A Thousand Sleepless Nights

Even the most placid existence can sometimes be wracked by a turbulence so fierce it gives one a thousand sleepless nights.

If you're going through a storm in your life at the moment, try listening to "Blessings" by Laura Story, an American contemporary Christian music singer-songwriter.

This song was soulfully rendered in a duet in our church last Sunday by our Praise and Worship team, and I was blown away. The lyrics say that life's disturbances that cause us so much pain, "remind the heart that this is not our home."

"Blessings" might well be Laura's own prayer. When she was just married in 2006, her husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor and contracted meningitis during the delicate surgery. Imagine the fear and uncertainty the young couple have had to face together—up to this day when total healing has not been granted.  

Life-altering struggles—a family broken, health snuffed out by a dreaded disease or accident, savings of a lifetime lost, a business gone bad, a loved one's life cut short, friendships betrayed, a dream crushed, a reputation soiled—make us ask God plaintively:

"What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near?
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise?"

This song, which  won a Grammy Award in the Best Contemporary Christian Song category in 2012, must have resonated with millions of people, it reached No. 1 on the Billboard of Christian Songs chart.  

I am borrowing parts of Laura's lyrics as I ask for grace today. Pray with me? 

“We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
And all the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

“'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise . . .” 

Lord, please spare me from any more sleepless nights to make me know you're near.

Amen.

(To listen to the whole song, click this link.)

Photo credit

Double Delight, Year Three

The twins, Maika and Nikka, now 9, are growing up really fast. Pretty soon, they will be taller than I am—as all the people in my circle are.

Tony has slackened his pace in tutoring since he heard from the twins' school principal that these little dynamos are both doing well.

One won in a Tula (Poem) Contest and the other is acing her math subjects. Their 3rd grade report cards, which they and their mother (their father had recently passed away after a lingering illness) showed us with pride just before classes begun, prove good performance.

What makes them such a delight is their wide-eyed enthusiasm in learning anything new. I pray that hubby and I will still have enough strength be able to afford their schooling upkeep. Otherwise, they should be on their own sooner than later.

This doesn't worry me as much as it did when they were still in first grade. At age 7 then, they still couldn't distinguish A from Z, nor name any animal except cat and dog.   

After three years in a good school (Alliance Christian School and Tutorial Services or ACTS), with nurturing and caring teachers who believe in the power of grace, they can now read with ease, speak English, know Bible stories and the animals of God's creation.

I am sure that our heavenly Father has instilled in these two little clones the solid values they should grow up with in the years to come.

Thank you, Lord, for giving us the privilege and joy to help, in our own little way, two children whom you love. Amen.

My Father Mateo (Part 3)

(Conclusion, continued from yesterday's post; you may scroll down for Parts 1 and 2)

As I write this chapter about my father, everything seems so anti-climactic. Thus far, it is like a badly-said joke without any punch line. Psychologists term it "coming to terms." Old folks say, growing up. Close kin say, bouncing back. Friends say, thicker hide. I say, answered prayers.

My father didn't change. I did.

Where I used to have blinkers and saw only his drinking, now with hindsight, I could see all the other sides of him too—clearly, objectively, sans the callowness of my youth.  

Sometime  between JC's  third and fourth birthday, my father finally kicked the alcohol habit totally, cold turkey. Maybe because he was already feeling the early pains of cancer, which claimed his life a few years later, or because he didn't need it anymore.

Whatever. At that point, it didn't matter to me one way or the other. My father and I—well, he was  my father. The stranger was gone forever.    

And today, as I recall those years I spent with my father, my memories of him dwell wonderfully on the redeeming sober moments and all of his latter years: his frequent trips to my own home where he planted fruit-bearing trees in the yard, how he played with my sons, how he chatted away with my husband, how he braved those radiation therapies and surgeries, and how he left with incredible valor. I felt no trace of the agony that dogged me for years.   

In fact, it took time before I could write the details about that debilitating syndrome which crippled me in my younger life. I had to look at pictures of snow to make me remember the depths of my feelings during that one last eventful attack in Chicago. It took quite an effort to describe the ghosts which terrified and hounded that little girl who, upon turning into a woman, escaped from home because there lurked a stranger.  

Again, why am writing this at all?

I recently dug up a twenty-five-year-old, tattered little book entitled  It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown by Charles Schulz. It is about this little kid Linus who, every  Halloween, waits for the Great Pumpkin. Linus believes that the only way to celebrate Halloween is to sit in a sincere pumpkin patch and wait for it to come.

