koleksiyon

2004-11-11T22:49:00.000+08:00

test

Brother and Sister

2004-10-26T02:10:00.000+08:00

I was born in a secluded village on a mountain. Day by day, my parents plowed the yellow dry soil with their backs towards the sky. I have a brother who is 3 years younger than me. I wanted to buy a handkerchief, which all girls around me seemed to have. So, one day I stole 50 cents from my father's drawer. Father had discovered about the stolen money right away. He made me and my younger brother kneel against the wall as he held a bamboo stick in his hand.

"Who stole the money?" he asked. I was stunned, too afraid to talk. Neither of us admitted to the fault, so he said, "Fine, if nobody wants to admit, you two should be beaten!" He lifted up the bamboo stick. Suddenly, my younger brother gripped father's hand and said," Dad, I was the one who did it!" The long stick smacked my brother's back repeatedly.

Father was so angry that he kept on whipping my brother until he lost his breath. After that, he sat down on our stone bed and scolded my brother, "You have learned to steal from your own house now. What other embarrassing things will you be possibly doing in the future? You should be beaten to death, you shameless thief!" That night, my mother and I hugged my brother. His body was full of wounds from the beating but he never shed a single tear.

In the middle of the night, all of sudden, I cried out loudly. My brother covered my mouth with his little hand and said, " Sis, now don't cry anymore. Everything has happened." I still hate myself for not having enough courage to admit what I did. Years gone by, but the incident still seemed like it just happened yesterday. I will never forget my brother's expression when he protected me. That year, my brother was 8 years old and I was 11 years old.

When my brother was in his last year of secondary school, he was accepted in an upper secondary school in the central. At the same time, I was accepted into a university in the province. That night, father squatted in the yard, smoking, packet by packet. I could hear him ask my mother, "Both of our children, they have good results? very good results?" Mother wiped off her tears and sighed," What is the use? How can we possibly finance both of them?"

At that time, my brother walked out, he stood in front of father and said,"Dad, I don't want to continue my study anymore, I have read enough books." Father swung his hand and slapped my brother on his face. "Why do you have a spirit so damn weak? Even if it means I have to beg for money on the streets, I will send you two to school until you have both finished your study!" And then, he started to knock on every house in the village to borrow money. I stuck out my hand as gently as I can to my brother's swollen face, and told him, "A boy has to continue his study; If not, he will not be able to overcome this poverty we are experiencing." I, on the other hand, had decided not to further my study at the university.

Nobody knew that on the next day, before dawn, my brother left the house with a few pieces of worn-out clothes and a few dry beans. He sneaked to my side of the bed and left a note on my pillow; "Sis, getting into a university is not easy. I will go find a job and I will send money to you." I held the note while sitting on my bed, and cried until I lost my voice. That year, my brother was 17 years old; I was 20 years old.

With the money father borrowed from the whole village, and the money my brother earned from carrying cement on his back at a construction site, finally, I managed to get to the third year of my study in the university. One day, while I was studying in my room, my roommate came in and told me, "There's a villager waiting for you outside!" Why would there be a villager looking for me? I walked out, and I saw my brother from afar. His whole body was covered with dirt, dust, cement and sand. I asked him, "Why did you not tell my roommate that you are my brother?" He replied with a smile," Look at my appearance. What will they think if they would know that I am your brother? Won't they laugh at you?" I felt so touched, and tears filled my eyes. I swept away dirt and dust from my brother's body. And told him with a lump in my throat, " I don't care what people would say! You are my brother no matter what your appearance is?" From his pocket, he took out a butterfly hair clip. He put it on my hair and said, "I saw all the girls in town are wearing it. So, I think you should also have one." I could not hold back myself anymore. I pulled my brother into my arms and cried. That year, my brother was 20 years old; I was 23 years old.

I noticed that the broken window was repaired the first time I brought my boyfriend home. The house was scrubbed cleaned. After my boyfriend left, I danced like a little girl in front of my mother, "Mom, you didn't have to spend so much time cleaning the house!" But she told me with a smile," It was your brother who went home early to clean the house. Didn't you see the wound on his hand? He hurt his hand while he was replacing the window." I went into my brother's bedroom. Looking at his thin face, I felt like there are hundreds of needle pricked in my heart. I applied some ointment on his wound and put a bandage on it, "Does it hurt? " I asked him. "No, it doesn't hurt. You know, when at the construction site, stones keep falling on my feet . Even that could not stop me from working." In the middle of the sentence, he stopped. I turned my back on him and tears rolled down my face. That year, my brother was 23 years old; I was 26 years old.

After I got married, I lived in the city. Many times my husband invited my parents to come and live with us, but they didn't want. They said, once they left the village, they wouldn't know what to do. My brother agreed with them. He said, "Sis, you just take care of your parents-in-law. I will take care of mom and dad here." My husband became the director of his factory. We asked my brother to accept the offer of being the manager in the maintenance department. But my brother rejected the offer. He insisted on working as a repairman instead for a start. One day, my brother was on the top of a ladder repairing a cable, when he got electrocuted, and was sent to the hospital. My husband and I visited him at the hospital. Looking at the white gypsum on his leg, I grumbled, "Why did you reject the offer of being a manager? Managers won't do something dangerous like that. Now look at you, You are suffering a serious injury. Why didn't you just listen to us?" With a serious expression on his face, he defended his decision, "Think of brother-in-law. He just became the director, and I being uneducated, and would become a manager, what kind of rumors would fly around?" My husband's eyes filled up with tears, and then I said, "But you lack in education only because of me!""Why do you talk about the past?" he said and then he held my hand. That year, he was 26 years old and I was 29 years old.

My brother was 30 years old when he married a farmer girl from the village. During the wedding reception, the master of ceremonies asked him, "Who is the one person you respect and love the most?" Without even taking a time to think, he answered,"My sister." He continued by telling a story I could not even remember. "When I was in primary school, the school was in a different village. Everyday, my sister and I would walk for 2 hours to school and back home. One day, I lost the other pair of my gloves. My sister gave me one of hers. She wore only one glove and she had to walk far. When we got home, her hands were trembling because of the cold weather that she could not even hold her chopsticks. From that day on, I swore that as long as I live, I would take care of my sister and will always be good to her." Applause filled up the room. All guests turned their attention to me. I found it hard to speak, "In my whole life, the one I would like to thank most is my brother," And in this happy occasion, in front of the crowd, tears were rolling down my face again. Love and care for the one you love every single day of your life. You may think what you did is just a small deed, but to that someone, it may mean a lot.

Tonight I venture on my definition of love - To love means to genuinely be concerned of the true happiness of someone without expecting anything in return.

two days without worry

2004-10-21T07:45:00.000+08:00

There are two days in every week about which we should
not worry, two days which should be kept free from fear
and apprehension.

One of these days is Yesterday with all its mistakes and
cares, its faults and blunders, its aches and pains.

Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control.
All the money in the world cannot bring back Yesterday.

We cannot undo a single act we performed;
we cannot erase a single word we said.
Yesterday is gone forever.

The other day we should not worry about is Tomorrow
with all its possible adversities, its burdens,
its large promise and its poor performance;
Tomorrow is also beyond our immediate control.

Tomorrow's sun will rise, either in splendor or behind
a mask of clouds, but it will rise.
Until it does, we have no stake in Tomorrow,
for it is yet to be born.

This leaves only one day, Today.
Any person can fight the battle of just one day.
It is when you and I add the burdens of those two awful
eternities, Yesterday and Tomorrow that we break down.

It is not the experience of Today that drives a person mad,
it is the remorse or bitterness of something which happened
Yesterday and the dread of what Tomorrow may bring.

Let us, therefore, Live but one day at a time.

The Smell of Rain

2004-10-14T00:34:00.000+08:00

A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the doctor walked into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing. Still groggy from surgery, her husband David held her hand as they braced themselves for the latest news. That afternoon of March 10, 1991,complications had forced Diana, only 24-weeks pregnant, to undergo an emergency ceasarean to deliver the couple's new daughter, Danae Lu Blessing. At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound and nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously premature. Still, the doctor's soft words dropped like bombs. "I don't think she's going to make it', he said, as kindly as he could. "There's only a 10-percent chance she will live through the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one.

Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Danae would likely face if she survived. She would never walk, she would never talk, she would probably be blind, and she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation, and on and on. "No! No!" was all Diana could say. She and David, with their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter to become a family of four. Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away. Through the dark hours of morning as Danae held on to life by the thinnest thread, Diana slipped in and out of sleep, growing more and more determined that their tiny daughter would live and live to be a healthy, happy young girl.

But David, fully awake and listening to additional dire details of their daughter's chances of ever leaving the hospital alive, much less healthy, knew he must confront his wife with the inevitable. David walked in and said that we needed to talk about making funeral arrangements. Diana remembers "I felt so bad for him because he was doing everything trying to include me in what was going on, but I just wouldn't listen, I couldn't listen.' I said, 'No, I don't want to listen to what the doctors say; Danae is not going to die! One day she will be just fine, and she will be coming home with us!"

As if willed to live by Diana's determination, Danae clung to life hour after hour, with the help of every breath as those first days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Danae's underdeveloped nervous system was essentially 'raw,' the lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn't even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to offer the strength of their love. All they could do, as Danae struggled alone beneath the ultraviolet light in the tangle of tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl. There was never a moment when Danae suddenly grew stronger. But as the weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of strength there. At last, when Danae turned two months old, her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time.

And two months later, though doctors continued to gently, but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero, Danae went home from the hospital, just as her mother had predicted.

Today, five years later, Danae is a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She shows no signs, whatsoever, of any mental or physical impairment. Simply, she is everything a little girl can be and more, but that happy ending is far from the end of her story.

One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving, Texas, Danae was sitting in her mother's lap in the bleachers of a local ballpark where her brother Dustin's baseball team was practicing. As always, Danae was chattering nonstop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent. Hugging her arms across her chest, Danae asked, "Do you smell that?". Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied, "Yes, it smells like rain." Danae closed her eyes and again asked, "Do you smell that?". Once again, her mother replied, "Yes, I think we're about to get wet, it smells like rain." Still caught in the moment, Danae shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her small hands and loudly announced, "No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest."

Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Danae then happily hopped down to play with the other children. Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along.

During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Danae on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.

Look What You've Done

2004-09-28T06:30:00.000+08:00

by: JET

Take my photo off the wall
If it just won't sing for you
'Cause all that's left has gone away
And there's nothing there for you to prove

Oh, look what you've done
You've made a fool of everyone
Oh well, it seems likes such fun
Until you lose what you had won

Give me back my point of view
'Cause I just can't think for you
I can hardly hear you say
What should I do, well you choose

Oh, look what you've done
You've made a fool of everyone
Oh well, it seems likes such fun
Until you lose what you had won,

Oh look what you've done
You've made a fool of everyone
A fool of everyone
A fool of everyone

Take my photo off the wall
If it just won't sing for you
'Cause all that's left has gone away
And there's nothing there for you to do

Oh, look what you've done
You've made a fool of everyone
A fool of everyone
A fool of everyone

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Download MIDI here.

The Art of Letting Go

2004-09-26T16:30:00.000+08:00

Put away the pictures.
Put away the memories.
I put over and over
Through my tears
I've held them till I'm blind
They kept my hope alive
As if somehow that I'd keep you here
Once you believed in a love forever more?
How do you leave it in a drawer?

Now here it comes, the hardest part of all
Unchain my heart that's holding on
How do I start to live my life alone?
Guess I'm just learning,
Learning the art of letting go.

Try to say it's over
Say the word goodbye.
But each time it catches in my throat
Your still here in me
And I can't set you free
So I hold on to what I wanted most
Maybe someday we'll be friends forever more
Wish I could open up that door

Now here it comes, the hardest part of all
Unchain my heart that's holding on
How do I start to live my life alone?
Guess I'm just learning,
Learning the art of letting go

Watching us fade
What can I do?
But try to make it through
the pain of one more day
Without you

Where do I start, to live my life alone?
I guess I'm learning, only learning,
Learning the art of letting go.

Someday

2004-09-25T06:30:00.001+08:00

by: Nickelback

How the hell'd we wind up like this

And why weren't we able

To see the signs that we missed

And try to turn the tables

I wish you'd unclench your fists

And unpack your suitcase

Lately there's been too much of this

But don't think it's too late

Nothing's wrong

Just as long as you know that someday I will

Someday, somehow

I'm gonna make it alright

But not right now

I know you're wondering when

You're the only one who knows that

Someday somehow

I'm gonna make it alright

But not right now

I know you're wondering when

Well I'd hope that since we're here anyway

That we could end up saying

Things we've always needed to say

So we could end up staying

Now the story's played out like this

Just like a paperback novel

Let's rewrite an ending that fits

Instead of a Hollywood horror

Nothing's wrong

Just as long as you know that someday I will

Someday, somehow I'm gonna make it alright

But not right now

I know you're wondering when

You're the only one who knows that

Someday somehow

I'm gonna make it alright

But not right now

I know you're wondering when

You're the only one who knows that

I know you're wondering when

You're the only one who knows that

I know you're wondering when

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Check out the music video by clicking the title above.

Treasure what you have ...

2004-09-24T02:35:00.000+08:00

Peter and Tina are sitting in the park doing nothing, but just gazing into the sky, while all their friends are having fun with their beloved half.

Tina: I'm so bored. Just wish I have a boyfriend now to spend time with.
Peter: I guess we're the only leftovers. We're the only person who isn't with a date now. (both sigh n silence for a while)
Tina: I think I have a good idea. Lets play a gamePeter: Eh? What game?
Tina: Eem..It's quite simple. You be my boyfriend for 100 days and I'll be your girlfriend for 100 days. what do you think?
Peter: Oookay..Anyway I don't have any plan for the next few months.
Tina: You sound like you aren't looking forward to it at all. Cheer up. Today will be our first day and our first date. Where should we go?
Peter: What about a movie? I heard that there is a really great movie in theater now.
Tina: Seems like I don't have any better idea than this. Lets move. (went to watch their movies and sent each other home)

Day 2:
Peter and Tina went to a concert together, and Peter bought Tina a keychain with a star.

Day 3:
They went shopping together for a friend's birthday present. Share an ice-cream together and hugged each other for the first time.

Day 7:
Peter drove Tina up onto a mountain and they watch the sunset together. When the night came and the moon glowed, they said sat on the grass gazing at the stars together. A meteor passed by. Tina mumbled something.

Day 25:
Spend time at a theme park and got on to rollercoasters, and ate hotdogs and cottoncandy. Peter and Tina got in the haunted house and Tina grabbed someone's hand instead of Peter's hand by accident. They laughed together for a while.

Day 67:
They drove pass a circus and decided to get into watch the show. The midget asked Tina to play a part as his assistant in the magic show. Went around to see other entertainments around after the show. Came to a fortune teller and she just said "Treasure every moment from now on" and a tear rolled down the fortune teller's cheek.

Day 84:
Tina suggested that they go to the beach. The beach wasn't so crowded that day. They have their first kiss with each other just as the sun is setting.

Day 99:
They decided to have a simple day and is deciding to have a walk around the city. They sit down onto a bench.

1:23 pm
Tina: I'm thirsty. Lets rest for a while first.
Peter: Wait here while I go buy some drinks.What would you like?
Tina: Eem...Apple juice will be just fine.

1:43 pm
Tina waiting for about 20 minutes and Peter hasn't return. Then someone walked up to her.

Stranger: Is your name Tina?
Tina: Yes, and may I help you?
Stranger: Just now down there on the street a drunk driver has crashed into a guy. I think its your friend. Tina ran over to the spot with the stranger and sees Peter lying on the floor with blood over his face and her apple juice still in his hands.The ambulance came and she went to the hospital with Peter. Tina sat outside the emergency room for five and a half hours. The doctor came out, and he sighed.

11:51 pm
Doctor: I'm sorry, but we did the best we could.He is still breathing now but God would take himaway from us very soon. We found this letter inside his pocket.

The doctor hands over the letter to Tina and she goes into the room to see Peter. He look weak but peaceful. Tina read the letter and then she burst into tears. Here is what the letter said. Tina, our 100 days is almost over. I had fun with you during all these days. Although you maybe greedy sometimes and less thoughtful, but these all brought happiness into my life. I have realized that you are a really cute girl and blamed myself for never taking the time to know that. I have nothing much to ask for, but I just wish that we can extend the day. I want to be your boyfriend forever and wish that you can be beside me all the time. Tina, I love you.

11:58 pm
Tina: (sobbing) Peter. Did you know what was the wish I made on the night there was a meteor. I asked God to let us last forever. We were suppose to last 100 days so Peter! You can't leave me! I LOVE YOU, but can you come back to me now? I love you Peter. I LOVE YOU.

As the clock struck twelve, Peter's heartstopped beating. It was 100 days.

**********************************************************************************
Tell the guy or girl that you love them beforeits too late. You never know whats going to happen tomorrow. You never know who will be leaving you and never return.
**********************************************************************************

THE WHOLE TRUTH

2004-09-23T07:18:00.000+08:00

At school, a boy was told by a classmate that most adults are hiding at least one dark secret, and that this makes it very easy to blackmail them by saying, "I know the whole truth".

The boy decides to go home and try it out. He goes home, and as he is greeted by his mother he says, "I know the whole truth." His mother quickly hands him a P50 note and says, "Just don't tell your father. "

Quite pleased, the boy waits for his father to get home from work, and greets him with, "I know the whole truth." The father also promptly hands him a P50 note and says, "Please don't say a word to your mother."

Very pleased, the boy is on his way to school the next day, when he sees the mailman at his front door. The boy greets him by saying, "I know the whole truth." The mailman drops the mail, opens his arms, and says, "Then come give your FATHER a big hug."

Love to live, live to love

2004-09-19T14:33:00.000+08:00

Write as if no one were reading, for your words are your own.
Give as you have been given, don't let your gifts go unknown.

Smile as if there's no tomorrow, be thankful for the day.
Laugh as if you could forever, happiness is the way.

Run as if there are no fences, go out far and long.
Comfort as if you don't need comforting, help them with their wrong.

Kiss as if you don't have to let go, make the person feel.
Speak as if you have never spoken, your secrets, do reveal.

Cry as if you have for a time, feel each tear drop fall.
Recover as if it never happened, you were never sad at all.

Love as if your not afraid, take every chance you get.
Live life as if you were dying, and don't think of your regrets.

Forever love to live, and forever live to love.

Take Hold of Every Moment

2004-09-12T06:20:00.000+08:00

A friend of mine opened his wife's underwear drawer and picked up an silk paper wrapped package:

"This, - he said - isn't any ordinary package."

He unwrapped the box and stared at both the silk paper and the box.

"She got this the first time we went to New York, 8 or 9 years ago. She has never put it on. She was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess this is it."

He got near the bed and placed the gift box next to the other clothing he was taking to the funeral house. His wife had just passed away. He turned to me and said:

"Never save something for a special occasion. Every day in your life is a special occasion".

I still think those words changed my life.

Now I read more and clean less.
I sit on the porch without worrying about anything.
I spend more time with my family, and less at work.
I understood that life should be a source of experience to be lived up to, not survived through.
I no longer keep anything. I use crystal glasses every day.
I'll wear new clothes to go to the supermarket, if I feel like it.
I don't save my special perfume for special occasions; I use it whenever I want to.

The words "Someday..." and "One Day..." are fading away from my dictionary. If it's worth seeing, listening or doing, I want to see, listen or do it now.

I don't know what my friend's wife would have done if she knew she wouldn't be there the next morning. This, nobody can tell. I think she might have called her relatives and closest friends. She might have called old friends to make peace over past quarrels. I'd like to think she would go out for Chinese, her favorite food.

There are small things that I would regret not doing, if I knew my time had come.
I would regret it, because I would no longer see the friends I would meet; letters... letters that I wanted to write,"One of these days".

I would regret and feel sad, because I didn't say to my spouse, daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, and special people how much I love them. Now, I try not to delay, postpone or keep anything that could bring laughter and joy into our lives..

And, on each morning, I say to myself that this could be a special day..

Each day, each hour, each minute, is special.

Open Up My Heart

2004-09-05T04:00:00.000+08:00

"Tomorrow morning," the surgeon began, "I'll open up your heart..."

"You'll find Jesus there," the boy interrupted.

The surgeon looked up, annoyed "I'll cut your heart open," he continued, to see how much damage has been done.."

