promises, promises

i have to admit, going to mass really puts me to sleep these days. more often than not the reason i am in attendance is to lessen the mortal sins i have commited or i'm about to commit (hala!) so if God decides to end the world today, i have an idea of where my poor soul is headed...

but several weeks ago, my hermano and i heard mass at greenbelt. the priest's name was Fr. Nolan. he's not the principal but he's working for one of the chinese schools here in manila. he's chinese; and well you wont mistake him for anything else if you check his looks and accent. but what he said woke me up from my stupor. normally sermons have a way of lulling me to sleep especially if i just came from working the graveyard shift.

he told a story of a little girl whom he heard asking God to remind her father to keep his promise. apparently the father made a promise a long time ago to visit them but he didn't keep it. the priest learned later on that the father had another family.

he said that adults these days don't know how to keep their promises. (talk about deteriorating moral values.) but it's because adults don't keep their promises that so many children suffer in this world today. if married people keep the promises they made when they agreed to marry, there would be no little girls suffering the way that little girl did. these days people just don't put too much importance on keeping the vows they've made. it's what we teach these little children. it's what they see and thus we perpetuate this kind of suffering.

i wish that in real life, there is such thing as ceteris paribus. if all other things will remain constant, maybe there's a greater chance of keeping a promise. it's so easy to make promises but keeping them can be such a struggle. people change. they change even more when put in desperate situations .. and sadly even our perceptions on morality.



Underpromise; overdeliver. - Tom Peters, in The Chicago Tribune