Christmas

I attended church this morning and the pastor's message is about having a Merry Christmas. The pastor also discussed the "evil" of the commercialization of Christmas, the "wrongness" of the political correctness of Christmas being espoused today, i.e. Christmas without the Christ; he also discussed the lost of the uniqueness of Christmas as a Christian experience and as an illustration he cited how a Filipino designed a Christmas tree that is half a a mosque and half a catholic church--even people who do not believe in Christ believe in Christmas. (Maybe what is worse is that some Christians stopped believing in the significance of Christmas.)

Some thoughts on Christmas:

Christmas is a remembrance of the birth of Christ. Its significance is unique for us Christians but especially not limited for us.

The commercialization of Christmas may have done more good than evil as some may have thought. It paved the way for the recognition of Christ or Santa Claus in non Christian nations.

Chritsmas is all about giving and it is also about receiving.

Christmas is vacation and rest and reading.

Christmas is all about food and family--it is not the time to count cholesterol and calories.

Christmas is a time to reflect about one's shortcomings.

And Christmas is about resting from blogging.


Christmas is not a unique experience for the Christians. It is for the whole world. All are welcome to share in the blessings of the birth of the messiah. As the pastor said, the shepherds, the first evangelists, were not even believers when God revealed to them the location of the Christ.

Come to think of it, the significance of Christmas is not for us Christians but for the non-Christians who still need to hear about Christ and Christmas!

Christmas is for all.

Baguio

I am enjoying my rest here in Baguio staying with my sister and brother in law. My allergies are behaving and the climate is doing good to my ever present head ache, due to the pressures in my sinuses, maybe. I am trying not to think of anything but just ole' plain relaxing at the expense of my sister's comfort.

We'll be having our traditional Noche Buena without my brother's family, they are now working in Thailand as missionaries, and my younger brother Dong who's busy with his work.

Good news, Dong brought home a new printer.

Count your blessings, count my blessings.

I'm sure they outweigh the "non-blessings."

What have I done?

What have I done this year?


No servant can serve two masters. But that’s what I have been doing this past year—serving two masters. I have become so involved with my school work that I haven’t had time to do my church work. I have neglected my spiritual life.

I remember my prayer when I came back to the church: “Lord let me finish my education so that I can serve you”. This is my prayer; this is what our pastor prayed for. It seems that I have forgotten this prayer and for what?

All I have done was for selfish reasons. I have forgotten the joy of serving the Lord. All I got from my learning and reading is a negative attitude towards religion—a pretense for profundity. I have forgotten that the measure of a Christian is Christ the rest is insignificant.

What have I done this year?

I have replaced prayer with “theological” contemplation. I have replaced Bible reading with pretentious literature. I saw God but not the way God should be seen—the personal savior.

What I have done this year?

I have criticized a lot of people but I haven’t the guts to criticize myself.


What have I accomplished this year?

I abstained from church meetings and I began to realize there are so much works to do and so little cooperation given and none from me.

What have I done this year?


Nothing. What have I done for the Lord?—nothing.


This is my prayer and I hope you pray them for me

Lord, help me be humble
Lord, help me be humble
Lord, help me be humble
For I fear that if I didn’t humble myself
You’ll humble me

Lord, help me be patient
Lord, help me be patient
Lord, help me be patient
For I fear that if I keep on losing my patience
I fear you losing Your patience on me

Lord, help me see my blessings
Lord, help me see my blessings
Lord, help me see my blessing
For I fear that if I keep on complaining
You’ll take them away from me

Lord, help me see good things about people
Lord, help me see good things about people
Lord, help me see good things about people
For I fear that if I keep on seeing negative things about people
You’ll take away my visions

Lord, heal my afflictions
Lord, heal my afflictions
Lord, heal my afflictions
Let it not hinder service to you

And most of all Lord heal my spiritual afflictions
So that I can be empowered to serve you better.
Amen


I’ll be off to Baguio for our Christmas reunion. Pray that the rest will give me more time to reflect on my long list of shortcomings to the Lord and to the church and how to make up for it.

I have so many things to apologize for.

Please continue to pray for me and my family.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

The Old Man and the Sea


“Age is my alarm clock,” the old man said.
“Why do old men wake so early? Is it to have a longer day?”
“I don’t know,” the boy said. “All I know is that young boys sleep late and hard.”
“I can remember it,” the old man said.

Sometimes when I’m reading a book and came across a passage that just grabs me, I freeze and think. The above passage taken from Hemingway’s “The Old man and the Sea” is an example. When I had read this book a few years ago, I didn’t even bother to finish the book. It was boring. But on my later rereading and when I came across the above passage, I froze. I was affected.

Why do old men wake so early?

When you’re aging time begins to have a different dimension--it becomes precious, so precious that sleep begins to become a waste of it.

Uniforms

The first thing that schools do to a child is to destroy their individuality.
--John Holt

One of the primary functions of school or work uniform, aside from income generation (logos, cloths, sewing services, etc.) is identification.


Even in religion there are uniforms.

You can identify a priest by his vestments. They wear this not because it is comfortable but because of tradition. They conduct beautiful mass that requires all these rituals; so, there must be an equally majestic costume to go with it. Even in small primitive churches or open air masses if you see a priest conducting masses in their full raiment you can’t help but feel the majesty of God or at least the power in the church service that they are doing.

Second function of uniforms is unity.

This means that the person wearing his/her uniform establishes a unity with his/her job/school. Take for instance security guards. Observe their uniforms, the more polished their gold epaulets and medallions and the shinier their shoes are, the more efficient and inflexible they are. That’s because the importance and the power of their jobs is attached to their clothes. Their humanity is fused with all those glittering fool’s gold that pleading your case with them is no use. Observe their mien after they change to regular clothes and see the difference—they are weak. Traffic enforcers are no different. If you see one wearing a hunting knife, cowboy hats and all the regalia that will put the British Royal Guards to shame be very weary of them. (They think they are gods that have the power to stop time with the wave of their hands.)

Uniform, uninformed, out of norm.

The Kite

I love flying kites, and when I was a young I did a lot of flying them.

Our backyard used to be a small rice field. Every summer the farmers harvested the rice, cleared the area and gave the children the opportunity to use it for playground. Malls were virtually unknown then, and the only park that we knew of was the Luneta Park, which is too far. So the bukid was our park. This was where the people in our neighborhood gathered in the mornings to catch the invigorating morning sun and in the afternoons to talk, relax, and enjoy the cool summer breeze while the young played traditional Pinoy games like patintero, atsilandoy, luksong baka, and saranggola or kite flying.

I remember my father’s favorite tabloid the People’s Journal, and whenever he arrived home from work he always had a copy of the paper folded inside his clutch bag. My daily routine was to check his answers in the Tagalog crossword puzzle, and for every mistake that I uncovered I was given a five centavo coin. This I think helped improve my reading skill. I also loved reading the Tacio and the Dalmacio Armas comic strips in the paper. I never missed a single adventure of these two favorite komiks heroes of mine.

One day I asked my father to teach me how to make and fly a kite.

“Okay, get me those old papers and then get some rice from the pot,” he told me. “What’s the rice for,” I asked. “To glue the papers,” he replied. “I thought you’re going to eat them,” I said. “No, this is how we used to make kites for white glue was unknown then,” he smiled.

I brought him the rice and the old People’s Journal issue. I can still remember the banner headline: Marcos Lifts Martial Law. “Father, what is martial law?” I was pointing at the paper’s headline, “You’re too young to know those things,” he said. “Just hand me the paper and I’ll show you how to make a kite”.

It took my father fifteen minutes to make the kite.

We then went to the rice field. He showed me how to fly the kite. “First whistle to get the wind to blow, then hold the kite in the middle till it catches the breeze, then slowly release the kite,” he was squinting at the sun while slowly releasing the string. “Then pull the string back and forth to make it climb, see how it responds,” he was giving me the spool of the strings. We were silent for a few minutes watching the kite danced to the invisible rhythm of the wind. I felt respect for my father’s knowledge of kites. And I cherished the memory of my father and me flying that kite. It was one of the few moments that I really felt very close to my father. I was trying to tell my father that someday I would like to be a pilot and fly planes, he was about to say something, when a dark cloud and a strong gust of wind suddenly blew, breaking my kite’s string. We watched helplessly as the kite flew farther and farther away till it was gone.

“Don’t cry, I’ll help you make a new one,” my father consoled me. “Lets go back to the house for it might rain anytime now,” he pulled my hands and we ran home. But it did not rain. After a few seconds the weather cleared, and up to now I had never experience such a sudden shift in the weather. Strange.

