Rottweilers vs. Pampam, the rat eater

Perya

I was about three or four years old when I rode my first Ferris wheel and I can’t forget the sensation, it felt like my intestines were being removed from my stomach.

Those were the days when the traveling fairs (or perya) that visit towns during their yearly feasts were the provider of the nightlife of provincial towns. I remember my elder siblings bringing me along to these peryas. They were throwing coins and balls hoping to win prices like glass tumblers and porcelain plates that they can bring home, while I was busy munching on popcorns and chicharons.

I remember I was crying on the ground while my siblings were threatening to leave me there, alone, days when white ladies floating around the Kalachuchi trees were the boogeyman used to scare the gulaman out of us.

The peryas broke the monotony of life then. Mothers with their toddlers would be sitting on the bingo bench while the announcers crack jokes, here and then someone would shout “Bingo” and off they went home with a set of plates, or pots and pans, or anything that can be useful in the home.

Mothers were laughing and babies crying and fathers were shouting and boys and girls running…

I took this picture during Taytay’s fiesta and it’s not the same. The lights of the perya were not as bright as they were during the days when street lights were non existent. The jokes of the Bingo announcer were drowned by the noise of jeepneys passing, of videokes. Once in a while I could see people on motorcycles collecting money from the poor Pinoy Gypsies running the perya.

There were less people, there were more dogs.

Where is my river?

Where is my river?
What happened to my river?
Why are there no fishes in there?
Why so much garbage in there?

God, what happened to my river?

The little boy was looking at me while I was taking the picture. I don’t know what he was doing, he must be thinking of swimming. Children love waters and now that most of our rivers are fouled because of industry, poor sanitation and the lack of concern to the environment, this child will grow up deprived of the magnificence of God’s creations.

Chances are he will grow up polluted like his river.

Nature reflects God’s glory, power and magnificence. It is the most beautiful temple that one can worship in, and, in my country that temple is fast becoming a grave. No wonder then that more and more Filipinos are becoming indifferent to God.

Christ’s Bondservant

Make me a captive, Lord,
And then I shall be free;
Force me to render up my sword,
And I shall conqueror be.
I sink in life’s alarms
When by myself I stand;
Imprison me within Thine arms,
And strong shall be my hand.

My heart is weak and poor
Until it master find;
It has no spring of action sure—
It varies with the wind:
It cannot freely move
Till Thou has wrought its chain;
Enslave it with Thy matchless love,
And deathless it shall reign.

My power is faint and low
Till I have learned to serve:
It wants the needed fire to glow,
It wants the breeze to nerve;
It cannot drive the world
Until itself be driven;
Its flag can only be unfurled
When Thou shalt breathe from heaven

My will is not my own
Till thou has made it Thine;
If it would reach a monarch’s throne
It must its crown resign:
It only stands unbent
Amid the clashing strife,
When on Thy bosom it has leant
And found in Thee its life.

--George Matheson

Bad Textbook

I was listening to our ethics instructor discussing…hmmm…ethics and I was a little disappointed when the situations given by the instructor are not good situations that demands ethical exploration. (The instructor is a wonderful human being, kind and humble.) I can’t blame the instructor because, let’s face it, very few Filipinos are interested in the philosophy of morals even at the introductory level.

Anyways, I am not writing about the instructor but about the textbook that he is using. I looked at the title and the author and scan a few pages, and the book is one of those cut and pasted books that works more like a review outline—good for memorization but not for learning. The instructor was lamenting the fact that no sample situations were given in the book; in fact, nothing is discussed in the (I’m trying to restrain myself) that good for nothing waste of paper, called textbook.

Let me quote Dorothy Parker:

“This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”

May I add, burn the darn book…burn it!

The quality of our text books is a manifestation of the general condition of our educational system.

(There are good textbooks but why don't we use them. Now, why is that?)

BB King / Gary Moore - The Thrill is Gone

It can't get better than this!

Famous Baptist

I was assigned to teach the church’s Sunday school men department and they agreed to start the doctrinal sessions with the question “Why am I a Baptist?” I already prepared an outline that will start with an overview of Baptist history including Baptist history in the Philippines. One of my aims is to create denominational pride to the class by listing the names of Baptists that help made the world a better place. I searched the internet and the result is interesting. Here are some of them:



Politics: Abraham Lincoln - 16th President of the United States (raised Baptist)
Andrew Johnson - 17th U.S. President (raised Baptist) Warren G. Harding - 29th U.S. President Harry S. Truman - 33rd U.S. President Jimmy Carter - 39th U.S. President (former Southern Baptist) William Jefferson Clinton - 42nd U.S. President (Bill Clinton was officially rebuked by SBC) Al Gore - Vice-President to Pres. Clinton (former Southern Baptist)

Movies

Ava Gardner - actress, movie star Kevin Costner - actor, movie star Fred Berry - actor best known as "Rerun" on the TV comedy What's Happening!! Chuck Norris - actor ("Walker, Texas Ranger") Eddie Murphy - actor, comedian

Sci-fi (I like these writers.)

