I still remember vividly, many years ago when I was in the seminary, the poster on the door of the comfort room of one of our priest-formators. On the poster was this message: “ON THIS THRONE ALL ARE EQUAL.” Obviously, the “throne” was referring to the toilet bowl.
Back then, it didn’t require an astute mind for us to comprehend the true value of such message.
Life inside the seminary matter-of-factly reflected the meaning of “equality” among us seminarians regardless of whatever family status we come from: we eat the same kind of food on the same table(s); we sleep in the same dormitories or rooms; we go to the same classrooms; we play on common basketball courts; we pray and worship in the same Chapel, and we share a communal schedule day in and day out.
For me then, the “throne” – or toilet bowl, to be exact – offered a somehow assuring thought that, by fiat of an irrepealable law of nature, ALL – man, woman, young and old, rich and poor, powerless and powerful, regardless of color or creed – are bound to sit on it every day in life.
On corollary inferring, I cannot avoid fancying a similar “throne” story – a tale, if not an apocryphal one – narrated also by a priest-mentor of ours in the seminary.
It’s about St. Therese of Avila. The tale goes that the mystical Saint was one day sitting on such “throne” and reciting the Rosary.
The devil appeared to her saying, “Poor Therese, you are insulting God. You’re reciting the Rosary even in this place?”
St. Therese answered, “Go away, devil! What comes out of my mouth is for God! What comes out down…is for you!”
Fast forward to the present.
Now, after having been out of the seminary for many years and enmeshed, so to speak, in worldly affairs, I’ve realized that the touted “equality” alluded by the CR throne cannot resonate with the stark inequalities and inequities in our divisive society.
For one, the kind of “throne” or toilet bowl definitely vary among social classes. There are those that are so elegant, in shining tiles and perfumed, living up to the moniker “Comfort Room.” On the other hand, the hoi polloi among us make do with just squatting on a drab seatless bowl to answer the call of nature.
In other words, the comfortableness of the “throne” depends on the economic adequacy of the one sitting on it.
F ar from being a “throne of equality,” as signified back by my former priest-formator’s CR poster, it now bespeaks a rather obscene picture of glaring contrasts and disparity.
With polarization of world powers according to vested interests, some 70 percent or 80 percent of the world’s wealth are up to the convenience and wherewithal of the very few rich and powerful ones (families and nations).
The salary of our teachers, nurses, and other professionals in the country are a far cry to their counterparts in other developed countries. While Metro Manila is bursting with some 12 million population, of which around 70 percent are competing for residential space, we have one of the highest, if not the highest, electricity rate in the region.
We are apparently proud being touted as the “texting (or social media) capital” of the world, yet our internet speed can barely reach at 5 Mbps – a minuscule connectivity provision apropos the high amount we pay for it in contrast to our efficiently wired neighboring countries.
Indeed, we are a country, or a world, of many contrasts – of unabated inequalities.
Perchance, I am tempted to think that perhaps the “On This Throne All Are Equal” poster message of my former seminary mentor may be considered as akin to Karl Marx’s critique of religion, being an “opium” or illusory happiness for the masses, a “sigh of the oppressed creature… a heart of a heartless world… a spirit of a spiritless situation.”
In this sense, sitting on the “throne” may just give you an illusory relief.
If God indeed created all men as equal, from whence then all the inequalities in the world come from?
Certainly not from God, as theologians and philosophers would readily aver. God, who is perfect (that is, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good or all-loving), cannot be the source of imperfection. God, who created all men equal, cannot be the source of inequity, disparity, or inequality.
The fault (or underlying source of inequality) lies not in the stars but in us, humans; we “create” inequalities and thus we pay the price of our creation. As it were, we’re but victims of our own making.
Regardless of our analogy of the “throne,” however, what is it then that makes us, human beings, all equal?
We have been created equal as “human beings” – a being from one and the same God; a being with dignity and purpose; a being with physical body and spiritual soul (with its operative functions of knowing, loving, and free will); a being for self and for others; a being who’s been given dominion over a balanced and sustainable natural creation, and a being worthy of a meaningful, complete and satisfying life.
Hearty musings upon the “throne of equality!”
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