Hi Rod,
Thanks for your article.
I read it with great interest the first time. I had to read it again to appreciate the logic, the essence and the purpose for your writing it.
From what I glean, your logic is basically founded on the classification of the Pope’s views vis-à-vis the Filipinos’ general view, after which you then submitted your own cunning opinion that we, as confused as we are as a people and as predominantly Catholics, “pray to a dysfunctional Holy Trinity, believing in an Authoritarian God the Father, in a Benevolent God the Son, and in a somewhat Critical or Distant God the Holy Spirit.”
Your conclusion seems to hark back to and find validation in our history as an oppressed colony for four centuries during which time we felt God, just as He allowed the Hebrews to suffer under the pharaohs, left us in chains under the “authoritarian” Catholic Spanish rulers. We then came under the more “benevolent” and Protestant American rulers who allowed us to somehow progress as a nation and after which we again came under a “critical” or overbearing non-Christian Japanese rulers whose only purpose was to extract our natural resources. Under such paradoxically real but artificial conditions, we totally lost our freedom three times over. Today, we remain unsure whether we truly are independent or merely ruled by our own or borrowed or inherited dysfunctional social, political, religious and cultural values.
Hence, considering where we stand as a people, a conglomeration of Christians with diverse religious or spiritual beliefs, you seem to be calling each one, Catholic or not, to see the Pope and his coming visit as a chance for us to assess how we stand as believers in relation to him, to the Catholic Church (or your particular church) and to God. We know most people assume the three are one and the same; but that is not the general reality. The Pope, in fact, has made it clear that he has his own opinions not quiet in keeping with the conservative or popular views of his own church, as you pointed out.
This multiplicity in religious opinions has, for centuries, bedeviled Christianity and has occupied my own mind and some of my close Christian friends’ minds, such that we have spent a good couple of years meeting just to tackle some of the thorniest issues at hand: the Deity of Christ, the Communion, the priesthood, traditions, worship, etc.
I see then the Pope’s coming visit as another reason for majority of Filipinos to rally upon a faith-system that has dominated our country for five centuries now since the exact time Luther arose in protest against it – in 1521, when he nailed his theses on the church door and when Magellan stepped upon these islands. The ironic historical coincidence is too obvious to miss – while history (with God’s inscrutable approval) was trying to correct some errors in Europe, it wanted a small distant nation to start learning what was losing credibility. Some see the latter event as nothing more than a military-backed business venture – after all, the sword is in the shape of a cross, and just as blood-stained.
And so, we remain fixed within a 16th-century form of Christianity along with other countries in South America, a condition which is conducive to continued political and economic exploitation. And the US does not seem to care much as long as the aristocracy remains compliant to imposed western economic, military and political programs, as it has invariably done so from the start.
Fast forward to the 1970’s when people started reading the Bible in throngs. We cannot avoid the fact that so many have turned to a more evangelical (that is, biblical or what we used to call Protestant) and less Catholic-based interpretation of the Gospel. I have to admit I was one of them, although it feels awkward to be bringing this up at this time when political and cultural divisions have complicated our lives even more.
But your article is, secondly, essentially trying to point out the stark and sad reality of our nation’s partitioned nature on so many levels, not just in religion. And, like it or not, practicing one’s religion nowadays is tantamount to being political as well. Just look at Manny Pacquiao: a congressman who has turned into an evangelical preacher (among other things, aside from being an actor, singer and basketball player). A friend and I cannot talk about Pacquiao’s religious beliefs without arguing about his business and political ambitions. Is the Pope or Pacquiao a preacher or a politician? Or are they both both? And are they not also, in fact, businessmen/capitalists with huge financial interests to protect or pursue?
Life, even for believers, is no longer that simple. That is why I also see your intention, thirdly, as that of challenging each one of us to judge the spirits, actuations or the opinions of people, especially those who parade themselves as apostles or disciples of Christ and to really take to heart the lessons that the Lord Jesus Christ left to His 12 apostles, the true cornerstone and foundation of the living body of Christ on Earth. Yes, the foundation has already been established during Christ's ministry; no need to rebuild or to reform. Anything beyond that is dangerous ground.
