“Careful now”, says Ago Bawing, our assigned local tour guide for my first caving experience up in the cold mountains of Sagada. You know, the terrain could get really slippery from here, he said. With all the caution I could muster, I negotiated my way through the rough terrain all the way to the depths of the cave, holding on to cold, slippery stone walls and wet rocks, or whatever my hand could take a grip on just to keep my balance while making sure that my foot lands on to something solid. The cave is wide and vast and deep. My mind tried to absorb all the details my eyes were looking at, but I snap out of the process just before I got too woozy from overthinking.
“I’ve explored this cave since I was nine”, Ago said confidently, as if that would comfort me in my current affliction. I took that as assurance anyway. Heck, if a kid could have survived all this, what’s an adult couldn’t do? But my already pounding heart and shallow breathing betrayed my arrogance. Not that the air inside was damp and heavy, but this subterranean beauty is truly breathtaking. The enormous hall that reaches as far as the eyes could see, the vast rock formations and the ruggedly incredible landscape of limestone and sedimentary, have something inexplicable to it—a quiet mystery, a handiwork of the Divine.
“Over there”, says Ago, holding up his gasera above his head as high as possible so we can see the formations more clearly and appreciate the wonder that is unfolding before us. Everything appeared golden and classic as light flashes and touches them— like photos printed in sepia. Exploring one chamber after another, either by climbing or crawling up and down slippery slopes of rocks and stones, what gave me comfort in this journey was the light coming from Ago’s humble gasera. It has made the trek easier, every step more secure, and every climb more sure as its light directed us where to go and where to hold. The pathway was rough and perilous, but light made it sure that my feet would land on solid ground.
More importantly, light has made the darkness far less threatening. My Sumaging experience was made more possible with that gasera than without it. There will be nothing but darkness and the cave’s grand beauty will forever be concealed without light to reveal it. Everything made sense inside that cave only because of the light that illuminated it. But am I still talking here about caving? Guess again.
Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path, says King David. As someone who had been in the dark and have tried to grope for something that makes sense, I can relate with that. I believe in the sunrise for by it I can see everything, said the atheist-turned-Christian philosopher C.S. Lewis. He was talking about Christianity as that sunrise by which we can see everything more clearly—like a gasera inside a dark cave. Christ is that Light, the apostle John says. I believe in that for the same reason C.S. Lewis has believed in that.
I was sitting on a pew inside the Church of the Holy Sacrifice in UP Diliman one time while waiting for my evening class to start when yet another sunset got me fascinated (you can’t blame me, I’m a romanticist by profession, LOL). The silence of the place and my beleaguered soul has brought me there. Inside, I marvelled at the circular structure of the church, the circular hall, covered by a circular dome, of course. The last shafts of light from the setting sun that slanted from the open window of the building captured my eyes, and like a spotlight directed my gaze towards the center of the church. Right there, suspended just above the elevated altar was a replica of Roman Empire’s most notorious torturing implement, but Christianity’s most powerful symbol: the Cross. It didn’t take too long to process what it meant for me. The Roman Empire has long been dead. Yet Christ lives. I am the Light of the world, He still says today.
The dark is a threatening place to be. We need this light. Now more than ever. For the night is dark and full of terror…and the Light is our only hope.
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)
