By Alfredo Gonzales Jr.
BY MY WIFE’S ancestral home flows a river. For a dozen summers I have visited
it, and almost every year I make an effort to trace its course back to its
source in the neighboring hills; I do not consider my vacation there complete
without doing this. In common with other streams of its kind, our river suffers
much from the summer drought. I have seen it so shrunken that fish lay lifeless
on the parched sand and gravel of its bed. But this past summer I saw something
I had never seen before, though I know that if I had been sufficiently
observant in other abnormally dry years, I am sure I could not have failed to
notice the same thing earlier.
One morning last April, in company with a student friend and my elder son, I
started out for the hill to spend the day by the rapids and cascades at a place
called Intongasan. We followed the course of the river. After we had walked a
kilometer or more, I saw that the river had disappeared and its bed was dry. I
looked around in wonder because past our little country house below and out
toward the sea half a mile or so farther down, the river was flowing clear and
steady in its usual summer volume and depth. But where we stood at the moment
there was no water to be seen. All about us the wide river bed was hot and dry.
We pursued our way on toward the hills, however, and walking another kilometer
we saw the stream again, though it had spread itself so thin that it was lost
at the edge of the waterless stretch of burning sand and stones. And yet,
continuing our way into the hills, we found the river grow deeper and stronger
than it was as it passed by our cottage.
To most people, I suppose, there is nothing strange or significant in this.
Perhaps they have seen such a phenomenon more than once before. To me, however,
it was a new experience and it impressed me like all new experiences. To me, it
was not merely strange, it suggested a spiritual truth.
Flowing down from its cradle in the mountains just as it left the last
foothills, the river had been checked by the long, forbidding stretch of
scorching sand. I had read of other streams that upon encountering similar
obstacles irretrievably lost themselves in sand or mud. But Bacong-because that
is the name of our river-determined to reach the sea, tunneled its way, so to
speak, under its sandy bed, of course choosing the harder and lower stratum
beneath, until at last it appeared again, limpid and steady in its march to
sea.
And then I thought of human life. I was reminded of many a life that stopped
short of its great end just because it lacked the power of will to push through
hindrances.
But I thought most of all of those who, like our river, met with almost
insurmountable obstacles but undismayed continued their march, buried in
obscurity perhaps but resolutely pushing their way to the sea, to their life’s
goal. I thought of men like Galileo, who continued his work long after his
sight had failed; of Beethoven, who composed his noblest and sublimest
symphonies when he could no longer hear a single note; of Stevenson, who
produced some of his greatest work after he was doomed to die of tuberculosis;
and of Cecil Rhodes, who was sent to Africa to die of an incurable disease, but
before he obeyed the summons carved out an Empire in the Dark Continent. These
resolute and sublime souls all reminded me of what our river taught me-that if
we cannot overcome obstacles, we can undercome them.
Another lesson I learned from Bacong is found in the fact that the river was
not merely determined to flow just anywhere; it was determined to reach the
sea, to reach the great end. Many streams manage to surmount barriers they meet
along the way, but they come out of obstacles after much labor only to end in a
foul and stagnant marsh or lake. How like so many human lives! How like so many
people who, in the springtime of their youth and in the summer of their early
manhood, showed splendid heroism against frowning odds, determined to overcome
those hostile barriers, only in the autumn of their lives to end in defeat,
disgrace, and remorse.
On the other hand, think of other lives that, like our river, kept their way
even to the end of their course.
I believe it was on our way back from the hills that the lesson of faithfulness
in the performance of one’s duty was forcefully suggested to me. The truth
occurred to me that nature often fulfills her duty more faithfully than man
does his.
And what is the duty of a river? It is to furnish safe running water for plant
and fish and fowl and for man and beast. The river is not there just to flow on
and enjoy itself. The river must play its part in the processes of nature; to
live, in other words, for the rest of creation.
And so it should be with the life of man. It is not to be lived unto itself
alone for its own joy and satisfaction but for others in glad and devoted
ministry. How life and beauty and goodness, indeed, would perish from the world
if man and nature should fail in their duty! If our river had not remained
faithful to its duty, instead of a landscape picturesque with the varied green
of the foliage of shrubs and trees and gay with the voices of the birds singing
and calling to one another in the branches that April morning, there would have
been spread before us a wide expanse of desolate and lifeless land, fit only
for the wanderings of Cain.
For part of the ministering duty of a river is to flow on and on, otherwise be
foul and unfit for use. There is music in running water. Bacong, by continuing
its march to the sea, kept itself fit for the service of nature and man; and
not only it expanded its field of usefulness.
And does this not suggest that the river of man’s life should be likewise? For
if in the face of obstacles it lacks the strength of will to continue keeping
itself fit to serve and seeking new opportunities for service, it will
ultimately become useless to others.
15
As I marveled at the power of Bacong to push its way through such a seemingly
impassable barrier, I discerned the secret-a secret that has a message for all
of us. For Bacong was able to carry on, to continue its watery pilgrimage and
reach the immensity and sublimity of the sea, only because its source is the
vast and lofty mountains. Unless a stream draws its power from a source of
sufficient height and magnitude, it cannot do as our river did this summer. It
will not have the strength to cut its way through great obstacles and reach the
sea at last. Here is one of the marvelous secrets of life, and how many have
missed it! Verily, if a man derives his strength and inspiration from a low and
feeble source, he will fail to “arrive.” Unless a man draw his power from some
source of heavenly altitude, unless the stream of his life issues from a
never-failing source, unless, in other words, his soul is fed from heights of
infinite power, he may well fear that he will not reach the sea. But if his
spirit is impelled and nourished by an inexhaustible power he will in spite of
all obstructions, finish his course, if not in the glory of dazzling achievement,
at least in the nobility of a completed task faithfully done.
