|
 Like the Bamboo
by Nancy Russell Catan
E-MAIL nrcatan@i-manila.com.ph
"A Filipino is like a mythological bamboo. He sways valiantly
with the winds of misfortune, only to rise unscathed
when the tempest is over to meet the warmth of the morning
sun.” This quote by Dr. Felipe Landa Jocano highlights
the Filipino’s ability to survive life’s typhoons and
floods, earthquakes and sinking ships, and little by little
to rise up and get on with one’s life as time passes.
It is okay to be knocked down once in a while, but we should not allow ourselves to be
knocked out, or if badly beaten,
to quit. It takes more courage and
guts to survive and rise up then it
does to grumble, bewail one’s fate
and give up the fight. Without inner
strength, faith in God, and an
unwavering survival instinct,
many times the battle is lost even
before it is begun.
We can learn from the
bamboo. It is not only resilient
in the face of storms. The bamboo
has many practical
uses. It can be used for
building material, for making
furniture, for decorative purposes,
for fences. The
young shoots are delicious
as vegetables and in some
countries considered delicacies.
The soil in the bamboo groves is a compost
of the bamboo leaves
and very fertile to enhance
growth in one’s garden. Jun
and I visited a factory in China
that processed bamboo into
floor, wall, and ceiling tiles
and laminated plywood slabs
for indoor and outdoor uses.
Jun and I have met many
adverse and challenging moments
throughout our 46-year
marriage and in the running of
our business. But we have
learned to see the difficulty not
so much as a problem but as
more of a challenge – a challenge
to grow, a challenge to
improve, a challenge to overcome,
move on, and be
stronger, a challenge to be useful
and fruitful.
One of my guiding principles
in life is found in the Bible,
in Romans 8:28. “In everything,
God works for good,
for those who love Him, who
are called according to His
purpose.” ‘In everything’ …
not just in the good things in
life, but also in the not-sogood
things. ‘ God works for
good’ … it may be for my
good, or He may use me as a
channel to bring His goodness
to others. It doesn’t matter
whether I think it is good
or not, or even if I don’t see
the good; what matters is how
God sees the situation and
what He does with it. For this
guiding principle to work, I
only need to do two things:
to love God, and to respond to His call to love others, following
His guidance in faith
that He only wants good for
me.
Sometimes it is not easy to
see the good in a situation like
the devastation wrought by Typhoon
Frank, but my faith tells
me that somehow, somewhere,
in His time, God will make His
goodness felt even as those of
us who can reach out to help
and comfort those affected by
the storm.
|