A person has to be very sincere in his waiting so the Great Pumpkin will not pass him by. In the book, it doesn't arrive, but  Linus—whose childlike faith in someone greater, kinder and more powerful than anyone he has ever known—says with conviction, "Next year, he'll come. Just you wait and see!"   

On the first page of the book is a handwritten message of my father, a confirmed book enthusiast till the end, to son #1, JC.

"When you will be grown up and I will be gone, you will know what the Great Pumpkin is.  Lolo Mateo."

I feel that the message was scrawled for me. I am grown up (well, how else would you call a golden girl?) and he is gone (fifteen years now), and I certainly know what a Great Pumpkin is. Like a Linus, I may have sat sincerely in a pumpkin patch for many years, waited, and kept the faith. Because one day, God rewarded me not in the way I wanted Him to, but in a much bigger fashion I never imagined possible.

My one regret is, I wasn't able to say this to my father before he left us all to be with our heavenly Father, "Thank you for the lesson of the Great Pumpkin, Daddy."
   
(“Gifts of Grace” Book 1, from where this chapter My Father Mateo was lifted, is now an e-book. So are “Gifts of Grace” Vols. 2 and 3) 

ISBN: 978-971-009-146-1

Format: Ebook

No. of pages: 129

Available worldwide 

My Father Mateo (Part 2)

(Continued from yesterday's post—you may scroll down for Part 1;  lifted from a chapter of my book "Gifts of Grace" Vol. 1) 

And so the disturbed, alcohol-phobic young lady nurtured the perpetual hope that one day soon,  if she was good and sincere, her father would turn away from alcohol; or he'd stay the way he really was, at least,  when her friends were around.  Year after year, she prayed. And she waited and waited and waited for the answer. Either the father didn't know how his daughter felt or he just couldn't help himself. 
    
From that cold winter night in Chicago,  the distressed lady settled into a comfortable home-away-from-home with her foster parents—a childless uncle and his doting American wife.  She made new friends, in all colors.  She saw prejudice at close range—the contrast between the city's north white side and the south black side, where the ghettos were. On her way to and from school, she walked by bums in the park and celebrities at Sak's Fifth Avenue.
    
On weekends, she joined a church singing group. By day, she  read glossy magazines and drama books.  By night, she directed and rehearsed plays, then finished two more degrees. She wrote for a Filipino newspaper in Chicago and got engaged to her editor-in-chief.  

In all those times, she didn't  have another attack. So after five years in a foreign land, she came into her own and decided  it was safe to go back home.
    
When she came back to the Philippines, the first order of the day was to marry her fiancè  in Manila where they decided to make their home.  But before she could get married, as a dutiful daughter, she had to breeze through her family home in the province, where there was a small get-together. Alcohol was served, a few toasts were exchanged. She braced for an attack. But none came.
    
At her wedding, her father donned his best barong, and was in his best behavior throughout the reception where alcohol flowed generously.  She thought that maybe she was too in love to notice otherwise.   
    
A new home, a new life, a new job—they all kept her busy and happy.  Then her first son, JC, was born. Predictably, her father was the first guest.  He took the bus all the way from Dagupan, where his office was.  He had in his arms a blue life-size toy poodle for his first grandson. 

Since then, he and his wife, would visit the baby most weekends.  The new grandparents loved playing with and taking care of JC. Although there was no rule against drinking at his daughter's home, he would, every so often, go to the small sari-sari store nearby and when he'd come back, he'd smell of gin or San Miguel beer. But the young mother was distressed no more.

Finally I've come to the part of my story which I could clearly remember.

From that time, his change of mien—from the daddy I loved  to the stranger I loathed—after a few gulps of alcohol did not trigger in me any adverse reaction anymore. Not even a slight symptom. The panic attack in the snowstorm near Chicago's Old Town  six years earlier seemed  too remote to remember. Before long,  I could attend a party and banter with people in various stages of inebriation.

What was even more surprising was, I could already openly talk about my father's love affair with alcohol, without a tinge of the embarrassment I had felt in those dark years. And the most surprising of all was, my new friends half listened, like they did  to a ho-hum small talk about the weather.  I could almost read the word "So?" written on their faces.

My younger sister's reaction was even more perplexing. She looked at me like someone who just landed from Mars. Was my father's drinking binges then so insignificant that it was peremptorily dismissed? Was it not even passable material for gossip or scandal? 

