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I read somewhere that love is insecurity incarnate. It is a series of risks and heartaches, disappointments and suffering. As a sociologist I tend to look at it from an academic perspective. There are always theories to aid in discussion or to rebuff an irrational claim. What if the tides were to turn and I with my psychotic disposition actually teach the subject Sociology of Love. Now just like in any academic endeavour one must be pragmatic and I no different from that must try and conquer this challenged posted to me.

How can I possibly teach this subject when I have no bloody idea about the notion of love. I then better ask the experts, books will certainly be of no help, perhaps by providing theories or some crucial observations about human behaviour or culture. Nothing more. I was tempted to throw this subject to the more experienced and mature professors who have years of wisdom behind them. Then again, the challenge proved to be too exciting so I decided to take the course.

Cutting the long story short, it was a travel for me and a personal journey towards the perfection of the self. I’m glad that as of the moment I don’t have to travel to Macchu Picchu to discover enlightenment. The Lord Siddharta Gautama Buddha have left us his wisdom to guide us. Find yourself in the most obvious place.

this was borrowed from a philosopher friend ms. fleurdeliz de altez, the reigning supreme diety of the faculty of arts and letters batch 2003. i have to borrow this because this applies to my situation and i hope to hurl intellectual stones to some people, then again chances are 1. they will not understand, 2. they are too calloused 3. simply scums of the earth. im taking my chances that the law of karma will rule over the universe. this is my ways of letting the steam off (despite the fact that i’m still screaming bloody murder! off with her head!) as they say we should support bacteria, after all that’s the only culture other people have!

PENSEES: Insensitivity par excellence Sensitivity is not a one-way term — it is true that it is felt, but it does not need to dwell on "my feelings" alone. To be sensitive is not just to proclaim that "I am hurting", it is also to be aware that "I might be hurting another." I am hurt and I close my heart, that’s a postulate. But to discredit that I was hurt prolly for a purpose, that is something else. Dwelling with defense mechanisms — being hurt and clinging unto the pain and discrediting another person’s hurting, for the sake of being comforted. To be sensitive with one’s needs while being insensitive to the necessary compromises done by another — that’s insensitivity par excellence. Life is not just about having, it is mostly about being. Nuff said. Henceforth, we move to another phase. Shall we transcend?

Well said Fleur!

This essay was written as a year end report for the SY 2002-2003 I was teaching first year high school students in Xavier University High School, it is a highly personal reflection and I had apprehensions in publishing this particular piece. It was meant to be read by the Father Prior alone, but with one thought or another I decided to include this in my publication.

Lovers, Fighters and Brothers                     

It is our decree to choose freely to be husband and father to none so that we can be a brother to all. After several years it is only now where I learned the true essence of that motto. Looking back my life has been a constant struggle and sacrifice not for my own vain glory, but in serving others. I remember the countless times where I have to give up my persona comfort so that another can rest and be happy. Not that I am complaining or anything, I too am happy in many ways I can describe after all it is in giving that I receive something more and that is life lived to the fullest. As Horace once said “carpe diem” so must I.

It is indeed a year of endless struggles and every waking moment I have to pull myself up and face the challenges of the day ahead. Many times I thought that I will never be able to pull myself up because I am weakened by burdens of mostly useless anxieties. While everyday we are challenged to live a little and love a little I somehow find it hard to do so. Perhaps I am too pent up with insecurities that I am not doing enough and that I should do more. There is this serious doubt in my mind that I am truly making sense not only of what I am doing but with myself. Then again in the end I found the answer, it was during a regular 5.30 p.m. mass when the choir sung “Love is the Answer” I know that I had the answer to my doubts and insecurities all this time. It was to be found to the very people in front of me, and yes, they’re noisy, rowdy, unruly and raucous first year students of mine.

Looking back now, I wish that I had acted in a different way and exerted even more patience. I had invoked the frailty of my humanity every time that I lost my temper.  This should not be so; after all I worked for two years with street children and orphans. Just when I thought that I have enough courage and patience I was proven wrong. I should have been humble enough to admit it that I cannot do it alone and needed the help and guidance of other people. Then again, I am not with my brothers who had always been there to help and support me in time of distress. This made the importance of community life even more in the life of a monk. While living alone has its perks and benefits it is still the company of people who are journeying the same path that is important. Feeling alone is common, but then again a student of mine said to me that I should not feel alone because I have everybody. Thinking about it he is most probably right and once again God sent the right person at the right time to cheer me up in my moments of despair.

