Overflow of Thanksgiving

It was 6am, i was going through my normal day prepping to go to work.  When I left home, the wind welcomed me in great multitudes.  When I reached the office, what welcomed me on the news was that a part of Tacloban was hit by a super typhoon.  Signal no 4 it shouted!  The live video paint a thousand words that kept playing in my mind.  Where is Tacloban? It's a small province in the Visayas, where houses are made of cheap materials.  Materials that won't resist the wrath of typhoon.  I got scared for them but that's all i can do for now.  The day went by with the pre-occupation of tasks at work, my own little world. 

A lot of us chose to live within our own worlds, pre-occupied by our selfish motives, the 'I' dreams and "me" goals.  In the onset of the typhoon Haiyan, we are called to stretch out ourselves and give our time money and resources to people who barely who have lives to live.  

When there is no shelter, no food, no family what is there to live for?   

Quoting Dean Andy Bautista: "It is difficult to find meaning in this most recent tragedy.  So much senseless death and suffering.  Is this part of some divine plan or perhaps divine retribution?"  

The God of life has taken away lives… The God of mercy has in front of us merciless killings brought about by nature.   Who could fathom that?  No one!  It's far beyond our human frailties.  What we could understand and could do something about is to lend people a hand.    

A personal account of Dean Andy's colleague, who is based in Manila but born and bred in Tacloban City but flew to her hometown last Monday to see what had become of her family, loved ones with whom there was absolutely no contact since the storm hit:

I feel aggrieved when I hear unconfirmed double (and triple) hearsay about negative things back home but let me concentrate on the positive for the moment.  For the past week, I relied on (and continue to rely on) the kindness of strangers on the streets of Tacloban and on the phone lines of Manila to get help to friends and family back home.  The guy who gave my friend and I a ride on his motorcycle so we didn't have to walk in the sweltering heat from the airport to the city; the teenager who gave my aunt his only bottle of water; the stranger who lent my uncle his cell phone so my uncle could text me that he was stranded at the airport; the soldier who helped my brother lift my 100-year-old grandmother into the crowded military plane -- these are the people I choose to honor and to cite.  My own personal heroes.  So yes, there is social as well as natural distress in a city I continue to love but can hardly recognize.  Yes, there is violence in some quarters and incompetence in others.  But there is also unbelievable empathy, generosity and consolation from the most unexpected of sources.  I choose, at this point, to cling to the light and the hope that it will overcome the darkness.

So while much was taken, much abides.  And this is where the importance of maintaining the right perspective and attitude comes into play.

As a final literary thought, let me recount the last lines in Thornton Wilder's Bridge of San Luis Rey which ought to explain the inexplicable --why five people plunged to their deaths after a rope bridge they were crossing broke:  There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning. 

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S, the Filipinos are one in celebration because of the myriads of help that are freeing us day by day.