In addition, even the issue on evolution, which is not really given much media or popular coverage here, you have brought up, thus, adding another intellectual or scientific dimension into the otherwise straightforward religious issues involved. Nevertheless, politics will always be the white elephant in the room.
For if evolution is the way God created us (that is, we did evolve from primates and humanoids) how come humans, who have not truly evolved in spiritual maturity, can now go to Heaven? For if Mary has indeed ascended to Heaven, then, our state as Homo Sapiens is the end-of-the-road for evolution. But who are we to say that 1st-century up to 21st-century humans are the ultimate evolutionary creation of God? How are we more evolved than the Hebrews, in that sense? If the first humans, Adam and Eve, who were created in the image of the perfect God, were in fact the first sinners (or evolutionary misfits, in short), what chances do the rest of us have? And what kind of God would spend many millions of years to develop humans only to see or allow them to fail at the first simple test of appetite? We deserve to be treated like animals which cannot control their desires, whereas we do have the spiritual and intellectual capacity to harness Nature and to create so much goodness and progress, if we only followed the ways of our Creator and His universal designs. We have 7 other planets we can colonize and yet we cannot even keep this one a real Paradise!
Why? Because there is a Deceiver (Did you intentionally forget to mention him?) who causes people to rebel against God and who causes confusion and division among God’s children. Truth is: God declared how He made the Universe and humans. The fact that we do not believe as Moses testified has caused us to doubt, no, to make God and His messengers as liars. We know who the Father of Lies is.
More than looking forward to the Pope’s visit, let us look forward to the return of Christ (which I hope happens soon, maybe next year -- after our class reunion, preferably). By that I mean, let us consider all the present issues as Christ sees them and as He taught them. What were His and His apostles’ views on the Creation, on the Final Judgment, on homosexuality, on women, on adultery, on worship, on faith and many more? He alone is the anchor of our faith, not any human individual, living or dead, or any system of faith we have invented other than the one founded on His revealed and unchangeable truth.
The assurance of our salvation lies upon our understanding of God’s truth as declared by His Son, Jesus. Anyone else and anything else is subject to suspicion.
vince
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Begin Again: A Movie Review
I wish I could have watched the movie again just to get a better grasp of the dialogue and the nuances of some characters’ evolution into what they could be the epitome of people who rule our music industry. But as an out-of-the-way film about out-of-the-way music, I doubt if it will ever ring bells among the profit-oriented composers and producers among us. Nevertheless, this painfully raw but brutally powerful film deserves five stars for even making a gallant stand against the music industry powers-that-be.
How many watched or preferred it over other films is the big question. But, hey, I am overjoyed that even in the character of Keira Knightley, Greta, an idealistic music writer exists who simply finds joy and fulfillment in hearing her songs (or singing it to her cat) and not to hear it played on the radio -- decorated or enhanced to please the music executives. Her initial disgust at the idea of recording her song set the theme all throughout the movie with a mellowing at the end when she realizes every artist must work the machine to some degree so that what her cat hears can be heard by humans as well.
At those initial levels, the movie succeeds for me. Nothing else would matter; but there is more.
Aside from the fact that Greta rides a bike around New York City, she also is the kind of person who does not think twice of humbly serving people she cares for. From her boy friend, Dave Kohl, played by Adam Levine whom she practically follows around as a supportive “coffee-server/waiter” and “inspiration”, she also serves her partner-producer Dan’s (played by Mark Ruffalo) daughter like a “social worker” on-duty – teaching her how to dress, how to attract the right kind of boy-friend and how to play with a band. On top of that, she bravely counsels the father how to treat a daughter as a father should and not as an absentee-father that he is.
Here is an artist who truly knows life and knows that life is not merely escaping into a dream world of musical ideas to describe her view of the perfect world; she actually ends up making songs that explode with the angst that life deals her (like the Dear John song – Like a Fool -- composed and recorded on an iPhone for her boy-friend) and frees herself of the things that burden rather than bless her.
