(Postlude: The Voice Beneath the Leaves)
(All will be alright in time—when grace moves not only through us, but from us — and becomes us.)
We do not always hear the divine in thunder. Sometimes, it comes as a melody that feels strangely familiar—a line in a song we weren’t expecting, a lyric that does not explain but reveals.
It was a song called Leaves, originally written and performed by the Filipino folk band Ben&Ben. I first heard it through BINI. They sang it during a fundraising event for the victims of Typhoon Kristine—an evening marked not by spectacle, but by quiet generosity. They had given one million pesos from the proceeds of their Grand BINIverse concert. And then they sang.
Not in glittering costumes, nor on a grand stage. They were dressed in everyday clothes—simple, unadorned. Quietly seated. They sang not as performers, but as Filipinas. And in that moment, it was not an act. It was a prayer.
A prayer for homes that had been washed away. For bodies still bruised by storm and sorrow. For spirits struggling to believe that beauty could return.
Their generous gift had begun to mend what could be rebuilt. But their song reached where hands could not—offering what no donation ever could: the hope that even in grief, grace remains.
They arrived not as stars, but as sisters and daughters, offering their presence to a grieving community. Their voices, tender and unwavering, wove through the air, mending unseen wounds. And from the fruits of their labor, they gave generously, a gesture as profound as the song they shared.
At first listen, the song is about love—about the ache of loss, the quiet labor of forgiveness, and the slow return of peace. But beneath the words, something deeper stirs. Something ancient. Something sacred.
“Leaves will soon grow from the bareness of trees…” Here, the language is not metaphor alone. It is scripture, spoken in the vernacular of the wounded. A promise whispered into the silence of grief: life returns. Growth begins again. The bareness is not the end.
“From waves overgrown come the calmest of seas…” It is not triumph, but transformation. The voice does not promise escape. It offers endurance. Peace not in place of the storm—but through it. After it. Because of it.
“You never really love someone until you learn to forgive…” And here, the lyric becomes liturgy. Forgiveness, not as obligation, but as transfiguration. It is the cost of love. The shape of grace. The path by which we become whole.
In Eight Lights, I had reflected on how BINI—through their journey, their discipline, their example—became more than a girl group. They became a metaphor for grace under pressure. For culture as formation. For identity carried with care.
But perhaps it is only now, at the edge of silence, that the full arc reveals itself.
Because this, ultimately, is grace: To find the sacred folded into the everyday—the divine not only in temples or scripture, but in the forgotten corners of culture: in a harmony sung by daughters of the land, in a pop song that carries more than melody, in hands that give to mend what storms have broken, and voices that rise to gather what sorrow has scattered.
And it was not done out of obligation. It was offered with the quiet understanding that when grace is given freely, it must be given freely in return. And that, perhaps more than anything, is the mark of true formation.
What made it more remarkable was the timing. This was likely their first real earnings. Their first fruit. And yet they gave—not later, not someday, but now.
It was an act that was not only gracious, but deeply Filipino. To share not from surplus, but from spirit. To give until it hurts—and to do so with joy.
This is not about forcing meaning where there is none. It is about attuning ourselves to meaning where it quietly lives. It is about the humility to admit that sometimes, truth does not wear a uniform. Sometimes, it sings with a melody we almost dismissed.
The song Leaves does not preach. But it prays. It holds the same stillness that Eight Lights was shaped in. It speaks not to the crowd, but to the one—the one who has been waiting, who has been hurting, who has been trying to forgive.
And in that moment—unexpected and unearned—I felt something shift. As if the words had been sung for me. As if I too had been found. Redeemed. Cleansed. Forgiven.
And maybe, that is where we meet the divine most honestly—not in grand pronouncements, but in the quiet line that finds us at just the right time. Not to dazzle us, but to steady us.
All will be alright in time.
There is no theology more grounded than that. No prophecy more immediate. And no grace more needed.
If BINI taught us that formation can be quiet, and culture can be redemptive, then perhaps this song reminds us why.
Because someone, somewhere, needed to hear it. Needed to believe it.
And maybe, too, this country—bruised, searching, still becoming—needed to hear it as well.
And so, the divine voice continues—not always in thunder. Sometimes in pop. Sometimes in silence. Always, in time.