I think it was at those precise moments when I finally broke free from the remaining shackles of a self-imposed bondage. Everything that ate me up about the sot, the not-so-respectable stranger was no big deal to everyone who knew him well or didn't know him at all. No... big... deal!

So now,  I ask myself, what was the fuss all about?

(Part 3, or concluding post, tomorrow) 

 

My Father Mateo (Part 1)

(There was that one and only time when I wrote and finally talked about my father. It became one chapter of my book "Gifts of Grace” Vol. 1. Today being Father's Day, let me share that chapter with my friends on blogosphere. Here's the first of three parts.) 

It was one of those bleary, snowy, and windy Chicago weather.  Night had fallen and on the aisle of the crowded bus,  I was squashed in between damp, bulky coats.  Knowing the route by heart, I could tell we were approaching the second to the last  bus stop  before reaching the famous Old Town where I was to meet a friend.  My estimate was another half hour before we got there.

A gaunt, rawboned middle-aged man came up the bus. In a gruff, froggy  voice, he slurred his expletives about the piling snow, extinct taxicabs, and the crowded bus. He reeked with alcohol. 

Suddenly it happened again.  I couldn't ignore the sensations. My heart thumped beyond speed limit, my hands were clammy despite the below-zero weather, my knees turned to jelly, my stomach churned, and my lungs gasped for air.  I was on the verge of collapsing. In seconds,  I jumped out of the bus before the doors closed.  The only way to survive this all-too-familiar panic attack was to get out of that bus, away from that ghastly man, away from the nauseating smell of stale gin. 

I didn't care if I'd be stranded in the middle of a deserted side road or buried in the swiftly piling snow, or suffered from frostbite.  Any of these would be a fate better than being within the same breathing area as a ghoulish, croaking drunk. 

I was, as far back as I could remember, unreasonably horrified of anyone who had imbibed  alcohol.  

I knew exactly why. 

This problem, ridiculous as it might have sounded, stemmed from the man who, in essence, was closest to me—my father.  He was, to my mind, addicted to alcohol. Nobody seemed bothered enough (not my mom, nor my siblings, nor my close kin) to suffer the way I did.  Which was  why it was only I who wanted to fly the coop, so to speak.  With "The American Dream" as a convenient excuse, I flew to the US shortly after college graduation so I could be miles and  miles away from home. I thought that if I didn't see him I'd be cured of this irrational fear. 

But tonight, after one whole year in a far-flung foreign land,  I was  just proven wrong. 

In the Philippines, I had some kind of a radar.  I could spot a person who had drunk a little bit too much a hundred meters away. If he came any closer,  I'd fold up, crumple and faint. It was an affliction  I managed to conceal quite perfectly. I didn't know in whom to confide. More accurately, I was afraid I wouldn't be understood.

I remember vaguely how it all started. 

Once there was this self-conscious, onion-skinned, precocious little girl who tried to excel in almost everything she did.  To her, it was extremely important for people and her friends to think highly of her.  So she wanted nothing more than a picture-perfect family, with parents she could be proud of and introduce to everyone. A smiling mother, who was a  caring pharmacist, and a respectable father, who was a brilliant lawyer. 
 
The mother was all she was meant to be.  But the father wasn't one she could put into a frame, not when he partied with friends (for a part of him was  footloose and fancy free) and had one too many. When he was his sober self, he was exactly what the little girl pictured in her mind—quiet, self-effacing, dignified and yes, respectable.  

He would write beautiful speeches and letters.  And he would talk about the poetry of Robert Frost and the ideology of Karl Marx.  But during a party, in the girl's eyes, the respectable man turned into a loquacious, garrulous stranger who sang off-color songs, off key.  
 
It wasn't that bad in the early days.  The parties  were few and far between.  But as the little girl bloomed into a young lady, even more self-conscious than ever, especially now that she had new friends with fame, fortune, and picture-perfect families, the respectable father came and went.  

In the mornings, at home, as he worked on legal briefs and pleadings, he was his ideal Daddy self,  talking in hushed, polite tones.  At night, coming home from a neighborhood get-together, he'd be a stranger.  He'd smell of beer or  rum or brandy or gin, trip over his own shoes, cussing at no one in particular. That was when the symptom of her affliction became more palpable: A little bit of a heart leap, until it progressed into a chilling, asphyxiating, and deafening knell.

Anger? Fear? Frustration? Shame?  It was all of those things. 

(To be continued tomorrow) 

 

Good Fathers, Bad Sons

The world will celebrate “Father's Day” tomorrow. But JC is treating his dad for lunch today and he has invited JR and me to be equal beneficiaries of the freebie. So I think I ought to pay tribute to dads now before the crowd does.

I've been scouring my Bible looking for good fathers—well, good fathers with equally good children. Instead, I found really exemplary dads with, alas, bad children. 

Wake Up

To my shame, embarrassment, and frustration, I sometimes morph into Eutychus.

Eutychus was the young man in the Bible who fell asleep and fell from the window ledge while listening to Apostle Paul do a lengthy presentation that began in the early evening and lasted till midnight.

This accident caused a major commotion and disrupted Paul's discourse.

Cat and Dog (2)

Who's afraid of whom?

Are dogs afraid of cats? Or is it the other way around?

I've read of both, but in our household, our Attorney II is terrified of one cat. And our dog has reason to cower in fear—even if it is in her very own doghouse.

We don't know who owns this cat, but he sometimes manages to invite himself to our garden and once, to Attorney II's own cage. He's definitely so much smaller than our pet, but he can truly be alarming.

Boo or Applause

Tim Tebow, 24, an American football player in the National Football League (NHL), is a Christian, and very vocal about it with fans, in clinics, hospitals, market places, schools, and orphanages.

He gets down on his knees and prays before every game. He had admitted being a virgin, and is willing to wait for marriage. He'd wear biblical references on his black eye paint.

ooo

Fierce Love

Have you heard of Rizpah?

She's one of the least known women in the Bible, not in the same league with the popular Ruth, Esther, Mary, Eve, Sarah, and Hannah. In fact, she was mentioned only four times in the Old Testament, KJV (2 Samuel 3:7; 21:8; 21:10-11).

But zooming in on what Rizpah had done as a mother, a fellow mom like me can't help but be stunned.

Breakfast Eggs

Whatever Ate Vi serves on the breakfast table, I eat.

But my boys are different. They are all good cooks, so they relish cooking their own breakfast. Sometimes Tony makes a Spanish omelet; sometimes son #1 prepares pancakes; sometimes son #3 does French toast or a new concoction of last night's leftovers. All dishes are always well presented (like those I see on TV) on each of their plates. 

Mount Everest, Here I Come

As a card-bearing, 60-something senior, I often ponder my mortality. The thought that the Lord may soon take me home visits me now and then, especially when I am down with an ailment or feel aches and pains.

After all, the kids are grown, the mortgages paid, and life's loose ends tied up (well, almost).

I am now, as I wrote in my book, What Me, Retire? . . .

#Hashtag #Ignorance

See this punctuation mark? #.  For the longest time, I called it "Number."      

 

Then came touch phones and cellphones and people gave it an alias and another usage: "Pound."

Now here's a newer monicker with yet another usage: "Hashtag."

I don't do Twitter so I missed Hashtag's birth. But on FB, which I do daily, I began noticing the "Number" or "Pound"  or now "Hashtag" appear in a number of messages, especially photo captions.

For instance, a young friend posted a photo with his family. Before the photo were these gobbledygook:

Conceit

Conceit has reigned within mortals, past or present. We have developed excessive belief in ourselves because of our abilities or riches or achievements or fame.

Today, the thinking, “Believe in yourself” is a campaign, or maybe even an ideology, to raise one's self-esteem, which is seen to have paramount importance in building a person's confidence.

How Do You Spell Your Name?

Spelling is kind of complicated. Especially now that we have developed new, appalling habits of misspelling everything in text messages (which also often take the form of email and FB notes).

Yet we have the compulsion to make it even harder.

Cirio is a simple enough name. But it can still get mangled along the way:

Now, think about the confusing ones. 

Mute Monday

So You Want to Be an Atheist

The intense, oppressive afternoon heat made me closet myself in our bedroom with the air-conditioner full blast. 

I visited a cabinet unopened in over a decade. Surprise! There sat manuscripts, clippings, and files I had stashed away for reasons I can't remember. One of them is a copy of a letter dated July 1999, which I wrote to the 15-year-old daughter of a family friend. 

My friend was extremely distressed when her daughter joined the Atheist Society. A faithful Christian, my friend cried on my shoulder. Since her daughter was quite close to me, I decided to write to her: 

Dear Sarah*,

A wise old man told me when I was your age, “The day you stop questioning is the day you die.”

I choose not to die before my time, so at age 54, I am questioning still—no longer about the existence of God, but about other things: 'If I ate 12 peanuts instead of eight, will my joints ache?' 'Have I taken my maintenance pill?'

Want to Know Your Future?