Robert Heinlein - considered one of the greatest science fiction authors ever; author of Stranger in a Strange Land; Starship Troopers; many more (former Baptist) Ray Bradbury - science fiction writer; author of Something Wicked This Way Comes; Fahrenheit 451; The Illustrated Man; many more (former Baptist) Gene Roddenberry - TV writer, producer; creator of Star Trek (former Baptist)

Music

Carrie Underwood - singer, winner of competition on Season 4 of popular FOX television series American Idol Ruben Studdard - singer (winner of American Idol 2nd season) Clay Aiken - singer, immensely popular 2nd place runner-up in Season 2 of FOX television series American Idol Glen Campbell - country music singer Roy Orbison - country music singer Marian Anderson - influential black singer Johnny Cash - singer Skeeter Davis - country music singer Kris Kristofferson - country music singer David Ruffin - singer with The Temptations Pebbles - R&B singer; founder of Savvy record label (real name: Perri Alette McKissack) Louis Armstrong - trumpeter, vocalist, conductor Donna Summer - singer, songwriter Chuck Berry - rock and roll pioneer Sam Cooke - rock and roll legend Bill Haley - rock and roll star Buddy Holly - rock and roll legend Hank Williams Sr. - country music singer Gene Autry - TV's famous singing cowboy (lapsed Baptist, convert to Christian Science) Diana Ross - singer Rita Coolidge - singer Gladys Knight - famed singer who sang with the "Pips" (former Baptist, now a Latter-day Saint) Whitney Houston - singer Queen Latifah - singer, actress Jessica Simpson - pop singer Al Green - musician Britney Spears - pop singer (Former Baptist now a Baldist he, he, he, he…I know I am being mean again.)Aaron Carter - pop singer; brother of Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys Otis Redding - soul singer (famous for "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" and other classics) Rick Wakeman - member of 1970s rock group "Yes" Ashlee Simpson - singer

The most interesting is Arthur "J.R." Warren Jr. a martyred gay Baptist church usher beaten to death in Grant Town, West Virginia in July 2000.

Blessed

I was blessed by last Sunday’s sermon that I was tempted to drop my wallet in the tithes and offering basket. (My wallet unfortunately is only a wallet, nothing more and nothing less and nothing inside.)

Giving, preaching, caring, ministering, all of these are related. One can’t expect giving to increase if there’s no ministering, one cannot expect member participation if the preaching is not edifying and etc.

Hmmmmm….communication.

Hannes Coetzee and Spoon Slide Guitar

(See video)

I thought I have ssen it all. I love blues guitar but this is the first time I have seen this style. Below is the article that i found in the net about Hannes.

During the year 2000, David Kramer, one of South Africa’s most well-known and beloved musicians, heard of the Coetzee legend—that there was a man in the Karoo who played the guitar with a teaspoon. Kramer’s own music features gritty, realistic songs about small-town South Africa. His first album, Bakgat!, was banned by the South African Broadcasting Company for its political satire, its use of coarse language, and its mixing of languages. Although it was the apartheid era, Kramer refused to change his style. He had several hits throughout the nineteen-eighties and nineteen-nineties, including the hugely popular “So Long Skipskop,” which tells the story of forced removal of black fishermen from a village in the Cape.

Most of Kramer’s releases have gone gold. So when he saw video footage of Hannes Coetzee playing guitar with the teaspoon slide technique, he was in a position to give Coetzee a national platform. “[The music] was absolutely fascinating,” Kramer says. “The footage made such an impression on me that I went to meet him, and invited him onto the stage with me to present him to the audiences that I performed to.”

The concerts that Coetzee played were part of Kramer’s Karoo Kitaar Blues project, which often included at least four other traditional musicians from the Karoo. Through these shows, Hannes Coetzee was able to play for audiences in all of South Africa’s major cities.

His style of guitar made him a sensation almost overnight. Coetzee performed to sold-out crowds, appeared on television and radio, and released CDs of his music. His songs got covered by other musicians. He was able to buy a car and enlarge his house in Herbertsdale. Video footage of his playing became a phenomenon on the YouTube website, getting hundreds of thousands of views.

South African youth hear the work of Hannes Coetzee and other Karoo players on television, in record stores, and on the radio. Traditional music has been elevated within the community and given much higher status. In a country where the remnants of the apartheid framework are still in existence it is Coetzee, a soft-spoken black man in his sixties, who has fired a passion for traditional music. “Interest has been rekindled in what we perhaps almost lost,” Kramer says

My Wife's nephew and Call Center blah, blah, blah.

