Resisting Anomie

Last Saturday (October 11), our local church staged a youth concert with “Who am I?” as theme.  Prior to the event, we’ve had quite a few practices but deep inside, I had the assurance that things would turn out fine and that the place would be jampacked.  Indeed, the event was beyond our expectation and the place was filled to the brim, as they say.  Not to mention, so many young people lifting their hands in response to the call to give their lives back to Christ.  What a beautiful scene of humility to and trust in the Almighty. 

Let me share here the key points of the message delivered during the concert.  The narrative is from John 4: 3-26, wherein Jesus spends the heat of the day with this ostracized Samaritan woman by the well.   From this passage, we ask, how does Jesus look at you? 

1.  Jesus is willing to talk to you no matter who you are or what you have done (verses 5-9). 

The Samaritan woman is a classic example of what happens if you are discriminated against.  For one, her race is polluted.  Being Samaritan means one parent is Jew, the other is not - a big no-no in a very traditional culture.  To make things worse, she ended up committing adultery at least four times.  At the moment, she was with the fifth “husband”, a term which Christ easily corrected because she was, after all, merely, “living in”. 

This background explains why the Samaritan woman was by the well all be herself at noontime.  It was perfect timing for her to fetch water as she wanted to avoid the stare of the public.  She knew that communication with anyone is anathema to that person.  But here comes Jesus who not only initiates communication with her but even asks for water. 

Christ is willing to talk to you no matter who you are or what you have done.  He is in fact willing to meet you at your own hiding place.  The well was, in a sense, a hiding place because the Woman knew nobody would be there at that particular time.  After all, everybody’s watching Wowowie. 

2.  You need physical water, right?  Guess what?  You need spiritual water, too! (verses 9-15)

The woman is super excited to hear from Jesus that He was willing to offer her water that will not make her thirsty ever again!  How come?  Simple.  She has to face the risk of being seen publicly everytime she fetches water from that ancient well.  When Christ offered her that eternal supply of ice water, that meant she could escape from public scrutiny forever. 

For many of us, we mistake Christ for the answers to our prayers.  In other words, we seek Christ only because of the answer He provides.  The woman confused physical water with spiritual living water. 

Blaise Pascal, a mathematician from the 1600s, proposed that there is a God-shaped vacuum in our hearts that only God can fill.  So trying to put inside it material things, fame, public recognition, beautiful face, and so forth, can be satisfying only for some time.  But time will come when the vacuum or void is felt yet again since, after all, the thing inside is not fit for it.  There remains some more space. 

When Christ offered living water, that simply meant, freedom to face this world without any shame because the woman can be forgiven.  Of course public humiliation can still be there as sometimes, people hate to forgive.  But when you know that you know that you know that somebody up there who is more powerful and definitely eternal has forgiven you, what others say doesn’t matter anymore.  What matters is how God looks at you - forgiven, a fresh person.

- Continued in part 2 -

I may not be Jesuit or even Catholic but since my formative years in the undergraduate were spent at the Ateneo, I sincerely understand what the following essay stands for.  What I deem to be the spirit of an Ateneo education, the call for social justice in this world, cannot be emphasized enough.  Fortuitously, a foreign delegate at the international conference I was at a week ago came up to me to ask about the differences I must have sensed between my undergrad education and the undergrad curriculum here at the National University of Singapore since I have taught a few classes here already.  I spoke of ideas that resonate very well with what Dr Rodriguez’s essay below points out.  This foreign delegate, apparently, was seriously considering sending her daughter to a Filipino university instead of the institution that she represented.  She felt that her university was becoming more and more concerned with efficiency and specialization and not in the values of pedagogy.  If I can be sociological here, she was sensing the instrumental rationalization of the university at the expense of human values.  Not that Ateneo is extremely free from neo-liberal forces.  But if there are people like Dr. Rodriguez who still have a sense of what human education must ideally be, then the Ateneo can remain on course to fulfill its raison d etre.  And perhaps the same can be said for, more generally, education as an institution that calls and stands for social justice in the Philippine society. 

To my fellow parents:
ON THE MEANING OF AN
ATENEO EDUCATION
by Agustin Martin G. Rodriguez, Ph.D.

