The moment we were thrown into the world we are now part of the world and this world where we dwell will be our own home and our own identity, and thus we and the world will become one.
The kind of community where man lived reflects on what kind of person he is. He has to try his best building a good “community” within him, so that he can contribute what he has in his pocket. He has to be with others and creates some connections in order to formulate a good equation between himself and the community where he lived.
Building and connecting with people is not an easy task. When man tries to establish a ‘relationship’ towards his fellows, he has to learn how to give up and to accept others regardless of everything. Thus, man has to be open of himself so that others may enter into him.
God created man on His own likeness and image and God is good, thus man must act according to his own nature – which is to do good. Sometimes, because of imperfections and discrepancies man committed sin, but there is a freedom to change and to reshape his nature – by considering and accepting his weaknesses and trying his best in order to hit the ‘mark’- which is goodness. This imperfections pushed man to work out, to collect the broken pieces and make it whole again. Thus, man has to work as part of the whole creation.
God created man on His own likeness and image and God is good, thus man must act according to his own nature – which is to do good. Sometimes, because of imperfections and discrepancies man committed sin, but there is a freedom to change and to reshape his nature – by considering and accepting his weaknesses and trying his best in order to hit the ‘mark’- which is goodness. This imperfections pushed man to work out, to collect the broken pieces and make it whole again. Thus, man has to work as part of the whole creation.
God has given us the freedom in order to continue the creation, to alter it, to recreate what is being created, what is being damaged and make it perfect as God is Perfect. God is the source of all. Man needs to toil, to till the land and to be part of his work. And the wholecity of every individual comes into existence when he tends to participate in the unending creation of the world. Man is not only a social being but he is a working being. Every individual is a worker and every work is an individual, and it is I, myself.
On my last community-encounter, I was assigned in a remote village in Cebu City. A poor family of 10 siblings, which the younger child aged 6-month old while others are on their 1-year old gap. They are living inside a relocation area together with 200 poor families and who are working inside the dumping site of Cebu City. At first, I was thinking how could they make a living with the kind of economic condition and social condition they were facing? There were a lot of notions and questions embarking on my thoughts which added my curiosity to live with them and for my 1-month stay there, I was trying to make it more fruitful and meaningful by living the kind of life they are having.
I was opted to sleep where they slept, to eat what they ate, to drink what they drunk and am not allowed giving money or anything to the family. To buy the basic needs for the family is to work inside the landfill. Every morning, I saw people patiently waiting for the garbage truck to come and with joyful expression, everybody is flocking to the truck the moment it filled the land with garbage. It was like seeing children asking for bread or manna from heaven. If you are late – you will be worn out from blessings, I mean you will not get something from the fill and if you don’t able to get a thing from the fill, you will go hungry and sleep with an empty stomach.
On my last community-encounter, I was assigned in a remote village in Cebu City. A poor family of 10 siblings, which the younger child aged 6-month old while others are on their 1-year old gap. They are living inside a relocation area together with 200 poor families and who are working inside the dumping site of Cebu City. At first, I was thinking how could they make a living with the kind of economic condition and social condition they were facing? There were a lot of notions and questions embarking on my thoughts which added my curiosity to live with them and for my 1-month stay there, I was trying to make it more fruitful and meaningful by living the kind of life they are having.
I was opted to sleep where they slept, to eat what they ate, to drink what they drunk and am not allowed giving money or anything to the family. To buy the basic needs for the family is to work inside the landfill. Every morning, I saw people patiently waiting for the garbage truck to come and with joyful expression, everybody is flocking to the truck the moment it filled the land with garbage. It was like seeing children asking for bread or manna from heaven. If you are late – you will be worn out from blessings, I mean you will not get something from the fill and if you don’t able to get a thing from the fill, you will go hungry and sleep with an empty stomach.
The community’s livelihood surrounds and dependent to the heap of garbage that comes every day. It is very risky and hazardous to one’s health. Even how hard they were trying to work hard everyday but what they've got from the day of hard toil still cannot suffice their daily bread. That is why working is very important to their lives. To them life's purpose of life is to work. This is the common expression which I have heard from them. They consider that life is all about work, work, and work. Their lives became alive because they able to work.
