No, your gestational sac of a baby does not look cute

The first time I saw a picture of my unborn child, I honestly didn’t feel tremendous love overflowing in my chest. It’s hard feeling that when you’re staring at what looks like a cross between a snowman and the Pillsbury dough boy. Eventually though, the picture grew on me.

Ultrasounds, as we would later find out, are magical things. They give you a visual of that tiny miracle growing inside your wife’s belly. When you get a print out to show to your family and friends, it suddenly becomes very official. It becomes tangible, therefore it becomes real. Whatever uncertainty surrounding the initial stages of pregnancy (is this really happening?!) is now displaced by the reality of a “intrauterine representation of a yolk sac and embryo”. And you have a picture to prove it!

At this point, resist the urge to see more of the photo that what it is (look how cute her tiny winsy nose is!!!). Get a grip of yourself before it becomes really awkward for your well-meaning officemates. What you see is a gestational sac – a mass of almost formless goo that are just the beginnings of a human. Keep that picture in your wallet and take it out anytime during the course of your day. Don’t worry, people will understand if they see you smiling teary-eyed.

There will be plenty more ultrasounds as your wife’s pregnancy progresses. In the later stages (end of second trimester to the beginning of third trimester), you can even go for a 4D ultrasound. They take a series of photos via ultrasound and stitch them together to form a video. I recommend you splurge a little for the 4D ultrasound, I guarantee you’ll love it. I saved mine in my iPad and instantly became my most played video. Again, resist the urge to shove your video in everyone’s faces.

On the last days of pregnancy, your baby’s pictures will be clearer and sonographers may start seeing “things” with the baby. These are of course abnormalities, and my goodness, there are millions of things that can go wrong with a baby! My wife and I personally went through a difficult time with ultrasound results of our baby (I will definitely write about this in the future). In case you get a “bad news”, don’t stress about it. Let me repeat that: don’t stress about it. Just come to God in prayer, and stay away from Google.

Ultrasounds are never conclusive of what your baby will actually turn out. For all it’s technological wizardry, the machines are basically just measuring sound waves. The doctors will have to wait for when your baby comes out to diagnose anything officially. And you should too.

CS Lewis on God and a Cruel Universe

The Rival Conceptions of God by CS Lewis

(from Mere Christianity)

If a good God made the world why has  it gone wrong? And for many years I simply  refused to listen to the Christian  answers  to  this  question,  because  I  kept on  feeling "whatever you say,  and however clever your  arguments are,  isn't  it  much simpler  and  easier to  say that the  world was not made by any intelligent power? Aren't  all your arguments simply a complicated attempt to  avoid the obvious?" But then that threw me back into another difficulty.

My argument  against  God  was  that  the universe seemed so cruel  and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does  not call a  line  crooked  unless he  has  some  idea of a straight line.  What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If  the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so  to  speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against  it? A man feels  wet  when he falls into water,  because man is not a  water animal: a fish would not feel wet.

Of course I could have  given up my  idea of justice by  saying it  was nothing but  a  private idea of my own. But  if I did that, then my argument against  God collapsed too- for  the argument  depended on  saying that  the world  was really unjust, not simply  that  it  did not happen to  please my private fancies. Thus in the very act  of trying to  prove  that God did not exist-in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I  found I was forced to assume that one part of reality-namely my idea of justice-was full of sense.

Consequently atheism turns  out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning,  we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no  creatures  with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

Of Christ by Malcolm Muggeridge

We look back upon history, and what do we see? Empires rising and falling. Revolutions and Counterrevolutions. Wealth accumulated and wealth disbursed. Shakespeare has written of the rise and fall of great ones, that ebb and flow with the moon. I look back upon my own fellow countrymen, once upon a time dominating a quarter of the world, most of them convinced, in the words of what is still a popular song, that the God who made them mighty, shall make them mightier yet.

I've heard a crazed, cracked Austrian announce to the world the establishment of a Reich that would last a thousand years. I have seen an Italian clown say he was going to stop and restart the calendar with his own ascension to power. I've heard a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin, acclaimed by the intellectual elite of the world as wiser than Solomon, more humane than Marcus Aurelius, more enlightened than Ashoka.

I have seen America, wealthier and in terms of military weaponry, more powerful than the rest of the world put together, so that had the American people so desired, they could have outdone a Caesar, or an Alexander in the range and scale of their conquests.