My father has been dead for almost twenty years now. The rice field is now a squatter’s colony where you can’t even fly a paper plane. The traditional Pinoy games I grew up with are now extinct replaced by computer games and drugs.

I now had a daughter, and I am teaching her how to make and fly a kite just like the way my late father did. The difference is, today we now had to ride a tricycle to get to a rice field in Barangay Sta. Ana, Taytay. But despite the distance and the expense we tried to make it a point to go there regularly to fly kites. My heart warmed when I saw my daughter’s excitement in flying her first kite. I got a lump on my throat looking at her for she reminded me of me and my old man.

My nephew Bong was here for his annual vacation so we brought him along with us flying kite in Santa Ana. He was ecstatic for it was also his first time to fly a kite. And while I was teaching him how to maneuver it, our kite got tangled in a large tamarind tree, who’s had a lot of victim judging from the remains of mangled newspapers, sticks, and strings hanging from its branches. Not wanting to spoil the fun, I climbed the tree to retrieve the kite. I was on the branches trying to untangle it when a crumpled yellowed old kite caught my attention. It was a kite I knew. I was trying to remember where I have seen this kite before when the banner headline from the kite’s newspaper skin caught my attention, it read: Marcos Lifts Martial Law.

“Father, are you crying?” my daughter, Jesse Faith, asked me while we walked home. “No, I’m not crying, it’s the wind daughter, it’s just the wind” I replied. “It’s just the wind”.

(Of course it was not the same kite. I made up this part, but you know how it is with fathers and sons. I never outgrew my father. Who does?)

Flood

I was floating. I was in a boat (actually a large wash basin). The boat was being pulled by my older sister. She was laughing and the next thing I knew I was drowning. Then a hand pulled me out of the water. Hugged me and asked me if I was all right. I can’t talk because I swallowed water. I didn’t know if I cried. But I can’t forget the look of worry on my sister’s face. “I just turned my head for a second and then you were gone!” She told me. She was so worried. I was choking. My mother was screaming (or maybe not).

That was a choppy recollection of how our family deal with floods when we were young—we had fun.

This can’t be done today because the floods of today are floods of garbage. Not floodwater with garbage but garbage of flood with floodwater.

The disposable culture that the west brought to the Philippines is finally taking its toll on us.

Firepower

Creativity? I’ve got to hand it to my countrymen.

The Filipinos have always celebrated New Year with a bang, fire crackers, bamboo cannons and tin cans; it’s a Chinese influence. At the start of –ber months you’ll hear these crackling noise as if there’s a military skirmish out there somewhere. It’s the signal of the start of the firecracker season.

Firecrackers are expensive. But will that stop my countrymen from making noise? No! Someone from Cavite Province invented the “bazooka.” It’s a PVC pipe that uses denatured alcohol as fuel and, toy guns, or cigarette “electronic” igniter, or any device that can create spark as a trigger. What’s crazy is the way they design the bazooka. Some looked like a 155 mm howitzers, others like a stinger anti-aircraft weapon and others, not to be outdone, put these bazookas no top of an M16 toy gun complete with the camouflage pain; the effect is hilariously terrorizing. It’s not only the children who are taken in by the bazooka thing. I think there are more adults than children walking around with these deadly sonic weapons. Some even wear camouflage flak jackets to complete the illusion of military machismo. What is it with men and weapons?

The bazooka is a good alternative to the traditional gunpowder firecrackers. It is relatively safe, that is, unless someone point the thing on someone’s face. It is loud, it does not produce smog, it does not leave trash like paper and bamboo casings, and it’s cheap.

Creativity? I’ve got to hand it to my countrymen.

The Failure of not failing

“Be proud you’re a teacher. The future depends on you.”

The result of the recent National Elementary Assessment Tests that aims to gauge the preparedness of elementary schools graduates for high school education indicates a decline in the competency of elementary school teachers. Less than 10 percent of the students passed the test. This prompted the Department of Education to implement “bridge programs” for the students, and to provide seminars to help teachers meet at least the minimum requirement for effective instruction in core subjects.

The high school and the college level teachers are not doing well too. Our high school student’s performance is one of the worst, if not the worst in South East Asia while our tertiary education is way, way behind the ASEAN Standard.

It is true that overcrowding, unjust compensation of the teachers, and lack of school facilities are the main reasons for our educational system’s poor performance—all are given. But there’s one contributing factor that affects the quality of our education, it is the quality of our educator—teachers who don’t deserve to be teachers become teachers.

There is this negative Filipino college culture of treating Education as the course of last resort—the home of the frustrated. Education courses are the catch basin of college students who are not able to meet the required quotient for the more “prestigious” courses like architecture, engineering, accounting, etc. This is disheartening for it shows the utter disregard for the importance, esteem and the dignity of the teaching profession. The teachers are the foundations of educations. No matter how elaborate a structure is if its foundations are weak, it will not stand.

Another factor is that colleges are not as stringent when it comes to education courses as they should be. Tertiary educational institutions are not only there to provide education but they are also there to make sure that those who graduate deserves to graduate. Ponder these figures from 2005: Only 25 percent of elementary education graduates passed the Licensure Examinations. For the high school education graduates the figure was 25.9 percent. Every year colleges and universities produce enough graduates to fill our school’s demand. But despite the quantity of teachers they produce, the dismal passing rate of these graduates in the licensure examinations still creates a shortage for qualified teachers.

Universities and colleges can contribute to the reversing of the deterioration of the quality of our educators by raising the standard of their admission and retention requirements for education courses. And lastly, education students must realize that unless they pass the licensure examinations their degrees are next to worthless.

Reflect on this passage from an editorial in one of the nation’s leading paper:

“The current crop of teachers can be made to undergo crash courses and additional training to raise levels of competence.

(But) Reversing the slide in the quality of teachers, however, will have to start from gradeschool.

Poetry-a lecture about non lecture

Part of the tertiary press conference that I attended last Dec. 3-6 was a lecture about poetry. I was excited. Maybe I could learn some things about writing in rhymes, about measure, tone, imagery, symbolism and all that stuff.

The first part of the lecture was interesting enough. But when the discussant started to expound on poetry, “poetry is blah, blah, description… exposition… blah….zzzzzzzz….slurrrppppp….poetry……isms………ers……adskhaiorwghao…….”

“For example:

The Red Wheel Barrow

So much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

William Carlos Williams (1883 - 1963)
U.S. poet, novelist, and physician.

“Picture the image of the red wheel barrow, so vivid, so colorful. The color of the wheel barrow its imagery, the language, it’s so real. The red wheel barrow is red as you can see, but it’s also in the wheel barrow where the chicken is beside it—its red.”
“As you can see poetry is all about image, its all about beauty. Blah, blah, blah.”

In the end, I came to the realization that studying poetry is like dissecting a frog. You can see the organs, the innards, the heart pumping, the lungs expanding, and when you begin to understand the intricacies of the organism, you killed it.

Just read and write poetry, it’s enough.

(I have nothing against the lecturer and she’s one fine lady, and I know deep in her heart all she wants was to spread the appreciation of poetry. She delivered a fine lecture. The problem is me.)

Chiquito del sol

Movies. I haven’t seen movies for almost a…year. The last movie I watched with my family was that movie starring Bea Alonzo and John Lloyd…I forgot the guy’s last name. I was forced to watch this movie because of my wife and my daughter. I pleaded with them to let me just stay out of the movie house and just let me wait for them beside the ticket booth where I could spend productive hours looking at the ceiling. Saves money too. But our marriage contract dictates that we be together through thick and thin, in sickness and health, for richer or poorer, through torture and insanity.

I hate Filipino movies because they are so, so predictable; so, so inane; so, so much waste of money. If I was Chairman La Guardia of the MTRCB I would rate all Filipino movies as X-rated—unfit for human and animalcules consumption. All that Filipino art movies? Spare me the artsy fartsy. Only one percent of Filipinos movies are good and they are not usually shown here because the people who appreciate them are not Filipinos.

The judges of good Filipino movies are not Filipinos for Filipino movies have brainwashed ordinary Filipinos into thinking that stupid Filipino movies are good movies. The best judges of Filipino movies are the people who never watch Filipino movies, like the Europeans, the Americans and me, yes, me!!!!!!!!!!!! (The rule of punctuation says that writers should minimize the use of the exclamation point for…your writing will seem juvenile or empty headed…--Punctuate it Right!, Harry Shaw p. 107) (Oh Yeah? Ha, ha, then why are you using exclamation point in the title of your book. I can do this!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can’t do anything about it!!!!!!!!!!! WAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!) ([“Sorry” for the temporary insanity:] (I’m having problem with punctuations?’) (I have to be careful with this parenthetical insanity.)

