Reflections. Reasonings. Reasons. Reason.

In the grip of trials(Ondoy then Pepeng)

2009-10-02T04:26:00.000-07:00

i'd like to share:

Now that we have passed the equinox, let me pray about death. May I be alive when I die. And in the words of an old Irish prayer:
Three wishes I ask of the King when I part from my body: May I have nothing to confess, may I have no enemy, may I own nothing! Three things I ask this day of the King, ruler of suns: May I have no dignity or honours that may lead me into torment! May I not work without reward before Christ! May God take my soul when it is most pure!
Finally, Kipling's prayer before battle:
O Mary, pierced with sorrow,
Remember, reach and save
The soul that goes tomorrow
Before the God that gave.
As each was born of woman,
For each, in utter need,
True comrade and brave foeman,
Madonna, intercede.

"Full: Christianity, anyone?

2009-09-15T04:14:00.000-07:00

A very nice article i read... meant to be reflected upon, digested thoroughlym had to get it in full. Read on:

IS THERE A "MERE CHRISTIANITY"?

By K.D. Whitehead

This Rock

Volume 6, Number 12

December 1995

AT one time our society was considered Christian. Traditional Christian moral standards used to be supported by public policy; those who openly violated them were shunned in one way or another. Today society appears rather to sanction, if not actually encourage, deviations from and even contempt for such standards; one need only consider what the mass media present as acceptable and desirable moral, especially sexual, behavior.

Things once regarded as shameful and immoral are considered "alternate lifestyles" and even something to brag about. In this moral climate, marriage has greatly suffered.

Births out of wedlock are at an all-time high for both whites and blacks, even though abortions too are near an all-time high-4,400 each day in the United States. Nearly one out of every two marriages fails, while two out of three remarriages fail. What Christ said should never be put asunder (Matt. 19:6, Mark 10:9) is becoming a rarity in the Western society that was originally brought to birth by the Church Christ founded.

No-fault divorce is bad enough, but no-fault abortion was simply unimaginable a generation ago. Abortion was rejected with horror by all the Christian centuries prior to our own, as it was rejected with horror by ancient Israel. It was only legalized for the first time in modern times (in 1920) by the ruthless totalitarian regime which emerged from the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. We can see what kind of regime our own society has come to resemble by legalizing abortion.

Over the past two decades abortion has been legalized, at least in some degree, in most of the countries of the formerly Christian West. No more striking example of a radical departure from basic Christianity can be cited or even imagined. Last year more than a million-and-a-half other American women had their babies killed prior to birth for reasons often trivial.

With the legalization of the elective killing of a significant portion of the next generation, we can surely no longer lay claim to being to a society that remains Christian in any important sense. We are living in the midst of a powerful, conscious, and determined new paganism or secularism, which does not even recognize its own moral degeneracy but rather proudly revels in it.

What should Christians do in the midst of this frankly immoral new society? How can Christians continue to maintain denominational differences, and carry on old denominational quarrels, in the face of the massive modern assault on virtually every basic Christian idea? How important are controversies about how many sacraments there are, whether Christ established a priestly ministry, whether it was limited to men, what Scripture ought to mean to Christians, whether devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary is legitimate, or which Christian communion, if any, constitutes the "true Church"-or whether there even is a "true Church"?

How can such questions continue to be important in the face of today's all-out assault on the very idea that there is a God who made the world and who, through Jesus Christ, has revealed to mankind his intentions and purposes concerning that world?

How important are such "churchy" questions, in other words, when the whole world appears simply to have moved beyond them, seems totally uninterested in Christianity, if not actively hostile to it? If people today can ignore Christ -and his timeless words and warnings-as the majority of people today do ignore him, then they can certainly ignore Christians.

In this situation, how can Christians be so presumptuous as to imagine that their denominational divisions are of the slightest interest or importance to anybody today? It is not enough to say that divisions and denominations should never have existed among Christians in the first place; even Christ prayed that all of his followers would be one (cf. John 17:11). Who can remember how all the different branches, denominations, and sects got started or what particular quarrels resulted in the splits or schisms that produced the divided Christianity of today?

Since we are confronted as a practical matter with indifference, if not hostility, even to the most elementary Christian ideas, many Christians now urge, quite understandably, that the differences that separate Christian believers should henceforth be downplayed and that only those things which unite us should be emphasized. This has been an inevitable and mostly positive development in our current "culture wars," where Catholics and Evangelicals, Orthodox Christians and Orthodox Jews, now find themselves working together in the political sphere in a way that would have been unheard of a generation ago.

But the phenomenon goes beyond the practical sphere. Believers, it is increasingly urged, should concentrate on the "essentials" on which all serious Christians agree, leaving aside the old disputes and the dry bones of contention; these, it is argued, can only lead to further divisions at a time when Christians can ill afford to be divided.

This was the position of one of the most widely read Christian writers and apologists of our time, the late English writer C. S. Lewis. In Mere Christianity Lewis declared that his primary aim was "to defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times."

Lewis presented himself as nothing but "a very ordinary layman of the Church of England." He was far from ordinary, though; a generation after his death, he may be the most widely read Christian author of the century. Not only are all his own books in print, but every stray essay he ever wrote seems to have been gathered up and reprinted somewhere, while "of making many books" and articles about him there also seems to be "no end": a virtual C. S. Lewis industry, in fact, has grown up to celebrate the man and his works.

This is to the good-mostly. Through his own books and the books about him, Lewis has brought many to the Christian faith and bolstered many others in the faith they already had. My own children were brought up on his Narnia tales and later enjoyed his "theological science fiction" as well; this naturally led some of them to his fine apologetical works. Many outstanding Christian leaders have publicly testified to the tremendous effect that Lewis and Mere Christianity have had upon their lives.

In short, Lewis has been a phenomenon-a phenomenon which demonstrates that behind the façade of today's official agnosticism, secularism, worldliness, and outright immorality there still exist beliefs and spiritual yearnings of a more traditional kind.

Meanwhile, there are those who would argue that the phenomenal success of Lewis can be attributed, at least in part, to the fact that he refused to get into questions which are controversial among Christians themselves. Lewis resolutely declined to take sides on what he regarded as purely denominational questions. "You will not learn from me," he wrote in Mere Christianity, "whether you ought to become an Anglican, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, or a Roman Catholic. This omission is intentional (even in the list I have just given the order is alphabetical)."

This fine impartiality toward the competing claims of various Christian positions has appealed to many. Mere Christianity remains a perennial Christian bestseller. It accords nicely with the modern ecumenical spirit which the power of modern monolithic agnosticism and secularism against Christianity has fostered and which even the Catholic Church, formerly so exclusive and apparently so unyielding in her own claims, seems finally to have endorsed, at least conditionally, at the Second Vatican Council.

From this standpoint, Lewis is merely one of the more famous and talented proponents of what has become the current outlook of serious modern Christians: Let's minimize our differences, past and present, and concentrate on what we agree upon. Owing to his own great success, Lewis has been a major influence in winning over many other Christians to this point of view.

Without derogating Lewis's talent and achievements, we must remind ourselves that he was not impartial. He remained an Anglican all his life, and this in itself meant taking a stand. It was only within the relatively loose and vague doctrinal atmosphere of Anglicanism, in fact, that Lewis was really able to limit his defense of Christianity to what he called "the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times," while avoiding most of the inevitable controversies that otherwise arise whenever Christian positions are debated and defended.

No matter how diligently he might try to avoid confrontation, any Catholic apologetical writer attempting to follow Lewis's method would be confronted with demands that he justify papal authority or the Catholic Church's "benighted" position against artificial contraception-if not the Church's claim to be unable to ordain women. A host of other positions that the Catholic Church continues to maintain apparently against all reason and common sense could be cited.

Regardless of whatever irenical points a Catholic apologist might attempt to make in the manner of Lewis, he will inevitably be challenged by secularist and Evangelical alike to speak to the issues inescapably raised by the simple fact of the Catholic Church's authority, which she claims is from God and which she has demonstrated that she is not afraid to use, even if it means sometimes contradicting the whole world.

Thus, attempting to stick merely to the agreed-upon "essentials" of Christianity, while avoiding points disputed or controverted among Christians themselves, is not even possible for a Catholic apologist, as it might not be for some other Christians equally sincere about the claims of their faith. Jesus Christ said that he came into the world to bear witness to the truth (John 18:37), and, to do justice to Christ's position, the Christian apologist must bear witness to what he believes to be the truth. Most of the points historically disputed among Christians have involved questions of truth or falsity, and most of these questions still have to be decided before anyone can know what "essential" Christian belief is.

In fact, it is ultimately impossible to reduce Christianity to certain "basics" or "essentials" on which everybody can agree-what Lewis calls "mere Christianity"-for the simple reason that Christian revelation is composed of a too-complex set of truths to be reduced in this fashion. Moreover, Christianity is not "ours" to reduce. Christianity's divine Founder established a very specific religion, with a very specific form and content, and it is that religion that all Christians are presumably obliged to profess and practice and preach, once they know what it is.

We can begin, of course, by explaining certain "basics" first, as we do in catechizing children, but we cannot limit ourselves to that. We must go beyond those basics to the fuller and more complex meaning of the entire Christian revelation. It is true Christianity, not mere Christianity, that we finally must try to identify and promote.

Virtually all of the schisms, heresies, divisions, and different denominations of historical Christianity have come about primarily as a result of disputes about what true Christianity is; there is hardly a storefront "gospel church" that does not consider itself to represent true Christianity. It is only too understandable, in fact, why a generous soul such as Lewis would be tempted to avoid the messy disputes of Christianity as it actually exists in the world and fall back upon an uncompromised "mere Christianity" instead.

But if Christianity is true in any sense-if it was indeed inaugurated by God himself coming among us in this world -and if it truly was intended by him to make available the sanctification and salvation of his creatures-then an authentic Christianity, a true Christianity, must still exist -what used to be unselfconsciously called "the one true Church." Christians of an earlier day did not doubt there was such a thing; their typical disputes concerned where it might be located. Only today's muddled thinking allows us to imagine that the identity of the one true Church, if any, doesn't have to be determined any longer.

There is the additional uncomfortable fact that the modern world is unlikely to be converted by any stripped-down model of Christ's requirements for sanctification and salvation, even if it is sincerely meant to be a streamlined version which bypasses sterile old quarrels and concentrates on the "essentials."

The modern world is still going to confront the "hard sayings" (John 6:60) of Christianity, and today these inevitably include papal authority, sexual morality, birth control, non-ordination of women, and similar questions. Indeed, the whole question of revelation and the authenticity of Scripture must be included-how can these be maintained as authorities in the face of the supposed discoveries of modern science, for example?

All these questions are inescapable, no matter how uncomfortable they make many sincere Christians. Modern secularists and pagans will not allow them to be passed over in silence; many consider it an outrage that contraceptive or homosexual acts could be condemned by anybody on moral grounds. So we cannot escape acknowledging what true Christianity is obliged to hold on such matters.

The basic question of Christianity, of course, is and always has been: "What do you think of Christ? Whose Son is he?" (Matt. 22:42). When we have answered this question by affirming that Christ is "the Son of God" (Matt. 27:43) -and even "mere Christianity" agrees with this answer- we simply cannot stop there; we must go on to ask what Christ wanted Christianity to be, not what we might find it more convenient to defend.

Once we have put the question that way,it becomes clear from Scripture that Christ scarcely intended to limit himself to the foundation of "mere Christianity." The one who said that "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6) and "because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth" (Rev. 3:16), was no "lowest-common-denominator" type of man, and Christianity has to he consonant with Christ if it is to be true Christianity.

"Mere Christianity" not true enough

ONLY one of the features of the true Christianity that was established by Jesus Christ can be examined here, but consideration of this one feature will be sufficient to demonstrate that "mere Christianity" could never be true Christianity. That single feature is the Church. Christ not only taught a body of beliefs. He also commanded his followers to do certain things, some of them in remembrance of him; these things were to be done within the community of those who came to believe in him and follow him. He himself established such an assembly: It was the Church.

This Church which Christ founded and to which his followers were to belong was not founded haphazardly along unspecified lines. Christ's disciples were in no way left to organize themselves in any way they saw fit, provided only that they believed in him or-as some say today-"accepted" him as their "personal Savior." No, the Church of Christ was organized along definite lines from the beginning.

The New Testament specifies not only that we must "repent and believe" (Mark 1:15), but specifies that we must also "repent and be baptized" (Acts 2:38). Christ not only enjoined on us a set of beliefs, but a set of actions, including, but not limited to, fulfilling in our lives the strict moral demands of the Gospels.

The mention of baptism immediately introduces another set of actions that Christ enjoined upon his followers; these were certain sacred actions-in the early Church they were often called "the mysteries." Today they are called the sacraments. These were not vague and symbolic and unspecified actions; they were concrete and were intended to be carried out in specific ways. Christ made sure that his followers were gathered into an organized assembly or community because these sacramental actions had to be carried out by them in community.

When we consider not just baptism but the entire range of sacramental actions, we immediately see that, in the New Testament as in the Old Testament, a special group of men had to be set apart and ordained to carry out the sacred actions enjoined upon the community; this was the priesthood. There was no way for Christ's followers to carry out his specific command to "do this in remembrance me" (1 Cor. 11:24) unless someone were given the power to do it. In spite of the clear testimony of the New Testament, many Christian denominations deny that the ordained priesthood is one of the "essentials" of Christianity.

Once in a radio debate with a Christian Fundamentalist I argued that we had to have a Church as well as a Bible because otherwise we would be unable to carry out all that Christ commanded. Christ said, in that tremendous sixth chapter of the Gospel according to John, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day" (John 6:53-54).

My question to the Fundamentalist was: "Where do you get 'the flesh of the Son of man'-which Christ himself says you must eat in order to enjoy eternal life? You certainly cannot get it out of the pages of the Bible." Fundamentalists, along with many in the Protestant tradition, sometimes appear to claim that Scripture is the only "essential" of Christianity.