"But when you open up my heart, you'll find Jesus in there," said the boy.

The surgeon looked to the parents, who sat quietly. "When I see how much damage has been done, I'll sew your heart and chest back up, and I'll plan what to do next."

"But you'll find Jesus in my heart. The Bible says He lives there. The hymns all say He lives there. You'll find Him in my heart."

The surgeon had had enough. "I'll tell you what I'll find in your heart. I'll find damaged muscle, low blood supply, and weakened vessels. And I'll find out if I can make you well."

"You'll find Jesus there too. He lives there."

The surgeon left.

The surgeon sat in his office, recording his notes from the surgery, "...damaged aorta, damaged pulmonary vein, widespread muscle degeneration. No hope for transplant, no hope for cure. Therapy: painkillers and bed rest. Prognosis:, " here he paused, "death within one year."

He stopped the recorder, but there was more to be said. "Why?" he asked aloud. "Why did You do this? You've put him here; You've put him in this pain; and You've cursed him to an early death. Why?"

The Lord answered and said, "The boy, My lamb, was not meant for your flock for long, for he is a part of My flock, and will forever be. Here, in My flock, he will feel no pain, and will be comforted as you cannot imagine. His parents will one day join him here, and they will know peace, and My flock will continue to grow."

The surgeon's tears were hot, but his anger was hotter. "You created that boy, and You created that heart. He'll be dead in months. Why?"

The Lord answered, "The boy, My lamb, shall return to My flock, for He has Done his duty: I did not put My lamb with your flock to lose him, but to retrieve another lost lamb."

The surgeon wept.. The surgeon sat beside the boy's bed; the boy's parents sat across from him. The boy awoke and whispered, "Did you cut open my heart?"

"Yes," said the surgeon.

"What did you find?" asked the boy.

"I found Jesus there," said the surgeon.

What It Takes to Control

2004-09-04T06:55:00.000+08:00

Noah's Ark

2004-09-03T09:30:00.000+08:00

Everything I Need To Know About Life, I Learned From Noah's Ark...

1: Don't miss the boat.

2: We are all in the same boat.

3: Plan ahead... It wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark!

4: Stay fit. When you're 60 years old, someone may ask you to do something really big.

5: Don't listen to critics, just get on with the job that needs to be done.

6: Build your future carefully in the present, preferably on high ground.

7: On long journeys travel in pairs and enjoy the company of others.

8: All creatures, regardless of size, are important in the big scheme of things.

9: In the midst of a storm, trust, be patient and float a while.

10: Speed isn't as important as the ability to ride the waves.

11: The Ark was built and manned by amateurs, the Titanic by professionals.

12: No matter the storm, when you are with God there's always a rainbow waiting.

Word Made Flesh

2004-09-02T00:02:00.000+08:00

Catholics have always been criticized as lagging when it comes to the study of the Holy Bible. Father Jun after finishing his studies in Rome took it upon himself to make Bible Study his personal ministry. He conducts weekly Bible Study lessons every Tuesday, 7:30 PM at St. John Bosco Parish along Pasay road and every Wednesday at the Greenbelt Chapel after the 7 pm Mass. People who cannot make it in person make opt to listen to his radio programs and forthcoming TV broadcasts as indicated.

To My Dear Bible Study Students:

I'm enclosing a poster announcing the the Bible Programs, both in TV and Radio, which the Good Lord, through the Word Made Flesh Foundation, Inc., is making possible for me to carry out for the spread of the Word Of God.

As you can imagine it takes quite a lot of resources to produce these shows. The TV program which makes its debut on September 4, 2004. -- We trust God's seeing us through a whole season [13 episodes]to start with. Admittedly, we need all the help we can get!

The format of the shows is as follow: I give an introduction to the Bible and then take up the Sunday Readings (yes, all the three readings with more time given the Gospel passage).

What makes these programs specifically Catholic is the catechetical slant I endeavor to give. I make every effort to point out the catechetical connection of the passages we study.

The programs go on the air on Saturdays. They serve as preparation for the Sunday Liturgy for the Catholic Faithful in general and in particular for Priests, Seminarians, Religious and Ministers of the Eucharist who have to break the Word of God in the course of the Lord's Day.

I request your fervent prayers for this apostolate. I know that it is all God's work. May He be glorified!

God bless you and Mary ever keep you in her loving care! Shalom!

Fr. Jun

P.S May we request you to please pass to all your Catholic parish, community and friends.

Kids R Them

2004-09-01T03:03:00.000+08:00

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LILI (A Chinese Story)

2004-08-31T23:42:00.000+08:00

A long time ago in China, a girl named Li-Li got married and went to live with her husband and mother-in-law. In a very short time, Li-Li found that she couldn't get along with her mother-in-law at all. Their personalities were very different, and Li-Li was angered by many of her mother-in-law's habits. In addition, she criticized Li-Li constantly. Days passed, and weeks passed. Li-Li and her mother-in-law never stopped arguing and fighting. But what made the situation even worse was that, according to ancient Chinese tradition, Li-Li had to bow to her mother-in-law and obey her every wish. All the anger and unhappiness in the house was causing Li-Li's poor husband great distress.

Finally, Li-Li could not stand her mother-in-law's bad temper and dictatorship any longer, and she decided to do something about it. Li-Li went to see her father's good friend, Mr. Huang, who sold herbs. She told him the situation and asked if he would give her some poison so that she could solve the problem once and for all. Mr. Huang thought for a while, and finally said, "Li-Li, I will help you solve your problem, but you must listen to me and obey what I tell you." Li-Li said, "Yes, Mr. Huang, I will do whatever you tell me to do."

Mr. Huang went into the back room, and returned in a few minutes with a package of herbs. He told Li-Li, "You can't use a quick-acting poison to get rid of your mother-in-law, because that would cause people to become suspicious. Therefore, I have given you a number of herbs that will slowly build up poison in her body. Every other day prepare some delicious meal and put a little of these herbs in her serving. Now, in order to make sure that nobody suspects you when she dies, you must be very careful to act very friendly towards her.

Don't argue with her, obey her every wish, and treat her like a queen." Li-Li was so happy. She thanked Mr. Huang and hurried home to start her plot of murdering her mother-in-law.

Weeks went by, and months went by, and every other day, Li-Li served the specially treated food to her mother-in-law. She remembered what Mr. Huang had said about avoiding suspicion, so she controlled her temper, obeyed her mother-in-law, and treated her like her own mother.

After six months had passed, the whole household had changed. Li-Li had practiced controlling her temper so much that she found that she almost never got mad or upset. She hadn't had an argument with her mother-in-law in six months because she now seemed much kinder and easier to get along with. The mother-in-law's attitude toward Li-Li changed, and she began to love Li-Li like her own daughter. She kept telling friends and relatives that Li-Li was the best daughter-in-law one could ever find. Li-Li and her mother-in-law were now treating each other like a real mother and daughter. Li-Li's husband was very happy to see what was happening.

One day, Li-Li came to see Mr. Huang and asked for his help again. She said, "Dear Mr. Huang, please help me to keep the poison from killing my mother-in-law! She's changed into such a nice woman, and I love her like my own mother. I do not want her to die because of the poison I gave her."

Mr. Huang smiled and nodded his head. "Li-Li, there's nothing to worry about. I never gave you any poison. The herbs I gave you were vitamins to improve her health. The only poison was in your mind and your attitude toward her, but that has been all washed away by the love which you gave to her."

Buying Mission

2004-08-30T05:35:00.000+08:00

Balance

2004-08-29T04:07:00.000+08:00

Once upon a time in the kingdom of Heaven, God was missing for six days. Eventually, Michael the Archangel found him, resting on the seventh day.

He inquired of God, "Where have you been?".

God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds, "Look, Michael. Look what I've made."

Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, "What is it?".

"It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put Life on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it's going to be a great place of balance."

"Balance?" inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing to different parts of earth. "For example, northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, but cold and harsh while southern Europe is going to be poor but sunny and pleasant."

"I have made some lands abundant in water and other lands parched deserts."

"This one will be extremely hot, while this one will be very cold and covered in ice."

The Archangel, impressed by God's work, then pointed to a group of islands and said, "What are those?". "Ah," said God. "That's the Philippines, the most glorious place on earth. There are beautiful beaches, rivers, mountains and forests. The people from the Philippines are going to be handsome, modest, intelligent and humorous and they are going to be found traveling the world. They will be extremely sociable, hardworking and high achieving, and they will be known throughout the world as carriers of peace and love.

"Michael gasped in wonder and admiration but then proclaimed, "What about balance, God? You said there would be balance."

God replied wisely, "Wait until you see the idiots I put in the government."

Have a Wonderful Day_s

2004-08-20T03:03:00.000+08:00

The 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud lady, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o'clock, with her hair fashionably coifed and makeup perfectly applied, even though she is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today.

Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary. After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready. As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on her window. "I love it," she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.

"Mrs.. Jones, you haven't seen the room .... just wait.""

That doesn't have anything to do with it," she replied. "Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is arranged... it's how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it." It's a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open I'll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I've stored away ... just for this time in my life.

Old age is like a bank account ... you withdraw from what you've put in. So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories.

Thank you for your part in filling my Memory bank. I am still depositing.

Remember the five simple rules to be happy:

Free your heart from hatred.
Free your mind from worries.
Live simply.
Give more.
Expect less.

Have a happy weekend everyone. :)

Hazardous Materials Data Sheet

2004-08-19T07:00:00.000+08:00

TAO

2004-08-16T14:00:00.000+08:00

t a o

t a e

SANLIBONG BUHAY

2004-08-14T18:45:00.000+08:00

Jandi Arboleda
Manoling Francisco

Sanlibo man aking buhay
Bawat isa'y ilalaan
Sa Diyos at bayan kong mahal
'Sasanggalang inyong dangal

Isugo mo kahit saan
Hamakin man ako't saktan
Dalanagin ko'y maging tapat
Pag-ibig mo ang sasapat

Sanlibo man aking buhay
Sanlibo ring iaalay
Sanlibo kong kamatayan
Sa palad mo ilalaan.

THE SERVANT SONG
Richard Gillard

Will you let me be your servant,
Let me be as Christ to you;
Pray that I may have the grace to
Let you be my servant, too.

We are pilgrims on a journey,
We are trav'lers on the road;
We are here to help each other,
Walk the mile and bear the load.

I will hold the Christ light for you
In the nighttime of your fear;
I will hold my hand out to you,
Speak the peace you long to hear,

I will weep when you are weeping;
When you laugh I'll laugh with you.
I will share your joy and sorrow
'Til we've seen this journey through.

When we sing to God in heaven
We shall find such harmony,
Born of all we've known together
Of Christ's love and agony,

STELLA MARIS
Silvino Borres, SJ
Manoling Francisco, SJ

Kung itong aming paglalayag
Inabot ng pagkabagabag
Nawa'y mabanaagan ka
Hinirang na tala ng umaga

Kahit alon man ng pangamba
Di alintana sapagkat naro'n Ka
Ni unos ng pighati
At kadiliman ng gabi

KORO:
Maria sa puso ninuman
Ika'y tala ng kalangitan
Ningning mo ay walang pagmamaliw
Inang sinta Inang ginigiliw

Tanglawan kami aming ina
Sa kalangitan naming pita
Nawa'y maging hantungang
Pinakamimithing kaharian (KORO)

BREAD FOR THE WORLD
Bernadette Farrell

Bread for the world
A world of hunger
Wine for all peoples
People who thirst
May we who eat
Be bread for others
May we who drink
Pour out our lives

1.
Lord Jesus Christ
You are the bread of life
Broken to reach and
Heal the wounds of human pain
Where we divide your people
You are waiting there
On bended knee to wash our feet
With endless care

2.
Lord Jesus Christ
You are the wine of peace
Poured into hearts once broken
And where dryness sleeps
When we are tired and weary
You are waiting there
To be the way which beckons us
Beyond despair

3.
Lord Jesus Christ
You call us to your feast
At which the rich and pow'rful
Have become the least
Where we survive on others
In our human greed
You walk among us
Begging for your every need

Eres tú (You are)

2004-08-05T20:00:00.000+08:00

You are like a promise. Yes you are. Yes you are.
You are like a summer morning. You are like a smile.
Yes like that. You're like that.

You are all my hope. Yes you are. Yes you are.
You are like rain fresh in my hands.
You are like a strong breeze. Yes you are. Yes you are.

You are like the water of my fountain.
You are the fire of my fireplace.
You are like the fire of my bonfire.
You are the wheat of my bread.

You are like my poem . You are like a guitar in the night.
You are my whole horizon. Yes you are. Yes you are.

You are like the water of my fountain.
You are the fire of my fireplace.
You are like the fire of my bonfire
You are the wheat of my bread.

You are...

Como una promesa, eres tú, eres tú.
Como una mañana de verano.
Como una sonrisa, eres tú, eres tú.
Así, así, eres tú.

Toda mi esperanza, eres tú, eres tú.
Como lluvia fresca en mis manos
como fuerte brisa, eres tú, eres tú.
Así, así, eres tú.

Eres tú como el agua de mi fuente (algo así eres tú)
Eres tú el fuego de mi hogar
Eres tú como el fuego de mi hoguera
Eres tú el trigo de mi pan.

Como mi poema, eres tú, eres tú.
Como una guitarra en la noche,
todo mi horizonte eres tú, eres tú.
Así, así, eres tú.

Eres tú como el agua de mi fuente (algo así eres tú)
Eres tú el fuego de mi hogar
Eres tú como el fuego de mi hoguera
Eres tú el trigo de mi pan.

Eres tú...

Click here for instrumental.

Click here for vocal sample.

The Art of Letting Go

2004-08-04T02:33:00.000+08:00

These are the questions left unanswered, words left unsaid, letters left unread, poems left unexpressed, promises left unfulfilled..

In a relationship, one of the hardest things to do is saying goodbye ang letting go. It's as hard as breaking a crystal because you'll never know when you'll be able to pick up the pieces again. More often than not, they who go feel not the pain of parting; it is they who stay behind that suffer because they are left with memories of love that was meant to be a love that was...

At the beginning and at the end of a relationship, we are embarrassed to find ourselves alone. Unfair as it may seem, but that's the drama, the bittersweet and the risk of falling in love. After all nothing is constant but change. Everything will eventually come to its end without us knowing when, without us knowing why. And we must forget not because we want to but because we have to...

In letting go, sorrows come not as a single spy but in battalion. It seems that everywhere you go, everything you do, every song you hear, every turn of your head, every move of your body, every beat of your heart, every breath you take always reminds you of her. It's like a stab of a knife, a torture in the night...

Funny how the whole word becomes depopulated when only one person is missing. Just imagine there are four billion people on earth and yet it seems you feel lonely and empty without the other..

I don't know if it's worth calling an art but letting go entails special skills sparkled with a considerable space and time. Time heals wounds but it takes push on your part. Acceptance plays a part. Not all wishes come true. Not all love stories end with "HAPPILY EVER AFTER".

We hate to suffer if it would mean happiness to others. We have to cry to temporarily let go of the pain. Every beginning has its end like every dawn has its dusk. It's something we can't control, something we have to live up with...

It's over, she's gone...But life has to go on. Goodbye doesn't always mean forever. There will always be a place and time where questions will be answered, words will be spoken, letters will be read, poems will be recited in the night, songs will be sung in harmony, love will be expressed in solitude and promises will be fulfilled...

Somewhere...

Someday...

Somehow...

Moving On

2004-08-03T03:30:00.000+08:00

The best part of being in love with someone is being convinced that the person will be with us forever. Most of us start relationships believing in the promise of love without end. Unfortunately, not all relationships end the way we want them to.

To some, love comes in a fleeting moment and goes just as fast. But getting over the feeling always seems to take a lifetime, because the only person who can heal the pain is usually the very same person who had hurt us and who made us cry.

Sometimes just as we are about to accept the failure of our relationship, that person comes back to us and unknowingly destroys our defenses. Suddenly, we find ourselves hooked on love again. And it hurts even more because we know that that person doesn't share the same feeling anymore. Even if there is the urge to forget because it hurts, there would always be that compelling reason to hope for love to come back. It is like waiting for the sun to shine in the middle of a storm.

The love that brings us pain should be the same love that would heal our hearts. When you love so much that it begins to hurt, then you have to learn to let go to lessen your pain. Love hurts, and sometimes it hurts like there is no tomorrow. But there still is and there will always be one. No matter how battered and stricken we have been, there will always be a tomorrow that will bring hope and love. But that TOMORROW WILL NEVER COME UNLESS WE LEAVE THE PAST BEHIND and live today as we should.

Let the pain remain for a while and let the tears fall as they please. Then after all that, MOVE ON, and find your place in this world where you will feel that everything is going to be all right.

Tonight I write the saddest poem

2004-08-02T03:32:00.000+08:00

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's.
As she once belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

--Pablo Neruda

The Da Vinci Code, the Catholic Church, and Opus Dei

2004-08-01T20:20:00.000+08:00

Statement from the
Prelature of Opus Dei
in the United States

30 September 2003

In March of this year Doubleday published Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code. The novel is based on the idea that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that core Christian teachings about the Divinity of Christ and his Resurrection are an ancient fraud.

The Da Vinci Code is a fictional work. Notwithstanding the book's marketing promotion and its pretension to authentic scholarship, the truth is that the novel distorts the historical record about Christianity and the Catholic Church and gives a wholly unrealistic portrayal of the members of Opus Dei and how they live.

For example, The Da Vinci Code presents as fact the absurd notion that the fourth century Roman emperor Constantine invented the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, when in fact the New Testament and the very earliest Christian writings manifest th Christian belief in the divinity of Christ. Likewise, the novel asserts that it was Constantine who chose to include the four Gospels in the Bible, when in fact they had always been recognized as authentic.

The Da Vinci Code likewise gives a bizarre and inaccurate portrayal of the Catholic institution Opus Dei. The numerous inaccuracies range from simple factual errors to outrageous and false depictions of criminal or pathological behavior. For example, the novel depicts members of Opus Dei practicing gruesome corporal mortifications and murdering people, implies that Opus Dei coerces or brainwashes people, suggest that Opus Dei has drugged new members to induce religious experiences, and insinuates that Opus Dei bailed out the Vatican bank in return for its establishment as a personal prelature. All of this is absurd nonsense.

In short, the Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction. Promoting it as anything more would be dishonest to the novel's readers, and disrespectful to the faith of millions of Catholics and other Christians.

Do you remember Loyola?

2004-07-31T15:00:00.000+08:00

St. Ignatius of Loyola that is. Today the Jesuit community (or at least, the more commonly known Jesuits since the Chinese community also have their own Jesuit branch) commemorates the feastday of its founding father with a solemn Mass at the Ateneo High School covered courts. Reflecting, it dawned upon me that I really do not know the man. Well, I see his statue infront of the the St. Ignatius Chapel inside Camp Aguinaldo. It is widely known that the founded the Society of Jesuit, the Jesuits who in turned came up with a school like Ateneo. But other than that, I think I got myself more concerned with what the present day Jesuits and Jesuit institutions are doing rather than what he did.

So I researched a little and here's what I found. He was a royal bad boy at the start, overly conscious of his looks particularly with his hair and his clothes, obsessed in winning glory. He got commissioned into the army and by ill-fate had a cannonball damaged his leg. While lonely recupering in his sick bed, he got bored and asked for books on chivalry nourishing his dreams of glory. The only books available were the lives of Christ and the saint. Having no choice, he read them. Then he started reading them with the same quasi-competitive spirit with which he read the achievements of knights and warriors. He wanted to outdo one in fasting, the other in endurance and another in pilgrimages. However, as he went on, those worldly thoughts began to lose their hold and all that was left was an image of Our Lady with the Holy Child Jesus. At that sight for a notable time he felt a reassuring sweetness, which eventually left him with such a loathing of his past sins, and especially for those of the flesh, that every unclean imagination seemed blotted out from his soul, and never again was there the least consent to any carnal thought. His conversion was now complete. Everyone noticed that he would speak of nothing but spiritual things, and his elder brother begged him not to take any rash or extreme resolution, which might compromise the honor of their family.

Following his self-reform, he travelled or mainly was forced to travel to different places searching for the meaning of his life. Those years were met with trials and tribulations every step of the way. In those years, he held on to two things to help him each step of the way. His constant companionship with the Lord in prayer, as noted down in "The Book of the Spiritual Exercises" and the companions who did not desert him. As a personal note, I think the Society of Jesus prospered as it did because of the companionship of these friends, saintly in their own rights. People such as St. Francis Xavier, St. Stanislaus Kostka, St. John Berchmans and Peter Faber, followed by the Japanese martyrs, Paul Miki, John Goto and James Kisai.

