Category — Reflections and Humor

I think readers of this blog deserve some light and refreshing posts once in a while after all the very serious issues and stuffs I previously shared.

When we were still young, surely we used to do some day dreaming of becoming big and gigantic people in an illusory world where rule. It could either be like a traveller landing in a mysterious island full of little people after a shipwreck or like an anointed one by God defeating a monstrous Goliath with a sling.

Well, for me, I also had my own share of day dreaming. But as they say, a dream is just a dream. My height never improved that much far from my dream of doing some nasty slam dunks during basketball games with friends. My gland maybe is quite lazy in pumping up chemicals stuffs for me to grow tall. But I think, satisfaction and contentment is more important.

A total stranger forwarded an email to me yesterday containing all these wonderful pictures of miniature individuals doing life’s ordinary tasks…on top of ice cream, watermelon, eggs..etc…What an ingenuity and creativity from the man who made these!

So, stop dreaming of becoming tall and big and unreachable…let us have some lights moments to satisfy our hearts and put a smile on our face with these pictures. It is now my time to share.

This is a personal reflection of Mr. Steve Salibay, fellow Faculty Member under the Religious Education Department of DLSU-D after the policemen stopped and harrassed us on our way to Makati for the Interfaith Prayer Rally. Many may have never reached Makati, but because of the indicent, the spark in the hearts of the young people to fight for truth, justice and freedom has now become a wild fire!

As soon as I boarded a jeep alone from DLSU-D School Bus, can’t help myself but weep in silence. I weep for my own children, friends, students and fellow teachers. It’s so outrageous to think that our policemen, some of them were former students and scholars of our very own institution turned out to be goons of their own “children” and former teachers. Aren’t they supposed to be the protectors of our people? Aboard those two school buses were students and teachers wanting to express their sentiment for TRUTH and JUSTICE that must prevail in our land, in solidarity with hundreds of thousands of young Filipinos and teachers in Makati. But what they did to us was harassment treating us as if we were criminals.

While we were conceptualizing our plan on how to join the inter-faith rally in Makati, we were so trusting that we thought it would never happen to us because we were no terrorists. But this is it! We have witnessed how oppressive and insecure our government have become. Well, her Excellency has all the reasons to get insecure because after all she is NOT the rightful heir of the Presidency in our land.
But indeed, this experience should never stop us from doing our part as Filipinos. I still believe in the beauty and goodness of every Filipino, Filipinos who genuinely love our country and people.

As I have been browsing the different pages of so many sites (both my favorite sites
and sites I have just accidentally stumbled upon), almost 80% of their posts and
topics is all about Valentine’s Day and hearts and chocolates. Indeed, there is no
denying that this day is so special that almost everyone writes, thinks and talk about it. As I entered the premises of our school early this morning, euphoric faces of young girls holding bouquets of flowers passed by me with some other guys pale and fidgeting sitting on the nearby benches. There is no denying that Valentine’s Day is so special; love is on the air.

But I decided not to share or write about the Day of Hearts, not because I want to
spoil the day, or is just geek hopeless romantic, but honestly I just want something
different.

The last couple of weeks have been so heavy and draining for me, partly because of
work and secondly because of what I always see in the television, hear on radio and
read in the papers and internet about the bribery and corruption scandals involving
the administration that have been painted all over my young country. I don’t want to go into details anymore for I am pretty sure many of us know the story with
international community also watching vigilantly each move and grove of all the actors and actresses involved especially the queen.

But I think there is also a moment of redemption in this kind of depressing theatrics and reality TV show. What has left an imprint into my mind was the story of Jun Lozada’s encounter with the local people in a mountain area while he was doing his work. Once, he shared that he saw that there were lots of guava fruits and told the locals why not sell these fruits so that you could have money there. But they humbly answered him that those fruits are for the birds to eat. Jun was touched by the simplicity and generosity of hearts of the locals while clans and politicians in the metropolis are insatiable day and night grabbing for more power, money and prestige. Whether Jun was indeed enlightened by that encounter like the breaking of the heaven with angelic exultation, I am no position to judge and so everyone of us too.

However, when I heard his story over the radio, I immediately remembered a very
similar story that my classmate in the graduate school told me when he was
brainstorming of a possible topic for research and trying to drive away boredom.