I have a very short list of Filipino movies and they are movies that starred Chiquito. Why Chiquito? In the name of Odin and all the fatalist gods of Valhalla, why Chiquito? Because Chiquito reminded me of my late father, period. Not FPJ, Dolphy, Cesar Montano, or any other else but only Chiquito, Chiquito, Chiquito, Chiquito…I want Mang Kepweng and his alipores Tintoy, Kumander Surot and his fellow revolutionaries, Asyong Aksaya and his millions. I want Chiquito, Chiquito, Chiquitito!!!!!!!!!

How, oh, how my late father made me laugh every time he mimics Chiquito.

Mi haciendero de la silya

For favore mi de sol mia

Porque de hamon de sta maria

For dos for kwatro

Ala me magawa!

Chiquito.

Mythology

“Kuya George what is thanatos?” My classmate was reading one of those literary folios from one of the more prestigious university. “Me-ann, thanatos means death. It’s Greek,” …without me aware of it, I gave her a lecture on mythology and Greek mythology.

Mythology, methodology, and biology.

I saw Troy the movie starring Brad Pitt and whoever it is with him. I was expecting gods, goddesses, nymphs etc. But I was surprised when I found out that it was not a mythological movie but a historical one.

Mythology is in reality history.

History is mythology written in a scientific way.

The scientific way being the way people record their history through their eyes.

Their eyes being shaded with the science of their days, which is superstition.

History written is mythology is history written in exaggeration to preserve history.

The characters are immortalized as gods because they are gods in the eyes of the people of their times.

Like Madonna, or the Beatles, or Michael Jackstone, or Britney Spears, they are gods too!

Forces of nature are gods too.

Concepts and ideas are gods too.

Greek mythology is history.

Heavens, heavens, heavens, heavens,

Is this the same demythologizing that Bultmann talked about?

My Head my toe

My TOEs, my knees, my shoulder
What is TOE? What is TOE?
Dimwits it’s the Theory of Everything
Said the Oracle

What is TOE?
The search for the theory of meaning
In math, physics
and philosophy

My TOEs, My Knees, My Shoulder
My TOE
Is it possible to find TOE

And here goes the wind!

Yes! Yes! Yes!
There is Toe
The Theory of everything
But, actually it’s not TOE
It’s heavy, heavier than a TOE
Much, much, much heavier than a Toe

And sayeth the stone!!!

You have to kill many a many to find many TOES
You see a TOE is not a TOE
A TOE is the THE TON

A TON? Queried the bumblebee with the sore eyes.

Out flew the bumblebee with the conjunctivitis
It’s neither a he nor a she because the bumblebee is a drone
And out he flew to the Indians to tell the news.

Hail to the chef, hail to the chief, hail to the chef
Said the bumblebee to the Indian head
Kimosave, Kimosave, Kimosave
You who lead the tribe
You who concoct deities for the tribe
The bumble was crying
I have brought news from the stone
From the wind
From the voice of the oracle
Who sang
“My TOES, My Knees”

The chef and the chief and the chef can’t tell that the bumblebee
Was crying
Because the bumblebee
Had conjunctivitis

Tell what is it you pesterous bumblebee!
You are not worthy to disturb the chef
The chief and the chef of the tribe

Forgive me chef, chief, chef
But the TOE is not The TOE
It’s THE TON

Whhhaaaattttt?
Blasphemous.
In the name of the spirits of the departed
Embalmed by the embalmer
What is the TON?

Ask the rain said the bumblebee

Call on all the Indians including those with the umbrellas and the notebooks
We will perform a rain dance

Chef, chief, chef
You who lead and concoct
It’s storming and the rain is beating hard
Protested the Indian with umbrella and the notebook

“Silence or I will smash that HONDA on your face!”
The chef, chief, chef angrily replied
Anger me again and I will not pay the interests

At the mention of the interest
The Indian with the umbrella and the notebook
Bowed with disgrace
They danced the rain dance while it’s storming hard.
They danced while it’s raining and the rain spoke

“Can’t you see I’m busy”
Protested the rain

Rain, rain go away
Come again another day
We come in supplication
To ask you a question
About THE TON


The rain stood up
Rotated a knob
His magic power
Stopped the water
Picked up a towel
Dried his/her hair
Looked in the mirror, the oracle

And laugh his/her heart out!
And sat down on their world
And they saw its face
The black hole smiling at them

They watched as the big black hole fell upon them
The something came out
The Indians watched
As the rain
Dropped the answer

THIS IS THE TOE
THAT IS THE TON
THIS IS THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING
IT’S THE THEORY OF NOTHING
WATCH MY DUNG
CATCH IT AND WEEP

FOR THE EXPLANATION FOR EVERYTHING IS THE EXPLANATION OF NOTHING

They all went back to the tribe
To the chef, chief, chef
Who led and concoct
Who preach and sung

“My Head, My TOE, My shoulder my knees……

Cogito

I just ate my lunch, and I’m feeling heavy today. When I feel heavy, I like to read heavy. Why not read about “Cartesian Doubt”.

Rene Descartes: First Meditation

“Some years ago I came to the realize that from my youth on wards I had been accepting as true many opinions that were really false, and that consequently the beliefs which I based upon such infirm grounds must themselves be doubtful and uncertain…”

(I’m beginning to feel the heaviness of what I’m reading.)

“…Archimedes required, as a condition of moving the earth from one place to another, only that a single point in the universe be immovably fixed. Analogously I shall be entitled to the highest hopes if I am lucky enough to discover one single thing that is certain and indubitable.

…I must exist to persuade myself of something…

I am, I exist….

(I’m feeling very heavy now!)

…Cogito, Ergo sum!!!!....I think therefore I am…the one indubitable truth”
I exist!

And I say… “Cogito I go to Cubeta dong”… I need to go to the comfort room!…the one unstoppable truth!

I am in my thinking chair, smelling the essence of humanity, and at the same time contemplating Descartes’ “Cogito” when I suddenly realized that the “Cogito” that Descartes borrowed from St. Augustine can be refuted by a simple statement “Look at the Filipinos”.

And I say… “Incognito, Ergo Sum”…They don’t think yet they exist (my Latin is a little rusty).

Philippine congress had now approved the Con-Ass (mga con na, mga ass pa) or the Constituent Assembly to tackle the cha-cha (charter change) to change the presidential government to parliamentary government.

And I say… “Mga iho, listen to this!

The problem with cha-cha is that it seeks to change the form of government without changing the people in the government. It seeks to make efficient the way things are done in the government by changing the system without changing the culture of corruption that permeates the bureaucracy. And that it seeks to simplify government taking into consideration that it will also simplify political conspiracy, corruption, and overstaying in power. What is worst is, with the political bickering and the ever shifting political loyalty in this sad country of ours, the system of government being proposed could make a comedy out of the national leadership—we could be facing a weekly rotation of prime ministers.

Tons of argument can be presented and can even be convincing to reason, but there’s many thing that must be considered first before agreeing to cha-cha: Is changing the government with the same notorious people in place, with the old culture of nepotism and corruption still prevalent and with primeval self interest as the core value do any damn difference to the state of affairs of the nation. No! What we need is not a change of government but a change of perspective, values, character, etc. Even if we adopt a tribal, shamanistic, Machiavellian, democratic, plutocratic, autocratic, etc. form of government if it is run by selfless, well meaning, nationalistic, wise, altruistic leaders there’s no reason why the Philippines can’t succeed. The problem is the people and not the system for a system is only as good as the people who run it.

(I was watching the news and I saw a sexy model fuming mad because her picture was pirated by the tabloids. “I posed for FHM Magazine and not for the tabloids.” And I say, “Dear beautiful, sexy, honorable lady. What is the difference!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????)

Logos and crazy questionss of a certified theologs

Rom 2:14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
Rom 2:15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)

“Those who have lived by the aid of logos are Christian even if they were adjudged atheists—such as Socrates and Heraclitus and their like among the Greeks, and among the Barbarians, Abraham…and Elijah” --Justin Martyr, Apology.



