it is good to be sick.
it is good to feel the pain for wherever it will take you
it is good to be weak
and see just how difficult it is
to feel alone, forgotten

bereft of comfort and certainty
one feels
the need to look
at the mirror and find
the reason
for all these.

humility, humility
painful humility
you brought me to my
senses
and you opened
to me
the door
to receiving
what i threw
but what i needed
and loved
all along.

prelature assembly

@ d assembly, we listened to p.bert,sj talk about the ongoing project: konsultmindanaw. it aims to consolidate what natives of mindanaw feel, think and hope about their place. the idea is quite succinct and very common sense: why ask experts 1. who were not even from mindanaw; 2/ talk about social analysis 3. when they haven't really lived with its people?

coming here a year ago opened to me the pain of a 'langyaw'-- a stramger, a learner who keeps on learning from the hard news... thank God, it's just the news.

i am amazed at the sight of empowered laity in our prelature. it is fortifying to witness these ordinary people committing themselves to the church and giving their best to respond to their social obligations without, as they say, counting the cost. suscipe indeed.

let us see what happens in the coming months ahead.

i was playing with our kitten last night. i got a koala tissue holder that i wrapped around the pet until she looks like a clown. how she struggled to fight and get out of her costume until she got tired, kept still, and started her "kitten-meditation" i was observing how she can possibly get off that koala thing. to my surprise she very softly jumped off the table walked slowly -- and off the costume went! i repeated the saga...she fought, and fought real hard, she got tired, she kept still and got lost in her "thoughts" again. she stood up and walked slowly, jumped and off went the costume!

i was thinking, hey, even peace and calmness worked for animals! unwanted struggles just slip by silently eventually, in a quiet heart.

clarity

i keep on waking up just before three in the morning.

and in those instances, always, always, i notice
my heart responding to certain realities in my life
where i am most uncomfortable, or contented.

i have learned to listen to these
not so oblivious murmurs of my heart.

i am not sure if this is true for most of humanity,
but in this waking up, i have found
if i did a stupid mistake, if i have been found wanting
in charity, if a decision i made is ill-thought or ill-advised.

and i begin to see that early morning
the dawn, is where my consciousness is
freed from the garbage
of my mind.

stunning....

it is the first word that came to me as i read
about ancient China's rule of gallantry.

wow. i honestly think they had the new heaven and new earth in their midst.
but then, some emperor thought the wall was sine qua non.

today is everyday

just begun with the gutter repair which piqued me---well, several days ago.

hay... i was wondering why i slept like sleeping beauty...waiting for one hundred years of solitude before realizing how stupid it is to trust words spoken by "powers that be."

i'm almost forty and i am just realizing how much i can contribute if i only became more assertive and courageous.

damn if you're good, damn if you're bad.

i am about to finish the book that made me wonder who gabriel garcia marquez is.

i am not sure if i am too easily absorbed and bored at the same time.... but i am glad i finally got down to doing just that: reading garcia's one hundred years of solitude.... such vision!


(but i would like the whole library of tolkien)

ay books

the alchemist by paolo coelho

mmmm a cross between "the little Prince" and "the greatest salesman in the world"
a feel-good read. it was an encounter for which i am so grateful. from naia to dipolog airport, down to the roads going south...

meet brandy

i met brandy, tonka and sito yesterday.

brandy is a sealion
tonka a false whaleshark
sito, a dolphin

i wanted to play with the dolphin
actually, ride on one.
i got that wish yesteday!

:) my arms are still niggling...but
hey, how many times do we get
to frolick on open sea with cetaceans?

running
after

catching

it is
the same

door

heal me Lord that I may be whole
save me that i may be saved
for it is you
whom i praise.

heart2heart

born one year,
seven months
one week
after
my own
coming.
talking about
common pains
walking that distance
of years
not seeing
yet feeling
..not much has changed...

come ignacio

it IS important
to experience
the hopelessness
and utter
nakedness
of the
cross

in order to
understand
how it is
to follow
CHRIST.

My God,
open myself
to Be
YOU.
Amen.

wondering is endless
to me
whose
questions
come by
the dozens
before the
words
get formed
on my lips.

ay.
words
fail me.

i wish

love is patient
love is kind,
it is not jealous
love is not pompous.
it is not inflated.
it is not RUDE.
it is not QUICK TEMPERED.
it rejoices in the TRUTH.

dream

Wisdom 15:3
"For to know you well is complete justice,
and to know your might is the root of immortality."

this helps me.

" all the ways of a man may be right in his own eyes,
but it is the Lord who proves hearts." proverbs 21:2

"Many are the plans in a man's heart,
but it the decision of the Lord that endures..." Proverbs 19:21