Love in Action

 “And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’ - Matthew 25:40


It's hard to put in words what we've been through the last few days. Although Manila was largely spared from the wrath of the combined effects of tropical storm "Maring (Trami)" and the southwest monsoon, the effects of almost three days of nonstop rain is evident in the outlying provinces of Laguna and Cavite.

Sto.Tomas Road in Binan, Laguna.

Those who lived through the disaster recounted how water rose at a rapid rate of several feet per minute, bringing panic and havoc to homes, businesses, and properties. As the floodwaters receded, tons of muck and garbage were left behind, as well as the seeds of despair as the survivors struggled to make sense of what they had just lived through.

The high water mark reached up to the fence of the house in the background and to the left. One can see there's still garbage clinging to the fence and the plants look waterlogged. That's about six or seven feet of water from the level of the roadway.

That's the river in its normal state. The homes in the background at the banks of the river are a good two stories high from the river. Water overflowed the river banks and flooded homes up to waist level.

That's an awful lot of water.

The last few Sundays, our pastors had been talking about love and how it applies to our lives. The horrible events of Habagat 2013 gave us an opportunity to put hands and feet to the love in our hearts.

Volunteers hard at work repacking supplies for 110 families affected by the floods in Binan, Laguna.

 

Kali and John share an intimate moment in the middle of preparations for the relief effort.

A marathon pledge program saw us raising more than the projected target of Php33,000 (our estimated amount needed to support 110 families for about a week with basic supplies) in two days. Church members and non-church friends pledged their financial support and pitched in the heavy work of shopping, sorting, and preparing the relief kits.

Six days after the flood in Binan, Laguna, we were able to put our sandals and shoes on the muddy ground and minister to people whose lives had been changed by the Habagat of 2013.

Robyn (center) and Kyko (second from left) get ready to hand out the relief kits.

It especially touched me to see our kids helping out. They were probably more excited than I was.

Our effort was a drop in the bucket. There's still more to be done to ensure this kid--and thousands of others like him--have a better future ahead of him.

The task of rebuilding is obviously a tedious one. At this moment I am also hit with the realization that there are sure to be more storms to come, with more horrible sequels to the Habagat of 2012 and 2013. I pray that God may have mercy and spare us the heartbreak, but should he allow it, may he also give us the strength to help those in need.

May we never tire of putting God's love in our hearts into actions that tell people of cities, campuses, communities--and even in our families--that there is a God who loves us so.

Love in action. Photo by Randy Olasiman

Photo by John Hofilena

God is good and great, indeed. :)

Molten: On a football field

Ronaldo vs Messi. Photo courtesy of sportnomics.com

you lay on the grass
A hush fills the stadium
Ninety-nine thousand, three hundred seventy
six eyes, all on you
Anticipating
your gentle rolling
as the foot of the world‟s best
player kicks you.
You glide away from him,
and he chases you,
The man they call Leo,
with stuttering steps.
With a flick of his foot—oh! oh!
he sends you flying—hey! hey!
catching you with a hug that is ne‟er a real embrace,
cradled close to his chest.

But a man in white
the one called Ronaldo
pokes with his foot, picks you from him
and runs for the finish
He is a gazelle,
movements all graceful
He stomps on you, spins round and sends
the girls in the stands swooning.
The grass is cold with dew
and the ground is rough
The crowd is screaming, loud
enough for a heart to flutter
Suddenly Leo appears—oh! oh!
Sliding on the grass—hey! hey!
to take you away.

Like a lover scorned, Ronaldo
chases Leo madly
who spins around the last defender,
catching everyone‟s breath away.
Leo kicks you hard, tracing an arc
across the night sky,
away from the clutches of the goalkeeper.
The net catches you.
The crowd goes wild.
Leo smiles.
You lay on the grass, again.


*as a tribute to tonight's El Clasico encounter between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, i am posting this poem i wrote for creative writing class last semester. Bear with my feeble attempts at poetry.

