Feeling Pain, Avoiding Pain

Pain is something we often avoid if we could. But some kinds of pain do make us better. Bodybuilders gain from pain by literally destroying muscle cells through strenuous weightlifting and then rebuilding them during sleep. The muscular pain that they go through during and right after the workout they have learned to endure and even savor while it lasts. Why? Because the overall sense of well-being one gets from exercise brings on an addictive fix. (A beautiful looking body isn’t a bad incentive either.) A period of idleness can bring about a lethargic spell that is worse than the tingling sensation of pain. In this case, the emotional stress can be worse than the physical pain.

Hunger can be a helpful kind of pain or suffering, if you please. (Fasting and prayer have been known to bring rains.) It tells us when we need to rest from what we are doing – or not doing – to reenergize the body. Same with thirst. And other elemental biological human desires. We all learn early on in life to deal with all these kinds of signals in the way we have been taught or the way we have come to cope with them – rightly or not.

Most kinds of pain, however, are generally unwanted, unnecessary and burdensome. Sickness comes to mind. So does the all-too familiar feeling of embarrassment or shame. All these come with the territory of being human. The heartache arising from a failed relationship, although necessary to teach us to become more well-equipped in life, can leave us debilitated for a while. We end up walking half-dead, totally unfeeling at times but almost always bearing that bittersweet emptiness that no one else will learn to share with us. Loneliness is the first and lasting human pain. And even God “learned” to appreciate that it is not what humans need to go through constantly.

So in the beginning, marriage came into being. And then all the real pain came about. If truth be told.

Woman experienced the pain of childbearing and childbirth. Man learned to bear the painful burden of supporting and raising a family. And so many other “slings and arrows” that bedevil marriages.

This does not mean life comes bereft of comfort, joys and unequalled satisfaction. The balance of life – yin and yang -- however, does not mean anguish is necessary for humans to truly know the worth of happiness. Nor vice versa. Angels in heaven do have eternal bliss in spite of all the sorrow they see in us. That comes from their capacity to behold the face of God when they need to. Something that Adam and Eve used to have and do in the Garden. Until in deep humiliation they had to depart that place of painless existence. (Well, except for Adam’s loneliness, nothing else spoiled our first parents’ aborted stay in Eden.)

The pain of sin and its resulting punishment – death – that became our lot after the fall has no equal in terms of consequence. It affects our eternal destiny. And for many, that pain will be the worst burden they can bear in life. Among them are the blessed ones who find release through a spiritual conversion. The rest go through life carrying the yoke of guilt and bitterness through their denial of the One Whom their sinful life has offended. Yes, like many masochistic people who literally induce self-inflected pain, many of us wake up in the morning with our minds chained to unrepented sins. It could be as simple as envy or hatred. Or as heavy as a crime. Whatever it may be, pain – in the form of guilt, anger or jealousy -- lurks like a shadow of the mind, unseen but ever present with its diabolic aura. Yet so many people have built a callous conscience to remove the throbbing pang of guilt in their lives. It takes the top award for being the best defense against guilt ever developed (psychology comes next) and yet the most ineffective of all.

It takes human discernment to know oneself. It takes spiritual discernment to know God. As humans, we all know somehow what pain is and what it can do to us. As believers of God, we may have the privilege to know why we go through pain and what we can do to alleviate or eliminate it. Of the many things we ascribe to God and His nature, the one quality He possesses that is closest to our being human is this: He feels our pains.

(Photo above: Metro Manila lights dance after sundown under a saber of light atop Antipolo hill.)

Tarzan’s Challenge: Creating Something New

The best line from the 1984 movie Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes attacked my mind like a rushing panther: “Transcend the loss and pain; create something new…. Or all you have worked for will be in vain.” The young Earl of Greystoke -- or Tarzan, as we commonly know him -- had been given the chance to be what he really was – human and not an ape. For many of us, the choice is simply between failure and success.

At that point in the story, he was now the former-heir and thus owner of the vast Greystoke estate. But his “animal instincts” would not give him rest. The jungle lived in him – not the serene beauty we see from afar but the seeming chaos of nature we fail to comprehend and yet live daily with in the parallel concrete jungles of the cities.

And so in the end, Tarzan went back to his jungle.

Sometimes, we do need to go back to some places in our past – literally or mentally -- so we can truly appreciate how we were in relation to what we are now. In the process, we find great pleasure in what was and what has been. The fortunate few eventually learn to relish what is and what they have and then move forward to greater heights and fresher horizons.

Creating something new -- as opposed to remaining stagnant in the past or even in the present – takes quite a great amount of courage and wisdom. The challenge, however, remains. History and literature (oh, well, even Hollywood) have equipped us with sumptuous fare to whet our appetite for the greatest adventure we call life. Too often though, we just sit smugly in our comfort zones.

The childish and sometimes inane treatment of such classic stories as Tarzan and Hercules used to excite the kid in me no end. The action and the sense of adventure kept me awake at night and even during boring classes. It gives me great relief that some scriptwriters have matured enough in keeping with our desire for more meaningful entertainment.

Viewing this movie again on cable – while writing this article (this kind of multi-tasking can’t be done inside the movie-house) – proves the idea that we are at a stage in human history when opportunities for personal as well as collective learning and progress have advanced beyond measure. Yes, there will be setbacks like shipwrecks or natural calamities but human life will overcome destruction and corruption as long as we nurture the spirit within us all.

How?

By creating something new every day of our lives, whether it be a work of art, an innovative enterprise, a renewed relationship, a fresh musical style or a new person in you with better habits.

I never thought Tarzan – the epitome of the innocently crude human character -- would come back to me at my age and make me think such sublime thoughts. That is something really new to me.

(Photo above: Musical stairs: A staircase seen from above seems like a stylized grand piano or a harp. The blacks and whites emphasize the illusion. Amazing! Taken by my son, Jon, in Vancouver, Canada.)

A Family of Nations, a Family of Free People

Before nations came into being, there was the tribe. And before tribes arose, there was the family. Like the family, the tribe had its patriarchs while the nation had its founders. Much of what nations do today owes its origins to the family. Thus, Abraham, the Father of Many Nations, taught us tribal dynamics while his descendant Moses gave us fundamentals on nationhood. From the Hebrews, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans, we have gradually perfected the nation as standard for global organization.

