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The Feast

Problems.

Who doesn’t have them.

Problems are all I seem to be having these days. Chief among them is my wanting Peace for myself, which I keep telling everyone within earshot. Thank you all for listening. Haha.

It’s funny though, because those whom I seek to talk to- they all seem to be pointing me to Him. You know, Him.

Which is funny because, if I were more wont to, I'd be saying that He’s been talking to me a lot this past week, through them.

So I got to talking with my very good friend B16 and s/he tells me that s/he has this big problem; I say that I have this big problem too. S/he says that we could maybe go to this gig on Sunday. It might help ease us of our burdens. I say, “Okay.” (Maybe I could check my schedule.)


The night before the gig, Rebs of Hohums asked me to call. She was apparently very happy these days and she wanted to share it. Okay. I don’t know if it’s morally right for anyone to share his/ her happiness with another person who was depressed, but I called anyway. If I got to slitting my throat while she’s gushing smileys on my phone- I’m pinning everything on her.

Anyway, like I said, I called. (Rebs texted me her number just so that I won’t have any excuse not to.)

“Hello?”

“Oli! I’m so happy!”

I grabbed my knife. (Here we go.) “Talaga? Why are you happy?”

“I found Him.”

And she went on and on and on and on….

And I got around to wondering….

I don’t believe in signs, or rather, I don’t like believing in signs. Signs are for the lazy, those who don’t like thinking things through before they make a decision.

But I do believe in probability. When my whole life, I haven’t gone through a whole week where different people keep on talking about this one same thing, and this week, that exact same thing happens, then maybe I should be suspecting that something’s up. Something very odd is up.

All week long, people have been telling me that they’re happy because they found Him. And these are intelligent people. Something was very odd. Something was up.

So I decide to go to the gig. (I had nothing to lose.)

The gig is the Kerygma Feast, a monthly Fellowship held in the Camp Aguinaldo Theater.

B16 and I initially thought that the whole thing was only going to be a series of lectures. Turned out that a mass will be celebrated… there was also some singing… and, finally, there was Bo. We didn’t mind the mass (we were going to catch one of the masses at UP, anyway). We didn’t mind the singing. It’s just that we only went to the Feast because we wanted to hear Bo speak. And we did. Wow.

Bo is Bo Sanchez, the EIC of the Kerygma magazine. He’s also the Chair of Good Shepherd’s Voice Publications. And, finally, he a pretty damn effing good speaker.

Before Bo went on stage, there was much singing. And before that, the mass. But the singing is worth mentioning because, well, the mass is just a mass, while the singing, well- let’s just say that my initial reaction was: cripes, we have a theater-full of people on dope.

So people were singing, and some of them were jumping up and down while singing. Not a few were raising their hands and swaying while singing. Meanwhile, it was suddenly becoming clear to me that this was the so-called opiate of the masses. (It’s an entirely different animal when you experience it.) I hunkered down and thought, “What am I doing here?” I had a good mind to throttle B16. S/he said there was only going to be a talk.

But the whole thing was harmless. First of all, I wasn’t a stranger to prayer meetings and fellowships because my mother, who is a very religious woman, used to bring us to a few of them in the hopes of getting one of us hooked. None of us ever did. And anyway, Bo would later explain that the singing was to get all of us in the mood. It's there so that we can get into a happy mood. The reason for the joyous singing. Who wants to go to a somber prayer meeting? Okay. That made a lot of sense.

Then Bo went on stage.

I’ll leave out the details of his talk. Bo is better experienced than told of. God is better experienced than spoken of.


I went to the Feast in the throes of depression. I went out of it with renewed hope. We should do it again, sometime.


God is bigger than your problems. God is always with me.

Panaginip ng Dukhang Nasasakdal

"nasa'n ka nu'ng pinatay si policarpio? sagot!"

nakakatakut naman 'to. ganito ba'ng mga abugado? di na tuloy ako magtataka kung kinasusuklaman sila ng mga tao.

mga abugado! diyosko. heto't ginugulat ako ng isa sa kanilang kapatid. pilit pinipiga sa akin ang isang pag-aming wala namang kinalaman sa'kin. "nasa bahay po ako ni onyong nu'ng gabing 'yun, your highness." automatic na'ng sagot ko. ayoko nang makahulan pa ng asong ito.

abugado? abugago? asogado? asonggago? naku, paumanhin sa mga aso. wala silang ginawang mali upang ihambing ko sila dito sa hayup sa harap ko.