When Justin talked about the logos he was not only talking about word, speech, or reason but he was primarily talking about the first born of God, the Spirit and the Power from God. Of, course this conception of the logos is Platonic but it jived with what I have been convinced long ago—that God is revealed everywhere. I am now into the Philosophy of Man, a required subject for my course. Although I consider myself better read than my instructor (who is younger than me) in this area, but my instructor’s seatwork on the Asian sages Confucius, Lao Tzu, and the Buddha and all the transcendental goals of their philosophies made me realize another area of the quest for God that we Christians (sometimes) considered inutile, futile and sometimes even absurd—the search for God sans the Bible.


Put simply for us Christians, Christianity is all about God trying to communicate to humanity for their salvation. It is God trying to let himself be understood by humanity through prophets, through priest, through the law and the culmination of this “communicating” is through the Christ—where in God made God manifest in the flesh. It is unthinkable for most Christians to think about the search for God without this seeking of God through Christ as presented by biblical revelation. I think this is right but not the whole truth.



I am a firm believer of natural revelation, for I believe that without this innate knowledge and desire of humanity to reach out and go beyond his humanity, Biblical revelation would never be possible. This is not to deny God but to affirm God for what is that desire to transcend if there’s nothing to transcend to?

I was thinking how must it felt for the Buddha to quest for God (or transcendence) (although Buddhist are atheistic there is still that search…I don’t know but it still about God) through meditation and in the absence of revelation, or Confucius, or Lao Tzu, how must it felt to search for the truth with nothing to based it on but on what is at their disposal—their reflections and enlightenment. How confounding the challenge for their search must have been, and what is not surprising is how parallel some of the result of these searches (sans ethnocentrism) is with the teachings of Christ!


Doesn’t these awkward, poor and incoherent grasping of reality suggests a pre-existing natural revelation? Nay, even a foundational revelation to the foundational revelation of biblical revelation?

This humanity trying to explain, to seek, to go beyond, to grasp at realities beyond this reality, this grasping, happening and developing simultaneously in different cultures, land and era. It must also tell something about God, something for God, something good about God, something that is revealed or graspable about God, or something that man has been trying to do and that God has granted to humanity—different but not opposing revelations. The essence determines the form, the searchers grasps the form of the essence. The form is determined by the form of the searchers. God is essence and encompasses form.


No, it would be unthinkable for some Christians to consider these “pagan Christians” search and efforts to understand God and the transcendent reality that God is as a valid search for God. But sometimes there’s that nagging question that says otherwise for I believe that persons seeking God unaided by biblical revelation have more faith than persons who believes that they are being seek by God through biblical revelation and finds faith. Yes, I believe that it takes more faith to look for God in the absence of biblical revelation and salvation is about faith.


It is time we move away from the notion that Christianity is the center of the religious universe “from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican” view that God is the sun and all other religion orbit around Him. God reveals himself through sensitive and responsive people and this revelation gave rise to different religions.
--John Hicks

I envy people who accept their faith (or religion) as it is without any question, without any confusion. But I’m not that, for I believe that faith is living with these questions and living, surviving, that for me is faith. Faith unchallenged is not faith but superstition and shamanism (memorize this, memorize that, follow it to the letter, thou shalt not challenge this or that, truth is in the letters…).

This is a strange way to look for truths about God. Not advisable, not advisable, not advisable. I am not challenging the Bible nor do I doubt that Christ is the savior, but there is this nagging restlessness in me that cannot believe that salvation is exclusive to a religion, to a denomination, to a sect, sometimes to an individual because if that is salvation I’d rather be damned.

I remember a Baptist theology teacher telling his class, “I cannot blame the Catholics for Baptizing children…” yes, we cannot blame them.

A deacon's unussual story

A not so typical Deacon’s story

I am church deacon. As a deacon, one of my ceremonial functions is to assist in the Lord’s Table. I like the job because of the aura of holiness and “spiritual seniority” it bestows upon the deacons. But…here’s another crazy story:

It was during my third time to assist in this solemn occasion that tested my willpower. Rev. Galvez, the officiating minister, gave us the loaves of the unleavened bread for breaking and the grape juice for distribution. But we were having difficulty breaking the bread for the Albania’s, who owns the bakery that supplied the bread, perhaps, maybe, just added water to the flour and baked them for what came out was cement hard bread. People were already chuckling, but I didn’t pay much attention to them for I was taking my deaconship seriously.

But when it was time for the blessing of the bread, the Rev. Galvez finding it difficult to break the bread, just took one whole loaf, raised it and solemnly prayed. (This was most unusual in our church for we were used to seeing the Pastor just take a small piece.) I kept hearing people whispering, “Look at the pastor’s bread its huge”. “He’s including his lunch”. “The reverend forgot his breakfast”. “He needs a gallon of grape juice for that one”. The funniest remark was from a child who blurted out, “Mommy, ang laki ng tinapay o!” I turned my head to the left to avoid looking at the minister and the bread. But looking at the congregation holding back their laughter was even worse. Some were already giggling. I even saw someone stoop up and went downstairs, maybe to laugh his heart out. Aside from trying to keep from laughing (all that trapped air does something to your system) I also had to keep from “depressurizing”, you know, like those old air brakes. Fortunately the ceremony ended without any outbursts of laughter or “depressurizations”.

I can’t forget the look on the senior ladies faces when they received their portions of the bread. Because most of them were toothless and had dentures, they just kept on sucking on the bread till it melted (that is well long after the service). People with healthy teeth found the bread so tough that they sounded like eating roasted corn.

I think it’s time I propose to the church council to use mamon or cupcakes or jelly ace for the Lord’s Table.

Then there was grape juice incident. Maybe the person in charge of the preparation was just too busy or maybe just forgot to dilute the grape juice with water or she dilluted it with too little water. For when the Rev. Galvez blessed the juice and we drank in remembrance of the Lord. I had to keep from jumping. My gulay, the stuff tasted like raw vinegar.

It’s very difficult to erase from memory the sight of the whole congregation puckering and shaking their heads in unison, add to that the look on the Rev. Galvez’ face and what you have is a formula for a successful muriatic acid ad.

It was really a blessing that the cement hard bread and the hyper-acidic grape juice incident didn’t happen at the same time, for if it did, the whole congregation might just blurt out laughing uncontrollably. We would be the first Southern Baptist Church in the Philippines (or the world) to experience the Pentecostal phenomenon of Holy laughter but with an original addition—fartus sanctificus.

(Don’t ask.)

To think that Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli almost went to battle against each other for they’re differing interpretations of the Lord’s Supper makes you wonder what would have been their reactions if they were at the Evangelical Christian Baptist Church during these occasions. I think they would have aborted the reformation and just stayed good Roman Catholics.

Hate Poems (a therapeutic way to let off some steam)

Give me all the nukes and why I won’t use it
Give me the button to all the nuclear weapons
So that I may nuke
All these political people
To Damnation

But I take my words back
For I know, Oh, I know
That what will happen
If I nuke all these politicians
Is that I may create a mutation
Permutations of all the mutations
Mutations of all permutations
Of politicians with more chitinous hides
Tongues with more forks than the hydra’s
More slippery than WD40
More suave than James Bond
More chameleon like than some preachers
More immoral than Satan
And amoral like a dung.

Oh, Heavens I pray,
To bring back the prophets and the priests
The Rabbis and the Levites
With all the power and the fire
To rule this nation of nuts!

Why not use Biological Weapons
The continuation of the poem above (please call it a poem)
I just got an inspiration
Nukes can cause mutation
There’s an alternative weapon
That can be used to eradicate the politicians of the nation
And that is biological weapons

Anthrax, measles, small pox
Chicken pox and the whole lot of them
Oh give me access to them weapons

Oh, but I forgot, How, I forgot!
Immunizations
Immunization can equalize biological weapons
With the way this politicians
Use Butolin Toxin injections
(A biologiocal weapon)
To make them look young
May have already altered their immune system
Making them invincible
To virus ands germ warfare

That leaves me with Brutus,
Lee Harvey Oswald and their kind….

Sex and World Aids Day

Dec. 1, World AIDS Day

I seldom read the paper now. I mean, they are expensive and getting more expensive. Must be because the cost of paper is getting higher and higher because of all the theses being written, or, maybe it’s because their circulation is already suffering because of the internet. Anyways, I’d rather spend my worthless peso surfing the net looking for news than buy a bulky spreadsheet with all the ads and all the uninteresting news about blah, blah, blah, cha-cha-cha and the latest mutation of the cha-cha (charter change) the con-ass (constitutional assembly) or the concatenation of equine bowel portals.

