Bedwetting

I didn’t know when I stopped wetting on my bed, but all I can remember is that my piss was starting to smell like an adult’s piss when I stopped wetting on my bed.

In the Philippines chronic bed wetting is not a big deal. It is considered normal especially for active children. I read that in the US they consider chronic bedwetting as a clinical disorder but in my experiences and with my childhood friends experiences and how our parents think of it, bed wetting is considered part of growing up and it would be unthinkable for parents to have their children psychoanalyzed for a simple case of bed wetting.

I and my hyper-active childhood friends wet our beds almost daily. It’s normal to see our mothers sun drying our urine soaked and urine smelling beddings, talking with each other, shaking their heads, sometimes smiling sometimes frowning, surrendered to their fate—taking care of their incontinent children.

How did parents dealt with the problem?

It is common belief that bedwetting is caused by hyperactivity. I don’t have the information to say whether this is medically true or not, but experience tells me that there is some truth in this because the more I and my friends play hide and seek, gun fight and tag the greater the chances that we will wet our bed. With the belief that hyperactivity causes bedwetting, my parent and as well as most Filipino parents try to rein in their children-- the children are told to relax hours before they go to bed. Of course this is an exercise in futility.

Not drinking water before going to bed is another solution.

None of these things worked.

My father tried providing me with a pissing can. But most of the times, I was already soaking wet before waking up to piss in the pissing can.

My old room is on the second floor of our house. The room has a steel window that opens wide. One night, maybe because I’m already growing up, my bladder woke me up. Since I’m a little afraid of the dark, what I did was to open the steel window, pulled down my pants and pissed. Of course it was embarrassing, in the silence of the night, the piss falling on our corrugated tin roof, I mean, it was like it suddenly rained.

I was pissing in a half dream, half awake, somnambulist state when something cold brushed my…er…tweet tweet and a bat flew past my eyes.

After that incident, my bladder always woke me up whenever it is full, but I till wet my bed. The reason was...

I mean…I think psychoanalysis would have helped that time.

Erection

It is already election season in the Philippines. The election is slated in May this year, although there are prescribed period for campaigning and although there are penalties for violators of this provision, politicians have found ways, as usual and as usual, of circumnavigating the prescribed period for campaigning.

After New Year, the good and the only sane person in the Arroyo government Chairman Bayani Fernando of MMDA ordered the dismantling of “Christmas greetings” banners posted by national, local and barangay politicians. This is funny because most of these Christmas banners started appearing as early as July (or earlier) 2006. And if Chairman Fernando didn’t remove these eyesores, they would have stayed there till the next election three years from now. Campaign banners they were.

“Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year”

Congressman Pedro Tulyapis 1st District of Orangutan.

The Christmas banners are now replaced with these:

“Happy Fiesta to Barangay Ulalo” Greetings from your loving and hardworking

Governor Estanislao Bagonggahasa!

“Happy 2 millionth anniversary to the Church of Voltes 5” Greeting from

Sen. You know who she is!

Church people have started mobilizing conscience groups to try to dissuade people from asking favors from candidates. This is the kind of electioneering done here in the Philippines. Politicians walk around doling out money for whatever projects the people thought of, just to take advantage of the candidates’ vulnerability. Basketball leagues suddenly popped up, women’s organization, youth organization, etc. suddenly became organized, all with the single purpose of milking politicos of money that in the first place came from the people. Of course, the politicos are only willing actor in this stupid election play. Concerned churchmen sick with this trend has formed an advocacy group called “Ehem”. The group is telling people not to ask for favors and not to accept favors voluntarily given by candidates. The logic is simple: With voters not squeezing anything out of politicians, there should be no reason for them to steal from the public in case they won.

I hope these well meaning people succeed.

I was watching the news and as early as today there are already actors manifesting their intent to run in the election. Mayors, governors, senators, etc. all of them are banking on their popularity. I mean, why would actors run for government office? Let’s just pray that it’s not because the Filipino movie industry is not as lucrative as it was—or the business is already dead.

I hope religious leaders will not commit the same mistake some religious leader made—run in the election. And if they do hope to run, the first thing they must do is resign from their churches and act as an individual because as experience have shown, churches, especially evangelicals, know how to discern.

As the Japanese would say: “Firipino erections are exciting!”

I would say to the Japanese: “Japanese erections are boring!”

And I hear the Americans say: “Our erection is the best in the world. Ask Bill Clinton!”

Jesus is a profit

I was reading a tabloid while waiting for my haircut when a column written by a Catholic Priest caught my attention. In there was an anecdote from a theology teacher. The theology teacher asked his (or her) student to describe Jesus. One described Jesus as the Savior, the other as Love, etc.

There were many answers but there’s one that caught the teacher’s attention. In capitol letters, one student has written: Jesus is a P-R-O-F-I-T.
He knew the student, a businessman.

When asked by the teacher what the student meant when he had written that Christ is a P-R-O-F-I-T?
The student replied: “Profit like Elisha and Elijah. Profit pu sir, profit!”
“Aahhhhhh, prophet! Jesus is a prophet.”

Sleep Jolts

Once in a while, in my sleep, there are times when I would be jolted from my slumber, for no apparent reason, no dream or nightmare. I would be roused from the bed; and, I would look around me, look at my wife and daughter, look at myself and just try to place everything at their places, try to focus is what I mean. Then I would feel my wife, feel my daughter, feel myself, feel the bed and feel the wall of the room, in the dark, just try to feel solid things and try to find out if I’m awake--if everythings real.

I know this is strange, but sometimes this happens to me. The sensation is akin to déjà vu but the difference is not the feeling of recurrence but the feeling of detachment. It’s like déjà vu in the way that one tries to place the experience from prior experience; and there is the similarity, in trying to place the experience but not finding and placing the experience because the experience is that of detachment and not of recurrence. It’s like waking up in a different room--like being jolted awake in a different but familiar room. Of course when this happens, I can’t go back to sleep, and I lie awake through the night trying to think of what happened, the jolting.

In these experiences there were no fear or trembling, none. But what I experienced were sensations of disbelief belief, like what I felt after watching a movie that is so realistic that when I leave the cinema, I will not be surprised to meet the characters face to face on the street, but somewhere in your mind you know the movie’s fiction but there’s so much realism in there that you won’t be surprised if you experience it to be real. So, I try to check whether everything’s real.

Or, maybe, just maybe, these jolts are when different branches of realities diverge and there’s a convergence of experience between one branch and the other infinite number of branches of realities…there’s a point of contact at split-sub-atomic nano-second that makes experience detached and deja vu like…two veins of the multi-verse touching…in this universe…

Too much science fiction

Too much science fiction

Too much science fiction

Too much coffee.

But, I think I’m not the only one who experiences these jolts.

Jeproks

I bought a burned cd copy of Mike Hanopol and Heber Bartolome’s Banyuhay’s.

“Kalamansi sa Sugat”Banyuhay's classic album featured some of Heber most biting songs. Heber Bartolome’s Banyuhay is one of the proponents of Filipino Folk Rock music during the 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s. Heber’s Banyuhay’s music, Dylan influenced, mostly dealt with social issues, patriotism, nationalism and the environment. Perhaps their most recognized hit is the satirical “Tayo’y mga Pinoy” (We’re all Filipinos) which lambasted the Filipino’s colonial mentality and loss and lost of national identity. Then there’s “Nena” a ballad about a prostitute, “Almusal” (Breakfast) a country music inspired song about how Filipino’s deal with hunger, and that is to combine breakfast and lunch (forced brunch).

