Happy Weekend

Father’s day
GINA DIZON

Father’s day which is just around the corner reminds me of my father, Bienvenido Dizon Sr. he died May 29, 2001. This now is his 7th year anniversary. Fathers are perceived as disciplinarians. I guess this one value that my father instilled. Discipline starts in the home. I guess I am a disciplined person and this I owe to how I was raised. I’m talking about self-discipline – to be able to discern when one is going overboard, to stop when necessary and to be able to check one’s own limits.

He had no property to give us. Except the values that remained. Not to get the property of others. I guess that was a better inheritance to give one’s children. Not to steal and deceive someone of his or her own property. Am not a saint though and I have my own misbehaviour.

He was contented with what he had. In this consumerist world, you just have to be contented with what you have within your means. Otherwise, you will steal public funds, sell illegal trade, or grab someone else’s property in order to cope with what somebody has. Otherwise, you will just have to work decently. That sounds better.

Then you will have your own properties you can call your own and be genuinely and honestly contented.

Being contended will lead one to discover what one has within. Explore and exploit that potential to the fullest without trampling on somebody else’s foot. It takes ounces of values and self-reflection to discover one’s self and own potential. What am I talking about? I am just an average person with average skills. I’m not a top executive or even passed the Bar. Yet, there are simple values in life which one just has to have.

On top of everything else are responsibilities in life. A parent does not own his children. Children have their own generations and concepts of looking at life. Yet, basic values remain which will guide them in life. And this, the parents, the father has to instill to his children, I value the freedom, the space, and the independence given me in my upbringing.

Otherwise, life will be a race to have a degree, a house, a wife, a husband, a child then to die. Life is meant to be enjoyed pace by pace, inch by inc – chewed and swallowed. Live to the fullest without trampling on another person’s life. What is important – values to get by in life. Belated Happy Mother’s Day and come June 15, Happy Father’s Day!
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The greatest Father of all is God. He instilled values to mankind for people to get by. Values of compassion, justice and love. These values remain and here’s hoping you have these. From here, everything else will follow.

Just imagine a world where there is no justice. Tyrants will rule. The oppressor will always oppress and the oppressed will remain oppressed. Dictators will keep people ignorant and keep them in chains. Information is denied and rights are trampled. While others will eat, some will die of hunger. Can you stomach that?
Imagine a world where there is no compassion. People are led by the neck, whipped and left to die. The basic element of that feeling called compassion is devoid in one’s psyche in a person who has no kindness in himself. Everyone will be cruel and crush another mercilessly. You like that? This world will be a world of emotionless beings. You’re capable of that?

In the search for justice, love is a basis. You won’t tolerate injustice and continue loving somebody. Justice and love comes together.
Imagine a world where there is no love. People will have emotionless relationships. Relationships mean things and when you don’t have a thing, you’re nothing. Relationships mean that we can touch.

What you can’t touch like justice or compassion or love is nothing. It has to be a rock or a plank of wood. Woodstock in the ‘70s basically threw message in the world. Make love not war. Even dogs have feelings. Dogs will laugh at a person devoid of what love means.

And so He instilled these values to his Son, Jesus Christ. To every church goer, you recite the Apostles Creed all the time. So you know what it means. To non-church goers, you have values to get by, either from your village, from elders, from this world. Yet wherever and whatever you learned, basic values remain – love, compassion and justice. Then, we can say that we are truly Christians or that we are human.