A Single Step Towards Goodness

“When in Rome do what the Romans do,” my friends Mike and Omar used to say, over bottles of beer, those times when they were still with the company. I didn’t agree with that saying, coz I don't think being away from home or in a strange place is a reason for someone to forget his beliefs and shun his cultural identity, and my usual retort to them would be: “You can take the boy out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the boy,” and my friends would quickly crack a joke about me being a “jungle boy” or Tarzan and the like. We would laugh and leave the discussion at that.

I have to agree though, that our environment and the company we keep affect our actions. As I heard someone put it eloquently, “You can't jump into the ocean and expect not to get wet.” And last time I was home I asked someone close to me if she thought I would be able to completely quit my vices and live my life according to our religion. She said, “here, maybe- in Cebu, I don’t think so.”

That reminded me of a story I heard so many times I don’t even remember when I first heard it. There was a man who killed so many men and wanted to change his ways and live a life of virtue. I think he killed 99 men or maybe a hundred, but I am no longer sure, the story is a blur to me now. I do know that he approached a holy man or a preacher and asked if he can still change his ways and how to do so. The preacher told him he is a hopeless case and that he will never be able to mend his ways. In his anger or frustration he killed the preacher and that became his 100th victim or so.

He was still determined to repent so he approached another preacher. This time the wise man told him there is still hope for him, but he needs to leave that place and travel to a place faraway, possibly another city where people lived a different way of life, and nobody knows him. It would be easier to start a new life, different from the life that he would leave behind. (This part of the story reminds me of Battousai the slasher and how his reputation as a killer tends to catch up with him and he is forced to fight or kill again)

The man did follow the preacher and he set out to travel to that faraway place. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to reach the city. Halfway on his journey the man died and soon the angels who took souls to heaven and the angels who delivered souls to hell met at the spot where the man died. Some of the angels argued that the man died with repentance in his heart and he should go to heaven, while some argued that he wasn’t able to complete the journey and live a good life as opposed to living many years of sin, so he should go to hell. They settled the argument by counting the steps the man took to travel, and it was found out that he was one step closer to the city he was going to, than the city he left behind. By virtue of a single step the man’s soul was saved and he was taken to heaven.

This story puzzled me for a while. The story is very familiar to me but I never took time to ponder on it, until recently. Religion teaches us that a man’s action is judged according to his intentions. Therefore a small act of kindness if done with sincerity is so much better than a great act, if there is no sincerity or if done for the wrong reasons. With this is mind I thought if the man died with a sincere intention to repent, then he would have been forgiven and gone to heaven, and the whole act of counting his steps is moot and academic. What then, is the lesson in this story?

Then again, who can say who should God forgive? Nobody can question Him. God is all-knowing while man’s understanding is very limited. I can’t rely on my own abilities to understand. Maybe I should not delve so much deeper into the story when the lesson is clear in the open: A single step taken towards goodness should not be disregarded because who knows; in the end a single step can make the difference.

Maybe that story is a story of hope. We shouldn’t judge anybody as hopeless because that person may change before he dies. Definitely puts a new meaning to the saying “Hanggat may buhay may pag-asa” and “Ang masamang damo matagal mamatay.” Maybe God lets some people live long lives so that they will have more chances of repenting.

The story also shows that we can’t just rely on intention, we should make good our intention to change and act on it, like that man leaving behind his old life and strive towards living the rest of his life in the way of God. The man didn’t reach that city, but he did spend the rest of his life going towards the city, didn’t he?

Maybe that’s the important thing, making that decision in our hearts and then actually working on it for the rest of our lives. Otherwise we would only be fooling ourselves if we make that intention everyday but not act on it. We can go to bed everyday repeating that intention until death overtakes us and we don’t wake up anymore.

I am feeling hopeful. If a person who killed a hundred men can change, why not someone like me? I think "masamang damo" would be too harsh to describe me, and I hope I don't die soon. HOpefully not before I make the change and undertake my own journey. And may God have mercy on me.