My favorite Banyuhay song is “Karaniwang Tao” (Simple Folk). The song is anthemic of the common Filipino’s poverty and the government’s (seemingly) unequal and special policy on foreign capitalism and globalism versus local workers and local small time investors. Most of Banyuhay’s songs are tinged with Marxist and Leninist and Maoist blah, blah, blah. Their songs are favorites in activists’ rallies and meetings (I should know, my neighbor is a labor leader.) But there are a lot of truths in their songs, and, once in a while, it’s good to listen to their kind of music—“Kalamansi sa Sugat” (Lemon Juice on Wounds).

Mike Hanopol's "Laki sa Layaw" is another thing. His music is Hendrixian. It mostly deals with inane things from drug trips to pseudo philosophical musings tinge with double entendre about drugs. His music is pure fun and guitar riffs but no depth.

Anyway, last time I’ve seen Hanopol he was being interviewed by 700 club Asia. The guy has finally grown up and shed his Jeproks philosophy, but, unfortunately, he still dresses like one.

“Laki sa layaw, Laki sa layaw Jeproks…”

“Laki sa layaw, Laki sa layaw Jeproks…”

“Laki sa layaw, Laki sa layaw Jeproks…”

Ang sagwa pagmatanda na!!!

asthma

My asthma woke from its annual hibernation and attacked me with a vengeance. I was bedridden for two days because of head aches, nasal congestions, fever, conjunctivitis, itchy ears, and all the other symptoms of respiratory allergies. This has been an annual event for me ever since I can remember. The symptoms usually appear at the end of the cool Christmas season and at the entrance of the hot, dusty summer season. We have no air-conditioning so I have no choice but to weather the attack.

For two days that I was absent from school, I read books and watched a movie.
I watched “To Kill a Mocking Bird” starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch and Mary Badham as Scout Finch. The movie is beautiful adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel.
I read Nietzsche’s “Genealogy of Morals”. For someone not exposed to this kind of literatures it’s a good read. (Filipino’s are not philosophical people. Our language is not suited for highly conceptual subject like philosophy and for people who used English as a second language reading philosophy is like reading…hieroglyphics.)

The Dawn Treader. I enjoyed the reading this C.S. Lewis’ classics. I finished it in one sitting. I am trying to read Lewis’ “That Hideous Strength” and up to now I can’t get past page 4.

I’m currently reading “Cradle” by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee.

Who am I?

Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cells confinement
calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
like a squire from his country house.

Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
freely and friendly and clearly,
as though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
equally, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really that which other men tell of?
Or am I really what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness,
tossing in expectations of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
faint, and ready to say farewell to it all.

Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person to-day and to-morrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army
fleeing from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions mock me.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Just thinking out loud

“In the magnificent cathedral the Honorable and right Reverend Geheime-General-Oberhof-Pradikant, the elect favorite of the fashionable world, appears before an elect company and preaches, with emotion, upon the text which he himself elected: “God hath elected the base things of the world and the things that are despised”—and nobody laughs.

--Kierkegaard


One of the difficulties in biblical doctrinal study is the antithesis between predestination and election and freewill. Predestination and election is a fact that we can’t help but accept because of the very nature of God—Omniscient and omnipotent. Freewill is also a fact that we can’t help but accept because of the very nature of humanity—depravity and accountability. The conflict is well defined: how can humanity be accountable if everything’s predestined; how can God be God if he is not in control of everything etc.


I have seen many pastors during bible studies tackle the paradox and it’s not a pretty sight—either they get stumped for a week or they just try to avoid the conflicting doctrines.

The problem is logic, the “either or” method of harmonizing the doctrines.

We can learn a lot from the oriental non-logical (not illogical) way of thinking.

All those Zen stuffs…(Just thinking out loud!)

Students

In my school uniform, I was walking my seven year daughter to her school when she suddenly asked me what I want to be when I grow up. She had asked me this often enough, and I always told her that I’m already grown. But this time with both of us in our school uniforms and both on our way to school, her question made me think about lost opportunities.

What do I want to be when I grow up?

Hmmmm….

What do I want my daughter to want to be when she grows up?

It must be a strange sight to see father and daughter walking while holding hands, both in their school uniforms. The father carrying the daughter’s “Barbie back pack” while the daughter carrying the father’s binder notebook both on their way to school.

I don’t know what my wife thinks, but it must be strange trying to prepare school stuffs for both husband and daughter. It must be strange for my wife to accompany both husband and daughter on their educational trips. It must strange for my wife to entertain both her husband and her daughter’s classmates.

I mean…it must be strange for her to live with me—an old college student.

Unbelievable

Filipino boxing champion Manny Pacquiao did something outrageous today (Jan. 20). He went to the Commission on Election office--I don’t know how he hoped to accomplish this—“to bring back the people’s trust to the commission.” He went there with all the pomp, the shouting, the autograph signing, the blah, blah, blah, and, and, and is that supposed to bring the people’s trust back to one of the most corrupt and unreliable government agencies? Who does Manny Pacquaio think he is? Jesus Christ (sorry about that)? Mahatma Gandhi? Martin Luther King? Mother Theresa? Albert Einstein? The guy is a boxing champion; he is a respected boxer, a shrewd businessman even, but a moral force in the country? All those adulations and head punches may have caused some malfunction in his brain and gave him hallucinations and delusions and illusions of messianic grandeur. (One of my friends told me that most Filipino boxing champions are (mildly) crossed eyed, and he’s right. Must be brain damage due to punishment the head is exposed to or it could be the egoism and egotism.)

If Manny the Pacquaio went to his old, rundown and legendary old gym to donate some equipment and money, it’s understandable.

If Manny the Pacquaio went to an orphanage and donated money and his endorsement for donations, it’s admirable.

If Manny the Pacquiao went to the Comelec and punched the commissioners on the head to knock some sanity in them, that would be understandable and admirable.

But the Manny who after his hospitalization immediately went to the cockpit to watch his fighting cocks fight. Manny who lose thousands of dollars in games of blackjack, going to the Comelec to bring back the people’s trust to the despicable institution? Unbelievable. Why can’t he be like Efren “the Magician” Bata Reyes the humble Filipino billiard legend—toothless and low profile.

Pacquiao has all the right in the world to do what he did, but what he did shows the sad state of the nation…I don’t want to elaborate. I mean if knocking people down can give a person the moral power to revive trust to a despicable institution …unbelievable.

Our kind of heroes tells so much as to what kind of people we are becoming.

Flea

My friend John lent me an old VCD of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist Flea’s interview with River Phoenix titled “Flea: Adventures in Spontaneous”. It is supposed to be an instructional video on how to play bass the “Flea” way, but it’s obvious that Flea is not as fluent in English as he is in playing bass. His words are far, far off. He’s dishing out all these Hendrixian, 60’s flower power metaphysics about being “true” and “being in tune with the cosmic forces surrounding you” and all that stuff that obviously only a spaced out guy say. Well, it’s obvious that he’s spaced out because he’s always sniffing and scratching his nose as if there’s a living, feral booger inside his nostrils trying to claw its way out.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m an avid fan of The Red Hot, and for me Flea is the Jimi Hendrix of bass. Both Jimi and Flea have something in common, and that is the ability to play their instruments while doing something else, like jumping up and down like a pogo stick while rotating their heads while singing while sticking out their tongues and etc.

But the real common denominator of these two guys is their spontaneity. There are technically better and more sophisticated instrumentalist than they are. But what made them great player is their natural playing and unpredictability.

My friend also lent me an instructional video by Dream Theater’s bassist John Myung but after watching Flea do his improvisations on a four stringed bass, I found Myung with his six string bass and his theories artificial and boring. Myung is a great technical bass player but he’s not Flea—raw passion and twilight zone.

