It takes a village to raise a child. I grew up in what was then the small town of Angeles. And now that I am advanced in years, I keep bumping into people from those days. Somehow, they are still a part of me and I have vivid memories of me growing up with them. Even more amazing is how the threads of our lives seem to be coming back together and being braided anew in a new twine of yet another story.
People have come and gone in my life. Some have gone and some remained. I have shared moments with all of them. Some moments were of utter joy and some of poignant sadness. Some have taught me and some I have taught. But the memories of our encounter are forever part of me, somehow etched into my DNA. And across time and space, I have been weaving threads and tapestries with all the people I have met. The yarns and fibers have not been a jumbled ball of strings. Somehow, even in the muddled hodgepodge of daily living, the threads may sometimes get all tangled up and yet in the end they get interwoven and intertwined into a trusty rope or a beautiful tapestry.
All life eventually converges into something meaningful and beautiful, even if it does not seem so as it daily unfolds. The great Teilhard de Chardin saw the grand unfolding and evolution of the universe as the ultimate convergence of all creation into Christogenesis. First, the universe came to be – cosmogenesis. Then, life appeared – biogenesis. Then, man came to be – anthropogenesis. Then, intelligence emerged – noogenesis. And on to Christogenesis – the convergence of all creation in Christ.
I will praise the name of God in song, and I will glorify him with thanksgiving. Psalm 69
Herod the tetrarch heard of the reputation of Jesus
and said to his servants, “This man is John the Baptist.
He has been raised from the dead;
that is why mighty powers are at work in him.”
Now Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison
on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip,
for John had said to him,
“It is not lawful for you to have her.”
Matthew 14:1-4