Homo, quo vadis?

Culture can be defined as all the ways of life, including the arts, beliefs, and institutions of a population, that are passed down from generation to generation. Culture has been called “the way of life for an entire society.” As such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, and art.

Living in the Philippines for almost 25 years now, I have learned a lot about Philippine culture.

Driving in big cities is not a joke for beginners. It’s an ordeal, especially during heavy traffic hours. One must know where to go and which way to take. Otherwise, one will end up bumping into something somewhere.

But driving a car in a small village, where roads are simple, can be enjoyable for neophytes. No traffic, or less traffic, no traffic lights, no complicated routes.

In the same way, railroads can make train drivers ill at ease when they are also in big cities. I remember Munich, in my home country of Germany, where railways appear like spider’s cobwebs. They go in several directions. No wonder accidents happen often.

In life, we, too, have roads that lead us in several directions. To go to heaven, man’s eternal destiny, one can either choose the shortest road or make detours. Not so many, perhaps, fall by the wayside and end up in eternal damnation.

There are some of us Christians who take the shortcut road to heaven. This is the road of suffering, of the actual practice of Christian virtues, of serving God and our neighbor. Others take the circuitous road of an easy life, thinking that, in the end, they still have time to amend themselves and lead a good life. This is risky since no one can guarantee that an opportunity will be given at the eleventh hour. Unfortunately, there are still others who prefer to take that opposite road, which leads to eternal damnation. So they live, so they die! In John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” we read, “Then I saw that there was a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven!”

Homo, quo vadis?