Absurd

Work, worry, toil and trouble are indeed the lot of almost all men their whole life long. And yet if every desire were satisfied as soon as it arose how would men occupy their lives, how would they pass the time? Imagine this race transported to a Utopia where everything grows of its own accord and turkeys fly around ready-roasted, where lovers find one another without any delay and keep one another without any difficulty: in such a place some men would die of boredom or hang themselves, some would fight and kill one another, and thus they would create for themselves more suffering than nature inflicts on them as it is. Thus for a race such as this no stage, no form of existence is suitable other than the one it already possesses.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer

At that moment when man glances back backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory’s eyes and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself form a world. The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

--Camus

A Little Mythology

Filipinos have a strange drinking ritual. They spill the first shot of liquor to earth followed by a short prayer “drink is for the stomach and not for the head, this is for the devil so he may leave us sober”. This ritual is common among the poor gin-bulag drinkers. But this practice is a little strange and paganistic for a supposedly Christian nation.

Dionysus was the Greek god of wine. Together with Demeter they were the two great gods of the earth. Demeter was the god of corn and it is through her that human settlements became established. The daily survival of the primitive Greeks depended on her benevolence. With the establishment of settlements vineyards later came. And it is natural that with the divine feminine power that brought forth grains, the vineyards would be attributed to a masculine deity. It is also natural that every first harvest of grains was offered to the goddess of the harvest, and the first drops of wines were also offered to the god of wine. The Greeks spills to earth the first pouring of wines in honor of Dionysus. Is this linked with the Filipinos practice of pouring the first shot of drinks to earth? Or are they just co-incident?

Mythologies are fascinating especially the classical Greek myths. The adventures of their gods and their love affairs, passions and tempers, and even their limitations reflect the Greek conception of the world. In Iliad the Trojan War best illustrates the behavior of the classical gods. (The demythologized movie version of the war unfortunately lost the essence, the beauty, and the poetry of the story. Why demythologize a mythology?) Here you have Eris, the god of discord, resentful at not being invited at a wedding banquet (well, if you’re a god of discord you have to be open to the fact that no one will invite you), throwing a golden apple marked “for the fairest” at the wedding banquet of King Peleus the father of Achilles. There was a melee but eventually the choice was narrowed down to three goddesses Aphrodite, the god of love; Hera, the sister and the jealous wife of Zeus; and Pallas Athena, the mighty huntress. Zeus was asked to settle the dispute but he declined for even a god of his stature cannot appease a woman scorned especially goddesses-- he knew very well that women had this propensity to unite against a common critic. Instead he pointed them to the best judge of beauty: Paris, the Prince of Troy. Paris decided in favor of Aphrodite in exchange for the most beautiful face in the world Helen, the daughter of Zeus. Helen was meant for King Menelaus the king of Sparta and when Menelaus found Helen gone, taken by the treacherous prince of Troy, he rallied the Greeks to siege the Trojans. Thus the judgment of Paris started the Trojan War. This if we follow Iliad is really an Olympian war.

The Trojan War best represents the psychology of the Greek gods. They are fickle minded, childish, petty and unpredictable. They are treacherous and amoral. They treat humanity contemptuously and didn’t deserve their attention except as an object of amorous desire. They don’t have any plan for humanity hence salvation and immortality were never meant for them except for those they whimsically chosen.

Mythologies are man’s miniature world. Mythologies represents how man understand natural phenomena, his helplessness at dealing with powers that transcends his understandings, and it also represents his conception of fate and destiny—out of his hands and beyond his controls. For surely the power of the unknown is man’s greatest fear. To overcome this trepidation man gives these forces personalities—human temperament, frailties and strengths. They humanized the unknown and made it their own. Unfortunately mythology is not divine revelation it is blind desperation thus it cannot offer what man yearns for--salvation.

“Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are religious For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world…the Lord of heavens…
St. Paul in the meeting of the Areopagus*
Acts 17:22-24

Building a Bridge

I recently read an interesting book titled “Building a Bridge” written by Fr. Ari C. Dy S.J. a Chinese -Filipino priest. The book is Fr. Dy’s masteral thesis covering the history of the Chinese apostolate in the Philippines, Chinese Christology, grace in Chinese Buddhism, and the communion of saints as a theological basis for ancestor veneration. There are also homilies with Chinese themes and some pastoral suggestions for integrating Chinese customs with Catholic life and practice. I am posting excerpts from the book.

Christology in the Chinese Context

Past Experiments

Nestorian Christians arrived in China c. 632 C.E.

The Franciscan John of Montecorvino arrived in 1294 during the Yuan dynasty (1280-1368) and was quite successful in his missionary work. In 1368, the establishment of the Ming dynasty, all foreign elements allowed by the Yuan dynasty was expelled from China. Both Nestorianism and Catholicism disappeared. In 1582 the Jesuits arrived. The Jesuit mission to China is well documented, unlike the Nestorian and the Franciscan missions.

The Buddhist Christ of the Nestorians.

The Nestorian missionary Alopen reformulated Christian soteriology within Buddhist worldview. A “Buddhist Christology” was modeled on the story of Avalokitesvara, a male bodhisattva who took on female form and became known to the Chinese as Guan Yin, the goddess of mercy. The incarnation was explained along this line, and it is an example of cultural intertext at work. Jesus is like a bodhisattva in his mission to save others.

Matteo Ricci’s “Lord of the Heaven”

Ricci, who labored in China from 1582-1610, first presented Christ as a teacher and performer of miracles. The miracles indicated his divinity. Ricci compared Christ to China’s great teacher, Confucius (another intertext), but insisted that Christ was greater than any king or teacher. Hoping that the Chinese would see and understand Christ not as a foreigner but someone already “mysteriously present in the noble Chinese civilization,” Ricci’s method had Christ as the conclusion rather than the starting point.

Giulio Aleni

Aleni belongs to the generation of missionaries that came after Matteo Ricci. Aleni presented the mystery of Christ in a doctrinally straight forward way, using a Trinitarian and biblical perspective. He linked the incarnation to the mystery of redemption, saying that the incarnation is not simply the self revelation of God’s power and glory but the working of God’s salvific plan for humanity. The human person is being redeemed from sin by the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Asked why God had to suffer, Aleni alluded to an ancient Chinese legend. Cheng Tang, the first emperor of the Shang dynasty (1766-1753 BCE), was known for his wisdom and virtue. During his reign, the country suffered a terrible famine due to a prolonged drought. The people became convinced that Heaven or God was angry and could only be appeased by a human sacrifice. Cheng Tang offered himself as the human sacrifice. After fasting and cutting his hair, he sat by a mulberry grove, confessed his sins and offered himself as the victim to God.

To pray and intercede for the people was part of the emperor’s duties as the Son of Heaven. The Chinese believed in the semi-divinity of the emperor such that only the emperor could make the annual sacrifice to heaven. Aleni used this idea to state that Cheng Tang prefigured Jesus Christ, who offered himself to the Lord of the heaven to save humankind. We see here the Christological satisfaction and ransom theories at work and also the Christian idea of embracing suffering to express virtue and love.

Like Ricci, Aleni also compared Jesus to the wisdom figures in Chinese culture. But unlike Ricci, Aleni focused on Confucius’ belief in a Lord of Heaven, Aleni shifted his focus to the mystery of the incarnation and redemption in Jesus, all the while affirming Jesus’ superiority over Chinese Philosophers.

Aleni’s contribution is in providing Chinese Christians with the tools necessary to develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.. He passed on his devotions to the eucharist and to the passion and helped people to center their lives on the person of Jesus. By doing this, Aleni was laying the “conditions of possibility” for the Chinese to do their own theological reflection.

Towards a Chinese Christology

In developing a Christology in the Chinese context, Jose de Mesa’s method is helpful in the exploration:

1.Soteriology precedes and leads to Christology. The first step is to look for a cultural notion of “salvation” that expresses the experience of human well-being in a particular cultural context. Thematic cultural exegesis is then applied to these notions in order to make implicit meanings explicit.

2.Projection. The salvific significance of Jesus is expressed in a way that is intelligible to the culture.

