[Today, Papa left us to join Mama in eternal life. To honor his life, I am reposting what I wrote in 2014 on Good Shepherd Sunday. This is about our Papa's struggle to be human, to be our good shepherd. And his sheep are not few.]

"He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." (John 10: 3-5)

My father was a teacher. His voice is full of power and authority. It roared in the classroom as it did at home. When he spoke, everyone pays attention in fear because we needed to account for it in some future time - whether we have done his errands or followed his suggestions.

My mother did not teach in school. There were already too many of us to manage at home. She stays in the house the whole day. She cooks, wash and iron clothes, tends the sari-sari store - all of which are done in silence by herself when we are all in school or playground. But when she speaks (which is seldom) or when she keeps her silence as her tears fall down her cheeks, we all pay attention in love and re-configure our personal spaces in deference to her tears and silence. For silence is also a voice - sometimes more powerful - as it fills not only the expanse of halls but also the depths of our hearts.

In his old age and after Mama's death, my father took over her sari-sari store, cooked his own food and washed or ironed his own clothes. No one is there anymore to listen to his authoritative voice. By then, all of us have left home and he is all by himself. Even as we visit him, he is just there at the sides, perceptive, receptive and silent. When it was time for him to be operated on his hernia, his tears fell down his cheeks while humbly pleading us his children: "Kung mahimo dili unta ko pa-opera. Nahurot na gyud ang akong 'isog'..." (If possible, I do not like to be operated on. There is no more 'courage' left in me).

And we needed to reconfigure our positions and spaces vis-à-vis our once powerful father - in deference to his tears and silence.

In our worlds, we recognize many voices. Some come from hostile strangers who intend to lead us astray; others come from significant others who offer us their lives. The first we would not dare to follow; the second we try as much to respond.

But even with those who profess to give their lives for us, our acknowledged 'shepherds', we can still discern different voices - one more intimate and recognizable than the other. Some of them are too loud that we could not but hear; others too soft which we could not but feel. Some voices powerfully issue directives and commands; others deeply listen. One is effective; the other affective. Or, better still, that which is more affective may actually be the most effective.

I can imagine that the power of the voice of the shepherd does not only come from his/her voice's qualities alone - its volume, tenor, tone and inflections. Heeding another's voice does not solely depend on performance.

To be effective, this voice has to listen and negotiate with the voices of its sheep. Before uttering his call to follow, he first needed to know them - their needs, their feelings, their preferences, their voices. In other words, the speaker is first of all a listener. Only then can his voice (or silence) be heard for it has become a real response to his sheep's voices of pain or jubilation, praise or supplication.

The Russian philosopher, Mikhail Bakhtin, says that utterance is social. It is grounded on the affective, political and social networks of our linguistic worlds. The speaker is in fact a respondent.  His voice is not the first. It is a response.

"He presupposes not only the existence of the language system he is using, but also the existence of preceding utterances – his own and others’ – with which his given utterances enter into one kind of relation or another" (1986).

It is only in these socio-political and affective relations can the dialectics of calling and following happens. It is in how one negotiates this context that voices and silences (from both sheep and shepherds) are either suppressed or heard, ignored or followed, effectively marginalized or affectively empowered.

It is true for Jesus; it is the same with us.

Daniel Franklin Pilario, C.M.
St. Vincent School of Theology
221 Tandang Sora Ave., Quezon City
danielfranklinpilario@yahoo.com
05.14.2014