Is Jesus too sexy? Danny Trejo as Jesus, anyone?

Is he hot or is he gay? Naahh..just

joking. I couldn't even pronounce

the guy's name. Critics have a point 

in saying that he maybe too sexy for 

the role because it may distract movie 

goers, especially the abs worshipper,

from the central message of the movie.

Anyway, this is supposed to be a

religous and biblically and historically

accurate (or well researched) movie.

But that's the way it is. I have neve 

seen a movie with an ugly Jesus in

it, maybe there is..

There's a new Jesus movie "The Son of God" , and I heard on the news (I think its Inside Edition on Solar TV) that this Jesus was too sexy , or too hot, as the hosts put it.

Of course movie producers don't know how Jesus looked like. The Bible gave no physical description of him. Maybe because it was not important and what was important was his teachings.

Maybe another thing was that Judaism, the faith of Jesus,  implicitly  did not allow any graven image or any likeness to be made; the taboo of idolatry.

Greek philosophers, emperors and other  great men way before Jesus have busts or statues or icons and other representation made for and about them but for the Christian messiah, none. Maybe it was because he was not really that known outside the small Jewish community that had him arraigned before Pilate, or that what happened to him, in the eyes of the ordinary simple folks then, was nothing out of the ordinary.

They ate crucifixions for lunch, so to speak.


But the Bible did describe the actions of Jesus. He was nice and understanding with women. This may not be much to us today but during the time of the messiah, women were inferior to men. They were treated as chattels. (I don't hate Jews in fact I admire them. Gotta make that clear.) 

Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene.
Read an interesting book about Jesus and Women
and it showed how Jesus uplifted and liberated women
during his time on earth.

The Jews then beleived that women were the cause of the downfall of men and hence the cause of human misery. (Even Paul wrote about this in one of his letters). I could only surmised that this was based on the myth of the downfall found in the book of Genesis. It was religious misogyny. There were a lot of rules on dealing with women and most of them were discriminatory and derogatory.

Jesus was revolutionary with his view and treatment of women during his time. He talk with them, defended them. Remember that when Jesus was resurrected, he first appeared to three women.

Jesus walked and dined with taxpayers (in today's Philippine setting it's like eating with senators and congressmen, taxpayers were the epitome of thievery and corruption then), he healed, he exorcised demons, he fed the hungry; he showed compassion and love especially to the downtrodden but he could also be tough. He lashed and drove away the temple peddlers, he  cursed and dished out sarcasms to the corrupt priests and religious leaders.

So after reading about good stuffs about Jesus, it is only natural to picture a good looking Jesus. It is only natural to translate internal goodness to external goodness. It has something to do with how we understand good to be. We connect the word "good" with something that is pleasant to look at, pleasant to the taste, to the ears, etc. Our understanding of good is something that stimulates us positively, something that produce pleasant sensations.

Not only is this true with movies, this is true through out much of  history. Jesus has always been pictured as a good or pleasant (long haired, sometimes feminine-ish, sometimes rugged, sometimes haloed, sometimes of different skin color) looking man.

Have you seen your carpenter neighbor? Maybe they dodn't
that different from Jesus.

As to how Jesus really looked then? I will speculate but let us look at the background.

1. He came from a time where life expectancy was 40. Times of wars, famine, pestilence, hard labor etc. So, one thing can be deduced here, he looked old before he was old. He could be sunburned and may not necessarily wear his hair long and he had no access to hair conditioners.

2. He was carpenter. Imagine a time when there was no electricity, no power tools, the metallurgy was primitive so the iron tools were not that sharp and they blunt easily, no plastic and rubber handles so his hands and fingers were not only calloused, they were enlarged and may even deformed by labor, etc. So he was not soft and he may not necessarily be perfectly toned-- as in having perfect abs. He could look like a carpenter. How does a carpenter look like? I don't know, but they definitely don't look like movie stars.

3. He was also passionate and very smart. Its all in the eyes.


Hmmmm...doesn't have much to work with even on speculations.Well, I'll leave it atthat.

