MY Asian Institute of Management (AIM) classmate, Fr. Beda Liu, S.J., recently wrote to me about the postponement of this year’s AIM homecoming, and to offer solace and prayers over the recent loss of our batchmates Danny Labordo and Leo Echauz, as well as Para Anderson, wife of our classmate Gary. Through this column, I wish to share his reflections and add some more:
“As I set out to work on [this] message, I realized that 40 years is a long span of time and [at] the time of this writing, I have been on the planet for over 77 years! In the past month, I keep traveling between Macau and Hong Kong on a weekly basis and plan to do so in the coming months. Almost everyone in public places wears a mask (by the way, it is a must in Macau [when] taking public transportation). Writing in this context, one gets a sense of humanity’s limitedness and vulnerability; morbidity and mortality are never far from us. On [realizing this], I wish to [share] with you a passage [that] I [came] across the other day in a book titled Compassion Through the Darkness: