A Wish: Honeymoon Forever

If my hands were not on the keyboard, I’d be clapping as I write this: One of my book editors and friend, Joan, is getting married in June!

Weddings are always a happy occasion, awaited with bated breath. But because wedding ceremonies are not made with cookie cutters, they take time to prepare. At the moment, Joan (and Nixon, her fiancé) have to see to a million details.

I want to put my two cents’ worth, not on the wedding, but on the honeymoon. I have a place in mind—and it’s no less than a paradise. It’s aptly named one, too: Eden Nature Park, in Davao. I was there in the summer of last year and naturally, I wrote about it in my journal.

What was I doing there? I was invited to conduct a Creative Writing Session for the Leadership Development Program (LDP) of Compassion International during the LDP Congress.

April 3, 2006

The nippy wind stings my cheeks as I breathe in the fresh, early morning air. The sun has not risen and the birds chirp and fly to welcome the new day.

This wonderland couldn’t be anything but Eden, the perfect garden God himself made, and where He created the first man, and then the first woman. And here I am—3,500 feet above the traffic clog and smog of Manila! 

April 6, 2006

At dawn, the place was just beginning to stir. I had just taken a walk with two of the other invited speakers, Sito and Arni. The three of us went up and down hills and narrow lanes, passing through the bushes and thickets, under the tallest pine and palm trees, our eyes feasting on deer, fireflies, and peacocks.

With a full view of Davao below, our rubber shoes crunched on pebbles and got soaked from the morning dew. We looked up and the finest, almost invisible drizzle moistened our faces.

“I wish I could bottle the air and bring it back to Manila,” Arni said, wistfully. His remark we all silently shared. For it seemed like the very same air Adam and Eve breathed in that first garden where they walked with God daily. What place could be better?

The question haunts me as I relish the hours at Eden Nature Park and Resort, a 40-hectare man-made, expensive getaway, which, I know, is just a speck, a billionth speck, of the grandeur that was the real Eden’s. It’s the same question that has kept Christians perplexed over the first woman who turned away from it all because she wanted more.

“Wanting more” are two words which continue to be the bane of man. More money, more power, more prestige, more recognition, more clothes, more shoes, more enjoyment, more happy occasions, more, more, more.

In Christian-speak, more blessings. Truth is, there are more blessings than we can ever acknowledge. On Eden alone, I can write over a thousand blessings, and my list would still be dreadfully incomplete. For the God of the huge universe is also the God of the teeny mustard seed.

I tried to guide the seminar participants (LDP scholars) in writing interesting letters that their sponsors (benefactors) would relish and treasure. One of the exercises was to demonstrate that ordinary information can be said in other ways to better involve the reader.

Fact: “I am now attending the LDP Congress. It is being held at the Eden Nature Park and Resort, south of the Philippines.”

But written from the heart, I said, this straightforward fact takes on a different texture . . .

“Every day, here at the LDP Congress, I walk proudly with deer and peacocks! They roam around in this 40-hectare cool resort called Eden Nature Park.”

and another . . .

“When I look up, I can almost touch the blue sky—as though heaven is within reach. That’s how glorious it is here at the LDP Congress.

and another . . . 

“I am up in the mountains in a place called Eden—where the air is so cool it stings; the trees so tall I can’t see where they end; the grass so green they look like carpet. This is the awesome venue of the LDP Congress which I am privileged to attend.”

and another . . .

“I feel as though God is holding my hand as I walk up and down winding paths, smelling the flowers and chilling from the breeze. He made it possible for me to attend the LDP Congress in this paradise on earth called Eden.”

and yet another . . . 
“I meet God again and again in this breathtaking place He created. Tall mountains and rolling hills, flowers, butterflies, fireflies, and rabbits! Everywhere I turn, I see the spectacle at Eden Nature Park, the venue of the LDP Congress.”

My “students” took it from there . . . but even words (or photos) were inadequate to do justice to the wonders of God’s creation. The closest, I thought, as I filled my lungs with Eden's air (the next best thing to bottling it), was that word: paradise.

I was dribbling with excitement when I got home and described Eden to my husband in picturesque prose, short of being the resort’s publicist. His expected response (he has a penchant for reducing my lengthy meanderings to bare bones): “Baguio, 40 years ago.”

Joan and Nixon, ‘nuff said. May your honeymoon (in Eden or elsewhere) last forever.