In my earlier post I wrote about my wife’s nephew and his job application as a call center agent. He got accepted and is now starting his career as a “callboy”. (Callboy is the term used by my lady English instructor, who is now the our campus’ institute of education head, when referring to teachers of English who leave their teaching posts to seek greener pastures as call center agents. “They are “callboys” and “callgirls” because they work in a call center.” She tells us with contempt.)

Rommel, my wife’s nephew, is temporarily staying with us. We had a talked about his new job, and because he is still new, he has a lot of exciting stories to tell. He showed me a video of his workplace and just as I expected it looked like NASA’s control center except they don’t control anything, they are the one being controlled.

This is my conversation with Rommel.

“So how’s your new work?”

Good. I had many transactions today, my first day I had only 14 transactions but today I exceeded the quota.

“What do you do in that place?”

(He showed me the video.) We answer calls, e-mails and other transaction handled by the company.

“Do you have any interesting stories to share?”

I had this enquiry by an irate customer asking why her credit card was being charged by a website. I asked her what her Credit number is, but she would not give it to me. So, I asked her husbands name and the name of the website and it turned out to be an adult site. She was apologetic when she ended the conversation.

There was this call center agent who suffered a stroke while answering the phone. Stress maybe.

I saw one of the girls crying.

I was amazed by one agent who did all his transactions with his eyes staring at the ceiling.

Some of them my coworkers work standing some sitting some slouching some walking…any positions will do.

We are allowed wear comfortable clothes in the cubicles.

I had a new name; I am now Lance and I’m thinking of an American surname.

When their off the phone, my coworkers cursed their clients with curses that will make your hair stand.

The pay is good. You know uncle, I can get a percentage for every agent that I recommend that got accepted. Are you interested?

Of course my nephew is thinking of the future. He is looking for a good paying job so that he can start a family now. Me, I spend by days thinking of the past and the sweetness of my childhood. Of course in the future when I finish my education, I will work but the pay will not be that important. Our family has survived this long in the ministry of the Lord and the Lord has been faithful to us. So, I don’t think money will really matter that much.

Anyways…

I am thinking what will happen to him. If he is strong and adapted to his new job, he will survive but if he wants happiness and freedom, I don’t know what will happen to him.

How many happiness and good minds have been sacrificed in the name of a good paying job?

Maybe this explains the way some call center agent behave—superior. They have this dual personality, a schizophrenic existence, one is a dignified human being working in a high paying job expecting the respect and standing of a person with a high paying job but once inside their cubicles, they are nothing more than answering machine, slaves, punching bag of stressed clients, therapists of sick people who needs attention, object of sex perverts, obscene callers…They are compensating for their loss of personality (they adopt American names), degradation of dignity (they are treated like answering machines), loss of mobility (their cubicles are prison cells), loss of community (they are asleep during the day), the loss of sleep, the loss …but the pay is good.

“Uncle I can recommend you and if you’re accepted, I can get a commission from the referral.” Rommel said.

(No more reading, no more guitars, no more wife, no more daughter, no more blogging, no more staring at nothing and meandering, no more looking at trees, no more creative and speculative thinking…no movement. Dead!)

Hmmm…. There are things that money can’t buy. Thanks, but no way. I’d rather eat dried fish and tomatoes (which is actually happening), at least I can feel my existence.

Callgirls and Callboys 2

I was surprised (not really surprised) when some of my classmates opened my blog and left comments there. Katrina said that I was a “sosyal” (socialite). I don’t know what made her say that because I have been going to school for four years now wearing the same set of uniform. My blue polo is now white (blame Tide and Ariel for that), my blue pants is beginning to show signs of disintegration. And the shoes that my mother bought from a drug addict who needed a score was so worn that my younger brother bought me a new pair so that I will be able to go to school with dignity this year.

Maybe it’s because of the picture (the PC was donated by my brother) and the way I write (I don’t even know if it’s writing at all.) Maybe when she read my blog I projected this image of…hmmmm…airiness and madness (lack of better term) and egotism and sarcastically atheistic nihilism that borders on the insane and inane and, and, and, the impropriety of terms, syntactical oddities etc.….I’m tired…I’m not “sosyal” wished I am one.

