Mount Pinatubo
It is the MBA finals and I am again rooting for the Warriors. I am emotionally invested in this team and I get kinda down and low whenever they lose. We lived in the Bay area for years and saw how this team had risen from the perennial doormat of the league to the latest historic and legendary dynastic powerhouse in the world of basketball. It is also a family thing. Everyone in the family is a fan-atic. We all just love the Warriors. And the opposite is true: we dislike everything and everyone the Warriors play against.
I loved Leonard when he was with the Spurs, specially when he was having problems with the team. Now, it is Pascal Siakam I dislike. He has been so good so far in the Finals, I absolutely find him repellent. I wish he was not with the Raptors. then, I read somewhere that he is an ex-seminarian. And just like that, my distaste for him suddenly turned into sheer admiration. His father enrolled him in the seminary for he wanted a priest in the family – much against the wishes of Pascal. In the seminary, he did everything to get himself dismissed; but he so excelled academically, the seminary fathers decided to keep him in. Today, he credits his seminary formation for his discipline, character and integrity.
I fancy myself as a rational person, often given to a lot of intellectualism. In the end, when I act or make a decision, I simply listen to my heart. Looking back, none of the major decisions in my life have been irrational. But when making them, I followed my heart, more than what my head was saying.
With that is happening in the world today, specially so in our country, I feel like exclaiming, “O Judgment ! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason!” The national conversation these days seem to be totally devoid of sanity and reason. Instead, raw and irrational emotions are running rampant and seem to be dictating national agenda.
And still, in my heart of hearts, I’d still listen to my heart than to my head. Reason tells me we are headed to perdition. Yet, I have always believed that the heart has its reasons that reason itself does not understand.
Some eight years ago, I trekked up to Mount Pinatubo with some of my family. Reason told me not to risk it. I just had a cardiac procedure and I was no longer a spring chicken. But something in my heart prodded me to go on. I almost did not make it. I was literally being carried along my group to be able to reach the top. But I did it. My heart was singing when we stood before the majestic lake. It almost felt like the Little Prince wha there beside me, softly whispering :”One sees rightly only with the heart, What is essential is invisible to the eyes.”