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| The Accidental Tourist |
To produce fruits from our repentance is an edict of replacing what we had taken, of returning what we had borrowed, and putting back into the condition in the past of a thing or persons ruined and defiled by us to the extent of the condition taking place before our particular misdeeds had caused such ruin and injury. What is broken should be unbroken. A thief should give back the money he stole, and the fornicator should live a life of total devotion to the edicts of God, evading fully even the mere thought of lust and temptation. It is also to ensure our soul by giving back more than we had taken that for instance, if you stole a car, you must give back the amount of the car you stole and more in addition. That is to ensure the acceptance of your repentance.
There is also another way of producing fruits from our repentance of
countless sins throughout our lifetime, those that we could not trace anymore,
for as we say to be human in a world despoiled of strong faith, is to have
committed countless sins that are so countless that we lose count of them. This
mode of repayment is the cultivation of your hearts by helping others to be
uplifted from a life of hardship and misery. That is the power of the rewards
of repentance. In the interest of everlasting peace and harmony among brethren,
producing fruits from your repentance could be fitting in this manner. You
shall be forgiven but only if you repent immediately and produce fruits from
your repentance, in order to make a complete turnaround and turn away from a
life of sin and falsity, to accept God fully and follow His edicts and
judgments from then on.
This convenient mode of producing
fruits from our repentance however, should not in no way be abused for even a
minute abuse of these would mean eternal damnation in hellfire so that it is
still a primary edict that what you steal you must return, whom you abused must
be disabused, whom you killed must be recompensed and what is broken must be
unbroken.
Indeed, even as we do not have to
produce fruits from our repentance, the most beautiful manner of cultivating
our hearts is by helping others get back on their feet, to uplift the condition
of the poorest of the poor, those unfortunate brothers and sisters of ours who
live in the slums and giant piles of garbage, living in ultimate squalor,
endangering not only their lives but the lives of their children and their
olds.
One might argue that the idea of
sharing that I am strongly professing would only promote and cradle a lazy
society, establishing a welfare system for slothful and laggard people, a
system where people depend on others instead of their own capability to survive
and rise above poverty. There is nothing farther from the truth. Let us realize
that the condition of poverty is never intentional anywhere in the world for no
man chose to become miserable and it is not the desire of any man to suffer
poverty.
Even the richest nation in the world has a welfare system for the poor, in fact the wealthier the nations become, and the stronger their welfare systems are.
Even the richest nation in the world has a welfare system for the poor, in fact the wealthier the nations become, and the stronger their welfare systems are.
Everybody wants to work and scurry
for their own daily bread. Nobody desires to live the desperation of a beggar’s
life. Man is by nature proud and dignified even from birth. If we think this
way, it would be easier for us to accept the role of the brother’s keeper, to
share whenever possible and whenever necessary.
Poverty is an existence brought
about by factors that are mostly beyond the control of any man like the lack of
opportunity in a master-and-slave society, where the rich are getting richer
while the poor are getting poorer. These factors are independent of the poor
man’s will. A master-and-slave society would always put him down, like a
drowning man caught in the middle of a storm that even as he is able to swim,
the giant waves would be too much for him to handle.
In a society where opportunities
are limited to some sectors, where monopolies abound and cartels persist
unhindered; both in business and labor, as well as in the possession of arable
lands, the drowning man is an everyday reality.
Most rich people gained wealth by
simply having the right opportunities at the right time. There are gains in
wealth achieved by men who simply had the knowledge or initiative to recognize
the key to gaining wealth and affluence. But in many societies however, not
everyone has the opportunities and initiative because man and society as a
whole is not made of intelligent people all, there would always be the less
capable so that in a society where the only strong survive, the drowning man is
indeed a pitiful reality. Now we ask ourselves as we encounter the everyday
drowning man, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
“What good does it do a man to have faith and yet he has no works?”
“Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being alone.” [6]
Let me tell you a story from my
childhood. When I was still a child, I was living with my grandfather instead
of my parents, compelled by circumstances the moment my first brother was born.
My father then was working as a postman whose compensation was perhaps
insufficient to make ends meet so my mother needed the assistance of my
grandparents. Or was it maybe perhaps my mother had difficulty looking up for two
sons while my father was always away. I could not surmise enough upon these
particular conditions that happened so long ago in the past, when I still had a
juvenile consciousness.
