It's all in the mind (in the ankle and in the knee)

I gotta do something to keep my mind off the pain!

I am in excruciating pain right now. This is the second time I experienced pain of this magnitude The first time  was overpowering that I had to go to the hospital for a check up.

After the x-rays which showed there was nothing really wrong with my bones except I had high uric acid concentration in my blood around 500, the normal level is around 200+. I am not that worried about my knee and ankle like something was broken, except for the pain. 

Focus on symbols like
this while sitting in lotus
position. After a few minutes or hours
or days of concentration, 
the numbness of the legs and
butt starts to set in and then comes 
the sensation of levitating, which
most practitioners say actually happens.
But who needs levitating unless
it can be used to move from point 
A to point B. 

There's nothing much a doctor can do when this "attack" except prescribe pain relievers. I mean, what to expect since this is not a life or death situation, although the pain make it seems like so? 

Take me to the ICU? Or operate on my ankle and knee? In the end it will boil down to waiting for the inflammation and the pain to subside, which is what I have been doing since last night. I have taken pain relievers but it barely gave me relief. So, I am using an old method which has been proven to be very effective in fighting pain: distractions.

Maybe it would be best to engage in some eastern-esoteric-transcendental-meditation thing to ease the pain. But people who engage in this stuffs are people who are gifted with the ability to focus their mental energy to a very fine point. They do this by concentrating on mantras or prayers repeated over and over again or by looking and focusing their minds  symbol or an object like the yantra. Mantra -yantra, makes sense to me, yummy.

Long Namgyälma Mantra.
whatever that means.

What am i saying? I don't know? I'm trying to distract myself.

Anyway, to give an idea of what i'm talking about. Let's time travel two decades back. I was in my early teens when I got hooked with playing the guitar. I practiced and practiced until the skin on my fingers developed blisters but that did not stop me from continuing on and learning the chords and the strumming of the song which I was studying then.

My engrossment (I don't know if that word is even proper English) with learning the guitar was bordering on the obsessive...come to think of it...it was obsessive that I could not even feel the blisters on my fingers. 

Of course, once i learned how to play a few chords, the guitar was relegated to a hobby. I didn't improve to a point where i could play the guitar professionally. 

Should Christian students stop studying philosophy and literature? A meandering into the irrational fear of philosophy and literature

I have been thinking a lot...

Well, when its painful to stand up and all I do is sit in front of the computer, there's no choice but to think and to keep my mind off my excruciatingly painful ankle and knee, gout. 

I guess that's why many famous philosophers are either too rich to care about money and the daily grind, or are too poor , eccentric and unmarried to care about anything except thinking of and thinking up crazy stuffs.

Diogenes. He proved that anyone could be
poor, crazy, wise, an a-hole and be
intellectually  intimidating at the same time.
Legends has it that he scolded
Alexander the Great for disturbing his sun bathing.

Anyway, I have always been bothered by preachers on TV and behind the pulpit who say that philosophy is bad. Sermonizing about its evil and discouraging students who are into it as a part of college course. There are even preachers who discouraged reading literature! Whenever I hear this phobic vituperations against philosophy and literature hurled from the pulpit by a preacher, I guess being a teacher, I have this urge to stand up and throw a tome to the preacher's direction (maybe the head) and tell him,: " what do you want us do? Go back to the stone age!".

I am not a student of philosophy. My dose of philosophy was the prerequisite philo I and philo II in college which i heard was already taken off the first year and second year college curriculum for education students.

Nietzsche. Just a mere mention of this
guys name sends shivers down many
pastors asses. Why? Because he made
famous the slogan "God is dead." Which
many Christians believed was the
ultimate blasphemy, a judgment made without
 having read and analyzed some of his books.
Actually, he also killed God but this
death of god is not like stabbing a person
 with a knife and taking his life which
many preachers would like the 
congregation to believe is what this
guy meant. What he meant and what is
actually a reality now is that god has become
irrelevant. Doubtful?
May I ask how many Christians still 
believe that if you curse the name of God
you'll die in your place. 