I was arguing that in order to eat Christ's body, we manifestly need a Church with a priesthood that has been given the power to confect Christ's body sacramentally (as Christ himself did at the Last Supper, when he took bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples); we have no other way of obtaining this "body of Christ."

The reply of the Fundamentalist surprised me and might surprise others as well. He said, "Oh, you cannot take John 6 literally!" I did not have to pursue my argument further. The radio talk-show moderator made my point for me: "Do I hear aright? A Fundamentalist telling a Catholic that certain scriptural passages do not have to be taken literally? I never imagined I would hear such a thing."

The point is that, in leaving us the inestimable gift of his own body in the Eucharist, Christ also necessarily established the Church in which that same Eucharist could be perpetuated by a priesthood set apart and ordained for that very purpose. The Catholic Church has held that not just the Eucharist but all of her seven sacraments were instituted by Christ himself and enjoined upon his followers. In the New Testament there is more evidence for the existence and practice of baptism and the Eucharist than there is for the existence and practice of, say, Christian marriage as a sacrament. But whether or not there is specific New Testament evidence for the sacraments in the early Church is not the important thing.

It is important that, from the beginning, the Church was a very definite kind of organization. It did not yet possess all of the familiar features and appearances of the modern Catholic Church; stained glass windows, Gothic arches, and gold monstrances were later refinements. But nothing in the life and practice of the primitive Church as depicted in the New Testament was at variance with or fundamentally inconsistent with the life and practices of the Church today. The early Church was constantly engaged, as the Church is today, in scrupulously carrying out those sacred actions enjoined by Christ himself which came to be called sacraments.

In the New Testament, the sacraments are not so clearly enumerated as, for apologetical reasons, we might wish they had been. These actions of the primitive Church are simply taken for granted by the New Testament authors as commonplace. One thing that immediately becomes clear from a careful reading of the New Testament is that Christ's Church was a sacramental community-with appointed leaders who also enjoyed the powers of the priesthood conferred by Christ himself-dispensing sacraments to its members.

In spite of all this evidence from the New Testament, there are Christian denominations which deny that the sacraments are an essential part of Christianity. Or they reduce the number of the sacraments they consider essential. Or they deny the reality of the sacraments, claiming that they are merely "symbolical"-even though Christ specified that "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man . . . you have no life in you" (John 6:53) Christ said nothing resembling the phrase "unless you eat the bread which symbolizes my body." What Christ manifestly said is that the Eucharist is one of the "essentials" of true Christianity.

There is no warrant in the New Testament, any more than in the subsequent tradition of the Church, for reducing the number of the sacraments, or for watering them down, or for belittling them-as too many professing Christian denominations have historically done, without seeming to realize that they have thereby tampered with something really "essential" in Christianity.

Nevertheless, from New Testament times on, there have been Christians who have preferred their own idea of what Christianity should be to the actual rites and practices handed down from apostolic times and carried on by the living Church throughout history.

Whenever disagreements about various beliefs and practices surfaced in the course of Christian history, a group might split off from the main Church to practice and promote its own ideas of what Christian belief and practice ought to be. In this way, over centuries, all the different denominations, sects, and groupings which we see today came about.

Today, within Protestantism, such divisions occur constantly, usually without any awareness that schism is occurring, since the consciousness of original unity under apostolic authority has been wholly lost.

Today's lack of Christian unity, so much at variance with Christ's own prayer, does not date from yesterday, nor did it result from superficial differences that can now be resolved by goodwill and warm feelings while we all concentrate on the "essentials" of some lowest-common-denominator of Christianity, "core Christianity," as it has sometimes been called. There isn't any "core Christianity" there is only "Christ's Christianity." Though it was cutting, it was a true reply that John Henry Newman once gave to a non-Catholic who had declared to him, "After all we all worship the same God." "Yes," Newman is supposed to have replied, "You in your way, and I in his."

But this does not mean that Christians of different persuasions must not be respected; they must-because of their Christian and human dignity. The question of what is true Christianity, Christ's Christianity, nevertheless remains. Differences among Christian churches and denominations came about through deep-seated differences of belief, and in most cases, these differences remain. The only way they ultimately can be resolved is by acknowledging the truth of the matter.

From a human point of view, there were faults on both sides in the various splits and schisms that occurred. Pope John Paul II recently and rather dramatically has apologized for the wrongs on the Catholic side, as his predecessor Paul VI also did. But the moral blame on all sides does not mean that there never was a true Christian position all the while. To arrive at that true Christian position, therefore, we still have to ask: What were the truths that Christ taught? How did he intend that they should be carried on and taught to subsequent generations?

I have already pointed out how Christ established a Church, or organized assembly of his followers, possessing a priesthood of men set apart with the power to administer the sacraments to the faithful. Christ intended to perpetuate the things he wanted taught to his people through the same institution, the Church; the same priesthood commissioned to administer the sacraments was also commissioned to preach and teach the words Christ left behind-it was to the leaders of the Church as a whole that Christ committed this special teaching office.

This teaching office of the Church was already operating, in fact, before the New Testament was even written down; indeed the New Testament was written down by the Church-that is, by the apostles directly commissioned by Christ, or by disciples of theirs. whom they commissioned in their turn. What was written down in the New Testament was already being taught in the Church. And it was the Church which decided which of the writings of the early Christians were inspired and could be read in the churches and hence had to he scrupulously preserved and handed down. The entire New Testament is thus nothing else but the book of the Church.

Although we have been basing most of our observations on the Church on the evidence to be found in this same New Testament, we cannot even take the New Testament as the final word, inspired Scripture that it is, any more than we can get Christ's body out of its pages; for there always remains the question of what a given text of the New Testament means. Many of the divisions throughout Christian history have hinged on questions of biblical interpretation.

For answers we must ultimately look to the teaching Church, guided by the Holy Spirit. Christ committed the transmission both of his words, through preaching and teaching, and of his divine life, through the sacraments, to the Church, to those leaders of the Church with whom he promised to remain "all days" (Matt. 28:20).

As we observe in the New Testament itself, the Church has never been without a definite group of appointed leaders: first, the apostles, designated by Christ, and, later, those whom the apostles designated in their turn, having been empowered by Christ to do so, the bishops. In other words, the true Church of Christ has always possessed a hierarchy.

It was to the original hierarchy of the apostles that Christ said "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19), just as, practically in the same breath, he instructed them to administer the sacraments as well-"baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:20). And when he said that he would be with them "all days," it was to those very same apostles that he was speaking.

The hierarchical, teaching Church that was also a priestly, sacramental Church-and which we already clearly discern at least outline form in the New Testament itself-has lasted in the world from that day to this and has come down to us as the Church which continues to possess a priesthood through which the words and sacraments of Christ are dispensed; and which is headed by an episcopacy, or college of bishops, in union with a supreme bishop, the Bishop of Rome.

Historically, other bodies broke away from this main body, even while continuing to call themselves Christian. Each time any such group went so far as to split off from the main body of Christ, the whole Church was grievously wounded thereby. Nevertheless, the Church herself lived on essentially unchanged (though wounded and scarred). The historical facts are clear: There always was a visible main body or mainstream tradition from which the splinter groups-heretics and schismatics-separated themselves.

Sometimes, as with the Arians of the fourth century A.D., it often seemed, at least temporarily, as if the schismatics themselves were in the mainstream; even many bishops went over to the Arians. At other times, as during the time of the Great Schism in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and, later, before and during the Protestant Reformation, the sins and excesses of some churchmen lent plausibility to those revolting against the Church and leaving the "mainstream."

Yet even with all the splits and schisms that have occurred, we find that there always has been, and still is, a "mainstream" Church that, in spite of all difficulties, has come down to us in an unbroken line from the apostles-the Church founded by Jesus Christ. This Church still dispenses the same sacraments instituted by and still teaches the same doctrines given by Christ, even though the expression of these doctrines has been enormously developed over the centuries by the experience of the living Church guided by the Holy Spirit.

The Church in question is nothing else but the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of which the Nicene Creed speaks-the Creed which has also been maintained for so many centuries and continues to be solemnly recited within the same Church on Sundays and Holy Days. There is only one organized body of Christians today that can plausibly lay claim to the titles which the Nicene Creed declares to be the true marks of the Church founded by Jesus Christ, and that Church is the universal communion headed in each local area by an overseer called a bishop who is nothing less than a successor to the original apostles-and who maintains communion with the earthly head of the worldwide Church, the successor of the Apostle Peter in Rome, the pope. This Church is, of course, the Christian community most commonly referred to today, as in the past, as "the Catholic Church."

From "mere" to "full" Christianity

BECAUSE the Catholic Church is historically continuous with the Church founded by Christ upon the apostles and teaches the same doctrines and carries out the same functions as the Church depicted in the New Testament, we still have in the world a "true Christianity" as originally envisaged by Christ. Hence we cannot rest content with any "mere Christianity" such as Lewis proposes.

Lewis's book of that name has been understandably, and even deservedly, popular among Christians of many different denominations because it articulates in such a graceful and persuasive manner some of the basic Christian beliefs. In a time of widespread doubt and indifference, if not active hostility to Christian beliefs, thoughtful Christians cannot but be grateful for the effective and eloquent way Lewis presents the case for Christian belief.

Up to a point, that is. We cannot, finally, accept Lewis's conception of a "mere Christianity," once we realize that Christ's version of Christianity can still be found in the modern world in the visible Catholic Church in which bishops, successors of the apostles, in communion with the Bishop of Rome, Successor of Blessed Peter, continue to teach, rule, and sanctify by the direct commission of Christ himself.

The "sanctifying" role of the bishop, for example, is something Lewis ignores almost entirely; he touches upon the sacraments scarcely at all in his book, even though they were prominent features of the lives of the first Christians, as the New Testament abundantly testifies. Similarly, Lew-is has little appreciation for the official teaching office of the Church-the magisterium.

This magisterium resides in the office of the pope and of the bishops in communion with him. Lewis is strong on Christian doctrine, contrary to today's tendency to downgrade doctrine; but he seems to have no sense at all that the teaching of the pope and the bishops is what maintains doctrine in the Church.

At one point in Mere Christianity, Lewis remarks that "the only really adequate instrument for learning about God is the whole Christian community" (p. 144). This is clearly an inadequate statement of the case. Lewis appears to have no conception of the definitive teaching role which resides in the hierarchy of the Church, even though it is blindingly clear from Acts that the apostles definitively taught the faith in the early Church.

Considering that he misunderstood both the sacramental or sanctifying.aspect of the Church, as well as her essential teaching role, Lewis could not help but misstate the ruling or governing role which the hierarchy necessarily has to assume in the Church. Instead, we find the whole Church defined inMere Christianity as "the whole body of Christians showing him to one another" (p. 163).

This definition is quite inadequate, especially when we consider that St. Paul, for example, called the Church such things as "the body of Christ" (1 Cor. 12:27), his "Bride," (2 Cor 2:2), and his "Temple" (1 Cor. 3:16), and declared that "Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her" (Eph. 5:25). He spoke of "the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15). Such language applied to the Church by the great apostle of the Gentiles establishes that the Church is far more important in the Christian scheme of things than is allowed for in Mere Christianity.

It is true, of course, that Jesus himself rarely used the word "Church"-but it is equally true that the Church did not really come into her own until after the Ascension of Jesus and the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon her at Pentecost. Nevertheless, it is instructive to examine the two instances when Jesus himself did employ the word, as recorded in the New Testament. Both instances occur in the Gospel according to Matthew.

In Matthew 16:18, Jesus delivered himself of the famous declaration that upon the rock of Peter "I will build my Church and the powers of death shall not prevail against it." In his only other use of the word "church" (in Matthew 18:17), Jesus counsels that disputes or grievances among his followers which cannot be resolved charitably among those directly involved should be referred to "the Church" if the offending party then "refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector."

If we carefully reflect on these two instances when Jesus used the word "Church," we realize that in the first one he is describing his entire enterprise on behalf of humanity as nothing else but establishing his Church; the Church was precisely what he came into this world to "build." In the second instance, he is saying unmistakably that this same Church is to be the final judge and arbiter of all disputed questions among his followers; those of his followers not able to abide by the judgment of this Church may be actually cast out from fellowship with his other followers.

Moreover, in both of these passages, Jesus goes on to make the same declaration to those whom he has appointed as leaders of this entity he has established, the Church: "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall he loosed in heaven" (Matt. 16:19, 18:18). The authorities of his Church, in other words, are thus commissioned and empowered by him, literally, to speak for heaven, here on earth.

In light of such teachings, we can scarcely hold that Jesus considered the Church to he unimportant. It is hard to imagine what else he could possibly have said to get his followers to understand how essential the Church is to the divine scheme of things. And if the Church herself is one of the "essentials" of "true Christianity," it is hard to see how any "mere Christianity" which downplays the Church, if it does not omit it entirely, can claim to unite Christians in "essentials" on which they can all agree.

We see that a "mere Christianity" was surely not what Christ had in mind for those who would come to believe in him. Rather, Christ established a Church precisely to carry on in this world his words and works of sanctification and salvation. And the same Church Christ established is still carrying on the original commission Christ gave to it-today under the able leadership of the two-hundred-sixty-third and latest successor of the Apostle Peter, Pope John Paul II.

Mere Christianity, by comparison, is a pretty pale image of Christ's intended Church. While it may be necessary, in our increasingly decadent civilization, to seek political allies on the basis of few shared of Christian beliefs-or even, as the Vatican dramatically demonstrated in the case of the 1994 International Population conference in Cairo, even on the basis of common theistic and moral beliefs with, for example, the Muslims-we cannot choose our religion on the same lowest-common-denominator basis.

Even though the idea of a mere Christianity has been promoted by a very sincere Christian who was also an enormously talented man, it remains his private idea of what Christianity is, rather than the living embodiment of what Christ wanted Christianity to be. Christ wanted and expected his Christianity to be embodied in a living Church. The Catholic Church represents that true Christianity.

