Made By Men… Made By God

Early this evening, right after training, Bierhoff and I agreed to go to Rob to get something to eat. He went off to log out of the biometric system, and for a while I was alone by the covered walk parallel to the Food Palace.

The place was uncharacteristically dark and deserted, which was just as well because I could use the quiet after the rigors of training. I had one foot up on the pebbled seats and a hand on one of the steel posts holding the roof up.

For no reason at all, I just looked up. Aba, may mga bituin…

There were so few of them it was almost sad. But the fact that I noticed them at all was in itself remarkable; and I only did because it was dark where I was.

When I was a young kid growing up, one of the great joys in life was hanging out by myself on the veranda after dinner to look up, on moonless nights, at the countless stars that illuminated the skies. I would attempt to count them but just wouldn’t know where to start.

So I would just look up in total awe, each time feeling completely humbled by the vastness of the Universe and mesmerized by the sparkling jewels that dotted the skies from horizon to horizon.

When I went away for college to live in the big city, I stopped looking up at the skies at night. There was no point. The stars were obscured by the bright city lights. Neon had its attractions, but the lights they cast, colorful they might have been, were made by men.

I found more joy in those made by God.

I looked forward to going home to the country for weekends. Then, I would quickly slip back into the old habit of watching the stars from the veranda. On lucky nights, some of the stars would descend from the heavens and flicker around the yard in the form of fireflies.

Where have those nights gone?

The large malls have come. Even country roads are lit up by neon signs. There are countless vehicles on the road.

And the stars have become obscured by the lights of the city to the point that I hardly notice them at all these days. Tonight, looking up at the handful that shone up in the skies, it just struck me that things made by men can never measure up to the things made by God.

[This story was first published on Facebook on 29 September 2008.]

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