Rain in and out, Classical Guitar etc.

The rainy season is already and it’s beginning to rain and cats and dogs and acid and smog and curses in our town. (The citizens and the permanent denizens of our municipality are hoping that because we now have a supermall, our small town would, in the very near future, finally become a city. Now…what would happen if our small town become a city…better services for us the small town folk or better pork barrel for our small town politicians, higher real estate tax for our small lots or better rackets for the living dead, corrupt asses-sors…).

Back to the rain... It rained so hard that I thought it would flood again but thanks to (I dare not say God because this article (?) is…err… ungodly) the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astrological Security Agency or PAG-ASA the inter tropical convergence zone and the prevailing cold front was left behind and the convergence did not occur because the weather was controlled by an anti-Gloria Macapagal Arroyo old man living in Pampanga who always reverses what the Pro-Gloria government agency says. So if NEDA or the National Economics of Destruction Authority (through a machine called “the lotto number machine”) churns out figures for the GNP or the Gross National Poverty and GDP or the Gross Domesticated Animals saying there’s an increase in both of these meaningless acronyms, this little old man in Pampanga would use his/her power (I don’t if this old man is a transvestite) to reverse everything…

Hmmm….back to the rain…it rained so hard last night and because I haven’t fix our roof (money man, I need money!) it also rained inside and I can’t blame anyone except President GMA. That’s the price of being the president of this miserable republic.

Anyway to relieve some stress what I do is play the guitar. This is one way of relieving stress but…hmmm…sometimes when I wanted to play a difficult piece like this recuerdos de la whatever by Mr. Tarrega (the technique used is called “tremolo”, sounds like tremor to me) instead of being relieved from stress, I get depressed because, man, for someone who didn’t study any classical guitar, this piece is difficult. Except for the pinkie in my right hand, all the fingers are moving and it’s difficult to coordinate each one of them.

Work hard to play a piece and work hard not to forget them…haaaa…practice is the key.

Day to day

When our church’s choir held a prayer hike in Angono,Rizal, I was, thanks to the absence of the devotion leader who did not make it to the prayer walk (for reasons I know that only God understands) I, on the spot, led the devotion. After the devotion, there were singing and sharing. I am blessed because here I found people who know faith at a deeper and more personal level than I.

They shared how they were thankful for the blessings that God had given them; they were tearful because one of them was sorry because she felt she had not given God her best. These sharing times, I, and I am sorry now, I consider these as emotional encounters. I consider these activities as a necessity for faith in a psychological sense, therapeutic may I say.

What made me think this way? Maybe its because of the orientation of the theology I hear and read, eschatological—pointed towards going to heaven and to the second coming of Christ. Somehow the theology preached and written about (in my experience as a lay teacher and preacher(?)) has forgotten the day to day need for a theology especially for the Filipinos. It is concerned more with sanctifications and edification than daily survival. To the western this eschatological orientation may be well suited for their sense of history is linear, but to the Asians and the Filipinos whose world orientation is organic and the time perception is circular and hence everything is thought of as interrelated and interconnected and cyclical, its problematic. (Fr. Mercado)

So, I am, usually, dumbstruck, when I hear a church member testifying that he/she experience miracle because it did not rain, or when it rained, or when a son was not bitten by dog, or when accidents did not happen etc. little things that (for me) should not be attributed to God but to the laws of gravity. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks this way and sometimes people who live and experience their faith this way, encountering God in day to day activities in small details, is looked upon with a “shrug my shoulder reaction” to more often than not, contempt. I for one, more often than not, even feel that they are sometimes being blasphemous for attributing to God’s hands even the minutest details of their daily existence. Here is Calvinistic Determinism at its worst! I say to myself.

Of course I am wrong, I am not going to talk more but its obvious that, in order for the Christian message to be concrete to common Filipinos this attitude of daily Christianity, this “Christian fatalism” had to be accepted and a theology that should respond to it must be formulated. Dr. Rodney Henry writer of Filipino Spirit World is warning that unless this is done, Filipino Christians will continue to live with a Christian belief that addresses their ultimate concerns (death and heaven) but is aloof when it comes to the daily spiritual needs of the Filipinos, hence animism and spiritism will continue to live side by side with Christianity.