So what makes the Jesuits different from other congregations? Without going in-depth with the constitutions of the Society, this is what I found. When the brotherhoold decided to offer their services to the pope, St. Ignatius suggested that they be called "The Company of Jesus". The term company was taken in its military sense (remnants of being a soldier?) and in those days a company was generally known by its captain's name. In the Latin Bull of foundation, however, they were called "Societas Jesu".

Probably another show of his military background, St. Ignatius suggested in fullness of "The Spiritual Exercises" (the earlier-mentioned spiritual journal of his self-reform) , the person in encouraged to take seclusion from the world he lives in, ordinarily be made once or twice only; but in part (from three to four days) they may be most profitably made annually, and are now commonly called "retreats". Other few points worth mentioning are:

the vow not to accept ecclesiastical dignities;
increased probations. The novitiate is prolonged from one year to two, with a third year, which usually falls after the priesthood. Candidates are moreover at first admitted to simple vows only, solemn vows coming much later on;
the Society does not keep choir;
it does not have a distinctive religious habit;
it does not accept the direction of convents;
it is not governed by a regular triennial chapter;
it is also said to have been the first order to undertake officially and by virtue of its constitutions active works such as the following:
o foreign missions, at the pope's bidding;
o the education of youth of all classes;
o the instruction of the ignorant and the poor;
o ministering to the sick, to prisoners, etc.

In the summer of 1556 the saint was attacked by Roman fever. His doctors did not foresee any serious consequences, but the saint did. On 30 July, 1556, he asked for the last sacraments and the papal blessing, but he was told that no immediate danger threatened. Next morning at daybreak, the infirmarian found him lying in peaceful prayer, so peaceful that he did not at once perceive that the saint was actually dying. When his condition was realized, the last blessing was given, but the end came before the holy oils could be fetched. Perhaps he had prayed that his death, like his life, might pass without any demonstration. He was beatified by Paul V on 27 July, 1609, and canonized by Gregory XV on 22 May, 1622. His body lies under the altar designed by Pozzi in the Gesù.

Condensed from CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: St. Ignatius Loyola

Love is Patient

2004-07-23T11:20:00.000+08:00

St Paul places "love is patient" way ahead of all other virtues like kindness, compassion, courtesy, generosity and humility. Why does St Paul stress that patience is the first and foremost definition of love? Has St Paul got it all wrong? Is love possible without patience? Is patience all that important?
In our fast paced modern life, we have to complete our projects ahead of competitors. We carry this behavior trait back to our family and we are impatient when we do not get our way. We expect our spouse to cater to us immediately after one reminder or two. When we don't get what we want and at the time desired, we become irritated or angry. But being patient means allowing, accommodating and accepting the other person's ideas, values, personality and mannerism. So we need to constantly remind ourselves: "Am I loving when I don't accommodate my spouse's ways? Do I show love when I don't accept my spouse's point of view?" We know for certain that we do not practice love at that particular moment since a loving heart is a patient heart.

Little things inevitably happen in our lives and in our homes. Misunderstanding and conflict come to every home. During such moments, we get angry and sulk. We tend to blame: Why must I suffer the hurt and tantrum? Why should I bear the injury? Why must I endure the accusation? Why should I accept the slight? But, for any family relationship to flourish we need patience to humbly resolve the conflict. And, patience means accepting, bearing, enduring, over-looking, suffering the slights, shortcomings, blame, accusation, tantrums, injuries and hurts, without retaliation. Thus we must regularly ask: "Am I spending time to patiently cultivate the family relationship? Have I been patient to grow our relationship? Do I neglect to improve our relationship because I am impatient?

         So how do we cultivate this most vital definition of love by St Paul? In order to be able to develop this loving patience we have to learn to forgive readily and endlessly. As Mother Teresa said, "if we really want to love, we must learn to forgive before anything else . " (One heart full of love, 113) "We must make our homes centers of compassion and forgive endlessly. " ("A Gift for God", 18) St Paul says, "Be tolerant with one another and forgive one another whenever any one of you has a complaint against someone else. "(Colossians 3:13)

        The passages below are taken from the book, "Our Lady says: Love People" by Rev. Albert Joseph Mary Shamon.

Love Is Patient (1 Corinthians. 13:4)
         The Greek word Paul uses for patience is makrothumei. This word means patience with people, not patience with circumstances, like sickness, poverty, or death.
         Paul was writing to the Corinthians--to people who needed to have patience with other people. Therefore, to his classic description of love, we can add a preposition plus people to each of his 14 descriptive words for love. Thus, love is patient--with people; love is kind--to people; love is not jealous--of people, etc.
         Charlie Brown once said: "Mankind I love; people I hate. " But it is people we have to contend with. When people get close together, there is bound to be personality friction, for no two persons are alike. Rub two pieces of wood together, and you will have fire. Put people together under the same roof, in the same office or in the same parish or in the same house, like husband and wife, parents and children, and you will have plenty of fuel for a good fight.
         A feuding married couple went to a priest for counseling. The priest sat at his desk, and the couple sat opposite him, and a cat and dog sat placidly by the desk. When the priest had finished his counseling, he concluded with these words: "Joe and Mary, why can't you get along like this cat and dog?" Joe quipped, "Father, tie them together and see how long they'll stay that way."
         As cars need a lubricant to keep parts that rub against other parts, like the pistons in the motor, from freezing fast, so people need a lubricant to keep them living smoothly together. That lubricant is the virtue of patience. Our blessed Lord asked us to imitate His patience. "Learn from me, " He said, "for I am gentle and humble of heart" (Matt. 11:29). Our Lord, as far as we know, never had any physical ailments. He did not have to put up with bodily sickness. But He had to put up with people.
         People afflict us in two different ways: some afflict us unwittingly, and some afflict us by their behavior. I often think of how hard it must have been for Our Lord to have had only the apostles for companions. He was the Word of God, divine intelligence. They were illiterate fisherman; goodwilled, indeed, but often so obtuse when it came to understanding Him. Right up to the night before He died, He did not seem to get through to them. To Philip He said, "After I have been with you all this time, you still do not know me?" (John 14:9). The same misunderstanding surfaced again after the Last Supper when He was talking to them about their mission, So, with divine patience, Jesus finally says, "Enough" (Luke 22:38). Always, He was so gentle with them, for "love is patient. "
        How often we may have thought that the people around us are stupid or do stupid things. Have you ever said, "He or she drives me up a wall!" "He or she means well, but they get on my nerves." Or you complain, "Why they would make holy Job lose his patience." You are really losing yours when you so think.
        Then there are other people who afflict us just by their behavior. They are arrogant, self-righteous, judgmental, like the Pharisee in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax-collector (Luke 18:9-14). They look down on others, are snobbish, condemn others, spurn them, speak evil against them. That was the way most scribes and Pharisees treated Jesus.
         He could have hit back, but He did not. And that is what patience really is.
         Patience means accepting, enduring, suffering (that is where the word came from: patiens means "suffering") the slights, injuries, hurts inflicted by people--suffering them for the love of
God.
       What makes patience a virtue is its motive: love of God. ''Love is patient," that is, true Christian patience has to be an expression of love, of love of God.

A salesman puts up with all kinds of abuse--just to make a sale.

Indians used to endure frightful tortures--just to become "a brave,"
Stoics suppressed their feelings--just to be considered "manly."
Such endurance may be laudable, but it is not necessarily virtuous.

         "Love is patient," that is, true patience must be an expression of love, of love of God. It is that motive which makes all endurance a virtue. It is not what we do that counts, but why; not the mountains we move, but the motives that impel us to move them.
         True Christian patience puts up with others just as God puts up with us. He lets His sun shine on good and bad alike and His rain fall on the just and the unjust. (Matthew 5:45). With God there is no favoritism (Romans 2:11).
         Christian love must be like that. God loves all and always has their highest good at heart. Our Lady at Medjugorje repeatedly answered, when asked about her love for a particular people or nation, that she is the Mother of all and loves all and wills the salvation of all peoples. Christian patience must be like that--an expression of a love that is Godlike and Marylike.
         We need patience just to survive--for people are people. Some will be inconsiderate, some will be downright mean and selfish. And we shall inevitably run into such people. Their meanness and inconsideration could make us sad, depressed or discouraged. If we let that happen, life for us will come to a standstill. "'Sorrow, " said Paul, "brings death" (2 Corinthians 7:10). Sirach said it does no good to yield to it (30:23). Shakespeare called sorrow the enemy of life.
         Patience, on the contrary, does not just endure hurts and injuries; rather it embraces them with love and so sucks out the venom in them. Instead of sorrow, there is joy--joy in knowing that evil has been turned into good.
       Without patience we will not survive in life. I remember flying from Chicago to Kansas City one summer. It was the bumpiest ride I ever had. The wings flapped like a seal before breakfast. I thought the plane would fall apart. Later, I learned that elasticity had been built into the wings on purpose. Had the wings been rigid and inflexible, the sudden stresses and strains from wind and air pockets would have snapped them.
         On their drawing boards, engineers call this give and take "tolerance." Tolerance is the amount of stress a wing can take before it snaps.
         What engineers build into the cold end of an aluminum wing, we must build into our hearts. How many homes have been broken up, because there is no tolerance---no give or take, no patience.
          Aesop has a fable titled, "The Oak and the Reed." In a mighty storm the proud Oak said, "I will not bend before the wind." Then a sudden strong gust of wind came and uprooted the unbending Oak. As the Oak lay prostrate on the ground, it saw a tiny reed swaying in the storm. The Oak asked, "How is it that I who am so mighty have been uprooted, whereas you who are so frail still stand in the storm?'' The Reed answered, ''I give in a little to the wind." How often just to give in, to say, "I'm sorry," has saved many a relationship.
         Patience is not weakness; it is not becoming a door mat. It is an experience of such great love that it wins over people. No person ever treated Abraham Lincoln with greater contempt than Edwin Stanton. He called Lincoln a "low cunning clown." He nicknamed him "the original gorilla." Lincoln said nothing. Instead, when he needed a Secretary of War, Lincoln appointed Stanton, because he was the best man for the job. He treated Stanton with every courtesy.
         The years wore on. The night came when Lincoln was assassinated. The body of the murdered President was taken to a little room. That night, Stanton looked down on the face of Lincoln in all its ruggedness; and, through tears, Stanton said: "There lies the greatest ruler of men the world has ever seen. " The patience of love had conquered in the end.
         It is only patience that will help people become better than they are and make us better than we are.
         Like the shaft of water hitting the turbines at Niagara making them move, so love not striking back moves people toward God and toward one another.

I do not want
   The bravery of those
Who, gun in hand,
   Rush forth to slay their foes.
Not hatred, greed,
   Or glory of conquest,
Would I find rooted
   In my human breast.
But this, 0 God, I ask:
   "Please make me strong
To offer love to those
  Who do me wrong."  (5-10)

The Raven

2004-07-15T17:00:00.000+08:00

by Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door;
Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore,.
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore,
Nameless here forevermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me---filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
" 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door,
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door.
This it is, and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is, I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you." Here I opened wide the door;---
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word,
Lenore?, This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word,
"Lenore!" Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than before,
"Surely," said I, "surely, that is something at my window lattice.
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore.
Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore.
" 'Tis the wind, and nothing more."

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven, of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door.
Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door,
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly shore.
Tell me what the lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore."
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door,
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."

But the raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered;
Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before;
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore,---
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "Never---nevermore."

But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore --
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl, whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee -- by these angels he hath
Sent thee respite---respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore!"

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--
On this home by horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore:
Is there--is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me I implore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil--prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore--
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name Lenore---
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore?
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting--
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! -- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming.
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted---nevermore!

Fly like an Eagle ( Even if you feel like a Chicken)

2004-07-12T01:00:00.000+08:00

Speech to the Graduating Class of 2004
Stanford University
June 12, 2004

Terry Karl Gildred
Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Political Science
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

President Hennessey, Provost Etchemendy, Trustees, parents, and most especially graduates, thank you for the honor of inviting me to speak to you. In the midst of your celebration, I ask you to pause -- for these are serious times. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, anti-apartheid hero and head of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, tells a story (which inspired this talk) about a farmer who raised chickens in his backyard. Amongst this farmer's chickens, there was one that looked a little odd. It behaved like a chicken. It walked like a chicken. It pecked away like a chicken. One day a wise woman came along and said to the farmer: "You know, that isn't a chicken. It is an eagle." The farmer said: "No way. That is a chicken." And he looked at the odd bird and said: "Don't get any fancy ideas. You are a chicken."

"I don't think so," said the wise woman. She picked up the strange looking chicken, climbed up the nearest mountain, stood at the edge of a precipice, and waited until sunrise. Then she turned the bird towards the sun and said:"You are an eagle. You can soar. You can change your world. Go fly."

The strange looking chicken shook itself and tentatively spread its wings. It looked up at the sky. It looked down -- way down -- to the bottom of the precipice. It took a few steps back in the direction of the other chickens, where it had been so comfortable, where it had a daily routine and food to eat. "Sorry," it said to the wise woman: "I don't feel like an eagle. I feel like a chicken. And I don't think I can fly."

"That's your choice," the wise woman said softly. "But remember, you are responsible for the decisions you make. If you don't dare to fly, you will never be fully alive. You will never reach the sky. Even if you feel like a chicken, fly like an eagle."

That "strange chicken" comes to mind every time there is a choice between taking an easy path or making a trail where there is no road. After completing my doctorate at Stanford, I conducted research in El Salvador's civil war in the 1980s. Military leaders repeatedly assured me that their army did not commit human rights abuses. But the testimony of countless others told a different story. Salvadorans described how they had been hooded or blindfolded for days; deprived of sleep, food, and water; beaten and shocked; raped and forced to watch the torture and murder of others.

At El Mozote, a massacre site where a forensic team would later dig up the bodies of over 100 children under the age of 12, a peasant woman approached me. "You are American. You are powerful. You will find out who is responsible for this." That night, flying back to the United States, I railed against that woman. "Powerful? A general is powerful. A president is powerful. I am five feet tall. I am a woman from Missouri. I don't have tenure. I am not powerful."

Now, fast forward two decades to a South Florida courtroom, in June 2002,where two Salvadoran generals living in the U.S., Generals Jose Guillermo Garcia and Eugenio Vides Casanova, stood on trial, charged with responsibility as their country's top commanders for the abuse of Salvadoran civilians. Three survivors of torture brought the courtroom to tears as they testified about what had happened to them. One of them, Carlos Mauricio, honors us with his presence today.

As the expert witness in this trial - a trial that few believed would ever take place and even fewer believed could be won -- I documented how the actions these generals had taken (and the actions that they had failed to take) were interpreted down the chain of command as a "green light" to commit torture. Thus these men should be held responsible for crimes committed against Salvadoran civilians.

In their defense, the generals denied their responsibility. They were fighting terrorism. They could not be expected to control the actions of all their soldiers. They were not present when prisoners were humiliated, abused and murdered, and they were not the actual torturers. So why, they asked the jury, were they on trial for what a few "bad apples" had done?

Because the law demands it.

The doctrine of "command responsibility," the product of an American initiative enshrined in law since the Nuremberg Statutes after World War II, affirms that civilian and military leaders may be held legally accountable for abuses committed by their subordinates -- even when these commanders did not personally order abuses, witness such abuses, have direct knowledge about them or conspire to commit them. This law recognizes the tremendous danger of abuse inherent in war and, in tribute to the awful sacrifices of the Holocaust and those who died in two world wars, it places the moral worth of each and every person at the center of our international order. Rather than permit leaders to turn a blind eye to abuse, it charges both military and civilian authorities with an affirmative duty to prevent crimes, to control their troops, to act when a crime is discovered, and to punish those found guilty of committing the actual crime - no matter how high responsibility may reach in the chain of command.

Thus, a Florida jury found these once powerful Salvadoran generals responsible for gross human rights abuses. In an historic and precedent-setting ruling, a jury of ordinary people reaffirmed the doctrine of command responsibility in an American court. Their verdict, covered in every major newspaper and widely televised around the world, sent a powerful signal. It warned murderers, torturers and dictators to think twice before retiring to the United States. And it demonstrated that, at our best, America's freedoms and the energies of people like our lawyers, researchers, translators - people just like you --can be harnessed to transcend national borders and to hold even the most powerful to account for their actions against the vulnerable.

Which brings me back to the precipice where we left the strange chicken.

Our country is at the edge of a precipice. Regardless of how the situation in Iraq finally plays itself out, we are in the midst of one of the greatest and most intractable global crises of modern times. 9/11 was an earthquake in the psyche of America, and flying airplanes into buildings where people work is a crime against humanity. But the behavior depicted in the terrible photos of the hooded Iraqi led around on a leash and the 37 homicides of prisoners in U.S. detention now under investigation are also criminal acts. While the numbers may not be the same and the circumstances are different, U.S. law and international law are clear: both are crimes against humanity.

The simple truth, whether we like to hear it or not, is that since the attacks of September 11, 2001, officials of the United States, from Afghanistan to Guantanamo to Iraq, have been torturing prisoners. They have done this with the institutional approval of the U.S. government advised by memoranda from the President's own counsel, with official declarations aimed at side-stepping the historic safeguards of the Geneva Conventions, and with actual written policies permitting the use of "moderate physical force" - policies that violate rulings by our courts, the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court, and the Supreme Court of Israel. By the military's own calculation, an estimated 80 percent of prisoners subjected to this treatment are innocent of any wrongdoing.

No amount of military power will make up for what we lose if the world at large believes that, despite our years of rhetorical support for rights and democracy, we are prepared to compromise them the moment our own lives become threatened. The dreadful story told by these photographs (and we have not seen the worst of them) has done enormous damage to our moral standing, our strategic power, and our spirit.

Today much of the world believes that there is a difference between what Americans claim to stand for and what we actually do in the world. According to a 19 nation poll released last week, a majority now thinks that the United States is having a negative influence on the world; only 37 percent judge our country as having a "positive influence." Listen to the countries polled: Canada, Chile, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Uruguay and Italy -- and yes, the United States itself. This is an enormous change from the days after September 11 when a French newspaper proclaimed: "We are all Americans."

Today, we stand more alone in the world than we ever have.

This decline in our reputation is a decline in our security. We live"unavoidably side by side, " Kant said two hundred years ago. But even this great philosopher could not have imagined how enmeshed nations and peoples have become today. Thus what happens in one part of the world -- the dramatic increase in poverty and inequality, the failure to address the terrible consequences of global warming, the catastrophe of AIDS, the nineteen civil wars currently active, the persistence of oil-related crises mixed to dangerous combustion with religious or ethnic conflict in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Chad and Indonesia -- these will blow back on us. Global problems, no matter how remote they appear, will increasingly affect everything in our daily lives -- from the imperative transition from a fossil fuel energy system(which will happen in our lifetime), to the air we breathe, to the diseases we face, to the safety of the cities we inhabit.

These problems cannot be solved with military might alone. They cannot be solved within our borders. And they cannot be solved without friends.

Thus we must address the damage that has been done in our name - no matter how far up the chain of command this requires. For our spirit and our security, we must demonstrate that we are a nation of law, democracy, and decency. We must show the world that we will apply, at the very least, the same standards to our own leaders as we have to Salvadoran generals.

Which brings me to you - the "strange birds "of 2004.

This is your precipice. What will you do about it? What will you do to awaken in yourselves and others a new sense of responsibility for our country and for this world? How will you fight to make your leaders conduct themselves as if they were going to live on this earth forever and be held accountable for its condition?

The question is not whether you will be chickens or eagles. You have no choice. You are living in the most powerful country in the world. You are graduating from one of the best universities in the world. Tomorrow you will hold a certificate that does much to ensure your place among the most fortunate of this world. But just as that Salvadoran woman in El Mozote once put it to me, I shall put it to you: You are eagles. The choice you face is whether you will dare to fly.

Survey data on your generation as a whole is not very promising. It says that you are primarily interested in acquisition, that you define yourself in terms of possessions rather than "goods of the soul." You are self-interested and care little for developing a moral code, much less for assuming some type of global political responsibility. You do not want to be eagles at all, we are told, but rather successful chickens in a very well ordered barnyard.