The fiesta was probably the most exciting time in our town. The rides, game booths, and circus came—so did the fortune tellers.

I was ten and in 6th grade, and after class, my friends and I decided to spend our allowance that day on knowing our future. We had heard that the seeress had beautiful fingers and a crystal ball that gleamed. 

Five giggly girls heard all we wanted to hear. She told me I'd marry a foreigner and that I would have a stormy marriage. At age 10, nobody worries about marriage, but I was excited to meet the foreigner I was to marry.

Special Sunday

Today, we thank the Lord for the grace of an active little boy who has just turned six.  

We haven't seen him for 771 days, but he is in our prayers every day. May he continue to grow up knowing and loving Jesus more and more. 

Our thanksgiving offering to Him who keeps us from falling:    

 

For Adrian, this is what the Lord said about little ones: Mark 10:14 (NIV) “. . . Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” 

Happy birthday little one!

Top photos: Gianina Chong 

Why Go to Church?

Some people don't like going to church.

“I can pray or worship God anywhere,” they would argue. In fact, some of them just turn on the TV set in their bedrooms, sing hymns, and pray with the people in the show, which is “exactly the same as being in church.”

There are many verses in the Bible that remind God's people to get together and build relationships. One is found in Hebrews 10:25 (NLT), “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.”

But the most surprising reason for going to church for me came not from the Bible but in a testimony of one of the members of our youth group in church.

In a halting voice, Olim said in words that I now paraphrase: 

Standard of Giving

Frequently asked questions on tithing and rarely given answers: 

Q: Do you tithe?

A: Yes.

Q: Where does it say in the New Testament that we should tithe?

Storytime Sunday

What are you doing this afternoon?

Here's an invitation for all kids to come and listen to the story of a great flood in Mateo's town—and how great grace flooded our little hero instead.

Mateo, the puppet, and I will be there to welcome you and listen to the story as well. Please bring all your friends so we can have a noisy chat while I sign your books. If you wish, I can also let you in on my about-to-be-released new book.

It'll be fun!

A Plea for PWD

It must have been something I ate which rendered my total being totally useless in the last two days. I was a Person With Disability (PWD). 

I missed an important event that I looked forward to for one whole year (gown all pressed), missed writing my column for a magazine, missed reading my daily Bible, missed my appetite, missed my computer, and missed my humor.

There was this constant sick feeling at the gate of my tummy, aggravated when I so much as moved vertically. So I had to lie flat, except for those hurried trips to and from the bathroom. Only by grace, sent through a kindly doctor name Perry, a solicitous Ate Vi, and a supportive family, was I able to pull through this energy-sapping ailment perilously close to life-threatening dehydration.

Junior Moment

I just had a junior moment.

Huh? How can that be possible when you're a senior, Mom! My sons are most likely saying in their minds.

Before I speak of that embarrassing episode, let me just say that I've been having senior moments for as long as I can remember. A senior moment is defined as, “A momentary lapse in memory, particularly one experienced by a senior citizen.”

Half truth. Senior moments are not the sole domain of older people; my young sons forget their cellphones, shades, people's names, and other details as often as I do.

Boredom Buster

Does waiting still infuriate and frustrate you?

Try crossword puzzles.

You are probably saying, "Not again?!"

I have rhapsodized solving crosswords ad infinitum in my past blogs and here comes another one. (Next to Adrian, my one and only grandson, crossword puzzles come next in the number and frequency of my posts.)

One Direction

"Lola, I need a new book!" were the first words that Trista, a grandniece, said when I hugged her, not having seen her for over a year. "I have finished reading all the books you gave me!"

"Oh, I need to keep writing faster then," I said. "I have to keep pace with you."

Bird Watching

One of the greatest pleasures of walking at dawn is watching the birds wake up with the  morning light and make their first flight for the day. They sing and hover over me; they perch on electric and telephone wires in a row; then they fly and chirp around again.

Alas, in my neighborhood, I see only birds of one kind. These are the same ones that constantly visit our garden and sometimes, one or two mysteriously make their way into our house.

As soon as this one flew in, we let it fly back out. I don't even know what it's called. In my dialect, we call it billit balay (house birds). 

The only other types of birds I see are on the Net, like so:

When Tony mentioned that his childhood friend Ed takes great bird pictures, I hurriedly visited Ed's FB wall. The pictures so fascinated me I asked Tony to ask Ed if I could post some of his photos on my blog. He said yes and here are my picks:

Lovely, aren't they?