Each nation as a sovereign state has its unique set of laws, beliefs, cultural heritage and rules of governance. In their diversity, nations compose a loosely-knit worldwide community often as tenuous as the tempestuous oceans that separate them and the winds that invariably invade their borders. Under one blue sky, nations – through the United Nations -- have learned to co-exist. Somehow, this gradual convergence has helped address problems a few nations alone cannot handle.

To some extent, nations have opted to surrender their own sovereignty to the UN during times of war to allow peace-keeping forces to settle violent conflicts, such as the Gulf War. This development can be both good and bad, depending on one’s perspective. It can be good in the global scheme of things for it preserves economic and social relations. Investments and trading can only flourish in times of peace. On the other hand, no self-respecting nation desires foreign intervention in its own affairs. But with the presence of self-proclaimed global police-states, nations have grudgingly accepted the realities of international dynamics. An age of a shaky balance between national sovereignty and global supervision has emerged.

Since ancient times, the family has existed autonomously within every society. Admittedly, even the family enjoyed a limited sovereignty with its pertinent rights and privileges granted upon its members by the norms and laws of the land. Only in rare cases were such rights waived in order to promote the greater good. In like manner, therefore, nations have simply carried on this accepted practice. Hence, military force – by its inherent persuasive power -- may be imposed upon a sovereign nation to quell violence or to prevent any overspill.

The question however arises: What right do nations have to come in and solve problems for an independent nation? Is it out of real concern or out of selfish motives?

Any individual who has special interests on a neighbor’s wealth would be motivated to interfere pretentiously. The founding of the UN was supposedly to establish an equitable and just settlement of international squabbles, arising as it did from the ruins of WWII. However, certain vested interests have served to put this august organization in doubt. Powerful nations have often used the UN to pursue less than altruistic motives.

The supreme ideal of a single family of nations based on the precedent ideal of the brotherhood of all human beings is the only solution to the spiraling conflicts among nations today. But who establishes the rules for this ideal? Is this not like the delicate and devious “religious” issue that traces back to the time of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael? Why should two brothers who share the same parent and the same heritage of prosperity now look at each other with grave suspicion? How could an ancient family problem still haunt us thousands of years after and not motivate us to face it wisely with brotherly affection? What religion are we talking about here when our own survival is at stake?

In the beginning, there was only the family: the divinely-conceived essential pattern of human relations that has not outlived its usefulness or its effectiveness. Only when people do away with this ideal that things go awry. Only when people choose something else in place of its efficient dynamic power that they realize that chaos results rather than progress. Only when people disregard the undeniable blood relations they have by virtue of their one family origin that they find out they are really destroying themselves.

Like Cain, nobody destroys the family and lives to savor the consequences. Like Hitler, nobody cuts the filial bond that exists among all people and rejoices in the alienation it creates. Like all colonizers, nobody built a nation today or in the past by the sweat and toil of foreign slaves and remains in control forever. The family is the first and last bastion of freedom. Unless we go back to its pristine promises, we will continue to drift in the wilderness.

At any level, the family gives and preserves life. Only a strong family of nations can assure us we can live peacefully together on this planet. Only a global family of free people will bring us a lasting environment of tolerance, cooperation and prosperity.

(Photo above: Kids cool off in the backyard beach. Tuazon family.)

The Three Levels of Belief

The truth. The false. And what we decide to believe in. We all fall generally within any of these three levels of faith. Life silently dictates that we reach out for the first, which actually requires attaining perfection or holiness, in the spiritual sense. At the same time, it tells us to consciously and totally avoid the second, a task we find almost beyond human effort or even human desire. Yet, it is in attaining that balance that we gain a fulfilled life. The best education one can have involves acquiring the fundamental tools for realizing this two-pronged human task.

We all know that those who live in ignorance or dwell in myths or with misconceptions do not endure in this world. For centuries the ancient Greeks and Romans established civilizations founded on many things we would laugh at today – their many gods and many “unscientific” conclusions about nature and even spirituality. And why not? Where have the glories of those people gone? If they had known the truth as we supposedly know it now to be, would they have survived?

Today, we have the glory. Who wouldn’t feel so much pride now drinking a hot, P100 Cappuccino in an air-conditioned room while typing on a laptop or punching on a P35,000 Nokia phone so far away from the uncertainties of those old, low-tech civilizations? Modern life has provided us with so much economic and emotional power – self-assurance, for good measure -- that we have taken for granted how much the ancient people struggled to dissect the truth from the false even in scientific terms. Reading the Great Books collection always gave me that grave feeling of how much people put up with, at least intellectually, to understand life.

Nevertheless, in the process of establishing foundational values in our institutions and our individual lives, we have ended up forming our own beliefs not so much different from what the ancient people believed and practiced. The many festivals or celebrations we have reinvented have really nothing new to show except for the technology we put into them. In the end, we have simply glamorized them and added our own peculiar way of keeping the hype fresh for the next generation to get interested in them and eventually inherit from us.

We have inherited a world built on the ruins of the impotent untruths and hypnotic fables not knowing that we have built a crystal palace of modern folly over the basic truths as well. We still sing the same songs not only because we relish the good memories (which is not bad) but also because we refuse to change our ways (which may be bad). When we can easily create new songs that herald our own new march into a more glorious tomorrow.

The truth has infinite power to fire up our passions for progress and honor. Ancient technology and architecture have had their time to inspire or create awe. What we feel now while looking at the Egyptian pyramids or the Great Wall of China is not much different from what we feel appreciating the new technological wonders. But the pyramids and the Great Wall serve no practical use other than as tourist attractions. History is after all something we only visit and not dwell in, to learn from and not to teach as the goal. But the skyscrapers, cruisers, the jet planes, the 3G cell phones, laptops and fuel-cell cars are things we use to make life the way we want to live it -- today, this moment. Yet, even these are mere tools for us to achieve something else. And what is that? Nothing but the truth.