At Stanford our experience is different. Here students work on women's health in Afghanistan and Chiapas, democracy in China and Kyrgyzstan, and war crimes in Rwanda the Hague. Students build schools in Central America, assist AIDS orphans in South Africa, develop medicines for low income countries, test development strategies, provide education programs for inner-city kids, create a journal to promote human rights and volunteer in virtually every community service organization imaginable. Yet some of these very same students are reluctant to show that they are not simply hard-nosed realists or self-interested balancers of costs and benefits. It is almost as if they hear whispering in their ears the German poet Holderlin, who wrote around 1800 an essay entitled Good Advice. Listen to advice: "If you have brains and a heart, show only one or the other. You will not get credit for either should you show both at once."

This isn't good advice at all.

Your university years have been defined by two distinct crimes against humanity - September 11 and torture in Iraq. Whatever their differences (and they are different), the lesson from these two crimes is the same: our own security is intimately bound up with our ability to use both our hearts and our brains, to empathize as well as analyze. Crimes like 9/11 or the torture of Iraqi prisoners can only occur when the victims are defined as something less than human; they can only be portrayed as permissible when all lives are not valued equally. Their prevention rests on our capacity to affirm the principles of equal respect, and to expand, not contract, human rights protections both at home and abroad.

Being an eagle means becoming citizens who are not simply Americans but who are citizens of this earth. It means raising, not lowering, the bar.

We are at a turning point. For all of you who feel helpless, who despair, who are cynical and who do not feel like eagles, remember this. "There are only two kinds of people who tell you that you cannot change the world: those who are afraid to try themselves, and more importantly, those who are afraid that you may succeed."

Instead, think of Margaret Mead's well-known phrase: "Never say that the actions of one, two or three ordinary people cannot change the world. It is the only thing that does." Think of Carlos Mauricio, who faced down an abuser. Think of all those people who give a piece of themselves every day, who speak out against the brutality they see, who try to stop impoverishment and the despoiling of our environment, and who understand that ultimately the world cannot be peaceful if some have far too much and others far too little. Take inspiration from these eagles.

Shake yourselves, spread your wings and lift off. Whether you run a business or a community organization, a clinic or a school, assume responsibility for the long-range prospects of our country and our troubled earth. Aim high for a world without war and without genocide, a world of respect for all, a world that is far greater than the one we are handing to you. Because, as Eleanor Roosevelt said, "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

Congratulations! , and may you fly!

SEE ME ! HEAR ME !

2004-07-11T07:11:00.000+08:00

The hearing part may take a little bit of time...kindly wait ?

An Interesting Conversation

2004-07-10T16:20:00.000+08:00

An atheist professor of philosophy speaks to his class on the problem science has with God, the Almighty. He asks one of his new Christian students to stand and.....

Professor: You are a Christian, aren't you, son?
Student : Yes, sir.
Prof: So you believe in God?
Student : Absolutely, sir.
Prof: Is God good?
Student : Sure.
Prof: Is God all-powerful?
Student : Yes.
Prof: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God didn't. How is this God good then? Hmm?

Student is silent.

Prof: You can't answer, can you? Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?
Student : Yes.
Prof: Is Satan good?
Student : No.
Prof: Where does Satan come from?
Student : From...God...
Prof: That's right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student : Yes.
Prof: Evil is everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything. Correct
Student : Yes.
Prof: So who created evil? (Student does not answer.)
Prof: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don't they?
Student :Yes, sir.
Prof: So, who created them? (Student has no answer.)
Prof: Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son...Have you ever seen God?
Student: No, sir.
Prof: Tell us if you have ever heard your God?
Student : No , sir.
Prof: Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelt your God? Have you ever had any sensory perception of God for that matter?
Student: No, sir. I'm afraid I haven't.
Prof: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student : Yes.
Prof: According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your GOD doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student: Nothing. I only have my faith.
Prof: Yes. Faith. And that is the problem science has.

Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Prof: Yes.
Student : And is there such a thing as cold?
Prof: Yes.
Student : No sir. There isn't. (The lecture theatre becomes very quiet with this turn of events.)
Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don't have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it. (There is pin-drop silence in the lecture theatre.)
Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Prof: Yes. What is night if there isn't darkness?
Student : You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light....But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? In reality, darkness isn't. If it were you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?
Prof: So what is the point you are making, young man?
Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Prof: Flawed? Can you explain how?
Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?
Prof: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.
Student: Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir? (The Professor shakes his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument is going.)
Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavour, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher? (The class is in uproar.)
Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor's brain? (The class breaks out into laughter.)
Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor's brain, felt it, touched or smelt it?.....No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?
(The room is silent. The professor stares at the student, his face unfathomable.)
Prof: I guess you'll have to take them on faith, son.
Student : That is it sir.. The link between man & god is FAITH. That is all that keeps things moving & alive.

Why Women Cry

2004-07-09T13:15:00.000+08:00

A little boy asked his mother, "Why are you crying?" "Because I'm a woman," she told him.

"I don't understand," he said. His Mom just hugged him and said, "And you never will."

Later the little boy asked his father, "Why does mother seem to cry for no reason?"

"All women cry for no reason," was all his dad could say.

The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why women cry.

Finally he asked God. He said, "God, why do women cry so easily?"

God said:

" When I made the woman she had to be special. I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world, yet gentle enough to give comfort.

I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that many times comes from her children.

I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going when everyone else gives up, and take care of her family through sickness and fatigue without complaining.

I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all circumstances, even when her child has hurt her very badly.

I gave her strength to carry her husband through his faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart.

I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife, but sometimes tests her
strengths and her resolve to stand beside him unfalteringly.

And finally, I gave her a tear to shed. This is hers exclusively to use whenever it is needed."

"You see my son," said God, "the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure
that she carries, or the way she combs her hair.

The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart - the place where love resides."

A Daily Prayer

2004-07-08T00:06:00.000+08:00

Dear Lord, I thank You for this day.
I thank You for my being able to see and to hear this morning.
I'm blessed because You are a forgiving God and an understanding God.
You have done so much for me and You keep on blessing me.
Forgive me this day for everything I have done, said or thought that was not pleasing to you.
I ask now for Your forgiveness.

Please keep me safe from all danger and harm.
Help me to start this day with a new attitude and plenty of gratitude.
Let me make the best of each and every day
to clear my mind so that I can hear from You.

Please broaden my mind that I can accept all things.
Let me not whine and whimper over things I have no control over.
Let me continue to see sin through God's eyes and acknowledge it as evil.
And when I sin, let me repent, and confess with
my mouth my wrongdoing, and receive the forgiveness of God.

And when this world closes in on me,
let me remember Jesus' example - to slip away and find a quiet place to pray.
It's the best response when I'm pushed beyond my limits.
I know that when I can't pray, You listen to my heart.
Continue to use me to do Your will.

Continue to bless me that I may be a blessing to others.
Keep me strong that I may help the weak.
Keep me uplifted that I may have words of encouragement for others.
I pray for those that are lost and can't find their way.
I pray for those that are misjudged and misunderstood.
I pray for those who don't know You intimately.
I pray for those that will ignore this without sharing it with others.
I pray for those that don't believe. And I thank you that I believe.

I believe that God changes people and God changes things.
I pray for all my sisters and brothers.
For each and every family member in their households.
I pray for peace, love and joy in their homes that
they are out of debt and all their needs are met.

I pray that every eye that reads this knows there is no
problem, circumstance, or situation greater than God.
Every battle is in Your hands for You to fight. I pray that these words
be received into the hearts of every eye that sees them
and every mouth that confesses them willingly.

This is my prayer.
In Jesus' Name, Amen.

IRIS

2004-07-06T18:00:00.000+08:00

And I'd give up forever to touch you
'Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home right now
And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
'Cause sooner or later it's over
I just don't want to miss you tonight

And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything feels like the movies
And you bleed just to know you're alive

And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am

- Goo Goo Dolls

Disturb us, O Lord

2004-07-06T05:30:00.000+08:00

Disturb us, O Lord
when we are too well-pleased with ourselves;
when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little;
when we have arrived in safety because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, O Lord
when with the abundance of things we possess
we have lost our thirst for the water of Life;
when, having fallen in love with Time,
we have ceased to dream of Eternity;
and in our efforts to build the new earth
have allowed our vision for the New Heaven to grow dim.

Stir us, O Lord
to dare more boldly,
to venture on wider seas,
where storms shall show thy mastery,
where losing sight of land we shall find the stars.

In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes
and invited the brave to follow Him..

AMEN

"When everything's made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am."

The Three Trees

2004-06-30T23:33:00.000+08:00

Once there were three trees on a hill in the woods. They were discussing their hopes and dreams when the first tree said, "Someday, I hope to be a treasure chest. I could be filled with gold, silver and precious gems and be decorated with intricate carvings. Everyone would see my beauty."

The second tree said, "Someday, I will be a mighty ship. I will take kings and queens across the waters and sail to the corners of other world. Everyone will feel safe in me because of the strength of my hull. "

Finally, the third tree said, "I want to grow to be the tallest and straightest tree in the forest. People will see me on top of the hill and look up to my branches, and think of the heavens and God and how close to them I am reaching. I will be the greatest tree of all time, and people will always remember me."

After a few years of praying that their dreams would come true, a group of woodsmen came upon the trees. One came to the first tree and said, "This looks like a strong tree, I think I should be able to sell the wood to a carpenter," and he began cutting it down. The tree was happy, because he knew that the carpenter would make him into a treasure chest.

At the second tree, one of the other woodsman said,"This looks like a strong tree. I should be able to sell it to the shipyard." The second tree was happy, because he knew he was on his way to becoming mighty ship.

When the woodsmen came upon the third tree, the tree was frightened, because it knew that, if it was cut down, its dreams would not come true. One of the woodsmen said, "I don't need anything special from my tree, so I'll take this one," and he cut it down.

When the first tree arrived at the carpenter's, he was made into a feed box for animals, placed in a barn and filled with hay. This was not at all what he had prayed for. The second tree was cut and made into a small fishing boat. His dreams of being a mighty ship and carrying kings had come to an end. The third tree was cut into large pieces and left alone in the dark. The years went by, and the trees forgot about their dreams.

Then one day, a man and woman came to the barn. She gave birth, and they placed the baby in the hay in the feed was made from the first tree. The man wished that he could have made a crib for the baby, but this manger would have to do. The tree could feel the importance of this event and knew that it had held the greatest treasure of all time.

Years later, a group of men got in the fishing boat made from the second tree. One of them was tired and went to sleep. While they were out on the water, a great storm arose, and the tree didn't think it was strong enough to keep the men safe. The men woke the sleeping man, and he stood and said "Peace," and the storm stopped. At this time, the tree knew that it had carried the King of Kings in its boat.

Finally, someone came and got the third tree. It was carried through the streets, and the crowd mocked the man who was carrying it. Finally, the man was nailed to the tree and raised in the air to die at the top of a hill. When Sunday came, the tree came to realize that it was strong enough to stand at the top of the hill and be as close to God as was possible, because Jesus had been crucified on it.

The moral of this story is that, when things don't seem to be going your way, always know that God has a plan for you. If you place your trust in Him, He will give you great gifts. Each of the trees got what they wanted, just not in the way they had imagined. We don't always know what God's plans are for us. We just know that His ways are not our ways, but His ways are always best.

Farewell Mass of Bishop Soc Villegas at EDSA Shrine before his transfer to Balanga, Bataan (June 30, 2004 8pm Mass)

Natural Highs

2004-06-29T06:00:00.000+08:00

Sometimes, we just need to be reminded ...

1) Falling in love.

2) Laughing so hard your face hurts.

3) A hot shower.

4) No lines at the supermarket

5) A special glance.

6) Getting mail

7) Taking a drive on a pretty road.

8) Hearing your favorite song on the radio.

9) Lying in bed listening to the rain outside.

10) Hot towels fresh out of the dryer.

11) Finding the shirt you want is on sale for half price.

12) Chocolate milkshake. (or vanilla!) (or strawberry)

13) A long distance phone call.

14) A bubble bath.

15) Giggling.

16) A good conversation.

17) The beach

18) Finding a 20 peso note in your rain jacket.

19) Laughing at yourself.

20) Midnight phone calls that last for hours.

21) Running through sprinklers.

22) Laughing for absolutely no reason at all.

23) Having someone tell you that you're beautiful.

24) Laughing at an inside joke.

25) Friends.

26) Accidentally overhearing someone say something nice about you.

27) Waking up and realizing you still have a few hours left to sleep.

28) Your first kiss (either the very first or with a new partner).

29) Making new friends or spending time with old ones.

30) Playing with a new puppy.

31) Having someone play with your hair.

32) Sweet dreams.

33) Hot chocolate.

34) Road trips with friends.

35) Swinging on swings.

36) Wrapping presents under the Christmas tree while eating cookies
and drinking your favorite tipple.

37) Song lyrics printed inside your new CD so you can sing along without
feeling stupid.

38) Going to a really good concert.

39) Making eye contact with a cute stranger

40) Winning a really competitive game.

41) Making chocolate chip cookies.....

42) Tuyo, itlog na pula and sinangag

43) Spending time with close friends.

44) Seeing smiles and hearing laughter from your friends.

45) Holding hands with someone you care about.

46) Running into an old friend and realizing that some things
(good or bad) never change

47) Riding the best roller coasters over and over.

48) Watching the expression on someone's face as they open
a much desired present from you.

49) Watching the sunrise.

50) Getting out of bed every morning and being grateful
for another beautiful day.

God Lives Under the Bed

2004-06-26T00:30:00.000+08:00

My brother Kevin thinks God lives under his bed. At least that's what I heard him say one night. He was praying out loud in his dark bedroom. And I stopped outside his closed door to listen. "Are you there,God?" he said.

"Where are you? Oh, I see. Under the bed."

I giggled softly and tiptoed off to my own room. Kevin's unique perspectives are often a source of amusement. But that night something else lingered long after the humor. I realized for the first time the very different world Kevin lives in.

He was born 30 years ago, mentally disabled as a result of difficulties during labor. Apart from his size (he's 6-foot-2), there are few ways in which he is an adult. He reasons and communicates with the capabilities of a 7-year-old, and he always will. He will probably always believe that God lives under his bed and that airplanes stay up in the sky because angels carry them. I remember wondering if Kevin realizes he is different.

Is he ever dissatisfied with his monotonous life? Up before dawn each day, off to work at a workshop for the disabled, home to walk our cocker spaniel, return to eat his favorite macaroni-and-cheese for dinner, and later to bed.

The only variation in the entire scheme are laundry, when he hovers excitedly over the washing machine like a mother with her newborn child.

He does not seem dissatisfied. He lopes out to the bus every morning at 7:05,eager for a day of simple work. He wrings his hands excitedly while the water boils on the stove before dinner, and he stays up late twice a week to gather our dirty laundry for his next day's laundry chores.

And Saturdays-hothead bliss of Saturdays! That's the day my Dad takes Kevin to the airport to have a soft drink, watch the planes land, and speculate loudly on the destination of each passenger inside. "That one's goin' to Chi-car-go!" Kevin shouts as he claps his! hands. His anticipation is so great he can hardly sleep on Friday nights.

And so goes his world of daily rituals and weekend field trips. He doesn't know what it means to be discontent. His life is simple. He will never know the entanglements of wealth or power, and he does not care what brand of clothing he wears or what kind of food he eats. His needs have always been met, and he never worries that one day they may not be. His hands are diligent. Kevin is never so happy as when he is working. When he unloads the dishwasher or vacuums the carpet, his heart is completely in it.

He does not shrink from a job when it is begun, and he does not leave a job until it is finished. But when his tasks are done, Kevin knows how to relax. He is not obsessed with his work or the work of others. His heart is pure.

He still believes everyone tells the truth, promises must be kept, and when you are wrong, you apologize instead of argue. Free from pride and unconcerned with appearances, Kevin is not afraid to cry when he is hurt, angry or sorry. He is always transparent, always sincere. And he trusts God.

Not confined by intellectual reasoning, when he comes to religion, he comes as a child. Kevin seems to know God -- to really be friends with Him in a way that is difficult for an "educated" person to grasp. God seems like his closest companion. In my moments of doubt and frustrations, I envy The security Kevin has in his simple faith. It is then that I am most willing to admit that he has some divine knowledge that rises above my mortal questions. It is then I realize that perhaps he is not the one with the handicap -- I am. My obligations, my fear, my pride, my circumstances -- they all become disabilities when I do not trust them to God's care.

Who knows if Kevin comprehends things I can never learn?

After all, he has spent his whole life in that kind of innocence, praying after dark and soaking up the goodness and love of God. And one day, when the mysteries of heaven are opened, and we are all amazed at how close God really is to our hearts, I'll realize that God heard the simple prayers of a boy who believed that God lived under his bed Kevin won't be surprised at all!

My Best Friend Kyle

2004-06-25T11:18:00.000+08:00

One day, when I was a freshman in high school, I saw
a kid from my class was walking home from school. His
name was Kyle. It looked like he was carrying all of his
books. I thought to myself, "Why would anyone bring
home all his books on a Friday? He must really be a
nerd."

I had quite a weekend planned (parties and a football
game with my friends tomorrow afternoon), so I
shrugged my shoulders and went on.

As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward
him. They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his
arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt. His glasses
went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten
feet from him. He looked up and I saw this terrible
sadness in his eyes.

My heart went out to him. So, I jagged over to him and
as he crawled around looking for his glasses, and I saw
a tear in his eye. As I handed him his glasses, I said,
"Those guys are jerks. They really should get lives." He looked
at me and said, "Hey thanks!" There was a big smile on his face.
It was one of those smiles that showed real gratitude.

I helped him pick up his books, and asked him where
he lived. As it turned out, he lived near me, so I asked him
why I had never seen him before. He said he had gone to private
school before now.

I would have never hung out with a private school kid
before. We talked all the way home, and I carried some
of his books. He turned out to be a pretty cool kid. I
asked him if he wanted to play a little football with my
friends. He said yes. We hung out all weekend and the
more I got to know Kyle, the more I liked him, and my
friends thought the same of him.

Monday morning came, and there was Kyle with the
huge stack of books again. I stopped him and said,
"Boy, you are gone really build some serious muscles
with this pile of books everyday!" He just laughed and
handed me half the books.

Over the next four years, Kyle and I became best
friends. When we were seniors, we began to think
about college. Kyle decided on Georgetown, and I
was going to Duke. I knew that we would always be
friends, that the miles would never be a problem. He
was going to be a doctor, and I was going for business
on a football scholarship.

Kyle was valedictorian of our class. I teased him all the
time about being a nerd. He had to prepare a speech for
graduation.

I was so glad it wasn't me having to get up there and
speak. Graduation day, I saw Kyle. He looked great. He
was one of those guys that really found himself during high
school. He filled out and actually looked good in glasses.
He had more dates than I had and all the girls loved him.
Boy, sometimes I was jealous.

Today was one of those days. I could see that he was
nervous about his speech. So, I smacked him on the back
and said, "Hey, big guy, you'll be great!" He looked at me
with one of those looks (the really grateful one) and smiled.
"Thanks," he said.

As he started his speech, he cleared his throat, and
began. "Graduation is a time to thank those who helped
you make it through those tough years. Your parents,
your teachers, your siblings, maybe a coach...But mostly
your friends. I am here to tell all of you that being a
friend to someone is the best gift you can give them. I
am going to tell you a story."

I just looked at my friend with disbelief as he told the
story of the first day we met. He had planned to kill
himself over the weekend. He talked of how he had
cleaned out his locker so his Mom wouldn't have to do
it later and was carrying his stuff home.

He looked hard at me and gave me a little smile.

"Thankfully, I was saved. My friend saved me from
doing the unspeakable."

I heard the gasp go through the crowd as this handsome, popular
boy told us all about his weakest moment.

I saw his Mom and dad looking at me and smiling that same
grateful smile. Not until that moment did I realize it's depth.

Never underestimate the power of your actions. With
one small gesture you can change a person's life. For
better or for worse.

The Value of a Half Dollar

2004-06-24T11:23:00.000+08:00

by Judith Cameron Wagner Story Editor : Joyce SchowalterTexas, USA

My Dad, one of only two physicians in a four-county area, worked at least 18 hours a day, seven days a week. Twice monthly, while the other doctor covered the practice, he had free time from Saturday noon to 6:00a.m. Sunday. Our family trekked one Saturday monthly over winding, potholed roads to visit grandparents. Our night return trip seemed endless.