Vithel, one of my classmates, was affected by my post about call centers. She was hoping to land a job as a call center agent. That posts was a reaction to what these callboys and call girls did to me. Our campus is opposite a small shopping mall. There’s a pedestrian overpass connecting the mall to our campus. (It was a joke that we have two campuses, the mall and our rented building.) Anyway, I was entering the mall in my old uniform when I saw these call center people congregating near a smoking trash can whispering to each other. When I was approaching them, I heard them calling me “sir, sir, sir” when I looked back they all become silent, some keeping their selves from laughing at me. I have been subjected to this treatment from these call boys and call girls that I think it’s time I release something or else I might end up killing all of them. I had no way of getting back at them. All I can do is to write how I felt about them.\

Anyway I’m just quoting our English teachers when I called them callboys and call girls. “They are call boys and call girls because they work in a call center.” That was from that feisty little English instructor whom we all love Mommy Violeta “the Violator” Cano editorializing on the “whoring” of English teachers to call center agencies. Know how it is, even some of our instructors of English here in the campus dream of becoming callboys and call girls. We are losing competent English teachers because of call centers. If this tends continues who will suffer?

Teachers leaving teaching and the higher calling of public service for money and chain smoking and coffee and that aura of superiority of earning better money than teachers. Call me bitter Vithel but the Violator is right, they are call boys and call girls because they work in call centers. Period.

Grammar

Today was my first day in the structure of English class. As our instructor was lecturing on the common grammatical errors (she called these errors “heinous crimes”) committed by students and all the people in the world, I suddenly had the urge to open my blog, reread all that I had written there, check all the grammatical errors and correct them one by one. Nah, the committee in my head told me. Just stay put and do what you always liked to do, type words, sentences and paragraphs at random with the hope that with the amount of the inane things you have typed, there will come a time, because of overexposure, when you will be comfortable in English, both written and oral, that nobody can tell whether you’re a Filipino who grew up in America from a Filipino call center agent who grew up in the slum.

So the instructor was enumerating all these errors like tenses, enunciation, diction and impropriety, synonyms and stuffs that I know will only give me depression and prevent me from typing and all the while I was thinking…hmmmm…She’s right, correct practice makes perfect. Read, read, read, she shouted and I say amen to that.

I’ll try to remember these grammar rules for her sake. Why? I like the teacher. Period.

Breakfast

This must be how jet lag feels like.

I wake up at around five thirty, take a bath, wear my uniforms, bring my daughter to the school; after that, I will be going to school myself. For almost two and a half months I got used to sleeping early in the morning and then waking up just before noon, eating, reading, a little house maintenance here and there, typing, guitar etc., all the things that a person who has no money does during their vacation. (It’s no use looking for summer jobs; I’m over qualified when it comes to age requirement) Now it’s school time and the sudden shift in my routine gave me headaches, made me sluggish, irritable, my stomach grumbles because it got used to breakfast at noon and lunch at dinner, no true breakfast. Now my stomach is asking for food every morning. I don’t like breakfast because I don’t want to wake up earlier. To compensate for this lack of food, my stomach is manufacturing gasses that will act as filler for the empty spaces that breakfast should have filled up. It’s difficult concentrating when gasses in your stomach are trying to ram through the back door. I can’t release them because I fear that these bubbles may carry some liquefied matter with them.

I'm in a different time zone now.

Bulabog Fiction

I used to play bass in a band, that is, a bulabog band. My music-minded friends and I decided to form a quartet. We bought second hand, dilapidated music instruments and amps. We played to anyone who will listen to us. Truth to tell we were not good. We were too old, we played by kapa, and our equipments were not that reliable. But what we lacked in equipments and musicality John, the lead guitarist, more than made up for in showmanship. I remember his most unforgettable performance. We were invited to play a gig at a barangay fiesta in Jansenville Cainta. We were drinking heavily and playing wildly, and John in an ecstasy of guitar adlibs used his teeth to play the lead ala Hendrix. I was awed by his performance, and the audience liked it so much that they nicknamed him the guitar eater. He was so high with his performance that he jumped at the final riff--the climax. We were all laughing and smiling but I noticed that his mouth was bleeding. I pulled him aside and gave him an ice-cold beer to stop the bleeding. The poor man, his guitar strings got caught between his teeth that it lacerated his gums. I told him that the 500 pesos “talent fee” wouldn’t be enough to pay for a reconstructive surgery, for the next time it happens it might be his lips that could be lacerated. Anyway he worked on it and perfected the trick.

The person who invited us to perform that day was so elated that he invited us to play the following week in Binangonan. It was his niece’s debut and the band music would be his gift for her. Like I said, we would play for anyone who will listen to us. So we agreed. The problem is that we never checked the place where we will be playing versus the capacity of our amps.