If I were to be asked who could be a most believable actor to play Jesus?

You may not agree with me but I definitely would like to See him play it:

I like Danny Trejo and his life story is inspiring. I would
like to see him play Jesus becuase I saw his soft side on
Kick-Ass. He is not your usual Hero but he did play good
guys quite convincingly, if I may say so.

Now I'm definitely in trouble.

But just like Noah the Movie, the Son of God is also a movie. The difference with Noah though is that this movie and the TV mini series from where this was adapted from was advised by scholars and church (Catholic and evangelicals) leaders and the producers are avowed Christians. This mvie is also endorsed by church leaders.

So, there's this orthodoxy thing going with it. But this is still entertainment.

I am sure the "Son of God" ,pirated version, will be shown in the gyms and in the streets during lent here in the Philippines together with the other lent staples:  10 commandments and "The Passion of the Christ."

The Life of Jesus is not a audio-visual spectacle but a spiritual one. It is not meant to arouse  outrage at what happened to our Lord. It is not meant to elicit rage to his persecutor. It is not even there to remind us of our sins. The story is meant to be read and to be reflected upon and to share to us the gospel: the gospel of hope, grace, forgiveness and redemption.

Watch the movie personally I have nothing against it-- I haven't seen it yet--but read the gospel first.

And again, Hollywood is not a good source of Christian edification, the Bible is.

Gardening, Radio, Childhood Memories

It's hot. I have to water my plants twice sometimes three times a day. 

This is necessary since they are planted on shallow pots and trays,

so they dry easily. Direct sun is good for the plants. Many are

asking me why I didn't put a net over them but its useless because

these are local species, well adapted to our climate. Also, direct

sunlight helps in miniaturizing the leaves. It's a survival mechanism

to prevent transpiration, the loss of moisture through evaporation

through the leaves.

It's summer and I have been sitting if front of the computer watching on-line movies, FB-ing, Blogging, surfing for articles, and most of the times doing all these things at the same time. If I continue doing this all summer long, I fear I may gain another ton or so that mostly will bulge in my waist. I  wish they would bulge in my biceps or triceps...

So, I turned on our little radio, tuned in to RJ 100 FM, my favorite station, and started doing what I love doing, gardening.

I have some bonsai materials mostly main trunks that I have left to grow wild for while, and this morning I checked them again to see if they are established enough to "operate" on.

     This a kalyos trunk (streblus asper). 

It was too tall and too straight. I only on small

(1-2 feet) bonsai. Moving andbpruning small 

bonsai gives me back ache how much more 

large ones.There's not much to do about this 

so I left it growing wild while figuring out what to 

do with it.Finally, I decided to cut the trunk to 
about a foot high and pencil-sharpened the
top to create a jin (leader).

   


 One thing about working while listening to the transistor radio blaring out old songs is that it brings back a lot of memories. Radio still works its magic, at least for me. Old songs especially the ones my father loved to play--Trini Lopez, cha-cha, Johny Mathis, etc.-on our old phonograph player transports me back to my childhood.

        I remember a time when radio was the king of the air. Time when TV especially colored TV was not popular then. It may sound crazy, but back then if you have a vacuum tube colored TV, that means, at least to us children, that you are already rich.

         I remember Thrilla in Manila . I was with my father
( I guess with most of the men in the neighborhood) watching the Ali-Frazier fight on our neighbor's colored TV. I was fascinated by the TV, but what fascinated most was how my father and the rest of the boys cursed everytime a punch was landed, it was as if they were there on the ring. They also did analyses about which i didn't care a ting about. Never did like boxing except when a Filipino is on the ring.

       

The bark is the lifeline of the tree. This is their circulatory system

where all thenutrients from the roots goes up and distributed to all

parts of the plant and where the product of photosynthesis

from the leaves are also distributed.

Anyway, another thing about this material is that the bark on back side was stripped off hence no branches will grow on this side. When I first saw this material, I was thinking of making a formal (or normal) tree but when I turned it around and saw the stripped bark, it's not possible. 