But once in a while, if I have that extra cash and if I want to look at the latest sexy tabloid model, I go to the nearest newsstand, pretending to peek contemptuously at the tabloids centerfold while buying the country’s number 1 daily, The Inquirer. I mean the country’s anti porn agency must be doing its job because these tabloids are becoming tamer and boring; or, they readers are getting better pictures from the net.

(I remember a conversation I had with my two school mates. “Kuya, why is it that men are that?” They asked me. “Like what?” I asked back. “You know, sex and sex, it’s all about sex and sex.” Of course they didn’t say it that way but that is what they are telling me, “With men it’s all about sex.” What can I say but, “it’s our nature, period.” “But we’re Christians and Christians are not supposed to be like that!” Haaaayyyyyy

… what can I again say but, “I’m sorry, it’s our nature and there’s nothing I can do about that…maybe castration.”

“But”…”

It’s our nature: hormonal, maybe; psychological, could be; spiritual, etc. pppppeeeerrrriiioood, I mean it’s our nature, the heterosexual male ha, and it’s not my fault.”

I know what this is all about.

All these bitterness against men is all about the bitterness of them not getting a man, I mean their ideal man.

Then the conversation went to marriage. “Kuya is sex outside marriage sin?” They kept nagging me. They want to hear an old impotent, unorthodox man’s view. “Sex outside of marriage is sin, but if you’re idea of marriage is the wedding, you need to reorient yourself. I mean…the pronouncement of the priest and the all that rituals do not make a marriage.

And getting married after becoming pregnant does not solve anything….and…” “But….”

“Just this, No Sex!!! Of course I didn’t tell it to them this way but that’s what I said.

“You see, you girls place too much importance on the wedding. Wedding is not marriage in the same way that circumcision does not confer manhood to a man. Sex outside of marriage is sin, but you must first know what marriage is because there are weddings that have no marriages.”

If ever these two schoolmates of mine get married, I hope they realize that sex is not that bad nor is it evil, in fact, it is wonderful.

These stories made me realize something: they are at the peak of their hormone surge while I’m near the ebbing of the tide—a painful realization of generation gap.)

(I better control these parentheses. I plan to write about sex because of a giant condom I saw on the paper…..)

Dec. 1 is world AIDS day. The Inquirer featured an article about a giant balloon condom being paraded on the streets of Baguio City. I don’t know why they use a giant condom as the icon for the fight against AIDS. For me it’s sexist, I suggest that next year they pair the giant balloon condom with a giant balloon IUD…you know, that snakelike Intra polyurethane device…or a giant balloon diaphragm…or better, much, much better a giant balloon chastity belt… I better stop now lest…how about a castrating knife…no…stop it… Waaaaahhhhhhhh…how about guava leaves with a barber’s shave…. Nooooooo…how about balloon tianaks (imps)….must stop, must stop…

Crazy Old Student

It’s almost a month into the second semester and people from the campus are already asking when the next issue of our school paper will be out. “Wait, I told them.”

Last semester’s issues created a lot of trouble for me and the editorial board; I was threatened with physical harm, with libel, and voodoo. And I learned from that experience.

“George what is the matter with you?” A student my age asked me. “What are these things you wrote about? You’re attacking the instructors, the campus and the university!” You’re crazy.

They’re waiting for the next issue.

What is this old crazy student up to now?

The libel thing was crazy. I was playing Red Alert when a member of the editorial board texted me and told me that the paper will be sued for libel. I looked at the celphone and almost loss my bowel control. My gulay, there’s a possibility that I may go to jail because of an item in a grammatically and stylistically unacceptable student paper’s blind item section. I’m not afraid of jail term, what I’m afraid of is that the paper might be read in the courtroom, and the judge instead of finding me guilty of libel might charge me with a higher crime—murder in the first degree!!! I murdered English!!!! Instead of being sentenced to be hanged, I might end up getting a worse deal—reading the paper over and over again.

I was thinking about libel and did a little reading about the creature called libel. Of course, I don’t know German and the only part that I understand in the is that there must be an imputation of a crime, identity, and all those jargons here and there that is meant to make legal literatures strictly within the confines of people who studied Latin and mastered the art of lying and compromising and ethical exhibitionism and still look respectable. But what stood out in the annotated law about libel is malice, what stood out in my readings about libel is to prove malice in the articles to show libel.

Malice, malice, pagbilan ng ulam ka Alice.

Malice is a one of those words, easy to define hard to prove to exist technically.

Off I go to Quezon for the regional press conference.

Our Home through my daughter's eyes

Pacquiao

I remember Manny Pacquiao’s first US fight. I forgot who his opponent was, but there’s one thing that I will never forget in that event. Manny was an unknown fighter then, so the ring announcer did not know how to pronounce Manny’s last name, Pacquiao. And this is how I heard the ring announcer say it, promise this is how I heard it: “From the Phiiiiiiliiiiippines, Maaaaannnnnnny, THE PAAAAAC----MAN, Peeeeeeeyyyyykkkkkkk-----yyyuuuuuuu!!!!” It was hilarious. But I think I was the only one who heard the mispronunciation because there were no commentaries on the “intimate way” Manny’s last name was announced.

Of course, Manny is now up there; he’s now famous. I watched his last fight against that Mexican punching bag (I forgot the forgettable guy’s name) but I was not really interested in the fight. What I paid attention to was how the ring announcer would pronounce Manny’s last name again. This time they got the pronunciation right, it’s just the syllabication that I’m having problem with. This is how I heard it (promise): “From the Phiiiiliiiiippines, Maaaannnnnnnyyyyy, THE PAAAAAC---MAN, Paaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkk----yaaaooooowwwwwww.”

Must be in my head, must be all in my head, must be...must be…I mean…

Why can’t they just say “Pakyaw”!


Pacquiaotion


I don’t know what’s wrong with this nation
You have a congressman driving Manny the champion
You have mayors and a governor acting as his chaperons
You have every predatory politician giving him adulation
With no intention
But to squeeze dry media mileage from the champion

There’s more to this concatenation
Of insane proposition
For there’s plan to tempt the champion
To run as vice mayor of the capitol of the nation
In this coming election

I hope the champion
Will not cave in to the temptation
Because politics is no sports competition
It is the science of self aggrandization
And a systematic conspiracy of pilfering the nation



I say leave alone the champion
Let him sing atonal musical compositions
Let him promote products from vinegar to butox injections
Let him dance with poor coordination
Let him box till his evaporation
Just leave alone the champion
For we have enough survivor of brain and heart amputation
Running the capital and the nation
Towards economic and moral perdition

Leave Manny Pacquiao alone to his destination
And that is to be the greatest boxer of the nation

Forget the damned election


(I’m sick of Pacquiao…not the man, but the hype.)

Memory Gap (Fiction)

The portable TV, what’s the significance of the portable TV lying on the bed of the murder victim? The Bulik-bulik Bureau of Crime Detection Unit was puzzled. Pedro Pouetmo, the senior investigator, holds the record for the most cases solved in the department, but this case puzzled him for its bizarreness. (It was rumored that Det. Pouetmo was a descendant of Det. Hercule Poirot (Herr-kyu-ley Pwah-ruh) Agatha Christie’s legendary Belgian sleuth). Nothing was taken, Mr. Pepito Tubangbakod, the victim was well liked in the neighborhood. He regularly attended the Church of the Parish of Santa Claus; he was a regular of the local Kawangis club, and practically every child in the neighborhood was his godson. He was a bachelor. But there’s nothing wrong or strange with single hood nor was he a sexual deviant. The man was practically qualified to be beatified by the pope. So, there was no reason to believe that someone wished him harm.

Mr. Tubangbakod was found dead inside his entertainment cabinet where his TV used to be. He had a clean death. There was no wound, nor any signs of struggle, in fact, the police were ready to conclude natural death except for the macabre circumstance of the victim and the TV’s changed places—the TV was on the bed and Tubanagbakod was on the entertainment cabinet. Detective Pouetmo tried his best, but he had exhausted all his investigative prowess and resources, and he was about to surrender and add the case as a blot on his impeccable record when he remembered something.

Mr. Tubangbakod was famous for his memory. He was hospitalized three times for major injuries because of it. First was when he was almost blinded when a spoon pierced his left eye because he forgot to remove it before drinking his coffee. Second was when he was almost electrocuted when he inserted his finger into the socket instead of the rice-cooker’s plug. Third was when he drove on the wrong side of road and his car collided with the garbage truck. And there were other minor injuries and damages to his and other people and their properties but it was always settled amicably for he was well liked--everyone knew of his affliction.

