I HAVE been working on a short story for quite some time now. It’s about a college graduate who enters a pre-novitiate program under the Society of Jesus. When I submitted the first draft to a creative writing workshop, the facilitator asked whether my reasons for writing the piece resonated with a personal interest. “I’m actually a Seventh-Day Adventist,” I replied. A look of confusion registered on her face, but I think the sentiment was mutual.
I was born and raised in a Seventh-Day Adventist household. Growing up, I would put on my best dress shirt every Saturday when it was time to go to Church. There, I would listen to our Pastor who would never fail to mention that Jesus, like “a thief in the night,” would return and take his children with him sooner than we thought. Going to Church on Saturdays and Jesus’ Second Coming are the two things that mainly distinguish us as Adventists.
As a child, I was unaware that our Church was a minority—its members accounting for only 0.78% of the Philippine population. It was only when I entered a Catholic high school that I discovered my peers were not like me; in fact, I was the only one. Whereas I thought it was commonplace to adopt a soy-based diet or refrain from wearing jewelry, I soon realized that, rather than being norms, these were the very markers that made me different.
When I first joined the mass in seventh grade, I thought I had to blend in lest I be caught as a non-Catholic. As everyone lined up for the Eucharist, I followed the crowd, stood in front of the priest, and choked as he hesitated in handing the body of Christ, as if expecting some kind of response from me. When it was over, I walked away as fast as I could, all the while aggressively chewing a bland piece of bread that stuck to the roof of my mouth.
By that time, I was too afraid to return to my Adventist Church, yet I was seeking a religious community for myself. The most accessible was a youth Catholic
organization in my high school. While the experience allowed me to strengthen my faith in some aspects, it felt like I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Everyone assumed I was Catholic, and the one friend who knew my religion told me to conceal my identity like it was a forbidden secret. So, I would make the sign of the cross, pray the rosary, or go to confession when everyone else did, even when it felt wrong.
Thinking about it now, it’s not so much a difference in faith that has separated me from the Catholics: it’s a difference in culture. While I read the same scripture and worship the same God, I never abstained from eating meat during Lent, went to a single Simbang Gabi for Christmas, nor prayed to the saints.
At the same time, the Catholic educational institutions I grew up with assimilated me to a certain extent. I sometimes go to the mass out of my own volition, sing Catholic songs word for word, and talk to Catholic mentors for spiritual advice. My stay in the Ateneo has also enlightened me about the Jesuit tradition, which has another set of epistemologies and practices that I have adopted.
Still, I would proudly declare I’m an Adventist, all the while knowing that the last time I went to Church on a Saturday was more than a decade ago. And somehow, I’ve come to be comfortable with the reality that I don’t necessarily belong anywhere—that I’m many things but also not quite those things. It is in this liminality—this hybrid space of ambiguity—where I feel like I can truly be myself.
To clear up my workshop facilitator’s confusion, I told her that I wrote my short story to learn more about the Jesuits. I think it made sense to her—and to me—that I was coming from a desire to know rather than a desire to be. And she understood.
So maybe it’s okay that my engagement with religion remains ambivalent. Maybe it’s fine that I no longer have to pretend to be someone I’m not. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to be both this and that, neither here nor there. Maybe—I’m enough.
Stanley Guevarra is the Founding President of PLUME and was previously the Editor-in-Chief of HEIGHTS Ateneo. He is also a graduating senior finishing his degree in AB Literature (English). For more, you can reach him at stanley.guevarra@obf.ateneo.edu.