"nasa bahay ka ni onyong, 'ka mo? eh, way das it isteyt inda apidavit op yor pillow akyus dat yu wer wid jeprox wen yu kild policarpio?"

ano daw?

"objection, misleading."

aba, nag-object ang abugado ko! may silbi din pala'ng mokong na'to! si atty mokong- oo, Mokong talaga'ng apelyido niya- ay ang aking walang kuwentang PAO lawyer. ewan ko ba kung bakit pa'to binabayaran ng estado para tumulong sa mga inaapi. eh, mas lalo yata kaming naaapi, lalo ang mga dukhang tulad namin. tignan mo nga naman si mokong, nung i_assign sa'kin, ang unang sambit ba naman ay, "aminin mo na kasi na ikaw ang pumatay, para di na tayo mahirapan."

kung hindi lang ako hilo sa bugbog ng mga parak nu'n, eh binatukan ko na siya.

'tsaka, nangungulit pa ng delihensiya sa'kin si mokong! kasalanan ko ba kung pinanganak akong mahirap at hot monay na may keso lang ang maiaabot ko sa kanya. (dati, dinalhan ko siya ng 'sang lapad ng tanduay kaso, may prublema na daw sa atay niya. atay tayo diyan.)

"sustained. will the prosecutor please change the question." lumingon si judge sa clerk of court, "strike the question off the records."

salamat, judge. napangiti ako ng bigla. pag-asa ba'ng natatanaw ko? bumubuka yata'ng langit.

itong si judge, mukhang matalino. baka taga_UP. matitindi ang mga inggles niya. malupit. bilib ako. pero, sayang ang talino niya kung hahatulan ng mali ang isang inosenteng nasasakdal. sana mapansin niyang lokohan lang ang lahat ng ito. at sana, matalino man siya, sana hindi mas matalino ang bulsa niya keysa sa utak niya.

kinindatan ako ni atty mokong. ngunimiti. ayos ka, tsong. na_sustain nga'ng objection mo- aba, tiyakin mo na makakalaya ako.

"mr santos?' tinawag ako ni judge.

tatayo ba ako?

tutungo?

luluhod?

pa'no ba'ko sasagot? inggles? Filipino?

tumayo ako, "Yesser...?"

"gumising ka na."

ano daw?

"wake yourself up." malutong na inggles. malupit. "panaginip ito lahat, gumising ka!"

humalakhak si judge. pati si mokong, humahalakhak. lumalakas. mabibingi ako. tinakpan ko'ng mga tenga ko. nahuhulog ako. pumapaimbulog sa lupa. madilim. dumidilim.

minulat ko'ng aking mga mata. balot ako sa malamig na pawis. wala na ako sa sala ni judge. panaginip lang pala. nandito na ako- sa selda ko- bibitayin bukas.

Diyosko, alagaan mo'ng pamilya ko.

Flowers

how do you pay your respects to a figurative grave?
give figurative flowers.
how do they differ from the real ones?
the real ones rot.

Live

I’ve never really gotten why two people will go and sign a marriage contract. I mean, what’s the use of signing the contract and then, several years and kids later, after having tired of the other’s kinks and faults, after having gotten wind of the other’s secret vices and hitherto unknown bad habits, those same two people will suddenly wake up and realize that they hate each other’s guts and that they can’t stand one another.

Then, what either or both of them will do is look for happiness somewhere else, probably scarring their children emotionally in the process.

It happens to most everyone; everyone knows it. It’s like people have been handed a formula for disaster, but they go ahead and go through the process anyway.


And yet, having said all that- when, as in the movies, the hero will cross enemy lines and, braving the enemy, bullets whizzing by, with reckless disregard as to his own safety, rescue the one he loves- I’ll still go and shed a tear over it.