Yet it would be a mistake to conclude that, because Catholics possess the great good fortune to belong to this Church of Christ in its fullness, they are in some way superior to those who do not share their good fortune. On the contrary, Catholics must realize that they are graced by Providence, and that they therefore have a grave responsibility to share their unmerited good fortune in every way possible-by the witness of both words and works-to demonstrate that there truly is something beyond "mere" Christianity.

In conclusion, let us look at three brief passages on the nature of true Christianity, delivered to the world by the living magisterium of the Church which Christ commissioned to teach in his name. Far from being the private opinion of one Christian, these excerpts represent the unified thought of the assembled bishops, successors to the apostles, together with the pope, successor to Peter, the Rock. They come from the Decree on Ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council with the Latin title Unitatis Redintegratio.

The first of these teachings reaffirms the truth, still necessarily professed by all Catholics, that the visible Catholic Church of our own day is indeed the one true Church of Christ. The second teaching, however, makes it equally clear that those of our fellow Christians who do not enjoy full communion with this Catholic Church nevertheless do possess an eminent dignity and deserve respect as Christians. The third teaching makes it clear that we, the Catholics practicing their faith in the Church today, are the very ones who can most easily and effectively make the Church credible and attractive to others and thereby help communicate her abundant riches to the world.

1. It is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help towards salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained It was the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, that we believe Our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth the one Body of Christ into which all those should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the People of God (U.R. 3).

2. [In the centuries following the apostles] serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the Catholic Church-for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame. However, one cannot charge with the sin of separation those who at present are born into those communities and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers . . . . [They] have been justified by faith in baptism and incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church (U.R. 3).

3. Although the Catholic Church has been endowed with all divinely revealed truth and with all means of grace, yet its members fail to live by them with all the fervor that they should. As a result the radiance of the Church's face shines less brightly in the eyes of our separated brethren and of the world at large, and the growth of God's kingdom is retarded. Every Catholic must therefore aim at Christian perfection and, each according to his station, play his part, so that the Church, which bears in her own body the humility and dying of Jesus, may daily be more purified and renewed, against the day when Christ will present her to himself in all her glory without spot or wrinkle (U.R. 4).

here's the article on the net, again: IS THERE A "MERE CHRISTIANITY"?

Due Diligence

2009-09-14T20:26:00.001-07:00

i've really gotten quite sick in the heart from people[both Catholic and non-Catholic] saying things that knowingly or unknowingly attack my faith. Whatever happened to due diligence? To Making sure you know what you are talking about before concluding/ranting/espousing anything? To be responsible enough to qualify your statements? To striving to get to the truth of the matter Over your feelings regarding the matter at hand? oh well.. ganyan talga minsan... anyway here's something that may help: a resource for all those who have questions regarding the Catholic(and/or Christian) faith, here's where you do your due diligence regarding this: http://forums.catholic.com/index.php

Keep Thinking, God gave us Reason to use and develop to get to the bottom of things.. can we exercise it in our faithwalk?
Oresmus, Fide Quarens Intellectum.

Choices and choosers - Awake or Asleep?

2009-06-08T16:22:00.000-07:00

will post a note i wrote that was underappreciated at the very least elsewhere

Actually the two choices have always been: "you do or you do not" and those are the only choices we all have. and they have always been more than enough. >;p it's called freewill. ain't nothing more powerful than that, when you fully realize you are free.No one can force you to do anything, not even God. so give credit to the people choosing their choices. if they let anything influence them... that too is a choice....

so will you move on or not?
magmumukmok ka pa ba or not?
will you choose to be better for this or not?
hehe.. i know your going to be alright , specially after our chat . choose to love. choose to live fully. choose to be better than what you were no matter what(ala team Gai sa naruto ba, hehe - better than i was a minute ago).

It is really about free will and when it comes to that: are you exercising it awake or asleep?Are you being led or are you walking through life on your own power? are you living your life or the life something/someone wants you to?

You are free, no doubt. Created to be free, meant to be free. Only thing is.. if you are not awake to fully appreciate it, you waste it. Exercise your freedom will you?

Appreciating Gratuitous Beauty Gratuitously

2009-06-07T21:21:00.000-07:00

why do we not miss a particular sunset we saw at a particular time some day somewhere?we may miss sunsets in general but i don’t think we miss any particular one(so long as we do not associate it with anything else).Maybe because we enjoy it for what it is and for what it gives us at that moment. no more no less.Maybe because we know for sure that another sunset will give us the same pleasure we experienced. Maybe because we appreciate it for what it truly is and do not expect more from it at the moment we enjoy it. We do not try to own it nor do we develop a sense of entitlement to it and to what it gives us. We stop everything to just enjoy its gratuitous beauty. Maybe because we fully immerse in the joy of the moments with it and thus truly know it/experience it without owning it for ourselves. So much so that when the moment/s with it passes, we can only smile when we think about it fondly and we look forward to the next sunset to enjoy(whenever that will be ) with great expectation.

Why can’t we do the same with people(just enjoy their individual gratuitous beauty)?Maybe this is the secret of doing away the terrible ‘missing’ and to truly enjoy the people life sends our way all of the time. To truly know/ enjoy something you must be as detached(but as passionate) to it as possible[it's a bit of a paradox i know]. The bible said something like this somewhere about not getting too attached to the things of this world and about truly loving creation(we all are creations/creatures too)

Frustrations..

2009-05-26T09:23:00.000-07:00

So few do not have the laziness AND delve deeper into what words or a string of words mean... so few, reflect, contemplate, pour their minds to the lessons people of the past try to teach them.. they only know these as "Quotes".. thus my frustration with the sloganeering of truths. People quote these, not because they want to share the inherent value of what someone from the past paid a lifetime to learn, but because of some base and contemptimble reason the end of which is usually a satisfying of either of their: pride, vanity, naivete. gaaah. i rant! now i'm gonna share some of the more loaded lessons i've stumbled upon:
"A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them. "
---
"For true love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have. And if you go to draw at the true fountainhead, the more water you draw, the more abundant is its flow."
---
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."(people have reduced this to the pedestrian -sigh-)
---
"All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. "
---
"Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are. "
---
"The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men."
---
"And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, till the Devil whispered behind the leaves "It's pretty, but is it Art?" "
---
"Down to Gehenna, or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone."

Funny

2009-05-01T05:08:00.000-07:00

This is refreshingly: funny

SELF issues

2009-01-31T17:26:00.000-08:00

Self-preoccupation is mostly fruitless...
Unless it is concerned with the killing of the sense of self-importance(entitlement).

Seek knowledge/wisdom within… Read,Reflect,Contemplate,Pray....

True self-knowledge begets humility.
Anything that insists that you are better than your fellow creatures is false.

You are a steward at most.

Consciousness is a precursor of responsibility and stewardship is service.
This means we are all servants. Of our Creator and to one another.

Seek growth without. In service of the ‘Other.’

Something

2008-09-05T19:38:00.000-07:00

The True Religion
At home, it is kindness.
In business, it is honesty.
In society, it is courtesy.
In work, it is thoroughness.
In play, it is fairness.
Toward the fortunate, it is congratulations.
Toward the weak, it is help.
Toward wickedness, it is forgiveness.
Toward God, it is reverence, love and obedience.

--taken from the Anglican Digest

Testament to my nerdiness

2008-07-25T07:50:00.000-07:00

According to The Big Read, the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on their list.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.

2) Italicise those you intend to read.

3) Underline the books you LOVE.

4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;-)

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6. The Bible

7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13.Catch22-JosephHeller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare

15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20. Middlemarch - George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34.Emma-JaneAusten
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen

36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41. Animal Farm - George Orwell

42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50. Atonement - Ian McEwan

51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52. Dune - Frank Herbert

53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas – i am the hand of God!>;p

66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68.BridgetJones'Diary-HelenFielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72. Dracula - Bram Stoker

73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75. Ulysses - James Joyce

76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78. Germinal - Emile Zola

79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80. Possession - AS Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87. Charlotte's Web - EB White

88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94. Watership Down - Richard Adams Thlayli!!

95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

i love to read. sue me!

YOU GOT TO WATCH THIS

2008-07-25T07:40:00.000-07:00

http://blip.tv/file/822175

ENJOY!

For Your Reflection

2008-06-14T05:36:00.000-07:00

Tell me the story again

Tell me the story again, Grandfather.
Tell me who I am.

I have told you many times, Boy.
You know the story by heart.

But it sounds better
when you tell it, Grandfather.

Then listen carefully.
This may be the last telling.

No, no, Grandfather.
There will never be a last time.
Promise me that.
Promise me.

I promise you nothing, Boy.
I love you.
That is better than a promise.

And I love you, Grandfather,
but tell me the story again.
Please.

Knots on a Counting Rope
Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault

I would also like to recommend the following to anyone/everyone:

online retreat

if any of you would like to be in a group for the above, just email me about it(j3dinikz@gmail.com) and i would gladly be part of your group ^_^
Henry Holt and Company
New York, 1966 and 1987

Seeking

2008-05-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

As proof that i'm only repeating what's been said before and that i'm not trying anything new much less try ing to reinvent the wheel.. here are some very nice sites to spend your online time on:

life4seekers

religion&ethics

"there is no new news.. only old news happening to new people - malcolm muggeridge(?)" >;p
well i hope you enjoy those and start to turn those wheels in your head ^_^. keep thinking! spread the light!

Me according to Jung

2008-05-18T01:34:00.000-07:00

To outsiders, INTJs may appear to project an aura of "definiteness", of self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive, is actually of a very specific rather than a general nature; its source lies in the specialized knowledge systems that most INTJs start building at an early age. When it comes to their own areas of expertise -- and INTJs can have several -- they will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how. INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don't know.

INTJs are perfectionists, with a seemingly endless capacity for improving upon anything that takes their interest. What prevents them from becoming chronically bogged down in this pursuit of perfection is the pragmatism so characteristic of the type: INTJs apply (often ruthlessly) the criterion "Does it work?" to everything from their own research efforts to the prevailing social norms. This in turn produces an unusual independence of mind, freeing the INTJ from the constraints of authority, convention, or sentiment for its own sake.

INTJs are known as the "Systems Builders" of the types, perhaps in part because they possess the unusual trait combination of imagination and reliability. Whatever system an INTJ happens to be working on is for them the equivalent of a moral cause to an INFJ; both perfectionism and disregard for authority may come into play, as INTJs can be unsparing of both themselves and the others on the project. Anyone considered to be "slacking," including superiors, will lose their respect -- and will generally be made aware of this; INTJs have also been known to take it upon themselves to implement critical decisions without consulting their supervisors or co-workers. On the other hand, they do tend to be scrupulous and even-handed about recognizing the individual contributions that have gone into a project, and have a gift for seizing opportunities which others might not even notice.

In the broadest terms, what INTJs "do" tends to be what they "know". Typical INTJ career choices are in the sciences and engineering, but they can be found wherever a combination of intellect and incisiveness are required (e.g., law, some areas of academia). INTJs can rise to management positions when they are willing to invest time in marketing their abilities as well as enhancing them, and (whether for the sake of ambition or the desire for privacy) many also find it useful to learn to simulate some degree of surface conformism in order to mask their inherent unconventionality.

Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ's Achilles heel. While they are capable of caring deeply for others (usually a select few), and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort on a relationship, the knowledge and self-confidence that make them so successful in other areas can suddenly abandon or mislead them in interpersonal situations.

This happens in part because many INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals; for instance, they tend to have little patience and less understanding of such things as small talk and flirtation (which most types consider half the fun of a relationship). To complicate matters, INTJs are usually extremely private people, and can often be naturally impassive as well, which makes them easy to misread and misunderstand. Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense. :-) This sometimes results in a peculiar naivete', paralleling that of many Fs -- only instead of expecting inexhaustible affection and empathy from a romantic relationship, the INTJ will expect inexhaustible reasonability and directness.

Probably the strongest INTJ assets in the interpersonal area are their intuitive abilities and their willingness to "work at" a relationship. Although as Ts they do not always have the kind of natural empathy that many Fs do, the Intuitive function can often act as a good substitute by synthesizing the probable meanings behind such things as tone of voice, turn of phrase, and facial expression. This ability can then be honed and directed by consistent, repeated efforts to understand and support those they care about, and those relationships which ultimately do become established with an INTJ tend to be characterized by their robustness, stability, and good communications.

accurate ba?

wanna take the test?

here it is: http://www.humanmetrics.com/

And you thought we had ethical problems...

2008-05-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

o boy, if we as a race don't think things through soon, we may just be in for a lot of trouble in the very near future.. things are HAPPENING in the world and they are HAPPENING FAST..

check the following links and i sincerely hope and pray we all start pondering about it quick to be able to know how to react much less what to do about these things...

The Embryology Bill: What is at stake?

An Ethical Look at Human-Animal Embryos

God bless. and keep thinking, with the intent of finally doing.

Beautiful.... made me scratch my head,too ^_^

2008-04-27T05:17:00.000-07:00

In 1880, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote:

MÁRGARÉT, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

(Spring and Fall: to a young child)

ok, ok.. here' the backgrounder[so you can have a wee bit of a peek why i put that poem here]:

Couldn’t God have designed a gentler universe?

abeautiful piece of reflection[this jesuit-astronomer.. or astronomer-jesuit is fast becoming a current fave]

2008-04-20T21:46:00.000-07:00

i'm lazy but i found some very nice things to read in the net..

here they are, they reflect my thoughts and growth in reason and in faith:

fides quaerens intellectum

is there a contradiction(mystery)?

is there a contradiction(elegance)?

Books

2008-03-28T20:17:00.000-07:00

let me share with you the books i've read ever since i came to cebu last october. they were pretty good and most surprised me (why i haven't come across them earlier ^_^)

1. Can man Live Without God? by Ravi Zacharias
2.
3.Rama series
4.Surprised by Truth
5. The Narnian
6. The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancy
7. Mere Christianity
8. Confessions by St. Augustine(current)

the following are books in my wishlist:

a. Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton
b.CS Lewis Books
1. That Hideous Strength
2. Surprised by Joy
3.The Abolition of Man
4.Screwtape Letters
c. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainier Maria Rilke
d. more to follow ^_^

Really Good books i've read lately (most of them were good surprisingly ^_^):
1. Can man Live Without God? by Ravi Zacharias
2. Mere Christianity
both for their lucidity (rare combination ofentertainment and actual food for the mind/soul)

3. The Narnian
amazing autobiiography of CSLewis - good book!! entertaining, well written and full of nuggets, too. gotta buy this.