Often, after early supper at grandmother's table, we three children were dropped at a movie so the grown-ups could indulge in adult conversation. When the movie ended, mom and dad picked us up for the long drive home.

One evening in the mid-1940s, the privilege of buying movie tickets was finally given me, the youngest. The ticket lady smiled broadly as I announced my important position, and said I did a fine job! Smugly, I pocketed the change and led my older brothers into the theater.

Late that night, almost home, with everyone else asleep, Dad interrupted my chattering to ask for the ticket change. I carefully counted it by the dashboard light, and as I finished, he turned the car around! Why?!?

I had received 50 cents too much change; we would return it.

All the way back, when we were so close to home? This late? Couldn't we just mail it, or take it next time? Yes, dad explained, it would be honest to send or take it back. But although that would be easiest for us, the ticket booth lady must account for *all* money received. With money missing, she might be reprimanded or worse, lose her job, so we couldn't delay.

I fell asleep long before our car pulled up in front of the theater,just after closing. Dad woke me, saying that along with privilege came responsibility: it was my task to return the money.

I walked slowly to the ticket booth, smugness evaporated. She was there, counting money, face wet with tears. Timidly, I reached up, put the half-dollar on the counter, "...too much change... daddy said...turned around...".

She smiled again, quickly wiped her face with her hands, and left the booth to hug me. She walked to the car to thank dad. If the money hadn't been found she would have lost her job, her family's only income.

Suddenly, my self-imposed embarrassment at "failing" my important task was transformed into a real understanding of how our actions may affect others in ways not apparent to us. I was proud of my daddy, and told him so.

Now, almost 60 years later, I realize how tired he was and how tempting it must have been to just go on home and get a bit of sleep before resuming his duties. But, "the right thing" was at the core of his beliefs.

Dad died while taking care of yet another stranger, but he left a legacy of personal examples of honesty, integrity and responsibility to be absorbed and passed along by his children, grandchildren, and now, great-grandchildren. His half-dollar philosophy lives on.

Missing Mommy

2004-06-23T02:22:00.000+08:00

Mommy ( May 8,1933 - June 23, 1997 )

Your memories remain in our hearts forever

We still miss you mom ...

... a lot.

A Man for All Seasons

2004-06-22T23:59:00.001+08:00

[I visited the church today and noticed that a red veil was cloaking the tabernacle. Noticeably so, when I attended Mass, red was the color for the day. I stretched out my hearing ear further to find out whose martyrdom the Church was commemorating today. Sadly so, it wasn't mentioned. It was then I decided to browse the net once I get home and find out. It turned out to be the feastday of two Martyrs of the Papacy, St. John Fisher and the well-known St. Thomas More.

Then I searched through the thoughts and tried to recall who was St. Thomas More again? What was it that he died for? Wasn't he that guy from A Man for All Seasons? Search, search, search again... and it did turn out that A Man from All Seasons was a 1966 production about the story of Thomas More, who stood up to King Henry VIII when the King rejected the Roman Catholic Church to obtain a divorce and remarriage. I even faintly recalled that the Ateneo made a massive remake of that participated in by vast majority of the grade schoolers staged at the CCP more than a decade ago. It further reminded me that I am indeed getting old.

Anyway, that paved the way of almost an hour reviewing his life. It was interesting. He wanted to become a priest but recanted because he cannot shake off the desire of a married state. He decided he will be better off in life being a chaste husband rather than an impure priest. As a man of the court, he made it a point that court cases do not linger with him and made sure that they are promptly resolved. He championed Catholicism at the outbreak of the Lutheran controversy during the outbreak of Protestantism. He can discuss the most serious of topics in the most interesting way. He can laugh with the foolish instead of laughing at them. He was a paragon of a friend.

There is a summary of his bibliographies on the net. Two that caught my fancy are the ones at the Catholic Encyclopedia which is relatively comprehensive but short, and the other from saints of the day which is rich on his actual quotations. To spare the reader from anymore lengthy discussions on this, I've just linked the sites if the reader so requires further browsing. ( A friend of mine earlier today told me that she already finds my extremely lengthy posts a bit boring.)

Lastly, to go with the spirit of Koleksiyon. I'll just copy-paste the shortest biography of St. Thomas More that I stumbled to. In my opinion, it's not doing complete justice to the memory of a truly great man but even so placing a great article left unread will even worsen the situation.]

St. Thomas More, Martyr (Patron of Lawyers). St. Thomas More was born at London in 1478. After a thorough grounding in religion and the classics, he entered Oxford to study law. Upon leaving the university he embarked on a legal career which took him to Parliament. In 1505, he married his beloved Jane Colt who bore him four children, and when she died at a young age, he married a widow, Alice Middleton, to be a mother for his young children. A wit and a reformer, this learned man numbered Bishops and scholars among his friends, and by 1516 wrote his world-famous book "Utopia". He attracted the attention of Henry VIII who appointed him to a succession of high posts and missions, and finally made him Lord Chancellor in 1529. However, he resigned in 1532, at the height of his career and reputation, when Henry persisted in holding his own opinions regarding marriage and the supremacy of the Pope. The rest of his life was spent in writing mostly in defense of the Church. In 1534, with his close friend, St. John Fisher, he refused to render allegiance to the King as the Head of the Church of England and was confined to the Tower. Fifteen months later, and nine days after St. John Fisher's execution, he was tried and convicted of treason. He told the court that he could not go against his conscience and wished his judges that "we may yet hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together to everlasting salvation." And on the scaffold, he told the crowd of spectators that he was dying as "the King's good servant-but God's first." He was beheaded on July 6, 1535. His feast day is June 22nd.

TATARIN (Summer Solstice)

2004-06-21T08:57:00.000+08:00

[“From time immemorial, in myth and legend, the moon has represented the woman’s deity, the feminine principle, much as the sun, with its heroes, symbolized the masculine principle. To primitive man and to the poet and dreamer of today the Sun is masculine and the Moon is feminine.”- M. Ester Harding
Summer Solstice this year, 2004, occurs at 00:57 am June 21 Universal Time. That would be 8:57 am June 21, Manila Time.]

Ang Pinanggalingan ng 'Tatarin'
ni Guillermo Gómez Rivera

Webmaster's Note: Si G. Guillermo Gomez Rivera ay isang awardee ng Premio Zobel at kaanib Academia Filipina. Siya ay dating National Language Committee Secretary ng Philippine Constitutional Convention 1971-73.

Ang sumusunod na artikulo ay batay sa orihinal na lathalain na ipinadala ni G. Gomez Rivera.

Para sa mga nanonood na hindi gaano naka-intindí, o nakasunod, ng argumento ng pelikulang TATARIN, na batay sa isang obra ni Nick Joaquín (The Summer Solstice), binibigay namin ang mga sumusunod na pagpaliwanag ni Dra. Belén de los Santos y Sisioco de Argüelles, inampun bilang anak ni Don Epifanio de los Santos y Cristóbal (kung kanino pinañgalanan ang EDSA) at dating pañgulo ng División o Instituto de Español y Cultura ng DECS. Ang mga pagpaliwanang ukol sa Tatarin binigay ni Dra. Argüelles nuong 1964 pa.

Ang TATARIN ayon kay Dra. Argüelles ay isang ritual upang magkaroon ng anak ang isang babaeng katutubo, lalo na ang mga katutubong Tagala. Binibigay, nitong mga babaeng nañgagtatarin, ang kanilang sarili sa "iilang mga halusinasyon na guinawang mistulang sayaw upang sila'y magkaroon ng anak".

Pero ang pelíkula, na batay sa obra ni Nick Joaquín, maykathâ at pambansang artista sa panitikan, hindi nagsasabi kung saan, at kung kailan, sumibol itong ritual ng pagkafertil ng isang babae.

Ang 'Tatarin' ay may kaugnayan sa WASP

Hindi rin sinasabi ng pelíkula na ang dahilan ng pagsibul ng rito, o ritual, ng TATARIN, hanggang sa mga taong 1920, may kaugnayan sa pagmasaker ng mga Kanong WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants o mga Puting Protestante) sa mga kayumangguing mga bayaning Pilipino sa panahon ng digmaan ng Estados Unidos laban sa sinalakay nilang unang Repúblika ng Filipinas na tinatag nuong a 12 ng Hunyo, 1898.

Ang digmaan na inumpisahan ng Estados Unidos, o ng mga Kanong WASP, laban sa unang Repúblika ng Filipinas nuong 1899 talagang natapos ng mahuli nila ang pañgalawang pañgulo ng naturang Repúblika na si Macario Sakay y De León sa taong 1907.

PINAGPAPATAY ng mga Kanong WASP ang isang milyun at kalahating mga Pilipino sa pañgalan ng digmaang iyon na sinimulan ng mga nasabing Kanô ng binaril nila, sa tulay ng Santa Mesa at San Juan, ang mga walang malay na mga sundalong Pilipino nuong Febrero 1899.

Pinagpapatay ng mga mananakop na mga Kanong WASP ang ikalimang bahagui ng buong populasyon ng Filipinas ayon kay James B. Goodno, isang historiador na Kanô din. Ang datos na ito makikita sa páhina 33 ng libro ni Goodno na pinamagatan na: "Philippines, Land of Broken Promises na pinublika sa Nueva York" nuong 1996.

Ayon kay Dra. Argüelles "ang mga namatay na lalaking katutubô naguing napakarami kung ihambing sa proporsiyon total ng populasyon ng bansâ na ang pakirandam na lumatay sa kababaihan ay ang pañgulilâ dahil pati ang mga lalaking katutubô na di pinatay, sa digmaang iyon, nagkaroon ng trauma at parang nawalan sila ng ganang magparami ng lahi. Ang pagkawasak ng kanilang unang Repúblika nagkarron ng malaking epekto sa kanilang pag-iisip at huminâ ang kanilang pagnanasâ at pakay sa pagkaroon ng mga anak. Dahil sa kalagayang ito na bumalot sa mga kalalakihang katutubô, nagwalâ ang mga kababaihan."

Ang ritual ng tubig

Patuloy ni Dra. Argüelles: "Pero, ang araw ni San Juan Bautista may isang ritual ng tubig na siyang pagbabasâ sa mga tao maski na sa guitna ng daan. Dahil sa ritual ng tubig, sumanib dito ang ritual ng TATARIN. At upang mapagtakpan ang katañgiang seksuwal ng ritong ito, pinasiyá ng mga babailana na sumama ang mga nañgagsitatarin sa bawat procesión ni San Juan Bautista."

"Ang pagbabasâ ng katawan sa mga dekada ng 20, 30 at 40 may kahulugang kahalayan na nagbibigay ng estimulasyon sa mga nanood na kalalakihan. Ang katawang basâ ng kababaihan nagpapalitaw ng hubog ng kanilang mga dibdib at balakang na siyang gumiguising sa mga kalalakihan na nasa mga kalye."

"Pagkatapos ng pagsama sa prosesyon ni San Juan bilang mga devota nito, ang mga nañgagsitatarin humihiwalay pagkatapos sa isang dakong nakatagô kung saan nila sinisimulan ang mga maiinit nilang sayaw. Mistulang sayaw ng mga Hitana at mga Flamenca ang mga primitibong kilos at indak nitong mga sayaw na buñga na kanilang mga halusinasyon at pagnanasa. Ang kahinhinan na dating katañgian ng mga Filipina ay winawaksi. At pagkatapos ng mga ganitong sayaw, ang mga nagsitatarin ay sumasama sa kanilang mga esposo upang makipagtalik."

Magpa-tatarin para magka-anak

"Ang mga babae na mulá sa matataas na lipunan at sa panglipunang uri ng mga may profesyon at edukasyon sa mga unibersidad, may mababang pagtanaw sa mga karaniwang nañgagsitatarin. Pero, may ilan din sa kanila ang sumusunod sa ritual na ito kapag malaki ang kanilang pañgañgailañgan na magkaroon ng anak."

Kung naipaliwanag sana ng más maganda ang kasaysayan ng TATARIN, malamang na más malawak din ang pagkakaalam ng madlang nanonood sa kung ano ang tunay na argumento ng isinapelikulang obra ni Nick Joaquín.

All eyes on Dad

2004-06-20T01:30:00.000+08:00

[ Taken from the Friday, June 18, 2004 issue of the Manila Standard. A Father's Day special feature by Marjorie Teresa R. Perez ]

No brute force. No trash talk. A father is in a class of his own -- a superstar by his own making. Traditionally, a father has always been looked upon as the provider, the disciplinarian, the pillar of strength in the family. Now with gender roles gradually blurring away into semi-defined rules, there is no clear picture of what the ideal father is, except for one: he loves his child. If a mother's love never fades, then a father's love never ends.

Sons look upon their fathers as a model worthy of emulation. Daughters look upon their fathers as kakampi whenever their mother gets angry at them, as comforters whenever they're down, as teachers, and also as guides. True to the Oedipal myth, fathers treat their daughters as their favorites, and indulge their every whim, while sons are brought up strictly, in the manner which fathers feel would make a 'man' out of their sons. Often, it goes both ways, mothers are often closer to their sons while trying to make a 'woman' out of their daughters.

Most fathers are reformed bachelors who settled down after having children. They would often say, "I used to dream of big things before, now my only dream is to see my children grow up and be good people."

It is every father's dream to put his child through school and they usually work their butts off to achieve that dream. He is also the first one to proclaim proudly Anak ko yan! whenever his children achieve success.

But a father does not wait for any school to teach his children what's right. He inculcates in them the values that will make them good persons himself. A friend tells how his father's example ultimately led him into priesthood. "My father was a deeply religious man. I wake up during the night and find my father on his knees, just as I would always see him kneeling in the seminary." Fathers teach us respect, by respecting others, compassion, by being compassionate, and humility, by being humble. Most of all, he teaches us love. A father is always a fountain of love.

The security of their children, especially their daughters is another main concern of the father. Sometimes fathers get paranoid in calling their children and making sure they're safe. Is it any wonder that when dad is around, we all heave a sigh of relief glad that dad is here to protect us against any harm?

Fathers cherish the day when they see their children walking down that aisle, but before that time comes, they look with suspicion at any male friend their daughter brings home. While they berate their sons with sermons when he is late for his curfew. Lo and behold, when dad finally has to let go of his children at their wedding, you can be sure that he is hiding those tears. But then, when his grandchildren come, he is blest once again by more children to love.

Father's Day has become a day to honor not just dad, but all the men who ever treated us like their children. Why father's day in June? Well, it could probably be because traditionally June is also the wedding month, when would-be fathers laid the foundation, so to speak, of their new role in society.

Daddy's Empty Chair

2004-06-19T13:30:00.000+08:00

A man's daughter had asked the local minister to come and pray with her father. When the minister arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows. An empty chair sat beside his bed.

The minister assumed that the old fellow had been informed of his visit. "I guess you were expecting me," he said. "No, who are you?" said the father.

The minister told him his name and then remarked, "I saw the empty chair and I figured you knew I was going to show up." "Oh yeah, the chair," said the bedridden man. "Would you mind closing the door?"

Puzzled, the minister shut the door. "I have never told anyone this, not even my daughter," said the man. "But all of my life I have never known how to pray. At church I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it went right over my head." I abandoned any attempt at prayer," the old man continued, "until one day four years ago my best friend said to me, "Johnny, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus. Here is what I suggest."

"Sit down in a chair; place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see Jesus on the chair. It's not spooky because he promised, 'I will be with you always'. "Then just speak to him in the same way you're doing with me right now."

"So, I tried it and I've liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day. I'm careful though. If my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she'd either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm."

The minister was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old man to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with him, anointed him with oil, and returned to the church.

Two nights later the daughter called to tell the minister that her daddy had died that afternoon.

"Did he die in peace?" he asked.

"Yes, when I left the house about two o'clock, he called me over to his bedside, told me he loved me and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later, I found him dead. But there was something strange about his death. Apparently, just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on the chair beside the bed. What do you make of that?"

The minister wiped a tear from his eye and said, "I wish we could all go like that."

The Price to be Paid

2004-06-18T13:30:00.000+08:00

There was this dad who is always good at everything.. his job was good.. his salary was good.. he had good children.. and a good wife.. he is so fond of working because he wanted to give his children and his wife everything..

One day.. he came home very tired from work.. his youngest son approaches him and asks him this question.. "Dad, how much is your daily salary?".. the dad answered.. "Why do you wanted to know this? Who gave you the idea of asking your dad about how much he brings to his family each day?" The son simply replied.. "No one.. So would you please answer me..". With an irritating voice he answered.. "Okay.. I am receiving Php350.00 a day.. would that satisfy you?" then the son said.. "Okay.. since you're earning so much.. may you please give me Php120.00?" the dad became angry, "What the heck do you need Php120.00 for? Am I not giving you enough?.. Now, go upstairs to your room and never ever go down here till I told you so!!!" and the son went upstairs.

After some time.. the dad felt guilty of his attitude towards his son.. thinking that he may need an extra money for him to buy school things.. or food or good clothes.. so, he go upstairs to his room.

Upon entering the door, he finds out his son is counting money.. "How come you have so much money? Where did you get all of these?" very angry.. he spanks his son.. with tears on his face he told him.. "I kept every cent you're giving me.." His dad confiscated the money and counted it.. "You have Php230.00 here.. what will you do with the next Php120.00? Isn't this enough for you?" "You will only spend it buying unnecessary things while I, your dad, is so much tired working for all of you!!" very angry.. he spanks his son again and ask him, "Answer me.. what will you do will all of these money?!" his son replied.. "I WANTED TO RAISE Php350.00 SO THAT I COULD BUY A DAY OF YOUR TIME.."

A Father's Story

2004-06-17T08:30:00.000+08:00

On July 22nd I was en route to Washington, DC for a business trip. It was all so very ordinary, until we landed in Denver for a plane change. As I collected my belongings from the overhead bin, an announcement was made for Mr. Lloyd Glenn to see the United Customer Service Representative immediately. I thought nothing of it until I reached the door to leave the plane and I heard a gentleman asking every male if he were Mr. Glenn.

At this point I knew something was wrong and my heart sank. When I got off the plane a solemn-faced young man came toward me and said, "Mr. Glenn, there is an emergency at your home. I do not know what the emergency is, or who is involved, but I will take you to the phone so you can call the hospital." My heart was now pounding, but the will to be calm took over.

Woodenly, I followed this stranger to the distant telephone where I called the number he gave me for the Mission Hospital. My call was put through to the trauma center where I learned that my three-year old son had been trapped underneath the automatic garage door for several minutes, and that when my wife had found him he was dead. CPR had been performed by a neighbor, who is a doctor, and the paramedics had continued the treatment as Brian was transported to the hospital. By the time of my call, Brian was revived and they believed he would live, but they did not know how much damage had been done to his brain, nor to his heart. They explained that the door had completely closed on his little sternum right over his heart. He had been severely crushed. After speaking with the medical staff, my wife sounded worried but not hysterical, and I took comfort in her calmness. The return flight seemed to last forever, but finally I arrived at the hospital six hours after the garage door had come down. When I walked into the intensive care unit, nothing could have prepared me to see my little son laying so still on a great big bed with tubes and monitors everywhere. He was on a respirator. I glanced at my wife who stood and tried to give me a reassuring smile. It all seemed like a terrible dream. I was filled-in with the details and given a guarded prognosis. Brian was going to live, and the preliminary tests indicated that his heart was OK, two miracles, in and of themselves. But only time would tell if his brain received any damage. Throughout the seemingly endless hours, my wife was calm. She felt that Brian would eventually be all right. I hung on to her words and faith like a lifeline. All that night and the next day Brian remained unconscious. It seemed like forever since I had left for my business trip the day before. Finally, at two o'clock that afternoon, our son regained consciousness and sat up uttering the most beautiful words I have ever heard spoken.
He said, "Daddy hold me" and he reached for me with his little arms.

By the next day he was pronounced as having no neurological or physical deficits, and the story of his miraculous survival spread throughout the hospital. You cannot imagine, we took Brian home, we felt a unique reverence for the life and love of our Heavenly Father that comes to those who brush death so closely. In the days that followed there was a special spirit about our home. Our two older children were much closer to their little brother. My wife and I were much closer to each other, and all of us were ever close as a whole family. Life took on a less stressful pace. Perspective seemed to be more focused, and balance much easier to gain and maintain. We felt deeply blessed. Our gratitude was truly profound.