In the Philippines today, there are guided birdwatching tours and then there's the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines, established in July 2003 “to promote birdwatching as a hobby and the responsible enjoyment of nature.”

As a little girl growing up in the province, I used to see all types of beautiful birds in the farm, but took them all for granted—like most Filipinos do. I shouldn't have.

Did you know that the Philippines has a spectacular mix of more than 600 species of resident and migratory birds? And even more spectacular, 200 of these species are endemic? That's a slew of beauty taken for granted and ignored.

Now that the world is changing, with the global warming quickly destroying the habitats of birds, many of these flying wonders are becoming extinct. Now is the time to take a closer look at how we can better treasure and nurture our country's avifaunal blessings.

The first step is to look at lovely photos such as the above (also google “birds” in the Net and viola!)  to awaken our dormant appreciation of God's creation, particularly the astounding grace of nature in flight.

Credits: Top photo; collages: Ed Tiotuyco

Let Go, Let God

Here's what I do when something honorable becomes so popular and people start trivializing it: I stop listening.

This was what happened to the song Let God, Let Go by DeWayne Woods after the record was launched in 2007. It hit the top of the charts and won multiple awards. Pretty soon, thousands of images of the title crammed the Net and everyone had everything to say about it—from left to right, and back.

Does God Have a Sense of Humor?

Everyday you meet one or two (the number is not very big) people who can make you laugh with the way they say a word or a phrase.  There is usually one in a group. Wish there were more of these picker-uppers!  

Many of my favorite public speakers are those with a sense of humor. They have an uncanny ability to make the audience ROFL (Roll On the Floor Laughing) and therefore hold their interest.

The Naked Cross

In Bible times, execution on the cross was the cruelest, most unforgettable way to punish the worst criminals—totally humiliating and dehumanizing.

And yet, Jesus chose the cross to redeem us from the mire of sin. Galatians 3:13(ESV), “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree' . . .”

“From this cross He would rob hell and populate heaven,” wrote Joseph Chambers, a preacher. 

Off Duty

Writing is not a duty for me. It has always been a privilege, a time of great feelings, a mountain-top joy, and . . . an undeserved grace of a lifetime. 

Some of my friends in church say it is my assignment from above, and therefore I am duty bound to do it well. I try.  

My writing hours are thus: the actual computer time is all day; the thinking time is all night.

The Kiram, Kristel, and Kris Brouhaha

Every Tom, Dick, and Harry has commented on the current hot issues involving Sultan Kiram of Sulu, Kristel, and Kris Aquino.

Some blame the Media for sensationalizing all three. Some blame the militants for agitating the student population. Some blame the politicians for taking advantage of the situations. Some blame President Aquino for not showing enough concern.

Some blame the government for everything, period. 

Surprise Homecoming

Do you enjoy surprising others?  

Well, I have a surprise for you. You might end up being surprised yourself.

My brother Dave loves to spring a surprise on us. In the last 10 years or so, however, he hasn't had too many opportunities to do that, because he and his wife, Glad, lived abroad. The only chance, then, to surprise us is when he, she, or both come home for vacation.

Look-Alikes

On TV last week, I watched a show that featured same-sex pairs who looked very much alike but who, in reality, are not twins.

Unbelievable. As each pair talked to the camera, I looked at their individual features—eyes, nose, lips, shape of face, hair—and they were the same. If you saw them in person, you'd say, “Twins!”

They are not. They are not even remotely related to each other; they just happen to look so similar. 

Is this possible?

Beware the Ides of March

“Ides,” as we learned in school, comes from the Latin word "idus," used widely in the old Roman calendar to indicate the middle of the month.  

Over time, the phrase “Ides of March” evolved into “Beware the ides of March,” a warning of bad things to come because of William Shakespeare's play, “Julius Caesar.”

The Christian Atheist: A Sort of Review

I discovered this book in faraway Cagayan de Oro (CDO) OMFLit bookstore. In between sporadic book signing, I sat down beside a shelf and took the first book that nudged my arm.

The title caught me off guard. I thought it was blasphemous and therefore I shouldn't read it. But as I often do, I talked to myself:

Where have all your years of training in creative work gone? “Expect the unexpected” you used to say. Well, this one's unexpected. When have you become a bigot?

City of White Water Rafting

Mention Cagayan de Oro (CDO) City to anyone who has been there and he'll say, white water rafting and river trekking!

Well, I've just come from CDO and the only water I saw was bottled and came free with my hotel room. Okay, I got a glimpse of the CDO river when we crossed a scenic bridge, but it was only for a few seconds, the time it took our taxi to zoom past it.