So instead of daily occurrences being controlled by nuno sa punso, swerte, pagkakataon, matanda why not attribute these events directly to God for what does the Bible says:

For only a penny you can buy two sparrows, yet not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father's consent. As for you, even the hairs of your head have all been counted. Mat 10:29

Yes, even the bad occurences in our lives.

CR Books

I was rummaging through used books at Booksale when I found a short story collection, “Sudden Fiction: International Edition.” The book is a collection of short short stories (2-3 pages) and for forty pesos; I did not think twice, I immediately bought the book because it’s the perfect book for our comfort room.

I read whenever I am on the throne depositing to mother earth all the processed fertilizers that I have accumulated in my stomach. It’s a habit. So I had books lined up in a makeshift bookshelf near the toilet. Usually the books that I put there are books that I had to review once in a while, there’s a book about logic, bible doctrine (yes, and this is not blasphemy) and sometimes especially, when I have LBM, I take with me, on the throne, classics like Herman Melville’s short (I wonder why they call these short stories in the first place when they are, in theory and practice, all epically long and I am talking about mere descriptions here!?) story collection.

The problem with reading books on the toilet is that when I become engrossed with a story or an article, I can’t stop, so I read on until my…hmm…dries up and when it’s time for me to wash my rect…rectifier… (We Filipinos wash, we do not wipe) I found it difficult to do because the thing is stuck dry on my…hmmm…rect…rectifier that I had to re-hydrate it to soften the hmmm… thing stuck on my hmmm…

Anyway, this book, “Sudden Fiction” is the best toilet book because the stories are long enough to complete the transaction and avoid dehydration through exposure to air of the…hmmm…

I have read some of the stories and although the collectors brag that they’re the best collection so far, for me there are good stories and there are some stories that are simply unintelligible…maybe it’s because of culture, language, subjectivity, relativity and the lack of motility in my stomach. Ehehhhhee..hhhheeeeee….

My Gulay there it goes again!

I know, I know. I know being a preacher (?) I should be circumspect with my doodling on this blog because I preach. But hey I am a human bean, subject to the laws of gravity and the laws of economics and the theories of Freud, such I require an outlet for my suppressed dyspepsia.

Anyway I sometimes wonder why do I have to explain myself, ahhhh…yes, it’s because there maybe people who may take this blog seriously that it may drive them crazy.

Focus…my daughter was watching a local TV series called “Joaquin Burdado” and as usual I treat local TV shows like these with my innermost contempt (hey, its super exaggeration) because these TV series are mind numbing in their lack of sanity, unity, coherence, structure, originality, plot, conflict and even if these TV series are meant for children, still these TV shows are deleterious to the intellectual and moral as well as supernatural development of the children in the Philippines! (Calling on the CBCP and its Evangelical counterpart CCBP to pray over these matters. I mean, they pray over a lot of things these days why not include this one.)

I was watching Joaquin Burdado (yes I watch it too and can’t you feel its effect in my doodling) when I noticed that the supervillain possesses the power of Peter Petrelli and Xyler from the TV series that I love, “Heroes” and I said to myself, there it goes again, even the plot is starting to transmogrify into a poor poor10 imitation of “Heroes.”

This blatant and shameless and immoral and all the negative words in the dictionary and out of it, piracy of ideas in Philippine TV is getting in my nerves and tissues. We have an agency that catches video pirates and we have intellectual property rights people protecting the rights of people and their patented ideas and we have the Philippine National Police and the NBI raiding small stalls for selling pirated videos and necklaces, and yet, oh, in the name of Zeus and all the mythical classic gods including the giant sequoia trees and all the nuno in the punso, why don’t they raid these thick faced TV networks who blatantly copy foreign TV series.

Every time there’s an American hit TV series shown here in the Philippine expect a poor clone.

These Filipino TV shows that boast budgets amounting to millions of wasted pesos are the true and worst kind of pirated pirates for in pirated movies and TV series and videos sold in the streets, the credit is still there at the end of the movies but in these local TV shows the credit is stolen and given to writers who lack the creativity and the basic intelligence to understand that there are people who know what they are doing.