I’ll borrow a line from Flyboys (James Franco)- though the line is more an aphorism than it is an original, “You go and find your own meaning in war.” So with life.

When all of it seems senseless, the reality being that we are really only marching to our deaths, what we do is define what life is and what it should be about, to avoid pulling the trigger on our heads. Life is love. Or life is service. Or life is living.

Sigh.

For centuries, men have tried to figure out what life is. And yet the answer to that riddle, of what the meaning of life is, is as countless as there have been those of us who have lived and are living on this planet. We’re supposed to figure things out for ourselves and live.

Requiem. Have a meaningful life.

Back

Yesterday, Pink texted me that, as she was packing her bags, she felt that even the weather seemed “melancholy”.

Melancholic. That’s what she probably meant. But who was I to judge grammar? Words are only tools men use to express themselves. So long as what was being said was understood, then there shouldn’t be too much of a fuss. If any given feeling, weather, mood, or whatnot is “melancholy,” then it probably is.

Just beyond Law (when you turn your head, you can still see glimpses of it). The Bar had just concluded; I’m finally feeling "melancholy".
Law school doesn’t afford you much time for emotion- save for the many times when you’ll be venting your frustrations on some innocent soul- that after the Bar, those pent up emotions threaten to engulf you. Where just a few weeks ago, you could just go and bury your head in codals and annotated books to escape from worries, nowadays we can’t seem to do anything else but face them.

I’m trying to get back to reading fiction. Much like the parts I’d already read and forgotten (currently, of Midnight’s Children), I can’t seem to recall the habit of reading text that is non-Law. (I’ve been reading Midnight_ for a year now, on and off). Though I know I’ll eventually get the hang of it. Again. Eventually. Because as I scanned the pages of my book, everything felt familiar, if even vaguely familiar. Like going back to a farm where you played and grew up in. The details are hazy, and the memories come in bits and pieces, but they come. and they engulf you in their warm embrace. They’re all of tender, loving feelings. Fuzzy. But familiar. Welcome.

Law pulls you away from the world. Now that it’s ended, well, I just hope everything’s still as I left them.

The Dichotomy

Seems like I’ve been passing through a pet-peeve stage these past couple of days. My last (recent) stage was my ihatethedichotomybetweenmenandwomen phase.


A few weeks ago, a male friend (not me) sent me a text message asking me if it was okay for him to have coffee with a female officemate. Both the guy and the girl were, shall we say, Attached.

I replied, “Why not?”


I ask: Why is it that when we see a girl and a guy together, the first conclusion we’ll automatically come to is, they’re dating- which can have dire consequences when either or both of the parties are with someone else, present company excluded?

I guess maybe it’s because we’re wired to further the cause of evolution- to put it bluntly: to procreate- so we tend to think in terms of that framework ie, maybe there’s something going on between the two.

That doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. Why can’t two people of different sexes (or genders) go out because they’re friends? Nothing more. That’s it. And that there’s really nothing more to explain.


I remember my first week of college when I was mortified because the university was co-ed. Up until then, I’d spent my whole life with boys my age, having graduated from an all-boys’ school. I didn’t know how to talk to girls, much less how to behave in front of one- two million of them.

Then I realized that, hey, I shouldn’t be afraid of girls because what girls really are is that, well_ girls are just boys without dingdongs. (Okay, they're also boys without dingdongs and have boobs, but I wasn’t capable of thinking that yet because at 16, I hadn’t gotten on the puberty wagon yet.) It was an Enlightenment of sorts which I was lucky to stumble on. (Otherwise, I’d have been a hopeless recluse.)

The point?

Look inside. Men and women- we’re all made up of tissues. These tissues form into muscles and the different organs; these organs are supported and protected by the skeleton, etcetera, etcetera. Girls- guys, we’re the same. The only difference is that I and my friend are chock-full of testosterone and potato chips and beer (caffeine, for me), and my friend’s friend has estrogen and potato chips and beer in their stead. It’s a same-same all around.

Of course, if the missus is the jealous type… you really should avoid any situation where you’ll find yourself getting hit on the head with a vase thrown your way. All I can say is, I’m glad I’m single. Haha.