Rise before the fall: In full bloom before winter
After a quiet early life, Jesus Christ began at around the age of 30, a three-year public ministry of preaching, performing miracles, and teaching love, compassion, and repentance before being crucified in Jerusalem.
Jesus traveled all across Judea and Galilee, preaching about the Kingdom of God, using parables that emphasized love, forgiveness, and selfless service to others. Miracles attributed to Him include healing the sick and disabled, raising the dead, and walking on water. He chose 12 close followers known as disciples, or apostles, to help Him spread His teachings.
Because He challenged the established religious order, He was arrested by Roman authorities under Pontius Pilate and sentenced to be nailed to the cross to die. He rose from the dead three days after His burial and ascended to heaven, thereby proving His divinity.
Jesus was at His most perfect before He died.
These things I know: The sky is red at sunset, at its best light and most splendiferous, just as the day dies into night. Then comes the morning when the sky turns blue again and everything returns to how it was, changing yet always the same, in a never-ending cycle of night and day, of light and dark, a Möbius band of cosmic proportions.
Trees of the colder latitudes in autumn bring out their best colors, the best look that they can muster, before wintering. Many fruits turn red in the fall before the leaves turn. Birds are attracted to the color of bright red berries, and many fruits ripen in autumn, exuding a strong, intense smell, which helps birds, bats, and small mammals to locate their food. Fall is that season of the year when flora and fauna of all kinds show off the best variant of themselves, turning on the charm by coming out in their best ball gowns and raiments.
Why can’t we be like them? Let us strive to be the best version of ourselves before the advent of that final winter in our lives. Leave a legacy for which we will be remembered and thus achieve immortality in the hearts and minds of those we will be leaving. Put forth, reveal, and expose your brightest Vermeer yellows, golds, and reds, to impress, to fascinate, to inspire. Then let go of your leaves; let them fall, and let them scatter all over the forest floor. Cover the ground with a carpet, a tapestry, a patina of you, your good deeds exuding fragrance and sweetness. Let those you’ve left behind miss you like crazy.
For my part, I will strive, from this, the first day of my 75th year, to be like the flower of the night-blooming cereus when it is in full bloom and at its most fragrant, to be like the durian fruit when it’s ripest, sweetest, and stinkiest, to be at my most rosy and rubescent best before my petals fall, before my fall. No more will I respond to the name “Little Bear,” which my good Chinese father gave to me. I will be a polar bear at its fittest and fattest before I go to hibernate one last time. Some animals change color with the seasons, donning white coats to match the winter landscape. I will try my level best to be very good before I go, and change my color for that “something” or “someone” greater than myself.
I have gone through a period of Lent, of deep repentance and atonement. I shook and quaked in anticipation of Easter, knowing full well that I cannot reach daybreak without passing through the heartbreak of night. I am being pushed-pulled by some powerful tide, called by some irresistible force.
Though I speak in metaphors, I also speak the truth of what I know. In the end, when the hourglass need not be turned upside down again, I will have known that there is nothing more I need to know. The only truth I know is You, my Lord, Savior, and Redeemer!
Antonio Calipjo Go,
sickbookstogo@gmail.com