The story is not over!

Almost a month later to the day of the accident, Brian awoke from his afternoon nap and said, "Sit down Mommy. I have something to tell you." At this time in his life, Brian usually spoke in small phrases, so to say a large sentence surprised my wife. She sat down with him on his bed, and he began his sacred and remarkable story.
Do you remember when I got stuck under the garage door? Well, it was so heavy and it hurt really bad. called to you, but you couldn't hear me. I started to cry, but then it hurt too bad. And then the 'birdies' came." "The birdies?" my wife asked puzzled.
"Yes," he replied. "The birdies made a whooshing sound and flew into the garage. They took care of me." "They did?"
"Yes," he said. "One of the birdies came and got you. She came to tell you "I got stuck under the door." A sweet reverent feeling filled the room. The spirit was so strong and yet lighter than air. My wife realized that a three-year-old had no concept of death and spirits, so he was referring to the beings who came to him from beyond as "birdies" because they were up in the air like birds that fly.

"What did the birdies look like?" she asked.
Brian answered, "They were so beautiful. They were dressed in white, all white. Some of them had green and white. But some of them had on just white."
"Did they say anything?"
"Yes," he answered. "They told me the baby would be all right."
"The baby?" my wife asked confused.
Brian answered. "The baby laying on the garage floor." He went on. You came out and opened the garage door and ran to the baby. You told the baby to stay and not leave." My wife nearly collapsed upon hearing this, for she had indeed gone and knelt beside Brian's body and seeing his crushed chest whispered, "Don't leave us Brian, please stay if you can."
As she listened to Brian telling her the words she had spoken, she realized that the spirit had left His body and was looking down from above on this little lifeless form.
"Then what happened?" she asked.
"We went on a trip," he said, "far, far away." He grew agitated trying to say the things he didn't seem to have the words for. My wife tried to calm and comfort him, and let him know it would be okay. He struggled with wanting to tell something that obviously was very important to him, but finding the words was difficult.
We flew so fast up in the air.
They're so pretty Mommy," he added. "And there are lots and lots of birdies."
My wife was stunned. Into her mind the sweet comforting spirit enveloped her more soundly! , but with an urgency she had never before known. Brian went on to tell her that the "birdies" had told him that he had to come back and tell everyone about the "birdies".
He said they brought him back to the house and that a big fire truck , and an ambulance were there. A man was bringing the baby out on a white bed and he tried to tell the man that the baby would be okay.
The story went on for an hour. He taught us that "birdies" were always with us, but we don't see them because we look with our eyes and we don't hear them because we listen with our ears. But they are always there, you can only see them in here (he put his hand over his heart). They whisper the things to help us to do what is right because they love us so much. Brian continued, stating,
"I have a plan, Mommy.
You have a plan.
Daddy has a plan.
Everyone has a plan. We must all live our plan and keep our promises. The birdies help us to do that because they love us so much." In the weeks that followed, he often came to us and told all or part of it , again and again. Always the story remained the same. The details were never changed or out of order. A few times he added further bits of information and clarified the message he had already delivered.
It never ceased to amaze us how he could tell such detail and speak beyond his ability when he talked about his birdies. Everywhere he went, he told strangers about the "birdies." Surprisingly, no one ever looked at him strangely when he did this. Rather, they always got a softened look on their face and smiled. Needless to say, we have not been the same ever since that day, and I pray we never will be.

Two Boxes

2004-06-16T08:00:00.000+08:00

GOD'S BOXES

I have in my hands two boxes,

Which God gave me to hold.

He said, "Put all your sorrows in the black box,

And all your joys in the gold."

I heeded His words, and in the two boxes,

Both my joys and sorrows I stored,

But though the gold became heavier each day,

The black was as light as before.

With curiosity, I opened the black,

I wanted to find out why,

And I saw, in the base of the box, a hole,

Which my sorrows had fallen out by.

I showed the hole to God, and mused,

"I wonder where my sorrows could be!"

He smiled a gentle smile and said,

"My child, they're all here with me."

I asked God, why He gave me the boxes,

Why the gold and the black with the hole?

"My child, the gold is for you to count your blessings,

The black is for you to let go."

Grace is with you

2004-06-15T01:30:00.000+08:00

[Another reading lifted from the first part, More Than Many Sparrows, of A Trilogy by Leo J. Trese.]

Unless we are far advanced in sanctity, we have more than a grain of spiritual conceit. We overcome a temptation and we feel quite proud of ourselves. We do an act of genuine charity and we fairly glow with self-approval. True, this is not wholly a matter of conceit. It is the function of a good conscience to commend us when we have done well, and it also is the role of conscience to reprove us when we have done evil. Yet we are prone to magnify by several decibels the approving voice of conscience. The reason why we seldom give God full credit may be that we so often do not advert to the magnitude of God's concern for us, the persistence with which he pursues us with His grace.

Now and then we are able to see God's helping hand in some circumstances of our life; as when, faced by a strong temptation and on the verge of surrender, something saves us from collapse. Perhaps the temptation itself is taken away, or circumstance intervenes to make the sin impossible or no longer desirable. As we stand almost trembling from the closeness of our call, we know that it is a power outside of us which has rescued us.

It is not always in matters of sin and temptation that we can detect God's grace at work. Sometimes we plan a course of action that seems attractive to us. It even may be a course of action that appears useful and necessary, such as the buying of a certain house or the getting of a certain job. Then obstacles arise that defeat our purpose. At the moment we are bitterly disappointed, but the day comes when we look back and see how fortunate it was that our plan did not succeed. As things turned out, we are ever so much better off. God's view is the long view, and His plan for us is a lifetime plan, not a five- or a ten-year plan.

All of us can find instances such as these in our lives. What we may forget however is that for every time God's hand comes openly into view, there are a thousand other times when His hidden hand is just as actively at work. God never forgets us, never takes His mind off us, never leaves us alone.

The day-to-day and moment-to-moment helps which God gives us, we call actual graces. These actual graces may take a limitless number of forms. God may see to it that we read a certain book which will have special meaning for us or that we hear a sermon whose message we particularly need. God may lead us to encounter a specific person who will influence us for good, or He may take away a friend whose companionship may ultimately be hurtful. Accordingly as it will contribute to or against our best interests, God may steer us toward or away from this or that job, or place or event. Nothing that touches us is unimportant to God.

The person of good will, established in sanctified grace and trying prayerfully to make his decisions and solve his problems as best as he can, is receiving actual graces all his waking moments. With a little push here and a gentle nudge there, God continually is guiding him towards heaven. Even the sinner lives and moves amid a ceaseless bombardment of grace. In the case of the sinner, God's anxious care has but one objective: to find a chink in the shell of self wherein His grace may find entrance and the sinner be aroused to repentance. Only when that step has been taken can other graces become operative and God's guidance fully effective.

In His lavish bestowal of actual grace, God still respects the free will with which He has endowed us. The interaction of grace and free will is one of those mysteries which we can hope to understand fully only when we look into the divine Mind in heaven. Here, with our limited created intellects, we can grasp but dimly God's ways of dealing with His creatures.

Searching for an example which will give us some concept of the relationship of grace and free will, we may take the modern automobile equipped with power steering. In such a car we have only to touch the wheel lightly, with a finger, in order to turn the car in the desired direction. Most of the work of steering is done by power drawn from the car's motor, but we do have to give that little touch, the car will not steer itself. Similarly, in our good deeds and conquest of temptation, it is God's grace which does the work. Yet it remains for us to give that last little touch, that "I shall" or "I shall not" which puts grace to work or leaves grace unused.

It would be stupid ever to feel smug because, powered by grace, we have done something good. God is pleased and God will reward us, but He Himself has done most of the work. It would be equally foolish ever to succumb to discouragement. If I honestly can say, "I have done my best," then I have done all that God asks of me. In His own time and way, God will do the rest.

How Guys Select the Girl they want to Marry

2004-06-14T05:30:00.000+08:00

A man is dating three women and wants to decide which to marry. He decides to give them a test. He gives each woman a present of P50,000 and watches to see what they do with the money. The first does a total makeover. She goes to a fancy beauty salon, gets her hair done, new make up and buys several new outfits and dresses up very nicely for the man. She tells him that she has done this to be more attractive for him because she loves him so much. The man was impressed.

The second goes shopping to buy the man gifts. She gets him a new set of golf clubs, some new gizmos for his computer, and some expensive clothes. As she presents these gifts, she tells him that she has spent all the money on him because she loves him so much. Again, the man is impressed.

The third invests the money in the stock market. She earns several times the P50,000. She gives him back his P50,000 and reinvests the remainder in a joint account. She tells him that she wants to save for their future because she loves him so much. Obviously, the man was impressed.

The man thought for a long time about what each woman had done with the money, and then he married the one with the largest breasts.

The Awakening

2004-06-13T04:30:00.000+08:00

A time comes in your life when you finally get it...when, in the midst of all your fears and insanity, you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out...ENOUGH! Enough fighting and crying and blaming and struggling to hold on.

Then, like a child quieting down after a tantrum, you blink back your tears and begin to look at the world through new eyes.

This is your awakening.

You realize it's time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change, or for happiness, safety and security to magically appear over the next horizon.

You realize that in the real world there aren't always fairy tale endings, and that any guarantee of "happily ever after" must begin with you... and in the process a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.

You awaken to the fact that you are not perfect and that not everyone will always love, appreciate or approve of who or what you are... and that's OK. They are entitled to their own views and opinions.

You learn the importance of loving and championing yourself... and in the process a sense of new found confidence is born of self-approval.

You stop complaining and blaming other people for the things they did to you - or didn't do for you - and you learn that the only thing you can really count on is the unexpected.

You learn that people don't always say what they mean or mean what they say and that not everyone will always be there for you and that everything isn't always about you.

So, you learn to stand on your own and to take care of yourself... and in the process a sense of safety and security is born of self-reliance.

You stop judging and pointing fingers and you begin to accept people as they are and to overlook their shortcomings and human frailties... and in the process a sense of peace and contentment is born of forgiveness.

You learn to open up to new worlds and different points of view. You begin reassessing and redefining who you are and what you really stand for.

You learn the difference between wanting and needing and you begin to discard the doctrines and values you've outgrown, or should never have bought into to begin with.

You learn that there is power and glory in creating and contributing and you stop maneuvering through life merely as a "consumer" looking for your next fix.

You learn that principles such as honesty and integrity are not the outdated ideals of a bygone era, but the mortar that holds together the foundation upon which you must build a life.

You learn that you don't know everything, it's not your job to save the world and that you can't teach a pig to sing. You learn that the only cross to bear is the one you choose to carry and that martyrs get burned at the stake.

Then you learn about love. You learn to look at relationships as they really are and not as you would have them be. You learn that alone does not mean lonely.

You stop trying to control people, situations and outcomes. You learn to distinguish between guilt and responsibility and the importance of setting boundaries and learning to say NO.

You also stop working so hard at putting your feelings aside, smoothing things over and ignoring your needs.

You learn that your body really is your temple. You begin to care for it and treat it with respect. You begin to eat a balanced diet, drink more water, and take more time to exercise.

You learn that being tired fuels doubt, fear, and uncertainty and so you take more time to rest. And, just as food fuels the body, laughter fuels our soul. So you take more time to laugh and to play.

You learn that, for the most part, you get in life what you believe you deserve, and that much of life truly is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You learn that anything worth achieving is worth working for and that wishing for something to happen is different than working toward making it happen.

More importantly, you learn that in order to achieve success you need direction, discipline and perseverance. You also learn that no one can do it all alone, and that it's OK to risk asking for help.

You learn the only thing you must truly fear is fear itself. You learn to step right into and through your fears because you know that whatever happens you can handle it and to give in to fear is to give away the right to live life on your own terms.

You learn to fight for your life and not to squander it living under a cloud of impending doom.

You learn that life isn't always fair, you don't always get what you think you deserve and that sometimes bad things happen to unsuspecting, good people... and you learn not to always take it personally.

You learn that nobody's punishing you and everything isn't always somebody's fault. It's just life happening. You learn to admit when you are wrong and to build bridges instead of walls.

You learn that negative feelings such as anger, envy and resentment must be understood and redirected or they will suffocate the life out of you and poison the universe that surrounds you.

You learn to be thankful and to take comfort in many of the simple things we take for granted, things that millions of people upon the earth can only dream about: a full refrigerator, clean running water, a soft warm bed, a long hot shower.

Then, you begin to take responsibility for yourself by yourself and you make yourself a promise to never betray yourself and to never, ever settle for less than your heart's desire.

You make it a point to keep smiling, to keep trusting, and to stay open to every wonderful possibility.

You hang a wind chime outside your window so you can listen to the wind.

Finally, with courage in your heart, you take a stand, you take a deep breath, and you begin to design the life you want to live as best you can.

- Author Unknown

The Tagalog - Kapampangan Alliance

2004-06-12T23:02:00.000+08:00

[Happy Independence Day! I was trying to look for an entry today that would befit the occasion and somehow stumbled into a site created by Oscar Soriano for Los Angeles, California. Well, might as well consider him to be a blogger although I guess he was like developing his personal website even before blogging was an in thing. In this particular entry, he was aiming at stirring the appetite of the readers on Philippine History by citing excerpts from the first chapter of the book, The Aquinos of Tarlac by Nick Joaquin. It did garner my interest, especially on reasons my friends would know, and I hope it elicits your curiosity too. I'm copying the articles in the extreme case that something happens to the original site.]

The following excerpts are lifted from The Wicked Accomplices, the first chapter of the best-selling book, The Aquinos Of Tarlac by national artist, Nick Joaquin, and first published in 1972 by Solar Publishing Corporation in Mandaluyong, Metro Manila in the Philippines. The webmaster is highly recommending the book to everyone.

The Americans quickly....had grasped a fact the Spaniards had long been aware of: that the Tagalog-Pampanganarea, comprehended between Batangas in the south and Tarlac in the north, formed the vital core of the country; was HEARTLAND, was the metropolitan area; in relation to which the other centers of culture in the islands (e.g. Vigan and Cebu) were outposts.

The reason this heartland became the ground of history may be that, in the 16th century, it was the only region of some size where the native tribes had achieved a measure of unity. Older and richer might be the kingdoms of Cebu and Jolo, but these were small city-states isolated by hostility.

The king of Cebu, for instance had for enemy the tiny isle of Mactan, which was just across his bay. In contrast, the neighboring kingdoms on the Pasig - Manila and Tondo - were allies, and evidently belonged to a confederacy loosely binding the realms all over the Tagalog-Pampangan region. Not divide and conquer, but unite and rule, was the policy made possible by this domain.

The Spaniards were quick to see how smoother an avenue was afforded by the coherence of this region, and their conquest of it was to make official what unity they found there. Here they concentrated their colonizing efforts, with the result that the Tagalog and Pampango were to become the most "politicized" of Filipinos, accounting for the arrogance they have traditionally been accused of. In fact, one friar, Gaspar de San Agustin, has described the Pampangans as "the Castilians among these Indios". Nevertheless the idea of national unity was to begin as this unity of the Tagalog and Pampangan country, from which the Spaniards created a Seat of State (the city of Manila and the province of Pampanga were the basic foundations) and a Seat of the Church (the Archbishop of Manila, which embraces Pampango ground, is the primal See of the country) thus fusing into a unit the old Tagalog and Pampangan realms.

From this unit came the necessary consent to government as well as its support forces, so that a counter capital to Manila always had to be within the Tagalog-Pampangan terrain - like Arayat, as proposed by Gov.-Gen. Basco; or Bacolor, to which Simon de Anda removed the government during the British Occupation; or Kawit, Malolos, San Fernando, San Isidro and Tarlac, the successive capitals of the Aguinaldo government. But when the Spaniards, after the fall of Manila in 1898, transferred the government to Iloilo - that is, outside the Tagalog-Pampangan ground - it automatically meant the end of Spanish rule. Similarly, the Revolution, a Tagalog-Pampangan enterprise, chiefly happened on Tagalog-Pampangan ground, and the Americans foresaw that it could not survive beyond its frontier in Tarlac. The unity of faith and action was, at that moment of our history, still bound up with the particular ethnic and geographical unit that, for almost four centuries, had stood for "law", for "government", for "civilization". When that symbol of Victorian progress, the railroad, was brought to the Philippines, the first line was, of course, laid along, and further bound together, the Tagalog-Pampangan country, connecting it with the outposts in the north. And when the Revolution broke out, the Spaniards, though fighting was confined in Cavite, correctly declared a state of war in the entire Tagalog-Pampangan domain, knowing it only too well as a unit where fire in any part could set the whole ablaze. But the whole had now become something greater than this unit, for a nation had sprung from there. The role of this region can be read in our flag, where each ray of the sun stands for either a Tagalog or Pampangan province. But even the stars in the flag proclaim this role, being three in number because the Tagalog and Pampangan fought to keep them at least three. For good or evil, it was these two tribes, these wicked accomplices, that determined not only the shape of our history but even of our geography. The form now called the Philippines has maintained through almost four centuries of steady assault from within and without only because Spain (which, through those centuries, never had more than 5,000 Spanish troops in the islands) could rely on the Tagalog-Pampangan alliance to keep the form (now called the Philippines) from disintegrating.

The alliance even antedated the coming of Tagalogs and Pampangans to these shores. One scholar theorizes that the two tribes emigrated from neighboring regions in Java (or Sumatra ?) and continued in the new country their association in the old - a theory backed by the tradition that the Prince Balagtas who founded a dynasty in Pampanga was, even before his coming to Luzon (sometime perhaps between 1335 and 1380), already a Tagalog-Pampangan mestizo, his mother being of the royal house of the Kingdom of Sapa (now Manila's Sta. Ana district) before she was given in marriage to a sovereign of the Madjapahit Empire in Java. The coming of Prince Balagtas and his entourage apparently capped a series of waves of Pampangan emigration to Luzon and had a definite intent: to consolidate into a kingdom all these Pampangan colonies believed to be already occupying an area that extended from Manila Bay to the wilds of Cagayan. A true consolidation was never effected, nor did a kingdom arise, but from Prince Balagtas, according to tradition, descended the native principalia, or nobility, that included such families as the Soliman, the Lakandula, the Gatbonton, the Gatchalian, the Gatmaitan, the Gatdula, the Malang, the Puno, and the Kapulong -- families in veins ran a mixed Tagalog-Pampangan blood, and in the knots of whose marryings the two tribes became so intertwined as to form a single growth.

Geography was to compound the knots, for the Rio Grande de Pampanga empties into Manila Bay, where also ends the Tagalog's Rio Pasig; and in the region between the two deltas was common ground for confederacy. After Manila (a city ruled by a Tagalog-Pampangan house) was seized by the Spaniards, the ousted heir, Soliman III (Tarik Soliman or Bambalito? - O.S.) presently reappeared, on Manila Bay, with a Tagalog-Pampangan fleet (from Macabebe and Hagonoy - O.S.) which the Spaniards routed in the Battle of Bangkusay. That was in 1571, the year Manila was established as the capital city, the seat of power, and Pampanga was organized into a province, the premier local government of the land, under Spain. Although the Tagalog and Pampangan were to unite later in
several revolts, the Battle of Bangkusay can be said to have been their last joint engagement under the old alliance. Only three years later, in 1574, the Tagalogs and Pampangans are being inducted into the army they battled in Bangkusay, and a new alliance has begun. To this alliance they were to become so indispensable, not only as military but as economic arms, that from the start the empire of Spain in the Philippines could not have survived save with the consent of these two tribes. "The colony indeed survived,"observes Father Horacio dela Costa, "but what was the price of survival? Obviously, the price which had to be paid for ships; for building them, keeping them afloat and sending them out to fight. This price was paid, most of it, by ... the forced-labor
contingents drafted year after year from the provinces near Manila that felled the timber, built the ships, sailed them and manned the guns. It was....these same provinces that fed, clothed and armed the crews....What aggravated the burdens laid on the Tagalogs and Pampangans was the fact that the government was not in a financial position to pay a just wage to the laborers it drafted or a just price for the goods it bought."