Dashed Hope

Photo by author.

I haven't seen anything like it, and we probably won't see it again. In all my years in college, I did not experience lining up for photocopies (we had lots of them at school, and you can avail of the xerox-now-come-back-later service).

Recently, a friend and I spent almost two hours in line for photocopying. Two hours. We could have arrived in Hong Kong by that time.

The reason for this lining-up-at-the-blockbuster thing was a program of GMA-7 program Imbestigador with the National Statistics Office (NSO) offering to help people with problems in their official documents.

Seeing the ad some days back on Facebook convinced me and my friend that finally, after years of fruitless consultations at Manila City Hall and the NSO itself, we would be able to get her misspelled birth certificate right.

Knowing these mass events, the least we both expected was getting to speak with an expert who could give us authoritative advice on how to go about our predicament. We didn't really expect that our problems would be solved on the spot.

This, however, was what greeted us as we arrived:

The scene outside GMA Network drive. Photo by author.

My friend and I bounced around from one gate of the GMA complex to another, trying to make sense of what was happening, and trying to hold on to a glimmer of hope that our coming to this place was not in vain.

Alas, that was not to be.

We did not see any Imbestigador staff directing people where to go, only irate security people telling them to give them copies of their defective documents and go home.

We could not comprehend the sanity of this action. Most of us had left off a day of work and had come from considerable distances to seek help, in the hope that problems caused by inept registrars would be corrected.

In the end, we had no other choice but to line up at one of the stores in the area making a killing off photocopying services. It took us almost two hours to reach the photocopier, 15 minutes to get all our documents xeroxed (the machine was breaking down due to the workload), and another 10 minutes to get the documents ready, with a cover letter explaining my friend's predicament.

Instead of much-needed help, all we got was the vague assurance that Imbestigador staff will wade through the mountain of requests and documents and personally call us with advice telling us how to live our lives because our parents did not get their spelling right.

To add insult to injury, there was this camera crew discreetly filming the crowd's agony and displeasure as we all stood in the hot sun, not knowing what to do and lamenting the fact that we could have spent the day in a more productive manner.

To be fair, GMA-7 and Imbestigador probably did not anticipate this volume of people. They should, however, have taken time to at least meet the people to address the situation. There was no fearless "hindi-kita-tatantanan" Mike Enriquez on the spot, at least while we were there; only impatient and largely "inconvenienced" guards who half-heartedly received our documents and pleas.

If anything, this shows us that the problem of misspelled documents is far bigger than anyone can imagine, and requires a more practical solution.

But until that happens, people in authority should not be toying with people's hopes and use a lot more common sense.

The Old Man Gets a Job

Man, I'm totally wiped out. Image courtesy of 123rf.com

Today, I rejoined the workforce.

My head is spinning after more than eight hours of studying SEOs, KWPs*, and a whole lotta stuff that would make any nerd from Big Bang Theory drool. What's more interesting was we spent the whole day trying to unlearn the lessons that took me 16 years to finish!

Yup, like so many Filipino professionals, I ended up in a BPO*. Another thing is the writing here is so much different from the ones that I tried hard to master, but I am no less thankful. I consider this stint a blessing, not just because it puts food on the table and pays the bills, for three reasons.

First is it allows me to further hone my craft, although in a different form. Writing good copy for websites may not win Pulitzers or Palancas, but it does have its own standards of excellence. As such, I am challenged to do my best, and to adapt my writing style in a way that persuades the casual viewer to become a paying customer. I realize then that it is really no different from Journ class, since, as one teacher put it, we are supposed to write story leads that grab the reader by the, um, the balls of one's feet and throw you onto the ground.

Secondly, and no less importantly, I am making use of the education given me by the Filipino people. Well, not exactly in line with my original course, but at least I'm not being a burden to society. Not to mention the fact that the remaining semester of my studies was funded by some very blessed people who are also very dear friends. So, as Mikey Bustos put it, it's time that I work and "repay the feybor."