“Chief do you read Mark Twain?” Det. Pouetmo asked.
“No, why? What does Twain have to do with the case?” Capt. Cruz asked.
“Nothing, just an idea. But I think I know what happened to our dear Mr. Tubangbakod”, the detective said.

“Okay, let me hear it Detective.” Capt. Cruz warily replied, “I hope this is not another one of your literary blah, blah,”

“Ouch that hurts. Anyway Cap, I think our dear Tubangbakod was watching TV late, and he decided to go to sleep. Naturally, he would first turn off the TV then go to bed. But supposed he forgot, for someone who was famous for his memory problem, that it was the TV that was supposed to be turned off, and that he was the one supposed to lie on the bed to sleep--supposed he forgot the order of his actions.”

“Are you saying that Tubangbakod put the TV on the bed to sleep, and then he climbed inside the entertainment cabinet and turned himself off”, the chief blurted out.

“Possible.”

Brooom, Zero Backlog

Brooom, Broooom, Brooom
Here comes the guy on the Honda

Brooom, Broooom, Brooom
Here comes the guy on the Honda

Brooom, Broooom, Brooom
Here comes the guy on the honda

Hide, hide, hide
Said the tindera

Hide, hide, hide
Said the tindera

Hide, hide, hide
Said the tindera

Why are you hiding I asked?

Here comes Ricky
From India

Here comes Ricky
From India

Here comes Ricky
From India

Hide hide hide
Hide hide hide
Hide hide hide

Five sex five sex five sex

Kuyah nakita mo ba yung tindera?
No, no, no,
No, no, no,
Pero andiyan Nanay ko.

PLDT Project
The answer to your communication problem

Zero backlog, Zero Backlog
Zero backlog, Zero Backlog
Zero backlog, Zero Backlog
Zero backlog, Zero Backlog

PLDT ‘s instant service

Zero backlog, Zero Backlog
Zero backlog, Zero Backlog
Zero backlog, Zero Backlog
Zero backlog, Zero Backlog

Rrrrrinnng, Rrrrinnnngg
Mommy, Daddy, how are you doing in the States?

Weyre faynnne and weyre learning slangggg
Thayyynks to PeeeEyllDeeeeeTeeehhhh weyylll ayyblllee to twalk
Hayyyve yowww heayyrd about PeeLDeeeT’s preyyject

What is it about mommy and daddy?

Zero Bayyycklog
Zero Bayyycklog
Zero Bayyycklog
Zero Bayyycklog

Son, here listen to your grandma and grandpa
Talking bout PLDT’s project

Zero Bayyycklog
Zero Bayyycklog
Zero Bayyycklog

Mommy, ano po yung Zero Beklog? Patay.

Sins Of Omission

I was going through piles of used books at Diplomat, randomly picked up an old and jacketless one, and randomly opened it, and here’s what I found.

The Sin of Omission

It isn’t the things you do;
It’s the thing you leave undone,
Which gives you a bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun

The tender word forgotten,
The letter you did not write,
The flowers you might have sent
Are your haunting ghost at night.

The stone you might have lifted
Out of a brother’s way
The bit of a heartsome council
You were hurried too much to say;

The loving touch of the hand,
The gentle and winsome tone,
That you had no time or thought for
With troubles enough of your own.

The little act of kindness,
So easily out of mind;
Those chances to be helpful
Which everyone may find—

No it’s not the thing you do,
It’s the thing you leave undone,
Which gives you the bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun

---Margaret E. Sangster

The Book is “The Treasury of Religious Verse” by Donald T. Kauffman. I bought it for twenty nine pesos.

This is a good poem. It made me reflect on sin. The Old Testament generally defines sins as disobedience to the commandments of God. But in the New Testament where Christ is the fulfillment of the Law, sin is not all about commandments; it is all about the loss of relationship. Sin in the New Testament can be summed up in Jo 3:6 So everyone who lives in union with Christ does not continue to sin; but whoever continues to sin has never seen him or known him. Sin is being out of Christ. For if one is in Christ one is incapable of committing sin against God; this is justification. Of course it does not mean we can’t sin, it only means that the payment for our sin is already accounted for.
So simple yet made complicated.
I was thinking: Christ died for all our sins—sins of commission.
But for sins of omission?

Old picture

This is an old picture of my mother’s grandmother’s house in the Visayas. It was taken during c. 1950’s and this is the only memorabilia my mother has of her childhood.

My mother left the Visayas when she was only sixteen or fifteen (I can’t remember exactly) and she hasn’t come back since then. She always has this plan of coming back to visit her family. But if ever that would happen, she may be surprised to find out that home is not a place in this planet (see my earlier post “Home Sweet Home”).


When I was a child I remember my mother just bursting into uncontrollable weeping. And every time I asked her why, she would always say “self pity, son, self pity.”

I am a home body. Maybe I got this from my mother.

Everyone kept telling me that I looked like my father. And they’re right, I looked like my father but I think like my mother--a deadly combination, I dare say.

Beware of dogs

My younger brother and I put a “Beware of Dogs” sign on our gate to discourage gate crashers and to prevent people from being bitten by our dogs, or vice versa.

This morning my neighbor called me to tell that someone came asking if our dogs were for sale. She was laughing while telling me this news. I was puzzled because selling our dogs was the farthest thing from my or my brother’s mind. And why was she laughing?

When I came out of the gate, another neighbor asked me if I had already sold the dogs. I am puzzled at this selling of the dog business and the way my neighbor laughed when I’m told about this selling the dog business also. Something’s fishy and I can’t tell what.

Maybe because it was too early and my braincells’ still asleep, it was a few hours later that the realization came to me.

“Beware of Dogs”

The man thought that we are selling the dogs because….he thought we’re advertising them. I don’t if I will laugh or cry, but my neighbors think it was so funny that up to now they’re still asking if I already sold the dog.

Ang layo naman ng “Beware of Dogs” sa “Dogs for sale.”

Punch

A couple of weeks ago, I was punched on the head by a drunk. And this morning while staring at the computer, I heard a viodeoke machine blasting from our backyard. I was thinking, “My gulay, there they go again drinking at our backyard and when they are drunk, they will make trouble, and there is a possibility that I will be punched on the head again.” Enough! I was red in the face and fuming. If I didn’t stop them now while they were sober and sane I will never be able to, or if I did it later when they are already drunk and insane, there’s a possibility that I could be punched on the head again!

I went to our backyard and calmly but forcefully ask, “Whose occasion is this?” They were quiet for they know, boy, they know, they know, that I have a history of madness too. I can run amok too. They were silent. I came back and asked again, “don’t ever, ever let the guy who punched me on the head drink here or else I will do to him what he did to me and my wife.” I mean, the guy not only punched me on the head but he also berated my wife in front of my daughter. I learned about this only later and this changed things.

After a few minutes a little lady came to our house, “kuya birthday ko lang po.” She is my nice neighbor. “Owwww, sorry, I thought you’re…eniway use our backyard, no problem, just don’t let that guy who punched me on the head…”

I was mad. But I have no right to be, because I punched a lot of people too.

I accepted the punch and was philosophical about it…

But why would he berate my wife…

I mean…..

I moan…..

I moon…

Relax.

This morning the guy and I had a confrontation. It ended with a drama. I thought that we're going to end fist fighting but things got calmed and his wife cried,…all’s well that ends well never mind the punch.

Thesis titles and stories

Here I go again racking and juggling my brains trying to write questionnaires for my thesis. The thing is I find it very, very, very difficult to do things that I don’t like; like writing a thesis and writing questionnaires for a thesis. My brain cells simply refuse to work; they will not follow my orders. I’ve tried music to waken them and to get them into that writing mood but…Coffee works, but my classmates told me that I’m starting to look dehydrated and miserable, but what can I do? I’m a night person and all that coffee only worsens my insomnia. But if its coffee that I must have in order to finish this unspeakable thesis, then coffee it is.

Since I’m into student organizations, I chose our campus student organizations as the subject of my research. The first and second chapter of the thesis was simple enough; I just wrote a corny essay about the blah, blah, blah, of student organizations, and the blah, blah, blah…

My thesis is boring.

Now, my science major classmates are another thing. Their theses’ titles are really, really creative and I wish I could write even just the introduction of their research for I know that I will do a very good job of introducing their concepts.

For example:

Feasibility of Using Rotten Tomato in Making Paper.