All I could boast was that I read some stuff about it especially the Greeks because these pioneers were the most accessible read. The only modern philosopher that I could say I read and understood (maybe the more appropriate word is "felt") was Nietzsche and this was because he wrote in bursts of colorful language using lively meter. His writing could shock anyone specially to the first time readers. His attack on Christianity was distilled from his experience with the hypocrisy of Christianity's actions in the background of the political situations of his era that gave birth to his philosophical nihilism (again, he hates Christianity and the clergy, ministers and pastors but he had an affection for Jesus, at least not the same hatred for the clergy). Also, his father was a minister. guess he experienced Christian hypocrisy in the first person. he was not mad, he died mad because he got syphilis.

I tried reading Kant but it's like chewing concrete blocks.

But if there's one thing that endeared philosophy to me, it is inquiry. It's the activity. it's the way philosophy can empower an individual to pursue an idea or anything using pure reason.

Religion has always been hostile to inquiry even internal ones that would challenge the existing status quo, not to mention the tortures and persecutions. It's not because they were afraid of the changes that may come from new ideas or discoveries, it's because the religious feel, which was rightly so, that their authority and hold on the people would be compromised because their power and authority was primarily based on the perceived divinity of their books, hierarchy and lineage and secondly this hold was empowered by the ignorance and the lack of imagination  of the people. They tried to stop the enlightenment but failed. Today, the religious has to take a different tack to spread their religion. They cannot rely on their perceived "holiness" theological dogmas, moral superiority and metaphysics to lure people back to their fold, now they have to engage them in decent intellectual conversations, prove that their religion is relevant to today's settings. 

knowledge is power!

Many preachers love to quote St. Paul in Colossians ‘Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit’ (Col.2:8). What was Paul talking about here? just like today, in St. Paul's time, philosophy could mean a lot of thing. It could mean a specific philosophy like stoicism, epicureanism which Paul had some dealings with. Or it could also mean religions, which in this verse is the case."See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ."

knowledge power! Pinoy version.
This guy knows a lot of stuffs.
He had a lot of herbal formulas
for longevity and preventing diseases.
Ironically, he died of heart attack
atthe age of 56.

Philosophy even the ancient Greeks have very little room for spirits and traditions. This verse is a general warning for anyone not to be hooked on anything that challenges Christ. 

The New Testament was written in Greek, immersed in Greek culture and though many denied but a lot of terminologies and concepts used by Paul in his letters were from Greek philosophies. It's wishful thinking to say that the new testament was written devoid of any Greek philosophical influence.

Many religious will disagree but it is undeniable that most of the language used in the formulations of highly abstract Christian doctrines borrowed a lot from Greek philosophy. Ironic.

(My ankle and knee is killing me.) 

Want some joints? (no, its not about marijuana, it's about my knee...)

Growing a third leg.

I had been feeling a throbbing sensation in my right  knee for years back. It's not really pain but more of a pronounced cardiac pulse. It felt like my right knee was growing another heart. 

I did not think much about it then until my right knee gave out on me while I was walking along the school's corridor. The parents who were there were startled and ran to catch me as my knee buckled. Good thing I did not hit the floor face first, I was able to grab a concrete column and regained my balance. That was a first. I have never experienced something like that before even when I'm lifting or carrying heavy objects.

Having a weak knee connotes old age. Rheumatic knee is identified with septuagenarian grandparents who have worked their butts off working the rice field.  I told myself that I was too young to have rheumatism or gout or what other ailments the joints acquire as one gets older. I'm still in my early forties and most rheumatics I knew were men in their sixties up. I still got a decade or two, I told myself. But, come to think of it, i'm not that young anymore, too..

Ouch! Invoking all the
the supernatural and supra-
natural entities to help me
 ease the pain. Well, that's life,
it's quite selfish to expect
a miracle for my knee when there's
so much sufferings in the world.

