Our daily orchestrating task

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

I believe this is what many of us are fast realizing these days. With the multiplying things we have to attend to each day, we are pressured to learn how to orchestrate them if only to come out at the end of the day with some meaningful accomplishment and with a great sense of consistency despite the different tasks involved.

Yes, we have to learn when to move fast and when to move slow, when to be active and when to be contemplative, how to distinguish between the essential and the incidental. We have to sharpen our sense of order and priority, especially because very often we would be faced with competing priorities.

Besides, we have to know how to combine the intellectual and the physical aspects of our work, the old and the new, the traditional and the innovative. We have to know how to blend our duties at home with our responsibilities at work. We have to be ready to cope with our usual daily routine and the occasional surprises that come our way.

That task of orchestrating all these things has become an urgent necessity indeed. And it is understandable that we be tempted to be very practical about this concern and to meet its demands with simply practical means.

But I believe that being practical in all this would at best be only a temporary remedy. It cannot go the distance. What is absolutely necessary to properly tackle the challenge is to root ourselves on God. He is the source and goal of unity among the endless diversity and variety we find in our life.

God is the one who can show us the proper priorities among the many concerns and tasks we have. After all, he is the creator of the whole universe and as such, is the original and supreme lawgiver, the establisher of the proper order in the world.

In Christ, the God made man to give us “the way, the truth and the life,” we are given the way of how to orchestrate the many tasks and the diverse concerns we have everyday. In Christ, we are given how to orchestrate things in the context of our fallen nature, our wounded condition that is in need of healing and redemption.

We cannot deny that this delicate task of orchestrating the many things in our day, some of them competing or even conflicting with each other, has to contend with our weaknesses and the many temptations around, plus the many sinful structures already embedded in our systems and culture.

It’s only with Christ that we can orchestrate the many confusing things without getting lost along the way. Only with Christ can we learn how to orchestrate things properly in the midst of the many evils in the world, teaching us when to tolerate certain evils and when not, and most importantly, how to suffer and to derive something good from the consequences of all the sins in the world that we cannot avoid.

Yes, it is only when we get vitally identified with Christ that we can achieve a certain unity and consistency of life amid the many variables that condition us. Only with Christ can we truly achieve our proper ultimate end even as we immerse with the changing circumstances of our life.

In this regard, we cannot overemphasize the need for a certain plan that would put us always in God’s presence, at least, as we go through all the tasks and concerns of our day. There is definitely the need to spend some time in prayer and meditation if only to develop a certain intimacy with Christ that hopefully would last the whole day.

We need to develop the attitude of constantly looking for Christ in everything that we do, with the hope of finding him. And in finding him let’s hope that we can be moved to love and serve him.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com