LIFE MATTERS: Be Not Lemming

By Dr. Dencio Acop (Ret. Col.)

With all due respect to lemmings, do not be a lemming. Life is a choice and is all about making choices. Every day, every hour, every minute. We have the free will to do what we must. But do we do what we must? And exercise free will in doing it? Now, free will may not come easy and that is why we need education which teaches us the larger scope of things to guide us in our choices. That education initially begins with our parents or guardians at home. Then it is extended by our teachers in the schools we attend if we are fortunate enough. It is further enhanced by the deeper teachings we gain from attending church if again fortunate to be taught in faith. Education never stops and continues through the realizations we acquire through our careers and everything we do in life. The point is that our choices in life are guided by what and how much we have in our tanks. And that is why the quality and quantity of our education, whether gained from formal institutions or informal ones like our homes and families or even the school of hard knocks, could determine our choices. So that we do not become lemmings suffering the consequences of bad or uninformed choices in life.

God cannot and will not fault us for making choices out of ignorance or being coerced. But He sure as hell knows when we knowingly make bad choices that offend truth. God is all-knowing and ever-present and can never be fooled by anyone. He knows our hearts even before we open our mouths. God knows who the masterminds are and who the mere followers are. And this is where the moral law trumps man’s secular law. While the latter may merely slap or even exonerate the mastermind who planned the whole thing, the former has its justice waiting to be handed down at the perfect moment all in God’s time. The more learned, in the conspiracy of decisions and choices made, will always bear the greater responsibility and accountability in the end. To whom much is given, much also is expected. There is something divine in the order of things in the universe where some of us are gifted with seeing the larger scope and are supposed to use this gift towards guiding the less fortunate in their own choices and decision-making. This universal order is called love and it is selfless. Thus, to go against it is selfish. And selfishness goes against God whose language is creation united by expansive love. And that is why Jesus chastised the Pharisees and Sadducees who thought they could hoard God’s love and grace just to themselves and not share them among the less fortunate. The Pharisees and Sadducees were lemmings to their avarice, self-righteousness, and greed. And their lemming-hood became infectious to those who followed them without thinking. It is the same lemming-hood we have today in almost every facet of our life when we see people go against the universal order of things. When people do not make rightly informed choices or just blindly follow. When people are not people. But lemmings.

In an attempt to prevent lemming-hood, the true followers of Jesus tried to hand down to (especially) the Gentiles the larger scope of things but in a way that they could understand and be guided in the exercise of their free will. Obeying the will of God, these followers did not hoard the Good News but rather tried to share it with the rest of the world so that the many nations in it too can be guided in their life choices. For what good is something good if it is not shared? And true love, which is the core message of that Good News, by its very nature cannot be contained. Love is relational and cannot be self-sufficient. It needs another to be. But it can only work if creatures were not lemmings by choice. Meaning people needed to decide for themselves. To choose to love. And this love would have been infectious. It starts with a choice to love another for instance. Then that choice expands to offsprings. If couples will to love their children, the choice births a nation. And if love was dominant in the hearts of nations, then what a wonderful world it could be. Yes, but only in a perfect world you would say. And that is precisely the point. A perfect world can only come in right individual choices. That breeds families. Turning into nations. Transforming the world. But one free will at a time. Guided in the right direction. Not lemming-like.

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