My grandfather then, Hadji Unih
Bandaying, was a grower of coconut trees where through his labor and
persistence, the land he tilled had carried two generations of our family. He
had also been a Muslim preacher that we call as imam. The coconut plantation
that he had tilled was not very substantial that he oversaw it all by himself
in order to save on labor expenses. Every three months or so, he would go to
the farm to make some work, mostly to clear unwanted bush growths and to repair
some fences and then to oversee harvest time. The farm was located relatively
far from the city that in fact he had to travel by sea to reach the place. I
had grown so emotionally attached to my grandfather that I would insist on
going with him whenever he leaves for the farm and he would take me despite his
firm opposition to the idea. In one of those memorable travels---a journey
where I could usually be closer to the natural grandeur of the rustic
countryside, to smell the healthy soil and to witness radiant sunrises not
easily found anywhere---I am particular to an incident that has been etched in
my mind since it happened, an event that was not so commonplace that it somehow
taught me my first lessons in the humanity of man and in the power of sharing.
This particular childhood memory
however, would not bring us to the seminal beauty of the farmlands. It all
happened in the ship that my grandfather and I were to embark for our trip to
the island of Suba-Nipa. As usual, we went early long before the scheduled
departure and we spent hours waiting for the boat to depart from its docking.
About less than an hour before the
ship would leave towards its point of destination, most of the passengers were
already on board. As it was usual, the
passengers were busy arranging their baggage and some took their meals packed
in plastic canisters and banana leaves.
I could always feel a sort of
exhilaration whenever we had the island travel. There is always that shared
excitement of a group of people leaving for the same destination, crossing
waters on a long trip and spending the night adrift the sea together, to be one
in purpose and destiny, at least for that moment, with a certain rising in
everyone’s spirit.
I gazed towards the wooden plank
where people traverses in order to reach the ship from the docking, silently
observing the flow of people and the kind of camaraderie they had, when I
noticed a fat man wearing unruly and discordant clothes. His shirt was dirty
white and over-sized even for his wide body. It was not a dirty cloth but it
was sort of disconcerting to the eye, declaring that the fat man had not much
choice for wardrobe. He was carrying a fading small black bag and in his hands
was a “Tasbi”, the Muslim version of the rosary beads, declaring to the
passers-by that he was a Muslim. And as the man drew closer to us, I was a
little bit taken aback by the fact that he was a foreigner with a
middle-eastern look, wearing a lengthened beard on his face, and his skin was
white as any white man’s skin. He was conversing to every man as he walks past
the passageways, gradually towards the direction of where I was situated. He
did go closer and closer to where I was seating, until I finally realized that
he was begging for money. It was indeed a surprise that a foreigner was on the
streets of our country begging for coins, speaking in straight English. What
really takes me out of my wits is the fact that aside from his features, he
seems to be so unlike other beggars. He spoke as if he was making a contract
with each man he approaches, making a business engagement, with full dignity
and pride, as if he just decided not to be ashamed altogether despite the
desperation of beggary. I was drawn to this fact so keenly that I observed more
closely his actions and words. As he approached each man he would greet
“Assalamulaykum” and went on to state, “You know I am Amir, a Pakistani. Do you have one peso? Just one Peso my
brother.” He kept on repeating and
reasserting that he needs a peso from each man. He would continue saying “You
see, if you give me just one peso, it would help me buy a plane ticket back to
Pakistan where my family lives. If many brothers would give me one peso each,
that would help me so much.”
He was sort of making a contract to
each and every one that he had approach, without any hint of shame in his face
but pure humility, to declare to each and every one he met that the
consideration for giving a peso for each and every one of us was the altruistic
feeling of enlightenment that one feels after helping a less fortunate person
while his cause and consideration is to enable him to escape that particular
desperation---a contract indeed with minds meeting somewhere in the middle of
understanding. And because of his foreign look and the way he talks, some of
the passengers got so interested in him that they inquired into his person and
his other conditions in life. One passenger, an acquaintance of my grandfather
who I remember to be Hadji Ahmad, inquired so much about him and conversed to
him as if the Pakistani was a long lost friend.
As the two men talked, many others circled around the Pakistani, curious
still about the foreigner. The “accidental tourist” relayed rather deliberately
(while I was listening nearby) that he was a tourist on a business trip and
looking for opportunities in the selling of carpets and other goods from
Pakistan. While he was billeted in one of the hotels in the city many months
ago, he was robbed of almost all his belongings including his money. He was so
careless he admitted to the crowd, but he did not expect so much to be put in
such a quandary. Luckily he said, a friend he had known while staying here
allowed him to live in their humble house in a nearby slum where poor Muslims
lived, until the time that he could find a way to solve his problem of being
stranded in a foreign land. The friend
of his was not affluent so he is not much of help in getting him back home to
Pakistan. So he thought of a plan to help himself and this was by reaching out
towards his brothers for assistance, to go to the streets to solicit for money.