I am tired of running up and down the stairs and running after or even running away from imaginary things and events. Perhaps, after ten months I must follow not my will but God’s will and let him lead the way and all I have to do is to stand back and marvel at the unfolding of his everyday miracles. This is true enough for me. I think just like Elijah I too must stop this wrestling, not because I lost on the other hand because I surrendered so that I can do his will not mine. When I first came here in Cagayan de Oro it was a venture to the unknown and a leap of faith I had nothing with me except a lot of courage, hope and faith. In the end of ten months I have with me my own share of treasures that I will always bring with me wherever I go. I had received the gift of life, the gift of love and the gift of friendship. I have with me memories of laughter of endless delight. He is truly a God of small things I might not have seen the burning bush or fire falling from heaven, but I have seen people smiling and laughing at the most miniscule things there are. This joy and happiness is more than enough for me to know that He is there and will always be there.

I am transformed by my experiences to a higher level of being in spirituality and it is my hope that I will be able to serve better to the best of my abilities all those who are in need.

I am no poet, this piece was written in two strokes of hand, I started at 7.48 a.m. most probably took a brake and finished it at around 1.19 p.m. (at least that was written in the paper). I like what I wrote this was produced in one of my moments of “breathless delights”.

It is he who faces me

Hanging from a wood and pierced through

With a side that gladdened my heart

I fought my way to a whispering crowd of hush

Tones of praise and respect

I had found him, the One that was left for us

To find. I sing a tune or two to His side

And there I saw him wept to my song.

Broken melodies, unheard of tunes and

Misguided notes, he loved it! I was ecstatic

Lifted in misery and pain.

Now I swim in a joy of the master’s

Sweet sorrow.

A soldier went up to offer a cup

He drank, but his eyes sank of sorrow

Now he asked me to sip from the cup

That will bring me to eternity in the beauty

Of  paradise. I drank the bitter cup and to this day I wept.

When the sky was covered in bloody red and the

earth shook, for the last time He smiled

all too briefly and his soul whispered a gentle breeze

I wept.

The cup which I know and now carry is the Master’s blood

Now running to my veins, this sweet sorrow carries

Me to a place of the heart where no one but the

Brave ever dared to go.

This is the cup, the cup of life in the Master’s goodness and sorrow.

Breath of breeze moving me slowly

To the whispers of angels

Love that performs through me and you

Carry and rouse in me a prayer of

Endless delight of lasting gladness.

Jesuit Retreat House

Malaybalay, Bukidnon

7.48 a.m. (no date)

this was a letter written to my good friend mattheus the monk who was re-assigned to a montana farm in the us in a god knows where monastery.

Dear Mattheus,

Greetings!

All is well I hope and in the coming days ahead I tossed all of the useless anxieties in my bones out of the window. It is my one desire see a glimmer of hope in these trying times and I gladly found it. One issue aside after another issue our life has indeed become a permanent battle ground for the quest for perfection. My pain and suffering is nothing compared to the suffering of other people. My woes and troubles are microscopic compared to other people, it is then my duty as a monk to do whatever I can to help and never see my own troubles or even to complain because there are more who are in greater need.

On the lighter side, have you seen the latest film about Willy Wonka? It’s a remake of the 1971 film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory starring Gene Wilder, this time it’s Johnny Depp and directed by the eccentric Tim Burton. It’s cruelly funny and I really did enjoy it, you must certainly watch it I highly recommend it to you! How’s the

Montana

farm? Do we still have any cows left or they had all been eaten or worst killed off for the mad cow?

While rummaging through my files I found my old notebook where I wrote some reflections among them was when we buried Fr. Giovanni Molinari. I would like to share it with you:

A Missionary’s Dream

It was a cold Monday evening when I saw Fr. Giovanni in his wheelchair as usual in the balcony. He likes to stay there every 5 o’ clock p.m. to watch the leaves fall from the ancient trees. I told him that

5 o’clock

is my favorite time in the afternoon too, the sun is just right and there is this melancholic breeze in the air. Everything seems to be so bright and basking in golden sunshine. He smiled at me and said, yes,

5 o’clock

is the golden hour of peace and serenity in a day, because everything seizes at

5 o’clock

. As usual we covered him up in his favorite blanket and then I left him in peace because it is the hour where the grand silence starts.

