Bebs, Rolly, others, the crazy little things, and I

(Clinical Pastoral Education CPE is a program which trains us to be chaplains in a hospital. We visit some patients and engage in a conversation with them. As we talked to the patients, we have also encountered our own wounds. We become aware of these wounds during the processing. Being aware of the wounds is a step for us to appreciate the gift of our humanity.)

One of my favorite routines in CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) program was when I ran from the steep pavement downhill towards the Carmelites gate. I did this every after I was on my way back from our hospital exposure to the seminary. Usually, I ran when the sun was about to set, workers were seen in streets calling for motorela to bring them home, children were playing at the streetside and tambays were sitting and chatting aimlessly outside the sari-sari stores. I know I was bringing with me the exhaustion from facing poor patients in the hospital where I was assigned that day. Yet, I still decided to run every time I reached this steep part of the seminary hill. I find it enjoyable to run. And it was more fun because I was running with Rolly and Bebs.

They were my companions in this hospital exposure.  We decided to run because we simply miss playing basketball. For three weeks on this CPE program, we had not moved our muscles and had not produced some sweat. We are deprived of exercise. Thus, it was a need to run from downhill towards Carmelite gate. We needed to force our legs to run on a steep pavement and to exhaust ourselves all the more. When we reached at the Carmelite gate, we stopped to catch our breath.  We, then, laughed at ourselves, with enough sweat produced for the day, enough for our uniforms to wet.

“Crayzzziiii”, Rolly called it.

There was a time, because of the exhaustion; we sat idly in a bench located in a corridor of the hospital. People from all walks of life were passing by. We imagined a story about their lives when they passed by. We enjoyed creating stories of these nurses, patients, doctors, and attendants.  Then, one office staff approached us and said, “Bros. naka adto namo sa Nurse station.” “Wala pa,” we said. “Didto nalang mo stay,” she said. “Diri nalang mi. Maulaw man mi didto sa mga nurse,” I insisted. “Naa man jud CCTV camera dinhi mga bros. Nakita mo nga nagtambay hapit na usa ka oras. Gitawagan mi sa office nga kinsa daw mo. Dawbi mahalaan mo nga kawatan?” She said. We felt ashamed. We could not help but walked out and laughed at ourselves. “Ing-ani nalang jud ning tong mga nawong, kawatan?.” We told ourselves.  Perhaps, the staff reminded us that we needed to continue our work as Chaplains, not to be lazy.

We call these moments as crazy little things. These are the little moments in our hospital exposure when we loosened up from tiredness.  These little moments are reminders from God not to take life seriously. These are the little moments we shared together as, simply, brothers.

Then, a realization dawned on me. CPE is not about the issues that emerged during the processing. It is not about the verbatim we wrote in a quite night. It is not about the patients we encountered in the hospitals. I believe, CPE is all about building and deepening friendships.

And friendships were nourished by these little crazy things we do together during the CPE program. We would always remember the time we laid down in the pews of the oven-like Chapel of the hospital just to have our siesta. We would always remember upon going downhill to that steep pavement,  we executed some winning steps in our Cheerdance. We would remember the time we dropped by in Cogon and bought three Balut each. We would remember the laughter of our CPE facilitator, Sr. Mercia- the laughter of that little girl when she was teased romantically with all the formators in the seminary. Despite the heaviness, we could afford to sing How did you know, Pare ko, My love will see you through every after sessions. We would remember that karenderia across the hospital and ordered our favorite viand for lunch: “Atay with egg” or Rolly called it “egg with atay.” We would remember the tong-its and scrabble played during the nights when we were not required to submit verbatim the day after. We could still afford to feed Mingkay with her children, the cat and our pet in the building. Thanks to Boy Bawang and Corniks because it lessened the tension inside the room of Fr. Raul. We would remember the nurse and some staff in the hospital who said, “mura mog mamaligyaay sa yakult ug bouncer sa bar mga bros sa inyo uniform.” We would remember walking under the rain using Fr. Raul’s big umbrellas. We would remember the quiet nights when we made our verbatims inside our rooms. The silence meant, “Do not disturb us. Our verbatim is sacred.”  When we heard Fr. Raul’s printer sounds, some of us were pressured: it meant somebody finished his verbatim. We would remember reading together the news paper, the only connection we have in the bigger world.

These were the little moments that, for sure, we would remember the most in our CPE experience.  We might forget those patients we encounter.  We might forget the issues we brought during the processing. We might forget the pain caused by the processing. But for sure these crazy little things will be talked about when we come back here in Vianney to attend the alumni homecoming.

It boils down to relationship, after all.