Nevertheless, in between meetings and short trips to town for meals that consisted of energy-giving food. boasting of cholesterol galore and one book signing event (OMFLit Book Shop), I got a chance to take photos of the tricycle which looked so strange, compared to what what I see in Manila. They so fascinated me I stayed at a curb clicking away for a good ten minutes.  

 

CDO is the gateway to Northern Mindanao and described in its Website as a “City in bloom, in blossom, and in boom.”  I have been to many parts of Mindanao but never to CDO so I thought I'd wander through its suburbia and enjoy the bloom, blossom, and bloom, but our schedule permitted only the usual things busy business people do—airport to hotel to boardroom, then reverse the process—and before you know it, the trip is ended.

Disabled Parking

For twenty long minutes we had been driving round and round the parking lot. It was unusually full. Suddenly, a car whizzed past us and parked in the space reserved for Persons With Disability (PWD).

When the driver got out of the car, she looked like she stepped out of a fashion magazine—she was tottering on a five-inch heels in animal prints! Tony and I thought she might have a PWD passenger.

She was alone.

First Draft

Each author regards the first draft differently. Ernest Hemingway said that “The first draft of anything is s—t.” 

Nicholas Sparks has another view, “Writing the last page of the first draft is the most enjoyable moment in writing. It's one of the most enjoyable moments in life, period.”

Today, after I tore off the last page of February from my calendar, I typed in the period to the last sentence of the first draft of my next book with the working title, “Gifts of Compassion.”

I don't think it's s—t. It still needs a lot of work, but the framework is there.

Wordless Wednesday

(Photo: 9gag.com/augustines)   

Yellow Sky

The nation was on tenterhooks 27 years ago when then President Ferdinand Marcos refused to leave his seat despite millions of people gathered at EDSA and elsewhere in the first-ever people power the world has ever seen. Yellow was the color that symbolized our unity.

Then on TV, on the edge of our seats, we saw the man and his family board a helicopter leaving at last.  It was like New Year's Day, but the rejoicing was accompanied with cathartic tears and euphoria.

Crossing the Street

One of life's most difficult endeavors is crossing a street in Metro Manila. Vehicles don't stop for hapless pedestrians.

Traffic signs seem more like suggestions than regulations.  To cross successfully without minor mishaps (sudden skipping of heart, stubbing a toe, straining a leg muscle, and holding one's breath) is a prized achievement, not unlike completing an obstacle race or getting out of a maze after hours of dead ends.

My one wish, which will never be fulfilled in my lifetime, is to be exempted from ever crossing a street.  But truth is, an ordinary mortal with no access to private transportation every single day needs to cross a few.

There was that one day which I keep wishing would come again:

No Teeth

Dread is the perfect word to describe what I felt about renewing my passport.  In past years, it took a minimum of two hours to wait in line and get things done.

This time my survival kit included my iPad (euphemism for a small scribble notebook) and two crossword puzzles, torn from that day's newspapers; Tony is less impatient, so he needed no survival kit.   

Our travel agent was there on the dot. He ushered us to a hall filled with people in snaky long queues.  

“Three simple steps,” he said. “First floor for identification, second floor for picture taking, and back to ground floor for exit.”  

He then gave us the password: “Senior citizen.”

Risking it All

A big, deep, pure love came to Jesus.

And it came from the lowest of the low—a despised prostitute. 

Today, Valentine's Day, I will attempt to talk about that love (Luke 7:36-50) from my limited, layman's view.

Many sermons have been delivered and many books have been written about it, and yet we are still trying to fathom if we, too, are capable of loving the way she did.

Chinese New Year (Year of the Water Snake)

“Are you Chinese?” People sometimes ask me.

“No, but my children and husband are,” I reply. “And I celebrate Chinese New Year.”

Chinese New Year's eve this year was a quiet, extremely quiet affair. Tony and I were invited to dinner at the home of his closest living relative—a septuagenarian first cousin, whose wife is three years younger.  

For the first time in years, I was in a group where I was the youngest.

The Great Commission

If you are a Christian and feeling guilty (as I am) about not being able to do something about the Great Commission, don't. There is something we can do—or may already be doing—about it.