For years and years this man has been a constant sight for us young brothers, for some he is our inspiration and we saw our future in him. Yes, there will be a time if we are lucky we will reach his age and we too will be confined to a wheelchair, old and alone, but definitely, definitely not miserable, but someone who is at peace with the world and most importantly at peace with himself and of course with God. We will look back and see a wonderful life, well lived and well loved. For others, he is a pathetic sight of a man who worked so hard all his life, beaten down by the harshness of life and now abandoned to suffer alone in the confines of a wheelchair. His was a thankless job, no health benefits, no insurance and definitely no retirement plan to back him up. These other people who feared the fate that awaits them had left us a long time ago. For those of us who choose to remain the battle continues and the sacrifices that this kind of life asks of us are truly a high price to pay.

It was a cold Monday night when he had his last breath. It was in Vespers when the nurse informed Father Prior that Fr. Gio (as we fondly call him) expired not an hour ago. He died in a sunset; he died in grand silence, just like the way he always wanted to go. Carrying his simple coffin reminded me of the fate that awaits us, just like any mortal we will die, but Fr. Gio taught us the perfect way to live and die and that is to love, no questions asked. Like him many years ago I am a missionary beginning to journey the road less taken. It has been hard; it is full of pain and suffering. Sometimes I ask myself, is it all worth it of all the effort, pain, hardships and suffering? Am I making any difference? 

In a cold January evening writing under the stars it suddenly hit me: I know I will never be able to answer these questions in this lifetime, but like what Fr. Gio has taught me – just love and don’t ask anymore questions.

Only then I had found peace within.

January 20, 2003

I received an email from Johann an old friend from

Belgium

asking me and I quote “what the hell are you still doing in

Mindanao

?” end of quote. I was struck by his question. It is not the first time that I was asked this question. How many times have my friends and family persuaded me to leave the god-forsaken place and make something of my life? How many times have people emphasized that they had gone ahead of me like my friends from the

University

of

Santo Tomas

saying that they had already finished their MAs and now pursuing their Ph. Ds and many have left for the States or in the

UK

, some in

Germany

to pursue further studies?

I must confess that these things had indeed stirred a lot of upheavals within me for I had given up the best years of my life for a cause that I had always believed in and I had been dreaming about ever since I was in high school. This dream of being able to serve in

Mindanao

has stirred my active imagination for so long, that while still in college I was already preparing how I would go about in my Great Mindanao Adventure (GMA). Why

Mindanao

? Perhaps it is because I grew up just like any other young people in Metro Manila hearing about the endless war and the suffering that came along with it to the people. I thought that the entire

Mindanao

was at war with terrorist, Muslim extremist and other bandits. Of course when I went here only did I understand that I landed on

Northern Mindanao

where the people are fighting a different kind of war. It is a war for survival. Poverty abounds here in more ways than we can actually count. It is this attraction to this very rich land, a land of contrast and upheavals that had attracted me to stay beyond my one year of mission trial. I had fallen in love with this beautiful place where the scenes that are breathe taking. I had found the peace that I am looking for here in

Mindanao

.

Staying here for more than three years opened my eyes to certain truths and even though I wasn’t prepared for it, for certain disappointments. While I had given my personal advancement in terms of career and sheer numbers in bank accounts I gained a lot of experience that I think has placed me in a whole new category of being a sociologist. I admit that more often than enough I am overwhelmed by sheer frustration about many things here, just like anywhere in the

Philippines

what hits me the most is the lack of discipline of the people. To give a concrete example, I read an article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (I forgot the date) that ranked the Cagayan de Oro to

(about a 7 hour bus ride) the second most dangerous highway in the entire

Philippines

next only to the

Manila

to

. I travel often from Malaybalay to Cagayan de Oro (about a 2 hour bus ride) and vice versa every time I travel I always see accidents along the way. Any experienced driver would agree with me that only – if only they gave way to each other none of these accidents would have ever happened in the first place. The motorella (tricycle for us tiga-Luzon except that you can cram 10 people in it) are drivers that will severely test your patience. If you’re a too polite a driver you’ll never go beyond three meters. They’re like a swarm of flies coming from the left and to the right, front and back and it’s almost impossible to get an opening in an intersection because everyone is racing to get to the other side where the passengers are all waiting. Traffic accidents and traffic congestion are mostly because of the lack of proper discipline, sensitivity and concern for others as I had mentioned before people are fighting a different war and that is “self-survival”. The jeepney drivers have to outdo each other to get more passengers, the result of course is disaster, a normal ride that will take 15 minutes take a grueling one hour. Productivity is sacrificed in the name of profit.

