My Vanity Moment.

My hair has grown shaggy! I normally wouldn’t have cared about my appearance except when my daughter commented, while we were watching Top Gun 1, that my image seemed to have been left behind back circa 1986, like the leading lady’s coiffure in the movie. Perhaps I am onion-skinned and being branded antiquated somehow made me feel sad.

Thus I heeded and accompanied my daughter to the neighborhood parlor where we get our locks cut or trimmed, mine annually, I think. By the way, the term ‘parlor’ is also ancient, the new generations call it salon now. Salon, in my youth, is where cowboys come for beer, alcohol. and draw fights.

Anyways, for this person who believes in the Franciscan way of life, simplicity in every way, this moment of vanity is somehow refreshing. Hay! Yes,, it had been a long time now that my daughters hesitate to introduce me to their friends because of how I look. Oh well, still least of my worries. And nobody can make me dye my silver strands which, after the trimming and the relaxing, even the beauticians conceded my hair looks more glorious than weekly-dyed heads.

Bing, the parlor lady, who sang at the top of her lungs on my deafened auditory nerves, she’s in tune, deserves my gratitude. Thank you. Albeit she didn’t succeed at trimming my brows! Ha ha! Nice try, Bing.

T’boli: the Pretty Proto-Malayan.

Work brings my daughter to the most inconspicuous, or rather, obscure of provinces in our island paradise. This mother can’t help but worry when she announces a destination like Tawi-tawi or Sulu, down south in Mindanao. Do not get me wrong because Mindanao is endowed with a naturally tranquil beauty that is in sharp contrast with its notoriety that an American passport is deemed “no entry.”

As interesting as the people, culture and tradition that is Mindanao, the provinces have been synonymous , in my growing up years, with Jabidah Massacre, or, in the not so distant past, the Maguindanao Massacre of 2009, the infamous Marwan special operation that claimed the lives of forty-four Filipino special forces in 2015, and the Marawi Siege of 2017.

Speaking of the latter, there never was a comforting moment when my daughter was part of the program that sought to rehabilitate Marawi where she had to travel the long roads to and from the beleaguered city.

Thus when she said she was Cotabato bound, this mother went into a prayer mode once again.

But lo and behold, my telegram went into a colorful and happy mode. She has become a T’boli princess!

The T’boli is an indigenous animist tribe that is very rich in music, dance, and weaving. A creative people. the T’boli caught the attention of the art and fashion world.

The T’boli are deeply spiritual and believe everything happens for a reason. The stance, the gesture, and practically all movement generate good fortune.

One Solitary Life

One Solitary Life
He was born in an obscure village
The child of a peasant woman
He grew up in another obscure village
Where he worked in a carpenter shop
Until he was thirty
He never wrote a book
He never held an office
He never went to college
He never visited a big city
He never travelled more than two hundred miles
From the place where he was born
He did none of the things
Usually associated with greatness
He had no credentials but himself
He was only thirty three
His friends ran away
One of them denied him
He was turned over to his enemies
And went through the mockery of a trial
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves
While dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing
The only property he had on earth
When he was dead
He was laid in a borrowed grave
Through the pity of a friend
Nineteen centuries have come and gone
And today Jesus is the central figure of the human race
And the leader of mankind’s progress
All the armies that have ever marched
All the navies that have ever sailed
All the parliaments that have ever sat
All the kings that ever reigned put together
Have not affected the life of mankind on earth
As powerfully as that one solitary life
Dr James Allan © 1926

Sharing this poetry because it might be relevant to the state of chaos the world we are now in. Shout out to those in power raring to annihilate the planet with their destroyers and missiles, rockets and drones, warheads, etcetera. That is not the way to live a life.

The Good Book.

The Story of the Madonna and Child is a must for our children.

TThe Bible never hurts. The Bible is an anthology of the greatest books ever written, and that includes the greatest story ever told – the Supreme Sacrifice our Lord has offered to save us.

Indeed, the Bible is the history of our salvation, the salvation from the original sin, from which also sprung the first sin on earth, brother killing brother. The Bible is a story of one hurt after another, and it shows how greed and envy, gluttony and lust, anger, sloth and pride consume us.

Our stories are nothing compared to the intensity of grief experienced by the characters in the Bible. That means, we only have to read and know their stories, and we can discern and make good decisions for our own lives.

Problem is, people put down reading the Bible: one, because of its immensity, and two, many others boast about having read it and sort of condescend others who have not, making the others feel insecure.

i suggest, for those who have not read the Bible, to open to the books of the familiar stories, such as Adam and Eve. Cain and Abel, Abraham, Noah, Moses, David and Goliath, David and Jonathan, David and Saul, Ruth, Esther, Susanna, Judith, and just read on. It is easy to get hooked. I will postpone reading Job for a later time, because of the intensity of pain in the story. Get to Daniel and the Lions, Samson and Delilah, Jonas and the Whale, and the Jericho story, and Gideon. Breeze through the Proverbs and learn much about maxims of life, you can memorize them if you like.

Then go to the Gospel, which we actually know already, because we hear it all the time. I will begin reading with the gospel according to St. Luke, because he presented the gospel like a telenovela. And he wrote the Acts of the Apostles, a continuation of the telenovela.

Have fun reading. The Bible is not a scary stuff. The Bible does not mean to make you feel like a sinner in repentance all the time. The Bible is God’s stories for us, and we must enjoy reading His stories.

Autophagy In Your Vocabulary?

My High School Batchmates Circa 2015 with Olive somewhere in the middle.

My word for the day, and perhaps for the rest of your life. is AUTOPHAGY. This word was sent to me by my classically beautiful classmate Olive Mendiola, by way of telling me about how Pope Francis defines how reality exists in the family. For that, I thank you deep from my heart, Olive, because this heart has been hurting for as long as it’s been beating.

But I couldn’t define autophagy as clearly as how you, my family and friends must understand. So, please, this copy/paste is a rather long definition, but you must read. And instill in your heart.

“there is no perfect family. We don’t have perfect parents, we are not perfect, we don’t get married with a perfect person nor do we have perfect kids. We have complaints of each other. We are disappointments to each other. Therefore, there is no healthy marriage or healthy family without the exercise of forgiveness. Forgiveness is vital to our emotional health and spiritual survival. Without forgiveness, the family becomes a theatre of conflict and a bastion of grievances. Without forgiveness, the family gets sick. Forgiveness is the sterilization of the soul, the cleaning of the mind and the liberation of the heart. Who does not forgive has no peace of soul nor communion with God. The pain is a poison that intoxicates and kills. Saving a wound of the heart is a self-destructive gesture. It is autophagy. Who does not forgive, sickens physically, emotionally and spiritually. That’s why the family has to be a place of life and not of death; territory of healing and not of disease; stage of forgiveness and not of guilt. Forgiveness