This was the gist of my talk at the district conference of women in over 50 churches recently. I was invited to challenge the attendees into doing missionary work:  

"Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20 (NLT)

I felt unworthy because I am no missionary. While praying about it, however, I came upon this verse:

“In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.” Romans 12: 6-8 (NLT)

Let me share with you excerpts from that talk:

I have no authority to preach. I am not a pastor, neither was I ever in Bible school. I have no advice about being a better mother or a better wife or even a better person—because I, myself, have not been an ideal mother nor wife.  I don't think I can tell you to be more faithful servants of God, because many times I fail miserably in my faithfulness.

Everything that I know about the Great Commission, women of God like you already know.

Then it dawns on me that not all of us can be a missionary in the sense of 'going out to share the gospel.' We can use our individual gifts right at home to help those who have the gift to proclaim the Word.

I constantly ponder what I have been doing in terms of the Great Commission. Aside from contributing to the Missions fund and praying for our missionaries, I have not been doing much else. The world out there is thirsty for God's Word. They badly need to know about the saving grace of Jesus.

Cancer (3)

(This is the third and last part of the excerpted chapter, My friends Sonia and Brenda, from “Gifts of Grace” Book 3. )  

My Friends Sonia and Brenda (Part 3)

Good-bye millions in damages—money for my medications and hospitalization, a small part of me said. But the bigger part of me thought of God, how He must have felt when He sent His only Son to be crucified and die for our sins. I wept and started going back to Ward 451D. They stopped me, saying I could occupy that private room for free.

 I said, “No, I belong to Ward 451D. It’s where I met my God!”  

P.S. Ward patients are not supplied with newspapers.  But from then on, I began receiving mine. Every day. That’s what I got for damages.  My own newspaper. And that is more than enough.

I had difficulty breathing myself—from trying to hold back my tears. I e-mailed back immediately, “Brenda, our e-group friends are really blessed by your short e-mails on faith.  Through you, God’s magnificence is almost palpable. With your permission, may I share your two-part e-mail to me with our e-group?”

Cancer (2)

(Continued from yesterday's post. To those who have just chanced upon this blog, this is an excerpt from my Book, “Gifts of Grace” Book 3, which has a chapter on two friends afflicted with cancer.)  

My Friends Sonia and Brenda (Part 2)

Our response was instant and electric:   

“Welcome to the group, Brenda!”

“Another one to include in my daily prayers, thanks Brenda!”   

“Hi, Brenda! Please delight in reading our sometimes crazy but always interesting exchanges about anything under the sun. Share with us your thoughts.”

Brenda’s first e-mail to us read, “I feel so honored to be a part of this e-group. Thanks for letting me in. I was diagnosed with a cell lung cancer last year, given three to four months to live, but by God's healing grace, here I am—still very much alive.”

That was the beginning of Brenda’s short but regular e-mails. She updated us on her condition. She was now also a faithful prayer warrior for our sick friends. Always, she spoke of her unwavering faith in God.

I e-mailed Brenda privately about the gift of salvation and sent her a Bible plus my books Gifts of Grace 1 and 2.  She thanked me privately as well, and shared with me a most gripping story—in two installments. I was moved that she chose to let me in on what turned her life around. Let me summarize it, hoping to capture Brenda’s heart.

First installment:

Cancer (1)

(Another loved one just lost her battle against cancer. Every so often, I would read posts of friends grieving over someone suffering from this dreaded disease. One posted an excerpt from my book “Gifts of Grace” Book 3, which he says helped him in his darkest hours after his wife's  death.)  

Let me share this excerpt with you. May it help others deal with their grief. 

My Friends Sonia and Brenda (Part 1)

Not too long ago, people were reticent about cancer. We would refer to it as “The Big C” and would say it in whispers. But the scourge and rise of the disease has become so severe—the No. 2 cause of death in the U.S. in the year 2007—we now call a spade a spade, so to speak. People openly say, my aunt or uncle or friend or mother or father or grandmother or grandfather has cancer.

It is in this light that I will speak about my friends Sonia and Brenda. They have touched my and other people’s lives on such a grand scale that by writing about them, I hope that many more will be similarly touched.

Sonia and Brenda never met each other. And never will—at least not in this lifetime. But they always come to my mind simultaneously. They had two things in common: faith in God and cancer, in that order.

Cockroaches and Motorcycles

Cockroaches. That's the only image I can summon to describe the motorcycles on the road.

 
The above photo is kinda gross I know, but I needed to upload it to get the point off my chest and join the crusade in abating road deaths.

Like these cockroaches, motorcycles are all over, darting here, there and everywhere. If you want to be stressed, just get on a vehicle and observe them (if you are a passenger, that is; if you are driving, have a third or fourth eye—and a reservoir of patience—to avoid being needled by them).