Yet, if we look closely at our life, we discover we are happiest during irrational moments like when we love someone unconditionally and give more than what the loved one deserves. It is reason that otherwise sets conditions which when not met cause us to be unhappy.
In truth, humans are distinguished from beasts more by their ability to love without conditions than by their being rational. Thus, the ability to love is the great equalizer in humankind’s pursuit of happiness. One who can’t make sense of mathematical equations is as capable of true love, consequently of happiness and fulfillment, as one who crunches numbers like a piece of cake.
Which brings me to Christmas that I define as a love-event. It takes a great intellect to create the universe and the inexorable laws that run it; yet, God has never defined Her/Himself as Reason but always as Love. The Love that sends God-made-man Jesus to us on Christmas.
And get a load of this. Jesus taught us not how to think and understand the laws of the universe but how to love unconditionally and live fulfilled and happy lives even if we can’t figure out the workings of the physical world.
Hence, it is disturbing that in Cebu City, the seat of the religion of love (Christianity), thousands of families are unloved by city officials who threaten to displace them from their homes without a clear provision for relocation, not even for a temporary one. They will spend Christmas worrying where to go when the demolition team strikes. They are humans not beasts that can just slink to some corner when shooed away.
These families have banded together and decided to march on City Hall on Dec. 23 to ask Mayor Mike Rama: “Asa ang among pasungan,” reminiscent of how Jesus had to settle for a pasungan (manger) when his family was displaced by a government-decreed census.
Can you blame these people when they see that Mayor Rama is much too rational to love them, that to be loved by their mayor they must voluntarily move out so he can pursue his Singapore-like dream, and, worse still, that he is bent on pursuing his rational political dream no matter who suffers or gets hurt?
Yet, these families are not even asking for love, for more than what they deserve. They are asking to be given simply what they deserve as human beings and as citizens, their right to at least a pasungan, a temporary relocation site, so that their Christmas will be worry-free as is also another right they deserve.
I wish them a blessed Christmas. Thus, I pray that Mayor Rama gets out of the prison of his reason and with his heart gives these distraught families their basic right, now for a temporary pasungan, later for a permanent one.