Our calling is to subdue the earth, using all our efforts to fill up what is lacking and to continue what needs to be done. This is our participation of recreating the world in order to have a better world where we could lay down our heads and our children's children home. Some are called to be engineers, teachers, professionals and the like and some are called to be like hoi polloi. Working in the landfill is not an easy task, though it doesn’t needs a diploma or a high degree of education in order to be accepted and to be part of the landfill. All we need and to have is guts. If you can stand amidst smoke and smell of the garbage then you are in, otherwise the place is not for you.
We are called to subdue the earth. This is the bottom line and God created work to be a good thing. This flies into the face of our culture’s view of work. In our culture we are happy if we feel that our work gives us leisure, makes us enjoy, and better than that - if our bosses will give us uplifting rewards through words or expressed-actions. Thus, if our craving is only for leisure we cannot attain the true purpose and meaning of work and oftentimes our work is neglected over leisure. Therefore, there is no way that work will be part of us and we be the work.
Work is an expression of oneself and a way of becoming more human. We tend to work because it is what we are called. We work because we don’t want to live or to increase the stamina of being alive; we work simply because we want to become whole. The objective of work is to let us express our selves and able to let others know what we have in the store and what we have inside not only purely on mere living but to be in the whole community. If we are not careful enough to think what we are doing instead of giving such a good output, we become slaves and thus, this work we have will become god, which pushes us to forget the Most Essential. We must give work the priority as God gives us freedom to do what we want and the will to choose. We must commit ourselves to working hard and to commit ourselves in it to satisfy our most ardent desire.
The outcome of what we are getting into is the best expression of ourselves. Work is I and I is work. The greatest art which we able to produce of being a person is what we produce not how much we produce. The quality of work is dependent on how much time we gave, how much effort we exerted, how much we dedicated ourselves to that certain thing. To work is to give our best and is to give our life. We cannot give our life unless we don’t love the subject or the recipient of that love. We are simply responsible to what we say and to what we do. We should not waste our time, since life is too short, we need to cherish it and to value what it gives to us.
Our calling is to subdue the earth, using all our efforts to fill up what is lacking and to continue what needs to be done. This is our participation of recreating the world in order to have a better world where we could lay down our heads and our children's children home. Some are called to be engineers, teachers, professionals and the like and some are called to be like hoi polloi. Working in the landfill is not an easy task, though it doesn’t needs a diploma or a high degree of education in order to be accepted and to be part of the landfill. All we need and to have is guts. If you can stand amidst smoke and smell of the garbage then you are in, otherwise the place is not for you.
We are called to subdue the earth. This is the bottom line and God created work to be a good thing. This flies into the face of our culture’s view of work. In our culture we are happy if we feel that our work gives us leisure, makes us enjoy, and better than that - if our bosses will give us uplifting rewards through words or expressed-actions. Thus, if our craving is only for leisure we cannot attain the true purpose and meaning of work and oftentimes our work is neglected over leisure. Therefore, there is no way that work will be part of us and we be the work.
Work is an expression of oneself and a way of becoming more human. We tend to work because it is what we are called. We work because we don’t want to live or to increase the stamina of being alive; we work simply because we want to become whole. The objective of work is to let us express our selves and able to let others know what we have in the store and what we have inside not only purely on mere living but to be in the whole community. If we are not careful enough to think what we are doing instead of giving such a good output, we become slaves and thus, this work we have will become god, which pushes us to forget the Most Essential. We must give work the priority as God gives us freedom to do what we want and the will to choose. We must commit ourselves to working hard and to commit ourselves in it to satisfy our most ardent desire.
The outcome of what we are getting into is the best expression of ourselves. Work is I and I is work. The greatest art which we able to produce of being a person is what we produce not how much we produce. The quality of work is dependent on how much time we gave, how much effort we exerted, how much we dedicated ourselves to that certain thing. To work is to give our best and is to give our life. We cannot give our life unless we don’t love the subject or the recipient of that love. We are simply responsible to what we say and to what we do. We should not waste our time, since life is too short, we need to cherish it and to value what it gives to us.