So, are we living life in the midst of all the comfort and convenience while sacrificing or disregarding the truth? Have we reached that point when we can have all we want and not have to deal with the truth? The same truth that the ancients sought with the same eagerness that we seek wealth or health or fame? Hence, we have made for ourselves a civilization that allows us to claim our very own and not be beholden to any that came before us, whether in reality or in conception. That is, the inescapable truths that had impelled our forefathers to willingly give up sweat, tears and blood no longer matter in our overweening desire to amass security or material possessions. That in trying to gain those truths, we succeeded somehow but looked at them with a perplexed expression then turned around and got hold of that which is utterly false and made it appear to be the ultimate truth.

To be certain, the ancients also did what we have done. The Egyptians may have been not far from their idea of preparing for the after-life (at least, the rulers did so while keeping their privileged status), however, they did so while maintaining their selfish clutch upon wealth and power. Those titanic tombs were designed precisely to keep future generations from using their supposed eternal possessions.

And so, we merely follow the normal turn of human folly. No modern civilization has existed longer than any that existed before. Our fall may only be just around the corner. A pandemic may send shivers now but it could end up with, well, the end of us all.

Not with all the technology we have, some might say. We certainly hope not. We place our confidence on the historical certainty that humans and human life will survive. That the human spirit will overcome all trials. Right?

Not right. Even the best intentions of the human spirit cannot overcome the utter descent into untruth. The truth did not just happen. It serves an eternal purpose. And if it does, the eternal survival of the human spirit is at stake in any experimentation with what is false. Compromise with half-truths and “innocent’ lies dilutes the power of the pure truth.

All the human institutions and enterprises that have ever come to pass involved humans who were and who are at one time faced with the question of what is truth. A market vendor who sells a kilo of chicken meat does not merely do so in order to gain a profit and to feed a family. A call-center operator does not simply interact with a customer halfway across the globe in order to pay for a car. A government executive does not only lead his people to produce as much good as possible to the national economy. All of them have to deal with the basic questions of truth now and then. How they react to those issues determines how they deal with others. Each one affects the welfare of society or the nation at large. Every generation benefits or decays from what it receives from the previous one. But the world is made better by people who cherish the basic truths in life and establish their work, their family and business relations according to those truths.

Chaos is the absence of the light of truth. That is how the world began before it was born and that is how it is ending and how it will end. We may feel complacent – read that, smugly and drunkenly proud -- at what we have achieved for ourselves with all the tools we have invented. Yet the essential issue remains. Do we have the truth or have we merely held on to something which we have casually accepted or inherited as truth?

The question and the struggle remain. The truth still waits for us to answer its call for us to live at the highest level possible.

(Photo above: The road bends behind a hill to an unknown destination but we drive ever so confidently because the way has been prepared for us. It was taken in Sierra Madre, Tanay, Rizal.)

Imitating Job

The whole story of Job in the Old Testament parallels the history of the world. Satan gets the chance to sneak into a lovely picture of God’s making, does his thing with God’s express permit and finally gets what is due him by God’s power. Adam and Eve dealt directly with Satan when they gave in to the temptation. In so many ways, we all do, too. The sacrifice of Christ rendered all that Satan has done and is doing null and void. Now all that we await is His return and the Final Judgment.

Job was a righteous man. And he was very wealthy as well. Now if that’s not Paradise in this world, we don’t know what good is. Job knew and thanked God for it everyday of his life. Yes, he gave sacrifices for the sake of his ten precious children and knelt in their behalf that they might also walk the way he walked.

But Satan had to have his way with Job. Take away his health then his wealth and then his children and he will curse you. Job’s wife chorused with the Tempter: Curse and die! The test was beyond a test of patience. Or love. Or faith. Or perseverance. It was a test of the entire human spirit, all that it is and all that it can possibly sense and contain. Like those archeologists who use tiny brushes to brush off every inch of dust in the hope of recovering what many would see as useless dead bones, such a test scratches away the unimportant things that prevent us from seeing the sunshine.

The ultimate test of the human spirit aims at the essential thing that makes us what we truly are. In truth, we are nothing but spirit, the kind created from the same image as God is, not flesh or dust, not blood or guts, not intelligence or idea. Moreover, it aims at proving each and every one of us of the indestructibility of life. A terribly hard lesson for one person to learn that we all, in various ways and in a much lesser degree or perhaps greater at times, have been privileged to undergo.

Job’s story ends with his becoming wealthier and having children who are more beautiful. Not to mention the corresponding maturity of character from his experience. What the latter is, the story does not dwell with at length nor do many of us truly recognize. As such, many quote the Book of Job invariably using Job’s words while in the pangs of pain and frustration. How easy it is for us all to use commiserating words of those who have eloquently described their journeys through suffering. Even today, Christians continually highlight the so-called seven last words of Jesus to somehow glean wisdom or courage that may come in handy in times of trouble.

And so, the violent death of 33 people in a mad and murderous rampage at Virginia Tech feeds our need for solace, hope and understanding. Desperately, we clutch at dry straws of platitudes as we hang from the cliff of insecurity. Or we grab and hurl broken rocks of raw emotions with which to express our outrage and confusion. Yet, some would echo the dirges of those whose sufferings may have mirrored the pain others may go through now. All in the hope of gaining or providing the healing we all need as one suffering family.

Yes, Job went through so much and we quote him while he went through pain and grief. But Job, perhaps not unlike Adam and Eve, never knew what eternal motives moved God and Satan to showcase him as the great experiment on suffering and faithfulness. The mystery of suffering has remained but has somehow lost its darkness in the revelation of what God allows and eventually grants to those who – well, stick it out with Him: ultimate triumph of goodness over evil, spiritual salvation and eternal life.

Thus, Job remained a righteous man throughout his ordeal -- almost. His one and singular mistake was to presume that God, in creating and blessing Job and letting him be destroyed so, could not renew or revive him. For Job questioned God and wished to die in his agony (did we forget to say Satan knew how to hide from the scene as the crisis raged?). He spoke things he did not understand, in the same way that many of us do. But when Job heard God speak in the storm and saw Him (and also Satan perhaps?), he bowed down and said: Now, my eyes see You and I retract.

We see evil in one man and we trace that evil from his past, his family, his friends, his schools and, naturally, his country. But do we know where that evil came from? From traditions? From society? From our genes? Or from the evil that is already there, sown everywhere and growing where it wills?