Thirdly, this experience allows me to write another chapter in the adventure called life. Work is not the end-all nor the be-all, but it allows me the opportunity to be a blessing to someone, whether a colleague, an end-user, the people I hold dear, or even those I hardly know. Work gives us the chance to be successful, but more than that, it offers that rare chance to be of significance.

In the next few days, we will be spending more time in taking apart everything that I learned about writing in school and in my past work experiences, but I'm not complaining. I will do the best that I can, because I really have much to thank God about.

*search engine optimization, keyword phrases
*business process outsource

True Holiness

Devotees try to get close to the image of the Black Nazarene during the annual procession on its feast day. The image is widely held by its faithful followers to possess miraculous powers. Image courtesy of Xinhua.net

The upcoming annual Feast of the Nazarene coincided with my reading of the Book of Leviticus in the Bible, which perked some interesting questions in my faith and what i believe in. Below are my thoughts on God's holiness as portrayed in Leviticus. Comments (except derogatory and demeaning ones) and questions are welcome.

Lev 5:3  If you unintentionally touch anything of human origin that is unclean, whatever it may be, you are guilty as soon as you realize what you have done.
Lev 6:27  Anyone or anything that touches the flesh of the animal will be harmed by the power of its holiness. (passages from The Living Bible)

It comes across as one of the biggest puzzles ever. If anyone touches a ritually unclean object, he or she is deemed automatically unclean. On the other hand, if one touches a holy object, he or she is doomed to die. It all boils down to this maxim:

Sin is contagious. Holiness is lethal.

Why is it that sin, or uncleanness, spreads so easily? Why not holiness? Why not become holy when touched with a holy object?

The answer may lie in this passage in Isaiah:

Isa 6:1  In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He was sitting on his throne, high and exalted, and his robe filled the whole Temple.
Isa 6:2  Around him flaming creatures were standing, each of which had six wings. Each creature covered its face with two wings, and its body with two, and used the other two for flying.
Isa 6:3  They were calling out to each other: "Holy, holy, holy! The LORD Almighty is holy! His glory fills the world."
Isa 6:4  The sound of their voices made the foundation of the Temple shake, and the Temple itself became filled with smoke.
Isa 6:5  I said, "There is no hope for me! I am doomed because every word that passes my lips is sinful, and I live among a people whose every word is sinful. And yet, with my own eyes I have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

Holiness is lethal because only God ALONE is holy. Verse 3 does not say that the whole earth is filled with his holiness--rather, the angels acknowledge God alone as holy, and this radiates around the earth as his glory. Holiness is God's alone, and we, as sinful creatures, can never share in that holiness, because sin cannot last in God's presence.

Touching a holy object will not make us holy. In the early days of the Israelite nation, touching the holy Ark of the Covenant meant immediate death. In our day, touching a so-called "holy" relic or image will not make us less sinful. In the same way, being sprinkled with "holy" water will not, in any way, take away our guilt nor our sin.

True holiness is lethal.

The good news is, God, in His great love, does not want us to be consumed by his holiness, rather, he wants us to be filled with it. In the olden days of Leviticus, the blood of sacrifice was enough to cover a person's sin. In Isaiah's commissioning (verse 6 of the above passage), it was a burning coal. In our time, it is Jesus who died in our place to take away our sin, and rose again so that we may have a holy, Spirit-filled life. In this case, we have been made holy--that is, set apart, as instruments of God's purpose.

When we are made holy, the earth we walk on is not filled with holiness. The people we touch are not made holy. Instead, we radiate God's glory in us. That is so people will realize their own need for God and come back to him, so that they, too, will be made holy.

Holiness cannot spread like the plague. Sin does. In the same way that an epidemic takes one-on-one shots to be eradicated, so does sin. God is the doctor, and the cure for our sin is to be injected individually with a mega dose of his holiness. Only then can we live lives that are truly pleasing and holy in his sight.