So, the solution is to jin the top and inevitably the stripped side will be deadwood or shari. Bonsai artists use lime-sulfur to preserve and to bleach the deadwood. I don't know where to buy one but if I do, maybe in the future, if it's cheap, I'll use one too.

Re-potted to a trainer pot and then wired. I defoliated

the top branches to stunt the growth and allow the

lower branches to grow faster. This is done so that

the lower branches will be more mature and larger
in size than the upper branches.

Radio was indispensable. It does it all: news, information, entertainment and public assistance. Our neighborhood was a rice field then and the neighbors were not that close then, unlike today, and when it flooded we were isolated, so radio was our only source of information. MBC-DZRH was our favorite station and the station motto was " Operasyon tulong, aksyon agad!." I remember the DJ was Rick Radam and James Bond Pagkatipunan. I don't know if they are still alive but these people help shaped my childhood especially Radam and his Johny Tanggo (Tanga na Gago pa!), the character he created on Radio. Johny Tanggo spawned a movie starred by Chiquito. 

I put a layer of moss on top for better water absorption
and to prevent the soil from eroding when watering.

  The operation is done. This is stressful to the tree especially the repotting and the trimming of the roots. The tree is now put under the shade for two weeks for full recovery.

Anyway...it's good to remenisce. Brings me  back to a time when life was simple.

    I really feel old.

Oh no its Noah!

There is a new movie that’s causing quite a stir among Christians, a Hollywood film about the life of the biblical Noah. I haven’t seen the movie yet and the copy on the internet is still unwatchable but, being a Christian, a preacher once, and a former Sunday school teacher, I’m familiar with the story.

The reaction was quite predictable. Like I said I’m a Christian and I know when it comes to Bible stories, it is very important to be accurate to the scripture especially when teaching about the spiritual and moral implications of the stories. 

The Bible does not describe Noah's looks 

and for most Christian (well at least for many), 

we have this picture of Noah as a bearded and

with soft features middle age man. This is what 

our Sunday illustrations pictured Noah to  be.

But he could look like Russel Crowe or my neighbor 

for that matter. 

But Noah the movie is not about the Bible. It does not pretend to be. Even the director admitted that he does not care about the religion of the movie, it’s all about entertainment. Isn’t it obvious from fact and experience that anything that Hollywood made whether it is fiction or factual is primarily focused on the box office performance. Yes there are Hollywood biblical movies especially old ones before globalization and internet that seemed to stick to the Bible but we all knew for a fact that it was made not out of Christian conviction; it was made out of sensitivity to the audience and the market that was mostly the (American) Christians.

Of course what offends the Christian, like me (well, I’m not offended), is the idea of relegating Biblical stories as source material for big budgeted movies along with the likes of Greek Mythologies, the Nordic Sagas, DC and Marvel universe, etc. It’s the thought of relegating bible narratives and its message to profane (secular) wisdom literature retaining the moral but removing the spiritual or turning the spiritual into the mythical. I think, this is what scares (and offends) Christians. It’s the thought of Samson being likened to Hercules, God the father to Zeus, the sacrifice of Jephthah with that of Agamemnon’s etc. 

But they did built the ark based on biblical
specifications.

My advice, watch it for what it is, pure entertainment. Hollywood is not a good source of Christian Edification.

                                                          

Lenten Things that make lent Lent...

It’s the Lenten season.

There are many things about todos los santos...

There’s the heat.

There’s childhood.

Before, or a few decades back, lent was a solemn and somber season for reflection on the sacrifice of Jesus. I could feel the funeral aura because no loud music was played, drinking and celebrating was unthinkable then, and it was gloomy as if death was stalking us. This was understood.

God is dead.

Tha Amba. We were taught to revere this statue of Jesus lying
down on his death bed. Visual representation is very important
especially to the simple people who does not have the intellectual
 faculty to understand complex and abstract stuff like dogmas and
doctrines.Of course, this smacks of idolatry, but one has to
understand that language is all about symbols and one can think
of this as a symbol, a 3D visual representation. Remember the saying
a picture is worth a thousand words.. Everything must pass
through our senses and this is achieved by representing
concepts into symbols that can be processed by our mind. 