Evil lurks in every place. Until we see it as it is, we are wretched fools talking like Job and pitying ourselves and claiming how absolutely good or right we are. Until we all see God, like Job eventually did, we are blind fools postulating and sermonizing to other blind fools.

The Loss of Innocence

Children in their innocence illustrate the character of God’s kingdom. Jesus told the ancient Jews, “Unless you are converted and become like children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” That seems clear and obvious to many of us who read or hear the Bible almost daily. For we see children and admire their unaffected ways, their spontaneity and their unpretentiousness. Nevertheless, many fail to truly comprehend the value of what the Lord taught.

Is the purity of childhood such a non-renewable quality we adults find useless or difficult to attain? Take for instance their capacity to derive gleeful fun from things and situations that we adult already consider passé or wearisome. Compare the seriousness and fuss we put into big-boys’ games or toys such as basketball, racing and football. Kids, on the other hand, roll marbles on the dirt, ride their bikes on the grass and kick a ball around with abandon and without regard to the many strict rules and appurtenant rewards we put into “playing games”. The main difference being not the amount of thrill derived from “the moment itself” but the quest to land in the “hall of fame”. Hence, the highlights and statistics that sports networks flash onscreen record not the intrinsic worth of the game but the so-called “glory of triumph” and even the “agony of defeat”. And all that is supposedly done in the name and the excitement of business-as-usual competition.

Children do not think in terms of such high-valued -- or more precisely, high-priced – post-games intramurals. But mind you, many kids nowadays are no longer safely protected from the pernicious mentality that adults inevitably impose upon them. Computer games are what they are – violently sophisticated, ultra-realistic and mind-and-soul warping – because of what adults want kids to become. Or is it, because of what kids want from what they see adults do and what adults therefore end up giving the kids? The whole process seems to defy analysis but the shakers are way ahead in the money game, too. Use the kids to find out what sells to kids because their parents would want them to have it. In the meantime, parents are hard put to point a finger on why their children behave the way they do.

Will the time come then when the real gap between adults and children disappear? Or at least, diminished to a vanishing or negligible degree such that the world will have lost all vestiges of innocence? A terrifying thought, one that presages the disappearance of guilt as a social deterrent. That is, guilt as we still know it to be: the result of losing one’s innocence or the effect of violating the laws of life. Thus, in a guiltless-ridden society no law will apply; hence, a lawless society arises. Nervously, we sense that day coming upon us soon.

It used to be that bikini-clad dancers pranced and wiggled only inside dark, smoky bars. But now they shamelessly hump in front of TV cameras for tots and grandpas to watch. Innocence? What childhood innocence are we trying to preserve or protect as a Christian nation? On the contrary, we have allowed the unconverted and the perverted to rule over our society and altered the normal process of the human development. Do we think that the degradation of the ecology came without the corresponding decay in human character? The Apostles John wrote hundreds of years ago in the Book of Revelation about those who will suffer hell for “destroying the Earth”. Moral or spiritual decay naturally leads to total physical decay. Sin causes death, as obviously as children become adults.

How do adults become un-childlike then? What happens to them to make them lose their innocence? They, or should we say, their parents or guardians, often expect them to emulate adults who are unconverted. Simply said, the world’s standards – not the Lord’s -- become their own. Adam and Eve led the way to the loss of innocence. Since then, every generation has been given a chance to gain it back.

Children, in general, gain the basic moral and emotional foundations of life from elementary and high school. College merely adds more knowledge and a sense of sophistication. Hence, early on, we attain a more or less completed character or personality that is necessary for good or meaningful social behavior, ideally that is. What we were at around 12 years of age – give or take 5 to 7 years -- somehow defined what we are morally now in essence. A diligent person learned early to be so as a child. Conversely, a criminally-minded adult came to be so from teenage years. Many of our habits and even mannerisms we have had as children.

For most cultures, the traditional age range of 18 to 21 marks the point when a person starts to lose parental-control and gains self-independence. Young enough to be excusably childish at times, yet old enough to make responsible decisions. Interestingly, it also signals what many refer to as the age when one is allowed to lose one’s innocence. The fact that it now occurs at 14 or 15 bothers many people. How does one effectively admonish a pubescent kid to convert into a child in order to enter the kingdom? As a high school teacher, I did so in so many ways and on so many occasions. I know at least two instances when lack of self-control led to teenage pregnancies. A sudden and tragic way of losing one’s childhood and innocence at a time when life begins to beckon.

Perhaps, the ancients had it so right when they gave their daughters into marriage at 12 or 13, at an age when every person who has ever been young knows the impossibility of dousing the blinding fire of carnality. Ironically, today we have succeeded in teaching people to wait as long as they can until they are emotionally and financially capable to marry. Yes, marriage can wait but, sex? There are many ways of hiding in the guise of false innocence or of lessening the inescapable guilt from the loss of it. We are adults expected to be adults and not, as the good Lord said, children of the kingdom. Yet the Lord clearly said: no impure thing enters the kingdom. God doesn’t have to prevent us; our own guilt prevents us from entering. Claiming back our innocence is the key.

We live in a time of freedom, of experimentation, of cloning and of extreme experiences. The senses seek to taste the knowable as well as the unknowable. What we can have – money, pleasure and power – we must have. Why not indeed? What we cannot have – the infinite power to have and to create what we want – we may have. Who cares for such things anyway? Only adults do, not children.

(Photo above: Cotton clouds above dead pine tree and house in Baguio City.)

Passion and Jubilation

Holy Week to us when we were kids meant keeping silent the whole week. And especially when Good Friday -- the climax of the whole Catholic celebration -- came, a single peep was met with the admonition, “Silence! God is dead!”

Imagine how hard it was for kids with excess energy to be kept on a leash for almost a week inside the house; and that when school vacation had just begun. It must have been so stressful for us and our parents, especially my mother who was ready to maintain the solemnity of the feast with a belt.

Throughout the whole of Philippine society then, or at least in our small, gentle city of Dumaguete, the theme of Christ’s death was held with such respect and sobriety as to bring up the use of that common expression “you look like Good Friday” to describe someone with a sad face.

