Bangon Sugbohol

Finally got out of the house this morning for brunch. Coffee shop was full of office workers working "from home" and having checkpoint meetings. Was especially touched when a boss opened the meeting with a prayer to thank the Lord for keeping everyone safe during the quakes.

Friends, Cebu and Bohol will rise. In fact, it is already rising: Everyone is eager to work, and life is moving along with that fierce Bisayan perseverance. Church buildings might have been destroyed but the Church is as strong as ever. She prays in coffee shops, in make-do offices, in schools, in cracked houses, in every place where there is God and a hopeful soul. Truly, not even the gates of hell will prevail against the Church.

Scrap Pork!

This is for everyone who read the papers religiously these past weeks, riveted to the news of the systemic rape of the nation's coffers in the hands of those who "lead" us. This is for everyone who took pains to understand the workings of the mind of that unintelligible woman, trying to look for any sense of morality in her actions and found none. This is for everyone who has seen the plight of the poor, the very poor, who are unnecessarily denied the basics for human dignity while their money is used to throw extravagant parties overseas. This is for everyone who wakes up every morning for work, slaves in front of their computers, puts up with targets and deadlines to earn a decent living and to pay honest taxes.

We have reached the tipping point. The President is doing a good job, by far the best a President has done in recent memory. It's a good start, now let's go further.

This is the repentance of a nation from our favorite sin: loving money more than people. We will start from the hallowed halls of power because leaders are suppose to lead. We will end when we have loved our fellow Filipinos enough to take care of each other selflessly. This is a call to righteousness.

See you at Fuente!

Iskolar than you?

Photo from the UP Circle of Entrepreneurs Facebook page

When I was still in High School and all through College, I was taught by one Dr. Sofia Logarta. She never failed to remind us that the reason why we are able to go to school is because every morning the jeepney drivers wake up early to ply their routes, the fishermen tend their nets for a day's catch, and the farmers till hard land to harvest decent crops. The common folk who build this nation from the ground up and the middle class who pay their hard-earned taxes must not be disappointed. It is a sacred trust they have given me and my classmates. It is a privilege; make no mistake about it -- not a right.

Now, I don't know where this hubris comes from that motivates an Iskolar ng Bayan to wear this shirt. It is almost alien to me, and I'm sure many of my classmates. I suspect it is borne out of a fundamental misunderstanding of who a UP student is.

If I'm still a student, I'll go around the campus wearing, "Iskolar because of You." Dr. Logarta will certainly agree.

Reasons (I) Cry Too

Reasons My Son Is Crying is a blog about a father who takes a picture of his son every time the boy cries. Under each picture, he writes the reason for his fit. As expected, the reasons range from the silly (he hates his bath) to the pesky (he threw away his dinner plate, now he wants his dinner).

It makes me think about the numerous times I've asked God for one thing or another, only to get a "NO," or worse a "WAIT" - the bane of the impatient. I don't throw dinner plates now, but the feelings of anger and disappointment are just as vicious inside. Few times, I'd turn to God lashing with anger. More often though, I'd turn away from Him and sulk in my little emotional corner.

A good father decisively say "NO" to the things that will lead his children to harm, even if his children want it for themselves. With each thoughtful "WAIT," he builds his children's character. I continue to remind myself that despite all my best intentions, God still knows what's best for me. It's a huge comfort to know that I can trust this Father, even if that meant enduring some cold baths once in a while, or waiting for a second chance at dinner.

Luke 11:11-13: “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

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.