When we got to Binangonan (I was asking the driver if were still in Philippine territory) we were shocked when we realized that we would be rocking in the mountains. I was thinking of how we would sound since we will be playing in open-air and our amps were the small indoor types. When we got there and we set-up the equipment my worst fear was realized. There were no walls or any barrier that would return the sounds; in short there were no acoustics. Our equipments outputs were like a “drop of vinegar in an ocean of water” (I got that phrase from a theology teacher). We can’t hear a thing. So what we did was to gather all the people in front of the speakers and played full blast. We were able to finish the performance but I felt weird playing and not being able to hear what I’m playing. (We can hear the instrument but the sound was so dispersed and far apart that we can’t even tell if were playing the same tune.) After the usual free drinks we went home. As the jeep were winding down the mountains and we were passing the road sandwich between two mountainsides we heard ourselves playing. In fact I still remember the song; it was “All my life” by America. And the acoustics was great. I can’t forget John’s reaction hearing his voice (he sang that song hours ago), his eyes almost popped out. It was eerie and everyone made the sign of the cross for fear of being enchanted by the mountain spirits. But when we passed the mountainsides the singing faded; there were complete silence. The experience was so weird that no one dared talked about it up to now.

I had a theory though. Sound is energy; it can be reflected back and forth. Imagine throwing a tennis ball across and it got caught between two walls, what would happen is that they would bounce against the walls until their kinetic energy was spent. I think this is what happened here. That particular song was caught between the two mountains and they were simply bouncing back and forth like the tennis ball. But this time all conditions were right the humidity, temperature, and the quality of the soil and stones of the mountains that there was virtually no corruption in the sound quality, in fact it even amplified and improved it. Just a theory.
Our band days are over now. The last time we played together was in ‘98. We are all married now. I quit my job (I had no choice because my boss resigned) and I’m trying to continue my study, which the drinking and the band sidelined. The summer of 2004 I went to the University of Rizal in Morong to get my school records and it took me all day. It was almost dark when I completed the requirements before I got the transcripts of my school records. I was on a jeep on my way home and was admiring the beauty of Laguna Lake and the reflection of the sunset on its waters when I heard a faint but familiar sound. I felt my hair rising when I realized what the wind was whispering to my ears. My God, it was John and the band singing “All my life”.

This is fiction. I missed my bulabog band. Days when were there’s no rule when it comes to playing our instruments.

Taiwan and China

I overheard two men talking about shoes. One was telling the other that the shoes that he was buying was made in China—low quality. This is funny and troubling because when I was in my grade school days I used to buy poorly molded plastic toy trucks that were made in Taiwan and because of this I grew up connecting Taiwan with badly molded plastic toys and other fake (piracy was an unknown then) products. And I’m not the only one who thought that way about Taiwan during those days. Of course China has that same image but it is fast getting past that image becoming one of the most powerful nations, a superpower in fact and the only country capable of challenging the United States today.

One of my classmates was laughing because of a picture of black people wearing g-strings and carrying spears and that is what Africa means to most Filipinos—backward and low tech.

I told my classmate to be careful because if he had not notice it, we are running out of country and people to denigrate. Taiwan and China and India had long ago left the Philippines behind. And Africa, if the Filipinos continue to think of them as backward, may one day leave us behind laughing.

The Philippines is fast becoming the… you know what I mean.

Collision

This is unbelievable.

I was riding my brother’s motorcycle when I saw another motorcycle approaching me. I knew the rider so I nodded at him and he nodded back. The next thing I knew was our bikes slamming into each other, a head on collision. The by standers helped us get on our feet. I was a little pissed off because my big toe was bleeding and I thought that it was broken. I looked at the rider and he was disoriented, I thought he was drunk. I asked if he has taken alcohol but he didn’t speak; his face was colorless; he just nodded at me.

We picked up our bike and then wave to each other and then went on our ways.

Funny because both of us had the same story, I slammed his bike; he slammed my bike. It’s a case of hesitation, like two people bumping each other because the other does not know where the other will go. Both hesitating and anticipating both thinking the same thing.

The thing was he was on my lane.

I ended up with a swollen and bleeding and infected toe.

School's Began

I am now starting my senior year as an education student at the University of Rizal System, Cainta. Another year of early mornings and late sleeping. It's alright, I have a year to go and then I'm off to God knows what career.

Call Center, Call Boys and Call Girls

My wife’s nephew is coming over from the province to stay with us while he is applying for a job as call center agent. He is currently working as a high school teacher and as a local radio station disc jockey but attracted by the lucrative salary of a call center agent, which is almost thrice his combined monthly salary as a high school teacher (he teaches in a small provincial private school) and as a local radio DJ, he will leave the province to try his luck. I told my wife that if ever her nephew will be accepted as a call center agent the cost of living here in the metropolitan Manila will eat up most of his salary and in the end, if he really take the time to think it over, his life in the province would be better off.