But one of the most fatal stabs the film succeeds in punching a hole on the fabric of the giant music industry is not even shown in the main body of the movie but in the end-credits. Those who leave before then or do not listen carefully would easily miss the frontal attack against profiteers out there. She decides to reject the offer of a big music label in favor of producing her album herself and selling it online for -- what? just $2 per album! Again, here is an artist who compromises a bit to make some profit off her work but does so by allowing more people to access her creative work. Not that talent is cheap, as the film may appear to be saying; real talent must be made available to as many people as possible. That is, in spite of the potential her work has to rake in much money if pushed through the usual music production process, she opts for using the Internet and its alternative music stores to reach as many people as possible. Which, in the business sense, actually makes a lot of sense! That is how you defeat the giants. Remain small but accessible. With so many artists doing that, who needs giants? The film is either describing or starting a revolution.
The movie (as the title seems to suggest) must be giving everyone of us a chance to look at music, together with the artistic and business sides of it as well, with a fresh look, showing us how to begin again with the basics of why we make or listen to music in the first place. The song is the product of a person whose heart and soul give birth to emotions worth writing about. Whoever is or are involved in the song or the story of the song is all that matters for the true artist. We write to set free what is burning within us. The catharsis is the fulfillment itself. Whether others listen (or listen in) or not is less of a concern.
The song is finished the moment it is written and sung by the writer. But the producer, oftentimes, hears arrangements and applause and money jingling as the song plays. The two sounds are entirely two different things altogether. Much of what we hear then (even the many best hits we love), may not be what the writer meant it to be. Yes, we must admit, many hits would not have been released without the music machinery that exists. But imagine how many more beautiful and honest songs we would have had if things were done differently -- as they are now, slowly through alternative ways suggested by the film.
The essential songwriter hears only the words and melody of the song and nothing else. Others may hear something else; and therein lies the danger of losing the essence of the song. And often, that is what happens.
Next time you listen to a song, listen to the silent voice of the writer and, if possible, just a guitar or a keyboard behind it, and not just the singer (unless, of course, if it is Randy Newman!). Oftentimes, you will hear what the song is originally all about and not what we want it to mean. Even Dave Kohl or Adam Levine, the epitome of the rock star in and out of the movie, realizes this as he sings the song Keira’s character had written for him (or, more precisely, for the two of them), albeit too late.
It may not be too late for many of us to begin again, not just in the artistic or professional sense but in the moral or spiritual sense. That at those moments when we are at the end of our rope, we can still find the hope to begin a fresh start in life. But sometimes, it takes a real life-artist (meaning, a genuine observer of life and the undying principles that govern it) to find out how to begin again.
Manariwa!
(Photo above: Still Life Special FX photography by Sean & Misha Raymer, Jordan Flores and Jhanine Familara of Baguio City.)
Monday, July 21, 2014
LSS and Mental Discipline
You know, that Last Song Syndrome that keeps a song playing in your mind whatever you are doing. Here it is: Keep saying LSS silently as many times as you can. At times, say Last Song, Silent! as if commanding your mind to click that song off your mental iPod. Or say, Love Stillness, Silence like a yogi hypnotizing yourself into a mental reboot, or, if an unwelcome song really persists, un-mute the volume and shout: Leave, Stupid Song!
It works for me. Try it; it could also work for you.
Obviously, music should be sung or listened to, not just serve as literal or virtual (mental) background audio-scape to remind us we are not alone. It’s so quiet and lonely here; let’s have some sounds! Or we leave the TV on while we do something else. We are now so inured to sound or noise that silence scares us into thinking or feeling we are detached from others or ourselves.
Or we think listening to someone or something makes us look smart, feel productive or reasonably happy. The business-people want you to think so and you know why. The IT industry has cashed in on our supposed appetite or desire for information. But how much information is enough? And what kind of information really matters?
Worse of all, we have let others think for us, feel for us and even sing for us. We have become nothing but absorbents of others’ lives. We let others live for us and in us. And we gladly let them and, sometimes, we live our lives around their lives as well. That is what we do with our idols -- celebrities or deities.
