Stay awake!
Last week, one of my creativity students, Ananda, shared a story from her experience as a member of Ateneo Blue Repertory’s Front-of-House.
She had gone through workshops on ushering, first aid, and dealing with audience members. Those lessons were put to the test at a recent show, where a cast member’s father was obviously using his phone to record the opening number.
There had already been multiple reminders about not recording the show, but the father paid no mind. So, Ananda’s team approached him—but he denied everything, and even threatened the team with legal action if they asked to look through his phone.
The students were disgusted. Here was a so-called adult doing exactly what they preached against, embodying what they protested about on the streets when elected leaders abused their positions. Here was an entitled person smarting from the shame of being caught red-handed.
The story came back to me last Sunday at a Mass presided by Fr. Nono Alfonso, SJ. Father Nono talked about awakening: while Advent songs often tell the story of waking from sleep, the Sunday gospel saw Jesus telling his followers to stay awake (an exhortation paralleled later in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus asked the apostles to stay and keep watch).
The call to awaken assumes that we are asleep and know nothing of what is to come. The call to stay awake, however, means that we need to open our eyes spiritually, because we have already been given the grace to mature beyond our childishness, and because the seeds have already been planted for us to be fully human.
We are not asleep, Father Nono said, but perhaps we are sleepy, because of the conveniences of the world, the illusion of outward peace, and the anxiety of our daily lives. He even referenced Edsa 1986 (so apt because of that day’s rallies!) when we had awakened to the sins of our leaders, only to be lulled by complacency after.
The flood control corruption scandals today are a renewed call to stay awake, to recognize wrongdoing even by those who point their dirty, idolized fingers at other politicians. The challenge is to awaken people who forcibly keep themselves asleep.
That fake sleep takes many forms today.
There are those who still support the former president, whose interim release request has been denied by the International Criminal Court—and precisely because his supporters are so loud and so emboldened that their misplaced, near-drunken zeal could put important witnesses in danger.
There are those who swoon over the current vice president’s offer to take the highest seat in the land because of the corruption scandals besetting the government, and precisely, when she herself has been accused of corruption in cases that have only been quieted because of technicalities, in cases that have never been dismissed and for which the evidence is compelling.
There is a government official who claims that P500 is enough for a family’s Christmas meal—precisely at a time when people want to celebrate and find that their government is seemingly force-feeding them cheapness and suffering while elected officials are allowed to feast.
And there, in that theater seat, is an entitled father—as unreasoning as the blind followers, as thick-faced as the vice president, as callous as the government agency.
We cannot expect to wake up as a country when we are asleep, even in our daily lives. We cannot expect that any investigation and prosecution will lead to long-term change when even we, in our smallest and simplest moments, refuse to acknowledge that there is good to be done and that there are rules to be followed, that there are people to recognize and lives to know, that there is peace to be worked for, and that there are stories to be listened to.
We cannot expect justice when even everyday living is dictated by entitlement, and where correction is greeted with threats, arrogance, and gaslighting.
Father Nono referenced the Jesuit theologian Anthony de Mello, who once said that we are all born asleep: we go through life’s obligations, marry, make families, and then die without ever awakening. Spirituality, therefore, is the act of opening one’s eyes to reality, to truly understand one’s place in the world.
To this, I would add: we, too, are asleep, and ever more deeply, when we condemn those who oppose our idols, when we berate those who try to open our eyes, and when we ridicule those who attempt to bring sobriety and nuance to a discussion.
Blind idolatry, therefore, is to remain asleep, forever clinging to the childish craving for one’s initial decisions to be endlessly validated—regardless of the truth, regardless of the price paid by the poor, the sick, the lost, the invisible.
True Advent preparation would mean acknowledging reality and bringing our grace-filled, righteous self to the fore—even when it is most difficult, even when it is inconvenient.
Stay awake, Philippines—or remain asleep, steeped in addiction to the opiate that is one’s ego. That is a drug no drug war can ever expunge.
—————-
iponcedeleon@ateneo.edu