-

I don’t know if my wife’s nephew knew that being a call center agent is one of those jobs that pays a lot but in the long run will make you wish you were dead. There’s no opportunity for growth there, except maybe in salary, but otherwise there’s no movement. Most of the shifts are graveyard and the stress factor is high that most call center agents are either chain smokers or caffeine addict or both. And because of the nature of their job, call center agents develop distinctive appearance, sunken eyes, pale skin, some have blonde hair (I don’t know if it’s dye or because of lack of sunshine). They speak in slangy English and they congregate near trash cans, smoking trash cans. If one is observant one can also identify call center agents by the way they dress, most of them are overdressed. They wore fancy sunglasses as if they’re afraid of the suns, they have beads, tattoos, jackets (for their freezer like cubicle), and some of the men have long hair. I don’t know, maybe it’s a statement of sort, “Hey, although we look cadaverous, we rock!”

I remember a call center agent that my wife knew, the guy resigned after three years of talking to strangers all over the world, the reason: he was bored and frustrated. For twelve hours a night what he did was to talk and look at a computer monitor, argue, receive curses from dissatisfied and abusive callers, and talk and look at the computer screen and talk and receive curses from dissatisfied and abusive callers, and look at the computer screen, and talk, and talk, and receive curses…the pay is good but its’ a non existent existence, a punching bag existence.

I wish my wife’s nephew luck. If I were him I’d stay in the province enjoy the low pay, the low stress, the low cost of living and the absence of pollution. I’d study more and read more and buy myself a computer and get online and enjoy life in that slow rural atmosphere of Quezon Province.

Call boys and call girls, is what they are called. No, I don’t hate call center agents it’s just that some of them exude this aura of superiority that is annoying.

Dishwashing

I hate dishwashing. I told my wife that I’m willing to wash our clothes, to polish our floor using coconut husk, to fix electrical problems, anything just don’t let me do the dishes. The reason, I don’t like to move after eating. After meals all I want to do is just sit down and sit down. My wife, ever the figure conscious, would stand for about an hour or so every after meal for fear of developing a bulging tummy. She would stand there in our living room walking a little bit here and there, she would glimpse in the mirror make a few turn and then stand again and a few simple glances in the mirror (she didn’t know that I was looking at her) and then stand again…she’s annoying to watch.

She would then look at me sitting and smiling the smile of a well fed man and then she would tell me, “Sangko! (That’s what they call me. It means younger older brother.) Don’t sit down immediately after eating. You must let the food settle in your stomach before sitting down! Look at your bulging tummy. You don’t look like that when I met you. Blah, blah, blah and blah…what’s the use of our afternoon walks if blah, blah, blah” I just smile the sweet smile of a well fed man.

That’s why I hate dishwashing; I don’t like to move after eating.

Spiritual

What makes a person spiritual?
Is it in the way they walked?
Is it in the way they talked?

What makes a person spiritual?
Is it the way they dress?
Is it the movie they watch?

What makes a person spiritual?
Is it the way they pray?
Is it their weekly attendance in the church?

What makes a person spiritual?
To tell the truth we can’t tell

For if we judge spirituality based on behavior
It can be faked

But it us also impossible for a good heart
Not to show a good fruit

Truth to tell
We can’t tell
Only God can

Ghost and kantanods

We have a picture of the family hanging on our plywood wall. There are slots in there where we, individually, then with our families…it’s like a family tree picture frame. There was an odd slot, so my youngest sister, who doesn’t want to disturb the distribution of the slot, inserted the picture of my deceased brother. I never knew this older brother of mine. He died when he was about three years old. I was about a year old then.

Anyway, my wife was looking at picture and she ran to me, pointed at the picture and said, “Look at the picture, there’s a ghost.” Ghost don’t bother me, although there are times that I feel my hair rising because of some movies or books that I read that suddenly pops in my head while walking or typing at midnight, but generally I have a peaceful relationship with ghosts. I looked at the picture frame and the old black and white photo is askew. I was looking at it and …its not the askewness that is disturbing, it’s the old black and white photo of a smiling child. It’s the photo, the black and white photo that is emitting or radiating this kind of creepy energy that my wife seemed to feel.

Before, when I was a child I and my friends feared oil painting and portraits. We don’t have any painting in our house but one of our neighbor’s old house had one. An old house and an old oil painting is a creepy combination especially during those days when the light our neighbor used was a 50 watt incandescent lamp. So whenever it we lost track of time playing at our neighbor's old house, it’s evening, on our way home, we would pass by the painting without looking at it, half trotting, and half running; felt like the painting is looking at us.