He shared to me that together with his wife, he once went into a hiking adventure in
Mindoro together with his wife. I must say that this guy is extraordinary because at his very huge size (more than 200 lbs) and his wife is also of the same size are quite very disproportionate to their type of adventure: hiking and mountain climbing. Just imagine that! Anyways, some Mangyan (indigenous tribe of Mindoro) guided them as they trekked their way to the top. Along the way, he saw a guava tree with so many fruits dangling on its branches. He took some and ate to fill his empty stomach with his wife following veracious act (description from him). Before leaving the place, he tried to take some more and placed the fruits in his pockets and bags. The Mangyan guides stopped him from getting more. He then reasoned out that there is no problem getting some more so that when they get hungry along the way, they will still have more to eat. But the Mangyan told him that there is no need to worry for surely along the way they will still find more fruits to eat and that eating what is only enough will still leave more fruits to eat for other hungry people who will pass that way. My friend told me that he felt his big body shrinking and felt so small among those towering local people.

I have heard so many stories already about the Mangyans and their sincerity and
generosity of hearts. Sometimes it crosses my mind that these people are far better
people and dignified than so many of us leaving in the noisy and busy place of the
metropolis. From them we learn more, things that are profound; not taught in
universities and lecture rooms of prestigious institutions and sometimes cannot even
be learned inside the churches.

Hope I will have the time to visit these people, and have a taste of their guava.

“I am good. I am handsome. I am doing great. I am rich. Today is a beautiful day!”

These are just but some of the lines I always recite and throw against the mirror every morning. Like a mantra, this exercise of giving myself a pat on the back, of affirming myself despite of occasional failures and disappointments I cause on others or other people have caused against me, has become a morning routine before I totally drench myself in cold water. And lately, it has become so natural and spontaneous. I guess some neighbors of my neighbors who would see me doing this would yell out at me, crazy! Or maybe they are already thinking I am one. But, hey, there is nothing totally wrong with this!

I almost always ask the participants in my seminars; students and teachers most of the time, if they are doing this in front of the mirror telling themselves how beautiful they are. And I am also almost always astonished by their answers. A big round of laughter always explodes inside the room as if I have cracked a joke. What comes next is that most participants would be pointing fingers and say, He is doing, She is doing that. And only a very, very, very small fraction of them does what I do. Out of the 30 average participants, only two or three would automatically raise their hands while other participants would be pasting their wide grin and laugh at these two or three brave and confident people at the top of their lungs. Others are very very hesistant to be recognized. Only when I share to them that I practice the exercise and tell them the beauty of it that a couple of hands would add to the rosters of confident and “beautiful” people – still, with great hesitation to be recognized and be included with my, I-am-Beautiful Squad.

There is nothing wrong with telling yourself how beautiful you are, how good you are and how much you love yourself. There is nothing wrong with giving yourself a pat on the back after a great victory or a humbling experience of defeat. There is nothing wrong with being beautiful being good at your own craft and once in a while tooting your own horn. O course, excessive affirmation of yourself such as facing a brick wall or a plant or a book and as if seeing your reflection everywhere and mumbling endlessly “I am handsome”. Hey, that is someone who should be brought to a psychiatrist!

After my sharing my morning routine, only then that they realize its simple yet profound beauty and importance. You can never give what you don’t have. That only through the affirmation and loving expressions toward your very own self that you can trod the road of life without doubt or fear. That by being conscious of your God-given beauty and talents and worth that you can give geniune love and affection to others the way they needed it. That by all these that you can live with peace of mind though the whole world around you crumbles and falls.

We are trapped with the erroneous understanding of humility and pride (the negative sense) by the way most people, our family and community have taught and raised us. When we say we are beautiful, or good or successful, I bet 75% of people around us would jeer at us as air head or bragging or anything alike. And when people tell us we are beautiful, or good, or successful, we usually step backward and tell them “no, I am not.” Most of us are afraid to announce to the world and receive from the world at the same time the truth and beauty of our humanity. Thus, most of the time because of this fear we fall to the middle ground which is false humility.