Take a cue from our Lord Jesus, he taught using stories, parables that
can easily be understood by common folk. He did not do abstract
 theologizing (as we know it today, yet there's nothing wrong with it). 

Most of the abstractions and theologizing stuff was done by the
lawyer Paul. Hence, Paul was a mere interpreter of Christ. It' s not
only a matter exegetics and hermeneutics, a little understanding
of perception, anthropology, psychology and sociology helps.
(not that I know about these stuffs, heck, no!)

Parents kept reminding their children not to play too much or get out of the house for God is dead. "Don't hurt yourself, God is dead, your wound will not heal," this from our parents. Of course, this was crazy but back then, when we were still children, this reminder scared us.  Whenever we get scratched or we bumped our head, we would all be worried sick because the Healer is dead, the bleeding might not stop, we might die of minor cuts and bumps.

Bathing on good friday was a no-no; it’s all about forsaking pleasure and commiserating with the suffering of Christ in our won little ways..

I remember when I was a little kid, going home we used to pass this chapel and there’s this life size statue of the crowned Jesus wearing velvet dress lying on a bed enclosed in glass, the old folks call this the “amba”. Aside from the amba, the chapel was also filled with life size statues of the holy family. Every time we passed by this chapel, adults kept on reminding us to be quiet because we might disturb the “amba.” Because this was repeated oft, reverence for the chapel and the statues inside were instilled in us. Even now as a non-Catholic, every time I enter a Catholic church there’s this aura of respect, mystery and hmm…call it holiness that still permeate in my head. (Classical conditioning, maybe.)

The food. 

Todos los santo's national food! Looks so good that it hurts.
My mouth is literally watering.Visual stimulation and
conditioning, he...That crazy Russian guy and his dog experiments is so accurate. 

Thinking about holy week makes me think of ginataang bilo-bilo. If Christmas is identified with ham and queso de bola, todos los santos’ national food is the ginataang bilo-bilo.  It’s the summer season; it’s the season of sweet potato, banana, langka, coconuts and other tropical fruits. During summer, our neighbors would be knocking at our doors asking if they could get coconuts from our trees and we would be repaid with bowls of ginataan.

Movies.

Great movie. I like Peter Strauss he is a good actor.
His performance in Das Boot is outstanding.
Peter O'toole is Peter O'Toole. (that means,
 I don't know anything about him.)

I was fascinated by Lenten movies. There was this movie called Masada that was being played on TV then. I was not really into the story, I was a child then and all that interested was the fight scenes and the primitive war machines used by the Roman Legion to subdue the Jews of Masada. I was so into it that I even made catapults using bamboos and rubber bands and had the time of my life throwing missiles hitting objects that I imagined was a fortress.

But it only later that I learned what Masada was all about. It was about the Jews struggle against the Roman Empire. Masada was a Roman plateau-fortress that the Jews captured using ruse (like Gideon, maybe) and later became their fortress. It took the Romans 15, 000 men to recapture it by building ramps and using war machines like battering rams and catapults. The fortress was defended by 900 Jews. Great story but a tragic one. The defenders of Masada committed mass suicide rather than surrender to the Romans. Read the link, or better yet, watch the movie on line.

Film showing is now the norm every Good Friday. Gyms, streets, roads or any open spaces large enough to accommodate a large audience.  Anyway more about movies later...it's lunch.

Sunday TV: Ating Alamin, I miss Kuya Germs!

Surfing free TV channels, that is after church, I am…what do you call this? I have this feeling of familiarity and friendship when I see that Gerry Geronimo is still active doing Ating Alamin, his Agriculture-Entrepreneurship show on PTV 4.

 I got to give it to this guy because for four decades he has been sharing knowledge, skills, and technology on almost every aspect of agriculture and entrepreneurship. And what’s comforting is that the format of his show has not changed: he speaks in Tagalog, he dresses like his audience, he spurts no technical jargon and he still uses the stick mic that has become his trademark. (Seeing him poking the stick mic on his guest’s face is a little hilarious, but he does that all the time.)