The throbbing in my knee progressed to inflammations and pains that  I had started to walk with a pronounced limp. The pain started to affect my concentration and it deprived me of sleep. It came to a point where I had to take leave of absences, like today. Finally I decided to visit a doctor.

On my first visit, the doctor pinched my knee, asked me stand up, sit down, walk, ran in place etc. He told me I had bursitis.  I was x-rayed and my blood tested. I had high uric content in my blood. I was prescribed a lot of painkillers and tablets for the uric acid and advised to change my lifestyle: exercise, diet and drink lots of water. 

Second and third visit, I was given an anti gout medicine.

But how can I exercise when I couldn't even stand straight? 

Anyway, I was reading articles about uric acid and when I came to the list of food with high uric contents, I told myself: I'm gonna die of hunger.

But the thing about it is when the pain starts to act up, the pain that emanates from the ankle then climbs to the knee and ends in my butt becomes unbearable to a point where I feel myself peeing in my pants, dying of hunger becomes attractive.

Pact with the devil: church and the Sublime Politicians (Or why I believe that politics is for the devil no matter how many verses are quoted)

No wonder the president has lost most of his remaining hair!
The nuclear radiation is way above the safe dosage.
Crap.

The circus has begun. A couple of Sundays ago I was happy to see a new face in the church but my elation turned to annoyance when the visitor was introduced to the congregation as a candidate running for a seat in the municipal council. 

Well, to tell the truth, I believe everybody in the church was thinking the same thing I was thinking about: another political animal out to mingle to gain face and name recognition. Call me negative, but after that Sunday I have never seen the guy's chitinous face again. Maybe he attended another church.

Anyway, as a Baptist and belonging to a church composed mostly of related families and neighbors, the church has never engaged in politics overtly and covertly, maybe jokingly. It is considered a taboo, talked about it most of the time derisively, guidelines and other politically suggestive stuff was never talked about or promoted behind the pulpit. Our senior pastor (and past pastors) always tells us to pray and ask guidance from above when choosing whom to vote for during elections. This is how OUR church do it because the church has never aligned itself to any political movements be it "church oriented" or any other organizations that has shade of politics in it--never,  even when candidates are related to some church members or even when a candidate is or was a church member.

Though some church especially the Fundamentalist Baptists in the Philippines (The Abante group) dabbles into politics, our church and has always had this attitude of separateness and isolation from Caesar's realm. Does this mean that our church does not care for the country? I believe every individual in the church does. But the underlying principle of the church (or for the whole Christian church, I supposed) is that change does not come from the ballot but it comes from a relationship with God. It would be naive to think that if  Eddie Villanueva and his ilks (or other bible toting politicians) won the presidency and other elected positions in the country, everything would be set right, that God would smile from heaven and send manna and quails to the impoverished Filipinos. Unless this belief that change is from God, from inside out,  is already abandoned to a more proactive organized political participation like the other large and organized churches, well, we'll have to find another church. 

The eschatological nature of the church

I sometimes wonder why many Christians get
offended when told that Jesus was an alien. He was!

Okay, I'm using a fancy theological word here: eschatology. In simple everyday english it simply means that the church is not of this world. There are a lot of Biblical images about the church: ecclesia, the called or the assembly; the people of God, the Body of Christ, Temple of the Holy Spirit, etc.  The idea is that the church is other worldly, spiritual and it exist in the world to witness and to propagate the message of Christ. The church is also apocalyptic in that it exist as a vehicle for the salvation of the chosen when the end of times comes. 

Prayer rally? Political rally? Praise and worship? or Cory followers?

That is why the church must be understood in the separateness and the alienness. It does not concern itself with the mundane stuff like politics because the basic belief is that this world is already condemned. Saving the state or the planet for that matter is not part of the church's function though it is tasked to be a steward of the earth until such time the end comes, but the idea is that there will come a time when the Christians will leave this world: the second eden is not here. Christians are aliens and that the church is a 'colony of citizens of heaven" here on earth until the living are transported to heaven during rapture and the dead. Well...there's two views about it, but...i'll leave it to the atom splicers..

