“I thank God for all His faithfulness and all His goodness, for all the lessons learned, for the crucial adjustments put in place, for the defragging, declogging, decongesting of things non-essential, and for the great reset. By my book, 2020 is a decisive net gain!”
I used to write a column for another local daily ages ago. That was when I was still single, which continued until I got married. But I did a piece that displeased the powers-that-be (the family), and that was the end of my writing career. And my wife’s too, who used to write in that paper’s lifestyle section.
With the advent of Facebook, I began writing opinion pieces here and there again. Until Allen Del Carmen called me up to say that there was a chance for me to bring my regular column writing days back from the dead. So I thank Allen and Negros Weekly for this chance. May God bless you for this new chapter in my life!
It has been one tough but good year, this year 2020. It actually began with late 2019, with the Mindanao earthquakes and the Taal Volcano explosion. From then on, the country has never really rested, because COVID-19 followed.
COVID came in with much destruction. Though its mortality rate is at less than 1 percent, it’s easy transmissibility and the panicky reaction or response we had towards it has wrecked industries, economies, lives and livelihoods. It crippled travel, caught many unaware and unprepared, and just threw the “old normal” life away. Who would have thought that face masks, face shields, would become part of our daily life, with quarantine passes, swab tests, medical certificates required even for the most basic cross-border, cross-LGU travels.
But it restored conversation in the home (due to lockdown), brought people back to backyard gardening, inspired barter, and sharing, and giving, and loving. The virtues of simple living and contentment, as well as frugality, were revived. It also exposed unbelievable corruption (national and local).
Churches were hard hit. Considered non-essential, public worship was banned, and when it was partially restored, only 10 or so per gathering was allowed. Even when the volume of passengers for public transport was gradually increased and malls were allowed to re-open at 26 degrees centigrade temperature, churches were the last to be granted such favor.
2020, therefore, is about to close as one of the most ponderous, reflective, humbling, instructive and redirecting years of our lives. We were compelled to re-appreciate the home, review our spending habits, re-configure priorities, revert to essentials. We were encouraged to think of others, contribute food packs. We were treated to amazing pictures of sacrifice on the one hand – the frontliners, and appalling pictures of big-time corruption and incompetence on the other.
People who heartily and boisterously received money on election day from their most generous candidates, now vilify and curse their leaders to no end, especially when they distributed rice packs consisting of NFA rice that was so foul-smelling it was doubtful even if pigs would eat them.
So, all told, 2020 was one ponderous, rude-awakening, reflection-provoking year. About how life is so vulnerable. About how shaky a foundation our human society and systems stand on. About how hard-earned investments and savings can be wiped away in one sweep by an invisible enemy. About how unreliable “experts” can be. We also saw how suspicious mainstream media can be, and how dangerous alternative media can also be.
We realize we need to be careful with information we receive, and we are compelled to discern, evaluate and assess carefully all the time everything we hear and get.
At the end of the day, we find our anchor in God, the Rock and the unbreakable promises of His Word in the midst of the raging uncertainties of the times.
And just before the year could be fully over, we are treated abroad to the most unbelievable reports of wholesale election fraud and machination in U.S. elections, with mailed in votes resulting to excess of number of registered voters in many places. It seems like America has learned so much from the Philippines, where even the dead are so patriotic they continue to cast their votes from the great beyond.
Whew! Whattayear this is!
But I thank God for all His faithfulness and all His goodness, for all the lessons learned, for the crucial adjustments put in place, for the defragging, declogging, decongesting of things non-essential, and for the great reset. By my book, 2020 is a decisive net gain!
At the end of the day, I am happier, wiser, more blessed, more focused, more at peace.
And I thank God indeed! – NWI
