Let the Lower Lights be Burning

It was July in Seoul, mid-Korean monsoon. For a big metropolitan city, Seoul was strangely hilly, or maybe I was just used to the flatness of Metro Manila. It was raining HARD. And by hard, I mean the streets were flooded a good two or three inches deep (albeit unlike Manila where you run the risk of leptospirosis because in Seoul the flood waters happened to be clear), water was rushing down the hills of Chung-Ang University where our debate competition was being held, and the rain fell heavy and just would not let up. It was 8 o’clock in the morning and already my flimsy sandal had broken, the glue holding it together having long melted away from wading in the flood, and my umbrella had overturned. I was soaking wet. And we still had a debate competition to get to. I had one teammate with me, the rest were already inside, having taken a different taxi to the University. At that point, all we could think about was finally getting inside the University. It was useless to think about how we looked or where we were going to get dry clothes at that point. We just had to arrive in the auditorium before the first round, which was bound to start in about 15 minutes. And so, we ran. Across the campus of Chung-Ang University. Barefoot. Wet. Mid-Korean Monsoon.

After a good 5 minutes of running, two Korean women both under one umbrella stepped out of one of the buildings, approached us and stopped us in our tracks. Our instinct was to apologize. We didn’t know if we were allowed to run around campus, or if we did something illegal like jaywalking. We didn’t understand any of the signs, nor were we familiar with the campus at all. “Sorry, sorry. We didn’t know. Sorry. We have a competition to get to.” The ladies shook their heads. One of them reached into her big shopping bag and pulled out… an umbrella. She shoved the umbrella in my arms. My eyes went wide. For us? But they didn’t know us? And they can’t share one umbrella with their huge shopping bags in tow. I would know, because we just tried that, my teammate and I, a few minutes ago, and look where it got us. We tried to tell her, “We won’t ever see you again. We can’t give this back.” They shook their heads. The lady who gave us her umbrella reached out to us and patted our shoulders, as if to say, “It’s okay. You can have it.” And they left. Without any other word, they walked down the hilly Chung-Ang University, both of them trying desperately to fit themselves under one umbrella, which would not have happened had they each had their own. My teammate and I stared at the umbrella for a few seconds before remembering to open it. We were quiet as we walked the rest of the way to the auditorium.

I’ve thought about this memory many, many times over the past few years. These women did not know us from Adam, and they were sure they would never see us again. I know. I know. It’s just an umbrella. It’s an easy thing to give up. But to take the time to step out into the rain and offer your umbrella to somebody else, to have the heart to assure them that it’ll be alright, and to walk away from them without any expectations… these were lessons I knew I had to learn myself.

Catholic Social Teaching emphasizes the importance of community. Three of the ten major themes over the last decade center on Community, Option for the poor, and Solidarity, principles that all teach us that to be a Christian Catholic means to give oneself up for the common good, so that all may rise together. In Matthew 22:35-40, the scribes came up to Jesus to ask for his counsel. “Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” This is the Great Commandment. Jesus says that the most intuitive thing for disciples to do is to love God. But, in the same breath, He says that loving your neighbor is the second and “like unto it”, which is to say that it is of similar, if not of equal importance to the first. Because each of us is made in the image and likeness of the Lord, to love our neighbor is to love God. As such, when one is in need, vulnerable, or weak, it is our duty to lift them up the best way we can.

A few years after our debate competition in Korea, back here in Manila and having just recently graduated from DLSU, I was caught in a storm in Bonifacio Global City. Thankfully though, after my experience in Seoul, I developed the habit of bringing an umbrella. I bought a sturdy but compact one which I leave in my bag. It also just so happened that on that day, I bought toiletries and received a free umbrella in return. I had two umbrellas on me. I was also getting picked up, so I had no real need for an umbrella to begin with. But, as I was waiting to get fetched, I noticed that to my right was a family with about 4 senior citizens. They parked their car in one of the parking buildings in the city and could not cross the street to get to it because of the heavy rain. The family was visibly tired from walking around, and the older members of the family could not bear waiting any longer. They had one umbrella. In a heartbeat, I gave them my other umbrella. They looked at me funny and told me the same thing we told those Korean women back in Seoul, “We’re never going to see you again. How are we giving this back?” “You can have it. Don’t worry about it.” They thanked me, and went on their way. A security guard who saw the exchange went up to me and asked me why I was so willing to give my umbrella to people I did not know. I told him that once upon a time, somebody did the same thing for me. I’m just paying the blessing forward.

In many religious literature, Catholic or otherwise, we are called to be of service to others. Because it is in helping others that we are able to give our best to God. One of my most favorite songs is entitled “Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy”. The origin of the song goes like this:

In the olden days, before technology and electronics, sailors used the stars to navigate their way through the seas at night. They called the stars the Upper Lights, gifts from God. The lights along the shore, especially that from the lighthouse, they called the Lower Lights. On a particularly stormy night, a ship, having sailed in rough weather, was finally close to port and was about to enter the channel. But because they could not see the stars in the sky, they searched for the light from the lighthouse to signal them to enter the channel. But, no matter how hard they tried, they could not see the light from the lighthouse and missed the channel. The lighthouse keeper forgot to keep the light burning. The ship sailed on for some more weeks in rough seas before they were able to come back to shore.

The lesson of the story is this: God gives us the Upper Lights to guide our way. But it is up to us to let the Lower Lights be burning, so that we may help guide the way of others.

Here is a YouTube Video of my brothers from the NYK-TDG Maritime Academy, performing a tribute to seafarers in the 2016 IMO Day of the Seafarer celebration, in which they sing “Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy”. I hope you enjoy.