And yet, after the period of the Conquista, this region on which the heaviest burdens were laid was nevertheless the least mutinous in the country, as though it regarded itself, however exploited, as not alien to the new government but allied to it. A continuity in fealty justified the view, for the old-time tribal chiefs, the datus, had been incorporated into the new government and in most places were the only visible form of government. "At the time of the conquest," says John Larkin (author of the book, The Pampangans - O.S.) "the Spaniards were severely undermanned and needed someone to maintain order and collect the needed supplies. They accepted the authority of willing local leaders rather than upset the existing system at a time when military concerns were paramount. Both parties were served by this arrangement; the Spaniards received the necessary goods, and the datus retained their position in the village."

From these datus would develop the principalia that, from earliest Spanish times, were exempt from taxes, enjoyed the title of Don, and controlled local governments in "elective" positions that were actually hereditary. Because an organic relationship still existed between the principalia and the peasantry, services required by the Dons was not regarded as exploitation by their liegemen, who knew from experience that, whenever abuses grew rampant, the Dons hastened to be their spokesmen, not fearing to appeal to the king of Spain himself.

Thus, in the 1670s, did the principalia of Pampanga complain to Carlos II about the quota of rice exacted from every farmer in Pampanga and the Spanish king could not but order "the total extirpation of the abuse and injustice" committed against a region of which he had heard it said that it "has made important contributions to the defense of the entire colony, having raised several companies of troops to serve in the wars against the Dutch who infest those waters, the Moros of Ternate and other hostile nations; that it provided and still provides whole units of regular infantry to garrison that royal capital, its fortress of Santiago, the forts of Cavite, Cebu, Oton, Cagayan, Caraga and the other strong points of these islands"; and that "the Pampango nation has on all occasions shown great fidelity in my service."

Indeed a popular saying then was that one Spaniard and three Pampangans are the equal of four Spaniards," a boast that grew from the battlegrounds of the 16th century. Pampangans were with Dasmarinas in the taking of Nueva Vizcaya in 1591; were with Figueroa in the conquest of Mindanao in 1596; were with the "pacification" troops that brought under one flag the regions of Cagayan, Negros, Leyte, etc.; and were with the various expeditionary forces to the Moluccas in the days when our geography was still in the making and it seemed for a while that the Philippines might include the Spice Islands, Borneo, Formosa, the Malay Peninsula and the coasts of Indochina. When the Koxinga invasion impended (1662) and the Chinese in Manila rose in revolt, it was the Pampangan militia under Francisco Laxamana that defeated the rebels in pitched battle, killing a thousand of them and capturing the ringleaders.

Because of this victory Laxamana, the Pampangan, was entrusted with the walls of Manila for 24 hours -- a startling symbolic gesture by which the empire confessed its dependence on the heartland. If the Tagalog-Pampangan troops of those times now seem to us mercenaries, in their own eyes they were not, since they were fighting for a government they regarded as their own, especially as represented by their datus, now the powerful principalia. Theirs, too, was the army: "well-organized troops under the command of their own general officers(Laxamana was a master-of-camp), majors and captains, posts that they greatly esteem as a reward of merit, each of them striving for promotion so as to bequeath this honor to their descendants." Strictly speaking, therefore, theirs was a feudal rather than a mercenary army, since they were led by their own liege lords, to whom they owed fealty; and in fighting outside their tribal ground, in fighting for regions to which, then, they did not feel native (Cagayan, Leyte, Negros, Mindanao, etc.) they were already a national army in the making, creating a sense of country by their willingness to defend certain boundaries from invasion and the government within from usurpers.

As long as that government had the consent of the Tagalog and Pampangan, it could stand firm, though the rest of the tribes revolt; but when that consent was withdrawn, the empire tottered. From Limahong in 1574 to William Draper in 1762, the fate of Spain in the Philippines rested on whether the Tagalog and Pampangan chose to side with the Spaniard or with the invader. The Spanish were well aware that it was they who were dependent on the alliance with the Tagalog and Pampangan , and not vice-versa -- which would have been the case had the native troops been nothing more than mercenaries. So, a Tagalog-Pampangan revolt was feared most of all -- as in 1660 when one such revolt (led by Francisco Maniago - O.S.) was decried as "all the worse because these people had been trained in the military art in our own schools....their valor was well-known, and therefore it was said that one Spaniard and three Pampangos are equal to four Spaniards....(and the) people of the other provinces were on the watch for its outcome, in order to declare themselves rebels ....There is no worse enemy than an alienated friend!" (no hay peor cuna que de la misma madera) Here, from a Spanish mouth, is the admission that the Tagalog and Pampangan were not mercenaries but allies and friends who must not be alienated, being of the same timber as the Spaniard -- and there's "no worse wedge than that of the same wood."

The Tagalog and Pampangan were likewise aware that it was on them that the empire rested and through them that destiny was at work, as they proclaimed in the classic feast of Philippine history, the feast in which the Tagalog and Pampangan celebrated the alliance that was to beget a nation. It has been said, quite incorrectly, that the Limahong invasion was the crucial moment in our history, the event that decided if there was to be such a nation as the Philippines or merely an outer province of China. But that moment, was not as decisive as the Dutch wars of the 17th century, which were, by far, the greater threat, the more crucial event.

Limahong was not backed by his government (he was just a pirate - O.S.) and did not have the resources for a real invasion; his was purely a one-shot attempt. But the Dutch invaders had the official backing, the resources and the will to sustain what was clearly not just a feint, since their attempt at invasion was pressed for more than 50 years (the first half of the 17th century) with annual battles on a front that stretched from Aparri to Jolo. This was the Great War in our history, for it was the war that decided if we were to be the Philippines --or a part of the Dutch East Indies then, a province of Indonesia today (with Bahasa Indonesia as ournational language -- O.S.). The war ended in victory for the idea of nation. That the Tagalog and Pampangan regarded it as their war and their victory can be gathered from the feast that is exclusively a Tagalog-Pampangan tradition: the feast known as La Naval de Manila, once the principal fiesta of Manila, the capital of the land of the Tagalogs, and also the great fiesta of Bacolor, the ancient capital of the Pampangans. When the Pampangans pushed their frontier beyond San Fernando, they thought this tradition important enough to carry with them in their movement northward -- to Angeles, the prime pioneer foundation and take-off point for the new frontier. And in Angeles to this day, the principal celebration is the fiesta called La Naval. The significance may be lost to us now, yet a feeling of pride still inheres to the cult, even with the celebrants not knowing what they feel so proud about, for the inherited emotion may have transcended the occasion for the feast and perhaps, now refers not merely to the victory in the Dutch Wars, but to all the other feats of an ancient alliance. More than the moment's safety was involved in what we now dismiss as colonial wars not a part of our history. But for the winning of those wars, we might have had no history.

After the Dutch Wars, the next --and last major -- engagement of the alliance is the British Invasion; and here the staging is even more explicit: the capital is moved from Manila to Bacolor; Tagalog and Pampangan rally around the "legitimate" government; while beyond the Tagalog-Pampangan frontier, the Ilocanos seize the chance to break away from achieved form, under the leadership of Diego Silang. "He soon realized, however," says Fr. de la Costa, "that his untried and undisciplined forces, unprovided with firearms and artillery, would be no match to the seasoned and well-armed troops Anda was collecting in Pampanga to send against him. (These battles begot a fearless hero named Manalastas. - O.S.) We shall never know what might have happened if the Ilocanos and the British had succeeded in combining forces. Whatever dreams Silang had conceived of an Ilocano nation under British protection were shattered forever by an assassin's bullet." This another ambiguous moment in our history; whom are we to cheer?

The Ilocano rebels who would break away and setup their own nation; or the Tagalog-Pampangan troops who were for keeping the Ilocos as an integral part of the form? (I am for the latter, because with a British occupation in the Philippines, the U.S. would not have come to our shores in 1898. - O.S.) At any rate, the Tagalog and Pampangan then, as in other tribal attempts to secede that they prevented, were fighting, however unknowingly, for the integrity of a nation. Not so unconscious is their role in the next great struggle in our history: the revolt of the Creole - though this revolt was to confuse the old Tagalog-Pampangan loyalties, unfixing the
line between law and outlaw. Did the Creole, even in rebellion, represent "legitimate" government, or was he an usurper? Did he stand for the integrity of the form so long defended, or had he become another disruptor to be stopped? The confusion was inevitable, the Creole having been for so long the Establishment he would now topple.

After the era of the conquistadores, power had passed to the hands of the Creole in alliance with the Tagalog and Pampangan. For two centuries (the 17th and 18th) the Creoles manned State and Army, but not the Church --which was why the Church became the first target of their campaign. That they were in control of government can be surmised from the shock with which, at the beginning of the 19th century, they reacted to the arrival of ships from Spain loaded with peninsular Spaniards bearing appointments as provincial governors, military brass and finance officers -- positions traditionally held by the Creoles.

As late as 1842, Sinibaldo de Mas could note that half of all civil and military posts in the Philippines were still occupied by the Creoles; and he warned that, if the islands were to be kept colony, "the Spaniards born in the Philippines must be reduced as much as possible in number." As the educated class in the country, the Creoles had been infected by the ideas of the Enlightenment and the events of the French Revolution -- just like their confreres in America, where the colonies were lost in revolts led by the Creole class. A repeat could not be allowed to happen in the Philippines. But as the Creole was displaced in State and Army by the Peninsular, as his rise in the church was blocked by the friar, and as he found himself reduced to a position little better than that of the Indios, it was but natural that should stop thinking himself as Spanish and begin calling himself a Filipino in earnest. Form (which, when fulfilled, becomes singular) had here become dangerously separate; the Creole had pulled the trigger of nationalism in the Philippines -- and the explosion of his identity.

In the beginning, however, as with the Novales attempt to capture the army (1823), the Creole revolt could not but confuse established loyalties, so that, obeying centuries of conditioning, the Tagalog-Pampangan alliance instinctively sided with the State against the would-be usurpers. It was the Pampangan militia that aborted the Novales coup. But as the Creole campaign intensified, its attraction and influence spread beyond its class with the result that a general following became convinced that a transfer of loyalties from empire to nation would be, not criminal, but lawful -- the logical extension of the Creole clergy's argument that it was they, the native-born, who, according to the Council of Trent, had the legal right to control the church in the Philippines, and not the foreign friar. In other words, it was the Peninsular, not the Hijo del Pais, who was the usurper. The confusion of loyalties was thus cleared up -- and from here it's but a step to the idea of separatism. Burgos is the Creole on the verge of violent schism; and the Cavite Mutiny of 1872 is already "Filipino" in the sense that its participants can all be lumped together as a single dangerous breed: the Native ---indiscriminately Creole, Indio, mestizo and Chinese. so savage was the post-Mutiny reprisals --- execution, exile and expropriation -- that the elite class was all but crippled, and from then on lost its nerve. The failure of the Creole revolt was to ruin the old triple alliance (Creole-Tagalog-Pampangan) that had meant stability for the empire. The principalia now stood alone -- for, on the one hand, the fallen Creole had lost his value as ally and, his spirit crushed by the post-Mutiny persecution, had abdicated as leader, was no longer an agent of history; while, on the other hand, the Peninsular was neither ally nor leader, but simply despot, the agent of anti-history, being as cruel to stop the rise of the Indio as that of the Creole. The native class that could, once upon a time, aspire to promotion as captain, major or general officer was now so mistrusted that Sinibaldo de Mas could recommend denying to it even the rank of sergeant.

What happened to the Creole now happened to the native Don: his rejection as a partner set him to asking why he should be anybody's vassal when he could be his own master. and this happened precisely at a time (the mid 1800s) when the principales had gained economic power and were becoming affluent. Moreover, the long period of Creole activism had been a valuable school for the native Dons, educating them in sedition and implanting separatist ideas. Even the failure of that activism meant an advance for the principales, for as the Creole, turned timid, abandoned insurgency, leadership inevitably passed to the hands most prepared for it: the Tagalog-Pampangan principalia who became increasingly, after 1872, the propagandists and activists until, in 1896, they rose in arms against the empire they had once secured with their arms.

Toward this had tended the currents of our history since 1571, when the Tagalog-Pampangan domain was made the ground of those currents. The Philippine Revolution was thus the uprising of the Tagalog-Pampangan principalia, now at last withdrawing consent and support from the empire, but doing so not as a tribe (which is what distinguishes their revolt from that of, say, Silang) but in the name of a nation. At Biac-na-Bato (about 15 kms. from Pampanga - O.S.) as in Kawit, the republic proclaimed by a handful of Tagalogs and Pampangans is for the whole archipelago, not just for their region; Malolos (just about 10 kms. from the Pampanga-
Bulacan boundary - O.S.) is a Congress where the Tagalogs and Pampangans represent the regions outside their region. (In the Congress in Tarlac in July 1899, a Tagalog, Fernando Ma. Guerrero, represented the province of Leyte; a Pampangan, Francisco Makabulos, represented Cebu: a Tagalog, Daniel Tirona, represented the Batanes: a Pampangan, Maximino Hizon, represented Sorsogon; a Tagalog, Tomas Mascardo, represented Zamboanga; a Pampangan, Servillano Aquino, represented Samar ---and so forth.

Though there was the excuse in Tarlac that the war impeded a true regional representation, the Revolution was there still following a procedure that become standard from Biac-na-Bato to Malolos, the Pampangans and Tagalogs acting as deputies for the entire nation.) Such historical vicarship is not uncommon. Spain was made a nation by the union of two small tribes, Castile and Aragon, which chiefly waged the wars of the Reconquista. Similarly is the American Revolution identified with two tribes, the New Englanders and the Virginians; and though 'tis said that more Americans fought on the British side than under Washington, it was the minority under Washington that stood for the whole of the nation. And likewise was history again on the side of a minority of two during the adventure called the Philippine Revolution. (The Pampangan and Tagalog provinces that first joined the Revolution against Spain and then against America are Tarlac, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, Manila, Cavite, Laguna and Batangas. These 8 are represented by the rays of the sun in our flag. - O.S.)

Like the Creole movement, the revolt of the principalia ended in failure but in its turn gave rise to another activism: the revolt of the masses, which took over in the 1900s and is still in progress. One region has therefore been the theater for the three major uprisings in our history: the revolt of the Creole, the revolt of the principalia, and the revolt of the masses; all three being so interlinked as to show a sequence and all three more or less describable as a Tagalog-Pampango enterprise---including the third one, which had a climax (also tragic) in the Huk rebellion. In his autobiography, "Born Of The People", Luis M. Taruc devotes a chapter to the original leaders of the Huk movement and it's bemusing to note that, of the leaders he mentions, four are Tagalogs (Vicente and Jesus Lava, Mariano Balgos and Fred Laan), four are Pampanguenos (Casto Alejandrino, Eusebio Aquino, Silvestre "Linda Bie" Liwanag and Remedios Gomez), two are from the Tagalog-Pampango province of Nueva Ecija (Juan Feleo and Jose de Leon), and one is a Creole (Mateo del Castillo, son of a Spanish resident in Batangas). (Missing in this list are Abelardo Dabu and Felipa "Dayang-Dayang" Culala, both from Pampanga - O.S.) Apparently, the Huk, too, continues the history of the Tagalog-Pampangan alliance, which, at times, is coestensive with its region and cannot survive beyond its frontiers and, at other times, transcends those boundaries to become a national movement.

It was on this storied ground that, in 1899, General Servillano Aquino dispersed his army, shifting the action from the plain of Tarlac to the mountain of Arayat....(when Tarlac, then the capital of the short-lived republic fell into the hands of the advancing Americans, and Aguinaldo had to flee northward, and the republic ceased to exist, and the revolutionists became mere outlaws and fugitive, engaging the Americans only on guerilla warfare rather than battle confrontations..... It was the setting of the lives of the Aquinos of Tarlac and where the history of three generations of Aquino took place -- Servillano Aquino, the grandfather, Benigno Aquino Sr., the father, and Benigno Aquino Jr., the man who could have been President but who wound up as a martyr instead! - O.S.)

This is just the first chapter of the book. I hope it caught your interest as it did mine and those of a lot of other people.

Thanks to the author, NICK JOAQUIN and the publisher, SOLAR PUBLISHING CORPORATION.

Thanks also to my good friend, ERNIE TURLA for the privilege of using his computer and his internet server, Maxpages, which enabled me to make this webpage.

Your webmaster,
OSCAR SORIANO
Los Angeles, California

Puss N Boots

2004-06-11T04:00:00.000+08:00

No son of Troy will ever be subject to a foreign king.

Stolen from Catsudon

WHY WORRY?

2004-06-10T02:38:00.000+08:00

The following is an excerpt from More Than Many Sparrows, the first book in A Trilogy by Leo J. Trese under the subheading Your Love for God.

If we worry, we worry for one of two reasons: either we lack confidence in God, or we lack confidence in ourselves; perhaps even we lack confidence in both.

This is true no matter what the nature of our worry may be: fear of losing our job or of failing in our studies; anxiety about unpaid bills or about failing health; dread of not getting the girl we want or of losing the husband we have; apprehension about the behavior of our children or discouragement that we are not more popular or that we can't seem to "get ahead". These are but a few in the litany of human worries.

When we find that our facial muscles are settling into grooves and our digestive organs are getting tied up in knots, it is a sign that we have let our emotions take control of our intelligence. It is high time then to sit down to a spell of straight thinking, to the recollection of a few forgotten truths.

First of all God loves me. He cares intensely about what happens to me. He wants what is best for me. He is here with me right now. His whole attention fixed upon me. He is closer to me than any human being ever was or can be. And these are facts, real hard facts, not pious fables.

All right; so God cares about me. He is infinitely wise and knows what is best for me, down to the last tiny detail. He also is infinitely powerful. There is nothing that God cannot do. All creation is in the palm of His hand. This means then that God, Who wants what is best for me and knows what is best for me, doesn't have to stand helplessly by and watch me go down to defeat. God right this minute is at work at the very heart of my problem. God is manipulating these very circumstances which oppress and threaten me, so that in the end they will work to my advantage. I must believe this, or I do not know the true nature of God. I need to spend a long minute just looking at God, just making real to myself the fact that God, this God of love and wisdom and power, is not off in a distant heaven but that He is with me right here this very minute -- and all the time. Then what am I worrying about?

Well, the catch is this: I do trust in God's care for me, but I also know that God expects me to do my part. He is not going to work miracles in order to accomplish what I ought to be doing myself. What really worries me is that I myself am failing. I just don't seem to have the knack of doing things right. It is my own mistakes -- or fear of mistakes -- that makes me feel inadequate for this present task or responsibility. A smarter person would never get in the mess that I'm in; a more capable person would do so much better a job than I'm doing; a clever person would find a solution to this problem so easily. And that is why I worry.

Again it is emotion and not reason which is speaking. If I can honestly say that I am doing the best I can under these present circumstances, then God is one hundred percent satisfied. He will take care of the rest, including the mistakes. In the end I shall be surprised to find how well everything worked out, although it did look so hopeless for a while.

I must remember too that the-best-I-can doesn't have to be a very good best. We human beings set very high standards for each other. If a boss assigns a job to one of his men, he expects the job to be done just as well as he might have done it himself. He makes his own standard the measuring stick for everyone else, and makes little allowance for lesser knowledge or ability. Parents sometimes show the same kind of over-expectation when dealing with their children. They give a child a task to do and then, forgetting their own great maturity and experience, they criticize the child because the task is done imperfectly. This in spite of the fact that the child has done his best within the limits of his ability.

We can be grateful that God is not so demanding. Our best may be a very poor best, as full of mistakes as a sieve is full of holes; but if it is our best, even our reasonable best, then our performance is tops with God. He knows to the smallest fraction the extent of our native intelligence, the amount of our education, the handicaps (whatever they may have been) that entered into the formation of our personality. If He has steered us into a job, into a responsibility, into a tangle that seems beyond our ability, we can be sure that He Himself is going to take care of the undone parts. But we have to let God do it in His own time, in His own way.

To do the best we can and to leave the rest to God; this is the antidote to worry, the recipe for a tranquil heart.

First Impressions

2004-06-09T03:30:00.000+08:00

A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President's outer office.

The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard and probably didn't even deserve to be in Cambridge.

"We want to see the president," the man said softly.

"He'll be busy all day," the secretary snapped. "We'll wait," the lady replied.

For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away.

They didn't and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president, even though it was a chore she always regretted.

"Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave," she said to him.

He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, but he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office. The resident, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple.

The lady told him, "We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus."

The president wasn't touched.... He was shocked.

"Madam," he said, gruffly, "we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery."

"Oh, no," the lady explained quickly. "We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard."

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard."

For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now.

The lady turned to her husband and said quietly,

"Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?"