When my daughter had the chance to finish high school in New York, we agonized about it: I more than her. Her agony centered around the need to moderate her desire to embark on this adventure because she knew it would break my heart. My agony had two thorns. Firstly, I didn’t want her to go because in all our lives, we had never spent more than 2 days apart from each other. Secondly, there was the irony of her studying in the United States. As a nationalist academic and development worker, I always believed that one’s spirit had to be formed with one’s people—among their myths and their sufferings—in order to understand who one is, what one’s responsibilities are and to whom one’s heart belongs. I know to the sophisticated global citizen I would sound archaic and provincial, but I still believe that before our spirit can embrace the world it must be rooted in a home we love. But I knew that the idea of giving up this opportunity was breaking her up inside because, as she said, she might spend the rest of her life wondering what if, so I let her go. She left with the promise that she would come back for college because I still believe that the university years are formative. But we all know how those promises go. Two years in the glitter of a new world could weaken the bindings of promises made in times of great emotions. It has been a year and we are now completely at peace with her decision to leave.

All that I have said is a prelude to why I am writing this piece. I am writing this to explain why I believe her formation in the Ateneo would still be the best for my daughter. I want to clarify to everyone else who raise their eyebrows at me, what I mean when I say that I believe an education here is superior to any ivy league education. Many of my colleagues who know that my daughter has a chance to study in an American university cannot understand why I would prefer that she study here. One of them even exclaimed: "You would prefer that she study here even if she had a chance to study in Harvard!" with a you-are-so ridiculous tone. And to me the answer was "Yes, of course, you’re so ridiculous." And the reason is simply this: she may get a superior technical education in some top ranking university abroad but only in the Philippines will she have a superior education in being a Filipino for Filipinos.

My daughter wants to be a writer and recently she has had a chance to attend a prestigious workshop in an American university best known as a center for writing. And I was witness to how because of that opportunity, her writing skills have advanced light years from when she left. I have no doubt that if she studied creative writing in one of the US universities known for it, her skills would be strengthened even more. But what would she write about? A great writer is as much about her skill as it is about her great insight. If you have the skill but not the immersion in the profound re a l i t i e s t h a t h ave formed yo u r s o u l , w h a t i s t h e re t o w r i t e about? And who would she write for? A truly great writer is one whose passion is fueled by the need to speak for her people, especially the mute. And to even begin to want to speak for them, you have to be grounded in their misery. One’s people are never generic: they take concrete form in the faces that resonate in your heart. I think an education in her own country would prepare her to face the faces that resonate in her heart and perhaps an Ateneo education could awaken the passion to respond to those faces.

I know that many complain that Ateneans lead a very sheltered life in this campus. In an infinite number of ways that is ridiculously true. In the end, the Ateneo is the Ateneo: a separate world from the world of the margins. But what most people don’t understand about the Ateneo, is that the Ateneo is not just about the majors or the specific programs. It is about a spirit that pervades among its best people.

When I was young, I was ready to quit the Church because I was convinced that there were no intelligent and just Catholics. And then I came to the Ateneo where I met Catholics who strove to serve the margins because of their love of God. And because they loved God’s people, they strove for excellence. That realization astounded me and kept me in the Church and in Ateneo. If anything, Filipino Jesuit education just means to teach people that the love of God means nothing but to love the people who suffer forgotten in the margins, and that we strive for excellence in what we do to serve them best: otherwise excellence and the love of God is empty. What else does faith mean? What else grounds excellence? What else measures the good of a life but that? And if you take Ateneo education seriously enough, and if you are open to its opportunities enough, it will lead you to that realization and it will lead you to your first opening to the faces that you will have to serve. At its core, Ateneo education is an apprenticeship in the work of being a Filipino for others. This is only a slogan so long as one misses out on the living examples of alumni, scholars, administrators, maintenance and staff who show us the way to realizing the truth of an Ateneo education. Open your eyes to those who serve radically and they will radically educate your heart. And if one is open enough one can see that such people dwell in this school because there is a spirit in this school that cradles them and supports their vocation. It is intangible, but it is a spirit that guides the best of us.