3.Regauging. The projections made on Jesus are reassessed against the words and deeds of Jesus in the New Testament. The names, titles, and images that have been projected on to Jesus are valid only if they are compatible with the jesus of the gospels.

The first step, is to define soteriology in Chinese context. Kwok Pui Lan, like many scholars, has pointed out that Christianity insists on the need of all human beings for salvation because of an innate depravity, but in classical Chinese culture there is no equivalent notion of religious depravity or sin. The Chinese understands “shame” and “guilt” but there is not even a Chinese word for “sin”. Missionaries have used the word crime (zui) to refer to “sin” and many Chinese find this unacceptable.

Further, the Chinese have difficulty understanding how Jesus died for all. Both satisfaction and ransom theories are alien to the Chinese. Kwok Pui-Lan attributes the ransom theory to the Roman penal system and the satisfaction theory to the sacrificial rituals of the Jews.

The incarnation is another stumbling block for the Chinese. The Chinese cannot accept the idea that the Master of the heaven consented to become human and be nailed to the cross.
In Aleni’s analogy of the emperor there was no God-human in the story.

Hans Kung, speaking of a “Chinese theology for the postmodern age,” says that such a theology must have a “clear orientation to the original, biblical faith and not to some confessional, Western-ecclesiastical doctrine such as has caused so much division in Chinese Christianity over the centuries.” Jesus Christ needs a Chinese garb that is more than external.

Soteriology in the Chinese context cannot simply borrow Christological answers formulated in another culture. As Kwok Pui-Lan says, it will be “worthwhile understanding more sympathetically the non-Christian (Chinese) perception of Christ.”

Any projections made onto Jesus will then be regauged according to the Jesus of the gospels. One such attempt at a Chimnese soteriology belongs to a Taiwanese theologian Hu Tasan Yun. For him, Jesus is the Human being who has become one with God. This echoes the Confucian idea that heaven and the human being are essentially the same.

Conclusion
The author proposed that if Christologies were to be outlined for mainland China notwithstanding other theological questions, it is still the suffering Jesus that will speak to the Chinese—Aleni’s suffering Christ would still be relevant. The Chinese needs a Jesus who will give them hope and liberation—a Christology for the masses.

Another possibility for an inculturated Chinese Christology has to do with the place of words in Chinese culture. In Chinese culture, gazing on a calligraphy is also a meditative act that can affect one’s character and way of life. For Christians, is not the relationship with the word of God similar? Frequent exposure to God’s word in Jesus and in the scriptures is one of the Christian’s way of absorbing God’s ways and the values of his kingdom. Presenting Christ as the Word, then, may be a rich and dynamic way of addressing Chinese culture. This could lead to one among many Chinese Christologies

Chicken pox

Three years ago, I came home from my afternoon walks with a head ache, a sore throat and a zit on my neck. I didn’t mind the head ache and the sore throat; I always had them because of my allergies. What puzzled was the zit on my neck. I thought it was just another pimple. So, I did what I always do when pimples pop up on my face, or my neck, or my back—I squeeze it without mercy. Yes, that’s what I do with my pimples. I squeeze the pus out of it; I squeeze the life out of it; I mean, I had to get that little mushy, rice like, white matter out of it and until I get that stuff forcefully ejected ( just look at our mirrors, you’ll get an idea of what I’m trying to say), I won’t and I can’t stop. I’ll squeeze till blood or brain matter comes out of my pimples. Of course with this kind of habit, I mean, Noriega, yes, I ended up looking like Manuel Noriega, the notorious dictator of Panama.

Anyway, what I did was to squeeze that zit on my neck, and I was surprised because there was no pus and there was no little, mushy, rice like, white matter that came out, just water.

When I woke up the next day, I not only had fever but I also had a lot of zit that looks like tiny water bubbles on my neck, arms and legs. And after three days, I looked like a walking bubble wrap—water filled bubble wrap. I can’t eat, my manhood ached (of course I believe that a man’s manhood is not contained in that raisin like sac, it is in the heart), my head ached, my stomach ached--I ached all over, aside form the aches, there was the itch. It is not the ache that’s bothersome, it’s the itch. I went to the doctor for medical advice. He prescribed paracetamol for the pain and an expensive capsule for the itch. When I found the cost of the medicine for the itch, I did the best alternative--I took ice cold showers.

In the Philippines, the traditional way to deal with fever is to wrap one self in blankets and to sip hot soup to smother and sweat the fever to oblivion. So, when my mother found out that I would take an ice cold bath she was worried. “Ssssooooon, you don’t take a bath when you have fever.” She warned me. “You don’t take a bath till days after you’re well.” This was one of those million times that I broke one of the Ten Commandments and openly mutinied against my mother. Heavens, the itch and the heat! That’s what almost drove me to insanity. I not only took ice cold showers I also ate a lot of ice.

I was quarantined in my old room. My mother was my nurse for my wife works. My daughter could only see me from a six foot distance. I can’t watch TV for fear of contaminating our sala with the virus. So, for entertainment, I listened to my sister’s small radio. I tuned in to the AM band for fun. Finding stations in the AM band reminds me of SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence). Rotate a dial, crackle and hiss, listen for a voice or music, turn until the sound become intelligible, then adjust, look for the right combination of antenna direction and dial turnings, crackle and hiss; really, it’s an art, yes, finding stations in the AM band is an art—a combination of dexterity, musicality and of course patience.

Hisssss, crackkkllleee, voicesssss, old songs, old kundiman songs and then everything went surreal—Twilight Zone. The hissing and the static alone brought back a lot of memories...my late father listens to AM station whenever there’s a storm that threatens our area, my mother used to wake me up with the late Rod Navarro’s version of Hail Mary (I dare not reproduce it here lest I’d be threatened with exorcism by the Catholic church), Dear Tia Dely dishing out those well thought advice , and the greatest AM show of them all--Knowledge Power hosted by none other than the walking encyclopedia of Philippine radio: the late Mang Ernie Barong. (I’m getting really old; notice that most of the people I talked about here are already dead. My gulay, I am old.)

Knowledge Power was a trivia show. Callers ask questions to learn and sometimes to challenge Mang Ernie’s knowledge of trivia and sometimes to challenge his…er…patience also. For example:

Caller: Mang Enie who invented the Telephone?
Mang Ernie: “The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell…”
Caller: Mang Ernie who discovered_____?
Mang Ernie: “The ____ was discovered by ____on….with…below….City of Pompeii…”

Of course once in a while the question went to the absurd:

Caller: “Mang Ernie who invented the mosquito net, or the ball, or the wheel, etc.?”
Sometimes it became mean and malicious.

Caller: “Mang Ernie you are a son of a _____!”
Mang Ernie: “Children don’t imitate that. May I remind the callers that there are children listening…”

Good ol’e late Mang Ernie Baron never got angry.

Mang Ernie does not only host trivia shows but he also invents things. He invented the Baron antenna. He is also a master of alternative medicine. He promotes cleansing diet using water energized with cosmic energies by his little aluminum pyramids. He also sold herbal medicine called ptio-pito. Pito-pito (seven-seven) is supposed to cure everything from asthma to cancer, from allergy to heart ailments.

Did I mention that Mang Ernie died of heart attack?

AM radio programs, the only words I can use to describe them are, nostalgic and provincial. The music is simple: folksongs, country, and kundimans. The advice well thought. The news is editorial. The commentaries are sharp and biting. The DJ’s are parental, brotherly. There are jokes, stories, testimonials, etc. It’s like…I don’t know…it’s like you’re home.

We’ll anyway, back to my chicken pox. Aside from looking like a salted watermelon seed endorser, I got over that painful and itchy episode in my life with few scars.