Another thing is the lack of respect and concern for our environment. While riding a jeepney somewhere in Cagayan de Oro with Nathaniel George, a powerful programs officer of the Jesuit Volunteers of the Philippines, a typical scene occurred in front of us, two mothers with their young children, the other eating a Chippy and the other, drinking Chocolait, the first kid after eating her junk food dumps the plastic out of the window and her mother does nothing. The second kid when he finished drinking his Chocolait was about to throw the thingamajig to the window, but the mother caught the boy she placed the garbage inside her big bag and scolded the boy that it is not proper to throw your garbage out of the window and went on to a long lecture about the serious effect of garbage in the environment and about the lack of discipline of other people. I tell you right then and there we wanted to give her an outstanding mother of the year award! If only all parents would be like her and teach their children about taking responsibility for the care and stewardship of the environment!

Mrs. Ludiviña Opeña is a rarity amongst the people of Bukidnon, she is an intellectual who strives to protect, preserve and promote the culture that so many are trying to forget or have actually forgotten, burned among the trees and plants and denuded as the forests are. She is a cancer survivor, but despite the fraility of her body her active mind refuses to give up the battle for the preservation of the culture and of the entire Bukidnon. She has written extensively on the ethnographic profile of the people of Bukidnon, she speaks the native tongue or dialect fluently and even far off better than some lumads. She is an extraordinary person with a determined spirit that refuses to be burned out or die until she has rest assured that the knowledge she has is passed on.

It is then indeed a work of providence and the kindness of the gods that i was able to encounter dr. antonio moran, the dean of the college of arts and sciences in UP Mindanao based in Davao and his faculty of anthropologist who went last Sept 9-10 to visit and interview Nanay Ludy about her work and discussing a possibility of publishing her works. This is a moment where an unknown voice who is the silent background is triumphed and vindicated! Revenge is indeed sweet, for what the great Oscar Romero preached it is the "violence of love" that will equalize all the injustice in this world. I do have to clarify this one, lest people will get confuse and have me burned at the stake for inciting rebellious ideas. This violence of love is not a physical violence that is so commonly performed to other people, that is so low that only slugs do it. This violence of love promotes a retaliation of hate  with love, apathy is returned with love. It is difficult and hard, yet as humans we are always called to the higher ground, not in the base of things that makes us all so futile and timid in the midst of crisis and despair. If we are truly to be of higher being, then we must strive to act and react in a way that will put us above others, by not reacting the way people will expect us to react but to react always with calmness and dignity so we can assess the situation with a clear mind and conscience that what we had done is the right thing to do.

Concrete example, when Nanay Ludy was attacked for standing for the truth or when she stepped on some important political toes she just bowed down her head and kept silence. For "silence is the best eloquence" as what St. Thomas Moore had said, well my critics would argue that yes he indeed kept silence in his defence and he lost his head for that. My answer will be that yes Henry VIII won because he was the king, but history became Thomas’ judge and he became what he wrote "A Man for All Seasons". With Nanay Ludy and her work  gaining  deep appreciation from intellectuals from UP I believe that history has become her judge. She will become immortal while her detractors who had wealth and fame will fade into oblivion!

While reflecting on all of these, I was haunted by Michel Foucault in my dreams and even in my waking moment. I think this is what happens when people discuss him in the dinner table, you get a textbook case of intellectual indigestion. It has been close to five years when I made a long, long research paper about Foucault and juvenile delinquent behaviour, but one thing remains clear. Power shifts. Now is the time for revenge!