My introduction would start with…

Background of the study

The Philippines is one of the major growers of tomatoes in the world. Since the country has a lot of rotten tomatoes disguised as politicians the country has the potential of becoming the rotten tomato paper capital of the world…

Feasibility of Using Talbos ng Camote in Making Candies

Background of the Study

Camote (Fartus Promotus G. (as in George) is an indigenous Philippine root crop. It is available every year. Since scientists have proven the flatus producing property of the plant, the researcher deemed it proper to make it consumer friendly by disguising the camote as candies (of course the researchers are still awaiting the result of the test done to see if the gas emissions that will result in the eating of the candies will comply with the Kyoto Protocol on Greenhouse gasses).

Problems Encountered in Thesis Writing

Background of the study

Thesis writing is the most boring thing on earth. The National Center for Mental Health lists thesis writing as the number one cause of suicides among students. In this regard, the researchers deemed it timely to write a boring thesis about writing a boring thesis….Bang!!!!

Feasibility of Using Kangkong as ingredient for Burger Putties

Background of the study

The Philippines has a lot of body of water. Pasig is the most historically significant of these bodies of water. With the proposals this feasibility study will come up with, the economic potential of Pasig River could be realized. It is well known that because of the high organic waste content of Pasig River it is the ideal place for cultivating water spinach (Kangkong). With the nutritional elements of organic waste in Pasig River’s water infused in the Kangkongs, the solution to the country’s malnutrition problem is near at hand... (Soylent Green! Soylent Green! Soylent Green!)

An Evaluation of the Written English Communication Skills of Non-English Majors

Background of the study

The students in the majoring of non-English is measured their skill on the communication about writing. The researchers are try to found out the encountering problems of these students and the solving to the problems…

Implementation of Gender Awareness and Development Program in the Campus

Background of the Study

Man are created equal. He is created with no distinctions except in their physical appearance.

With this study, the university will be able to evaluate the effectivity of the campaigns against gender bias in the campus for the university believed that men are created equal no matter what their sex is...

These are actual theses titles. There are more but I need to get back to work.

________________________________________________________________________

I remember one critic telling this story.
She was proofreading a thesis titled Feasibility of Using Squash as Shoe Polish and when she came to one of the charts she was astounded at what she read. The first three columns were on durability tests etc. but when she came to the fourth column she found a Palatability test.
“If you’re going to copy other people’s thesis make sure you do it right!” She told the plagiarizers.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­
I was looking at some of my instructors’ masteral theses and I’m impressed. It seems that the higher you are on the academic studies the heavier your thesis will be. I mean, the thickness of the papers….I remember my Measurement and Evaluation instructor telling us that one of the methods used by lazy teachers in grading essays is by measuring the length of the essays using a ruler. “Hmmmmm, twelve inches, 90 percent; hmmm, 4 inches 75 percent lang…”
And I am looking at the masteral theses…”Hmmmmm, 3 kilos, 1.8; hmmmmm, 4 kilos, 1.5; hmmmmmm, 1 ton, flat 1…” “Guard! Paki tawag yung magbobote!”

My original thesis was about textbooks. I plan to evaluate them because they contain errors that are obviously not typographical. Most of our textbooks are just cut and paste works of foreign authors. Some are so sloppily written that they are simply a waste of ink and paper.

(“This is not a novel [book] to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force”—Dorothy Parker. “This is not a book to be thrown with great force. It should be force- fed to the authors, without water if possible”—George C. dela Paz)

There are even imported Indian textbooks that are not fit for Filipino consumption. I have nothing against the Indians but their English syntax is definitely different from ours. I’m not saying they are bad, just different-- must be a dialectical blah, blah, blah. (For the Afro-American they call their English Dialect Ebionism from Ebony. One American author proposed to call our English dialect Filipinism from Filipino. Now for the Indians well…I don’t want to be politically unpolitical…figure it out.)
Of course my first title was shot down even before its defense. “College students don’t use textbooks. You have academic freedom to use any book you think is right and you don’t have the expertise to analyze books.” That’s it.
Then why buy all those text books, may I ask? I’m not an expert but I plan to write about it from a student’s perspective. Anyway, one doesn’t have to be an expert to see how bad our text books are. Grrr!!! Grrr!!! Grrr!!!...

Why? Oh, Why? Oh, Why? How can I finish this thesis if I kept writing about nonsense stuff!

Talking about non sense I heard this story….enough!!!!! (You know these parentheses) (It’s really my mind debating.) (Write on about nonsense) (No, you must finish your thesis.) About nonsense….(no) Yes) (Stop) (finish your thesis). I am one hell of a crazy guy.

Sexuality and the church

Rummaging through piles of used books, I chanced upon two troubling (that is, for me) books about church and sexuality. The first is Mary Daly’s “The Church and the Second Sex” and the other is “Living in Sin?” by Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong.

The Church and the Second Sex is a troubling book because of its graphic indictments against Religion specifically Christianity and her churches for its treatment of women.

A portion of Daly’s 1985 foreword of her book is enough to exhibit her attitude towards Christianity and religion in general…

“…For there is a truly Tremendous Event that is “still on its way, still wondering—it has not reached the ears of man (from Nietzsche).” And women have done it ourselves. This event is the self realizing of women who have broken free from the stranglehold of patriarchal religion, with its deadly symbols, its ill logic, its gynocidal laws and other poisonous paraphernalia.

The bringing about of this event, exorcism of the poisonous patriarchal god and his attendant pathologies, has required and continues to require Courage--…

The courage to leave such an institution as the catholic church and, beyond that, Christianity in general and all patriarchal religion in all its form—both sacral and secular—is often born out of desperation. If the motivating force that propels one to leave is realization of one’s own spiritual and elemental powers, this leaving involves leap after leap of living faith. It is my observation that Living faith propels women out of patriarchal religion…

This still comes down to the problem of literalizing the Bible with regards to its archaic teachings about women, which is really ungodly. Daly talked about transcendence and she’s right, but the realization of that transcendence for her is in leaving the church and in dismissing what she calls “patriarchal religion” and not on transcending biblical literalism and “going in to Christ.” Or she might have already done that, and I’m sure she did, and she still found it unacceptable because Christ is a man.

It must still be about Christ and Christ’s attitude towards women that must be the basis for the church’s relation with the other sex and not biblical literalism.

“Harvey Cox expressed the Christian condition accurately when he said that Jesus Christ comes to his people not primarily through ecclesiastical traditions, but through social change, that he goes before first as a pillar of fire. There is no need then to be obsessed with justification of the past. In fact, while it is necessary to watch the rear view mirror, this does not tell us where we are going, but only where we have been.”

Change is forthcoming and the church will survive. It survived the Copernican revolution that removed humanity as the center of the universe. Why won’t it survive another revolution that will make men truly equal with women?

“Living in Sin?” is an interesting book for its position on homosexuality. The books discuss many issues on sexuality from “betrothal” i.e. trial marriages sanctioned by the church but not by the state, to “divorce ceremonies”. But what caught my attention was the book’s exegetical study on homosexuality.

1. Biblical references to homosexuality are small.

2. There is not one reference to homosexuality in any of the four gospels.

3. The Lord (Jesus) appears to either have ignored it completely or to have said so little on the subject that no part of what he said was remembered or recorded.

4. If one reads the Sodom and Gomorrah narrative with an open mind one will discover that the real sin of Sodom was the unwillingness on the part of the men of the city to observe the laws of hospitality. (It is impossible that all the men in Sodom are homosexual, why offer ones daughter to be ravaged and gang raped?)

5. Why was it that biblical condemnation of homosexuality was limited to male homosexuality?

6. How about Paul’s condemnation of the effeminate? (1 Cor. 6:9-11). Paul never married. He seemed incapable of relating to women in general except to derogate them. He talked about a thorn in the flesh. Was that connected with Paul’s understanding of himself, of his own sexuality?

….many more

Even if one is a biblical literalist, the biblical references do not build an ironclad case for condemnation. If one is not a biblical literalist there is no case at all, nothing but the ever present prejudice born out of a pervasive ignorance that attacks people whose only crime is to be born with an unchangeable sexual predisposition toward their own sex. (The author cited scientific studies that affirm homosexuality as a genetic occurrence as opposed to the Freudian theory of homosexuality as a psychological deviation or the churchs teaching that homosexuality is an abomination.)

If new knowledge about the cause and meaning of homosexuality confronts us, then we must be willing to relinquish our prejudice of Holy Scripture and turn our attention to loving our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, supporting them, and relating to them as part of God’s good creation. That will inevitably include accepting, affirming, and blessing those gay and lesbian relationships that, like all holy relationships produce the fruits of the spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, and self-sacrifice—and to do so in the confidence that though this may not be in accordance with the literal letter of the biblical texts, it is in touch with the life giving spirit that always breaks the bondage of literalism.

