God Gives His People Strength

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Spirit Moments

I am inspired by the massive turnout and the great spirit that pervaded the anti-PDAF rally that happened yesterday in the Philippines. I can see the spirit of EDSA I alive and resurrected. Kay sarap maging Filipino.

I hope our leaders read the signs of the times and do the right thing this time. I am totally appalled and deeply disgusted how our own leaders can so shamelessly raid the national coffers with such impunity that you would think public funds were for their personal use.

I hope and pray that the President heeds the voice of the people and do justice by them. The presidency was literally handed to him on a silver platter at the wave of sympathy and outpouring of support when his mother died. He should keep in mind that the real source of his power is the support of the people and not the backroom wheeling and dealing of corrupt tradpols. Now, that he has heard from the Filipino people, he should junk his supporters among these politicians and heed the voice of those whom he himself acknowledges to be his really bosses – the Filipino people.

This morning, I bow my head in prayer in thanksgiving to God, sending once more His Spirit to blow over our land. I bow my head in praise for God has again visited His people. I bow my head in prayers of supplications that God enlighten us as a people so that we all do our share in building our nation. I pray for the corrupt and the selfish among our leaders that they either resign or mend their ways. I pray to the upright and the just among our leaders that they have the strength and the courage to make things right and do justice by our people.

‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.’
Matthew 23:13-19

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Love Not Possible Without Faith

Posted on August 25, 2013 by Spirit Moments

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Love literally makes my living worthwhile. But, I can love only because I believe. I stand in awe at the majesty and grandeur of nature and I am overcome by the presence of a Creator I cannot fully know nor understand. I merely catch a glimpse of the God who has made all these things around me. My feeble mind cannot even start to comprehend who or what He is. I take everything else about Him in Faith. Believing in this Divine Presence I allow myself to be soaked in His love, grateful for the gift of life and existence. I believe and I realize how deeply I have been loved and only desire to love back in return.

I have loved special people in my life. These all started with an initial attraction where I caught a glimpse of the goodness, kindness, beauty, greatness or truth in them. I could not have known them perfectly for in our finiteness total revelation of self to others is difficult, if not well nigh impossible. I took everything else about them in Faith. Believing in their goodness and kindness and beauty and greatness and truth, I have made the decision to love them. This is the reason that I also believe that when a decision to love is made, it is always meant to be forever.

I have always nurtured a deep love for my country, the Philippines. It might be a miserable place to live in, “the gateway to hell” in the words of Dan Brown. But it is in this country that I first caught a glimpse of and eventually learned about what is good, true and beautiful. I am proud to have been part of the historic EDSA revolution where my Faith in the Filipino and the Philippines found its justification. And I was so overwhelmed by love for my country during those days. And today, I join millions of my countrymen as they gather together and march for a moral regeneration of our soul as a people from the corruption and the poverty that it has spawned. I can love the Philippines only because of my deep Faith in her.

What makes life worth living? It is love. Who will be saved? Only those who have known the Lord. In Faith. Love and Faith, they go together. “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4:20)

Someone asked him, ‘Lord, will only a few be saved?’ He said to them, ‘Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. When once the owner of the house has got up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, “Lord, open to us”, then in reply he will say to you, “I do not know where you come from.”
Luke 13:22-30

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Faith and Love Make for Strong Families and Friendships

Posted on August 24, 2013 by Spirit Moments

In my life, there have been people I have come to know truly and very deeply. These are also the same people to whom I have truly and very deeply laid bare my soul. They are my loved ones and my friends forever. They may disappoint me often and even hurt me sometimes; but because of our mutual self-revelations to each other there is an unbreakable bond that tie us together – yes, forever.

This process of bonding is mediated more out of the heart rather than the mind. When I fell in love with and married Anabelle I did not do a cost/benefit analysis. Rather, I dreamt of all the wonderful things we would do through our years together and how miserable and empty my life would be with out her by my side. I have not regretted the decision to love her. In the end, I have gained more benefits than costs through this decision. When we decided to have children, we did not do a P&L statement; rather we imagined the gurgling and cooing sounds of new-born babes, their fresh smell, the parties we would celebrate for them, the picnics and outings we would enjoy with them, the sunshine and laughter they would bring into our lives. In the end, it had all been profit and no loss to us raising up Martin, Mickey and Macky.

In my younger years, I believed we made all your lifelong friends mostly in high school and some more in college and one kept these for life. I have been wrong. All throughout my life, I have been making lifetime friends at every important milestone of my life journey. Many of them are always within arms reach. Others are just a phone call or text message away. Still others are always reachable through social media. Some are temporarily lost through time and space. But when we see each other, we just pick up from where we last left off.