Three sociologist  (including mydelf) from the Instituto de Central Investigacion Sociales y Economia were lost last Wednesday in a god knows where part of the last frontiers of the rainforests in Bukidnon. The two foreign correspondents  Juan Lerroz (Argentina) and Martin Cesisimos (Bolivia) were exploring the region for potential project areas for conservation efforts their very short two day stay proved to be very fruitful for me and my perspectives in this lifetime. See, these two were very nice people, typical Spanish people they would never let the bad side of things get to the better of them. Despite the fact that we were moving in circles because as the local guide believes the spirits of the forests were playing a trick on us and to make matters worst a sudden out pour of rain! Good thing i was prepared out goes the umbrella and my clothes are waterproof and they dry quickly so it was a long and arduous walk what could have taken us one and a half hour took five hours to reach our destination! There are just some things in this world that we can never explain upon reaching the site ( a sacred stone according to the locals offerings were made to appease the spirits or the gods) the sky just opened up and while it was raining around us the spot where we were having the ritual was all bright and sunny, but around us it was still raining cats and dogs. After the ritual we headed further up north to see a nomadic people (how National Geographic) how claims to still use primitive ways (I’m afraid I can’t mention specific names of the location and the people, classified research information). We were literally still walking inside a forest, but it is very sad to think that human development has caused so much grief and anguish to Mother Earth all around me  I could see the burned trees being cleared away for planting (grasp!) corn which sells for Php 3.70 a kilo so a 50 kilo sack of corn will fetch only a Php 150 price tag and that’s on a good selling day, on worse occasions it will be only Php 1.00 per kilo. At the back of my mind we had just destroyed acres and acres of rain forests so that we can earn a measly sum with corn. May the heavens forbid that we humans suffer the wrath of Mother Earth with a whip of disasters and utmost plagues and diseases. Well moving on, when we reached the so called "nomadic" tribe it was the typical people that an anthropologist expects to find in the Amazon. No, they were not wearing g-strings they to have been modernized in clothing, but they do wallow in pitiable, abhorrent poverty! they don’t have potable water, no concept whatsoever of hygiene and worse of all they don’t have any food! Hunger is very real in this place, so what they do is that they gather whatever they can mostly leaves that I have no idea whatsoever they are and for protein monkeys, wild deers, (on good days of hunting) but on bad days they have to rely on eating grubs or fat worms (whatever they are, i don’t want to know, i don’t want to know!).

"This is what I’m afraid of, a philosophical debate on happiness" thus lament my dear friend Adeodatus the Monk upon seeing me reading Theodor Adorno. I couldn’t blame him after all it was poor old Ted who said that "He who says he is happy lies, and in invoking happiness, sins against. He alone keeps faith who says: I was happy. The only relation of conciousness to happiness is gratitude in which lies its incomparable dignity." Theodorakis the Monk is holding Nietzsche and quoting from memory "What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome."  I smell blood, this means war! Seriously, friends i think these two monks had just too much beer to drink during dinner, but then again i was struck by Adeodatus’ question, "well Paulo are you happy?" I was suddenly transported to a time space warp and flashbacks of childhood memories and pounding questions knocking in my head. Am I truly happy? Thinking of Adorno I can safely assure each and everyone that I was truly happy. But with Nietzsche? That’s where the trouble starts and it’s Theodorakis’ (not the monk anymore, but the devil’s advocate!) turn to torment me. If I’ll listen to pareng Friedrich, no, I’m not happy. Many people say that I am an old soul showing wisdom and truisms far beyond my age, but for me it’s just a call of a moment’s reflection. As the Buddhist say "live in the present and savour the moment." While taking my afternoon walk a lot of questions were just floating around me especially my four years of stay here in Mindanao. Is it all worth the effort? I gave up the best years of my life in teaching students from Xavier University and high up in the boondocks of Bukidnon, to doing NGO work battling all the politics and dirt one could muster to throw at me. I cannot but help but pity myself, while I could have gone the other path of a successful career, high paying job, the satisfaction of being a help to my family, material wealth and the good life in posh Manille I ended up being here in Bukidnon. Sufferring from the torments of dreams and illusions of ifs and buts. Many friends have been telling me to end my self imposed exile and return to where I truly belong and leave this godforsaken place. Yet, no matter what I do I just cannot leave this beautiful island of Mindanao. While everywhere I go I can only see stretch of poverty and misery people are alive and well. It may be frustrating that I wish to see discipline yet found none whatsoever. If I were a true cynic I would by all means sentenced this land doomed, yet true the Franciscan creed "when there is hatred, let me sow love, where there is injury, pardon, where there is despair hope" and in this land there is so much to do and I will be more than willing to stick it out despite whatever will happen to me. I had given up many things that could have made me happy and full, when I went here I had only one thing in mind serviam and despite the difficult twist and turns I still ended up as the loser in this life. I will be a hypocrite if I will not say that I am not angry, I am angry and I felt betrayed by people and circumstances. I had given everything and yet I was given nothing but a bitter end. Finally, placed on the sides when practically useless. I think Sting and the Police says everything in their song King of Pain, it’s perfect for me.