All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the wind. England part of a tiny island off the coast of Europe, threatened with dismemberment and even bankruptcy. Hitler and Mussolini dead, remembered only in infamy. Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he helped found and dominate for some three decades. America haunted by fears of running our of those precious fluids that keeps their motorways roaring, and the smog settling, with troubled memories of a disastrous campaign in Vietnam, and the victories of the Don Quixotes of the media as they charged the windmills of Watergate. All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the wind.

Behind the debris of these solemn supermen, and self-styled imperial diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of one, because of whom, by whom, in whom and through whom alone, mankind may still have peace: The person of Jesus Christ. I present him as the way, the truth, and the life.

CS Lewis on Heaven

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. (Mere Christianity)

In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name.

Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. (Weight of Glory)

Creed by Steve Turner

Steve Turner is an English music journalist, biographer and poet. He has been writing since the 1970's and has appeared in Rolling Stone, Mojo, Q, and The Times. This is his satirical poem on the modern mind. Brilliant!

Creed
by Steve Turner

We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, during, and
after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy’s OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything's getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there's something in horoscopes
UFO's and bent spoons.
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha,
Mohammed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher though we think
His good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same-
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of creation,
sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens
they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then its
compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps
Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Kahn

We believe in Masters and Johnson
What's selected is average.
What's average is normal.
What's normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and
bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors .
And the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good.
It's only his behavior that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth that
is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust.
History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth
that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds,
And the flowering of individual thought.

If chance be
the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky
and when you hear

State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!
It is but the sound of man
worshipping his maker.

Sticking Around

I was raised by my mother who loves the Lord very much.  I grew up attending her Christian church and heard about the love of God from pastor's sermons and Sunday School teacher.  Back then, Christianity was comfortable and familiar and it did not really require me to talk to other people except for the occasional fellowship singing, which was always very awkward really.  I was a shy boy growing up and I rarely talked with anyone.  When I went to High School and College, I did not care for the Lord anymore.  School gave me the chance to come out of my shell and excel in my studies.  Church life became a chore, a necessary inconvenience.  When invitations to youth camps and retreats were given to me, I thought of excuses to not join.  At that point, I felt Christianity was increasingly getting uncomfortable and unfamiliar.  When I looked at my churchmates, I saw absolutely nothing in common with them and I sought the solace of my school and barkada.  School, with all its secular ideals and crazy friends was home.  Church was more like an embarrassing family you are afraid to introduce to your friends.

It all changed when I had to work in Manila after College.  Alone in a big city, I was lonely and spent most of my time to myself.  One time a good Christian friend lent me a book called "Can Man Live Without God?" by Ravi Zacharias.  It started within me a desire for God.  Soon, I was attending Sunday evening services in CCF St. Francis because it was the nearest church to where I lived.  I knew at that point that I needed to get right with God.

In 2008, I came back to Cebu for good.  Together with my ex-girlfriend Vanessa, we went to CCF every Sunday.  Then as now, we heard constant encouragement from the pastors to join small groups which they called Discipleship Groups or DGroups.  I thought it was a good thing to join, but I was too shy.  I knew I had to share my life with other people and I did not care for that.  I felt it was too messy, too inconvenient.  I also thought I was very busy, but really I watched TV for hours.  Drawing from my childhood experience of Church, I felt it was best to keep it at a purely-Sunday morning basis.  After that, I can get on with my life being a Christian.

Soon, I was tired of a boring life without any spiritual breakthroughs.  I've grown weary of my habitual sins and felt I needed to have people around me who can help and check on me.  Along that time, Pastor Steven already saw me as a regular churchgoer and chatted with me before the services started.  He always encouraged me to join a DGrp.  Soon after that, Vanessa and I dropped two pieces of paper in the tithebox with our contact information.  Soon a guy named Caloi texted me and scheduled me to join his DGrp.

My first DGrp meeting started with only three of us.  I shared briefly about myself, making sure not to go very personal, and listened to the other two.  Each one talked quietly and assuredly.  No one was argumentative.  They were brutally honest yet remarkably humble.  So these were Christian men, I thought.  Although there were only 3 of us, I made a commitment to God and I decided to stick around.  I came back week after week. 

