The inner net
DISMAYING, dispiriting, heartbreaking. Those are the feelings I get when I scan the news and the latest socialmedia buzz nowadays.
In a span of one week, hundreds have succumbed to the treacherous pandemic. In one tweet, someone revealed that Covid-19 has wiped out his entire close-in family. Many who have been active on the Internet have recently become suddenly silent. People are dying because the health system is overwhelmed and cannot help them anymore.
On social media, I encounter this: “Times like these, I really wish I had a partner to help bear the burden of bad news. But I will try to face this alone. But some days are harder than others.” It’s not a lone voice. Similar cries of anguish from the depths are growing louder every day.
Superficial and trope expressions of condolences and empathy won’t cut it anymore. To respond fully and meaningfully to the increasing volume of emotional anguish and mental torture, we need to dig deeper into ourselves.
While the Internet has given us the ability to be connected instantly with one another, I am beginning to realize that what the world needs now is an inner connection, inner communion of hearts, an inner network of sharing and exchange that is beneath the toxic trashy surface of the cacophony and discordancy on the Internet.
As I see it, there is the need to tap the stream flowing within each of us. Our spirits need to drink deeply from this stream. We thirst for a reason or a meaning to all this. Otherwise, we would tip over, in danger of losing our sanity or the wavering of our fragile faith. Our core being must hold.
But there is hope yet
IN the maelstrom of the sweeping pandemic when many Filipinos don’t have the means to feed themselves and their families, a powerful idea of a community pantry has emerged. The guiding message on the carton board is simple enough: The idea has caught on and similar community pantries have sprouted all over the Metro and even in other provinces.
The intriguing thing about it is that stocks of supplies keep being replenished. Donors come from all walks of life. Rich people, poor people. Farmers are donating root crops, tricycle drivers are providing sacks of rice. Fishermen are bringing in their catch. The small bamboo cart has become the giving tree, or the miracle of five loaves and fish.
While there are doubts that it will be sustainable for the long term (in fact some are vigorously opposing it), this initiative has at least brought out the fact that people in communities are uniting to help each other. Something deep inside has been stirred.
Our instinct to help people, to offer what we have to those who are hungry and who lack the bare necessities of life, the desire to contribute to this pantry, they all make our inner values as human beings come to the fore. Our underground spring of human goodness is flowing. As the poet says: “Oh, we are connected, we forget this, yet we always knew.”
But beyond the physical hunger that we must address, there is also a need to offer the bread of comfort and compassion and minister to those who are grieving or have been emotionally wrecked by this pandemic.
Perhaps now is the time to build an inner connectivity, an inner network.
How do we start?
LET us bring our discussions and exchanges on a deeper level. Let us tone down the noise that serves to divide us. Let us use social media to be the channel of conveying genuine compassion and inspiring hope. Let us reach out. Sometimes connection is a heart-to-heart, spill-itall-out talk. But sometimes it’s just a laugh-out-loud e-mail.
Talk with others who share similar interests or spiritual beliefs and learn from each other. Share inspiring stories or essays that can be life enriching.
If there is now a Bayanihan Ekonsulta where one can talk to a doctor about medical matters related to Covid-19, as well as other ailments, why not a similar e-consultation for needs related to the health of the mind and the spirit.
Right now, people crave feeling supported, valued and connected. This envisioned facility would be like a support group where you have people who can empathize with how you are feeling, a reminder that you’re not alone, inspiration from seeing others coping with the situation like you, or simply hearing someone’s voice and seeing the look on a person’s face can really deepen connection.
Someone should start a virtual wall remembrance containing the names of those who have died from this pandemic. This will ensure that they will not just remain as numbers but names of people we have walked with, talked with, ate with, laughed with. It will serve as a space for remembering, pouring out our grief, memorializing parents, friends, relatives, workmates and others dear to us. A place of inner connectivity to others.
If we have a community pantry for food supplies for our hungry neighbors, why can’t we have a hundred virtual community pantries on the Internet for those who hunger for mental and spiritual nourishment?
It would be like a source of a flowing stream of spiritual nourishment that is freely and openly available to those who want to tap it. Or like a bank filled with deposited nuggets of wisdom, excerpts from books, musical pieces, quotations, images and other enriching tidbits, with people giving freely and people freely taking.
Indeed, the time calls us to build an “inner net” that is vastly different from the shallow channel for vain
PIEDAD and empty chatter that we know.
From one single candle, thousands of candles can be lit, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. As one great master once said: Compassion, like happiness, never decreases by being shared.