immovable.type

Redemption

It is Day 5 of Victory’s annual 7-Day Prayer and Fasting and everyday for these seven days, Victory churches nationwide gather to pray for specific things of great importance. Day 5 was allotted specifically for the Philippines.

I was unusually excited for this because the Philippines holds a special place in my heart. If there are people whom God purposed as missionaries to other nations, I would like to believe that my purpose is to be here. So when Day 5 came, I was very expectant to hear a Word of God for the motherland.

The prayer meeting was at 7PM. On the way, two specific passages from the Bible started hammering away at my mind: the first and more persistent passage was Isaiah 58:6-12 (and for brevity I will skip a few verses):

“…This is the kind of fasting I want:
          …lighten the burden of those who work for you.
Let the oppressed go free,
     and remove the chains that bind people.
Share your food with the hungry, 
     and give shelter to the homeless…

“Remove the heavy yoke of oppression.
     Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors! 
Feed the hungry,
     and help those in trouble. 
Then your light will shine out from the darkness, 
     and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon.”

You know how God shows you something and you can’t get it out of your head until you share it with someone? That’s what I felt when I read the passage again.

Sometimes, we get so caught up with our own breakthroughs, our own faith goals, that we fail to see the bigger picture that God wants to show us. Sometimes we get so caught up as individuals with our own needs that we neglect the people around us who are actually needier than we are.

Sometimes we do not realise that we are also, on occasion, part of the problem: We curse bus drivers causing EDSA traffic but we own three cars and do 90 on a 60kmh roadway (Guilty). We compare our God-given nation to other countries: “Singapore is so clean unlike the Philippines.” “I wish I lived in Canada, there are more opportunities there.” We put down our countrymen and government a lot: “Stupid pedestrians, Y U NO use overpass?” “This country is going to the dogs.” “This government is a lame duck!” “The tourism slogan is a ripoff!”

We turn begging children away because it inconveniences us on the road (not to mention they might be part of a syndicate), not realising that they have nowhere else to go (Guilty, again). We pray for a raise in our salary, but we forget to pray for breakthrough for those who don’t even have work or have lost their jobs (Guilty, again). We pray for healing from an illness, but we do not think of others who have lost hope because of the same affliction (Ouch. Guilty as charged.).

But thank God, that as redeemed Filipinos, we have the capacity to love our brothers the way Christ loved us. Thank God that because he saved us, we are free to look beyond our own personal needs and help our countrymen who are in more dire straits. Isaiah 60:1,3 says:

“Arise, Jerusalem! Let your light shine for all to see. 
     For the glory of the Lord rises to shine on you… 
All nations will come to your light, 
     mighty kings will come to see your radiance.”

This second passage God impressed on me was a perfect fit to the short message Victory Iloilo pastor Juray Mora shared during the prayer meeting: That we are a rarity among nations because not many countries would be so open to Christianity like we are. That as a nation capable of producing discipled Christian leaders en masse, we actually have the capacity — the onus, even — to bring nations to the light of God, whether as missionaries or simply workers in our respective industries, in the places God ordained us to go.

World Vision founder Robert Pierce said, “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.” I believe God sometimes uses the prayer-and-fasting season to expose our own selfishness and turn our hearts toward to the things he cares about the most: his people. And as Filipinos we have a duty to speak God’s promises not only to ourselves, but also for our country.

It is only when we realise how selfish we really are that God can step in and change ourselves and our motherland. So, instead of praying for that bus driver’s change in attitude, pray for your own.

Instead of pointing fingers and nitpicking at the government’s supposed “lack of originality” with the new tourism slogan, support them instead because it’s still your country on the line. Instead of just praying for your business to flourish, give your employees a raise. Instead of shunning the begging child at your window, give them food. Instead of praying for healing only for yourself, pray also for an opportunity to share God’s love to sick people who may have lost hope. Instead of just praying for your own breakthroughs, expand your horizons and pray for your country’s breakthrough.

Because if we are to fulfill the promise for the nation in Isaiah 60, then it is time we started living Isaiah 58.

“Then your salvation will come like the dawn,
      and your wounds will quickly heal.
Your godliness will lead you forward,
      and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind.
Then when you call, the Lord will answer.
      ‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply.” (Isaiah 58:8-9 NLT)

So it begins.

I hated 2011.

It was a season of missed opportunities, misplaced priorities, wrong decisions and more lows than highs. It was a year of sickness, heartbreak, disappointment and hardship. It was a season of regret. It was a year of starting from scratch, which, for me, wasn’t a easy thing to do. It was a year of personal disaster and stupid choices, of lack and personal recession.

I hated 2011. And yet I loved it.

I loved it because it was a season of restoration, reflection and reinvention. It was a year where although the lows outnumbered the highs, the highs clearly were greater in value than the lows. It was a year of revelation and family. It was a season of meeting new friends, opening up to new experiences and, while there is regret, of maturity. It was a year of discovery and rediscovery, of purpose and vision.

It was of leaving the past and forgiving myself, of starting anew, which still isn’t an easy thing for me to do.

But I will do it anyway.

Because that is how life is: we move on, we forgive, we stop dwelling on the past, we stop focussing on the wrong decisions and we look to the future, regardless of how bleak or clouded the future is.

Because when everything seems at its darkest, the light will always come through. Because the dawn will come, and the promises are still kept. And they will not delay. Because while anger and regret lasts only for a moment, favour remains for a lifetime.

Because there is still hope. No matter how far one has fallen, no matter how many stupid choices one has made, no matter what the past is.

There is Hope.

And there is the Beginning.

Linguistic Ironies

I knew it was only a matter of time before the Philippine online community took to the their keyboards and started writing diatribes about James Soriano’s article on Manila Bulletin. It is very typical - human - of us to criticize things that offend our sensibilities.