Her husband nodded.

The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment.

Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the university that bears their name, Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who they think can do nothing.

A TRUE STORY
by Malcolm Forbes

The Pink Dress

2004-06-08T03:00:00.000+08:00

There was this little girl sitting by herself in the park. Everyone passed by her and never stopped to see why she looked so sad. Dressed in a worn pink dress, barefoot and dirty, the girl just sat and watched the people go by. She never tried to speak. She never said a word. Many people passed by her, but no one would stop. The next day I decided to go back to the park in curiosity to see if the little girl would still be there. Yes, she was there, right in the very spot where she was yesterday, and still with the same sad look in her eyes.

Today I was to make my own move and walk over to the little girl. For as we all know, a park full of strange people is not a place for young children to play alone. As I got closer I could see the back of the little girl's dress was grotesquely shaped. I figured that was the reason people just passed by and made no effort to speak to her. Deformities are a low blow to our society and, heaven forbids if you make a step toward assisting someone who is different.

As I got closer, the little girl lowered her eyes slightly to avoid my intent stare. As I approached her, I could see the shape of her back more clearly. She was grotesquely shaped in a humped over form.

I smiled to let her know it was OK; I was there to help, to talk. I sat down beside her and opened with a simple, "Hello". The little girl acted shocked and stammered "hi"; after a long stare into my eyes. I smiled and she shyly smiled back. We talked until darkness fell and the park was completely empty.

I asked the girl why she was so sad. The little girl looked at me with a sad face said, "Because, I'm different". I immediately said, "That you are!"; and smiled. The little girl acted even sadder and said, "I know." "Little girl," I said, "you remind me of an angel, sweet and innocent". She looked at me and smiled, then slowly she got to her feet and said, "Really?" "Yes, you're like a little Guardian Angel sent to watch over all those people walking by". She nodded her head yes, and smiled. With that she opened the back of her pink dress and allowed her wings to spread, then she said "I am. I'm your Guardian Angel"; with a twinkle in her eye.

I was speechless -- sure I was seeing things. She said, "For once you thought of someone other than yourself. My job here is done". I got to my feet and said, "Wait, why did no one stop to help an angel?" She looked at me, smiled, and said, "You're the only one that could see me"; and then she was gone. And with that, my life was changed dramatically.

So, when you think you're all you have, remember, your angel is always watching over you. Pass this to everyone that means anything at all to you. Like the story says, we all need someone. Every one of your friends is an Angel in their own way. The value of a friend is measured in the heart. I hope your Guardian Angel watches over you always.

2004-06-07T18:00:00.000+08:00

Find the Man

'A borderless world does not preclude the idea of a home'

2004-06-06T16:58:00.000+08:00

(THE PHILIPPINES' Patricia Evangelista, 19, won the International Public Speaking competition conducted by the English Speaking Union (ESU) in London early this May. The second-year Mass Communications student from the University of the Philippines, Diliman, beat 59 other student contestants from 37 countries with her five-minute talk on the theme, "A Borderless World."
In November 2004, she will formally accept her award at Buckingham Palace from Price Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh and president of the ESU. Following is her prize-winning speech)

By Patricia Evangelista

WHEN I was little, I wanted what many Filipino children all over the country wanted. I wanted to be blond, blue-eyed and white.

I thought--if I just wished hard enough and was good enough, I'd wake up on Christmas morning with snow outside my window and freckles across my nose!

More than four centuries under western domination can do that to you. I have 16 cousins. In a couple of years, there will just be five of us left in the Philippines, the rest will have gone abroad in search of "greener pastures." It's not an anomaly; it's a trend; the Filipino diaspora. Today, about eight million Filipinos are scattered around the world.

There are those who disapprove of Filipinos who choose to leave. I used to. Maybe this is a natural reaction of someone who was left behind, smiling for family pictures that get emptier with each succeeding year. Desertion, I called it. My country is a land that has perpetually fought for the freedom to be itself. Our heroes offered their lives in the struggle against the Spanish, the Japanese, the Americans. To pack up and deny that identity is tantamount to spitting on that sacrifice.

Or is it? I don't think so. Not anymore.

True, there is no denying this phenomenon, aided by the fact that what was once the other side of the world is now a 12-hour plane ride away. But this is a borderless world, where no individual can claim to be purely from where he is now. My mother is of Chinese descent, the father is a quarter Spanish, and I call myself a pure Filipino -- a hybrid of sorts resulting from a combination of cultures.

Each square mile anywhere in the world is made up of people of different ethnicities, with national identities and individual personalities. Because of this, each square mile is already a microcosm of the world. In as much as this blessed spot that is England is the world, so is my neighborhood back home.

Seen this way, the Filipino Diaspora, or any sort of dispersal of populations, is not as ominous as so many claim. It must be understood. I come from a Third World country, one that is still trying mightily to get back on its feet after many years of dictatorship. But we shall make it, given time. Especially now, when we have thousands of eager young minds who graduate from college every year. They have skills. They need jobs. We cannot absorb them all.

A borderless world presents a bigger opportunity, yet one that is not so much abandonment but an extension of identity. Even as we take, we give back. We are the 40,000 skilled nurses who support the United Kingdom's National Health Service. We are the quarter-of-a-million seafarers manning most of the world's commercial ships. We are your software engineers in Ireland, your construction workers in the Middle East, your doctors and caregivers in North America, and, your musical artists in London's West End.

Nationalism isn't bound by time or place. People from other nations migrate to create new nations, yet still remain essentially who they are. British society is itself an example of a multi-cultural nation, a melting pot of races, religions, arts and cultures. We are, indeed, in a borderless world!

Leaving sometimes isn't a matter of choice. It's coming back that is. The Hobbits of the shire traveled all over Middle-Earth, but they chose to come home, richer in every sense of the word. We call people like these balikbayans or the "returnees" -- those who followed their dream, yet choose to return and share their mature talents and good fortune.

In a few years, I may take advantage of whatever opportunities that come my way. But I will come home. A borderless world doesn't preclude the idea of a home. I'm a Filipino, and I'll always be one. It isn't about geography; it isn't about boundaries. It's about giving back to the country that shaped me.

An that's going to be more important to me than seeing snow outside my window on a bright Christmas morning.

Mabuhay and thank you.

Spot the Traffic Violation

2004-06-05T02:30:00.000+08:00

Can you spot the reason why the police officer had to signal them off the road?

ANSWER: The lady was not wearing a helmet.

All I Have

2004-06-04T12:30:00.000+08:00

by Jennifer Lopez

Love is life and life is livin'
It's very special
All my love...

Oh...oh...oh...oh...oh...
(Baby, don't go)
(Baby, don't go) Yeah
(Baby, don't go, uh)
(Baby, don't go) Yeah
(Baby, don't go)
(Baby, don't go) Yeah, yeah
(Why you act like that)

It's such a shame, but I'm leavin'
Can't take the way you mistreated me
And it's crazy, but oh, baby
It don't matter, whatever, don't phase me

Uh, uh, uh
I don't believe you wanna leave like this
I don't believe I just had my last real kiss
I do believe we'll laugh and reminisce
Wait a minute, don't bounce, baby, let's talk about this, man

Well, I'm bouncin' and I'm out, son
I gotta leave you alone

'Cause I'm good holdin' my spot
And I'm good reppin' the girls on the block
And I'm good, I got this thing on lock
So without me you'll be fine, right

All my pride is all I have
(Pride is what you had, baby girl, I'm what you have)
You'll be needin' me, but too bad
(Be easy, don't make decisions when you mad)
The path you chose to run alone
(I know you're independent, you can make it on your own)
Here with me you had a home, oh, yeah
(But time is of the essence, why spend it alone, huh)

The nights I waited up for you (Oh, boy)
Promises you made about comin' through
So much time you wasted
That's why I had to replace you

Uh, uh, uh
It makes a cat nervous, the thought of settlin' down
Especially me, I was creepin' all over town
I thought my tender touch could lock you down
I knew I had you, as cocky as it sounds
That's the way you used to giggle right before I put it down
It's better when you angry, come here, I'll prove it now, come here

Stop playin, you gamin'
I gotta leave you alone

'Cause I'm good holdin' down my spot (Stop actin' like that)
And I'm good reppin' the girls on the block (Now you know you need to stop)
And I'm good, I got this thing on lock
So without me you'll be fine, right (Here we go)

All my pride is all I have
(Pride is what you had, baby girl, I'm what you have)
You'll be needin' me, but too bad
(Be easy, don't make decisions when you mad)
The path you chose to run alone
(I know you're independent, you can make it on your own)
Here with me you had a home, oh, yeah
(But time is of the essence, why spend it alone, huh)

People make mistakes to make up, to break up,
To wake up cold and lonely, chill, baby, you know me
You love me, I'm like your homey
Instead of beefin' you come hold me
I promise I'm not a phony
Don't bounce, baby, console me, come here

Ain't nothin' you can say to me that can change my mind
I gotta let you go now
And nothin' will ever be the same, so just be on your way
Go 'head and do your thing now
And there's no more to explain to me, you no
I know your game and I'm feelin' what you do

So I'm bouncin' and I'm out, son
I gotta leave you alone, yeah, yeah

All my pride is all I have
(Pride is what you had, baby girl, I'm what you have)
You'll be needin' me, but too bad
(Be easy, don't make decisions when you mad)
The path you chose to run alone
(I know you're independent, you can make it on your own)
Here with me you had a home, oh, yeah
(But time is of the essence, why spend it alone, huh)

All my pride is all I have
(Pride is what you had, baby girl, I'm what you have)
You'll be needin' me, but too bad
(Be easy, don't make decisions when you mad)
The path you chose to run alone
(I know you're independent, you can make it on your own)
Here with me you had a home, oh, yeah
(But time is of the essence, why spend it alone, huh)

I promise you
You know what I'm sayin'

Beginning of the End

2004-06-03T02:42:00.000+08:00

After that previous post on the Full Moon in Sagittarius, which was posted last May 31st if you followed the link. It served as a warning to the emotional roller-coaster ride happening these days. Now, here's a couple of Friendster postings coming from different people in my list on what happened to them in the past few days.

WHY DO BEGINNINGS HAVE AN END?

Why do beginning's have an end? Why do we have to meet only to lose in the end?

These are questions left unanswered, words left unsaid, letters left unread, poems left undone, songs left unsung, love left unexpressed, promises left unfulfilled. In a relationship, one of the hardest things to do is saying goodbye and letting go. It's as hard as breaking a crystal because you’ll never know when you’ll be able to pick up the pieces again. More often than not, they who go feel not the pain of parting; it is they who stay behind that suffer, because they are left with memories of love that was meant to be a love that was.

At the beginning and at the end of a relationship, we are embarrassed to find ourselves alone. Unfair as it may seem, but that’s the drama, the bittersweet and the risk of falling in love. After all nothing is constant but change. Everything will eventually come to its end without us knowing when, without us even knowing why…and we must forget not because we want to but because we have to.

In letting go, sorrows come not as single spy but in battalion. It seems that everywhere you go, everything you do, every song you hear, every turn of your head, every move of your body, every beat of your heart, every blink of your eye and every breath you take always remind you of her. It's like a stab of a knife, a torture in the night. Funny how the whole world becomes depopulated when only one person is missing. Just imagine there are four billion people on earth and yet it seems you feel lonely and empty without the other.

I don’t know if it’s worth calling an art, but letting go entails special skills sparkled with a considerable space and time. Time heals wounds but it takes push on our part. Acceptance plays a part. Not all wishes come true. Not all love stories end with “happily ever after.”

We hate to suffer if it would mean happiness to others. We have to cry to temporarily let go of the pain. Every beginning has its end like every dawn has its dusk. It’s something we can't control, something we have to live up with.

It’s over, she's gone. But life has to go on. Goodbye doesn’t always mean forever.

There will always be a place and time where questions will be answered, words will be spoken, letters will be read, poems will be recited in the night, songs will be sung in harmony, love will be expressed in solitude and promises will be fulfilled.

Somewhere, somehow, someday.

MALUNGKOT AKO!

Ang tagal kong tinitigan ang dalawang salitang iyan. Feeling ko, hindi yan sapat para maipakita sa buong mundo kung paano ako nasasaktan kapag naiisip kita. Malungkot ako kasi aalis ka na. Pero dapat nga maging masaya ako kasi sa pag-alis mo, dun mo matutupad ang mga pangarap mo di ba? Ewan, tawagin mo na akong madamot. Pero sa totoo lang, kung mapipigilan kita, gagawin ko. Malungkot ako kasi alam ko, kahit kailan, hindi mo ako mamahalin gaya ng pinapangarap ko. Hindi ko mararamdaman ang kilig na hatid ng paghawak mo sa kamay ko. Hindi ko mararamdaman ang seguridad na pwedeng ibigay ng yakap mo. Hindi ko mararamdaman ang kilig na pwedeng ibigay ng halik mo. Pero siguro hindi pa ang mga iyan ang talagang dahilan ng kalungkutan ko.

Malungkot ako, higit sa lahat, kasi hindi mo malalaman kung gaano ka kahalaga sa akin. Hindi mo malalaman kung gaano kita kadalas isipin. Hindi mo malalaman na gagawin ko ang lahat para sa iyo. Pero siguro, kapag nalaman mo kung gaano ako kabaliw sa iyo, tatawanan mo lang ako. Siguro akala mo, isa na naman yun sa mga biro ko.

Bago ka umalis, salamat ha. Salamat sa pagiging isang kaibigan. Salamat sa mga naitulong mo sa akin.

Malungkot ako...
...siguro dahil mahal kita.

SA AKING PAGLISAN!

Dumating na ba sa buhay mo ang pakiramdam na sana ay bigla ka na lang maglaho sa mundong ibabaw? Iyong tipong mawawala ka, wala ka ng mararamdaman pa at paglisan mo ay walang sinoman ang makakaalaala na nag-exist ka pala. Ako, oo, maraming beses na. Pero iba sa pagkakataon na ito. Hindi ko alam kung ano nga ba ang ipinagkaiba ng nararamdaman ko sa ngayon kesa sa mga sakit na dinanas ko bago ka dumating sa buhay ko. Basta ang tangi ko lang alam, gusto ko na maglaho ora mismo dito sa aking kinauupuan.

Sawang-sawa na akong gumising araw-araw na ikaw na lang palagi ang iniisip ko. Kung ano ang ginagawa mo, kung sino ang kasama mo at kung tulad ko ay naiisip mo pa rin ba ako. Malamang hindi na dahil masaya ka na. Hindi tulad ko na pilit pa rin pinaglalabanan ang lungkot na aking nadarama bawat araw.

Sa totoo lang, natatakot akong mag-isa. Pinipilit kong maging masaya kapag may kasamang iba. Ayoko na ngang umuwi dahil batid ko na babalik na naman ako sa dati kong mga gawi. Natatakot ako dahil alam kong pagpasok ko pa
lamang sa pintuan namin ay babalik na naman ako sa realidad na wala ka na talaga. Nariyan na rin ang mga panahon na naglalakad akong mag-isa sa kalyeng punong-puno ng mga tao pero pakiramdam ko ay mag-isa lamang akong naglalakad. Dati kasama kita habang masayang naglalakad at nagtatawanan na di man lamang alintana ang pagod, ngunit ngayon ako na lamang mag-isa sa paglalakad. Madalas ay naluluha pa rin ako tuwing naaalala ka. Pero sinasabi ko na lang sa aking sarili na para ano pa ang bawat luha ko, eh masaya ka ng kasama siya.

Kapag nawala kaya ako ay maaalala mo pa ako, magaaksaya ka pa kaya ng panahon para hanapin ako? At iiyak ka ba at sasabihin sa sarili mo na "sayang, hindi man lang ako nakapagpaalam"?

Marahil nga ay tanga ako para isipin pa ang isang tulad mo. Pinipilit ko namang limutin ka eh. Kahit sobrang sasabog na ang dibdib ko sa pagpigil na huwag kang intindihin. Pero talagang hindi ko kaya. Kaya nga mas mabuti pa siguro na maglaho na lamang ako sa mundong ito ng tuluyan. Dahil pagmamay-ari na ng iba ang mudong dati kong
ginagalawan. At kapag dumating ang araw ng aking paglisan, huwag mo sanang isipin na isa itong kahibangan. Marahil ay hindi ko lang talaga kaya na mamuhay pa sa ibang mundo, isang mundo na malayo sa mundong kinasanayan ko sa piling mo.

Full Moon in Sagittarius: A potentially explosive time exact on 3rd June, 12:20 PM, Manila time

2004-06-02T00:26:00.000+08:00

the Sun in Gemini and the Moon in Sagittarius facing each other on opposite points in the sky harbingers a 24-hour period of rapid change, although sifting through the layered meanings of the day's events may not be as quick nor easy.

this Full Moon makes a challenging transit to Uranus, that planet of shake-ups and surprises, indicating sudden developments that may throw your carefully planned calendar into chaos. as it will prove futile to shake your fist in foiled frustration, be ready to roll with the punches. be resilient, and be patient.

patience is a virtue to be consciously cultivated during this lunation, for Venus, currently retrograde, renews its stand-off with the planet of the emotional underworld, Pluto.

this influence has the effect of intensifying the passion in your love life. on the other hand, passion can be destructive if it is driven by fear of loss and jealousy. during this rather impulsive week, since Uranus, signifying upsets, is also involved, stormy weather may settle over your relationship, but you can counteract the negative forces with empathy, sympathy and understanding, as well as a big dose of objectivity.

however, if you are in a situation where you need to let go of a lover or partner for whatever reason, but emotionally cannot summon up the courage to do it even though you know it’s the right thing to do, the unstoppably transformative power of Pluto may just force it to happen. trust that the new path you're taking is the right one. be a brave soul and take the necessary steps on your own and you'll end up feeling much more in control of yourself and your situation.

nevertheless, the consequences of these powerful energies can reveal those aspects of your relationship as against your own needs that you need to work out most. this period can be dangerous to your emotional and relationship health only if you are unwilling to deal with underlying causes. you may have to handle quite a bit of energy to make this influence work out, but it could be a powerful force for good.

as the Moon moves out of its opposition with the Sun it closes in on Pluto, adding yet more emotional wrenches. frustration and hidden resentments may break into the open. security, both financial and emotional, becomes an issue and produces a degree of irrationality until you get out of your fear. as this period could be particularly challenging, the Moon-Pluto conjunction after the Full Moon suggests that you take a step back and view your situation with a calmer logic. spare yourself the grief and emotional bitterness by being balanced and considerate. yes, being patient is something that cannot be overly stressed at the moment.

Getting Old

2004-06-01T23:49:00.000+08:00

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived, because our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.

When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just thongs and fluorescent "spokey dokey's" on our wheels. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags - riding in the passenger seat was a treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it tasted the same.

We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and noone actually died from this.

We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one minded.

We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, and no Internet chat rooms. We had friends we went outside and found them.

We played elastics and street rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt.

We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones but there were no lawsuits.

We had full on fist fights but no prosecution followed from other parents.

We played knock-and-run and were actually afraid of the owners catching us.

We walked to friend's homes.

We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mommy or daddy to drive us to school, which was just round the corner.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls.

We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of.
They actually sided with the law.

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

And you're one of them. Congratulations!

Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow as real kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

For those of you who aren't old enough thought you might like to read about us.

However the following my friends, is surprisingly frightening......and it might also put a smile on your face:

The majority of students in universities today were born in 1983........They are called youth.

They have never heard of We are the World, We are the children, and the Uptown Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel.

They have never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena or Belinda Carlisle.

For them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam.

AIDS has existed since they were born.

CD's have existed since they were born.

Michael Jackson has always been white.

To them John Travolta has always been round in shape and they can't imagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance.

They believe that Charlie's Angels and Mission Impossible are Films from last year.

They can never imagine life before computers.

They'll never have pretended to be the A Team, the Red Hand Gang or the Famous Five.

They can't believe black and white television ever existed and don't even know how to switch on a TV without a remote control.

And they will never understand how we could leave the house without a mobile phone.

Now let's check if we're getting old...

1. You understand what was written above and you smile.

2. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a night out.

3. Your friends are getting married/already married or in some cases your children are getting married.

4. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably with computers.

5. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.

6. You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the good old days, repeating again all the funny things you have experienced together.

7. Having read this, you are thinking of forwarding it to some other friends because you think they will like it too...

Yes, we're getting older!!!!