There’s a little black spot on the sun today
It’s the same old thing as yesterday
There’s a black hat caught in a high tree top
There’s a flag-pole rag and the wind won’t stop

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running ’round my brain
I guess I’m always hoping that you’ll end this reign
But it’s my destiny to be the king of pain

There’s a little black spot on the sun today
(That’s my soul up there)
It’s the same old thing as yesterday
(That’s my soul up there)
There’s a black hat caught in a high tree top
(That’s my soul up there)
There’s a flag-pole rag and the wind won’t stop
(That’s my soul up there)

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running ’round my brain
I guess I’m always hoping that you’ll end this reign
But it’s my destiny to be the king of pain

There’s a fossil that’s trapped in a high cliff wall
(That’s my soul up there)
There’s a dead salmon frozen in a waterfall
(That’s my soul up there)
There’s a blue whale beached by a springtide’s ebb
(That’s my soul up there)
There’s a butterfly trapped in a spider’s web
(That’s my soul up there)

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running ’round my brain
I guess I’m always hoping that you’ll end this reign
But it’s my destiny to be the king of pain

There’s a king on a throne with his eyes torn out
There’s a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt
There’s a rich man sleeping on a golden bed
There’s a skeleton choking on a crust of bread

King of pain

There’s a red fox torn by a huntsman’s pack
(That’s my soul up there)
There’s a black-winged gull with a broken back
(That’s my soul up there)
There’s a little black spot on the sun today
It’s the same old thing as yesterday

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running ’round my brain
I guess I’m always hoping that you’ll end this reign
But it’s my destiny to be the king of pain

king of pain
king of pain
king of pain
I’ll always be king of pain…

Shared Homily

August 9, 2004

Greetings of peace and all good to my dear fellow Franciscans this is again one of those days when one of us have to stand in front and talk on and on. I do hope that I will be able to do justice this time. Before that I would like to thank my dear friend and brother Fr. Kevin for being the main celebrant for today’s Mass for the renewal of vows. 

I know that many if not all of us are once again in that stage where we are unsure of where we are going, what we’re doing or even who we are loving and why are we here today gathered again for yet another boring sermon. I too am wondering why I am here. Half of my life I am wondering and the other half I am wandering trying to find myself. Then again as I was composing this homily I am listening to the radio and the song “light of the world shine on me Love is the answer” is playing. I can only softly contemplate on that beautiful song for all the questions that you and I ask was answered - for it is only indeed that “love is the answer”. When I talk about love I have to resist the terrible temptation to go too philosophical or theological about it. Rather I want to simply experience it and go about it without so much fuss.

Many people are afraid to love because of the serious consequences it brings into our lives of course there is always the high probability that the people that we love will hurt us in many various ways such as rejection, abandonment, betrayal or just simply falling out of love. This too is my greatest fear that I may cease to love, that I may cease to share myself and in the end I will be an Ebenezer Scrooge. And so I just want to seize this day and be in love. They say those who are in love begin their day smiling and end their days smiling.  That my brothers is my prayer that despite and in spite of the pain and suffering, the troubles of petty things that unseats my soul I would wake up in the morning smiling and refreshed and end my exhausting day still smiling that another day of battles has ended. A life centred on the very basics of happiness.

This is where I would like to share a little but heavy book written by Robert Fulghum, which I’m quite sure most of us have read during our teenage years All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. It’s a funny book it made me look back 20 or so years ago when I was in Kindergarten and come to think about it after all these years of education and several hundreds of thousands of pages of books read I still haven’t mastered the basic essential ingredients for a simple and happy life. Now, let’s all have a review.