Something

2008-03-08T21:13:00.000-08:00

...Beautiful. Something, to think about and reflect on,pray for....:

‘Sisters and brothers, watch how you live. Your lives may be the only gospel your neighbours will ever read.’
-Bishop Helder Camara (Recife, Brazil)

What does it mean?

It means living in such a way that our lives would not make sense if God did not exist.
- Sacred Space(sacredspace.ie)

Like i said.. Beautiful ^_^

Signs of the Times

2008-02-24T14:23:00.000-08:00

hey guys, let's from time to time see how it is in the world to be able to situate ourselves better...
thus from time to time i'll be posting links here that will show some news about what's happening in other parts of OUR world.the text of links i'm putting up will most always reflect the article's title. hope this gets us thinking and hope fully feel responsible enough to do some positive little contribution to spread the light

first to check out: Gordon Brown is wrong

Grace Something

2008-02-23T17:01:00.000-08:00

i received the following txt message from one of the more decent persons i know yesterday, here it is verbatim:

"Read this nice story:A man experienced being robbed by thieves.. In his diary, he wrote 'let me be thankful first, because they took my purse and not my life;second although they took my all, it was not much especially my faith; and third, because 8 was I who was robbed, not I who robbed'"

surprisingly, it elicited quite a reaction from me... i guess maybe because i'm trying reflections during this season of lent for the first time.now, we can be forgiven for assuming that the person who was robbed was a Christian. And quite a mature Christian at that, for his reaction to his experience and THAT realization connected with my current favorite quote from GK Chesterton: "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." and somehow THAT set me off to thinking for a bit and set me to reply to my texter with:

"Nice. But you know why[it's been said that] Christianity has been found hard[difficult] and left untried? Because a truly outandout Christian would 'never' be robbed if he was conscious. He would give his brothers[/sisters] everything just to [hopefully]prevent them from sinning against God. Maimagine mo? Hirap 'no? Grabe challenge sa Kristiyano. Ahehe..."

That came out from me! almost unimaginable because my natural reaction to being robbed would be to beat the daylights out of whoever dared do that to me. Which would be the right thing to do, accdg to some circles i go around in. but as my inspiration for this blog states:" Think things through". hopefully i'll always have the courage and honesty to do that^_^. and even more importantly, may i always have the grace to do that and have reflections like these =). Cause honestly, that reply of mine was not 'me'.that was grace speaking. God bless us all in this season of Lent and may we accept the challenge to reflect on what is truly important and what our priorities should be in that regard.

Grace a prayer shared

2008-02-21T15:08:00.000-08:00

To be conscious about something is to be aware of it. Dear Lord help me to remember that You gave me life. Thank you for the gift of life. Teach me to slow down, to be still and enjoy the pleasures created for me.
To be aware of the beauty that surrounds me. The marvel of mountains, the calmness of lakes, the fragility of a flower petal. I need to remember that all these things come from you.

Grace Advent

2008-02-12T14:28:00.000-08:00

Came upon this:

The season of Advent sometimes seems in danger of being eclipsed by Christmas. A consumer culture teaches us that we should never have to wait, but that anything can be had at any time. Advent goes against the grain with its messages of preparation, attention and waiting, a reminder that now is not everything, an assurance that now is not the only time.

From the celebration of Saint Nicholas on 6 December to 'Little Chistmas' on 6 January, a wealth of customs helps us to train ourselves in these virtues, but some of the practices that have developed - and our habits - can distract us. Advent is a time to be present to ourselves, the better to notice God's presence among us.

Part of our prayer this Advent might be asking for the grace to live with the things that don't balance out as we would like, an acceptance of the blessings that have come our way. The graces of wisdom and insight are evident in the stories of Advent and Christmas. Isaiah, John the Baptist, Joseph, Mary and the Magi all bring their words to us, that we may learn who we are, both here and now, and as people who are called to journey on in hope.

This Advent, be present.

Piaras Jackson SJ
Editor, Sacred Space

you can check out the site here: http://www.sacredspace.ie/latestspace/

so as Fr. Piaras hopefully exhorts.. let us be present during the season of advent[and hopefully appreciate Christmas even more]. Pretty late post,hehe, but better late than never.

Bojol

2008-02-12T08:09:00.001-08:00

S6301000, originally uploaded by j3dinikz.

this is a tespost from flicker and a test photo for me, too.. i'll be posting more pics from now on.. ^_^

Overheard

2008-02-09T21:11:00.000-08:00

We are long past the point of talking about wether an unbeliever should be punished for being irreverent,it is now thought irreverent,to be a believer.

-r.zacharias

Grace A Prayer Shared

2008-01-30T07:21:00.000-08:00

He Giveth More Grace

He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
To added affliction He addeth His mercy;
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father's full giving is only begun.

Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision,
Our God ever yearns His resources to share;
Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing;
The Father both thee and thy load will upbear.

His love has no limit; His grace has no measure.
His pow'r has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again!

Annie Johnson Flint

2Corinthians 12:9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Just Forwarding

2008-01-30T05:33:00.000-08:00

If "pregnant with meaning" was meant to describe something the following 3 paragraphs from GK Chesterton' book "Orthodoxy" would be it... enjoy! i'm still chewing on it(the whole book actually) and will likely give a reaction/reflection some time in the near future:

It is only with one aspect of humility that we are here concerned. Humility was largely meant as a restraint upon the arrogance and infinity of the appetite of man. He was always outstripping his mercies with his own newly invented needs. His very power of enjoyment destroyed half his joys. By asking for pleasure, he lost the chief pleasure; for the chief pleasure is surprise. Hence it became evident that if a man would make his world large, he must be always making himself small. Even the haughty visions, the tall cities, and the toppling pinnacles are the creations of humility. Giants that tread down forests like grass are the creations of humility. Towers that vanish upwards above the loneliest star are the creations of humility. For towers are not
tall unless we look up at them; and giants are not giants unless they are larger than we. All this gigantesque imagination, which is, perhaps, the mightiest of the pleasures of man, is at bottom entirely humble. It is impossible without humility to enjoy anything-- even pride.

But what we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert--himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt--the Divine Reason. Huxley preached a humility content to learn from Nature. But the new sceptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. Thus we should be wrong if we had said hastily that there is no humility typical of our time. The truth is that there is a real humility typical of
our time; but it so happens that it is practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether.

At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own. Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but
these are too humble to be convinced. The meek do inherit the earth; but the modern sceptics are too meek even to claim their inheritance . It is exactly this intellectual helplessness which is our second problem.

emphasis above are entirely mine , helps me chew better ^_^

Grace (Faith &Love)

2008-01-28T06:47:00.000-08:00

i attended a healing mass tonight. i didn't quite know what to expect but the schedule was the same as a prayer mass i've been meaning to attended since last month so i thought, 'why not?' and wat i brought home with me was the priest's homily.he talked about faith. he said that if we'd only let God be powerful in our lives then he'll be a powerful God to us. if we'd let him be present in our lives, we'll see his love all around us.. then he tied it up with the psalm reading"My faithfullness and love will be with him forever..." it was a nice thought daw that we have a God who is like that.. then he proceeded to ask the congregation, do we really love God? we can think we do but are we faithful ?his words were "ga-gugma man ko, ga- gugma man ko"...." apan matinudanon ka ba?"(you can say you love a thousand times, an can mean it- but are you faithful?). i guess love and faith go handinhand, and if God is love, it explains his faithfulness-- he is also Faithfulness. and guess what?to all of us who believe, that's what we have to imitate/learn/be.

Something

2008-01-26T18:10:00.000-08:00

"Honesty is such a lonely word" as the song goes.. but i think the more apt word to that is 'sincerity'. Ergo:"Say what you mean and mean what you say." i think, is probably closer to the mark and more applicable to reality. you see we sometimes are careless with what we say - not always with any intention to be careless or unthinking - but we are unaware sometimes of the way others will take what we say or even of the meaning of the words we use.. we get carried away by our feelings at/of the moment... let me qualify that:" we let our feeling run us without thinking first[and this, i'm sure you agree is NOT an oxymoron:"unthinking feelings"].. so when we are caught up in an intense feeling.. love/hate.. joy/sadness/anger.. we say a lot of things without thinking them through first.. and we end up saying later on.."i didn't mean it that way" or worse, we let the Other discover it on their own that we "didn't mean it,exactly that way". you can imagine how much misunderstanding this begets,people get hurt unnecessarily or rest their hopes on your unmeant/insincere words and get hurt down the road. so i urge you to think things as thouroughly as you can before saying anything or professing to commit to anything, no one can fault you if you say " let me think on that first" in a conversation. you don't have to agree or disagree in the precise moment someone asks you your side in a seemingly yes/no position subject.More so, try not to be careless when dreams are involved. your dreams or other people's. Never be cavalier with other people's hearts and minds, the potential of hurting them greatly in the long run is just too great.and this is where the part of the lyrics of the sunscreen song is coming from.."Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours." And we go back to this "blog"'s theme: think. think things through.. and spread the light( the source being within you and given to you by grace) all around..

Blurt

2008-01-26T10:22:00.000-08:00

found this somewhere

"Sometimes you have to pretend not to care no matter how much you really do. Because sometimes, you mean nothing to the one who means everything to you."

Ouch. i kinda know wer that's coming from... problem is I'm not really good at fooling myself. not that i don't do that[fool myself that is].it's just, i do try but with eyes wide open punishing myself doubly so some of my friends say. besides, i can't pretend "not to", cause i really "do". o well, you live... you learn... only wish the next lessons will be a wee bit more pleasant than the ones that've been coming my way for the longest time ^_^

Just Forwarding

2008-01-26T08:52:00.000-08:00

Living on the Edge
By Kristin Wallace

There is a billboard on my morning commute that was created by the Ford Motor Company. They wanted to impress the public by displaying a car that sits 30 feet in the air at the top of a billboard. Their ad statement is about “being on the edge“ as the name of this car implies (“The Edge”). Apparently, we need this car to take us on an incredible adventure, where we can experience a daring life of excitement on the edge.

This week as I drove past the billboard, there was a large crow sitting happily on the top of the car. He didn’t care if this car was the latest and greatest, all he knew was that it took up space where he normally liked to perch above the freeway. This was probably not the intent of the Marketing Team at Ford. But leave it to nature to bring us back to reality. It is still just a car. Even with all of the fancy promotion, it cannot really deliver more than just a nice ride somewhere.

If you are looking for real life on the edge it is not found in earthly possessions. All those things that promise excitement, at some point end up dusty and dirty, with a crow sitting on top. Real life and great adventures are found in a relationship with Jesus Christ. He promises your life will be filled with ups and downs, but He will be with you each step of the way. Where else can you find unconditional love, the power of prayer and the hope for eternity? Each day the Lord will be with us on a spiritual journey on the edge.

John 10:10 I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

Have a great day! Kristin.

A Prayer Shared

2008-01-23T17:57:00.000-08:00

An Act of Abandonment

O my God, I thank you and I praise
you for accomplishing your holy
and all-lovable will without any regard for mine.
With my whole heart,
in spite of my heart,
do I receive this cross I feared so much!

It is the cross of Your choice,
the cross of Your love.
I venerate it;
nor for anything in the world
would I wish that it had not come,
since You willed it.

I keep it with gratitude and with joy,
as I do everything that comes from Your hand;
and I shall strive to carry it without letting it drag,
with all the respect
and all the affection which Your works deserve.

Amen.

By Saint Francis De Sales

Blurt

2008-01-22T08:15:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you haven't the foggiest idea what hurting means. and then you hurt. and then you realize you were right. you haven't the foggiest idea what it really means. then you realize you're numb from it already and you're back to being fine. Sort of... 'til the next realization ^_^

Something

2008-01-08T02:20:00.000-08:00

In a room draped in blue
I am thinking of you
I am tired, I can't sleep
And for you I will weep

In a flash, you are gone
Yet around me life is calm
I cannot understand
Is this part of the plan?

I get cards with bouquets
But they can't take your place
I have dreams about us
But I always wake up

I can ask all I please
I can beg down on my knees
For a reason, for a sign
But these answers I won't find

And I will weep
Can you hear me?
Can't you tell me why?

I'll go on without you
And what's left for me to do
But to stay where I am
In my world of pretend

And I won't know until I die
If my faith was but a lie
'Til then you'll hear it in my cry
I didn't want to say goodbye to you



-from Bleach-

A Prayer shared

2008-01-03T16:38:00.001-08:00

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

Qoute

2008-01-03T01:43:00.001-08:00

God is like the sun. you cannot look at it but without it you cannot rightly look at anything else..

Consider

2008-01-02T03:13:00.000-08:00

this is taken from a post in my friendster blog which was taken from a book by a jesuit.

For the joy of love, consists not in receiving but in giving; everybody who has ever been in love knows that; it is Lesson Number One in the primer of that fascinating subject.

Love is a giving; therefore a sacrifice; and therefore, it means, very often, denying yourself, going without, making do, for the one you love

Watchoo think?

Consider...