As part of the whole cultural phenomenon, Passion plays and biblical movies played in plazas and theaters as there was no TV yet. Twilight processions paraded the slain Savior in a glass casket in candle-lit streets crowded with people singing hymns. All of those to play up the sufferings that one man did go through so many years ago.

Holy Week was beyond any doubt, a repeated scene in my childhood that instilled not merely respect but also acceptance of the historical significance of the Gospel story. Yes, in spite of moments of atheistic spells in my adolescence. When the prodigal son finally came home, passion took on a different connotation.

Today, after having gone through several transformations in my spiritual belief, the passion of past Holy Weeks has turned into a less somber or death-shrouded period of meditation. Not because so many people nowadays spend the time more in gay outings or unabashed merriment, but because the missing part of the whole story – that of the resurrection – has taken a fixed hold of my mind and soul more than the death had ever done.

As a child, I acted like a child, Apostle Paul once said. I am glad I had those experiences and visual memories as a young boy for they led me to real faith in God. I only wished they had an equally effective way of removing all the pain and pathos they had inflicted on me when Easter Sunday came. Palm Sunday had seemed joyful enough; yet the thought of an empty victory parade into Jerusalem could not prevent the spirit from eventually going down the way to Via Dolorosa. After all, the irony of children singing Hosanna and people waving palm fronds at a man riding a donkey was heaven’s way of giving in to the powers that ruled the City of Peace which was also the City of the Prophets’ Tombs. Christ did not enter it to merely proclaim victory but to submit Himself to those who would bring to fulfillment His entire mission.

Yes, today, a lot of people make a big thing or a big show of the resurrection as a religious feast or as a historical-cultural phenomenon. Sunrise services and grandiose celebrations accompany its arrival. One day to erase and undo all the evil that Jesus bore for us all. But it fails to impress any person who suffers enough everyday and awaits the salvation promised to those who persevere in tribulations. Not the reality and the significance of the resurrection but the empty display of religiosity by so many who when confronted with the burdens of life once more live like there never was a death and a resurrection at all. Passion and jubilation as a mere cycle like the passing of the seasons and yet no real harvest of righteousness in surrendered lives.

The often repeated line in Paul’s letters to the early Christians glorying in the cross of Jesus (“I endeavored to know nothing among you except Christ crucified.”) has somehow led many believers to remain in the throes of the passion of Christ. It is not merely culturally acceptable and theologically accurate, it is also essentially appropriate for creatures bound to suffer and die. Humans that we are, we glory in the wounds of Christ for even the Apostles taught and lived that way. So it seemed.

However, in the context of Paul’s letters, we find that he was talking to unstable and struggling disciples for whom he suffered through his work. He had willfully borne the pain that Christ Himself bore so that those people might attain a maturity that would no longer require them to “glory in death” but to “glory in life”. Somehow, many disciples matured and we see this reflected in the succeeding letters of Paul and more so of John, whose vision of Christ surpassed all others in its sublimity and perfection. Not that suffering no longer held power to transform and discipline but that the level of transformation had reached a point where pain and suffering no longer held any direct challenge within the absorbing reality of eternal life in Christ.

Thus, Paul would write to the Colossians: “Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” Likewise, John would proclaim to us all “perfect love” where “there is no fear”. Within such concepts, death loses its sting and dreariness. And there is no less passion in it either but a greater compulsion to reach out for the completion of our spiritual journey.

Hence, the unproductive cycle of Passion and Jubilation engendered by ceremonial practices by denominations tends to keep us bound within easy and comfortable zones. Yet, at the price of depriving us of the liberating experience of what the gospel is all about.

It’s all about life and the absence of death, pain and suffering. The victory has been won and well secured. Why compel ourselves to dwell anymore in one minute of virtual crucifixion, of pretended pain or of unfounded fear as if to offer Jesus again on the cross? No need to relive history; only to proclaim it.

Jesus Christ rules in heaven. The more we look up to where He is, the better for us all. Then we can truly live each day as if death never existed. Hallelujah!

(Photo above: Children in their innocence picture the indestructibility of life. Of such is the kingdom of heaven.)

Creating Real Wealth that Spreads

Question: If, as the Bible states, God gives the ability to create wealth, what about those who do not receive the ability or those who do not desire wealth at all?

Answer: The question involves two kinds of people: those who (whether they are aware of divine principles or not) have desire (noble or otherwise) for wealth and those who have no regard (noble or otherwise) at all for wealth. In between are people who either swing from one extreme to another and countless other people who simply struggle through life without much concern for principles regarding personal financial management.

The above Q&A lays down the basic problem that besets many people whether rich or poor. Wealth, in the end, refers not merely to material possession but the possession of the ability to "create wealth" for the benefit of as many people as possible. It also suggests possession of moral virtues required for wise stewardship of earthly goods. For there are those born into wealth who do not have the least concern for the needs of the working class or the poor in general. Yes, they are wealthy but they do not have the kind of wealth that truly benefits people and society as a life-supporting-structure. These people who do nothing but make money out of their money only to spend it on their own pleasures do not serve society's future but in fact are obstacles to the distribution of true wealth.

God blesses those whom He wishes to use to bless His people. For instance, when God called Joseph to become the right-hand man of Pharaoh in Egypt, it was not to make Joseph or Pharaoh rich (although the latter was already rich). Neither was it to make Joseph rich. The main object was to save two nations in a time of natural calamity. Joseph served his role as manager of material wealth he did not own nor had any inordinate desire for. His moral training before he was given that role came in the most painful way: rejection from his brothers and imprisonment. With unselfishness, justice and competence, he ruled in Egypt and made a legendary dramatic and moral story.

God, in essence, gave Joseph that ability to create wealth. Whereas there would have been nothing left (not even life) during a seven-year drought, He used Joseph to create prosperity even through times of need. The ants know this economic art by nature but many of us have no real training for preparing for the future. It does not take too much faith or too much spiritual maturity to save something for future needs but less than 10% of our population practices saving money. Saving, as a matter of fact, involves the simplest form of creating wealth at least for the immediate future, something that God magnifies in many parables and proverbs in the Bible.