Who’ll notice them scars anyway? What with all that pimple crater on my face…

Summer

The semester is nearing its end. Time flies so fast; it seems it was only a few days ago when I enrolled for college, late as it is in my life. I’m nearing my 35th birthday and I’m still a third year elementary education student. My golly and my gulay, by the time I graduate (that is if I passed all the requirements and the evaluations) and pass the licensure (that is, if I can) I’ll be middle aged and on my way to andropause, impotence and incontinence, not necessarily in that order.

But there are advantages in being an “old student”.

1. I can bluff my way in and out of the campus because I’m almost always, especially the freshmen, mistaken for an instructor, or professor and sometimes I’m even mistaken for the campus director.

2. Instructor and professors can’t place me: either they think of me as an old stupid carabao who wants a degree before he dies of old age, or they think of me as a late blooming special child who suddenly discovered that he wants a degree before he dies.

3. My words carry a lot of weight with my classmates. One incident: A classmate asked me, “Daddy George, do we have an English 89 class?” And I jokingly answered, “none, the instructor is sick.” The poor girl skipped the class. I can’t even joke because my classmates take my words with authority.

The disadvantages are:

1. Memory gap. I find it difficult to memorize all those facts resulting to my poor performance in quizzes and tests.

2. My classmates think of me as the walking dictionary of the class. This is flattering but can also be irritating especially if there’s an essay examination. “Daddy George what’s the English for____? Can you translate this sentence in English?” BBzzzzzzz? Bbbbzzzzzzz? Like bees in my ears. Of course I love my classmates but when I’m thinking, I mean, no one can think with all that buzzing.

3. Counsels. I am the unofficial guidance counselor of the class. Nobody in the campus goes to the official guidance counselor for counseling; that is, from my experience with my classmates. But once in a while they come to me for advice. I remember this one girl who’s into a relationship. “Daddy George I caught my boyfriend cheating. We fought but now he’s asking for a second chance. Should I accept his apologies?’ I can tell from her eyes that she’s not had a good night sleep. I once fell in love too and I know the torture of relationships especially at her age, so I asked her, “How many relationships did your boyfriend have been into before you become engaged?” “Many,” she replied. “Then break it off with him because there is already a pattern.’ I told her. “You’re harsh Daddy George.” She laughed and walked away. A few days later she returned, haggard and red eyed. “You’re right Daddy George,” she smiled. “You’re right.” Sometimes I feel an impulse to hug my classmates but I know that I’ll be expelled if I do that.

4. Sex. Whenever there’s a class discussion about sex, I’m always the resource person. There was a copy of an old Forum magazine circulating in the class. Ours is a class of forty eight students with five male and four men, the rest are ladies. You can imagine the giggling about the magazine. Forum is, I think, a Playboy or a Penthouse publication. The articles are mostly sex confessions (they are really made up confessions, I mean; nobody makes love to a whole basketball team). I’ve read a few of them when I was younger, and of course the terminologies are “technical” and I don’t want to elaborate. Anyway, they asked me about sex education, my opinion about it. They also told me that they’ve watched pornos for scientific reasons; I sweat a lot in these kinds of discussions. I mean…I’m human.

I’m on my third year and I have a year to go. Looking back I did a lot of things that I will not be caught doing unless under threat of beheading and under the influence of gin or alcamphor.

I did calisthenics, gymnastics and aerobics during my freshmen P.E. I danced the cha-cha, the Chocolate dance, I sang, I directed a play, I acted in a play.

I’m tired. Why can’t I jus get that piece of paper and get this over with.

It’s the summer wind; really, the soporific summer wind is doing this to me.

Sachet

One local TV network did a documentary on product packaging and the innovative way the Filipinos package their product—sachets. I mean, name it: shampoos, hair gels, deodorants, toothpaste, feminine wash, facial wash, hand sanitizers, vinegar, soy sauce, etc. it is packaged in sachets. The guy who started this packaging phenomenon is Mr. Gatlabayn the mayor of Antipolo City. He’s proud to be called the sachet man of the Philippines. Oh yeah! Oh yeah!

This innovation of packaging products in small sachets is one of the culprits in the destruction of our environment. These little sachets are everywhere: clogging drainage, polluting rivers, choking fishes, polluting soils, polluting seas…they’re omnipresent. They pop up in even the most secluded places—underwater caves, in the middle of a jungle…

I will not be surprised if the Filipinos who made it to the summit of the Mt. Everest brought along with them sachets of toothpaste or what have you.

Sachets ought to be banned.

Tao

Tulad ng isang ibon
Tao ay lumilipad
Pangarap ang tanging nais
Na marating at matupad

Isip ay nalilito
Pagnakakita ng bago
Lahat ng bagay sa mundo
Ay isang malaking tukso

Bakit ba luluha?
Bakit maghihirap?
Ayaw mang mangyari
Ay di masasabi

Sasaktan mo lamang
Puso ay huwag sugatan
Ito’y laro lamang

Sa mundong makasalanan

Tubig ay natutuyo
Bulaklak ay nalalanta
Araw’y lumilipas
Sa gabi rin ang punta

--Gary Perez

Death

I was second year high school when my father died.

I mourned. But deep inside there’s that sense of freedom in losing a father. This may sound sinister, but death does that to a person. Death liberates the person who died and death also liberates the bereaved. When my father died, I had freedom, my father too.

Death liberates.

I remember going to work and people were rushing to a grassy area; people were congregating. I jumped out of the tricycle I was riding and went with the people to look at what they’re looking at. There lying on the grass was my childhood best friend Antonio Gruizo Jr.

We had a lot of fun, yes; Tonio and I had a lot of fun. He’s a genius when it comes to pranks. I remember him putting firecrackers on balled up mud and throwing them while shouting “grrrraaaaannnaaadddaaa!” Not content with the mud, he started using dog turds, and where will that lead but to the ultimate weapon—the human turd grenade, the precursor of biological weapons. (I’m not joking! Alexander the Great was considered the father of biological weapon. He was the first documented general that used animal carcasses, and what else, anything that will pollute the enemies’ fortifications, and it is safe to assume that some crazy catapultiers and trebuchetiers included human excrements in their “warheads”.) We made our neighbor’s life miserable with all that stuffs splattered everywhere. Yes, we did have fun.

I went into alcohol (of course I'm out of it now) and Tonio went into drugs, there we parted ways.

I was looking at Tonio’s body, his head was bashed; the piece of bloodied rock was still there. His underwear’s waistband was cut by the butcher’s knife that was used to stab him so many times. He looked different: the grimace of death on his ashen face, like he was taunting death; the bloodied nails that meant he tried to scale the concrete walls, cat like; the wounds on his arms, he tried to fend off those knife stabs. The bare feet and his old worn sandals lying near him. Tonio was a fast runner. I know because I know; he was cornered. I can only imagine the fear he experienced, the fear, the fear…the fear of being killed, the pain of being killed, and the loneliness of being killed.

“You know George, Tonio had a lot story about you,” Virgie, Tonio’s wife, told me, “So many stories about you.”

“George, it is better this way, at least I know my where my son is. I don’t have to spend sleepless nights waiting for him.” Ka Fe, Tonio’s mother, sobbed.

The loneliness of dying.

From the Book of Zhuang Li:

When Lao Zi died, Chin Shih went to the funeral. A disciple said: ‘Were you not a friend of the the Master?’ ‘Yes’. ‘Then is it proper to mourn him this way?’ ‘Yes, when I first arrived, I thought his spirit was really here. Now I know it wasn’t. When I went to mourn, the old people were wailing as though they had lost their son. The young ones were crying as though they had lost their mother. Since they were all together, they talked and wept without control. This is avoiding heaven, indulging in sentiment, ignoring what is natural. In the old days, it was called the penalty after violating the law of nature. The master came because it was time. He left because he followed the natural flow. Be content with the moment, and be willing to follow the grief of joy. In the old days this was called freedom from bondage.

