By Crystal Anne J. Francisco
It was July in Seoul, mid-Korean monsoon. Seoul was hilly, or maybe I was just used to the flatness of Manila. It was raining HARD. And by hard, I mean the streets were flooded by a good two or three inches (albeit unlike Manila, where you run the risk of leptospirosis; in Seoul, the flood waters were clear). Water rushed down the hill of Chung-Ang University, where our debate competition was being held, and the rain just would not let up. It was eight o’clock in the morning, and already, my flimsy sandal had broken, the glue holding it together having long melted away from having been soaked in the flood. My umbrella had overturned. I was soaked. And we still had a debate competition to get to.
I had one teammate with me; the rest were already inside, having taken a different taxi to the university. At that point, all we could think about was getting inside the university. At that point, it was useless to think about how we looked or where we were going to get dry clothes. We just had to arrive at the auditorium in fifteen minutes, before the first round. And so, we ran across the campus of Chung-Ang University. Barefoot. Wet. In the middle of a Korean monsoon.
After we had run for a good five minutes, two Korean women, both under one umbrella, stepped out of a building and stopped us in our tracks. Our instinct was to apologize. We didn’t know if we were allowed to run around campus, or if we had done something illegal like jaywalking. We didn’t understand any of the signs, nor were we familiar with the campus. “Sorry, sorry. We didn’t know. Sorry. We have a competition to get to.” The ladies shook their heads. One of them reached into her big shopping bag and pulled out… an umbrella. She shoved the umbrella in my arms. My eyes went wide. For us? But they didn’t know us. And they couldn’t share one umbrella with their huge shopping bags in tow! I knew because my teammate and I had just tried that a few minutes ago, and look where it had gotten us. We told her, “We won’t ever see you again. We can’t give this back.” They shook their heads. The lady who had given us her umbrella patted our shoulders as if to say, “It’s okay. You can have it.” And without any other word, they walked away, down the hilly Chung-Ang University, trying desperately to fit themselves under one umbrella, which would not have happened had they each still had their own.
My teammate and I stared at the umbrella for a few seconds before remembering to open it. We walked quietly the rest of the way to the auditorium.
I’ve thought about this memory many times over the past few years. These women had not known us from Eve, and they would never see us again. I know, I know. It was just an umbrella. It was an easy thing to give up. But to take the time to step out into the rain and offer their umbrella to people they didn’t know, to have the heart to assure them that it would be alright, and to walk away from them without any expectation… these were lessons I had to learn.
Catholic Social Teaching emphasizes the importance of community, and of giving ourselves up for the common good so that all may rise together. In Matthew 22:35-40, the scribes asked Jesus for his counsel. “Then one of them, who was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Because each of us is made in the image and likeness of God, to love our neighbor is to love God. As such, it is our duty to lift the needy, the vulnerable, and the weak in the best way we can.
A few years after our debate competition in Korea, I was caught in a storm in Bonifacio Global City. Thankfully though, after my experience in Seoul, I had developed the habit of bringing an umbrella. I had bought a sturdy but compact one that I keep in my bag. It just so happened that on that day, I had bought toiletries and had received a free umbrella in return. Thus, I had two umbrellas with me. As I was waiting to get fetched, I noticed to my right a family with about four senior citizens. They had parked their car in a parking building, but could not cross the street to get to it because of the heavy rain.
The family, especially the older members, were visibly tired from walking around. They had one umbrella among themselves. In a heartbeat, I gave them my other umbrella. They looked at me funny and told me the same thing my teammate and I had told the women in Seoul: “We’re never going to see you again. How are we giving this back?” “You can have it,” I told them. “Don’t worry about it.” They thanked me and went on their way. A security guard who had seen the exchange asked me why I had been so willing to give my umbrella to people I did not know. I told him that once upon a time, somebody had done the same thing for me.
We have been called to serve others because, in helping others, we are able to give our best to God. One of my favorite songs is entitled “Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy.” The story behind the song is as follows:
In the olden days, sailors used the stars to navigate their way through the seas at night. They called the stars the Upper Lights, gifts from God. The lights along the shore, especially those from lighthouses, they called the Lower Lights. One stormy night, a ship that had sailed in rough weather was finally close to port and about to enter the channel. But because the sailors could not see the stars, they searched for the light from the lighthouse to guide them in entering the channel. But they could not see the light from the lighthouse and missed the channel because the lighthouse keeper had forgotten to keep the light burning. The ship sailed on for some more weeks in rough seas before it was able to return to shore.
The lesson of the story is this: God gives us the Upper Lights to guide our way. But we as Lower Lights must burn so that we may help guide the way of others.
Crystal Anne J. Francisco is an MBA student of De La Salle University. She posted this reflection on her blog as part of the requirements for her subject, Lasallian Business Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Social Responsibility.
crystal_anne_francisco@dlsu.edu.ph