But the question still remains: How can one save if one does not have money at all or money to spare? Creating wealth presumes the ability to make money out of what we have. (Nobody can make money out of nothing -- only God can.) And yet we do have so much in us that we can use to create wealth. What are they? Let us enumerate them:

Our God-Given Human Resources

1. Artistic Talent

Visual and performing artists have talents that allow them to attract people who are willing to pay to watch their work or hear their performance. The production of movies, musicales, art publications and other related things prove beyond doubt the amount of wealth that artistic talent has generated and continues to generate. This simply means that God has given certain people talents that serve economic, cultural and spiritual purposes in human life. Imagine how boring life would be without music. Still, so much of what we might call talent seems overrated due to opportunists who use commercialism to create wealth for themselves -- the same attitude of greed that enslaves those who misuse riches.

2. Business Acumen (e.g., Investors/Entrepreneurs)

The “children of this world” are said to be “wiser than the children of God”. That is, in the management of money. One can only serve one master. For in the end he who wants to serve Mammon will have to sidestep so many of heaven's decrees in order to make it in this material world. The wealthy pierce themselves with so much trouble, this has been proven over and over again.

But this does not mean that Christians cannot become good or successful businessmen. In fact the churches have progressed well into the present millennium because of the proliferation of believers who have the means to support the work of preaching the word. Hence, to a certain degree, God uses numerous wealthy believers to create the wealth necessary to sustain His work of propagating His message throughout the world. He is not out to make super-rich individuals who will carry the burden of financing His mission but countless people (including the poor) who share the burden of giving. Still, the effort is hampered by the divisions among believers. But that is another story altogether.

3. Employment/Self-employment

For many of us, employment serves as the source of our living. Those who have the wealth (the government included) pay for our time spent working achieving certain objectives. As fast-foods clerks, janitors, grocery baggers, drivers, architects, contractors, bank managers or presidents, people derive income from employment. God has created the various structures of society to create the wealth that we think we do not have but in reality share in and enjoy every moment of our lives. Go to the public market and observe the seemingly chaotic atmosphere and you will realize that this daily orchestra provides any community the essential structure that sustains our physical existence. And when you do realize this, the cacophony turns into beautiful music to the ears.

In the final view, God is the only creator of wealth for without His wisdom nothing would have existed to provide for all that we all take so much for granted. Or sometimes those we so proudly claim to be of our own doing. For wealth can so easily delude us to become strong, powerful and proud that we forget where we got what we have. And the ordinary factory worker is no exception when it comes to this kind of deception. Aren't there people who spend their entire weekly pay on alcohol because they think they "own" what they earned? As we said, saving (and investing) creates future wealth but spending unwisely destroys our future.

The secret then to financial independence lies in understanding who and what creates wealth. Everything else follows from knowing how people in the past and the present created wealth that spreads and not wealth that burdens and eventually kills.

The Irony of Financial Independence

Ironically, it becomes obvious that there is no such thing as independence in finance. We can never think of making or having money without giving thought to others. The father earns a living not for himself alone but for the entire family. The businessperson makes profit not just for the family but for the community. The government imposes taxes not just for the present community but also for the future generations, ideally speaking.

Financial independence has a tendency to place in people's mind the idea of "my money I can spend freely in any way I want". This is nothing but selfishness. This is the curse of consumerism. A person saves enough to buy a fancy car. Or a pair of Ferragamo shoes. What for? Durability? Higher resale value? Yes, in certain instances, the more expensive a thing is, the more value in terms of quality compared to cheaper goods. But in most cases it is merely pride and vanity. Somehow this speaks of self-oriented wealth both for those who create overpriced products and those who buy them.

What about the man who sold his BMW so he can help build low-cost houses for the homeless? Yes, that is charity. An exceptional act of personal sacrifice. Still it emphasizes the financial dependence of others upon those who have. For we cannot have total independence without considering the dependence of those who suffer from want. And there are so many of them out there.

Think of wealth then as a tool or as a means for creating more wealth in terms of completed lives. Lives that would have no existence if not for the food, clothing and dwelling others may share with them.

Some nations do not have the kinds of problems the Philippines has in terms of poverty. In fact, the reason many leave these islands is because wealth is more easily accessible in some countries. More accessible indeed! Why? Because their governments know how to spread the wealth around in terms of free education, health insurance, efficient services, excellent tax management and other social benefits. Not that there are no greedy people in other countries. It is that more greedy people manage our national wealth than in most countries. No wonder that others are well-off and we remain poor.

Conclusion

For a nation to be truly free politically, culturally and economically, God must lead the way in creating wealth that spreads. The only way this can be done is to raise up more and more people who are willing to part with their wealth and not just hoard it. That is, people who invest in future wealth directly in the lives of others and not invest in their own selfish and wasteful desires.

This question remains: What shall it profit a person if he/she should GAIN the whole world and lose his/her own soul?

(Photo above: Bayanihan or communality originated from the Filipino practice of neighbors literally carrying a bamboo house to another location.)

Why Does Old Wine Taste Better?

"And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, `The old is better.’" Luke 5:39 (NIV)

Why is old wine better? There are several reasons. One, age tends to mature wine as the chemical reaction involving alcohol and sugar provides a more balanced and smoother taste. Exactly how this happens, we leave to chemists. Besides, the final proof (no pun intended) we can trust wine connoisseurs to tell us. It is also said that oak barrels in which wine are stored, provide the distinctive taste to aged wine. Of course, other wine-makers will contest this point, especially those who use other kinds of container. Ultimately, the quality of the taste depends on the origin of the wine, whether it be grapes, coconut, rice or sugar cane.

My father used to make wine at home. I remember when he experimented with native fruits such as guava and duhat. He kept them in old rum bottles on elevated shelves in our living room. For as long as he could, he held on to them until some of his drinking relatives heard about them. One by one those bottles disappeared. (My older brother, Levi, has confessed that he secretly drank some of the wine.) I never found out how they tasted. As curious kids though, we had our first taste of tuba (coconut wine) when we raided the kitchen while our mother was away. Of course, we didn't really know if what we tasted was wine or vinegar, which came from spoiled tuba! (A case of new wine becoming new acid.)