I remember during the burial of my wife’s grandmother, “George, don’t let the candle die”, my father in law told me. I was not used to such superstitions since I grew up in an “enlightened” family. But I did give my hours watching the candle watching over my grand mother-in-law’s body. The living watching the non-living watching the dead. It’s an interesting chain of connections that shows how people deal with cadavers.

I don’t think it’s the loss, how can it be? The feeling of loss last only a few hours to be replaced by the feeling of liberation.

All those superstitious belief about death, about not letting all the mourner sleep lest the cadaver was taken by body snatchers to be replaced by a banana trunk, about the young one’s being passed over the coffin, the throwing of the flowers, what is it all about? It’s not about the loss, it’s all about conscience. Cramming all the good things that ought to be done to the person when they were still alive who are now dead who now will and never and can’t even appreciate what is the fuss all about. No, all these things are for the benefit of the living, contrition, a soap opera. Burn the body, it doesn’t matter—it’s fertilizer anyway.

Death is liberating.

Hindu Proverb

Seating is better than Standing

Lying is better than Standing

Sleeping is better than Lying

Death is better than Sleeping

I was reading a phenomenology about death, in there was Karl Rahner’s idea about death, it is that it is an act of man, the freedom to say yes or no to his openness to God…the culmination of his life…a totality. It is not an isolated act from his other free acts.

I have always viewed death as the cessation of life. Something that we can’t do anything about, something that should be feared, something that should be expected but not awaited. Of course this thinking made me fatalist about death…like I’m a walking time bomb where in the back of my mind I will be extinguished any moment. Booommmm!

What is death then? Freedom--a liberation.

What about the after-life?

No one has come back from the dead. All those Near Death Experiences is nothing but a near dear death phenomenon. Nothing divine about those experiences. In fact, there are cases of hanging were in the person hanged ejaculated in their pants, orgasms; and there are sexual deviations where people allow their partners to strangle them to near death to experience gratification. NDE’s experience of heaven, nah, hallucinations, trips, stimulation, is what they are. But if it happened to me, who knows, I may believe otherwise.

What is my attitude about the after life?

I’ll take Pascal’s gambit.

(But) God does not play dice.—Einstein

I have to, sometimes. Anyway it’s not all about the possibilities, its all about the security.

1Co 15:54 So when this takes place, and the mortal has been changed into the immortal, then the scripture will come true: "Death is destroyed; victory is complete!"

The Christian model of death is Christ’s death. It is all about the perpetuation of life, immortality, rewards and punishment, the ultimate equalizer where those who do not belong to Christ will be meted out their dues. Death is the final enemy to be overcome. Death is an evil force. Death is evil. Evil is death.

Death the final equalizer.

And the act of defecating, where we all humble ourselves to the “seat” and worship the bowl--the penultimate equalizer. (Now, where did that came from?)

I’m not afraid of death. I’m afraid of dying. I’m not afraid of the event, I’m afraid of the process.

Walk Talk3

My family spent this New Year week  with my wife’s family at Gumaca, Quezon, a coastal town facing the Pacific Ocean. It’s a small fishing community with very little amenities. In fact, most of the houses still used traditional construction materials like coconut lumber, bamboo, anahaw and nipa grass roof. Beautiful houses especially for someone used to seeing shanties made out of rusted corrugated tin, torn plywoods, disintegrating fiberboards, yellowed plastic sheets, concrete barriers, all these assortment of materials ideal for the garbage dump and not for building human habitation. (This does not mean that we live in a palace. No, ours is an old humble-termite ridden-rat infested-disintegrating house too, but it’s still relatively comfortable to live in.)

In order to get to the beach, I had to cross an old Philippine National Railroad track that, according to my mother in law, has been out of service since the last super typhoon hit the country.

I didn’t know what suddenly got into me, boredom maybe; I suddenly had the urge to walk along the tracks. I followed the tracks for about thirty minutes, stopping here and there to look at the trees, wild flowers, and the beach. The tracks, the beach, the coconut tress, the simple homes and ways of the fisher folks reminded of Michener’s novel “The South Pacific” and “Return to Paradise.”(I love Michener. The first Michener novel I read was Chesapeake; I read it overnight. Beautiful descriptions and narration…)

I was about fifteen minutes in my walk when I noticed the tracks disappeared under earth—buried. A few minutes later, it resurfaced, and then disappeared again, buried, then resurfaced again. The surfacing and the resurfacing of the tracks reminded of, this may sound corny and trite, my spiritual life. My Christian life was buried by sin, then resurfaced, then was buried again by doubts, then resurfaced, then was buried again by problems, then resurfaced, then buried again etc. it’s not the burying that’s important but the resurfacing. Of course, one get sick of the pattern but I don’t think anyone has ever achieved a perfectly stable spiritual life, one can only be reminded of Paul and his affliction:

(2Co 12:7) And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.
I don’t know, I may have quoted the verse out of context but that’s how I feel about it.

I was chased by dogs. The owners shouted, “Who are you?”
“I’m from Manila (actually from Taytay, Rizal, a few miles away from Manila but still considered Manila if you’re in the provinces), just vacationing here.” I shouted.
They reined in the dog.

I walked back to my in-law’s house. I enjoyed the trees, the sea breeze, the wild flowers, the birds. There were many birds, colorful singing sweet melodies. Why is it that birds sing better here? There were lizards, salamanders running across the tracks, insects, earthworms, touch me nots, bananas.

I was sitting on the tracks. Relaxing. A man sat next to me, “so you had a drink with Roel (my brother in law)?” He said, “Roel’s wife is my cousin.”
“No,” I said. I’m done with drinking.
“You know,” he said between puffs of cheap cigarettes, “I used to work for the rail road company. If not for the damned goat I could have been retired now and receiving my pension, it’s the damned goat.”
“What about the goat?” I asked him.
“I stole a goat.” He said.
“Regrets”
“No, fate (kapalaran),” He stood up and walked away.

Many people in the neighborhood have no electricity. They had no New Year’s Eve celebration. For many Filipinos New Year’s eve is more important than Christmas’ eve--New Years Eve is more festive than Christmas Eve. But for many people in the neighborhood, New Year and Christmas is just another ordinary day. I was guilt ridden. I asked my sister in law, is it always been this way. “No,” she said. Maybe, my wife’s family was once like them, in fact, come to think of it, even my family was once of them. We’re just a little better off than them…just a little better off…

It made think of how we count our blessing by comparing them with other people’s misfortunes. “Be thankful to God that you have an old shoe! Think of the people who have no feet! Thank God that you had a humble Christmas dinner! Think of all the people who were ravaged by the storm in Bicol! Amen, praise the Lord for you are all blessed! May I ask for prayers for our brothers who were victims of the calamity in Bicol.” Now, does that bring comfort to this ole sentimental heart of mine? Damned the torpedoes and the stilettos, heck no! It’s sick, if you asked me. This kind of thinking is sick, sadistic even.

I love the province, close to nature, close to God. Of course, God is always close.

Preposition confusion

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you’ll wait for me
Hold me like you’ll never let me go
Cause
I’m leaving on a jet plane
Don’t know when I’ll be back again

So please tell me
Why you’re leaving on a jet plane
Because you’ll get blown off
Or if not
you’ll get sucked by the turbo prop engine
So why not sing…

I’m leaving in a jet plane…
------


You! Get in the front.

You mean, at the front

No, in the front

You mean, at the front

Okay, just go there

In the front or at the front?

When I say in the front, I mean there!

Yes, that’s what I mean too, there at the front in the front!

Just get in there!

Where?