Many would say that this attitude of many of us has a tinge of long years of blurred history and cultural animosity and subjectivity. Whatever may be the case, man is still man who has the power to transcend and hold himself above all these cultural chains. Start saying “I am beautiful. I am good. I am happy. I am successful.” Paulo Coelho says that whatever you tell and command the world through your speech, the whole cosmos will conspire for your passion to be affirmed and complete.

In affirming yourself, you are affirming the very Being who gave you all the wonderful gifts of your humanity, with humility and thanksgiving. And what a way to thank the giver of the gift.

Toot your own horn. Now!

I have moments of silence too. This is the time when after being so talkative and bombarded by so many noises and distractions around me, I find myself in the solace and comfort of reflective silence that strengthens me and replenishes the depth that I need each day.

There was a photographer who wandered from one place to another searching for the most beautiful of people, scenery and culture to capture on his lens. Everytime that he will see a beautiful subject, he ends up saying, ” there is a more beautiful subject to capture than this.” And there, once again wandered in search of the most beautiful subject to capture on his lens.

Eventually, the photographer got tired and old, ran out of money and found himself sitting in a lowly street near a market place. As he sat in hunger, and an untidy little boy out of the blue sat beside him and opened a conversation. Both had a good time sharing their different stories. In the end, the boy just ran away. The photographer now old and hungry felt sad being alone and felt asleep. Then someone woke him up and he saw the little boy with some bread in his hand.
Teardrops ran from his worn out cheeks for there he saw and “felt” the most beautiful subject in life.

So many people long for a higher power, a being bigger than themselves especially the young. I can see this longing everyday in them but most of them find the food for their longing in different gloomy corners of shallow materialistic shops of today. In this searching, they find different answers and expressions of it. There are those who find it in power, others in fame, while others on wealth. However, these things only make them even more restless and craving even more and more to something that could fill the void inside. Their hunger and thirst grow even deeper and so resort to having more and more, but time and again find themselves still in the middle of the void universe.

While some people think they can fill this void through material greatness and excess, others are surely convinced that they can find this higher being in a trully spiritual encounter. However, sometimes these people tend to long for supernatural and mystical encounters getting blind of beautiful realities that bloom around them everyday. Longing for these supernaturals lead them to become superstitious and so losses their grip to the true essense of their longing that make them also long for this more and more and more, associating every event in life to be also supernatural and mystical encounters and events.

Whatever people call this higher being – which for many and me is God, thus a higher Being – truth is, this Being is ever-present at our palm, is at our reach. God is constantly working in our everyday lives and sweetly felt, not is mystical encounters, not in the parting of the sea nor in the dancing of the sun, but in sweet and gentle flowering of buds in the morning, the gentle kiss of the mist in our skin, the smiles of our neighbor and the simplicity of good works that we do and we receive from others. God is an everyday God. This is the beauty of simplicity and contentment, filling the void with the food that really fills our hunger.

Like everyone else in this world, I am also longing and craving for something/someone to fill my hunger. I traveled the different roads looking for this higher Being to fill me but along the way I forgot to even stop and look at the beautiful view along the way. I am still traveling but now I carry with me some morsels of wisdom that I learned along the way to make my journey sweeter.

In my everyday experiences of simple encounters I find strength, joy and gladness in my everyday God. How about you?

“A popular eating place for tourists in Bacolod City for the past 11 years is Aboy’s Restaurant, which is famous for its grilled blue marlin and such other specialties as squid fat, tuna sisig, pork sisig, and grilled mushrooms. The 1,464 sq m restaurant, which has been designed to look like a mansion, has four function rooms that can accommodate as many as 120 to 150 customers at any one time. On a typical day, it serves an average of 500 diners and gets one or two bookings for its function rooms. It is a successful business in every way—a labor of love by a former pharmaceutical salesman who started it in 1992 as a small carinderia (eatery) with bare soil as flooring.

 

To get started in the business, the Evaristos served only typical carinderia fare like menudo and mechado. They thought that these dishes would be suitable for the drivers and sales agents who were their target customers. They were wrong; hardly any of their target customers liked or bought their food offerings. It was then that the Evaristos decided to serve sinugba (grilled food), the native Ilonggo dish. It was to become their carinderia’s specialty, but at that time, even with its introduction, all that the couple could attract was an average of 20 customers a day—hardly enough to make the business a going concern. Worse, they could not serve dinner because the place was so dark and the carinderia could remain open for business only from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.