The nature of an assembly

What is in a name we might ask? Assembly is just another word that to the dictionary means ‘a group of persons gathered together for a common purpose,’ ‘a meeting,’ or ‘a congregation.’

However, early this week a member of a Christian brotherhood asked me to make an audio-visual presentation anchored on this very word… the assembly. To them, an assembly is a response to a divine need for a family. It is a grounding of self with a higher being; it is ministering to the individual and community needs; it is, as well, a gift of unburdening. They employ the elements of praise and songs, the biblical word, and a faith that goes through constant renewal and cleansing.

What then is the relevance of an assembly to the modern Filipino? Why is there a proliferation of religious communities in a day and age when religious affiliation is not necessarily a needed requisite in social acceptability? What is the economically valid benefit one gets with the extra time, effort and resources that needed to be put in, in the spirit of unquestioning generosity where a requirement of 80% has to be supplied with 101% resources, a smile and a pat on the back?

The answer, I surmise, is found deep within each of us where we are constantly feeding a heritage of tiredness in the soul. As we inherit the demand to actualize selves, keep together families, nurture democracies, maintain societies, preserve churches, discover… innovate… elevate… upgrade… prettify… we often forget the need to unload. But then, there is only so much a heart can take and what the heart cannot take, the mind may not justify, and therefore, the body may not be able to fend for itself too long. Is it then such a surprise when the age eased in with diseases that attack the immune system and the basic cell structure of the physical self? Along with techno-speak comes a kind of pharmacopoeia-speak wherein the average Juan is well versed in the normal clinical drama involving a vocabulary from antibiotics to chemotherapy to the AIDS anti-retroviral drug.

The contemporary baggage tends to be heavy and the instrument is biologically vulnerable. This is where the assembly finds its most potent attraction. Like the nature of transcendental meditation where you are taught a step-by-step process in finding the silence in your being where you can be allowed to rest and unburden yourself of emotional and spiritual baggage, so too is the function of an assembly, but with a communal support system to ensure, reassure, coax, acknowledge, affirm… The kind of spiritual drugs that still dare to work even after alcohol, nicotine, illegal drugs, and all such designer poisons have ceased to bring certain versions of heaven and exhausted the tolerance of practicality.

The assembly speaks of an age-old sign of the times. After treading as many roads as we can manage to journey, as many layers of existence as we can manage to explore, one can never measure how far he has gone unless he has a home to mark his beginning and to look forward to his homecoming. The assembly, therefore, is a harbor to all those who seek an inner refuge and an affirmation that man is indeed more than the sum of all his complex perceivable parts. It is an authentication of our spiritual nature, without which, all human aspirations will perish along with the flesh.

Yes indeed, as a sign of the times, the assembly is the call of our Father to allow Him to lead us home.