I read the article a few days ago way before Manila Bulletin, apparently fearing a backlash of unmoderated hate comments and a server crash, hid the article from public viewing. My first thoughts about the article were something like, “Oh no, he didn’t” and “Stupid, narrow-minded elitist,” which was normal.

It was only after I read the thing five times (I had to make sure my analysis was straight) and after careful introspection that I got his point.

Like Soriano, I was also born to a predominantly English-speaking/thinking family. I went to a preschool whose medium of instruction was English. Come to think of it, we never really had a Filipino class in preschool. My grandmother, who owns the school, would speak to us in English, quiz us in English, tell us stories in English. At home, we used a mix of the vernacular and English. My parents scolded us in English (but cursed in Filipino). My mom used to read me storybooks in English. I learned to read, write and count in English before I learned to read, write and count in Filipino.

In high school, we were so encouraged to speak English that the faculty fined us 5 pesos every time we spoke Tagalog.

Don’t get me wrong though, marunong ako managalog. Sa bahay, Filipino ang usapan, maliban lang kung nagkakasagutan at may matinding pinagtatalunan. Filipino ako makipagusap sa mga kaibigan at kaopisina. Pero hindi ako tinuruan, natuto lang ako dahil kinakausap ako.

But despite my self-proclaimed proficiency in Filipino, until now, I find myself more comfortable thinking, writing and speaking in English than in Filipino.

Like James Soriano, I also considered it a chore to learn Filipino. But my reasons are different. If his was because it was the language of the househelp, mine was because I hear it everyday. In my opinion, I didn’t need formal instruction to learn Filipino because, as I’ve said, natuto lang ako dahil kinakausap ako. It clearly was, to quote Soriano, “the language of identity.”

The point of James Soriano’s article isn’t that he wants to glorify English or parade his adeptness in the international language of business, or as he may call it, “the language of the learned”, it’s that he wants to shed light on the current situation of the Philippines: We say we’re Filipino, nationalistic and patriotic, but we can’t even construct decent and real Filipino sentences.

Example: e0w pfh0uZzZ! pDe ph0 baNg mkipAgfWenNdzZz?

Example: Putang ina pare, I’m so olats in Filip12! Si miss kasi tangina lang feeling major subject bwiset amputa gago talaga. (Number of cuss words is conservative.)

Example: sbi k sau wg mong lolokohen si ___, kul8 m eh.

Example: Khu-nen mo nuh-mhan the thing from si ya-yuh kuh-seh nuh-kalimu-thun kho where I put it. (Pronounced with a shwor-shwor twang.)

It is ironic that in offices, we speak to our peers and colleagues in Filipino, but in formal settings: meetings, conferences and discussions, we use English. In school, we have a plethora of subjects taught in English but only one or two taught in Filipino. Some schools (like mine) fine students when they speak Filipino. In debates on the Senate and House floors, in privilege speeches, Palace press conferences, in formal letters, resumés, business emails, proposals, budget plans, marketing plans and client presentations, we primarily use English as the medium of conversation.

It is ironic that we use Filipino when we talk with friends, outside the boardroom, in everyday conversation, but we don’t use it in formal correspondences. When we curse, we don’t normally curse in English, we do it in Filipino because “putang ina” just sounds more powerful than “son of a bitch.” Hence Soriano’s statement: the language of the streets…of common man.

Before you judge me, allow me to slightly digress: I worked in an child-focussed NGO for three years, and my exposure in the field has allowed me to see that while Filipino is the medium of informal conversation, English has been used by workers and even children during round table and focus group discussions.

I was surprised, even, to see that during children’s conferences, the primary medium of conversation was not Filipino, but English. Besides, with all these children coming from different provinces with their own mother tongues, the only way to understand each other is through 80 to 90 percent English mixed with only little Filipino or provincial dialect.

When I tried to teach a class in a remote village in Cebu during one of my field assignments, I thought they’d be more comfortable with Filipino, instead, all I got were blank stares. They’d much rather prefer English or Cebuano.

These are the points Soriano was trying to address. That while we care for the Filipino language as a medium of informal or friendly conversation, we do not care for it as much as to make it a medium of formal and business conversation and correspondence. While we think of ourselves as nationalistic and patriotic, we apparently are still shackled to the walls of colonial and western-based education and thinking. That while Filipino “may possibly be the language of learning,” it cannot be “the language of the learned” simply because there are too many linguistic divisions caused by colonial, cultural, regional and educational biases.

James Soriano attempted to use satire in his article, but in the end it just made him sound  elitist and mayabang. (Maybe it’s his Ateneo roots. Haha. Yes, I’m La Sallian.) It was not the best way to get his point across since it was somewhat tactless and prideful, but he succeeded in provoking a discussion. And he did have a point…

The bottom line is: Filipino, regardless of how romantic the language is, regardless of how it is the language of identity, will remain only the language of the man on the street if we do not set aside colonial perspectives, regional differences and educational bias. English will still remain, whether we like it or not, the language of the learned.

RollerCoaster

(Repost from Multiply. Original dated April 15, 2009)

I don’t know anymore

  I feel

  But I do not 
want to

          Feel 
     In that basicallyeverythingithinkofnowisbutadistractionandacauldronofemotion
repressed
     or. 
   maybe
      too much
emotion
givenOut

I’m  just experiencing 
a whole lot of stuff

i’m

C    

  ON

F u S

   ed

i think.

   or

     maybe

               i’m just

                          thinking too much

                                                    but then again

                                                                        ………

*a scream* of frustration

I just want to

Stop Feeling but I
     Can’t

   because….

i guess…………

I still want to

(Feel.)