Taken to extreme, this otherworldly belief is catastrophic. In fact we could attribute  a lot of wars, torture, even suicides or misguided martyrdom, and other social problems, and a bulk of the blame for destruction of the environment to the extremely selfish interpretation of this belief. Christians, i.e. before awakening to the destruction of global warming, had held to the  belief that the planet was created by God for their benefit. this humanity-centered view of creation has justified a lot of ecological and social problems from uncontrolled hunting to slavery. It is only lately that a lot theologians and churches have shifted to the "sharing" theology of creation.

Christians care about a lot of things: environmental, social, moral and even political issues. This is given because Christians are still citizens of the state. part of humanity and they are not yet full citizens of heaven because they are still inside their corruptible bodies . But at the end of the day, Christians must held to the basic belief that this world is not theirs, that this is beyond salvation, that this planet is a temporary abode because if this world could be saved, changed, made better the way some Christian politicians believe,  then Christ failed, all the belief and the dogmas and doctrines are for naught.   Everything is lost. the church has lost its eschatological nature ans has become political--it has adapted a somewhat corrupted view of liberation theology.

Old testament thing

Evangelicals and other politically oriented church leaders (or pastors, to be exact) love to quote Proverbs 14:34: Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people. As any Bible teacher will tell you, Bible verses is subject to context and should not be taken into isolation. I could hack a non Christian to death and quote a bible verse about it: Luke 19:27 "But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them--bring them here and kill them in front of me."

The verse talks about Israel. Israel then was then a homogeneous/monolithic people composed of different tribes and what the writers (plural) of proverbs is referring to was the Jews of the old testament. no one else. Israel as a people led by a king who they believe was directly anointed by God and not as a secular state where the political leaders are elected by the people.

Most modern states are composed of heterogeneous people or nations. States does not give priority to one group or one chosen religion unless it is a fundamentalist state like fundamentalist-monarchila- Muslim states or a caliphate. The thought of living in a "Fundamentalist Christian" state scares the hell out of me.

I don't see God saving states unless the nation referred to in the bible be re-interpreted to mean modern states. these politico-theologians have a lot of hermeneutical acrobatics  to do.

The Reverend Abante-Eddie Villanueva Phenomenon

I don't know about his accomplishments

 in the house. But as a bishop and reverend 

of the largest Fundamentalist Baptist

Church in the country, I assume that he

did well and kept the Fundamentalist 

Baptist's testimony. But if this guy becomes 

president of the republic, the gays,

 the lesbians,transgenders etc. better find

 another country to live in. They'll be pounded 

to hell with Bible Verses against immorality

and sexual deviance the

Shakespearean literary way. 

These are the two best known  evangelical leaders (though Rev. Abante distances himself from the evangelicals and insist that he is a Fundamentalist Baptist) that had run for elected office in the government. Abante won a congressional seat in Manila propelled by his church while Rev. Eddie lost the presidential because, well, he's crazy. Eddie doesn't know how to count his marbles. Abante has a more realistic estimation of the voting power of his fiefdom. (Check the connection.)

These two have turned their church into a political vehicle. But it was Bro. Eddie Villanueva who have created the most politically potent evangelical movement in the country. I don't know how he did it but he was able to unite evangelicals of different traditions and persuasions to join his movement. 

This guy has lost every elections
he had participated in. Now, his son
is running for the senate. What
is it with pastors and big churches and politics?

Villanueva's  TV station air regular political programs disguised as biblical expositions. personally I personally have nothing against these activities like praying and giving out checklists of biblical verses to guide the people who to vote for, but this preacher has a son in government and who is now running for the senate.  How many times have i heard people complained that the Iglesya ni Cristo is meddling into politics because they provide their members guidelines who to vote for during elections but at in the INC their church leaders are not allowed to go into politics. Look at what the Villanuevas are doing! 

Anyway, more to come. I think I have exceeded my quota of meandering for today.