Looking but not seeing

This is Ago Bawing. A true son of the Mountain Province, he said his earliest childhood memories were trekking the wonderful mountains and chasing the spectacular caves of his native Sagada. He said he has explored (and I guess mastered) the Sumaging cave--which I had the chance to visit a couple of weeks ago--since he's 9 years old.

Trailing behind him on our way into the deep caverns of the Sumaging, he told us of the epic tales about the place, on how the incredible rock formations were formed, and about how each stunning slopes of lime stones, rock columns and flowstones have their own stories carefully preserved inside this subterranean world. I took notice on how he confidently explained these stories, while prodding us to see carefully on the formations and images with just the help of his gasera illuminating the dark.

He teases and he laughs when we couldn't find the image he wanted us to see. "Tignan niyong mabuti kasi", he says. With his playful imagination, he revealed to us a world only the initiated can know. He showed us the secret places of the Knight, the Princess, the Queen, the Giant Snake, Mary and Joseph, the Cake, the Old Man and many other. I nod my head at every time I figure them out. Then I realized a lesson: all along, I was just looking but not seeing. I was just taking glimpses and not beholding. The two are entirely not the same. It took a man as Ago Bawing to point to me the difference. I laughed at myself.

At the conclusion of our brief exploration on our way out of the cave and upon seeing the light of day near the entrance, I turned around and took one last look at the deep, enormous hall of the cave, probing the seemingly infinite vast dome and absorbing all the stories I've learned about the place so far. I told myself, don't just look...open your eyes and see.

And then I saw it--the rest of the story: God had made everything...and it was very, very good.