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It's obviously
a Tower-of-Babel effect that many people nowadays, especially the young ones,
are not aware anymore of the story, significance and unfailing relevance itself
of the Tower of Babel.
We
need to recall that story and, in fact, to familiarize ourselves with it since
it's a phenomenon that continues to affect us, especially as we march toward progress
and development. It sure gives us a much-needed sense of prudence in life.
From
the Bible's first book, Genesis, we have this account of this story's origin.
The descendants of Noah decided after the flood to erect a tower in Babylonia.
It was intended to reach heaven as a way to make them famous.
God
was angered by this presumption, and caused among them a great confusion of languages
before scattering them to different places.
The
underlying reason for God's action is that these men had the wrong understanding
and intention in how to proceed with their life. They were more interested in
themselves than in God, more in their plans than in God's will.
The
story is now the image of any human effort to pursue development without God or
even in competition with God. Together with some signs of progress will be an
accompanying state of confusion among the people. We can call this the Tower-of-Babel
syndrome, a cruel curveball.
It
springs from ignoring the fundamental truth that everything comes from God, and
therefore should be handled and used always in accordance to God's will. It's
actually a ridiculous state of affairs, and yet it's what commonly happens.
With
it, we will get the sensation we are advancing in knowledge, skills and dominion
over the world, but we cannot deny either that together with these gains, pursued
without God, is a clear distancing we can notice among ourselves.
We
can be close to one another physically, yet still far and remote spiritually and
morally. We are not referring here to the legitimate differences we can have among
ourselves, but rather to an abiding sense of alienation among us.
It's
a story that continues to be played and replayed even up to now. Not even our
great strides in our communication technology have increased our communion among
ourselves.
On
the contrary, what we notice nowadays is greater misunderstanding, envy and even
conflict and division. There is widespread distrust and easy, almost automatic
mutual suspicion.
Part
of the concern we have to tackle is precisely to hitch our development process
to God's plans. It is to inspire, leaven and drive it with God's truth and spirit.
This
is not easy to do, of course. Our tendency is to misappropriate and misuse things
that actually come and belong to God 'all things do' to be simply our own.
We
easily succumb to this vicious virus, plus, the fact that we also get easily intoxicated
by any power we enjoy in life. With this potent combination of factors, we effectively
have an epidemic of confusion. This is what we see around.
For
example, our capacity to know, quite powerful given our intelligence and will,
can tempt us to know things simply on our own. There's hardly any effort to relate
such knowledge to God.
This
really looks funny, because we fail to realize the basic truth once eloquently
spelled out by St. Paul when he talked about knowledge and charity.
'Knowledge
puffs up, but charity edifies. And if any man thinks that he knows anything, he
has not yet known as he ought to know.' (1 Cor 8,1-2)
As
a result, we cannot help but get into useless quarrels among ourselves. We have
to be most careful of this fine distinction.
While
the pursuit of knowledge unleavened by charity can yield some material gains,
it can also sow the seeds of discord among us. It will just be a matter of time
before things explode.
We
need to strongly remind ourselves that in every affair or concern in our life,
in every step of the way, we need to refer everything to God and to his plans.
Otherwise, we'll just be building our own version of the Tower of Babel. Let's
stop acting funny! **********
Fr. Roy Cimagala
is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE) in Talamban,
Cebu City. You can email him at:Email: roycimagala@boholchronicle.com | 