Okay

--------


Oh, Prepositions
Oh, Prepositions
Oh, Prepositions

You give me confusions
You give me confusions
You give me confusions

Gas Incident (Fiction)

“Detective come into my office, I have an interesting case for you,” Capt. Cruz grabbed Det. Pedro Pouetmo, who was rumored to be the great grandson of Agatha Christies’ Det. Hercule Poirot, by the arms.

“The Governor called. He wants me to send you to the capitol to solve a mysterious ‘gas explosion’ that almost killed his guests.” The detective noticed that his boss was in good humor. “Here’s the narrative of the incident, do your best Detective.”

The Chief of the Bulik-bulik Bureau of Crime Detection handed Pouetmo a manila envelope. “I hope you enjoy solving this one,” the Captain half smiled and half laughed. “Ciao…go,go,go… arrevaderci aroma…bonjour monsoon...”


From the Narrative Report

….The governor of Balac-bac had invited nutrition experts from Manila to help in his administration’s fight against malnutrition in the province…

…The guests were in the middle of their discussions when the Provincial Health Officer, who was speaking at that time, suddenly farted. The guest were dumfounded at the sudden outburst of gas that a few of them suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter, which of course, caused them to inhale air that increased pressures in their stomachs that later caused them to depressurize too. Of course this additional gas outburst created more laughter that created more gas pressures in the stomach that caused more gas depressurization that caused more laughter. The incessant release of stomach gasses compounded with the non-stop laughing exhausted the guest that they lost consciousness...

… It was 5 o’clock in the afternoon when the incident was discovered. The janitor was making his rounds when he came by the Conference Room and opened the door; the door literally flew open because of the positive gas pressure inside. It was fortunate that the janitor was not smoking that time because if he did the methane and butane content of the gas in the conference room would have ignited and caused a combustion creating a powerful vacuum in the conference room that would have imploded the whole structure...

…The Provincial Rescue Team came into the scene a few minutes later. Twelve gas-masked operatives hauled the victims to the ambulances. Medical examinations revealed that aside from fatigues, the guests also suffered from asphyxiation. They were released few hours later from the hospital…


“Det. Pouetmo,” Governor Alagaw said, “I heard how you solved my cousin Tubangbakod’s death. I’m impressed. Please help me solve this case. The press is already calling the province the Bio-gas capitol of the Philippines and it’s embarrassing us. I hope you do see the political fall out of this incident.” Det. Pouetmo was looking at the governor’s pleading face, and he can’t help but feel pity for the predicament the chief executive of Balac-bac is in. “I will do my best to solve this mysterious…er…gas evacuations governor. Rest assured that this will over with the soonest possible time.”
_____________________________________________________________

Det. Pouetmo was looking at the result of the laboratory analysis of the food served by the caterer. The result proved his hunch. He immediately ordered an interview with the chef in charge of the food preparation. After the interview, he then proceeded to the governor’s office. (Such was his efficiency.)

“Governor, it seems that the food served in the conference was the culprit. They were contaminated by a rare strain of flatus producing lacto-mycotarium-bacteria. I ordered a DNA analysis of the sample contaminants found in the food and I compared them to the DNA samples taken from the caterer’s staff. The result showed that the culprit was the chef. I interviewed him and did some test on him and we found out that he was suffering from a violent…er….virulent ring worm infection on his crotch. From what we gathered from his statement, it seems our chef scratch his crotch, didn’t wash his hands, infected the food.”

“Good work detective,” The Governor gravely said, “I was thinking of filing charges against the chef and the caterer. What do you suggest detective? Reckless imprudence resulting to …”

“No governor, I have a better suggestion. Why not give the chef a month’s supply of garlic for his ringworm…” There was a crack in the governor’s face, a few seconds later; the gravity on his face suddenly broke into laughter. “I dare say that’s a good one detective,” Governor Alagaw roared.

“I see that your humor returned Governor,” Det. Pouetmo smiled. “Be glad that the gas evacuation didn’t escalate to solid waste evacuations…I mean a synchronized bomb release…I mean….messy…very messy and embarrassing…”They were now bent over with laughing.

“Oh, I forgot, governor, something’s not right though, strange may I say. The laboratory analysis of the gas in the conference room showed that it contained nitrous oxide—laughing gas.”

Gabi

Ang ganda ng gabi
Tahimik parang libingan
Alang ingay kahit konti
Naririnig ultimo kaluskos ng daga
At hilik ng kapitbahay

Payapang payapa
Parang alapaap
Na parang bulak
Bagsakan man ng babasagin
Sasaluhin
Alang ingay
Ni kalantog man lang

Paano ‘ko aantukin
Kung ito ang oras na payapa
Bakit ‘ko tutulugan
Ba’t sasayangin and pagkakataon
Na makarinig ng katahimikan?

parenthesis

I love walking because when I walk I see a lot of things and when I see a lot of things, I think and when I think I have many thoughts. Many thoughts in fact (a lot of them) that I had to control myself lest I drown in them.

I was walking and I saw this wild flower and suddenly I had the urge to talk (I can’t write, what I do is talk) about them (of course, I saw birds too and someone in my head told me: look at the birds ain’t them grand but I must write about the wild flowers first). The flowers (look! a mangy puppy, it’s pitiful how many dog owners just leave these unsightly pitiful puppy on the roads to let them die) are lovely especially the small ones that looks just like a miniature (kittens too, my gulay, why do they leave these animals alone to die) sunflower. Not, only are they beautiful but there’s also that (a stone, a beautiful stone, maybe I should talk about stones sometimes) (where amI?) (flowers?) sense of naturalness in finding flowers at their natural, wild setting (the clouds, what about the clouds) …I better stop, too many things…no focus…(I can’t) I can’t focus because there are too many (no, only two, hey! How about me, flowers remember? Stone, remember? Birds, remember? Clouds too, remember?)…confusing?! (hey, guys in my head I need to focus, see, I’m doing something)…(what do you mean?)…The flowers…

It’s difficult to keep my focus (no, it’s not, yes it is) when there’s many things that you want (flower, remember, bird, remember? Stone or rocks, remember? Clouds…) talk about (and there are many voices in your head suggesting things)…should I use parenthesis (no, you can use commas)…why don’t you consult your grammar book…(I need coffee)…

So, the committee in my head continues to discuss things while I try to organize them…very difficult I should say. (no!, nada! Ciao….ang kulit nyo!)

Universe

I forgot who said this: “The center of the universe is you.” It is not important who said this, what is important is that there is truth in these words.

I’ve always wondered how it is to be in the other guy’s shoes. How to see things from the other guy’s perspective, I got into this thinking or should I say mood because I witness an interesting occurrence. It happened a few months ago at school, I saw a snatcher being beaten by the crowd. The guy was caught trying to run away with an old lady’s bag. He was caught; the people gathered around him; the beating started. The scene was surreal.

I have a tendency for violence. I don’t know. I’m so unlike my older brother, in fact, I’m so unlike my siblings. I admire them for their patience, their passivity in times of irritating times. They have this mechanism, which I think I lack, that calms them and prevents them from exploding, while me, I’m a walking explosive. I’m impulsive and they’re not. I don’t know, but my impulsiveness gets me into trouble. I think before I act but I don’t rethink my actions before acting. So, I was thinking how violence must be all about not thinking. Those people who beat the snatchers may have acted on impulse, and what is troubling is that some of the men who did the beating may not have done the beating to teach the snatcher a “lesson”, but what they may have beaten the snatcher to let go of all their frustrations in life; it’s like road rage. Kant said that when we do evil our reasoning failed—evil is irrationality. It’s true, who’d not do an evil thing lest he’s not nuts.