“One sees rightly only with the heart.” the Little Prince said, “What is essential is invisible to the eyes.” Friends and family are not only about love and the heart. They are also about faith and the will.

When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
John 1:45-51

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Love’s Been Good to Me

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Spirit Moments

I have always been an incurable romantic. In my time, I have made quite a number of people happy because of my love for them. I have loved deeply and dearly. Anabelle always looked forward to the bouquet of roses I would send her at the beginning of each school year and to our unfailing Wednesday dates. I always made it a point to write our sons long heart-felt letters at important milestones during their tender wonder years. Friends have always been touched when we go out of our way to visit them or remember them on special occasions. People knew they could always count on us to help.

These days, the ardor and the passion has been waning. Love is less and less about the heart and emotions; it is becoming more and more about the will and the spirit. There is less and less being swept off one’s feet or even having lumps in the throat or butterflies in the stomach. There is more and more about deciding to stay even when the going gets though or just walking away when staying would mean hurting someone or just selfishly indulging one’s self.

Love has gone from doing grand heroic acts for the people I love to simple everyday tasks, mostly unnoticed and unheralded, for them. Like, love for me this day is waking early and getting ready to bring Jonathan and Jane to school and then later picking them up. It is simply being by the side of Anabelle as we go through another ordinary day. It is keeping each other company in a quiet and unhurried pace. It is possibly making a trip to the city to meet up with some old friends.

“Still in all, I’m happy. The reason is you see, once in while along the way, love’s been good to me.”

A lawyer asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Matthew 22:34-40

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Preparing for the Banquet

Posted on August 22, 2013 by Spirit Moments

My greatest fear growing old is the coming of the day when I shall have outlived my usefulness and become a burden to others. I am beginning to miss the days when I was the go-to or the run-to person when others needed help or assistance or advice or people wanted things done and done correctly. Increasingly, I find myself in humbling and humiliating situations where I cause others pain and disappointment because I did something stupid or something ridiculous or something which a sane and thinking person would not have done. I hated it but for the first time I found myself crying in self-pity over such a situation yesterday.

I try to prepare myself for my passage and transition. I know that such things will eventually happen to one advancing in years. My prayers are not so much for myself to be spared the humbling and the humiliation but for the people I love to be spared of the burden, pain and disappointments. I know I am slowly shedding my old self, my old clothes and being clad in wedding robes. I am going to a wedding banquet. All my life I have been trying to respond to this invitation from the King to come to the banquet of His Son. When the time comes, I pray I am properly attired and welcomed warmly into the banquet.

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.”
Matthew 22:1-2, 8-14

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Envy

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Spirit Moments

Envy is the feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to other’s advantages, success, possessions, achievements, talents, etc. It often leads to other negative feelings like anger, resentment, inadequacy, helplessness and disgust. It is one of the most potent causes of unhappiness.

At its roots, envy is a lack of faith in God. When I am envious, I begin to think that God has not gifted me as much as he has gifted others. Because I seem to lack what others have, I begin to feel inadequate and helpless. I entertain feelings of anger and resentment against God for not being more generous with me. I even start thinking that if I were God, I would have done things differently. The creature that is me tries to re-create my creator who is God in my image and likeness. Such is the evil that is in envy – not so much that I begrudge others for what they have but that I fail to see and believe the goodness that God has showered me with.

I still often have to struggle with feelings of envy. During such moments, I will thank God and praise Him for the good things that happen to others, specially to those I dislike. I will trust in His goodness. I will see and believe the good things He has brought into my life. I will rejoice in the good fortune of others even as I count my own blessings with deep faith and gratitude.

But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Matthew 20:1-16

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Weathering the Storms

Posted on August 20, 2013 by Spirit Moments

Life in the Philippines has always been fragile and tenuous. Manila and Luzon are right now reeling again at the onslaught of yet another typhoon, Maring. Most of the metropolis is under water and thousands have moved to evacuation centers. Even as the good-hearted struggle to help and save lives, the country is also reeling at the effects of yet another man-made disaster, the pork barrel scandal.

In a country so used to corruption, it still extremely shocking how so many of our leaders in congress are involved in a grand conspiracy to plunder the national coffers, converting public funds for their personal use through the PDAF scam. As the poor struggle through natural calamities and living with meager social services due to lack of public funds, it is unconscionable and galling how these leaders can collectively raid the national treasury for their own personal benefits.

As Maring lashes and wrecks havoc across the country, one is almost tempted to say that the heavens are crying out for justice for these corrupt leaders to pay for their grand larceny. I feel like crying out to the heavens to rain down fire and brimstone on these leaders, their ilks and their houses. But even in Sodom and Gomorrah, God had agreed to spare the cities if there were just ten just persons to be found in them. There are definitely more than ten just persons in the Philippines.

