately and taught us how to do the same. He passes by, every day, even if I may not notice Him – and He reminded me today that He is there “in the last place, in the child’s face, in the eyes of pain, of hunger…” We will meet Him there, in the last place.

I met Him again after Mass, and after an extended visit to a bookstore. “Ay, si Ate!” the slipper-less little boy with a familiar face exclaimed as I walked down the steps; he had been long absent from He Cares activities, because, according to him, his parents no longer allowed him to travel the distance from the squatters’ area in Camelot to Project 6. But apparently they, and the parents of Richard’s companions, would rather have these children loiter aimlessly on busy thoroughfares and pedestrian areas to beg or sell sampaguita garlands. I left them after encouraging them to come and spend their free summer time at He Cares’ music and art workshops, and little Edwin, who has never been to Project 6 and had never heard of “Ate Ganda” before, even ran out to see me off from a distance as I backed my car out. In the last place, indeed, when you least expect Him.

And that’s what His message has been to me, something I didn’t need the quiet solitude of the mountains to hear. To see Him in the last place – be it in His littlest ones or in His bigger ones who, despite outward appearances of relative prosperity, are in fact even more needy of love and care than the materially poor. To continue to seek Him out even as He continues to bless me with new experiences and enticing opportunities that could potentially distract from taking notice of Him as He passes by. To continue to meet Him there, in the last place.

I hear Your voice, Lord
I see your face
I hear Your voice, Lord
In the least expected place

Amazing Lord, astounding Lord
That You choose to dwell in the abandoned and afraid
In the last place, in a child’s face
In the eyes of pain, of hunger, and of rage
I will meet You there in the last place

- “The Last Place,” Bo Sanchez