We are the center of the universe because we see things from our point of view. When I read about other people’s experience, I catch glimpses of how they perceive experiences but it’s only a glimpse. No one can really know anyone because no one can peek into other’s mind. It is the uniqueness of these experiences, how one see things, how I see things that make life lonely. Loneliness in a sense of not being alone or being lonely but the loneliness of being alone—experiencing things from your own experiences. It’s like looking at a cloud, ask someone if they see the images that you are seeing and you’ll instantly see what I mean—you have to tell that someone how to see what you are seeing so that someone can see what you are seeing. You have to tell how to see or else there will never be an agreement. It is this loneliness that makes me lonely because I know that the way I see things are different from the way other people see things--and I want them to see it my way-- but the difference is that they are not lonely at how they see things; it seems it is only I that feel this loneliness.

“The center of the universe is you.” We are the center of the universe because we see reality from our point of view. How the others see this reality is deprived from an individual and this individualism is loneliness. Empathy? Maybe that’s why people have always search for transcendence and unity being--one with the world. It’s lonely being alone, I mean not that alone.

How does it feel to be beaten? To see the universe from that perspective?

How does it feel to beat someone you don’t even know?

Different universe, different planet, different time, different era, different….unique and private—how I would give anything just to be in other people’s shoes and experience things from their perspective.

Creation

“The man cried out to God, “Lord I need a companion”. ‘
“Haven’t I given you all the animals?” The Lord replied.
“But Lord I need someone like me,” said the man. “I need someone who will serve me.”
“I see, but that will cost you your arm and your leg,” said the Lord.
“Why, that’s pretty expensive Lord,” the man complained. “Can’t you give me something cheaper?”
“Okay,” the Lord smiled. “For a rib I will give you a woman.”

Gen 2:21 Then the LORD God made the man fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, he took out one of the man's ribs and closed up the flesh.
Gen 2:22 He formed a woman out of the rib and brought her to him.
Gen 2:23 Then the man said, "At last, here is one of my own kind--- Bone taken from my bone, and flesh from my flesh. 'Woman' is her name because she was taken out of man."

After a few days the man called on the Lord.

“Lord, the woman is driving me mad,” the man complained.
“That’s what you get for a rib,” said the Lord. “That’s what you get for a rib.”

This is my recreation of a sermon I heard last year in Baguio City. It’s funny and at the same time sad for stories like these, especially served from the pulpit, reflects a chauvinistic political incorrectness in pastoral theology blah, blah, blah. I mean its wrong even just to elicit laughter from the congregation it’s still wrong.

Anyway, I like this one better:

The woman was not taken from the man’s head…
Nor from the feet
But from the ribs
So that she will not be above him or below him
But so that she will be close to his heart –an equal.

Tuyo

I am the fish
That you people
Caught

Too young
Too naïve
Not grown
Didn’t even enjoy life

You have no mercy
You didn’t even kill me
Before you took me out of the sea

There I die
Painful
Gills bursting
Choking

No mother
No father
No siblings
No home
Out of the water

You have no mercy
You, not content
With my sufferings
Even bled me and what’s worst
You dried me
And now you’re frying me

Pleas at least give me the honor
Of being eaten with
A Heinz tomato ketchup
Give me the last honor of being consumed
With an Aryan

No vinegar please…
No garlic please…
For I would like to be with Neptune
Dignified
Wrap in a German’s blood.

Tomato, no Banana Ketchup
No banana…
No banana…

And please dessert me with bananas
Not Panutsas

My 2006 Top 10 second hand books that I've actually read

1. The Dancing Wu Li Masters—Gary Zukav

The book literally blew my mind. I never thought that physics could be this...er…fun and troubling. All those theories about reality…more bizaare than Poul Anderson’s time paradox novels.

2. The Seat of the Soul—Gary Zukav

Eastern philosophy, theology and science.

“I was drawn again and again to the writings of William James, Carl Jung, Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein…I found in them something special, although it was not until later that I was able to understand that special ness: these fellow humans reached for something greater than they were able to express directly through their work…they were mystics.”

3. For Whom the Bell Tolls—Ernest Hemmingway

Finally I was able to finish the book. Reading Hemmingway is like reading a play. There are traces of Gertrude Stein’s repetition in his writings, not surprising since they were friends.

4. Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre—Walter Kaufmann

The book that taught me what existentialism is not all about.

5. Rendezvous with Rama—Arthur C. Clarke

From the master of space objects comes Rama, a floating Noah’s ark?

Now why is it that my Space Odyssey 3001 was missing from my library? The last guy who borrowed the book goes by the name of hmmmm…Gnatz.

6. Religion in Sociological Perspective—Keith Roberts

A scientific study of religion.

7. The Bluffer’s Guide to Philosophy—Jim Hankinson

Irreverent introductory book about philosophy that proves humor is the best way to teach difficult things.

8. The Communist Manifesto—Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Why would anyone read this little read book?

9. Star Trek: The Motion Picture—Gene Roddenberry

I love Star Trek. I have a humble collection of 1960-70’s Star Trek Log series, lots of theology and philosophy in there.

10. The Cost of Discipleship—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Hmmmm…..No comments.

********

“I suffer thirst, Govinda, and on this long Samana path my thirst has not grown less. I have always thirsted for knowledge. I have always been full of questions. Year after year I have questioned the Brahmins, year after year I have questioned the holy Vedas….I have spent a long time and have not yet finished, in order to learn this, Govinda: that one can learn nothing. There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only knowledge—that is everywhere, that is Atman, that is in me and you and in every creature, and I’m beginning to believe that this knowledge has no worse enemy than the man of knowledge, than learning.”

--Hermann Hesse

One Chapter


Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Gen 1:31 God looked at everything he had made, and he was very pleased. Evening passed and morning came---that was the sixth day.

I bought a 20 peso-second-hand book titled “The Naked Ape” by Desmond Morris and it was a very interesting book. Mr. Morris, an evolutionist, collated researches, theories, and speculations and then compiled them in this book. His annotations and analysis were interesting and one that caught my attention was this:

Before man became hunter he was an aquatic ape. He is envisaged as moving to the tropical seashore in search of food, at first he will grope around in pools and shallow water and gradually venture out in the depths. During this process it is argued, he will have lost his hair, only his head protruding from the water would retain the hairy coat. This may explain the direction of his body hairs; they point diagonally backwards and inward the spine following the pattern of water passing over a swimming body; reducing resistance. Finally, this maybe the reason why the fossils of the missing link had never been found, paleontologists were looking at the wrong place, they should try looking near sea-shores. (pp. 37-38)

Hmmmmm…

This was new to me and it made me realized how far people would go to deny the existence of creative design in life. But there are inconsistencies that should be considered before adopting the evolutionist’s views on the origin and the diversity of life. And another thing is it is not science alone that discovers and defines truths. How many times have science been proven wrong? From Ptolemy to Copernicus, Newton to Quantum Physics. In the future how one can only asks how many theories will be refuted and new theories proposed to be debunked again for a new proposal to be refuted again—scientific truth is contingent truth; it changes with new discoveries, new instruments, new technologies, and at the new way people look at things. Maybe truths that are encapsulated in myths (not that myth), myths are the only eternal truth for their truth is in the telling of the experiencing of that truth (bit confusing, eh...).

How about the limits of the five senses? Scientific truth is defined the naturalist way—if it can be observed, quantified and qualified. But scientists believe in black holes, white dwarf and all those cosmological and astronomical phenomenon whose existence is difficult to prove even theoretically. Who has seen an atom? Belief in all those equations may not be that different in belief in the myths (not that myth) in the bible. Faith is what they are, these belief in mathematical equations.

Anyway, life will not be decided on laboratories or theories but on how we see life
I’d rather be a stupid creationist who sees beauty and order than an intelligent evolutionist who sees chaos and anomalies. I just look at my daughters face and I’m 100 percent sure of God’s creative powers, and when I look in the mirror I’m sure of His...err…never mind, God does not commit mistakes.

Another thing, the evolutionist’s view that we evolved from the apes for me is questionable, and now they are proposing that we also evolved from the ducks. No way, Jose!