Music is a product of a living mind. But not all music is meant to lead you to life. Some can destroy your mind and life. What music ends up doing to you then is part of your conscious or unconscious effort to become a better or less person than you are now.
Yes, in some instances, music also helps us to think clearly and more effectively; but have we ever really done quiet thinking? I mean thinking and listening only to our mind and not to others’ opinions or commentaries or to music playing out loud or inside our brain?
This is how the brain generally works: It focuses at one thing at a time; but we often allow it to wander or get off track with or without our conscious control. Imagine a highway with many streets branching out of it, left and right, diagonally and roundabout. The brain can only allow us to think willfully on one single thing at any moment and yet we do not realize that it switches from that thing (say a TV show) to one or more things at various times, sometimes within a split second (the cat leaping onto your lap which you pat as you go back to the show) or a longer time (your son calling you to ask if he can go out with his friends and you say, OK, have a great time!) and back to the thing (the show!).
Like Walter Mitty, you drive down a highway, take a turn right for a few meters to get a cat up on a tree into your car, then drive back to the highway and then turning left for a mile to watch and cheer your son as he flips over and kicks the football into the goal and, then finally, back to the highway on your way now to the planet Naboo aboard a spaceship, if you happen to be watching Star Wars.
LSS, or any mental diversion, is essentially a turn from the main highway that keeps our mind distracted, daydreaming or scatterbrained -- and whatever else we have come to name it. Oftentimes, the very thing we are doing might be the distraction we should be avoiding: playing video games or partying till dawn. Yes, many of us have made a career or life of distractions! We fondly call them hobbies – or, sometimes, obsessions.
It takes discipline to keep focused. Athletes are good at it. Their passion for concentration and total body engagement to the matter at hand are limitless. A single distraction as the opponent lobs a ball over the net could make you lose your timing and miss the backhand return for a lost point. Or a split second glance to your side could lead you to run over a rock and cause a nasty bike spill.
We are the pilots of our minds and have complete control over what we will think and, consequently, what we will say and do. If the mind, therefore, appears as if it is trying to wrest control from us, it can only mean we lack the tools to discipline ourselves, our bodies and our abilities. Accidents do and will happen; but that is mainly because we and others get out-of-focus or mindless now and then.
We should learn to control our minds or we will always find ourselves being undisciplined or unmindful (that is, half-a-mind away from the where we are). As the Jedi master often said: Be mindful, padawan! The world has become so complicated and at times chaotic that the mind is constantly bombarded by stimuli from all sides. And we are partly to blame. We buy cell-phones we can use as a phone, an iPod, a camera, a TV, a book, a browser, a play station, a piano, a recorder and even as a mirror. And then, there is the elevator, the bus, the mall or just about everything which drowns our ears with music of various kinds and rhythm, soft and loud, fast and slow. And the billboards that do not cease to seduce even at night. The neighbors who sing karaoke till dawn. Or the dogs that steal your sleep as they bark at a cat over the fence.
Yes, even when you need sleep to still your mind, things still manage to bring you off the highway of your dreams to restart you back to consciousness and into the battle for mental serenity and even sanity.
Imagine what we can do is we could totally focus on what needs to be done at all times. Facebook would lose more than half of its users. YouTube would cease to be an alternative for TV and viral videos would die of colds and flu.
Yes, more people would start becoming more efficient users of all their resources: time, money, effort and food. What? Food?!
It takes energy for our nerves to function and each mental process requires axons giving way to impulses that the brain will process accordingly. Hence, LSS can be an emotionally and literally tiring thing for it uses up energy without us achieving some good out of it except irritation, wasted time and lack of concentration. So, solving LSS and all other distractions to the mind can help us become healthier as we use up only our energy for things that really matter for our well-being.
We can take necessary detours now and then, as long as we focus on our final destination. Let LSS, movies and Candy Crush divert your mind if you need to. But remember the consequences of missing out on the real joys of your journey and the big opportunities you could lose because you dilly-dallied or wasted your energy tramping on the side-streets instead.