Slowly the group grew as more and more men joined us.  Eventually, it became so big that we had to break into smaller groups.  Soon, Caloi challenged me to lead the group.  Obviously, I felt ill-equipped, pretentious and embarrassed to take on the task.  I prayed about it and was convinced that that was what the Lord wanted me to do.  I made a commitment to God and I decided to stick around.

Right now, I lead a group of nine men who I love as my brothers.  I did not want to share my life at first, but when I learned to open my life to them, they opened their lives to me and blessed me tremendously.  Every week, I get a front row seat to the story that God is writing in their lives.  I saw God move the heart of my brothers to love only Jesus and seek fulfillment in Him alone.  I prayed side by side with my brothers and waited with them for the Lord's answers to their prayers.  Some were answered, some were not.  In all their victories, we celebrated together; in their times of need, we prayed earnestly.  As for me, I have broken down in front of my brothers confessing to them my weaknesses knowing with absolute certainty that I will not be judged but will only be prayed for.

Last year, before I got married to my ex-girlfriend and now wife, Vanessa, my Dgroup brothers threw me I think the world's most wholesome bachelor's party.  Crossing over from singlehood to married life, I feel comfort in knowing that wherever I may be going in life, I have my gang of Jesus-lovers who will readily encourage me, pray for me, and also rebuke me when needed.

This is one of the greatest joys of my life: I used to know about God, but now I know God for myself.  I see Him in the lives of my brothers, he is dwelling in their praises and ever present in their times of need.

Looking back, I think I would have missed a lot if I had not dropped my contact information in the tithe box.  I would have spent years alone as a Christian, with no one to help me grow in the faith.  I would have missed out on Christian men who will pray for me in my weakness, and whom I can pray for in turn.  Indeed, it is easier to run the race of the faith when you run side by side with friends who love the Lord.

Share your life to Christians, make a commitment to God and decide to stick around.

Butterfly

When you stand outside the back exit of Cybergate Mall, you will see a part of the Rizal Memorial Library and Museum. It is a beautiful building built in 1973. Along the beams of the building are intricately carved balousters that can only be described as classical. Everything is painted white. The pillars that support the ornate ceilings are the most beautiful in the city -- tall, uniformly ridged structures that briefly flourish at the top. The windows are stained glass.

They have always wanted to get married in this building.

So when they saw that it was still early, they agreed to walk around the block to the library. It would take some four minutes to get there from the mall. Neither of them has been inside before, and they wondered if it was open despite the holiday. They crossed the street and walked beside each other on the sidewalk.

Then it rained.

They ran to the iron gates of the library slouching their shoulders and ducking their heads. He asked a security guard if the library is open. It was not. At this point they were getting very wet and running back to the mall would only drench them more. So they looked around for a place to wait the rain out.

In 1985, Mr. George Te, a shrewd businessman, made a substantial fortune selling slippers. As all rich men are inclined to do, he got himself a mistress and lavished her with gifts. Of course, Mrs. Te never knew about the affair. At some point, wives will lose interest in their husbands and live their lives doing God knows what.

Mr. Te was not content to see his mistress every now and then. He wanted to live with her but he dreaded leaving Mrs. Te. He knew Mrs. Te would berate him to no end and tell anyone who is willing to listen about his indiscretion. Mr. Te felt he was a good man and his reputation must reflect this. So this matter about the mistress must be kept a secret. All good men have secrets.

And so five months after the affair began, Mr. Te bought land beside the Rizal Memorial Library and Museum. On it he built a five story building, six stories if we include the basement. He put up the headquarters of his slippers business in the basement and had the other floors rented as office space. His wife thought this was a good business venture, but she was not interested. Her lack of interest meant she would never find out that the whole penthouse floor was the exclusive residence of her husband's mistress. He would spend countless of nights in the building under the guise of working overtime. But in truth, Mr. Te could hardly be found in the basement. Every morning, he would walk the sidewalk of Jones Avenue, pass the Rizal Library and Museum, climb the staircase that led to the mezzanine of the building -- the main lobby --, ride the elevator, and press 5.

They quickly climbed the staircase and got out of the rain. She looked around and saw closed offices except for a Reproductive Health office on the upper ground floor. She read a sign on entrance hall, "Te Commercial Building, 1985." She told him she has never been here before. Neither was he. They decided to sit on the staircase and wait the rain out.

"So when are you getting married?", he asked her.

"December.", she answered smiling.

"I'm glad we had lunch together. It's been a while since I last saw you."

