Flag Ceremony

Today I had flashbacks of when I was still in school and every Monday would mean standing under the early morning sun and facing the flag pole to pay homage to the Philippine Flag. Yes folks! I attended our office flag ceremony today - not because I had an inkling to wake up earlier than usual just so I could but – because I was in charge of the whole thing for this week. It’s not like we are not required to attend if we’re not in charge though... It’s just that I very rarely come earlier than 8am on Mondays and so it’s been a while since I was able to attend one.

I know, I know... some people reading this maybe already shaking their heads and saying “Where’s her sense of Nationalism?” But let me just say it has nothing to do at all with that... It’s just that I have always found it hard to wake up early in the morning (for as long as I can remember) but it’s specially hard these days when I’d wake up at around 3am for yet another trip to the bathroom and would not be able to sleep again until around 4 or 4:30am. So, by the time it’s 6am when I’m supposed to be getting up to see Charlie off to work and preparing myself to do the same, I’m still sleeping and hubby doesn’t have the heart to wake me up because he knows I didn’t get enough sleep... EXCUSES!

Anyway, my bosses and officemates seem to tolerate my absence during the ceremony quite well. I guess because they understand my predicament (or maybe they just got tired of reminding me to do so). But, like I’ve said, I was in charge of this morning’s progam and so I cannot make excuses today.

I woke up around 6am, took a shower before hubby and by 7am, we were both out of the house and on our separate ways to work. I arrived at the office at around 7:15am and started with the ceremonies right away. As this week’s leader, aside from assigning who among my “lucky” officemates would lead the singing of the National Anthem, reciting the “Panunumpa sa Watawat”, “Panunumpa ng Kawani ng Gobyerno” and saying a prayer, I was also tasked to choose and impart a quote or passage that would serve as our “Food for Thought”. I chose this verse from the book of Matthew (23:11): HE THAT IS GREATES AMONG YOU SHALL BE YOUR SERVANT. From which this quote was derived from (as found in God’s Little Devotional for Teens) “It needs more skill than I can tell to play the second fiddle well.”Explained: No matter how high you rise, never forget that you started out at ground zero. Even if you were born to great wealth and privilege, you still were born a helpless babe. Real success comes not in thinking you have arrived at a place where others should serve you, but in recognizing that in whatever place you are, you have arrived at a position where you can serve others.