The mind never stops and neither does our journey to our destination. Where we find ourselves at the end will depend greatly on how we mapped out our course.
LSS? Love Stillness, Silence. Keep your mind open but not to everything you hear. You have a mind for a good reason. It is not your own. There is a greater Mind trying to get your attention amidst the noise and clutter. And IT wants to think for you and with you.
Listen, Search, Submit.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
The Reproductive Health Bill and the Individual: Marriage and Life as Conceived by God
The potential for reproducing life is in each and every one of us. When two become one in marriage, that potential becomes a reality. The underlying problem with judicial processes, as applied in this issue, is their rejection of the ultimate origin and the basic motivation that allow each couple to fulfill a God-given relationship or institution which in the beginning was absolutely free of any other institution other than itself. Marriage, as conceived, is solely between God and two persons united. No other individual, human government or religion can curtail it or impose sanctions or limitations upon it. By extension, only the families involved, and to a certain extent, the community, should have any viable stake upon that union.
God, in fact, tried to “abort” marriage and reproduction when He delayed Eve’s creation. It is not good for a person to be alone. Of course, it was to highlight the principle and the process of individual and solitary will to accept and to enter into an unbounded, Heaven-designed, Earth-based and Nature-protected married life. This is the ideal state of marriage and reproduction so essential in understanding this whole issue.
Having missed or sidelined this vital dimension of marriage, our justices have conveniently skirted the moral issue or delayed it for a future decision. They may have succeeded in limiting the coercive power of our lawmakers to control reproduction; but they have not totally protected the individual's basic rights. Religious groups, on the other hand, which have taken upon themselves to become the vanguards or protectors of their unique perception of the fundamental nature of this issue, now want to impose upon couples such peculiar ways of seeing the issue. Government, armed with science and medical technology, remains adamant in promoting a way to achieve its political and economic goals. Hence, from many sides, the freedom of each individual or couple (Are they not one individual?) has been compromised, if not already violated.
The issue, if it has to be begged, is not whether we should have an RH Bill or not. It is not whether population should be controlled or not. It is whether we, as an individual, as a group, as a society, or as a government, have any right to interfere with a solemn covenant entered into by two persons (with their families) and impose any control or sanction. If the government means only to inform or provide assistance, there is nothing wrong with that. The couple is free to accept any information or medical aid. But knowing government and its ultimate or hidden agenda, the couple needs some protection. On the other hand, religion also has its own agenda. Beware of wolves and lions that lurk around us!
The multiplication of Adam and Eve’s children (or the so-called overpopulation, as seen from a political and economic viewpoint) has become the scourge rather than the blessing that it was intended to be. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court deserves to be commended for recognizing the negative effects of population control in other countries and for pointing out that the real problem is not overpopulation but the failure to distribute wealth. However, while it deserves some praise for upholding the RH Bill as being “not unconstitutional”, its decision, in totality, is politically aimed at balancing all the many forces that are equally at a loss as to the nuances of this controversial bill.
Unwittingly, the SC has come upon this decision by pure accident. That is, not by clear and voluntary will to uphold a divine principle established in the beginning when life itself began. In fact, it avoids its role as God’s potential voice by explicitly refusing to make the moral decision and seeing the RH Bill merely as a medical and scientific issue. It acts like King Solomon telling the false mother, “Let the doctors and scientists decide if the child is truly your own through a DNA test!” A case of legal wisdom escaping moral responsibility. A toothless, heartless ruler!
And so, the controversy will continue to rage for as long as we fail to accept and uphold the word of the Final Judge (and the True Solemnizer of Marriage and Giver of Life) Who rules above all authority and power. As always, when God is taken away from the equation (and religion, legalism, politics and economics take over), confusion and corruption arise.
The conditions that seem to justify the RH Bill are, at best, artificial and, at worst, intentional. A genuinely free, self-reliant, educated and morally-upright individual forms the basic unit of a productive and progressive nation. The replication of many such citizens, not the prevention of birth or the corruption of minds, is the most viable goal every nation must focus and invest on.