Nice to see that after all the technological advances and boybands, there's this little TV show that has been on air for as long as I can remember.

When my father was still the pastor of our church, I went home after Sunday school to watch TV. My favorite program then was the Movie Sneak Preview shown on channel 9 from 11-12. I sit there mesmerized by previews of Starwars and other movies of the early 80’s. After the previews ended, I always end up watching Ating Alamin. I have always had this fascination with plants and animals, anyway…

__________________________________

Look at them.look at them, they are just having fun! Why can't
they do it like this, again.

I miss Kuya Germs! I miss Kuya Germs and his Sunday noon time TV show aptly titled “GMA Supershow.”

I miss the spectacular stage props, the Bellestar Dancers numbers complete with the feathers, boas and the imperial headdresses and the choreographies, and the legs. I miss Kuya Germs’ and his cohorts of emcees that talks incessantly trying to squeeze each other out, in a nice way of course.

I always had this suspicion that the owner of the Bellestar,
a lady by the name of Belle, made sense since she owned the
company, was an immortal, a vampire.

Look at the noon time shows today, with the exception of Eat Bulaga, all of them have adapted the Panel-Critic style popularized by Simon Fuller and his Idol franchise.

Now, almost all TV noontime shows here in my beloved country the Republic of the Philippines have followed the same format. Even on Sundays, even on Sundays, it’s irritating to watch actors in a team trying to outdo each other with numbers that are supposedly conceptualized and choreographed by themselves (do you think they have the time for this?). To squeeze drama out of the unbelievably unbelievable reality styled creative process, they show the practice sessions where the frustrations and the conflicts among the members are highlighted, throw in some shoutings and walk-outs --which we all know are staged-- in the end cooperation and understanding and world peace prevails. Then there's the criticism and judging...are they even contestants?

Now, what’s wrong with this? Everything!

Where's Willie Revillame? Ooo I forgot, he pissed off a lot of poweful people. I don't like him too and his power tripping on TV is ...insanely crazy.Maybe his ego has landed. Of course, the Germs is still alive and his early, early, early morning show is still on. But its not the same...God I feel old!

Mermaid overload

Have you seen what’s on primetime free TV lately?  I‘m talking to someone like me who have no cable subscription and is thus condemned to watch crappy programs aired by crappy stations.

Mermaids, mermaids (sirena in Tagalog), I have had enough of mermaids. How many mermaids have been shown and re-booted and re-shown again and again on free TV?

Many claim that Dyesebel is the original Filipino mermaid as drawn and conceptualized by Mars Ravelo. Maybe in comics but not in literature. Dyesebel is just a re-creation of Ariel,  the little mermaid. I have nothing against Mars Ravelo but there was once an initiative to have him named as national artists for his comic characters and for his contributions to visual arts. But personally, I think he does not deserve the honor because he did not create anything original and most of his works are just copied and recycled DC or Marvel superheroes.Imagine his name being put aside names like Amorsolo, Botong, etc.

I do not know if there’s a local equivalent of the mythical mermaid since we have no Tagalog word for it (yes, if you have no name for it that means it does not exist, at least in the head) and sirena sounds Hispanic so I suppose mermaids are brought here by the ocean crossing Spanish colonizers.

What is bothering is how free TV has two mermaids TV soap opera being aired at the same time slot by two competing channels. I know what a network war is, but this is insane!  

How many theme can there be with mermaids except that of a mermaid falling in love with a terran. 

Even if you add more antagonists, protagonists, elements stolen from varied 

classic literature (have you eve wondered where Iago got his name?), the story is the same. How many endings can there be?  

Two: 

Tragic: where the mermaid got unrequieted love and she died an old mermaid and her ghost ended up singing a lot atop an atoll or a rock island or something luring sailors to their doom.

Classic: where they lived happily ever after. The mermaid loses her fishtail for normal legs, or the man becomes a merman and loses his nromal face for a fish face. 