2007-12-11T20:29:00.000-08:00

what have we told this generation?

that: now, is all we have. and like a trapped animal we claw away at the walls.truth has been relegated to technology,beauty is subjugated to the beholder. goodness is mocked night after night as millions are idiotized in front of a box.and we have become manipulated entities in a disposable world.and our experiences have become pragmatic quantities in a disjointed world.

now, is all we got to give to them. seize the moment!because there is no tomorrow. how marvellous it was for the disciples when they broke bread with our lord. how he said to them: as often as you eat of this bread and drink of this cup you now! youproclaim the lord's death in the past until he come in the future. he linked all of time with meaning bcoz the hammers of time beat away at the anvils of eternity and it is eternity that gives meaning to time. and yet eternity is wat it is we've taken away from this generation. now is all they can relate to and the moment is all they can connect with. that is a foundational loss 2x. when you lose the dimension of eternity then you will live pragmatically only for the moment.and pragmatism is to do watever "works". in the long run you will find outpragmatism may not work.

excerpt from peggy nunan..forbes magazine article

we've all have moment wen all of a sudden we look around and thought the world is changing, i'm seeing it change.

this is for me the moment when the new america began: i was at a graduation ceremony at a public hs in njersey. it was 1971 or 72. one by one a stream of blackrobed students walked across the stage and received their diplomas and a pretty young girl with red hair big under her graduation gown walked up and received hers, the auditorium stood and applauded, i looked at my sister and said:"she's gonna have a baby".

the girl was 8mos pregnant and had the courage to go through with her pregnancy and take her finals to finish school despite society's disapproval. but, society wasn't disapproving it was applauding and applause is a right and generous response for a young girl with grit and heart. and yet in the sound of that applause i heard a wall falling, a thousand year old wall, a wall of sanctions that said:"we as a society do not approve of teenage unwed motherhood because it was not good for the child, not good for the mother and not good for us.

the old america had a delicate sense betwen the general "we disapprove" and the particular"let's go and help her". we had the moral confidence to sustain the distance between official disapproval and unofficial succor. the old america would not have applauded the girl in the big graduation gown but some of its individuals wouldive been there to help her not only materialy but with some measure of emotional support. we do not do much of that anymore. for all of our tolerance and talk we dont show much love to what used to be called girls in trouble. and as we've become more open minded we've also become more closehearted.

my message to society is this:"what you applaud you encourage, but beware of what you celebrate".

this distinction that has collapsed between going to help and being asked to celebrate in that the collapse of this distinction is a very serious one.

and i think as you struggle and struggle with this issue of trying to find a moral center you begin to see wat it is that our age has come up with and what it is that it has lost in the process.. was it not robert fitch philosopher of ethics and jurisprudence who said:"ours is an age where ethic has become obsolete, it issuperseded by science, deleted by psychology,and dismissed as emotive by philosophy. it is drowned in compassion, evaporates into aesthetics and retreats before relativism.

the usual moral distinctions between good and bad are simply drowned in a maudlin emotion in which we feel more sympathy for the murderer than the murdered, for the adulterer than for the betrayed. and in which we have actually began to believe tha the real guilty party that the one who somhow caused it all is the victim and not the perpetrator of the crime. that component of morality has become such an acheing aspect of a collapsing foundation here. so wen you do away with eternity you redefine existence. wen youdo away with morality you redefine essence. thirdly and quickly, is the dimension of accountability,it was the french dramatist Mollier(?)who said it this way "it is a public scandal that gives offense, it is no sin to sin in secret" and that of course becomes embodied in a time wen absolutes are jettisoned then privatization takes place and you cannot invade the private realm even though the private realm is in constant violation of the public realm."it is a public scandal that gives offense, it is no sin to sin in secret" -- the dimension of accountability. but here's wat happens wen accountability goes you begin to wrestle with another dimension of it. now you're not only dealing with existence and essence. now you're dealing the eradication of conscience

ravi zacharias;"if foundations be destroyed"

Conversations

2007-12-10T18:07:00.000-08:00

hmm.. got a new gimik sa blog.. imaginary conversations between a daughter and a father or between friends ^_^.. hope it pans out.. abangan...

My first attempt at a parable of sorts

2007-12-04T06:02:00.000-08:00

knowing over understanding...
learning and growth over contentment and stagnation....
and love, always love over kindness.

Come think..

2007-12-03T04:35:00.000-08:00

motives are always crucial in most things.. specially when asking a question..

do you really want an answer? do you want the truth?or do you want something that you can launch off your prejudices?or something to shoot down?

and by the way, the question of validity is valid also for the question and not only for answers given.. hahahaha >;p.. cge lng magkwe-kwento ako ng mga examples dito. hopefully soon. feedback is the fuel to post asap^_^

Blurt

2007-12-03T04:31:00.000-08:00

the lover can always think/say how deep and strong he/she loves the lovee

but the lovee can only feel it. not think it. >;p. watchoo think?

Yesterday

2007-11-09T00:50:00.000-08:00

It's the end of the world as i knew it.2x
And i feel fine
-- R.E.M.

not.

What good book have you read lately?

2007-11-03T00:05:00.000-07:00

well in the theme of this "blog" i've quite a few 'good' books to recommend for y'all to read..

it must let you exercise your reason.. it must not be shallow either.. it must contribute to shedding a bit more light all around.. it must feed your mind.. if it does your soul too then it is a huge plus. if it is entertaining as well.. all the better..

1.Can Man Live without God?by Ravi Zacharias

-- title notwithstanding it is not a theological book, it's more of a philosophical one in its endeavor to exercise logic/reason to arrive at its affirmations.. amazing book.. teaches you the importance of the discipline of logic.. if anything this book addresses the frustrations i have when talking to people who argue haphazardly and "knee-jerkily" ^_^. a study in thinking, and thinking well.. a book to savor.. hope you guys can hear his audio collection in the net too.. this guy's an amazing thinker

2. God Beyond Nature by a certain Robert E.D. Clarke

-- pro-science? you gotta read this.. makes you think.. which is- why i'm already biased hahaha..
also is an easy read (like "a brief history of time" by Stephen Hawking only really easier to read ^_^).. again leads you to delve deeper to the convictions you always thought you have but never really thought about deeper.Sheds a bit more light definitely. >;p Good luck! happy reading!

3. Rama series by Arthur C. Clarke &Gentry Lee

-- one of the better scifi miniepics..short and sweet but mostly sweet =).. pychologists wil have a field day in agreeing or disagreeing with assertions made in the book. damn entertaining to boot ^_^.loads of fun! not for the kneejerk reactionist again -- won't enjoy if you don't sit tight and let it unfold..reserve judgement til you finish each book..entertaining at the very least.

A Prayer Shared

2007-09-21T08:59:00.000-07:00

Thank You

ALMIGHTY FATHER:

I want to thank You for what you have
already done.

I am not going to wait until I see
results or receive rewards; I am
thanking you right now.

I am not going to wait until I feel
better or things look better; until
people say they are sorry or until
they stop talking about me; until the
pain in my body disappears; until my
financial situation improves; until
the children are asleep and the house
is quiet; until I get promoted at work
or until I get the job; I am going to
thank you right now.

I am not going to wait until I
understand every experience in my life
that has caused me pain or grief;
I am not going to wait until the
journey gets easier or the challenges
are removed; I am thanking you right
now.

I am thanking you because I am alive.

I am thanking you because I made it
through the day's difficulties. I am
thanking you because I have walked
around the obstacles.

I am thanking you because I have the
ability and the opportunity to do more
and do
better.

and because you've sent my way the
people whom i'm very honored to be
friends with.they've been my inspiration
and motivation. and you haven't stopped
sending such people my way. thank you.

I'm thanking You because FATHER, YOU
haven't given up on me.
God is just so good, and he's good all
the time.

HAPPY DAY/WEEK/WEEKEND/MONTH/YEAR/LIFE EVERYONE!

Birthed from a sudden inspiration

2007-08-17T09:17:00.000-07:00

well.. it was such a need that i couldn't wait to post it here and i ended up posting it as a bulletin in friendster ^_^ di ko ma-edit yung typos dun waaaahT_T

Title:Be Still and Drink Deep. These are not meant to be gulped, Rather savored

"The man without purpose is like a ship
without a rudder== waif, a nothing, a no
man. Have a purpose in life, and having
it, throw such strength of mind and
muscle into your work as God has given you."
-Thomas Carlyle

there is one intrinsic(/basic?) purpose
for all creatures/beings ( for those who
think they are without-- and this is by
no means easy nor negligible nor of a
lesser nobility, hamlet's asked the
question too >;p)... BE. aka realize
your potentials ..aka self-realization.

"fear leads to suffering."
--Yoda
from:"fear leads to anger.. anger to
hate. hate to sufferringg...."

"Society in its full sense... is NEVER
an entity separable from the individuals
who compose it....No civilization has in
it any element which in the last
analysis is not the contribution of an
individual"
--Ruth Benedict

i agree with the above. good or
bad(element/s).think of the
repercussions of the above quote of Ms.
Benedict...

"We are so vain as to set the highest
value upon those things to which nature
has assigned the lowest place.What can
be more coarse and rude in mind than the
precious metals, or more slavish and
dirty than the people that dig and work
them?And yet they defile our minds more
than our bodies, and make the possessor
fouler than the artificer of them. Rich
men, in fine, are only the greater slaves."
--Seneca

"WISDOM is the right use of knowledge.
To know is not to be wise many menknow a
great deal, and are all greater fools
for it.There is no fool so great as a
knowing fool.But to knowhow to use
knowledge isto have wisdom."
--C.H.Spurgeon

"The wise man does not give the right
answers, he poses the right questions."
--Claude LEVI-STRAUSS

so the basic thing within obvious reach
of all, is knowledge, such as we can
perceive or apprehend in our current
states.should we wait for it to come and
thump us on the head? or do we at least
try and seek for what is already within
reach?

"The optimist claims we live in the best
of all possible worlds, and the
pessimist fears this
is true."
--James Branch Cabell

"Pessimist -- one who, when he has the
choice of two evils, chooses both"
--Oscar Wilde
--
"There are only two ways to live your
life.One as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a
miracle"
--Albert Einstein

"it is not our abilities that make us
who we are.
it is our choices."
- Albus Dumbledore

"Nothing more completely baffles one who
is full of tricks and duplicity the
straight forward and simple integrity of
another."
--Charles C. Colton

"The plan to improve the world is first
in one's own heart and head and hands"
--Robert Persig

"Action springs not from thought, but
from a readiness for responsibility"
--Dietrich Bonhoeffer

and on that last qoute we shall end our
little break from the all too insistent,
immediate "reality(?)"

may this have been not only a respite
but may it have helped shine a little
bit more light in our
consciousness/awareness. >;p

til the next break >;p

P.S.

"The smile that you send out returns to you"
-- Old Indian saying

Roots, Arts &Reggae

2007-08-14T21:12:00.000-07:00

had lots of fun last nyt. good clean fun!!!!

it was a nice way to spend my first "gimik" ever since i came to Davao last December(last gimik ko nung nasa manila pa ako ^_^). i really had fun! now if only i was a bit more "able" it would have been more fun.. hahahaha di tlga makuntento ang tao..if i was more, as i said "able" i would have danced a lot more and participated more in the dance-and-feel-good-we-are-all-in-this-together-so-let-it-all-hangout atmosphere in MTS last nyt.kudos! to the organizers of the event(the title of the post). special mention of course si Popong Landero for conceptualizing/organizing said event. i'm already looking forward to next year's version>;p
The theme of the event was elevating: artistic freedom, unity in diversity, have fun and peace-out hahaha (the first two were prominently advertised during said event, the last two was the atmosphere there ^_^) and a lli can say is "Ang Galing!" good clean fun exists!! and is alive and well in Davao!!dabawenyos really never fail to impress me with their cosmopolitanism(in the best sense of the word)s'why i love davao so much! hehehe... pefect pa mga songs ni papa Dom to end the event ("Lupang uhaw sa pag-ibig!""naghihintay ng halik ng langit.""Maghawak-hawak ng kamay at isigaw ng sabay-sabay:"Kapayapaan!!""Sa Kadabawan!""sa Kadayawan!!""Kapayapaan!")galing! and no one was disruptive, imagine that.. the atmosphere didnot permit it hehe.. if there wer very drunk people there, they were dancing and singing along and having, you guessed it: good clean fun!best of all, though i couldn't quite participate that well in the dancing.. i was having fun on other levels.. what with evryone(teenagers with dreadlocks- this after all was a reggae event and kolehiyalas and moms and dads of all ages with their children) singing"kulay man nati'y magkaiba!, mundo natin ay iisa!". it was nice to just bask there and enjoy evrybody enjoying singing and dancing to songabout unity and peace.. makes you realize that all of it are within reach, no matter how unreachable it may seem sometimes.

imagine dancing and singing to this:

Lupang uhaw sa pag-big...
(Lupang uhaw sa pag-big!)
Naghihintay sa halik ng langit...
(Naghihintay sa halik ng langit!)

Kapayapaan! (Kapayapaan!)/(sa KaDabawan!)
Kapayapaan! (Kapayapaan!)/(sa Kadayawan!)

Mundo nating hati-hati
Pag-isahin nating muli.

youjust know that it will sink in given enough time and more events like this..until.. it bears fruit to action that will make the wish a reality...

Madayaw sa inyong tanan!!

Happy Kadayawan from me to all of you out there.. ^_^

p.s. special thanks to Dennis for making me go to that event.. ayos kaayo 'tol
and of course to Omar and Company for keeping me company and making me dance hahaha.. enjoy kaayo ko.

A Prayer Shared

2007-08-13T22:53:00.000-07:00

An Interfaith Litany

We thank you God ...

For our Muslim brothers and sisters, for their commitment
to prayer and faithfulness in worship.
For our Sikh brothers and sisters, for their warm hospitality
and public witness to their faith.
For our Bahai brothers and sisters, for their genuine openness
and overriding desire for unity
For our Buddhist brothers and sisters, for their peace and
relinquishing of self.
For our Christian brothers and sisters, for their message
of love and practice of forgiveness.
For our Jewish brothers and sisters, for their enriching
symbols of worship and cherishing of tradition.
For our Hindu brothers and sisters, for their kindly dispositions and
open hearted acceptance of others.
For our Jain brothers and sisters, for their deep respect for life
and practice of nonviolence.
For our Zoroastrian brothers and sisters, for their stress on
personal honesty and striving for harmony.
For our sisters and brothers of indigenous traditions, for their reverence for nature.