In the end, the individual is much better off thinking for himself or herself. For the final protector and arbiter, God Himself, resides in each person’s heart and conscience. As true children of Adam and Eve and, therefore of God, we have a legacy greater than what modern leaders promise us.
Saturday, January 04, 2014
Vivir es Descansar! (To Live is to Rest!)
December 31 marks the martyrdom of our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal. In his famous last poem, he ended with the memorable statement: Morir es descansar! (To die is to rest!)
Dying at the young age of 35, Rizal must have borne the great burden of a nation’s struggle for independence weighing upon his shoulders since the time his older brother, Paciano, told him when he was still a student at the University of Santo Tomas, that the fight for freedom required a leader with great intellectual capacity, a quality the younger Rizal had exhibited. Thus, Paciano sent Jose to study in Spain, far away from the vicious hands of the Spanish friars, while he remained in Calamba to support his brother’s studies as well as the struggle for freedom in the islands.
Indeed, Rizal enjoyed great freedom in Spain, giving vent to his artistic and political expressions both to his fellow freedom-fighters and their common host. Those fiery views eventually found their way to his homeland through his two books – Noli and Fili, the principal weapons he wielded against Spain -- which made him a dangerous enemy of the Spaniards and which led to his execution at their hands.
His seemingly self-imposed commitment to achieve independence for his country somehow negated Rizal’s own personal freedom. He essentially gave up his rightful fulfilment of his own marital future, his career, his familial duties and even his business opportunities. He travelled around the globe while trying to avoid any amorous commitment as he had betrothed himself to his country and his people. It was only when he was exiled in Dapitan that he finally escaped extreme loneliness and married Josephine Bracken – against the wishes of his family and without the blessings of the Catholic Church. Yet, in spite of that brief marital relief, he chose to serve as a surgeon in Cuba, a wish which was cut short when he was implicated in the Katipunan revolt and eventually sentenced to die as its alleged figurehead. No, he was not escaping family duty but was egged on by his solemn oath to serve his people. The relief he could give as a doctor to wounded soldiers was his way of finding relief for himself.
Rizal also gave up his lucrative occupation as an ophthalmologist in Hong Kong in order to return home and face his enemies in a bid to show them that Filipinos knew how to sacrifice for their land. He also went against his mother’s and his sisters’ pleadings to avoid a confrontation with the Spanish authorities by going home to Manila. Lastly, he gave up his own vision of establishing a new colony in Sandakan in order to save his town mates who had been disenfranchised of their lands in Calamba, Laguna. It was an enterprise that would have made Rizal and his family not just wealthy but also powerful, as North Borneo would eventually become an oil-rich country.
All these, Rizal gave up as he was focused on his goal to show his enemies he was fighting not for himself alone but for a people, a nation enslaved for four centuries. He knew it was time for that nation to be set free. In the same way that Lincoln, at about the same time, knew the African-American slaves should be freed, Rizal labored to make that same freedom become a reality for all Filipinos. Both men were killed by the real tyrants who tried to deny them the freedom to grant rest to their people.
Morir es descansar! Rizal felt that at his youthful age, he had carried more than the weight any person could carry for a lifetime. Death was the only resolution to his great challenge. And death was the only solution the enemy saw to eliminate a man who had set his sights on liberating his nation with all his might. Thus, in and through his death, he triumphed over his enemies.
The Katipunan, of course, took a different path to freedom. Armed struggle, with the view to destroy the enemy by force, was a course inherited from the nations in Europe which had gained victory against their own oppressors. Rizal, seeing his own death as but a small contribution to the many lives offered at the altar of freedom, met his own destiny while bearing his own unique world view that people today either view as a clear vindication or a mere compromise.
A hero can be both a hero and a villain at the same time – whether to an enemy or to a friend. Alive or dead, we will always have enemies who will both fear or respect us for our principles. Best way to deal with them is to willingly bear the vision given to us and to share it with as many people who can benefit from it and will share it with others. To those who see no value in the sacrifice, all we can hope for is rest from their unbelieving eyes and minds.