Some people feel that we are an elite school that cultivates an elite rationality. Radioactive Sago’s brilliant third album is entitled "… Ang Daming Nagugutom Sa Mundo Fashionista Ka Pa Rin." In one gig, Lord de Vera was plugging their album and he said "Bilhin ninyo ang aming album ‘… Ang Daming Nagugutom Sa Mundo Atenista Ka Pa Rin.’" I could understand his sentiments exactly. Just listen to conversations in the pocket garden where people complain about the heat, their slow laptops and their old school phones and anyone who knows anything about the hardships in our country will easily agree with Lord. But then, if you think about it, although some of our graduates are oblivious to the suffering around them and even if some of them do reinforce structures that exploit the suffering, there is that core of Ateneans touched by the spirit of this school who choose to genuinely build communities founded on justice, to found enterprises that serve true needs, to lawyer for the oppressed, and to doctor for the poor. Many innovations of justice building in our country arise because of their apprenticeships in the magis of our service. We just don’t hear about these things because they don’t find their way into our tarpaulins. But the spirit is there and it is the spirit that defines us more than basketball championships or the number of CEOs we produce. Somehow, because of our formation, Ateneans still tend to be idealistic about service. And so I say "Dahil ang daming nagugutom sa mundo kailangan mong seryosohin ang pagka- Atenista." This is why, my dear fellow parents, I think an Ateneo education is more valuable for my daughter than a Cornell or Harvard or Princeton education: because here, we learn to be excellent for something important—our people and our Filipino humanity.

Dr. Rodriguez is currently an Assistant Professor of the Philosophy Department of the Loyola Schools.
His daughter, Leal, is a freshman in the Ateneo majoring in AB Humanities.
Edited version of "To my colleagues: On the meaning of an Ateneo education" by Agustin Martin G. Rodriguez, Ph.D.
Chalk Marks. The Guidon. Volume LXXV. Number 6.

For any doctoral student, the first rite of passage (in a series throughout the entire program) is the qualifying exams (aka comprehensive).  For those who are not familiar with the system, it’s like board exam but you’re the only one doing it.  At NUS, it means two things: becoming an official PhD candidate and more importantly, an increase in the stipend. 

The past one year and a half was literally about preparing for the qualifying exam.  The final topic that I defended to my thesis committee went through at least 3 revisions as I found myself losing interest over ideas after just a couple of weeks. 

This time it’s finally final:

"Being Catholic: Youth Religious Identity, Generational Location, and Modernity in Contemporary Philippines"

Without being technical about it, the thesis will explore the ways religious identity is being constructed among undergraduates involved in Catholic student organizations in universities in the Philippines.  Such constructions will be viewed as a dimension of the youth’s generational location (or identity) which can be contextualized in the condition of modernity in Philippine society.  The thesis hopes to be an important contribution in the sociological study of religion in the world today by relating it to contemporary Filipino generation and modernity. 

I attribute the choice of this topic to the lively and oftentimes provocative conversations with Nathan, my colleague and friend in the PhD program.  Over lunch more or less a year ago, Nathan and I were talking about the condition of sexuality among young evangelical Christians in the Philippines.  At that time, I was toying with the idea of researching the spread of Protestant Christianity among migrant workers in East Asia (HK, Taiwan, Japan, S. Korea).  That conversation led me to combine two research interests which up until that time were virtually exclusive for me: religious identity and the youth.  It was not long before I fully articulated the cornerstone of my thesis: What does being Catholic mean to the modern Filipino youth?   

This was the content of the research proposal that I defended on May 08 to my thesis committee composed of Prof Bryan Turner (my supervisor), Prof Farid Alatas, and Dr Julius Bautista.  It went very well though there were some comments on my sampling that I have yet to resolve.  After an hour and a half of open discussion, they decided to pass me.

Prior to the oral defense was one whole week of answering two essay questions in the sociology of religion and sociology of generation. 

So when I heard "We’ve decided to pass you", it finally dawned on me that I was fully exhausted - and I even had to remind myself to smile and thank the committee.

After all, the entire semester was all about thinking about and writing the 16,000 - word proposal, reading countless pages of articles and books, and ruining my body clock along the way. 

Now I am more relaxed to recount the events and thank the people who have been most supportive and prayerful: my thesis committee, Nathan, my brothers and sisters in the care group and at Hope Church, and my family. 

But full glory and honor belong to the Lord.  In all things, I want Christ to have the preeminence:

• 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence (Colossians 1:15-18).

For the next two years, I will be out and about doing my research fieldwork in Manila, Cebu, and Davao, writing my doctoral dissertation, and teaching undergraduate courses. 

Meanwhile, as a reward for myself, I sold my Yamaha portasound and got a Korg x50, a dream come true!  I want to use it to develop my skills in playing the keyboard and if possible, even compose and arrange songs.  Yes, it can be connected to the computer!  Thanks to Reggie who bought my Yamaha and Maia who advertised the Korg sale in our egroup.