1. Share everything – remember when we were kids that we used to share everything from papers, pencils, to our delicious baon, where we actually let our classmates drink from our coleman jugs, borrow our spoon and I even remember letting my friend borrow my toothbrush when he forgot his during our camping ah those boy scout days. Then as we grow older and I’m afraid not much wiser the act of sharing becomes less and less. Surely not one of us here will dare share his toothbrush of course we know better now - for sanitary reasons. Again how much do we actually know, how much do we really share? Do we share only our excesses or things that are painful to depart from us? Right now I must admit and confess that while I can say that I am a cheerful giver in some ways, but not always. The most and important thing that I should give away is myself and my love. To be able to be there always for my brothers, to those who are in need. Yet, I am afraid to give myself and I am afraid to love in fear that I would be hurt again, that I will get disappointed again, that I will not be loved back again, so on and so forth.  In this case I always recall what St. Benedict said “God loves a cheerful giver” and in these words I made a realisation that a giver is indeed cheerful. I sure all of us knows the light feeling and tingling sensation after doing something good. So there you go let us share everything in love. I am challenge by the words of Mother Teresa “love until it hurts” right now I can say that I am experiencing it I am loving to the point of hurting me where it hurts the most – my ego. When you love someone you realise that it takes humungous amount of sacrifices for the one that you love to the point that you’ll forget who or what you are just to make the other person happy. I think that is the whole essence of sharing, giving ourselves whole heartedly no questions asked, and no qualms just plain and simple loving.

2. Play fair – this is something that we all practised faithfully when we were children. If you don’t play fair all the other kids will throw you out of the game and no one would like to play with you after all nobody wants a “cheater”. As the cliché goes “all is fair in love” I just would like to point out that when loving the other we should not focus on the minor details such as “he snores so loud he puts the horns of Titanic to shame” or “he’s as sloppy as Slimer” or “she’s the other woman” while it’s true that character says a lot we tend to get lost in the details and the devil is in the details friends. We tend to see only negative things, but not the essentials that make us fully human. Remember Antoine de Saint Exupery’s the Little Prince in that little book he summarised the world for us “it is only through the heart that one can see rightly for what is essential is invisible to the eyes”. Because it is these frailties that we see we are not being fair and we are cheating other people we are stealing love from them. How you may ask? We are not being fair because we label them with words that are painful like baboy, taba, bading. tomboy, pilay, kabit, weirdo, criminal, lasengero, tamad. It’s not fair because we may not agree to the gender orientation of a person or when that person commits a sin, a mistake he or she is labelled for life, that they are ostracised and scorned by this society because he or she is different. It is not fair. This is only one dimension of a wholly complicated dynamics of a person. We loose sight of this beauty as the person becomes a mere object of disgust. It is not fair to judge or discriminate. Play fair, be fair. Compassion above everything else.

3. Flush – I believe that each and every one of us had an emergency moment where we have to go to the toilet pronto! ASAP! After the dreadful moment, pure ecstasy and of course the mortal sin of all mortal sins it is if you’ll not flush the toilet. To use the language of Freud and Jung I think that we are all “unconsciously” not flushing our toilets. The biological wastes do go down the drain and I’m sure we make sure to that one, but what about the psychological wastes? They’re just stuck there somewhere in the mind and the heart rotting our unconsciousness away. Just imagine the stench! We carry these emotional baggages everywhere we go no wonder it makes us all feel so constipated. The hurts, pains, disappointment, betrayal, anger, sadness that we refuse to flush down the toilet gives us a very foul odour that no one can stand the stench of our souls. Bitterness to ourselves and to others often emanates from deep rooted anger from the things that happen to us years before. I think that one way or another we forget to flush these negative feelings the wastes of our souls.  A wounded soul and a wounded heart make a person loose sight of the beauty and the grandeur of the world. In the end, we can only see the dirt and the debris of a world that was once beautiful. I hope and I pray that we will all remember to flush the toilet and just like after an emergency in the toilet feel the ecstasy of the heavy burdened lifted from our souls!

4. Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. When my friend Ingrid gets angry she always shouts “Jesus H. Christ!” The first time I heard this I was aghast! Of course I was planning to give her a very long lecture about blasphemy, but the only words that came out of my mouth were “I didn’t know that Jesus had a middle name what does H stands for? She said holy and we just laughed and I told her that’s a good one. For me the measure of a good and balanced life is our emotional and spiritual well being. Anger that does not consume our whole beingness, the casual and free flowing humour and the ability to laugh at ourselves. To balance is always viewed with utmost difficulty like to balance a ledger of debit and credit, to balance on a thin wire over buildings, to balance school activities with love life, or even worse to live a balanced diet something that most of us can never do after all who can refuse delicious chicharon bulaklak or lechon?  Then again for us busy people (or at least pretending to be busy) must strive to strike a delicate balance in our lives.