Looking back, most of the Old Testament bible is in reality a survival book for the Jews. Most of its laws are meant to preserve the integrity of the Jewish race and of their religion. The same with the New Testament, it is mostly a survival book too--a call for exclusivity against the onslaught of the other religions. But since the threat is not there anymore, there is really a need to redefine the bible especially in the age we are in now. One must be ready to “transcend” the letters and go beyond to the Word.

An open but discerning mind is the best policy here.

Eyes wide open

“My late mother told me that babies born during her days were different from babies born during my days. During her days babies were born with their eyes closed. While when I was born my mother told me that my eyes were already opened.” The grandmother of my daughter’s classmate told me this while we were waiting for our wards. Her daughter, incidentally, and the mother of my daughter’s classmate is also my high school classmate.

Of course what’s she’s talking about was generation gap and the lost of innocence. When we were leaving the school she was still shaking her head. “Look at their bags, so many things to learn, so many things to put in their heads.” She laments.

Where is their childhood?

My daughter tells things that even surprises me. Facts and recent changes in the school, I was even surprised to find out that our national symbols have gone through revisions. Our oath of nationalism and national bird and national dance and national flower etc. are different than those of my elementary school days.

When a dragonfly entered our house, my daughter was scared. “What’s that?” She shrieked. “That’s dragonflies! When we were your age we used to catch them using brooms made out of coconut stem. We would tie strings on their tales and made pets out of them. We would also catch bees by putting plastic cellophanes on the exit holes of their nest and then tap the nest to force them into it. We would then put the bees in a match box and made radios out of them. To tune in, we simply tap the matchboxes and then we would hear this humming and that’s music for us.”

Of course my daughter may not experience my stories anymore because she has so many things to learn in school.

I agree today’s children’s eyes are open to so may things but they are also starting to close their eyes on so many things too.

Grades

Grades tell you how you did at one point in time (yes, there’s a point in time) and nothing more.

There’s too much hype about grades. I am not saying that getting good grades are bad but there’s one thing that students should understand—they should be able to live up to their grades.


In the school where I’m studying, it is the goal (sometimes the dream) of every student to get that flat 1 grade--1 being the highest mark one can receive. But having a flat 1 in one’s transcript can be hazardous to one’s health especially if it’s achieved mnemonically or through memorization and not through critical studying.

Imagine an applicant applying for a job and the human resource department personnel in charge for hiring saw those flat 1’s on the applicant’s transcript. The HR people would be impressed. Two possibilities here: if the applicant passed the exam and the interview and the applicant would be hired with flying colors. But if the applicant failed miserably in both there is a possibility that the applicant and the school where the applicant came from will be blacklisted or even sued for…er…human rights violation.
Of course applicants who have a lot of 5s (the lowest grade) don’t have problems with applying for they will never get past the guards.
But let us assume that the applicant with the flat 1s did get hired. What do you think will happen to the applicant?
“The new hire has a flat 1 in English let us delegate to the new hire all the memo writing; look the new hire also has flat 1 in math let us also delegate to the new hire the accounting, the petty cash, everything….”

Of course if the applicant with lots of 5s gets hired the applicant with lots of 5s will have no problem with the work load for the applicant with lots of 5’s will be equipped with pushcarts. The applicant with the lots of 5s main problem is unloading the loads.

Grades on grades

Here are my grades on grades. This is based on air and the margin of error is between 99.5-99.9 percent.

1-1.2 Very employable. Either will be president of the company before forty or will commit suicide before the probationary stage ends. Or, if wasn’t able to live up to the grades, will be fired before even being hired and will be declared an anathema.

1.3-1.5 Highly employable. Either will be VP before the age of forty or will be a corporate nomad ever seeking that VP-hood for the rest of their lives.

1.5-1.7 Employable. Will be a good employee with a healthy sex life. Will never rise beyond supervisorial level and will retire loyal to the company.

1.8-2.5 Moderately employable. Most will be good rank and file employees.

2.5-3.5 Slightly employable. Union leader material and union buster material also.

3.5-4.5 Moderately slightly employable. Good manual laborers.

4.5-5. Forget about it. Most will spend the rest of their days thinking what course they took and why they took it and how they failed it.

It is well known fact that there parents who drive their children nuts by setting grade standards that are either too expensive for their financial ability or too high for their children’s intellectual capacity. Realistically speaking, parents urge their children to try to do well because they connect good grades and good school with employability and opportunities. Well, all parents want that. But, where’s the children decisions? Forcing a child, overtly or covertly, to take up a course purely for economic reasons will result to unhappiness. When it’s all about employment then what they get is employment, then they die unhappy.

When nurses became in demand, nursing schools mushroomed. When call center agent demand rose, we have training centers for callboys and callgirls sprouting everywhere.
What’s in is in…if there’s a demand for jobs washing incontinent retirees we’ll have a school for that too. We did…er... I mean we do?!

Cargo Cult

 An indigenous people in Melanesia developed a mystical cult around a flagpole. The people were exposed to the affluence of an American military base. Frustrated with their own lack of possessions they responded by trying to crack the mystical marching code of the soldiers believing that an airplane loaded with cargo would arrive for them.

These indigenous people are primitive and they don’t know any better. But a closer look on why we go to church to worship may surprise even the best of us that we are no different from the cargo cult of Melanesia. Why do we go to church?

1Ch 16:29 Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

Joh 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

1Co 14:25 And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.

Worship is being one with God in beauty, truth and holiness. One can sing about beauty, truth, and holiness—and, worship. Holiness is not about being holy but trying to be holy for God alone is Holy. Sometimes worship can be noises; it can also be silence. Crying is worship, laughing also, but long prayers may not be worship just as well as short prayers can be—it’s in the heart but it’s also in the mind and in the volition. Walking and thinking about God is worship. Giving is definitely worship and taking can also be. Everything done in the beauty, truth and holiness of God is worship but not all the time…but…

….sometimes the best place to worship is not in the church.

Left, right, left, right, abooouuuuut face! Left, left , right….jump into the river….

Song Attack

I’ve barely felt the two weeks sembreak and now its back to the class room again. My new class schedule tells me that I have to readjust my biological clock. Morning classes! This will be a challenge. I am a nocturnal person and it is a torture for me to wake up at six in the morning, but wake up I must. This means that there will be time that I will be in class with not a minute of sleep.

I remember when I had this “song attack.”

I was sleeping when I was jolted from sleep because of a song that suddenly entered my dream:

“Superman was killed in Boston”… what was the title of that song? I woke up and asked myself. I forgot. Better get back to sleep.

“Superman was killed in Boston”…Stevie Wonder and who’s that singing with him? Who is she? Better get back to sleep. It’s already ten o’clock and I have classes tomorrow. I must get back to sleep.

“Let’s cut the class, I’ve got some grass, the kids are wild….” What are the next words? “We just can’t blame them? “Or we just can’t tame them”…Why can’t I get that song out of my head? I better get that song out of my head. Wash my face. Do a little weight lifting and get back to bed.

“There’s no love in the palace…” Aaaah gotta get that song out of my head. Read. Write on my computer. Read. It’s already twelve o’clock I must get back to sleep!

I’m sleepy. “Superman was killed in Boston…” I must get this song out of my head. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. “And someone took away the Beatle’s lead guitar….”

“Superman was killed in Boston…” I give up! I’ll just read. I’m sleepy. Better get back to bed before that song…”Lets cut the class…”

It’s already one o’clock, and I have classes tomorrow.

“Superman was killed in Boston…” Grrrrrrr

Two O’clock and I still can’t sleep. I’ll read again. Get back to bed.

“Superman was killed in Boston….”

Three o’clock…

“Superman was killed in Boston…”

Four o’clock….

“Let’s cut the class…”

Where is that song coming from?

Five o’clock…

The alarm went off and my wife is already awake.

“You’re early or you didn’t sleep again?” My wife asked.

“No, I just want to review my notes that’s why I’m up early.” I lied.

Six o’clock…

Took a bath…

“There’s no love left in the palace….”

Seven o’clock at school…

Sleepy and haggard, “Where’s that song?”

“I need to stay awake, broadcast you song!” Broadcast!”

Eight o’clock…

Silent…no song…sleepy…zzzzzzzzz

“George any comments?” An instructor asked.

“Slurp, ahhhh, the—tion, of the ---tion, pardon the question ma’am?”

(Where are you song why won’t you broadcast?!)