He said that if twenty thousand persons of Zamboanga City would give just one
peso each, which is not, as he often declared, so much to ask for from each
person, it would enable him to buy his plane tickets all the way to Pakistan.
Many inquired upon him why he did not ask the help of the government or the
rich Muslims, maybe they were willing to help. Or why did he not seek
assistance from his consulate. He just stated that walking the streets was the
only way he thought of since their consulate is in faraway Manila and there was
no assurance that they would give such assistance. He could have gone to Manila to pursue
assistance from the Pakistani embassy but felt more secure here in Zamboanga
City than in Manila because of a friend that could help him survive from day to
day and survival was foremost among his concerns.
The crowd felt so sympathetic to
the Pakistani’s flight that everyone including my grandfather fished for more
money to assist the hapless Pakistani. The man was misty eyed all along. The
crowd became so involved with Amir’s flight that in fact the Pakistani went
with our trip upon the invitation of Hadji Ahmad.
What happened finally to the
Pakistani is now beyond me, whether or not he was able to get that fare fee
back to his homeland is not a memory to me anymore. But one thing I was sure of
that day, that all of us in that particular trip felt enriched by an unusual
event that had somehow opened us to a reality where men could be generous
without limit, that all of us shared the experience of sharing and the
enlightenment it brought forth. At the least of it all, it made me realize what
a good feeling it is to share and help others to get back at their feet by the
meager amount of a peso or two.
The story of the “accidental
tourist” made me realizes that a man might beg but at the same time retain a
certain honor; an amount of dignity that could be had when one still has faith
in the basic goodness of man. It was not easy for him to walk the street for
money for you could see the Pakistani to be holding something heavy inside him,
swallowing so much pride and dignity that he was misty eyed whenever he
approached each man to solicit for a peso. A stain of embarrassment perhaps,
for his helpless condition was somehow patent in how his voice would crack at
times, as if losing composure and determination to go forward like a boxer
about to raise his hands in surrender after a frenetic pounding of punches.
Yet, he decided to roll with the punches and held in his heart the belief that
men are still good and are still brothers’ keepers.
The Pakistani was making a
legitimate contract with each and every one of us and if we recognized this as
legitimate, then he did not have to be teary eyed at all. For a meager some
from each one of us, he could be back to his homeland and at the same time for
a meager sum, we could be enriched by our humanity by assisting others whose
plight has turned from bad to worse, conditions brought about mostly by causes
not completely of their own liking. For certain, Amir had not intended himself
to be robbed in our country. And definitely, he did not desire to walk the
streets begging for money.
There is a feeling of enlightenment
whenever we share genuinely. That feeling is unexplainable in concrete terms
except that it is the desire of God, the Great Divine, and divinity is at the
same time unexplainable in concrete terms. This is the enlightenment we gain in
engaging in such form of “contract”, an enlightenment to the fact that indeed
we could still be our brother’s keeper.
In the present world we live in,
there are many of those who desire to make the legitimate contract of “the
accidental tourist”. To be poor was never the intendment of the unfortunate
among us for poverty is not a condition desirable. The beggar with limbs
injured makes a contract to us every day. “Look at me,” they say, “I was
unfortunate to lose my limbs that I am incapable of work anymore but with a meager
amount, you could help me extend my sojourn here on Earth as you also had the
privileged of sojourning in this beautiful world full of water and air and
sunrise and misty mornings, of radiant trees and blossoming flowers, a world so
full of colors and vibrancy.”
With the meager amount, you could
make a man’s life much more sufferable and on the other hand such form of
giving will further enrich our spiritual life as Jesus Christ had imparted in
his teachings and as Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) had commanded and as
Moses had declared. “Love thy neighbor” Moses declared. The produce of our
repentance may also appear in other forms such as assisting a dying man on the
ground, a poor cousin seeking harbor after a long journey, a desperate neighbor
soliciting loan for a crying infant, a friend in dire straits, a hungry child
on the streets.
It should be a gain of principled
men to create a world where everyone is brothers and sisters all, regardless of
gender and creed or race and nationality. Conflict is of no benefit to anyone
and violence is a stain to peace and harmony. We should carry our brothers and
sisters like we carry our own children.
For certain, this is not an edict
to let your persons be abused by those who misrepresent their incapacities, for
even our own children we castigate when they overdo the limit of our patience
and harbor. It is in our hearts that we are able to know when to give a helping
hand or when to shy away from those who take advantage of generosities.
If we ever doubt our propensity for
sharing, we should always remember Amir, the Pakistani, the accidental tourist
who makes a contract to us in order to uplift himself from an unfortunate
situation not of his liking and intendment.
