Goodbye

I am packing my things. I am going somewhere.  I pull out some photos of me with my students and I start to feel sentimental. My students gave these photos as their remembrance. One photo I longer gaze.  I was at the middle seated with my usual teacher smile, and my students were doing wacky pose, with their costumes in Iliad and Odyssey characters. I am beginning to feel sad. This would be the hardest leaving I have in my life. I am leaving teaching literature, reading amateur essays of students, entering not so ventilated classrooms, and computing grades during the weary hours of midnight.  I am going somewhere which I think greater than being a teacher in a state university.

Not that I was not happy in teaching literature. God knew I enjoyed this job. There was somehow a joy in me when I teach Robert Frost’s Stopping by the Woods in Snowy Evening. I sensed my students were attentively silent when I discussed the poem with them. I knew they were disturbed when I explored the line, “the darkest evening of the year.” Their eyes spoke of their own experience of “darkest evening.” They had not named it, but I knew they had experienced this “darkest evening” somewhere, somehow. I found joy, when I saw few of them trying to hold their tears. Perhaps, Robert Frost touched them.

Not that I was not happy teaching William Blake’s The Sick Rose. My students were in awed when I declared in class that there was something sexual in this poem.  “How come? Sir, the poem only says about a persona addressing a sick rose,” many reacted. Then I said, “As a literature student, you have to learn reading between the lines.” Again, they ardently read the poem. Eureka, someone got the sexual theme. I found joy in tickling their intelligences.

I did love introducing the character of Richard Cory created by Edward Arlington Robinson. They were bothered with the irony of his character. Why Richard Cory, gifted with everything in this world, would pull a trigger on his head one summer night? Can Richard Cory represent the people in this world who have everything in life yet could not find true happiness and meaning?

There was always an excitement in me to see my students preparing their costumes for their performance in Iliad and Odyssey. I usually asked my students to dramatize some scenes in Homer’s great epic. It was always good to tap the creativity of the students which I believe, most of them lack. Many of the group would choose to role play the scene when Paris has to choose which apples among the three goddesses to eat. In this scene, the character of Paris is teaching the modern man to give importance in making choices. I knew these characters written thousand years ago are somehow connected to the very ordinary lives of my students. Besides, it was good to see that these characters are brought to life in the classroom.  

However, I was leaving Robert Frost, William Blake, Edward Arlington Robinson and Homer because I was responding to a small still call.  I heard this call every time my students write their essay in the classroom. While waiting for them to submit their essay, in silence, I happened to stare at the window of our classroom located at the fifth floor of the building. I glimpsed of the vast on-going constructions in the city. I felt a wider realty, bigger than the classroom I was in. Because of that window, a voice was calling me to reconsider my first choice before I became a literature teacher. The voice was inviting me to look back to the life I left, to the place I considered my first home.

The seminary.

I am packing my things because I am going back to the seminary- that somewhere greater than teaching literature.

Before teaching, I was in the seminary for eight years. I went out because I feel a sense of longings. There was a desire to experience life outside the four walls of the seminary.  That time there was a desire to have job, to earn money and to buy things I want. There was a desire to be independent like the ordinary young adult. There was a longing to experience some sort of  “freedom.”

Moreover, I saw the emerging shadows of priesthood. Seeing these other realities, I was afraid to continue. First, I was afraid to grow old lonely. Priests are basically alone in their lives. I did ask myself if I can bear the nights not having someone to embrace. Second, priests were attack by scandals, and many faithful lost their trust on these men. I did ask myself if I am still willing to give myself to priesthood wherein people whose trust are fading. Third, the relevance of priesthood lost its luster. In this time where everything could be explained by science and technology, entering religious life is considered corny. It explains why there are convents and seminaries around the world being close because no one dares to enter. Priesthood is less attractive to young people today. I did ask myself the relevance of priesthood. With this emerging other realities of priesthood, I needed to discern deeply whether I am willing to pay the price. Hence, I decided to stop for a while and do some serious thinking.

 But God did not give up on calling me. I realized that I was so wrong on leaving the seminary four years ago.  Literature helped me realize this. Literature led me to reconsider priesthood as an option. I was like Paris, in Homer’s Iliad, who was enlightened on whose apples I was willing to eat from the goddesses. And I chose priesthood.  With faith, I was taking this road less traveled.

Furthermore, literature amplified my ear on the gentle, still and small voice of God. I learned, in literature, that life is full of ironies. In trying to claim my independence, being full of myself, I realized that I became empty. Richard Cory taught me that happiness is not about having everything in this world. There is more to life than possessing material things. I also learned that being alone does not mean being lonely. Real freedom does not mean doing what I want. It is in weakness that I become strong. These ironies, which I encountered in the stories in literature, were my epiphanies.  

Perhaps, the stories I discussed in classroom touched my very heart and led me to listen to the stirrings of my heart- the very true voice of my heart, the very voice of God. I did remember then Robert Frost who says, “ I have promises to keep/and miles to go before I sleep/ And miles before I go to sleep.” I do remember then my promises to God before. I have to go back and fulfill that promise to God, that promise when I was still an innocent young altar boy in our ordinary parish.  

Now, I am packing my things to fulfill my promise before.  Honest, I am experiencing some self doubt. I am not really certain about this packing. What if the call is just an illusion? What if this is another form of escape?  Fear grips me. However, the voice is inviting me to do a leap of faith. That is why this leaving is the hardest.  What I am certain about is that I heard a call to go beyond teaching literature and I will try to respond to that call. I am also assured that a voice is telling me, “ Do not be afraid, I am with you.” I know that voice come from that Someone who loves me truly, that Someone who woos me through the years, that Someone who invites me to forget myself and follow him. I am called by that Someone who died on the cross and asked me to do the same. It is in this dying I will find my eternal life, he assures me.

For now, I will be keeping these photos with me. These are good for my journey. These photos are my remembrance of a cherished life as literature teacher, which help me find my place in the greater scheme of things.

 I am writing this to say sorry to you, my students,  for not informing you about this goodbye. Now, you know where I am. Thanks for the memories. And remember one time I said in class, “there is more to life.”