Whilst browsing through our university's Rizal Library two mornings ago, I chanced upon Scott Cairns' poetry in a collection he has published as Philokalia. Amidst his many delighful poems, I providentially found this.

Promise
Someone is to come, is now to come.
-- Derrida

"When the Messiah comes," we mumbled as we pore
over our knotted and confused translation. Should
we listen we may hear with a blush that begins
in the breast and rises, and seems even to reach
the responsive leaves of the fringe tree overhead.

The responsive leaves of the fringe tree overhead
fly back as if breathed upon, but that is surely due
to the first gust of the gathering storm approaching,
so we are not inclined to make much more of their
quick flight than that, though we many wince under the new

compunction--the common failure to make more. How
often and how clearly must we say these words
before we finally hear them, and their weight reveals
what mute hope they must have harbored all along,
and without our notice, which we only now set down?

These lines speak to me, especially as I teach a class in Philosophy of Religion at our Jesuit university here, the Ateneo de Manila. Together with my students, a key strand I explore in class is the continuing relevance of God and religion for the human person in our present postmodern culture. The more I read as I prepare for class, the more I work on the curriculum and lecture notes and the more my students, people of today's world, share, the more I'm beginning to appreciate that postmodern thought--several elements of it, thank heavens--can indeed offer us ways for a realistic and meaningful encounter with God as God really is, Totally and Wholly Other, or, as Derrida describes, the tout autre.

This has led me to reconsider seriously the oft-maligned arguments that postmodernity is dangerous as it corrupts and erodes religious belief, a sentiment expressed in the line, "believers are safer the further they are from postmodernity." The irony is that we do live and move and have our being in this postmodern world. Should we then not try to appreciate its posible contributions towards strengthening our religious belief in God and making us better practioners of religion today?

Reading Cairns' poem, I detect a subtle message for those of us who are presently engaged in philosophical dialogue with postmodern thought as we seek out possibilities for humankind to continue thinking and speaking about, if not, also encountering, the Holy in our present reality. It is this: let us return to those misunderstood, if not silenced, texts of the masters of postmodernity and re-read them, once again, with openness and humility, for it is quite possible that even there, God speaks prophetically.

Last week was a moment of grace: Greg, my youngest brother, was in town for a few days on business. Amidst our busy schedules, we managed to spend some time together.

Like true-blue Singaporeans, we caught up over meals, each a communion where we shared family tales and news from home. In our sharing, we nourished each other's life. We also found time to partake in the things we do and the spaces we inhabit respectively: he joined our community at Arrupe for the Eucharist and supper on Thursday evening and I visited him at his workplace in Ortigas. Whether over pasta or pad thai, a walk through the leafy, verdant Ateneo campus to gaze upon the Marikina Valley at sunset or sitting in his room at The Peninsula talking, we shared in the palpable joy of being family again.

In all of these, we affirmed the bonds that make us brothers, make us family. Indeed, as Greg and I "kwento-ed" (Filipino for telling stories), laughed and pondered about the future during the brief time we had, I felt much gratitude not only for Greg but for all in the family, especially, as the distance and time apart since coming to Manila has not withered but strengthened our shared ties even more.

As I pen these lines, I’m reminded that being part of a family is truly blessing and gift. For some, however, the experience of being family is painful and terrifying, even worse, non-existent. But, I'd like to believe that there is always a moment or two--many more, for us fortunate ones--of much goodness, care and love, as there is the promise of happiness, especially when difficult times abound and disappointments deflate one’s spirit, when one is together with family.

I can’t help but attribute what we are as family today—so often both nuclear and extended in our particular circumstance—to so many who have come before me, from our great-grandparents to Mom and Dad to my aunts and uncles. They have all nurtured “family” as they religiously convened the family together for anything and everything, from great-grandma’s birthday celebrations to evening walks along the old Changi Beach, and thereafter for dinner at Millie’s to Christmas celebrations.

Today, the tradition continues. I hear about our family gathering for an impromptu meal at Ivin’s or a lazy, Sunday afternoon tea at my sister and her hubby’s. I’m regaled with the family’s amusement (and frustration too) of being stuck in terrific after watching the National Day fireworks at The Cricket Club and of the amazing discoveries of new eateries in Yishun and Jurong East that my brothers, the artist and the coporate VP, take Mom and my aunties to every now and then. Indeed, it is heartwarming and re-assuring to see my siblings keeping this good family practice alive.

Yes, it is always good to have family around.

As Jesuits, we can be sent wherever there is a need for God's work to be done. This is the reality of my saying "yes" to God. And though it is possible that I can be far from Singapore on mission as I am now, I will always call Singapore, home.

Home is where our families and friends inhabit a shared space where our own rituals define us, giving us meaning and identity. In this space, each one is free to be independent, to explore the myriad possibilities for our existence and to become the people we can become.

Those who came before us carved out of a little red dot that definitive space where we realize ourselves as Singaporean--one people, "regardless of race, language or religion," working together for our "happiness, prosperity and progress" as a nation. Today, so many of us--at home and abroad--continue this good work that God began.

Nation is home because this is where families and friendships are the bedrock on which we root ourselves as the persons and citizens we are. Nation as home is that tent in which we rest ourselves along life’s journey, as it is also that place of assurance we seek in the face of life's challenges. Nation as our home is nothing less than our natural habitat where we are loved and we love. No matter how strained relations may be or the global situation looks to descend into chaos, we can find in this space the necessary affirmation of our being human and Singaporean.

More signifcantly, however, the goodness we are blessed with as our nation and home cannot help but remind us that all things good and beautiful, even those that challenge and disturb us, that we have received in the fullness of our time as a nation, was enabled by more than finite, human hands and minds working together. All we have received is simply gift from the One who first gives in gratuitous love.

And so, within this space we call home, we can begin to relish the reality that Love abounds, nourishes and leads us forth into the future with hope.

Happy Birthday, Singapore!