WE should not be surprised by this reality. No matter how much we try to keep ourselves clean—physically, mentally, spiritually, etc.—we always manage to get dirty in one way or another, sooner or later. That’s part of our limited and wounded condition here in this world where we are expected to go supernatural from natural, spiritual from the merely material, etc.
We should just learn how to deal properly with this condition, never losing hope since God, our Father, will always understand us and is eager to offer us mercy and whatever else we need to gain our eternal destiny.
We are somehow reminded of this fact of life in that gospel parable where Christ talked about a dishonest steward who, trying to save his employment, had to do some cheating and yet was praised by the master for having the wisdom of the children of the world which is greater than that of the children of light. (cfr. Lk 16,11-13)
Obviously, that parable would give rise to the question of whether God, who must have been personified in some way by the rich man, would just be ok with some cheating, with being dishonest, with being calculating as a leverage for one’s personal gain and interest.
I suppose what the parable is trying to tell and teach us is that Christ is being realistic with our situation in this world. We try to put everything in our life right, clean and moral. But no matter what we do, we would always be hounded by evil and by all kinds of dirt, physical, moral, spiritual.
This parable seems to tell us that we should just learn how to live with this condition and do our best to come out ok in the eyes of God in the end. What may be considered as aggravating circumstance in human justice may be regarded as a saving grace in God’s eyes.
We may have to handle dirt in our life and deal with situations that are fraught with moral irregularities, but as long as we do not compromise what is essential, which is love that comes from God as shown by Christ who became like sin without committing sin (cfr. 2 Cor 5,21), then things will just turn out ok.
In this life, in this world, we just have to be ready to get dirty without compromising what is truly essential in our spiritual life. Evil is unavoidable in this world, and we just have to know how to deal with it, always focused on going toward our eternal destiny with God in heaven.
We should not worry too much about the dirt, because we have been given all the assurances that if we are with God, everything would just turn our right. The challenge now is how to handle the many evil things that will always get mixed up with the essential good of this life and of this world that all come from God.
Evil does not have the last word, unless we let it. It is the good that will have the last word. And so, we just have to learn how to go through such things as cooperating with evil materially, not formally, if only to change things for the better.
We have to learn to distinguish between what is a tolerable cooperation in evil and an intolerable one. With the former, we should feel the obligation to do whatever we can to clean up what is evil in a given situation, system or structure.
So, we have to be ready to properly live this unavoidable condition of our life here where evil and its increasingly powerful structures are sprouting around like mushrooms.
The hundred earthquakes of September
As a young boy I have this habit of watching at times clipping Movie Posters appearing in News papers and to me that was art, subtle yet an art form that tells a story. It is as if you have watched the movie already if you look into the posters.
One movie was the doc-drama on the events that led to the proclamation of martial law by then President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. on 21 September, 1972. It was entitled 100-days of September, Bayang Magiting.
The movie stars and features the late Eddie Garcia, George Estergan Boots Anson Roa , Dindo Fernando and Dante Rivero. These was an all star cast in those times.
The movie was forerunner, a prelude to a bigger event . Martial Law which occurred on the 21st of September . The plot was based on real events and to be honest about it . All told the movie was two years in the making and was previously banned for 9 years . It was explosive, or so they say, I was never given to watch the same. And in 1986, it was a time of tumult and movies were expensive then. But the 100 days of September Bayang Magiting, was a vivid tale of how series of connected events created Martial Law, it was big.
Right now, this is a very tumultuous yet interesting month. from 1978 to 2025, we are seeing a timeline of how it started then and culminated with a bang, these time its swelling again and there are Earthquakes of Scandals, Problems and Interesting Plot Twists. If we can make a movie this time it’s going to be The Hundred Earthquakes of September.
As a people we are amused and at times angry how corruption and bad deeds are being discovered daily and how we are seeing that every scandal is more than a jolt , it’s a high magnitude High Intensity Quake that almost certainly gears for a stronger Main Jolt .
Perhaps the Hundred Earthquakes will level-off and destroy the Corrupt System and the Mode of doing things that tramples people’s rights and pockets tax money or throw them in Casinos.
Let it shake, let it move, lets it topple the structure of evil.