I suggest they follow the new trend, mash up. Instead of retelling crappy love stories, i suggest they become creative and do something interesting about mermaids.

Here are my suggestions:

Dyesebel fighting white collar crime like the PDAFScam. It would be interesting to see a mermaid wearing power dress in the courtroom lashing out legal jargons with a terran lawyer. What will make this more interesting is the setting, the court will be held in swimming pools!

Dyesebel and a ZUMA love story. This will be a good mash up. Here we have two iconic Filipino comic characters, one a badass immortal snake god and the other a hmmmm...mermaid.  The plot is very simple: Dyesebel is sunning on the shore and then she saw ZUMA shediing his reptilian skin and hanging his sheddings on mangrove branches. They had eye contact and rght there and then they fell in love.
 

There'll be a lot of twists and antagonists, but in the end they overcome, got married, had children and lived happily ever after. They became very succesful circus operators.

Why not try an evil mermaid?

Dyesebel as a minion of Janet Napoles and the three Notorious Senators. The story can begin like this: Janet Napoles invested a portion of his PDAF kickback in Dyesebel's underwater realm...and the rest is easy enough.

I'm hungry...

Persecution, Faith, Social Religion, Bangsamoro etc.

Preachers always talk about Christian persecution. This is understandable because the scriptures especially Paul's letter is filled with the call and exhortations to be steadfast  in times of troubles and persecution.

Reading Paul's letters, it is only natural to contextualize Paul's letters to our era, and when Paul urges Christians to be steadfast in times of persecutions and sufferings, we naturally, interpret that the same is true with us as with the early Christians. Should this be the case?

Thinking about this, I find it necessary to think about the persecutions and suffering endured by early Christians so that in today’s settings, especially here in the Philippines where there’s freedom of religion, Paul’s call for long suffering and steadfastness can be understood and focused to how (and where) it applies today.

• Early Christians were persecuted for many reasons.They were persecuted by the Romans for their beliefs and the main reason for this was that they did not worship the Roman emperors. The Romans were generally tolerant people and most races under their empire were allowed to practice their religions as long as they pay homage to the emperor, but such an act was unacceptable to the Christians, Jews and other monotheistic religions.

•     The Jews hated them for their blasphemy and their heretical teachings. Jesus did not really want to create a new religion or a new Judaist sect, he wanted to reform it but his teaching went so far to the letter (yet central to the Spirit) of Judaism that his followers, especially with the coming of Paul, had to, by choice or circumstances, create a new religion. But things within Christianity got weirder when the Roman Emperor Constantine introduced the doctrine of Trinity through the Council of Nicaea and things got weirder and murkier since then on (a PhD or a degree in Advanced Theoretical Physics will not help in understanding the Trinity, only belief will, according to St. Augustine). There’s no way the monotheistic Jews could accept Jesus as the Christ.  In reality, the doctrine of the Trinity is more of a Pagan-Greek influence. The Jews could not and will never accept such theological nonsense, and many Christians reject it too.

•    The general population disliked them for their peculiarity. Early Christians worship in houses and were believed to feast on human flesh; they eat the flesh and drink the blood of their Lord. Frankly, the idea that Christians were cannibals then is understandable because even in today’s Lord’s Supper or communions the very word “eating the flesh and drinking the blood” are recited on the altars. There are even stories from missionaries, of natives, when hearing these words during communion, running away from the service.

If I were living in that era and I had a neighbor singing unheard of hymns and praying in different god and saying stuffs like eating flesh and drinking blood, I would organize a posse and drive them out of the neighborhood.

From our perspective, we think that the early Christians were being persecuted for simply being Christians but such thinking is completely biased. There were sane and valid reasons to distrust and fear the early Christians but mostly it's human nature: people have always feared what they do not understand. It is not only Christian who have suffered from persecution and it  is ethnocentric (or selfish) to think that only Christian were "rightly" martyred then. Look at today, it may not be the Christians anymore but the sinful attitude of persecuting and destroying what is new, strange, not understood and even weird is still is true. Sad to say that many of the persecution were committed by Christians.