"Jason and I were in town. He's off somewhere else with his buddies and I was all alone in the hotel. So I might as well get together with old friends."

"Old friend," he repeated. "Do I look that old now?"

She laughed. She placed her arms behind her and leaned back. She looked at the jeepneys and cars making sloshing sounds on the street. Aaah... Cebu. Just as she remembered it from years back.

"You've told me over lunch about your business and how great it's been going. But you never told me how you are," she asked him.

"I'm fine, I guess," he lied. He followed her and placed his arms behind him and leaned back. "You know, we used to do exactly this on the soccer field during Cookout."

"Yes," she laughed. "We'd stay late passed midnight and just gaze at the stars."

"Well, we also made fun of the stupid Rampahan contestants." He laughed. She laughed.

"Didn't you join Rampahan once?" She looked at him quizzically, suppressing a smirk.

"I never did." He lied. They both knew he was lying and laughed about it.

"You wore that silly black skirt and..." she pressed on.

"I wore no such thing!" He protested. He gazed at her smiling eyes and felt a sudden stab in his heart.

There is nothing like listening to the rain. When you listen to music your mind is filled with music and you can hardly think of anything else. When you listen to a sermon, the same thing happens. But listening to the rain only megaphones whatever thoughts you may have. It's the perfect way to listen to yourself, listening to the rain. It's the sound of silence.

"I hardly know you anymore," he finally said to her. Not looking at her, but staring at the raindrops on the pavement.

"Well," she sat up and smiled big, "let me introduce myself then." She gave her hand to shake. "I'm Leslie and I'm a florist. And you?"

"Haha..." he sat up. "I'm Karl. I sell automated solutions for procurement organizations." He took her hand.

"Impressive... Do you enjoy computers then, Karl?"

"Very much so, yes. Even in college, I've always been the geek." He said shyly.

"I love geeks! I think they're the coolest. Where are you based now?"

"Hong Kong. I've lived there since after College. I'm just here for vacation, really."

"Wow! What's Hong Kong like?"

"Clean. Smells like Chinese food everywhere." She laughed at this. "And you? Where do you live?" He asked her.

"Makati. I have a shop in one of the malls there and I sell fresh flowers."

"Are you sure they are fresh?" He kidded her.

"Always." She nodded and smiled big.

"I know they are. I don't doubt it." He smiled quietly. "Have you always wanted to be a florist?"

"No, not really. I've always wanted to..." she was thinking, "paint houses."

"Haha, that's amazing!" He was sincere. He truly never knew this before.

"You know what I do? I would draw stick houses in MS Paint and color." She was facing him now and gesturing her hands wildly. "I would paint the roof some color, then paint the walls and then the windows. When I'm done I save it. I have a folder in my desktop for all my colored houses."

"In bitmaps!"

"Yes!"

"That's amazing!" He was really surprised about this. They laughed loudly together and forgot about the rain.

When the laughter subsided, he looked at her and felt the sudden need to hold her. And study her. He wanted to know everything about her. He felt this with a sense of purpose. Like he was meant to understand her. All of her.

"Why did you leave for Hong Kong right after graduation, Karl?" her question awoke him from his thoughts. She needed an answer.

"I thought I needed the job." He answered her seriously. "I needed to earn. I never knew I need more than that to live." He continued to gaze at her eyes. He was not willing to do anything else but that. "I miss you, babe."

She looked at his eyes. She wondered what those eyes have seen in the many years she has not seen him. A sense of jealousy crept in her heart. He will look at another. And perhaps many more. She will never see him again. Not like this. Her old friend. Her good man.

She looked at the street and noticed that the rain has not relented. She stood up anyway and said, "We better go back to the mall. You only get two hours free parking, right?" She smiled big and looked at him.

"Yes. How will you go back to the hotel?" He asked sadly.

"I borrowed Jason's car. But don't tell him, he doesn't know yet." She laughed.

He laughed.

They walked the four minutes back to Cybergate mall drenched in the rain. They weren't slouching this time, or ducking their heads. They walked slowly, beside each other.

The best thing about the rain is it hides the tears.

Nearby a butterfly struggled in the rain. Its wings were in beautiful green and blue iridescence, but the raindrops pinned them to the ground. A butterfly must never try to flap its wings when they are heavy with water. The butterfly did not know this. So when one wing laid flat on the wet ground and the butterfly tried to pick it up, it broke.

It will never fly again.