I remember an old man, a neighbor a little farther from our house. My father told me that he was a kantanod (night creature that feeds on the scent of a pregnant woman). The man is old, dirty, that’s what made him scary, his dirty looks. I don’t know if what my father told me was true or he just told me that so that I would stay away from the man because neighborhood kids made fun of him and his old pedicab. The old man died in his sleep, no one noticed his death until his one room shanty started to smell.

My father told me that the oldman was a kantanod because he was often seen walking at night near houses with pregnant women. Those were the days when there were no streetlights and lamps were still widely used. But today if that oldman is seen walking at night, in the light of streetlamps, nobody would call him a kantanod. He will be called a methamphetamine addict, the new night creatures more fearsome than the kantanods.

Headaches etc.

I think I’m suffering from caffeine withdrawal syndrome (or is that symptoms). I haven’t had any coffee for almost two days now and my head is starting to throb, my hands are shaking and my throat is a becoming dry, and I’m sleepy most of the time.

I don’t if I should drink coffee again but…Hmmmm…no coffee plus classical guitar music…sleep.

This morning I saw one butterfly smelling the flowers of my mother’s Suntans and I was thinking, “When was the last time I saw butterflies here in our neighborhood?” It seems that year after year butterflies are becoming a rarity here. It’s the flowers, the flowers here are disappearing.

Even the birds and the bats that used to nest in our house’ sanepa (the wood slab used to frame the tin roof) are now becoming scarce. When I was young, we used to catch bats by hitting them with wooden sticks while they feed on bananas. Now even banana trees are endangered plant specie here.

I want to move to the mountains.

I can live in a simple nipa hut in the mountains as long as there is electricity and plumbing and a computer and a TV and a radio and a VCD player (never mind the DVDs they’re expensive) and a guitar and an amplifier…hmmmm…I think I’ll just stay in my father’s, termite ridden, rat infested old house.

The memories will do.

Think tack

Think tack I can’t think of anything to write
Think tack I’m trying to think of something to write
Think tack I must write
Think tack because if I don’t write
I will forget how to write


Why must I write?
Why must I force myself to write?
Think tack, I don’t know
Why do you not know?


Do you remember that you
You can’t think of anything to write?
Oh yes! I can’t think of anything to write
Then, why are you writing something
Because I can’t think of anything to write
You can’t think of anything to write?
Yes, that’s why I’m writing of thinking
That I can’t think of anything to write

Hmmmmm…yeah, yeah, I’m dry.
I’m trying to think of something to write
Then write about something
Something about, about
Or something about something
Or writing about something about about

Tsk, tsk, tsk, I am really dry today.

Why oh why

I was sitting on the bench in front of our house, talking with my childhood friends and the godfathers of my daughter when a member of our church carrying a sick child passed by us. I know that she’s been to the neighborhood faith healer. (These faith healers are not actually “faith healers”; they’re more like chiropractors who heals the sick by manipulating the bones. But in order to give a little mysticism and spirituality in their healing they usually say that they are possessed by the child Jesus or the Virgin Mary.) The member of our church stopped, walked a few steps back, and asked me to pray over her sick child. Although I’m a church deacon and I knew that this praying for the sick is one of the ministries of a deacon, yet I was caught off guard and to tell the truth I was a little annoyed. I politely told her that I’m not a pastor and I can’t pray for the child; she smiled and left. My friends were heckling me. I was silent for a little while and after the heckling evaporated I told my friends that I felt guilty, really guilty not because I didn’t pray over the child, I don’t believe that one has to spread his/her arms over things in the open in order for prayers to be effective (Jesus said to the Centurion…go home your servant is healed), but because what that lady needs is comfort and I didn’t give it to her (of course she needs money too). I was reminded of the saying, “The hands that care are better than the lips that pray.”

This is the human side of the church. Of course I am not an authority on this because I am known in the church for my temper, for my vocality about church issues (in short I am inhuman; I admit it); I am known for my frankness bordering on rudeness and political incorrectness, I am so many things that would disappoint one’s definition of a “Spiritual Christian” and a member asking me to pray over her child…I should have felt pride because at least someone made the mistake of mistaking me for being spiritually gifted (whatever that means) but the experience is disconcerting, it shook me.

My friends were comforting me by saying that she’s just trying to get attention, but isn’t that Christian care? Providing attention, listening, and talking, and providing comfort and being a spiritual brother and sister and parent.

I believe its desperation when church members come to me for prayers and the sad thing is, and I admit it, I am not fit to fill these ministerial gaps, yet as a deacon I should be; that’s what deacons are for.

The finger that I’m pointing at our pastors is pointing back at me.

It is nerve wracking when they turn to me for things like these.

