A MANTRA FOR EVERY DESPERATION (Whispering Hope)

Nighttime, circa 1990s, Cubao at its most chaotic. At Araneta Center, by the jeepney stop, I was as usual scuffling to get a ride. It was drizzling and I had 10 kg of grocery I had to bring home, which, an hour into the wait, had begun to weigh like a ton of lead. I was starting to feel light in the head with hunger and heavy on the chest with anger. I was being beaten soundly to the climb by younger, more sprightly, more shove-savvy rivals, all desperately thinking of home and dinner.

Time to unleash my secret weapon.

Which is simply whispering:

“Oh, Holy Spirit, thou who makes me see everything and show me the way to reach my ideal ...”

Before I could say “amen,” a jeepney unloaded one -- just one -- passenger right by me, with the other desperadoes out of jostling distance. I didn’t even have to clamber up; I had the luxury to climb royally as though the seat had my name embossed on it.

I call it my “dyipni mantra” and it works like a charm.

I don’t always use this prayer ... only when I get desperate enough. I don’t like to bother the Holy S unnecessarily. And I have this OA scruple about having an unfair advantage over other people.

At the workplace, I am sometimes called an MVP ... Most Voluble Valuable Pahinante. I got that title for doing work in record time and doing it while fussing and fuming.

What they don’t know is that I get not a little help from the great father of all MVPs, my Most Venerated Partner and friend who is always within whispering distance. All I have to do is mumble:

“We’re in this together.”

When I get stuck or blocked writing, I simply tell my MVP: “We’re in this together.”

When I’d get my priorities confused and would rather text-blog or text-twist than text-straight to do a report or story: “We’re in this together.”

When I’d rather go for lobotomy than face an audience for a lecture or presentation: “We’re in this together.”

When I coordinate a big project and Murphy’s “all things that can go wrong will go wrong” law threatens to sabotage my show: “We’re in this together.”

I had this project in Naga last year that required me to meet with 10 peoples organizations and interview over a hundred of their officers and beneficiaries. When I came home I couldn’t make heads and tails of my voluminous notes. Unable to make even just a false start, I was sure I was at a dead end and therefore a very dead duck. Secretly, I began to calculate how much my trip had cost the office and was about to refund the amount so I could drop the project guiltlessly.

But I remembered in time to whisper my MVP mantra. Before the day ended, I had three pages of a rough but coherent beginning of a report.

By far the most powerful mantra I have is the one I reserve for important examinations. This was the mantra I gave my children when they took the UPCAT, the NMAT, the engineering board. It will be the same mantra I will give to a daughter when she takes the LAE next year and to another when she goes for the medical board the year after next.

It has worked 90 per cent and it goes like this:

“God is the light with which I see
God is the mind with which I think
Wherever I am, whatever I do
God is with me.”

I have come to the conclusion there’s no desperation nor worry nor trouble so foul it can’t be whispered away. Whispering hope -- I sometimes call the technique.

I got a few more mantras for other occasions.

“Don’t give yourself too much credit” – for when I find myself about to be convinced I am really voluble and valuable and beginning to strut like a diva.

“Don’t sweat the small stuff and all stuff are small” -- for when I become too much of an old grouch with a gigantic grudge against the world.

“This too shall pass away” -- for when life stinks so badly all the other mantras don’t work.

“What you do for the least of my creatures you do it for me” – for when I feel too imposed upon, drained out, and aid-fatigued.

You -- how do you whisper your woes away?