The young man and the sea

Whatever we will do without our helpers. They have become part of the Filipino household, and – because oftentimes they happen to be relatives too – play an essential part in the family life of even the poorest homes.

In our 38 years of marriage, the wife and I have had over a hundred servants, all female except one (gay, who made excellent omelets). Mostly young, they had personalities as various as their identities – quiet, garrulous, tireless, plodding, streetwise, demure. A girl who had the looks of a native of the Himalayas attracted an Indian moneylender, who stood for hours outside our gate staring at her, and left only when I pretended as though calling for a policeman.

Youth did not allow them to stay with us for long. They might find a boyfriend or their parents might want them back home to continue with their schooling or send them somewhere else to find better work. At one time, we had to settle for an old woman from the interior, but she stayed with us for only one day because where she lived they had no electricity, and so we came home to a dark house with her huddling in a corner, afraid to switch on the houselights.

Amidst their diversity, they offered one thing in common – their service, which, we, as working parents with little children to raise, could not do without. And their presence shielded us from harm, not just from robbers, but also from other perils. We once woke up to our dog furiously barking at something under our car. When we checked, we saw a snake, big enough to paralyze anyone with its venom. Without delay, our helper picked up a stone and in one throw crushed the head of the snake. Servants may have many faults, but being a poor shot is not one of them.

However humble, servants appear a number of times in the Gospels. In fact, Jesus uses them as a measure of human greatness.  Mark writes that at one time the brothers James and John asked
Jesus to allow them in his glory one to sit at his right and the other at his left. Jesus replied that “to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

The ten others of their group became indignant at the brothers when they heard this, prompting Jesus to remind them, “You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt.” But, he added, “It shall not be so among you.” And then he gave them this standard of true greatness, “Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

We’ve had our current helpers – a married couple – for close to 20 years. Since they live just outside our village, they just come to the house in the morning and at night, before we retire, return to their family. We find this arrangement better than hiring a stay-in maid who almost always becomes fair game for the chase of local swains.

The husband worked as a fisherman in his youth. Whenever a vendor comes around with her basket of fish and crustaceans, I ask him to check her merchandise for freshness, and this would set him off on a lecture on the different types of groupers and their breeding habits, the best time to trap crabs, the relative culinary qualities of squid.

Between us, I consider him the greater for two reasons. First, in that he serves me rather than I serving  him, taking into account what Jesus meant in the Gospel of Mark. Second, in that my marine education comes largely from books and second-hand accounts, and so cannot hold a candle to his knowledge of the sea gained from years of living off it – from his struggles with the waves during storms and the interminable nights under the stars when he only had God to talk to.