I’m supposed to go home now back to Cotabato but I stayed here in GenSan so just I can hitch a ride back with some new Brothers to be assigned in our community there. So I am here in Lagao community, without even booking beforehand, to connect to the internet, listen to radio, and update my Windows because of the Ransomware roaming around worldwide. So before wisdom heard is forgotten, let me type it down here:
- If you cannot clean a comfort room, you cannot clean the whole campus, said Br. Willy. This is the first statement I can remember from our one-week training in OND Mission Center on Marist Administrators Formation Program. This reminds me of the scripture passage which says, “The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones” (Luke 16:10, NAB).
- Saint Marcellin Champagnat is a gift to the Church. This is something I took for granted. His life inspired me to enter the Marist Brothers. He is not only our Founder or our patron saint; he belongs to the whole Church.
- Simplicity is being grounded. It boils down on how you make choices every day from the way you relate with people, your dress, or how you purchase things. Simplicity is synonymous to humility, a word which is slowly fading away from people’s vocabulary. Humility comes from the root word humus which means ground. The more simple we are, the more human we become.
- Challenges makes you stronger. While making a symbol for the value of simplicity, we chose a plant. And this plant has falling leaves called challenges. Though these falling leaves give us a hard time, as time goes by, we will realize how these falling leaves would make us stronger because it turns into fertilizers later. And like falling leaves, challenges can give us life lessons which brings me to my final lesson.
- Don’t be afraid to commit mistakes. There were workshops in the program where we either don’t know how to do but we’re trying or we thought we know already what to do. Either way, we just let ourselves trust the process and let ourselves err from time to time. That’s part of learning; it is sometimes painful. But if we are open, we might find gems of wisdom. Besides, we don’t know it all.
That’s all folks. I need to take a power nap.
And by the way, Happy Mothers’ Day to all you readers!
Br. Allen 