27th Heartbeat

GOD ALONE IS PERMANENT

Pain, sorrow, and death are inseparable. In the many funeral masses that I presided, these three dreadful things are often heard from utterances of family and friends of the deceased person. Inasmuch as I wanted to ease out the sadness of those who mourn for the passing away of their beloved through my repetitive discourses and predictable rationalizations about what our faith and morals have to say about those who have gone before us, I am left with a conclusion that a person should just accept the obvious assertion that pain, sorrow and death are realities of life for nothing is spared from the verdict of fate or the passage of time.

Honestly, I myself could not even explain concretely any of these things. They are more of a mystery that should continuously be unfolded, with a slim chance of making sense of everything because the understanding of pain, suffering and death is always relative. In my own experience, I can say that at times, pain can cripple my spirit so much that it is hard for me to objectify things as I let myself feel helpless with what I have gone through. Sorrow can plunge me into that twisted state of grief as I express my endless litany of anguish and regret. Death gives me an intermittent fear that hinders my capacity to ruminate progressively because I am entertaining the fact that at the end of my life here on earth, everything will turn out to be a baloney. I know it’s easy to reason out to people what I know about these things based on what I have learned from school and from experience, but you see this perplexity still gets into my nerves, making me swear that I don’t have answers to these baffling presentiments of human existence.

But I can somehow shed light to these recurring confusions through a song. Music has influenced my way of thinking through the years because there are certain intricacies of life which only poetry, lyrics and melody could best articulate. Songs are euphemisms that do not necessarily appeal to an individual’s intellectual scrutiny. Oftentimes, it’s just a matter of trying to get hold of those tunes and lines in a person’s mind and heart, allowing the song to speak for itself.

I happen to hear one song that would best convey the reality of pain, sorrow and death. It does not offer a tangible solution to a problem or a viable diagnosis for self-help but it allows the person to discover that behind all these “dreadful things” there’s somebody who is far greater and powerful if only one has the gift to read between the metaphorical depictions. It was intentionally written as a tribute for somebody who died but as I went through the lyrics, there is one important line that really caught my attention and moved me to ponder on the many pains, sorrows and deaths I also endured in my personal life: EVERYTHING is temporary. Only GOD is permanent.

Allow me to share the rest of the lyrics:

Is this the moment where I look you in the eye?
Forgive my broken promise that you’ll never see me cry
And everything, it will surely change
Even if I tell you I won’t go away today

Will you think that you’re all alone
When no one’s there to hold your hand?
When all you know seems so far away
And everything is temporary, rest your head
I’m permanent

I know he’s living in hell every single day
And so I ask, oh God is there some way for me to take his place?
And when they say it’s all touch and go
I wish I could make it go away but still you say

Will you think that you’re all alone
When no one’s there to hold your hand?
When all you know seems so far away
And everything is temporary, rest your head
I’m permanent, I’m permanent

Is this the moment where I look you in the eye?
Forgive my promise that you’ll never see me cry

I believe the song is very much related to the prayer of Saint Teresa of Avila which would also speak of one’s stability, sufficiency and permanence in God:

May nothing disturb you (Nada te turbe)
May nothing astonish you (Nada te espante)
Everything passes (Todo se pasa)

God does not go away (Dios no se muda)
Patience (La paciencia)
can attain anything (todo lo alcanza)
He who has God within, (Quien a Dios tiene)
does not lack anything (nada le falta)
God is enough! (Solo Dios basta)

Pain, sorrow and death are inevitable realities but they are temporary. No matter what happens, God alone is permanent.

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