And so, even after Rizal’s death, the enemy would plant stories and fake evidences that he recanted or that he did not remain faithful to the ideals he set for himself. An idealist lives and dies by the ideals he or she has labored hard to unravel and to abide by in life. To die and be unfaithful to those ideals is to become unworthy of the years spent in learning through pain in achieving those ideals. This is what Rizal meant when he accused his enemies of denying his people the glory of patriotism or love of country that is a birthright by virtue of the inherent freedom a nation has before the arrival of colonizers.
If Rizal were to see our land today, he would not only roll in his grave but will be so restless as to wish to die a thousand deaths if only to exorcise the millions of demons who have replaced the many demons he fought during his lifetime.
But Rizal is dead. He has rested from his labours. What can we, the living and the suffering and a people also in need of precious rest, do for ourselves and our children?
It is not to die in order to rest also, as Rizal did and seems to teach us even today. Our duty today is to live now and to rest now as well.
Rizal’s death is now our own. We celebrate it yearly even if we do not really appreciate or understand it. Rizal’s struggles are our own. We live them every single day by our own desire to live worthy of his own unselfish offering for us. Rizal’s rest is, then, finally our own. It is a legacy he and the rest of our heroes bequeathed us.
We must live as if we do have that rest from our struggles and our sufferings. For in the end, it is not Rizal who saves us or who saved us. It is God Who gives us rest from our own enemies.
Many impassioned people today live and labor in order to offer their body and soul for their chosen cause and, if needed, to die for it. They experience the pressure and the burden that they have chosen to accept freely as an expression of their love and adoration for their God or the goals that they deem worthy of their sacrifice. As Rizal did, many today likewise live and look forward to a peaceful rest from a life of complete toil and full-giving.
Think of our workers here and overseas who sweat and strain to support families and the entire nation. They all need not merely the rest of energizing sleep and the uplifting contentment of a future prosperous, peaceful life but the complete, refreshing rest of burdened laborers in the land of the living.
This is the rest, this is the refreshing Isaiah prophesied for our times and for all time (Isaiah 28:12). Hammargeah (rest or refreshing) is a divine reward we have been blessed with and which we must savor for Him and for ourselves. This is an unending life of rest He commanded humans to have (Psalm 133:3). Without His own rest from His work of Creation, we will never attain our own rest from our own toils.
Yes, God, if we remember, sent His own Son to finally grant us the rest that He Himself first granted Himself and set as a legacy for all after He had created all things. His rest – the Sabbath – had been established as a law, as a reality, as a need and as an inviolable destiny for humans and all of God’s handiwork. When His people misunderstood or misused it, He reminded them in so many drastic or tragic ways. In that temporary, child-training mode, God showed how this concept of rest is part and parcel of and a prime ideal in His dealings with Nature and with Humans.
When Christ finally triumphed over His enemies – including death – eternal rest was established and then proclaimed by His disciples. Rest (as Noah’s name connotes) had been given and reinstituted as a reality through the renewal of the Earth after the Great Flood. And yet, sin abounded after that cataclysmic display of divine power.
Today, people still refuse this divine theme of rest for all. Rizal saw it and received it upon his death. He yearned for it through his own youthful energy in pursuit of change – a final relief from a reign of unrest over people. Whereas Rizal wrote Morir es descansar, we must live the words our Lord brought to us: Vivir es descansar! To live is to rest in God! Death is also a choice; but the rule is for us to live in God’s abiding peace today and for always. Death may and will come; but the rest God promised can be ours at this moment.
As Christians, we must live as if we truly live in the promised rest of God. That is, just as the Israelites felt and lived at rest in the Promised Land after leaving the wilderness, we must work to make our world no longer a wilderness but a restful place where God truly reigns.
Hence, as Rizal desired, we must seek that place where God alone reigns and where faith does not kill. Our land can only be a land of faith and rest if we, as believers, live and rest in the might of God.
Vivir es Descansar! May this be our theme for the New Year 2014 and onward.
Manariwa! (Be Refreshed!)
Psalm 23
The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord
Forever.
(Photo above: Rizal Monument at Luneta Park -- courtesy of Google.com)
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