Things are quite primitive then and looking at it and judging it from our era is impossible, to quote Thomas Kuhn, there’s an “incommensurable discontinuity” – people living in different historical periods with different paradigms live in psychologically different worlds. 

Persecution has driven Christianity and it is one of the factors that contributed to the spread of Christianity. By taking on the teaching of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount, Christianity offered hope to the poor, to the weak, to the persecuted. Revenge will come from the Father; your suffering will be rewarded in heaven etc. Even now, such teachings not only from Christians but also from other religions, continues to be an effective hook. Of course intellectuals like Nietzsche attacked this missionary teaching even calling it the slave mentality. According to Nietzsche this could destroy humanity; abhorring the strong and idealizing weakness, laziness, etc.  (Nietzsche was an acidic critic of Christianity but it must be understood that he was sympathetic to Jesus.)

Now hearing from pulpits pastors talking about persecutions here…what the hell are they talking about?

Of course, spiritualising the message of Paul is a good thing and allegorizing persecutions is, may I say, natural and understandable.

Some stuff to think about:

Religious Hegemony: Is Christianity the one and only religion that can offer salvation? Of course, to the Christian faithful this is a no brainer and one who asks this question may even be considered disrespectful or even heretical. But if one is honest enough to really think about it…

Preaching and teaching continues to idealize common Christians as continually under persecution both in spiritual as well as physical (or social) realms. I was listening to a TV news broadcast and there’s this Christian Pastor who was fuming about legislation banning mandatory prayers and the reading of the Bible in many US schools. And I supposed, that as Christians, it smacks of persecution. He was virulent and kept on babbling using slippery slope argument about the loss of values, of the US going to hell etc. Unfortunately, this Christian has forgotten his church history, early Christians were forced to pray and pay homage to idols and when they refused they were persecuted for it, and n today's setting, it will be wrong to require other people and other religion to pray to a god and to pay homage to a book not their own.  And anyway, this kind public prayer and bible reading relegates Christianity to a social religion which is not what Jesus, as I understood it, thought of..

Evangelism does not work this way.

I saw something yesterday during the signing of the Bangsamoro Peace Pact: Evangelicals, Catholics, Imams, Lumads, Christians, Muslims...all praying and participating in the peace process. The world is a tapestry people and of faiths.

Hmmm...(just thinking. this is really a stupid post).

Why I hate this Job

I was checking the class attendance when I noticed that he wasn't in his proper seat, again. As usual, I raised my voice and delivered my usual morning homiletic on classroom demeanor. I was specially hard on him this morning because he was acting weird: he wouldn't keep still, he moved from seat to seat teasing and poking.

I asked the class to stand up and to keep still for a while. After a few seconds of silence, I told them to sit down. I do this when the class becomes unruly because it works, its disorients them a little.  I continued with my pre-classes routine. I reminded my pupils of their dues: class picture, tickets, graduation fee etc.

There he was again wriggling and teasing. But I noticed something different about him this time. Even though he was not the cleanest of my pupils and like most of them he does not wear his shoes often, he almost always come to school in a washed and well pressed uniform but this morning his uniform was wrinkled and looked unwashed; he looked unbathed too. 

I've had enough, I stood up and was about to pull him from his chair to seat him near my desk to isolate him from the class when his seat mate told me that he had bruises on his arms, back and face. I did not notice it because he was three rows away from me.

I asked him to come to me. I checked his arms, back and face and there it was. He was beaten black and blue. I asked who did this and he told me it was his father. He was beaten with a belt. I asked him why his father did this and he told me it was because he did not keep his bed this morning. 

He was in tears. I was trying to comfort him. His classmates were shouting: "sir, that's child abuse". I tried hard not to show my emotion but I had difficulty trying to keep my voice from cracking and my eyes from swelling. What could I do? 

After the tearful  encounter, he was back again with his antics but this time I understood. 

He came back for the afternoon classes with his eyes bloodshot from crying.

This is not the first time this has happened, and this is one of those days that I hate this job.