Benediction of a Jedi Master: “May the farts be with them.”

Tutorials and Reading Problems

The flurry of summer activities in the church were finally over. The last one of these major summer activities is the VBS in Daraitan Baptist Church in Tanay, Rizal, currently in progress, where a team of teachers from our church was sent there to help in their VBS program. I love to be there with the teachers but unfortunately I had commitments, I am tutoring four pupils (thank God it was only four, it was supposed to be five but then I had to turn one down because I want to have a semblance of a summer vacation too).

I don’t know if I would be flattered because I had four tutorials, compared to some of my pre-school teacher colleagues who have less than me. I felt guilty about me looking like a swapang that I had to ask the head teacher if I had to share some of my pupils but my boss told me it’s ok because they have different rates (or fees), which is a little higher than mine (unfortunately the tutorial fees are so minimal compared to other tutors from other schools that to avoid having depression about money, which I badly needed, I try to comfort myself into thinking that these tutorials are my ministry or more appropriately a pseudo-ministry.)

I am an avid reader, so I said to myself that tutoring reading would be the easiest thing in the world for me to do. As an elementarily education graduate, I had more units in teaching reading and reading remediations than the secondary education graduates that I thought I would be well equipped in tutoring reading (I don’t know if I am making any sense here!)

Anyway, I didn’t have any problem with my grade three pupils because their problem is comprehension which can be easily remedied with Q and A discussions and a little lecture here and there on noting details and predicting outcomes. But I was not prepared when I encountered a grade two pupil (not from our school) that read some word in reverse! This wonderful and gentle hearted pupil of mine (I could see the determination in him to learn to read) read words like “to” as “ot” or “for” as “fro” and he kept forgetting the correct way to read these words though I tried to remind him of it all the time. Anyway it’s a text book case of (mild?) dyslexia and it’s the first time I encountered it and a little understanding about dyslexia made me aware that I was not dealing with an unintelligent pupil but a pupil with a reading problem and it made more aware of how to deal with him. Anyway I believe that he will be able to overcome the problem because he has focus unlike my other pupil…

I had another pupil who could barely read. This time the problem is attention. I cannot get his attention, his eyes are always wandering off, he is always scratching his legs, arms, head, he jumps up and down, and if I did get his attention, it usually lasts for about ten seconds only. Anyway I already diagnosed the problem and I don’t know if I’ll be able to help this one. My Older sister told me that cases like these needs medication to balance the chemicals in the subject’s brain…The difficult part is telling the parents about it.

My daughter and my boys

My daughter was kidnapped (he, he, he) by my mother and my sister and was brought to Baguio City to spend her summer vacation. Since my wife work and I am busy with church work, I was only too willing to let her be kidnapped because it meant freedom and mobility for me. (I try to keep busy because I find it relaxing to be busy. Being idle and doing nothing makes me think of crazy ideas, outlandish theories and theologies that I sometimes think I am beginning to lose my sanity and of course the danger of depression is greater when one is idle-- yeah, an idle hand and an idle mind are the devil’s playground.)

My daughter’s kidnapping lasted for five days and a month. I didn’t notice it but I was really being selfish already because I was not being sensitive to my wife’s…ahhhh…what do they call this…err maternal...in short my wife missed my daughter. She missed my daughter and every time she asked me when I would be fetching her from Baguio I always answered, “Let her decide.” My sister is relatively well off in Baguio (geographically and climatically speaking) than us here in Cainta plus the fact that my daughter had two cousins to play with there, the chances that she would be missing the oppressive summer heat of Cainta and us and that she would be going home earlier than my wife expected it to be was nil. I did miss my daughter too, but she’s with my mother and sisters so I felt secure knowing she’s with my family. But if she was with my in-laws in Quezon Province alone with my wife’s family, I would have felt the same way my wife did.

Anyway I know that my wife was already nearing depression when I passed by the sari-sari store (or mini grocery) where she worked with three boys riding on my motorcycle. These boys were the toughies in our church’s area. They are the bullies who beat children for no reason. They used to attend our church but since their bullying resulted in the drop of attendance in our Sunday School and junior worship, we were forced to ban them from the church.