Math

Mr. D. is my high school algebra teacher. He was a mathematical sadist—he loved inflicting mental pain on his students. Humiliation was his method for motivation, and sarcasm was his favorite tool for encouragement. I did average on most subjects but when it came to math, especially algebra, I’m a little slow; hence, I was always the object of his ego shattering attacks. Because of this, I developed physical reactions. I began to experienced cold sweat, tremors, and panic at the mere sight of Mr. D. But the worst reaction was that I began to hate math and math teachers in general. I also developed an irrational fear of anything that had numbers on and in it.

If Mr. D. were a little understanding and tactful, and if he knew how to motivate positively, I’m sure that my attitude and aptitude on the subject would have been very different.

Sometimes

My wife and I were buying food when a dirty teenager girl approached her for money. My wife is one compassionate woman; she asked me for money to give to the girl. I gave her twenty pesos. The girl was obviously mentally not fit because when we asked her where her home is, she’s incoherent. I don’t know if it’s because of drugs, or because of things done to her that made her loose her sanity, or because she’s really just mentally not normal. On our way home my wife kept repeating to me, “I pity her, I pity her…”

I don’t know its one of those days that make me want to be an atheist, if that would solve the problem, if that would take away the guilt of the twenty pesos.

It’s about to rain very hard and I hope in my heart that that girl dies in her sleep.

Thoughts on open Communion

How do we receive grace or salvation? Soteriology or the doctrines of salvation, I have read about it and basically, yes even for the Roman Catholics, salvation is all about faith and all about receiving Christ as the personal savior and master. There maybe differences in the area of merit, sanctification and the role of the church but basically in justification and all that soteriological stuffs it is surprising to find out the unity of churches, even cults may I say, in the act of receiving Christ in one’s heart as the personal savior and establishing a relationship with God through Christ, through prayers.

Evangelist have this method of calling people in front—altar calls-- asking them to pray with them the prayer of repentance and the prayer of receiving Christ and then after prayers they are then assured that Christ entered their hearts and that from now on they are a new creation and all that blah, blah, blah. Is there salvation in there? I don’t know, only God can decide about these things. I find it a little awkward to assure people, after praying these formula prayers, that they are already saved. Not because I don’t believe that Christ can’t save, or that the formula prayer is ineffectual or non-performing. No, I have faith in Christ and in the prayer; it’s just that I can’t tell what’s inside a person’s heart to give that kind of assurance. I would feel awkward to tell them that, “If you prayed sincerely in tour heart that you received Christ, then I can assure you that you have now your very own room in heaven.” It’s difficult to do that. It’s Grace, God’s grace and only God can say who. We can only give assurance that God will do his part no matter how unsure we are of the human part. (I don’t know if I’m making any sense.)

I’m thinking of the Lord’s Supper or the Communion and how it can be a channel of grace and salvation. I have already told in this blog the story of a missionary about an illiterate native (or tribal people) who was touched by the missionary’s sermon about giving one’s self as an offering to the Lord and this one native stood up and literally sat on the offering plate to give himself to God. The story maybe funny but the significance of that act cannot be denied. The act was done in sincerity within the native’s understanding of giving one’s self. Will God deny the act and the gift because of its hilarity and non-conformity to established church practice? Funny, a man sitting on the offering plate giving himself to the Lord. How do we receive Christ? In faith? In a specific formula of prayers, repentance and all that stuff? I am reminded of the sinner in the temple who beats his chest and cried out to the Lord, “God I’m a sinner!”

How about the Lord’s Supper or the Communion?

The Roman Catholics believed in transubstantiation. They believed that the Holy Communion is literally the blood and the body of Christ—this is theology and not for the common Roman Catholic Church goers to question. But if one who thinks that he/she is receiving the body and the lordship of Christ in earnest and in faith, receiving Christ in prayer as he/she is receiving the communion isn’t he/she receiving grace and salvation too. If faith is the criteria, if that prayer is the criteria, why not? This is not a hypothetical question because there are millions of Catholics who receive their communion in earnest and in faith and in prayer receiving Christ and His Lordship, are they denied the gift of grace and salvation because they did not follow the Evangelical formula?

The history of theology tells us that symbols, icons, representations are primarily a tool of faith for the illiterate, a tool for sharing God’s message for people who cannot create a picture out of abstract and concept teachings of the church (or churches) on God, for the people whose faith is simple, whose understanding of the world is simple, unencumbered by abstractions, just like the native who gave himself as an offering to the Lord by sitting on the offering plate, just like people who receives Christ and His Lordship by the act of receiving his body and blood—literally through the bread and the wine.

Altar calls, prayers, and communions—they are mere channels of God’s grace. God’s grace is sufficient, God’s grace is efficient, this I believe with all my heart and who am I to place dogmas above it.

That is why I’m for open communion for in open communion the opportunity for salvation is there.