“In my beginning is my end,” so goes the first line of T.S. Eliot’s East Coker, the second part of his Four Quartets.“In my end is my beginning.” You’re right: this is the last line of the same piece.
It’s the poem that comes to mind as I listen to and contemplate Jesus’ words in this concluding phase of the Easter season while we await the celebration of Pentecost.
Jesus says to his disciples: “I come from the Father and now I go back to him…” – my beginning is my end.
But it is not actually the “end”. Jesus assures his disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled... And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always…I will not leave you orphans." (see John 14).
The circle of life, human and eternal, continues. There is nothing to fear. Jesus has preceded us in all experiences, up to the limit experience of death.
When I arrived here in Manila, Philippines almost three weeks ago, the main news circulating was the end of the world prophesied to take place last May 21. Thank God, we are all still here. In fact, the “miscalculation of the world’s end” is out of circulation now.
What is in? The beginning of school year. It is expected that 12 million students in primary, secondary and tertiary levels will be out in the streets today, June 6. See this news page presenting the readiness of the public authorities to face the challenge.
In line with this, there is also the additional urgency of the implementation of the mandatory kindergarten education in public schools this time, hence the pressure faced by the Department of Education to employ thousands of kindergarten teachers.
So life is indeed buzzling, at least in this part of the world. And it’s good news enough to know that despite the poverty that continues to plague the country, there is always the attempt to hope and work for a better future by a long-term strategy called education. It consoles me to know that so many scholarships both at the public and private sphere are being offered to poor but deserving youth.
Endings and beginnings both in the Church’s liturgical season and the Philippine society’s civil calendar harmoniously blend. I would like to believe that this too is a sign of the Spirit’s creativity at work in our lives and our society.