But you may ask: “Is it an
obligation for us to share our blessings? If that is the case, what is the
limit then?” This must be the question of any rich man. “In my hurried life as
a big banker or as an investment broker, or in my occupation as president of a
multinational company, I simply have no time for the works of a Good Samaritan,
for I have to work and feed my family and look out for myself and my family.
This is the life I live in” and this must be the thought of any rich man.
To think, how does helping others
become an obligation when we only have to live our own lives first and
foremost? To this I say sharing is never in the form of an obligation, as we
understand the word “obligation” today, for it is blind faith to have a sack of
money and go to the streets to look for beggars and poor people just in order
to distribute such money---while there is no genuine intention to share. Are we
buying faith?
Generosity could not be faked and
sharing should always be genuine. If it were genuine, there would be no
question as to how much to give or when to offer a helping hand. It becomes
automatic and spontaneous to the man of great heart.
Sharing is a consequence of our
humanity, of us being human beings. When we have already reach the point that
we fail to feel sympathy for the misfortunes of others, then we must have
reached a point where some parts of our hearts have already been closed through
numbing indifference of the suffering around us. Where we could care no more in
a world of a dog-eat-dog existence, a fast and furious way of life where only
the strong survive and the weak wither. Where being strong is sometimes to have
the strength to kiss the foot of other men in order to gain richness.
Charity is never an obligation but
a consequence of our humanity.
For if there are two man walking an
isolated street of the city, one is a rich man who is busy with his work and
occupation, in order to generate more wealth for himself or in order to further
his ambition of reaching a higher position. And then there was the other man
who is merely a laborer with merely enough wealth for his subsistence. And in
that isolated street, an old man with a wooden cane lie on the ground,
half-conscious and fallen from tiredness and hunger, clearly unable to stand up
as general weakness had encroached upon his body. The rich man would pass along
the street and come upon the sight of the fallen man. He would take immediate
cognizance of course of the tragedy of the fallen man but he has a meeting to
attend and time is of the essence. He could not pass this business deal. He
would walk ahead and disregard the silent appeal of the fallen man.
Then the laborer would walk along
the same area of the streets and come upon the sight of the fallen man and
surely he would recognize the pain of the fallen man, for him himself have been
hungry and tired before. Seeing this tragedy, he would approach slowly and
enquire if the man is still breathing, and if he is still, he would fish for
some coins for the man’s sustenance or he would even buy the bread himself from
a nearby bakery, and bring some water.
In the instance above related, who
is the man of great faith? Who is more human and has more humanity? To be sure
the laborer had encountered no law or ordinance that makes it an “obligation”
to assist a fallen man. The rich man would not have committed any illegal act
by disregarding the appeal of a hungry man. But is providing a helping hand an
obligation?
The man of great faith would not
even have to ponder upon the obligation of a helping hand for it comes to him
naturally. The man of lesser faith also has no pondering upon the obligation of
a helping hand because sharing is in fact not an issue to him anymore for he
even does not reach the point where he would ponder upon the nature of this
act.
This only we must realize God is
like a father who has many children. If some of his children were more
benefited and became wealthy while others languish in misfortune, to be sure he
would appeal upon his wealthier children to assist their suffering brothers and
sisters, for the suffering of the children is also the suffering of the father.
And all the fruits of this earth
were meant for everyone to share, so that everyone will eat. How come there are
many still that have no food on their table?
If it comes to you that in your own
self, there is doubt as to the genuineness of your faith---I shall point you to
the right way, in order that you would be cleansed by the discomfort of this
uncertainty. And this “right way” is by being men for others. There is nothing
more that would endear you to the Lord God than by being a Good Samaritan.
If it comes to you that you already
doubt yourself if you ever shall enter the Kingdom of God or not---I shall show
you the way. Live your lives as if to live is living not only for yourselves,
but also living lives for others. And surely you will not be lost. For certain,
there must be some other ways, but this is the clearest path to the destination
that the Lord had promised us.
Even when many of us are the most
steadfast of a hunter, not all of us could be good hunters. The children, the
women and the old are not good hunters.
Let us all hunt in packs like many
ancient people do. If a people would hunt as a pack, it is a people who shall
have no hungry brother or sister left out in the cold. A people who hunt in
packs looks out more for the weakest member---the children, the women and the
old---those who could not join the able men on their hunting trips.
But when we became individualistic
by nature, many would be left out in the cold, especially in a dog-eat-dog
existence we have today.
“What does faith do to you if many
lie naked in the streets?”
“Naked, and ye clothed me: I was
sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.”[7]
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