MEDITATION TIP —
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time,
September 24, 2023

“The last shall be first, and the first shall be last” (Matthew 20:16)

　Let us read the words of today’s Gospel as “the later things will be first, and the earlier things will be last.” This is called an unexpected event. Isaiah’s prophecy in the first reading also says, “As the heavens are high above the earth, so are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.” We tend to associate unexpected events with accidents and disasters, but unexpected events do not necessarily bring us hardship; they are also “quirks of fate” that bring positive changes in our lives. In fact, it is the unexpected events that direct our lives.

　There was a boy in Egypt named Ibrahim Hamat who, at the age of 10, fell through a train door and lost both arms from the elbows. After that he withdrew to his house, not wanting people to look at him with pity. He was eventually encouraged by others to take up sports and tried soccer, but fell and injured himself and gave this up as well. When he was 13, there was a table tennis tournament in his village, and he became interested in table tennis. He and a friend were referees, but unhappy with his judging, this friend told him, “You can’t play, so don’t tell me what to do.” This inspired him to take up table tennis. How do you play table tennis when you don’t have two hands? You throw up a ball that you grab with your toes and hit the ball into the opponent’s court with a racket in your mouth. He would swing his neck and body from side to side to keep the rally going, sometimes changing his serve and sometimes receiving the ball with great power. This was the image that later impressed us at the Tokyo Paralympics. This was because until then we had never thought of playing table tennis with a racket in our mouths. It must have been an unexpected and painful experience for him to lose both hands as a young boy. However, this unexpected event showed him the way to the infinite possibilities of human beings through table tennis.

　Our lives are full of unexpected events, and they can never be grasped by an Artificial Intelligence. Life is like an improvisation. Circumstances and encounters determine the path we take. Although there are common patterns in the variety of our lives, there is no one who has not encountered unexpected events in his or her life. It is often the unexpected events that determine the direction we take in life and lead us to growth. The only thing we can assume is that unexpected events and the way we respond to them will change the course of our lives.

　Countless people throughout history have faced accidents and unfortunate events, but looked at them with positive new eyes and found their “unique privilege” in them, even if they seemed unexpected accidents, and drew from them unexpected blessings and opportunities and unlimited human potential. And many people remember that time of many hardships as “the best time of their lives. As the Yiddish proverb, a dialect of German, says, “When man plans, God laughs.

 　　　　　(Contributed by Father Akabae)