Philippians: a State of Mind

Writing this blog entry about the epistle to the Philippians has been a very long and arduous process that began early this year, in the month of January. The last three months have been anything but ordinary — just about everything in life around the world as we know it has apparently come to a grinding halt because of the corona virus pandemic. On top of that, a personal tribulation in my life has shoved any desire for the creative to the back burner, as thoughts of worry and anxiety took the driver seat for a huge chunk of said three months.

With the pandemic’s impact becoming more evident in my country in mid-February and sort of leveling off in early April, life here has taken a much slower pace, and the initial pangs of fear and discouragement have been gradually — and thankfully — replaced by faith and hope. This is due mainly to the abiding and comforting presence of God, and His assurance that not only does He have complete control of what is going on globally, but that He will also see us through this international plague and bring us to an even better post-Covid-19 world.

For now, to say that the world has changed is an understatement. There have been shifts in global political power; the vulnerability of nations have been exposed in the face of an unprecedented, invisible health threat; the global economy has suffered a major hit; the real indispensable workers in the labor force have been identified and, rightfully, commended; and the hearts of every single citizen on the planet have been slowly, but efficiently unveiled.

Thanks to the ubiquity and accessibility of social media, people’s innermost thoughts and feelings have been put on candid — sometimes calculated — display, with varying degrees of reception. Scrolling through one’s news feed, one could easily identify the panic-stricken, the fear-laden, the apathy-drenched, and the conspiracy-theory-embracing individuals of our planet. They are often the netizens that bring in one dark cloud of bad news and depressing factoid after another, as if the current global atmosphere wasn’t enough of a blanket of gloom over a world that had become too busy and too self-absorbed for its own good.

There are, however, other types of Internet inhabitants who, despite the recent wave of discouragement and uncertainty, know the value of shining a light in the midst of a seemingly impossible darkness. Scrolling through the same news feed gives one a glimpse of these hope-mongers, faith-conduits, encouragement-dispensers, and kindness-perpetrators who seem to never get tired of speaking positive words over the current state of the world, declaring a bright future while living in a frightful present, or continue to give of themselves to bring levity and cheer into another’s life.

All that being said, when I re-read (re-listened, rather, to an audio version of) the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians today, I found myself gravitating toward a specific passage in the epistle’s final chapter. Although this writing challenge (originally scheduled for a January 2020 release) was supposed to be an overall ‘review’ of this particular book of the Bible, I felt an inspiration to instead focus on verses eight and nine of chapter four:

“For the rest, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of reverence and is honorable and seemly, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and lovable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious, if there is any virtue and excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on and weigh and take account of these things [fix your minds on them]. Practice what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and model your way of living on it, and the God of peace (of untroubled, undisturbed well-being) will be with you.” (Philippians 4:8-9 AMPC)

This, to me, summarizes one of the things that we need to do in this season of our lives, and moving forward: fix our minds on that which is good and up-lifting.

A lot of things, if not all things in life depend heavily on the setting, state, and function of our minds. The Indian political ethicist Mahatma Gandhi once said that a man “is but a product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes.” I found the same be true about what a man thinks of his circumstances; what he thinks of them, they will become.

Verses eight and nine of Philippians chapter four, I feel, are the break down of the kind of thoughts that we are to think of ourselves and of the world around us if we are to rise above our current personal circumstances, and if we intend to flourish in the midst of any global condition. Our thought life is the bedrock of our words and actions after all.

Think.

Think.

Think.

And make sure those thoughts are positive and productive. See to it that they are true, noble, right, pleasing, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy — because they will shape, as Gandhi said, who we become and, by extension, the world we live in.

The Apostle Paul does not only issue the encouragement to focus our minds on positive and divine virtues in this letter to the church in Philippi, he also writes about it a few more times to the other churches he’s planted and/or built up. To the Romans, he wrote: “…be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God…” (Romans 12:2 AMPC)

This is quite a succinct recommendation for a world that is bombarded with a lot of unhealthy sensual stimuli. And not all of us are discerning and careful about our mental input. We need to be, because what we allow admittance and accommodation in our minds will inevitably find its way out of our mouths, forge our beliefs, and festoon our immediate environments. The contents of our minds will determine how well we fare in adverse situations; it will define our character in the face of difficulty; it will display the quality of our musings.

The community quarantine that has been enforced over the Philippines in the last month has really brought out the best — and the worst — of my countrymen. In news media and social media, varying degrees of compliance to government quarantine restrictions have been on flagrant display, day in and day out.

The corona virus pandemic has exposed the state of our nation’s preparedness for such an unprecedented event. It has shown us that our nation is not completely ready for the pandemic, and yet clued us into the ingenuity of some of our government leaders who stepped up, brought their A game, and implemented some creative ideas to manage the crisis.

At the same time, the Covid-19 outbreak also exposed the state of the Filipinos’ minds as evidenced by our reactions and responses. Our inherent helpfulness and kindness as a people, and our self-sacrificing nature have been brought to the fore and seen through how some of us have gone out of our way — and into harm’s way, sometimes — to bring aid, comfort, and encouragement to those around us. But sadly, our fears, self-centeredness, and disregard of others have also reared their ugly heads. It is devastating to see people crowding in the markets and completely ignore the importance of social distancing, when clearly it has been mandated for compliance and for public safety.

I guess some folks just have a totally different state of mind, even in the midst of a global catastrophe. 

God help us all!