Only recently did I really learn to drink a little red wine at socials. For so long, I had kept myself as sober as an aquarium fish not so much for my religious scruples as hating what alcohol did to me. You see, I got really drunk once and only once before. Some friends got me to try gin and to my consternation I remember talking incoherently and out of turn that I vowed I would never want to encounter again that person I was that night. I hated that person. My decision must have saved me from a lot of trouble, thank God.

It seems drinkers can be classified generally into two: Those who savor wine or liquor for what good they offer and those who simply drink. The first treat the drink with respect and with self-control. They know that they deal with something which can be a good friend or a bad enemy. These are the people who can confidently blow into those blood-alcohol measuring gadgets and confidently say they can still drive. For them, the good that wine offers is no different from the good that ordinary food offers since too much of either becomes unhealthful. Finally, this kind can tell the difference between real good and bad wine -- and it follows, real good and bad time.

The other kind of drinkers looks at drink as a means toward a selfish end. They only know one good kind of wine, the one with alcohol. And the good they think of only concerns their immediate satisfaction. They know and have known of so many people whose lives were wasted by drinking too much and yet they imbibe as if they were oblivious of such knowledge. They merely want to have a "good" time which is actually bad, if they thought about it hard enough. Aside from the wasted expense on something that abuses the health, they endanger themselves and others when they drive after drinking. We know how many accidents arise from drunken driving. This fact overtakes death from smoking in plain stupidity by a hundred miles for the obvious reason that such accidents could have been totally avoided.

So, what benefit does good old wine hold for us?

Jesus obviously knew the difference between good and bad wine. Why not? He made the best wine at Cana! But here, He merely points to the common knowledge that old wine tastes better than new wine. Could He have been also referring to the fact that old habits (especially sinful ones) are hard to break because we prefer the comfort zone they offer us? Yes, we like the old ways because we are used to them and do no want to take the extra effort of changing, even if it meant a "better" life for us.

New wine definitely tastes flat when you have tasted old wine. In the same way, new habits don't attract us as much as our old habits. It takes many years for one who is used to listening to country and folk music to shift to jazz or reggae. Take it from someone who went through such an evolution and who often relapses into a folk diet like a hungry young pig. Those songs are so simple and innocent you appreciate the ritual of feeling like a child singing or listening to them. Jazz, on the other hand, makes you feel a bit mature and sophisticated. And a bit self-assured. So depending on one's mood, the music will follow suit. Although my knowledge of wine will fit the label of a wine bottle with enough space to spare, I would venture to say that this musical preference applies as well to our choice between old and new wine.

Yes, we can like both but we can only take them one at a time.

Definitely, price has a lot to do about people's drinking habits. Old wine is much more expensive. You get the same basic alcohol from both kinds, so cheaper wins for most people. In short, you get the same sort of "high". It goes also for our habits. Why should I change my ways when I am happy doing what I'm used to? Old wine tastes better! I've tried driving an automatic car but I still like the challenge of manual driving. I've tasted Greenwich but I still go for Pizza Hut. Ube ice cream is the only ice cream I scream for!

The new takes away so much from our selves. Our experiences, our memories, our very being and future get disrupted when we venture into new horizons. We become disoriented. We become wary of new surroundings because they bring on new and different feelings. With new venues and avenues come new relationships and new directions. And that runs against our normal grain. Remember the time when you visited a different religious rite for the first time? You felt lost. You wondered if God was there at all. Same with new wine; it's not that familiar to our taste.

Yet new wine is the source of old wine. Sooner or later, as we grow old, we discover what really matters in life. We come to decide once and for all the real good in life and we stick to it till the end. What new thing we might welcome today into our life will eventually get old. What new attitude we might develop today will have become a habit sometime in the future. What we begin to become today will become what we will be tomorrow.

Old wine is better because it is definitely better in taste, quality and value. The Lord knows this for sure. And He was not merely talking of wine after all! He wants us to have the best life, too. And that is why we need to get in the new wine into our system - that is, His new way into our very being -- as early as we can so that in the years to come, we can savor the old wine that it will turn into. Then we can look back with joy and comfort for our good decision today.

(Photo above: A seagull takes a rest from foraging. Taken by my son Jon, in Vancouver, Canada.)

The Season of Love

Hurray! It's the “season of love”. Call up the bands and all the music-loving and fun-loving Filipinos. It's time to liven up the park. Let's celebrate love. And the best way to do it is to let go of yourself. Love the one you're with. Kiss the person beside you. Drink the wine while it is warm. Live like it's the only day you will ever live.

What comes afterward is the individual's problem. The producers and endorsers have to make money first. What people do after that is not what motivates the party coordinators to call them in the first place. What people become after they have had wild fun is not really that important to business.

Love is for sale. It is as much a commodity as shampoo and toothpaste. I give you something; you pay me. You come to my party; you buy my product. You want a good time; do what I tell you.

In fact, if you want a kiss, brush your teeth first. Be a good kid. Loosen up. Even lose yourself, if you dare. Live on the edge. Fall if you want to.

Love then becomes nothing but a word. It becomes nothing but a feeling that must be expressed physically. It becomes an action that requires a parallel action or it will not be consummated. It becomes a mantra -- no, a god -- that will lead millions to offer their souls to dissipation and despair.

For what do you expect to gain when you have given nothing? The money you paid to partake of the world's glamour and glitter brought you what it could buy: fun. And fun that can be bought is of no real value. And love that can be had for a few pesos is not real love.

Love that comes only once a year is not worth calling love. The real word for it is LUST. Love you show to show off is not love. The real word for it is PRIDE.

Love requires giving that part of you that no one else can see but you and God. And because we refuse to see it, we devalue ourselves and demean our bodies.

Hence, those who follow the call of the flesh do not mind falling for it. They live for the moment when they could satisfy their carnal desires. They may not even have to be immoral; they only need to be mesmerized by the music that makes them act like zombies awakened from their aimless slumber. No better than prostitutes, they sell their bodies and souls to a god of oblivion. In their ignorance, they forget the God in heaven.

And so, those who claim they serve the true God and yet partake of this farce, are no better than the greedy merchandisers of fun themselves. Yes, they have faith -- so they say -- and worship God when they are not leading people astray. But most of the time, they serve Mammon and themselves.

This too will come to pass. People will get tired of partying. They will settle down to Holy Week's season of passion and meditation. They will search their empty souls. And find nothing. They will keep on searching... and searching.