For all these of every faith and tradition, we thank you and praise you, God... for their variety and richness of spiritualities, for their common quest for truth, their yearning after love, their commitment to justice and longing for peace. God, help us all, inspire us all, and ever unite us. AMEN.

taken from "Many Paths to Peace"(condensed from Circles of Peace), in the Theosophical Digest 2nd Quarter 1997

Zen and what i got out of it ^_^

2007-08-08T08:49:00.001-07:00

still percolating... of course>;p

do net let the mind,
o mind,
confuse the mind

a caterpillar was happy quite,
until,
a toad in fun ,
asked: which leg came after which?
which led his mind into such a pitch
that it left him lying in a ditch
considering how to run.

nothing else exists only the eternal Now.

Why am i doing this?

2007-08-08T08:48:00.000-07:00

first draft off ...>;p hehe

inspired by the little candle prayer: in the meantime what are we? are we children of darkness or children of the light? and if you're sure i'm talking about good and evil here then get a clue.. lolz...are we here to just sit in the darkness,asleep, or moaning/whining in the darkness?letting life happen without us seeing, participating, appreciating the manifold beauty of it as it unfolds? is this what "keeping it real"means? ^_^ is the darkness all that is real in our world? in our lives?or are we meant to shed our light in the darkness? to light it up? to actually reveal the real with our combined light?so that we can perceive the beauty that surround us. or maybe we just need to open our eyes to see that uor reality is illumined by the light that is the source of the light within us and that beauty and meaning is already there for us to see/enjoy without us needing to do anything but open our eyes... (evrything is indeed darkness if we insist on closing our eyes)

i believe we are children of the Light,and the first thing for us to do is to open our eyes and when we do and darkness is still perceived then it is our responsibility to light our light than stumble in the darkness or moan and gnash our teeth in it. hehehe more than "keeping it real" let us "be real."
so there it is. the reason why i'm doing this is to help shed a bit more light so that awareness is spread/expanded and more may participate in living life with eyes wide open, coz beauty is there for all to see and enjoy... perceive and participate - share your lessons- shed your light for all -, we are all in this together in this journey of life, in this journey of being. for better or for worse.

i found this qoute late and though i do not agree with it completely(in the specifics), i find i agree with its general thought:

"As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being"
-Carl Jung

A Why to the importance of purpose

2007-08-01T04:47:00.000-07:00

Start with a cage containing five apes.

In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it.

Before long an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana.

As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with cold water.After a while. another ape makes an attempt with the same result - all the apes are sprayed with cold water.

Turn off the cold water.

If, later, another ape tries to climb the stairs, the other apes will try to prevent it even though no water sprays them.

Now remove one ape from the cage and replace him with a new one.
The New ape sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs.
To his horror, all the other apes attack him.

After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it with a new one.The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked.

The previous Newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.

Again, replace a third original ape with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well.Two of the four apes that beat him have no idea why they where not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest ape.

After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced.

Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the stairs. Why not?

"Because that's the way it's always been around here.

"That is how organizational behavior is indoctrinated into social/corporate policy and a culture becomes entrenched."

--Unknown
Courtesy of Fr. Brian Cavanaugh, TOR
taken from Theosophical Digest"Culture", 2nd quarter2004

A Prayer Shared

2007-07-26T06:03:00.000-07:00

One Little Candle

It is better to light just one little candle
Than to stumble in the dark.
Better far that you light just one little candle,
All you need is a tiny spark.
If we'd all say a prayer that the world would be free,
A wonderful dawn of a new day we'd see...
And if everyone lit just one little candle,
What a bright world this would be.

When the day is dark and dreary
And we know not where to go;
Don't let your heart go weary,
Just keep this thought in mind...

It is better to light just one little candle
Than to stumble in the dark.
Better far that you light just one little candle,
All you need is a tiny spark.
If we'd all say a prayer that the world would be free,
A wonderful dawn of a new day we'd see...
And if everyone lit just one little candle,
What a bright world this would be.

guess who the candles are?>;p

The World needs more adults(on Hope and Duty)

2007-07-26T06:01:00.001-07:00

still percolating.. ^_^

thereare several stories i would like to share regarding this. the first has been shared already in the book recommendation post last jJuly>;p

what do imean by "adults"? well, for all purposes i agree withR. Heinlein. "...indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when,
he acquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the self-love
he was born with...."" Adults are those who recognize duty. When i was a child, adults where these persons who literally made the world go round. they were where the "buck" stopped, because they didn't(or couldn't) pass it to anybody else.. theirswas theresponsibility . if no one else would do it, they would, they did the "necessary" things.. and this set them apart from my world as a child and i always chafed evrytime i was told "huwag kang basta-basta sasali sa usapang matatanda." this became a goal in my life to finally be recognized as an adult. to be part of that world where thingsthat matter are done, and respect andtrust given, that you can accomplish what is given to you/or what you said you can, of course i didn't know then the weight of the responsibility that accompanied that respect.but since i learned about duty, ibecame aware of the meaning it gives not only for/to me but for those that are dependent on the duty that i need to do. but unfortunately, imho, the desire to be initiated to, or to be part of the adult world is not that great in recent years, perhaps because of the seeming failures of adults to do their duty in recent years, and also the glorification of youth in the media and society today (look at commercials, who are they targetting?,X-games, MTV and what-not - mostly selling instant gratification, fun and be young forever -- selling a lifestyle without showing the consequences, without responsibility >.< - and this of course is being perpetuated by.. you guessed it, "adults" who are out for profit of course, coz the young rarely reflect before buying into something -- if it looks like fun, we got to try it!). the rites of passage to adulthood is almost entirely gone now in our society.. youth is glorified now as the peak rather than being a responsible contributing member of society, or being responsible not only for one's self/actions but for all.but i give credit to the young too who try who give their time, talent, treasure to help ease the ills of this world those who work hard and should be recognized as responsible , contributing members of society, and they are many.. and yet they shouldn't be the ones responsible, yet.where are the adults? thus i come to the last story i will share regarding this.. a few weeks ago i got the chance to talk with Isabel, a fil-Dutch friend from college, who's now living in the netherlands if i'm not wrong. she asked me how the country was and i said that the philippines is still the same and will continue to be so long as the same kind of people are elected as our "leaders"unfortunately, it looks like the majority of the people will continue to elect these people. but, fortunately, the number og people who want change is increasing.. awareness is increasing and more and more people see the need to contribute to nation-building in their own small way, in their circle of influence. A very modest number to be sure( i like to include myself as one of them) but more than what was in past years.She asked if there is still hope.... i answered. hope is a non-issue in nation-building, besides it took us more than 50 years to get where we are now at, it isn't realistic to expect that we can change it all in the same amt of time, change the tide, maybe...but isn't hope the very thing that makes us go on? she said.. i said to her children can hope. we adults, don' have that luxury.. because it is a necessary thing to do? she said.... exactly! i said... hope is a non-issue when duty is involved. children can only hope that we adults do our duty, and we should recognize that our duty is to make sure they do not hope in vain.. (i'm still getting her permission to post our actual conversation here ^_^) hope you got something out of the first "real" blog i made hehe^_^

Think about It

2007-07-26T05:29:00.000-07:00

We have no more "right" to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it."
-- G.B. Shaw ---

and this video too.

This is a point i have been trying to make

2007-07-26T04:41:00.000-07:00

"It is costly wisdom that is bought by experience.... Learning teacheth more in one year than experience in twenty"
Roger Ascham(takenfrom the Theophysical Digest,1st quarter 2005)

this(plus the latest qoutes i posted) is specially dedicated to those who hate reading or who don't read or who dismiss history as a primary/valuable learning tool, and to those who don't understand my frustration when i do meet such people.... i used to quote Goethe to them(from the book Sophie's World's intro"Those who cannot draw upon 3000 years of human existence are living from hand to mouth" or words to that effect, can't quite remember verbatim now -- but i couldn't quite get my point across and i believe the Roger Ascham's quote would be better at it^_^. i just used to call them "arrogant bastards" when i get frustrated, but i know that never accomplished anything constructive)

Why arrogant?because i have met lots of people, decent very intelligent persons, who regard their experience and reasonings as the end when it comes to the validity of lessons to be learned some even think that their epiphanies are "it"(congratulating themselves on their brilliance) failing to consider that their experience/s,thought/s may not be unique and that it may have been experienced/thought by other persons before in the long course of human existence in this planet and that that experience/thought has been reflected upon and the lessons extracted,learned/rejected in the test of millenia. and here you are convinced that your conclusions, from your life experience, are IT!! slow down. read, read with the spirit of learning, you may find more valuable gems in your life experiences that you uncover from taking part in the author's story. though these lessons are distilled from the author's own life experiences, you can partake of the lifetime it took to gather these lessons i njust a day or two of reading(or an hour or four)enriching your own immensely for a fraction of the time and cost to gather the same lessons where you to experience the same exact experiences that has enabled the author to learn those hard bought lessons. Only if you have partaken a lot can you even safely argue that your epiphanies are IT!!in short, do your research first ^_^ and let your reason//assent//doubt have free reign so that you can really suck out all the marrow you can get from you life experiences, as well as the collective human experience and hopefully the lessons that need to be learned will BE learnt by you and can be contributed to the collective human experience.pushing us one step closer to realizing our potential, one step closer to be truly human.

points to Ponder

2007-07-26T03:51:00.000-07:00

"What ails the world?... Looking superficially. most people would be inclined to say that it is poverty and hunger, greed, war, indifference to values, selfishness, and so forth. Probing deeper into the question, perhaps we can say that the world, suffers from the stupor of a lack of true intelligence.Humanity is not short of brain capacity or intellectual brilliance... It does seem to lack the intelligence necessary not to commit the same grievously harmful mistakes again and again."

Radhia Burnier"The Light Bearer"(as condensed in the Theosophical Digest, 1st Quarter 2005)

"Reason is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a means to discovering them. Reason is our only way to grasping reality -- it's our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see."
- Terry Goodkind, "Faith of the Fallen"

Anton's beautiful take on the human Condition(the human spirit)

2007-07-22T07:19:00.000-07:00

Anton, a very good friend of mine quite outdid himself ( avery hard thing to do if you know the guy ^_^) with a post he did in his freindster blog located here

anyway, i will shamelessly reproduce what he posted there in case that link won't work:

THE HUMAN SPIRIT

Whenever we tackle damnation, salvation, and the human spirit it is difficult to separate it from the religious colorations that are part of these experiences. But in order to have a clear understanding of these topics we have to strip them of any divine notion and concentrate on their human applications. What is the human spirit? The human spirit is the aspect of a person that goes beyond his animality and his rationality. It is fuelled by his sense of dignity and self worth, motivated by his need to search for happiness, and guided by his own sense of morality. The infinite drive of the human spirit is man's need to transcend the boundaries of his existence. It is the desire to achieve something more than what you have. To better understand this let us assume that the totality of ones being is enclosed by a sphere. The person cannot see the boundaries which enclose him but his spirit drives him to explore this world which seems limitless at first. Eventually his consciousness makes him aware of the limits which this sphere of existence surrounds him. Once you know a certain truth, you cannot go back and unlearn it, and to do so would be foolish. Thus the person's being steps into another sphere of existence, and like the previous one, it seems limitless at first. The human spirit is again driven to explore and understand this new realm. And once its boundaries are determined and understood, the spirit once again transcends into the next sphere of existence. And the process goes on. We all know that there will always be boundaries that the human spirit will encounter and that we are all destined to transcend them. A rational being cannot be satisfied with his level of existence when he discovers an opportunity for a better way of life because his spirit is driven by the need to find something better.

The human spirit is driven from one finite level of existence to the next because he discovers that he is not content. His quest to seek happiness becomes a search for the infinite. We can therefore conclude that the human spirit is driven to seek the infinite, a level of existence in which we find the happiness which we seek.

But human beings are flawed creatures. We lack the ability to discern true happiness because our natural tendencies get in the way. The human will is finite and we constantly succumb to our base instincts and thus we are strayed from our quest to seek out the boundaries of our existence. We cannot transcend because we are made disillusioned by our sensations into thinking that we have found the infinite. Blinded by the overload of our senses we are deceived into a complacent form of existence. In this manner we are killing the human spirit. How does this happen? Manâ€™s will is always in constant battle with his instincts and there are countless experiences which heighten the sensations we experience. This overload of our senses breaks down man's will and thus he succumbs to his animality. With continuous exposure to such experiences that person begins to need them. He is caught up in a deadly loop which eventually kills his spirit because it cannot move on with his quest for the infinite.

Aside from our animality another trap for the human spirit is man's rationality. Human beings are the only creatures on the planet with the ability to rationalize. For every other organism, thought and emotion mean the same thing: when scared you run, when hungry, you kill, when trapped fight. Given enough time man can find a way to rationalize anything. This is how we delude ourselves. Although rationality aids us in conquering our animal instincts, it can also lead us into great harm. There are times when we are too caught up in our duties that we loose sight of what really matters. And although we are not happy we tend to justify our actions by saying this makes me happy. Oghtness, obligation, and duty are important in the development of one's character and understanding. But more often than not we seek actions that make us noble rather than our nobility seek that which improves us. â€œI do not loose, I winâ€ are famous last words. What price are you willing to pay for victory? Is it worth your freedom, your life, and your soul? And are you even sure that that is what you want? You can rationalize this in anyway you want but we all know are rationality is flawed because we are mortal. You can make all the wrong choices and take all the fallacies for the truth and still you can justify that you have lived a fulfilled live. Like our instincts, rationality can blind us into a complacent existence. The human spirit stagnates in the cesspool which our rationality has created for it. We become robots who have conquered the traps of our animality but have replaced it for the cage of our rationality.

Damnation is to kill the human spirit and its drive for the infinite and the ultimate evil is to consciously or unconsciously promote the damnation of one's self and of others. we can therefore take salvation as the freeing of the human spirit form the shackles of our paralyzing instincts and the prison of our blinding rationality in order that the human spirit can soar and transcend the boundaries of our humanity to fulfil its destiny which is the search for the infinite. One cannot gain salvation if one is not damned, and if we are not damned we do not need salvation. Then it becomes a matter of setting the human spirit free. But what do we do when the spirit is trapped by because we succumb to our instincts or when we rationalize our way into blindness?

