BY HELEN J CATALBAS
WE WRITE about Lent not from the standpoint of a religious, scholar or researcher as we are not any of them.
We write about the topic as being the past tense of the verb “lend”.
In this season of Lent, we hope we can ponder and reflect about the implications of the word
“lent” as the past tense of “lend” and what it means to everything and everyone of us human persons.
Our lives were lent to us from the Higher Being through our parents who were lent by the divine or nature to us.
We are either a creature or a product of nature. Take your pick, the mind with which we decide on the matter was also just lent to us.
Our culture was lent to us by our immediate or remote environment, as the case may be. If we say we created and lent, the culture of the environment wherein we operate, then we are overestimating ourselves, borrowers.
Our career, properties or riches, if we have them now, were just lent to us by whoever is the source, divine or mortal. As borrowers, we have the duty and obligation to pay back and pay forward.
Anything that we have were lent to us, or anything that we borrowed should be taken cared of because some time in the past they belonged to others and someday soon we have to allow others to borrow it from us or from the original source.
Our privileges were lent to us by law, customs, traditions or other people who allowed us to enjoy them.
Lenten season or not, let us always remember that everything we enjoy or despise as the case may be is just lent to us. Nothing is permanent. Tomorrow is another day. (HJC/PN)
