WHEN the sun starts setting and the birds come flying home to the trees, one notices the end of another day. Tired employees look forward to going home to get a well deserved rest.
Some people though often wonder how to get through another night. Those who are suffering certain ailments know that when darkness sets in and silence reigns, the pains become more noticeable.
The physical pains may be cured in due time. But it is people with troubled hearts and minds who also toss and turn in bed.
We do not envy the spokespersons of both President Duterte and President-elect Trump. Both presidents are vocal and often speak their minds immediately. It must be difficult to try to outguess what comes next.
The Marcos burial has caused a tremendous upheaval for those who remember the Edsa revolution when brave people made “kapit bisig” (joined arms) to face tanks without moving from their ranks. Adults, students and parents who lost their sons, their brothers, their sisters and their husbands cannot imagine why it has come to this.
Sleep will not come easily even for the justices of the Supreme Court. We are fed rhetorics and rationalizations but the Filipino has attained a maturity. Our millennials are the ones now on the streets.
In Cebu City alone, this landfill at Inayawan shows how difficult it is for fellow Cebuanos living in that area. Can they sleep at night? What about our quarreling leaders whose pride supersedes service to the constituents of Cebu? Pride or ego is not a friend of sleep.
When our conscience catches up with us, sleep goes far away. We know that by capitulating so easily to please the powers that be, somehow, we lose a part of ourselves in the process.
Being able to sleep at will is really a gift. For souls who are troubled by guilt, by shame, by unsolved problems, they will have to go into introspection.
Patients in and out of hospitals know very well how it is to feel excruciating pain at night. The good news is that there is hope for God’s mercy and compassion. There is also hope for God’s mercy for those who after a serious look at the mirror can still say, “This is not me at all. I am a better man than this.”
May all of us be blessed with heavenly grace and peace as we turn our minds and hearts to what is real. May sleep come easy to all of us.