Damnation is a human act because it is a wilful submission to the power of our instincts and rationality. We are overwhelmed and our fear dictates us into surrender. We then rationalize that we are happy because we do not want to admit that we are weak. If damnation is a human act, then so is salvation. Once we realize this, we can act on it. Remember that a human act is governed by our free will, which is autonomous from any form of governance. Thus the human will is the tool that we use to act with once we realize that we have damned ourselves and that we have to save the human spirit.

By virtue of its autonomy it does not need instincts nor is rationalization to function and thus it the perfect weapon of salvation.

Human life is the reality in which we live in. Our beings are constantly exploring this realm of existence and breaking through the limits which they discover in order to achieve the infinite. But sometimes the human spirit is unable to peruse its destiny because it becomes trapped man's tendency to succumb to his natural instincts and the inability of man to see past his own rationality. In this way the human spirit slowly dies, because the mortal frame in which it resides in is flawed and cannot move beyond the illusions that his instincts and rationality believe to be real.

But man is also equipped with free will. Man can at any given time voluntarily act upon his dilemma once he becomes enlightened to the situation and has a desire to set his spirit free from the illusions that hold it captive. The sad thing is many human beings are unable to fully use their free will to attain salvation because they are not aware of its true power and are more often that not ignorant of their predicament. They spend the rest of their lives unfulfilled, unhappy, and with a nagging sensation that they have missed out on something. Their spirits have not soared and their souls are dead. They die as empty husks devoid of true life. But nobody is too damned that he cannot attain salvation. It only takes three things. One is the knowledge that you are damned. The second is the desire to transcend this predicament, and the third is to voluntarily act on it. Yes and no, it becomes your decision. Damnation is the surrender to the unreal while salvation is the transcendence from unreal to real. Life with all its difficulties and trials is real. The human spirit is real. It is driven to break past the limits of the finite and to seek the infinite. The infinite is real because the human spirit is on a quest to seek it. Set your soul free, let it soar to greater heights and more fulfilling realities, and aim for the infinite for true happiness because only then can you be truly content.

my favorite parts here are his analogy with the spheres and his dealing with the traps of reason, coz it illustrates beautifully a point that i tried to make in another post about humanity not yet determining its potential and that reason(anton's 'human spirit' in his post, 'reason' for moi) has led us to the perceiving of our humanity and the limits of our potential, (hmm perhaps "potential limits" would better describe it since we always have had transcended perceived limits to our "potentials" as a race -- as anton illustrates very well with the spheres analogy) when i read that very very nice post. i came up with a comment, coz somehow that ultra-rational perspective was no longer strictly true for me (though anton and i share that trait, rabidly rational, even >;p)you see my rationalizations have come to accept the limits of reason that i have observed ( i could not anymore divorce the "divine"or more accurately the "experience/manifestation of the divine" in the human condition purely for intellectual reasons, i feel that the "divine"needs to be mixed in the cauldron of the human condition to truly understand it)so here's my comment:

langya, nice.. take a deep breath, pinaghirapan. i have a question in the spirit of trying to simplify all this.

whence this drive to seek the infinite? this need to transcend?
whence this perception of damnation and need for salvation, when our instincts and rationalization
necessarily limit our perception(as you argued, they are finite?
i have thought the same way for a long time ton.but i have not yet been satisfied with any answer to the questions except when i do not strip it of any divine notion:

whence man?
wither man?

i feel that if we limit the validity of any answer to deal with only human application to the human condition, we may fail to consider some notions that may help us find better answers and somehow place unfair limits to the humanity of man or to the human spirit,after all we haven't yet been able to grasp fully the humanity of man.. much less the human spirit.
i think an investigation on these would help a lot in shedding more light on these thoughts

i hope i haven't blabbed carelessly yet>:P

2007-07-22T07:18:00.000-07:00

at eto pa

2007-07-22T00:19:00.000-07:00

You Are Scary

You even scare scary people sometimes!

How Scary Are You?

Your Personality Is

Rational (NT)

You are both logical and creative. You are full of ideas.
You are so rational that you analyze everything. This drives people a little crazy!

Intelligence is important to you. You always like to be around smart people.
In fact, you're often a little short with people who don't impress you mentally.

You seem distant to some - but it's usually because you're deep in thought.
Those who understand you best are fellow Rationals.

In love, you tend to approach things with logic. You seek a compatible mate - who is also very intelligent.

At work, you tend to gravitate toward idea building careers - like programming, medicine, or academia.

With others, you are very honest and direct. People often can't take your criticism well.

As far as your looks go, you're coasting on what you were born with. You think fashion is silly.

On weekends, you spend most of your time thinking, experimenting with new ideas, or learning new things.

The Three Question Personality Test

You Are 79% Sexy

Your Sex Appeal Is: Extremely High

You're very sexy. You just have that certain something that takes over a room.
You know how to attract, entice, and keep whoever you want. You are truly appealing.

How Much Sex Appeal Do You Have?

(giganahan pud! baliw!^_^)and we will end on this note nyahaha! tama na sunod2x na tripping.. til next guys!! hope you'll have fun taking those "tests"

mga kung anu-ano from my friend ^_^

2007-07-21T23:45:00.000-07:00

Find out which Transformer you are at LiquidGeneration!

amen? amen!! sakyan!!

You are The Fool

The Fool is the card of infinite possibilities. The bag on the staff indicates that he has all he need to do or be anything he wants, he has only to stop and unpack. He is on his way to a brand new beginning. But the card carries a little bark of warning as well. Stop daydreaming and fantasising and watch your step, lest you fall and end up looking the fool.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

bom! ahahahahahahahaha! ahahahahahaha! waahahahahaa! ^_^ iam A fool!

You Are Elmo

Sweet and innocent, you expect everyone to adore you. And they usually do!

You are usually feeling: Talkative. You've got tons of stories to tell. And when you aren't talking, you're laughing.

You are famous for: Being popular, though no one knows why. Middle aged women especially like you.

How you life your life: With an open heart. "Elmo loves you!"

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

this takes the cake ^_^ROFLMAO

to my friends, you believe this or you don't(the links below) about me >;p pero eto na yung resulta nung quiz:
tipo
personalidad

Qoutable Qoute ^_^

2007-07-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

There is probably no point in my going into your questions now; for what I could say about your tendency to doubt or about your inability to bring your outer and inner lives into harmony or about all the other thing that oppress you - : is just what I have already said: just the wish that you may find in yourself enough patience to endure and enough simplicity to have faith; that you may gain more and more confidence in what is difficult and in your solitude among other people. And as for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.

And about feelings: All feelings that concentrate you and lift you up are pure; only that feeling is impure which grasps just one side of your being and thus distorts you. Everything you can think of as you face your childhood, is good. Everything that makes more of you than you have ever been, even in your best hours, is right. Every intensification is good, if it is in your entire blood, if it isn't intoxication or muddiness, but joy which you can see into, clear to the bottom. Do you understand what I mean?

-- Rainier Maria Rilke "Letters to a Young Poet" (google it to get the whole perspective^_^)

Reason, Assent and Doubt

2007-07-16T07:46:00.000-07:00

It is apparent through my posts in this "blog" of mine that i'm a big fan of reason and i put great store by it. i do, and for the longest time it has been my rod and guide and it has served well, too most times. but i have also observed the arrogance of reason and have been guilty of it too.not too mention the traps of reason that i've fallen for time and again. and most times this was due to a simple thing: i have ignored assent. I turned a blind eye to the assent that resonates through my being.. because reason was oh so much more logical and conclusive. and there was the fact that my reason can run ring s around my assent >;p kinda like Sophistry, my reason was so much more better at arguing/"reasoning out that my assent didn't stand a chance. and instead of finding out why assent and reason were at odds, i just ignored assent .. para mas madali. it was oh so much harder going down that road vs. just swallowing reason hook line and sinker. of course it always turns out that i was just fooling myself and going for the easier solution(trust in the difficult remember?^_^)

so what is this "assent" i'm talking about? in this case what i mean by assent can be compared to "gut feel" only deeper because this comes from the core of your being, rather than you r gut *heh* >;p also assent is not divorced from reason itself because reason is part of your being, this is shall we say a "knowing" or we come to the last ingredient a "doubting" within you that may fly in the face of your reason, at first glance. but whenever resolved, it is more reasonable. go figure. lolz. this "assent or this "doubt" that comes from inside your being can be a very powerful tool for one to rein in reason when it goes wild or give it discipline/direction it sorely needs from time to time... you see,reason has a propensity for the complicated(a need for explanations rather than a need for knowing) and thus more vulnerable to deception/self-deception(wat is better explained may not necessarily be truer) while assent is inherently geared to the simple(a knowing more than an explaining), it is shall we say faith-like and a natural counterweight to reason

(again, rainier maria rilke had a fine thing to say about this in his"letters to a young poet",here it is,what rainier labels doubt i label assent, and they can be interchanged too ^_^:

And your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it, and you will find it perhaps bewildered and embarrassed, perhaps also protesting. But don't give in, insist on arguments, and act in this way, attentive and persistent, every single time, and the day will come when instead of being a destroyer, it will become one of your best workers - perhaps the most intelligent of all the ones that are building your life.

and so you see Rainier and i seem to be in an agreement on this... reason, and assent/doubt working hand in hand will serve you well in the enterprise of building your life(read: journey of being)

andstill percolating... ^_^

Qoutable Qoute

2007-07-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

Man, can only be truly human if he is pierced through and through with the divine
- taken fromFr. Horacio dela Costa,S.J.when he was talking about St.Ignatius in his book Selected Homilies and Religious Reflections(the qoute is not verbatim though, i just remembered i experienced a powerful assent when i read that - or words to that effect in the book, or maybe i can fool myself and attribute that to me hahaha!)

Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence.

Priorities(what's really worthwhile)

2007-07-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

another important thing in this journey of being, i think. specially when it comes to purpose.. is discerning priorities in the myriad of choices that will come to you but there is a good guide, you only just have to discern what really is worthwhile(and the "being" post can guide you as well - (1)trust in the difficult haha --(2) and usually transitory thing s don't have as much value as things eternal, go figure -- but this is obvious, why bet big on things that do not last?) -- but there is a danger here if one is cynical and/or dishonest with the self, you can say and even argue very well that nothing lasts! and you are absolutely right. nothing does last in the material world. and poor you if your purpose and meaning rests solely in it -- it won't be long that you'll be convinced of the absurdity of life, and despair is but a short hop from there. but of course since we are aware that being human means using reason, we are a bit better off now since reason delves into the abstract, the realm of ideas -- where i can hazard a guess that that is where the word "ideals" came from^_^ .. "being " i think is a mix of the transitory and the eternal.. being is a work in progress, it does not stop because humanity has yet to determine the limits of its potential and though reason has helped us perceive our humanity it has also opened vistas that reason itself cannot fully comprehend, for all we know this journey of being, leads to or ends in, the eternal. and each of us who dare travel this road contribute our infinitesimal bit, and if enough bits are put in, the cup may finally runneth over and our purpose accomplished, i wonder where that leads^_^? aah, the limits of reason =) [the first A Prayer Shared post should be perfect after this >;p *heh*]

Purpose (Be True!)

2007-07-12T20:03:00.000-07:00

it can be said that i am obsessed by purpose, i don't know if that's a good thing or if that's a bad thing. It's just that i hate wasting precious time if i can't see the purpose of something i am doing, most specially if i don't agree with the purpose. but of course i have learned to be more mellow about it, coz i now spend more time trying to discern things(the purpose) compared to when i was younger when i thought my intellect was KING!>;p you could say i was pretty judgmental then, i went with my initial knee-jerk intellectual reaction.. if my reason didn't agree with what i thought the purpose of a thing is.. i usually condemned it and left what that was disgustedly, and didn't care anymore for arguments to the contrary. i was a judgmental prick, that's why i missed a lot of worthwhile enterprises early in life, now i have learned to sloow down, sit back and to really consider, but only recently mind you^_^. that's why i started this blog only now(it all seemed so pointless/purposeless to me then. haha).
but there it is.. i still have to "get the point"^_^. that's why, when i heard of the book "the purpose driven life" and that people where so into it, recommending it left and right.. i kind of just grinned and shrugged.. isn't that supposed tobe always the case?? and i have a peeve about stating the obvious.. it gets my goat , so to speak^_^ bu t then again i should've been glad, since because of that book, a lot more people wer more aware of purpose.. parami na kami mamromroblema nito, ahahahahaha.

so there it is: purpose.or paraphrased: "what's the point?" this is so tied up with "being" thatyou just can't separate them.. purpose and being. you have to "be" first, to really discern your purpose.. and "being " means you got toget to know who, what you are..it is always a work in progress until you get that "assent" from within the core of your reason and being.. and then it is still a work in progress only more purposeful haha(see one of my first posts entitled Being)

And this is a brief discussion of my early journey in this(drumroll please).. i first asked:"who am i?" and when i thought about it, i could only say "i am me." which was too accurate and too absurd too since i will not really learn anything about me that way^_^ so i asked"what am I?" and then amazingly, pinalampas ko sarili ko and didnt answer"i am what i am!", consequently the answer was something that i could work with(haha!):"tao, ungas!" ayun. tao daw ako according to me, hehe,then ""tao?"ano yun?wat does that mean, really?" stupid questions, 'no?
actually it was great because now i knew wat i was not(hayup, halaman, diyos, etc)!so i really had something to start with in trying to discern purpose.. the next question was"so wat makesme a "tao"?(don't you just love the filipino language and its "non-sexism?haha, translate tao to english in that context^_^)and an obvious answer arose quite quickly:"nag-iisip ako"(paraphrase Descartes:"i think therefore i am tao!"hehe) and the conclusion I came up with wasn't too long in coming...

Shouldn't it be my first responsibility, knowing aught else but that: "i think, therefore i am tao", to develop my Reason?(what makes me tao) so that i can be onwards to being "truly " tao. after all if we don't try to realize our potentials we're better off not having existed at all.a lion must be a lion, a fish truly fish, and a tao truly human di ba? and that for me is what was meant in the exhortation:"Be true."