But not for long. Summer will find them in the beaches and the dance floors cavorting and wriggling once more to the music, yet now with almost nothing to cover their bodies. And even less to cover their shameless souls.

(Not even toothpaste to freshen their parched breath bellowing from their sex-inflamed souls.)

And throughout all of these, love remains the product on display -- no, the medium of exchange.

Cupid is a cute guy to many, even to kids. However, cupidity is an ugly word. It sounds so much like stupidity.

(Photo above: A hungry monkey waits for food from travellers along the road to Subic Bay, Zambales. Sweet treats and other fancy delicacies attract even animals to seek food away from their natural habitat. Hence, it is prohibited to feed these straying monkeys. Besides, they say it's dangerous to feed them. Yes, dangerous to their health! )

On Metaphors and Life

Every time a writer sits down to cut down a great idea into workable planks of thoughts and nails them together with sharp words, the world becomes a more habitable place for himself and others. The wilderness of darkness and uncertainty slowly diminishes as he opens up the frontiers of his mind to the light of wisdom. Be it a novel that exposes the crimes of a dictator or a poem that soothes the soul with reflections of heaven in a diminutive flower, the writer's creation speaks of the unwritten volumes of life accessible only to the human spirit. Whether one is a writer or not, such intangible books are free for browsing anytime, anyplace.

Invariably, beginning writers think first of what word to use and when they find it they hammer it down without looking up alternatives. (Synonyms and antonyms are aplenty in any PC nowadays.) Some even skim a dictionary to fish out any word that will suit their fancy and from there build a sentence. Or even an entire poem or song! (I know because I have done this.) A few gems may come out of this lottery game but like any form of gambling, it may become a habit that will stunt one's artistic growth.

The writer's task then involves finding the right metaphor to package a thought. For instance, writing a song that will put flesh to that thought will involve choosing pictures that will make people hear the song as a real person and not as an abstract idea. (The latter would seem like going to a concert with the speakers off.) "I am music and I write the songs. . . .":This popular tribute to music sung by Barry Manilow has brought many souls soaring to ecstatic realization of what the "language of the soul" can do. Of course, the music provides the winged medium; no, the wind by which the fuselage of words elevates the mind to the heights of virtual flight. But even without audible tunes, poets like Shakespeare - armed only with rhyme and meter -- had always been able to pluck the heart's strings to offer the same blissful result that pure music brings.

In the general scheme of things, what we put down on paper are not the words of a particular language but the metaphors that form those words. For each word came into being by one human mind picturing a part of nature and of life and capturing that image into a useful symbol, a tool that will help any mind after that to recapture the same mental image. The lowly "kurukutok" bird got its name exactly by the way it chirps. It was as if the bird itself said, "My name is Kurukutok!" Considering the exact pitch and the timbre of its tweet, this bird could never be mistaken for an owl or a crow, birds which likewise derived their names by their unique calls. Thus, what was once nature's voice has become a metaphor, a spoken word, a part of human language.

In like manner, music takes the deeper ideas and emotions of humans and transforms them into musical metaphors - simple or complex ones - to convey those same original human conceptions to as many receptive hearts as possible. What was one person's experience in life becomes a metaphor which will hopefully ignite the same mood in another person's life. Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" echoes a universal gift of worship to our beloved Savior, Jesus Christ. What may seem like a melody made up of a driving succession of equally timed beats actually contains triads or three-note groups expressing a dance-like trance close to an experience of infinity or eternity. It then breaks into a restful bridge of equally spaced chordal harmonies that evokes peace and perfection, before flowing back into the literally breathtaking theme. Only a master of metaphors could create such a beautiful classic work of art.

And so it is with visual arts, performing arts, fashion, architecture, engineering and many creative fields of human activity. Metaphors have come to mean any concept that can be defined by a word, a chair, a poem, a song, a book, a painting, a dress, a dance, a building, a family, a company or a nation.

But just like in any language, "miscommunications" may occur in any of these areas. Uncle Sam is often stereotyped as a flamboyant and arrogant persona but for those who have come to meet lowly and hardworking Americans such an oversimplified image becomes ammunition only for American bashers. What to a patriotic American is a historical icon of unity and strength may be a caricature of first world dominance to others. In such a case, people choose the meaning they want to put into certain metaphors.

In political affairs, unlike in pristine nature and pure emotions, meanings get lost in the complex and confusing volleys of unbridled passions. Art and culture no longer serve as the soother or slayer of inordinate desires. They become instruments of deception and subjugation. Minds and lives are enslaved by concepts to serve the needs and whims of a greedy few. Wealth has become the almighty metaphor worshiped by the elite and the masses. With it, many utilize the power it creates to dehumanize humans and to denaturize nature. With it many more have been deluded to pursue its pleasures and comforts. Wealth divides the globe into the first, the second and the third world. And where you reside determines the way you react to the world at large. Or to yourself. You are a metaphor for what we have made of this world. Or what you make of your own world.

And so the human spirit learns to cope with life by struggling to be free from the burdens and aches of the human body. Literature, music, arts and prayer all feed the soul just as much as adobo, fried chicken, escargot and macaroni feed the body. The reality of the invisible becomes palpable through the undying character of the soul while the unreality of the visible is exhibited in the fleetingness of the body. At a time when a book or a classical music CD can cost as much as a family's weekly grocery, guess which would be at the top of the budget list? And yet many a rich person who splurges on "culture" does not think of how the spirit may be enriched by sharing directly material blessings to those in need. And many a starving person who despairs of life simply has disdain for the wealthy. Why? Because the culture that should ennoble humans does not do so and is not able to do so. Why? Because those who have do not really have and those who do not have still keep on hoping to have that which if they had would not benefit them.

In short, in a world hungry for things and for ideas, those who are not satisfied with the essential will always want to gain more. And those who do not have the essential will keep finding ways to get it. The clash of these two has determined the real condition of life in this world.

How then can we find meaning in life? There is no other metaphor for life other than your life itself. Its meaning is what you have put into your life.

(Photo above: This view inside a spacious mall may seem like looking up or down and not as it should be, looking at eye level. The tilted camera and receding lines provide the confusing perspective.)