(Editor’s Note: We are publishing here the from Pope Francis which we believe is very apt, not only during this time of the pandemic, but all throughout our lifetime.)
Message from Pope Francis:
I do not consider this as ISOLATION/Lockdown having to stay at home with whom we love. Isolation is what the seriously ill are experiencing in hospital. Stop saying that you are bored, upset that you can’t leave the house; while everyone in the hospital wants to go home. So, thank God if you have to stay at home, because despite everything, with money or without money, with a job or without a job, you are in the best place you could be, at home, surrounded by who loves you! Perhaps it is time to transform your house into a wonderful place to stay, a place of peace and not of war, of embrace and not of distance.
Anyway, look with different eyes at the situation you are experiencing!!
Make your house a party: Listen to music, sing, dance……
Make your house a place of worship
Pray, pray, meditate, ask, thank, praise, plead …
Make your home a school: Read, write, draw, paint, study, learn, teach …
Make your house a store: Clean, order, organize, decorate, label, move, sell, donate …
Make your house a restaurant: cook, eat, try, create recipes, grow spices, plant a garden …
Exercise and be fit as it is said in the Bible 1 Corinthians 6-19: your body is a temple.
Take care of yourself … Anyway …
Make your house, your family, a place of love.” Make the best possible use of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The pope’s message is something to reflect on in this time of Covid when fear of the delta variant is in our midst with a new lockdown in order. Many are desperate, especially the millenials, but for us born before, during and after the war, this is not new. Staying at home is normal to us.
Those were the times when we didn’t have electricity 24/7. Electric power was only to give us illumination and enough power for the radio. It was 6 to 6 service. No gadgets for us. No refrigerator and no electric iron. We had to make charcoal if there was not enough from the landahan. For the young of today, wala gyud na cla makahibawo unsa ang landahan. Ug daghan ang lugi, ilanda na lang aron ma-uga kay dli na madala ug buwad sa adlaw.
We did not have water system in our time. Most houses had water tanks for drinking water. But for summer months, we had to do what we call as the sag-ub in the Artesian wells nearby. We had to launder our school uniforms on Saturdays and had these starched using almerol. Our school uniform which was made of the fabric called Indian head or Oxford, had to last for the next younger siblings. On Saturdays, we would converge at the Baliaut Spring or at Umbay if there was not enough space in Baliaut. That was the Saturday scene. Saturday mornings were spent for household chores.
We also had our chores in our garden. We had to trim our bermuda grass to let it look prim and well groomed. Our flowers were victory, kalachuchi and the white santan. The old variety has a sweet scent, and I still have that in my garden. I got it from Nang Loring’s garden. Nang Loreng at her age still maintains her beautiful garden.
Going to restaurants was not a habit for us. It was only on special occasions that we pampered ourselves going to the restaurants. The popular restos then were: High Time, Green Spot, Cliff Top, and New Life Café. Those were our College days. An alternative was the favorite mongos/halo-halo right there at Nang Sepa’s or Paz’ store inside the public market in Tagbilaran.
We were always homebound. At 6 o’clock in the evening, we had to be already in the house for the oracion. Pagbagting sa simbahan pagka a las 6 sa sayong kagabhion, kinahanglan tua na gyud mi sa balay. Families had to be together in prayer and at dinnertime.
We had no television sets and we spent our time in the evening playing ssungka or checker or listening to music while doing our crochet or our school assignment.
We still had time on Saturdays to gather lukay or bukong para ihaling. We didn’t have any gas or electric stove, but we were not stressed.
In the sunset years of our lives, NOW, everything we did in our young days, has become part of the treasured memories that nourish our spirit to sustain a lifetime.
The message of Pope Francis has given me an avenue to visit our younger days before amidst these uncertain times. I surely miss those days.