I with all my heart attempts to strike this delicate balance while I work hard I try to do other creative things to free my soul from all the negative elements in my environment. I myself paint but mostly abstract figures which I call random and sporadic thoughts drawn from the mind of mentally deranged man. I dance and sing but only in the privacy of my cloister not because I don’t want to share my talents but rather in order for me not to scare people away.

Then again, when it comes to work I think I am guilty of a sin (on a theological perspective) or sick (psychologically speaking) of being a workaholic. Just like any other addiction being a workaholic is rooted from fear and what I am very afraid of is doing nothing because it makes me feel useless and guilty at the same time that I am not doing anything productive. We work so that we can put food on our tables. We work so that we can live not the other way around which is we live to work.

I would like to share the story of one of the people that I greatly admire, he is Padre Pedro Arrupe the former Superior General of the Society of Jesus, from a very busy and I would say hyperactive General of one of the largest and busiest Catholic order to a mere vegetable unable to move a muscle for 10 years imagine that! Yet Padre Pedro may have lost control of his body but he never lost control of his mind and spirit. He fought and he prayed with all his might and pursued his divine work that even in silence he showed us, he showed the world that he is a priest working for God. Our work should bring productiveness not only to ourselves, our family but to our community and country and for the whole of humanity. It must give us the dignity of labour to do what is good and not to exploit others. Work hard. Play hard. Give ourselves respect and appraise our self-worth.

5. When you go out of the world watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together – I believe those of us who are in the mission areas don’t have to think twice about this. In the mission area of Miarayon, Talakag, Bukidnon the difficult trials and circumstances that came into our way was truly horrendous that now looking back I couldn’t possibly imagine how on earth did I survived that. I survived the emotional trauma when one of our students died during a class outing, the death threats of the parents, relatives and the village people of the student who died blaming us for the accident and surviving a tribal war. I firmly believe that it is because of friends who are there to support you and to hold your hand in your most trying times where you are unsure where to go or what to do. They will be the one to pull you out of the dark. So listen carefully to the advice choose your friends wisely. Always remember what Melanie Marquez had said “birds of the same feather always make a good feather duster”. For me friendship is a celebration of individuality where you can be who you are, naturally you don’t have to worry about putting superficialities in front of these people. These are the people that you can be at ease with, they must not define who you are or what you should be there must be healthy respect and love and acceptance.

6. Lastly, be aware of wonder – having a deep sense of wonder. When I was invited for lunch by sisters of a certain religious congregation I was filled with a deep sense of wonder because their community was very light spirited and the nuns were very vivid and so alive. You can see very well that they are in love with the vocation, the life they had chosen to live. They would always say “oh that’s so nice naman!” or “really, that’s nice!” or “that’s really fantastic!”  or “Oi! That’s wonderful!” every time they say that I just couldn’t help and laugh afterwards it gets worst because its contagious when I got back here in the friary house now I’m the one who’s always saying “ay how nice naman, really that’s nice ah”. Lo and behold a few days after everyone are saying “how nice”. Looking back on that experience I can’t help but be in wonder and awe how positive energy flows from one person to another. It is a constant reminder that God’s love can be found every where because he is this good feeling, this good vibes that makes us feel good and when we are in a state of wonder and awe he is very much within us and around us. Sometimes we think that it will take something very grand and spectacular before we can be awed. But for me it is in the little things where I am at most awed by God’s grandeur. One I will never forget, while I was on a retreat I was in a Zen position in front of the tabernacle meditating when I noticed a very beautiful butterfly of the most spectacular colour was flying around it. For me that little creature was God’s blessing to this poor monk. It was deep and profound sense of awe and wonderment of beauty that cannot be described into words. It is something that is meant to be experienced.

Sometimes I feel that my whole life is a joke with so many mistakes and wrongdoings then again God always makes a way to make it right and meaningful. That’s why I just would like to laugh at the world and not to take the bad things seriously. Think positive they say and always see the bright side of everything. I think that I had babbled today enough to last a lifetime but before that I would like to end by quoting the poem of Robert Frost: “Forgive O Lord thy joke on thee and I’ll forgive thy great big one on me.” Amen.