I know more than ten just persons in our country. We have been blessed with people who deeply care and love the country. People visiting our country immediately feel the warmth and sincerity of our hospitality and caring. Everywhere Filipinos go for work, they often impress by their talent and diligence at work. We showed the world how to bring about political change without violence through EDSA. This event has been replicated many times over in many different places around the globe. Gawad Kalinga is showing the world a novel and effective way of bringing about social change.

The Filipino will weather all storms and disasters, praying and singing on his way out. I join the rest of the country in prayers and songs as we struggle through Maring and the PDAF scandal. In His time, we will receive our hundredfold.

Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.
Matthew 19:23-30

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Fullness of Life Comes From an Emptying of Self

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Spirit Moments

I have often wished I were a wealthy man.
Then I could be generous and do all the great things I dream of.
I have been blessed with sufficiency of material possessions
To live a comfortable and relatively easy life.
I have tried to be generous and have accomplished some great things.
But there is always a fear I would run out of things to give or things to do.
The fear and threat of emptiness always entered my mind.
Slowly I am realizing that it is only in real emptiness that
I find and discover the true richness and fulness of my life.

I have often fancied myself to be unique and special.
That people would come and be charmed by my company.
I enjoy being with people for the pleasure it gives me.
But I would still often end up alone with myself.
I have been learning that only when I empty myself of me
That I am truly ready to give myself to others.
I cannot go out to others, full of myself.
I can only truly love them if I create an empty space in me
For the others to feel welcome in.
It is only when I am empty of myself that I can welcome others in.
It is in my neediness that I find the richness
In loving and serving others.

Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Matthew 19:16-22

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Who Would Have Thought?

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Spirit Moments

ImageMan is a rational animal, philosophers tell us. Yet, try as he does to always live by this truth, man often comes the edges and limits of his existence where reason does not make sense and rational logic is replaced by paradoxical logic. The coldest and strongest steel is forged in the hottest fires. New life springs from the detritus of rot and decay. And out there in the universe, space is curved an time is warped.

And so it is in our daily lives. We will never know how strong we are until we have plumbed the depths of our weakness. We discover how truly generous we are when we are able to give even when we have no more to give. We discover and truly appreciate the fullness of life when we are most empty of ourselves and of our hopes and dreams. We discover our true selves only after we have given it away in love and service to others.

Who would have thought, just using pure logic, that life could be coaxed out of dead rocks and unending sunshine? Who would have thought, just using rational processes, that this life could grow into such complexity and take on different forms and shapes? And who would have thought, just looking at all this shapes and colors, that his life could develop and acquire a consciousness of its own and speak and seek for its source? And who would have thought, just using human consciousness and reason, that that Source of all life and existence would join us in our nothingness and poverty so that we may share in fulness of his eternal life? We could not have done so unless he who preached about love and caring also talked to us about fire and divisions.

Jesus said to the crowds, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
Luke 12:49-53

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Children

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Spirit Moments

Yesterday was a joyful day for Vince and Summer and our entire family. Jeremiah, their first son, was born. I do not remember my own infancy but I have vague recollections of have been fussed and doted on. I was a sickly asthmatic baby and my Ima hugged and cuddled me a lot. Babies and children are for loving and cuddling and snuggling -favorite activities of Jonathan and Jane.

Babies are a blessing, each one of them a unique and new life. Each baby born is a sign of hope for mankind, a guarantee against and for the future. And yet, there is so much abuse and violence committed against young ones. I pray for the countless children:

  • who will wake up this morning with an empty stomach and who will probably go to sleep later with their bellies still growling because they are hungry. Even in affluent America, 16.7 million children lived in food insecure households in 2011.
  • who are robbed of their childhood for they have to struggle and work early in life to keep body and soul together. Worldwide, 10% of all children are forced into child labor and in sub-Saharan Africa, 50% of all children work.
  • who are abused and maltreated in their own homes and by people who are supposed to be taking care of them. In the US alone, as many as 115 children are abused every hour.
  • who will never see the light of day because their lives are aborted and snuffed out even while still in the womb. More than 40 million abortions are done each year.
  • who are taught and trained to be violent and angry as boy soldiers in the service of some demented despot or warped ideology. One study estimated that 200,000 to 300,000 children are serving as soldiers for both rebel groups and government forces in current armed conflicts.
  • who are sold into slavery or even prostitution by their own parents out of desperation or perversion. Estimates of children living in slavery run as high as 8 million.

I will do something special for children today.

Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them; but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.”
Matthew 19:13-15

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