But VBS (Vacation Bible School) came and they, as usual, were there to make life difficult for the other children and for the teachers. Berating them only resulted in provoking them and when nothing else worked, I grabbed them and told them to ride with me. I run errands for the VBS and I took them with me on my bike on these errands. I isolated them from the class and this resulted in “bonding moments” with them. In one of my errands I took them to a police station and showed them where delinquents are imprisoned. Naturally my kumpare (my daughter’s godfather), the policeman, played along and these kids behaved, sadly only briefly, during VBS. But at least they knew that I had a policeman friend and that is enough for them to look up to me as a sort of a toughie too, or a “benevolent siga.”

When I passed by the sari-sari store (or mini grocery) where my wife worked, she saw the boys, she told me, “How can you take care of other boys when you should be worried about your daughter” I smiled and told her, “Don’t worry she’s fine!” But I know that she’s missing her daughter and sooner or later I would have to fetch my daughter from Baguio.

A few days later, my wife cried the whole night and it was then that I decided to fetch my daughter. I borrowed money from a neighbor and after our church worship and meetings; I immediately and hurriedly went to Baguio.

Now my daughter is with us and so is her cousin. Now what's driving me crazy is she, being an only child, is now jealous of her cousin. My gulay, I am having headaches.

A Time to Read

Finally I was able to sit down and do some reading. When I came home from Baguio after featching my daughter and spending eight hours there, I brought with me some books that I “stole” from my sister’s library. My sister is a teacher of theology so most of the books I stole were (photocopied) theological books, books I cannot buy in the local bookstores.

I am reading about church history. I don’t know the title of the book because the owner of the book, definitely the book is not my sister’s because I know her handwriting, and the comments and the underlines are definitely not from a theology teacher. Maybe the book belongs to a student of my sister, who to save money, did not photocopy the title and the copyright page of the book. I love reading about church history and I have read more books about the subject than about systematic theology because it is more interesting to know the people and the social, political, economical and the general atmosphere of the era that produced theologies.

What I find interesting about church history books are the people and the little things like from the book I am reading now, I found out that King James to whom the King James Bible was dedicated and named after was gay, a certified licentious homosexual…I mean, maybe that’s why some people preferred calling the King James Bible as the Authorized Version or AV…This was the first time I read about this trivia, no surprise since the book I am reading starts with the reformation period of church history.

Given the chance of a seminary education, I would love to focus my studies on church history. Well it’s a long shot…I don’t have the money and right now I feel I am called in my church (not necessarily as a “titular pastor” but more of a teacher) to work. But there are other possibilities like an online seminary education that my sister told me to pray about. Studying while teaching and ministering…definitely this is something to pray about.

ECBC Children's Camp 2008

I am happy that our church's children camp was finally over. I was appointed by Kuya Noel and Ate Joy (the church's juniors' ministers) to direct the camp and we encoutenred a lot of problems along the way. We were short on funds and the camp site that we used last year, which was free of charge, was booked. So, we were forced to search for a new campsite and God has provided us with a better campsite owned by a Chrisian businessman and ran by a pastor who incidentally knew a missionary that Kuya Noel and Ate Joy knew and the rest is...a conversation about connections.

Anyway God has shown his faithfulness and I was blessed by the experience of directing the camp.

Happy to be Busy

After graduation I thought that I would be able to relax and sitdown and enjoy...etc. But that's now what happened, I was so enrossed in church work that I can't find the time to read, blog and play the guitar, three things I enjoyed the most. I was involved in the church's Vacation Bible School, Choir retreat, visitations, junior church camp and now the church is conducting a music and arts summer seminar. I was also honored to preach at Daraitan Evangelical Baptist Church. I was nervous becuase Daraitan has a congregation of about 30 members. The intimacy of preaching in a small church ( compared to our church which has an average attendance of around a hundred or more attendees) is intimidating.

I am happy to be busy becuase this meant I had a lot of experiences to share that I can use in my sermons.