LOVING HIGH; NEEDING LOW

Maslow’s Theory of Hierarchy of Needs is extensively utilized in the educational system of our country. I, myself, was taught that an individual becomes actualized to accomplish higher motives only after they have fulfilled certain basic needs. For Maslow, one must satisfy his physiological needs first before he can satisfy his needs for safety or security, love and belongingness, self-worth and self-esteem, and self-actualization. This is so evident to many families, even to individuals, that they secure first their food, clothing and shelter. Subsequently, they work on their job security, invest on their health and well-being, and spend some amount on insurance policies. Later on in their life they will shift their focus in gaining friends and be intimate with somebody whom they can build a family with. People will then engage themselves to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution, to feel accepted and self-valued in any group or community. Finally, they will desire to become more and more of what they are, to become everything that they are capable of becoming. In one way or another, this set-up is quite materialistic and individualistic. This was my mindset before I returned to Bicol in 2010 after working in Manila for more than five years after graduating in college. I was brought up and educated in a state university to serve the world and gain any recognition it can afford. I needed more material and temporal gratifications only to know that I was loved less.

            As I searched for that true happiness - what I can be, the one I must be, I shifted my attention to my family and to my community with the intent to be of service to them. It is with this simple intent I realized that there is something more to life than pleasing the world and be fulfilled by the world. I thought that I can find genuine happiness by serving the people. But, I was wrong. For serving the humanity does not mean always serving the Lord. CCC teaches us that true happiness is not found in riches or well-being, in human fame or power, or in any human achievement – however beneficial it may be – such as science, technology and art, or indeed in any creature, but in God alone, the source of every good and of all love. (cf. CCC 1723) Noone taught me this thing in our family, nor in my classes in Religious Education. Well, I wouldn’t know what could have been my life had I know it when I was young. Given that, there is this sense of panghihinayang on my part that it took me almost thirty years to realize that. Though, I am exultant that I made that courageous act of entering the seminary – of finally answering His call. In our recent discussion in class, I was struck by a passage in our handout saying: Loving at a higher level makes the lower needs and their frustrations and satisfactions less important, less central, and more easily neglected. This thought is beyond sexuality; it caters our life as a whole in general. Had I know this thing early on in my life, I could have been the happiest person by now. In our seminary, there is no more luscious foods on the table, no comfortable bed, no rights over the authority, no special treatment, no certainty of ones future… full of nothingness. Despite this nothingness, the unfulfilled human needs, something greater is at stake that flows from the hand of our Loving God. Emptying myself out for my community is no longer painful as it was when I was outside. For it gives me immense happiness everytime I do my tasks in the seminary with love and out of love. Considering myself less among my brother seminarians is no longer hurting as it was before. For it gives me that sense of fulfillment whenever I put God first in everything I do. I may have nothing, but loving and serving the Lord makes the material and temporal needs and their frustrations and satisfactions insignificant and negligible. Indeed, there is more with God. For when God reigns in one’s life, loving high means needing low. God alone suffices and only to the Divine love and affection we abandon ourselves.