The following is a ym conv with my good friend melvs who commented early in this post of mine nyahaha, the conversation helped me expound more(you are in da spot melvs!!^_^:

Toby Melvin: labo pa din no?
Toby Melvin: hehe
jedi nikz: our purpose is to BE
jedi nikz: hehe
jedi nikz: watever THAT is
Toby Melvin: korek!
Toby Melvin: ahaha
Toby Melvin: pero dude, it is what you think it
Toby Melvin: is
Toby Melvin: and not what is given
Toby Melvin: kung sabihin nilang tae ang pupose mo, pare you won't believe them
Toby Melvin: pero if they say better shempre, you agree and you go for it
Toby Melvin: di ba?
Toby Melvin: hehe
Toby Melvin: or i may be wrong, what do i know
Toby Melvin: ahahaha
Toby Melvin:
jedi nikz: nah no one can tell you your purpose as an andvidual, You discern it
jedi nikz: but being something, some purposes are intrinsic to that being
jedi nikz: like us..
Toby Melvin: yan ang tamang word - intrinsic
jedi nikz: we are something, tao tayo
jedi nikz: so being tao, it is intinsic that our purpose is to realizethat being.. be truly tao di ba?
Toby Melvin: tama dude
Toby Melvin: yan din yung sinasabi ko e
Toby Melvin: ahahaha
jedi nikz: tama ba conclusion ko? does you reason assent to that conclusion?
Toby Melvin: yan din yung sinasabi ko eh
jedi nikz: post iko tong conversation natin dun haha
Toby Melvin: i mean yan gdin yung thought ko
Toby Melvin: go ahead dude

Qoutable Qoute

2007-07-12T09:43:00.000-07:00

I am Innocence!!!!^_^

Qoutable Qoutes

2007-07-11T23:29:00.000-07:00

look around you isnt your very exsistence proof of something so much greater than life itself?

Awareness of the Essentials

2007-07-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

are you awake or are you asleep?

most people spend their whole lives asleep..

Qoutable Qoutes

2007-07-10T06:53:00.001-07:00

collection of qoutes that moved me..possible take-off points in coming posts^_^

"Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your
liberty.
-The Coda"
Chapterhouse Dune
by Frank Herbert

"I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.

A small bird will drop frozen, dead, from a bough
Without ever, having felt sorry, for itself."

-- D.H. Lawrence

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological
personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the
corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a
condition to which they are quickly addicted.

-Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto)"
Chapterhouse Dune
by Frank Herbert

"Humans are born with a susceptibility to that most persistent and debilitating
disease of intellect: self-deception. The best of all possible worlds and the
worst get their dramatic coloration from it. As nearly as we can determine,
there is no natural immunity. Constant alertness is required."

-The Coda"
Chapterhouse Dune
by Frank Herbert

Really love the last one, glad i found it =) so very true and so very apparent ^_^all of us have been victims haha. eternal vigilance and honesty is required.

A Prayer Shared

2007-07-10T06:47:00.000-07:00

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

for the full version.. google it. haha!^_^

Accountability

2007-07-10T04:13:00.000-07:00

every individual is accountable ultimately to the self -- without delving further into this we can see the truth in this statement.
logically then.. "the formation of that self demands our utmost care and attention."(text in red is taken from "Chapterhouse Dune" by Frank Herbert). Are we giving it any thought at all?do majority of people see the need for this?how about the people you know?
This is what's been bugging me for so long since I assented to the propositions that:

Man is a rational being
Reason is what separates us as creatures from animals
Reason is one of the two greatest gifts(grace) Man has received from his Creator (from God - the other being faith imho)

And it took the reading of the Dune series to finally have a proper introduction for me to try and discuss the topic^_^

now it can be argued by Theists that man is ultimately answerable to God, and reasoning men that the creature is ultimately answerable to the creator -- and i do subscribe to both ideas.. i would like to deal with "tao-tao lang muna" for a start, to accomodatethe most people including my atheist friends (they think they are, but.. will talk about this in another post) -- (we will try to go further in later posts perhaps?) .
so there it is "formation of that self demands our utmost care and attention"... the next question would naturally be.. how do we start going about it?and my basic answer to that is simply:"Learn the basics."(we can review and start with the proposed "essential human questions" on a previous post to set us off on our way.Learn more about yourself and what has formed you into what you are now since we were not as active formers-of-selves before we have come to realize the statements being presented here.. other things(be it persons, the environs, groups we were part of , and still part of) were responsible for forming our current "selves".. so let's try and start with the basic:

ano ka?obviously, tao.and here are the other guide questions(what makes a "tao" tao?,what differentiates the "tao"?, what defines a "tao"?)this seems to be a nice place to start and this will lead to a lot oflearning that will be very essential in forming our "selves" to be truly "tao", so go on read, ask, discuss about it, and though i found my own answers to this i wouldn't want to color your perceptions with it, coz i knowthat i do not know much and i am very fond of stories.. specially from other people, they're how i learn, searching for stories and trying to see if i assent to them, and if i do i try to find wiser heads than me to discuss them or test them out with others, peers ideally but anyone reasonable generally to see if they too assent to the story/lesson.

now you may be wondering why i'm talking about this, i'm no philo teacher or nor wannabe wiseman, i am just a serious traveller in this journey of being who has been put into mentoring situations more times than normal(ayan confirmation na abnoy si yours truly@-@) and thus recognizing the general need for some guidance of most people me included, thus i began this blog after having been encouraged by my friends to write down my thoughts and what i have been saying in the hopes that more people can be reached daw(as if may sense pinagsasabi ko ^_^) and hopefullymoved to action, if moved by wat i had to say. but more than that they drove me to see the need to record wat i had to say kasi "sayang" daw though di ko pa makita kung bakit"sayang" since most of wat i say has been said already, in a better and more effective way than i possibly could, and recorded too..that's why dami ko excerpts sa blog ko hehehe pero bhala na i've decided to do so, albeit slowlyand shyly hahahaha.. so bear with me and do please post your comments or questions or reactions, violent or otherwise coz those will be my fuel to go on and share some more what little knowledge, learnings i have managed to gather in my nook.^_^ abangan... but then again, i'd rather talk than write hahaha!^_^

Duty - an excerpt (Book recommendation)

2007-07-08T08:38:00.000-07:00

rare are the authors today who wrote to by/usingtheir convictions and fearlessly try to expose it and not just to please their target audience.past authors had stories to tell AND a lessons to impart(a contemporary author Terry Goodkind does come to mind in his Sword of Truth Series), or at least they tried to... such are CS Lewis, Ayn Rand, JRR Tolkien(LOTR Collection),Frank Herbert(Dune series/Collection).. so much so they are almost like philosophical dissertations done story-telling like, they still amaze me (word for the moment "amaze") in this case.. this one in particular comes from Robert Heinlein(during the 1950s i think), a sci-fi writer, and from a not so well-known story that was made into a cartoon series/and movie in the 90s, you may have heard of it, Starship Troopers, and the story's protagonist is of course the half-Filipino Johnny Rico, amazing how Rizal and the Philippines must have affected mr. Heinlein.. he also mentions Ramon Magsaysay here but only as a space craft, a battleship -- in a time when the y were named after the"greatest men" the human race produced.. amazing!(that word gain)!

"...Mr. Dubois then turned to me. "I told you that `juvenile delinquent' is
a contradiction in terms. `Delinquent' means `failing in duty.' But duty is
an adult virtue -- indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when,
he acquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the self-love
he was born with. There never was, there cannot be a `juvenile delinquent.'
But for every juvenile criminal there are always one or more adult
delinquents -- people of mature years who either do not know their duty, or
who, knowing it, fail....."

i'll be adding qoutes from that story here in the hopes it may move some of you to read it and hopefullyextract a nice learning experience from that great story teller

"...The basis of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to
group that self-interest has to individual. Nobody preached duty to these
kids in a way they could understand -- that is, with a spanking. But the
society they were in told them endlessly about their `rights.' "
"The results should have been predictable, since a human being has no
natural rights of any nature."

Mr. Dubois had paused. Somebody took the bait. "Sir? How about `life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'?"

"Ah, yes, the `unalienable rights.' Each year someone quotes that
magnificent poetry.

Life? What `right' to life has a man who is drowning in
the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What `right' to life
has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save
his own life, does he do so as a matter of `right'? If two men are starving
and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's right is
`unalienable'? And is it `right'?

As to liberty, the heroes who signed that
great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty
is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of
patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called `natural human rights'
that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is
never free of cost.

"The third `right'? -- the `pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed
unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which
tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn
me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can `pursue happiness' as long as
my brain lives -- but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs,
can insure that I will catch it....."

rant

2007-07-08T06:55:00.000-07:00

o boy.. i'm bored. i'm spending too much time online.. wasting my time again for the nth time.. posting funny coments t o my friends' accounts can only entertain you for so long. wasted asround 9hours today geez.. nobody even to talk to.. kahit sa net! ngyn pinagtritripan ko na tong blog nato.. and this post will not amount to much, or make sense much..i need to get back to work!! sheesh! left extremeties, wake up!!! not used to bumming around it's making me crazy.. all over again. does this go on cycles? i sure hope not. i really need someone to talk with, bond with i guess.but why? why the need? malamang kulang na talaga ako sa pansin feeling ko i'm slowly disappearing ala fading away.hehehehe drama pero yun nga feeling ko --... been out of circulation for how many months now? going on 7? can't imagine being in prison for 20 years!!7mos pa lng ako and not technically in prison nababaliw na ako, ano pa yung 20 years????siyetnamalagket. i'm still well-off considering. now if only the left arm/hand would only wake up more.. sooner it'd be very nice.. -sigh- but patience and prayer is everything.. hand in hand dapat tlga yan sila. i should stop whining now and try to make sense and be more positive. senxa na o dear reader, i am not like this, it just has been too damn lonely lately.. and only since last late december have i known insecurity- correction that'd be October it all came crashing down nung december, lumala kumbaga. but that's another story hahaha! abangan.... hopefully not in vain>;p

hmm i'd like to talk about kipling for a change Rudyardkipling that is -- very good writer/poet, very posititvespecially yung If nya and yung epitaph of a gentleman

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!

there it is, an almost complete guide nicely done in almost perfect rhyme and meter, amazing. now if only more people would take this to heart and try to make it their own..there surely will be better persons out there in the world.when I can make this truly my own, i surely would be better all - around, and also where it will count the most presumably too. and it goes without saying that this applies to daughters too. but did i really have to point that out?^_^

Try it why dontcha?

2007-07-07T20:02:00.000-07:00

ok, get to this site and click"take the test"underthe Jung Typology Test topic.. and take the test d-uh =).. after taking it..take the time to read the descriptions of your results(there are two description links in the results page. bookmark those pages, fun to reread them and get to know psychology's/Jung's take on your current personality type.. it does change.^_^ then post those links in your web pasge or blogger if you wantand dare.. its nice. me, ahm too private to post it but i will give it to those who ask. specially ifthey also have done the test and promise to supply me with thir results.. suffice it to say that i am an "INFJ", i know people who are "INTJ" and "ENTJ" pretty accurate descrips too, it was creepy haha except for the "ESFP" person - who claims the descrip was waay off^_^

oh yeah, the results page also has some career guidance options that were creepy too , take time to read and you may just know/realize something that may help you in deciding what to do/not do in life .. anything to make life a bit easier for evryone! miniimize error repeatition, always my motto!Good Luck, have fun!!

A prayer Shared

2007-07-06T08:55:00.000-07:00

whew ! daming kong pinost hahahathough karamihan excerpts pa rin ^_^ pero at least meron ng ganito.. a'hm blogging! lolz! and i would like to start a tradition for every significant "blurts" i get.. like one i had ngayon.. after these blurts i'll try to find a newly encountered prayer to post here that fits what i have been blurting about.. basta kung ma-connect ko ilalagay ko and fortunately meron akong isa ngyn wehehehehe ^_^ (this one has humor in it pa, these Jesuits are something else hahaha see for yourselves:

Patient Trust

by Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown,
something new.
Yet it is the law of all progress that is made
by passing through some stages of instability
and that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on
as though you could be today what time
-- that is to say, grace --
and circumstances
acting on your own good will
will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit
gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God,
our loving vine-dresser.

Amen.

To be or not to be

2007-07-06T08:20:00.000-07:00

you know? that really is the question!. and it disturbs me greatly that most people don't really give a damn!=)they want to "keep it real!" (keeping it real.. to which the indefatigable Chris Rock retorts:"yeah.. real dumb!^_^) and i guess ole Chris has got a point. after all, what can you really know, or truly learn when you don't even try to ask, much more seek for the answers to, the "essential humanquestions"... who am i? what am i?where do i come from(whence man?)?where am i going(wither man?)?i thnk it was Socrates who once said.."the unexamined life is not worth living." and you all know where he was coming from when he said that....i'll blurt it out anyway:"what was the point?"

Being

2007-07-06T08:03:00.000-07:00

i would like to start with this kumbaga: define. so here's the initial definition:

Being means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn't force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!

And you should not let yourself be confused in your solitude by the fact that there is something in you that wants to move out of it. This very wish, if you use it calmly and prudently and like a tool, will help you spread out your solitude over a great distance. Most people have (with the help of conventions) turned their solutions toward what is easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must trust in what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.

Journey of a thousand Miles

2007-07-06T07:25:00.001-07:00

and this is my first step. well this is it. melvin will be tickled pink^_^ i will try to really blog here rather than just post excerpts from articles i've read that moved me.. as in my friendster blog. i will still do that but i'm sure i'll have my reflections/reactions recorded too(pwede ko gawin sa frendster but hey, sometimes it's nice to start afresh>;p

and to keep me "rockin'" let me put this excerpt from Edmund Campion ^_^ as an added inspiration:
from Campion's "Brag"(google it, or wiki edmund campion, it's fun to know some of the exploits of the Jesuits):
...The expense is reckoned, the enterprise is begun; it is of God; it cannot be withstood. So the faith was planted: So it must be restored.

^_^ God bless us all!!!