What's inside your very own little brown paper bag?

THE LITTLE BROWN PAPER BAG



Dear Nonoy and Grace,

Last week I was sick, and I spent most of my time in Room 510 of the Cardinal Santos Medical Center. And, Grace and Nonoy, although you were both very, very busy, you still went to the hospital to visit me.

And among your many gifts was a book by Robert Fulghum, and, sick in bed, I read that book, and now I would like to share with everybody here — the story, the incident, the lesson of the LITTLE BROWN PAPER BAG.

One nice morning, a Daddy was about to leave for the office when his little daughter, maybe five years old, handed him — a little brown paper bag.

“And what is this?” he asked.

“Oh, some really, really nice things! And Daddy, I want you to have them!!!”

The Daddy, who was already running late and had to rush to the office, grabbed the little brown paper bag, put it in his attached case, then hurried to his car and drove away.

When he got to the office, the Daddy opened his attached case, and there, among his important papers and documents, he found the little brown paper bag… the one given to him by his daughter before he left the house.

The Daddy emptied the little brown paper bag on his desk, and this is what he saw — 2 hair clips, 3 small stones, 1 very used pencil, 1 marble, 1 small plastic dinosaur, 2 small chocolate candies, 1 used lipstick, 1 little doll, and 13 very old, very cheap, really worthless, meaningless coins.



The Daddy was amused, and he smiled, then he gathered everything together; and because he did not need them, he threw them all to the waste can. He threw them away because to him they were only useless, WORTHLESS, meaningless things.

Then he focused his attention on the really, really important things.

At the end of the day, a day of contracts and conferences and board meetings and executive decisions and cocktails with big shots in a new five-star hotel, big Daddy finally got home.

“Daddy,” asked his little daughter, “where is it?”

“Where is what?”

“The things I gave you. The little brown paper bag. The nice gift I gave you this morning.”

He remembered the little brown paper bag. He remembered how he had looked at the contents — the old pencil, the little doll, the hair clips, the tiny plastic dinosaur, the small chocolate candies, the used lipstick, the marble, the small stones, the worthless coins. And he remembered how, because they were useless to him, he had thrown them to the waste basket, the basurahan.

“Daddy, Daddy, do you have them?” Silence.

“Daddy, where are they?” Silence. “Did you — did you lose them?” Silence. “You know, Daddy, I really liked all those things. They were very, very special to me. I thought they were all so beautiful. And I had been collecting them one by one. They were the most precious things in the world to me. And so I gave them all to you as my gift because I love you, Daddy. Because I love you!!!

And the Daddy looked at the face of his little, five-year old daughter and thought of her simple world of beauty and value and love — and of her gift of the little brown paper bag containing all those useless, worthless things — but which, to this little, innocent girl, were gems and jewels and priceless treasures. The nicest, the most beautiful, the most precious things in the world to her, which this morning, with all her young and trusting love, she gave to her beloved Daddy, but which he threw away to the basurahan.

My brothers, my sisters and especially you who are adults and Mommies and Daddies — maybe sometimes you and I are like that Daddy.

Because we are adult and very intelligent and very practical, we consider the best, the very best in the world of our little children as worthless and useless. We cannot understand, we cannot see their treasures, their world, their love.

Compared to our contracts and our business deals and our board meetings and our executive decisions, the little brown paper bags of our children mean only garbage to us.

Do not throw your little girl and her little brown paper bag to the basurahan.

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Because that is all she has. And that is all she is… SIMPLE, INNOCENT LOVE….. GOD’S GIFT TO YOU….. GOD’S GREATEST GIFT TO YOU.

AND my brothers and sisters, that little girl is not alone. For you and I, my friends, we all stand before the world naked and alone. And everyone of us, clutching our own poor, little brown paper bag.

And what is inside this paper bag? Your boring, everyday life. Your very few successes, your numerous failures. Your ambivalence between good and evil, between being sinner and saint. Your humanness. But most of all — your loneliness, your nothingness, your emptiness. Because there is nothing, really nothing inside our paper bag….. except, except our tears, and our wounds, our weaknesses, and our sins.


And maybe, maybe a little bit of beauty, a little bit of greatness, a little bit of nobility, a little bit of heroism, a little bit of heaven — hiding WITHIN you. Hiding WITHIN you.

But this, yes, this is all that we have, this is all that we are!!!

So all you who pass by… all you who pass by… do you not see that although our bags seem empty, we are already doing our very best?

Do you not see that with the little that we have and the little that we are, we really, really love you, we love you, we love you?

Do not, please do not grab my little brown paper bag and throw it to the basurahan!!!

And do not spit at my useless, worthless, helpless bag — because this is MY LIFE, this is all that I have, this is all that I am.

Rather, rather, all you who pass by — STOP! Please stop for a moment and examine our bag and look closely at us. Maybe, in our bag, in OUR bag, you will see YOUR OWN bag..... and maybe in OUR self, you will find YOUR OWN self.

And then perhaps, perhaps in this world of painful, uncaring, unloving darkness and cruel separation you, you, and you might want to stop and open your heart and gently say to us — “I… I APPRECIATE YOUR BAG… AND I ACCEPT YOU… AND I NEED YOU AND I LOVE YOU.. YOU ARE MY BROTHE.. YOU ARE MY SISTER.. YOU ARE MY FRIEND.”

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.acj.