THE WORD

[July 24, 2012 at 12:18pm]

Being one of only few if not the lone guitarman in the “tambayan” along the street of North Kirayan during the 80’s, I had to choose familiar music having easy chords to strum like the melodies of the Bee Gees.

And “Words” was one of the Gibb siblings’ songs which fellow “tambays” loved to sing in disarrayed unison if not the fullest of volume. Most notably at the time was my buddy Damy who would shout its chorus with his mouth an inch away facing my nose, out of tune, unmindful of his alcohol intake’s smell and fume.

“Words don’t come easy,” as another love song says, which veracity thereof I could certify personally being a long-time word-scrambling if not word-bereft or wordless “torpe.” I remember having courted a fellow teener exasperated obviously of my Mafia-like vow of omerta everytime she was in front of me.

I had maintained the sound of silence to the extent of making my neck huffing like a flying dragon lizard’s just to control my severe cough from exploding. Good thing I did let my fingers do the talking, stop that thought, I mean by using a sign language, to ask for a hot water since the itch on my throat then I could no more contain.

Some people have tremendous command of words like the way Mark Twain and The Honorable JCOR, one of the most eloquent judges in the history of the Regional Trial Court, have, most especially during the latter's brief stint in some Branch lately.

One time, there was a just issued court decision which copy thereof was personally served by someone to that Branch’s resident prosecutor who, after reading the same in full, spewed out some expletives beautifully, cursing the magistrate for forcing her to run to the dictionary.

If there would be nobody to say a word to anybody about Somebody, I tell you, everybody would be going mad and live their lives pretty bad. People need the Word always as “[i]n the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

Still struggling in spirit and under the bondage of sin? Let me paraphrase Joyce Kilmer for you here on FB, my friend:

Posts are made by fools like me, but only God can make you free…

OLDIES BUT GOODIES

(July 17, 2014 at 1:02pm)

After failing thrice in 1997 to watch its version in VHS due to extreme prejudice since I thought it was just an old and obsolete Hollywood drama, I finally had a chance last Saturday morning to see it for myself why highly regarded as one of the best films of all time is the 1943 movie, “Casablanca.”

Now, wanna ask me what can I say, Man? Nothing but four words: I love Ingrid Bergman.

Having glimpse of the past by way of a classic film like that, made during the time when movies were movies and stars were a star, one could only wish he were born in that period to personally witness how lovely indeed those mesmerizing beauties are.

After watching it, I couldn’t blame anymore the majority of film critics and artists who until now still near-worship Ms. Ingrid. By just peeking at her wonderful face you could also hate ugliness like does the Black Widow, who else but someone Imeldific.

However, beholders of creation are not created equal in quality and size as beauty lies not only in the same set of eyes. What’s place miserable and hellish for a plunderer too rich and too wise could be palace to the poor, to say it otherwise.

Some good ole things seem to be a lot better than the best one anyone could offer at present time. They grow sweeter and finer as time goes by, like in a gold-barrel, secretly fermented rare kind of wine.

Like my cellphone that for almost a decade would stick with me through thick and thin although the spare parts are no longer available in the market or in my friend, a Muslim. I had it lost nine times already, unintentionally or deliberately, yet it kept on coming back to me so very often, for the reason that no one’s interested to take it with him.

Like the Scriptures which is the oldest book in the world, far older than anything a man had written since he mentioned his very first word. It outlives its writers but the theme, principle and wisdom thereof—as current as the issues of today—are in one Book where they did hoard.

It’s the same Scriptures that thousands of years ago were admonished by Joshua to be meditated upon day and night by all of the Israelites (Joshua 1:8). It’s the same Scriptures that were referred likewise by no less than the Christ to be searched and studied by all the Jews and non-Jews alike:

“Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me,” as in John 5:39 Jesus simply put. Like what Paul said, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).

Doing so only makes a man’s faith firm and the believer wise. As to say it like Rick Blaine, and we’ll always have paradise.

CHANGES IN MY LIFE

(July 12, 2012 at 9:11am)

Once more, it can now be told, I am inevitably getting old.

Exhibit A, my wobbly knee.

I had another big scare in my life one afternoon when the Doctors-bound Leganes jeepney I was riding in had to cross the UP Flyover-Infante junction. I was at the front seat hoping the jeepney would be stopped upon approaching the highway crossing by the assigned traffic aide, but he made a sign instead for my jeepney to proceed, pumping his fist up and down, which meant to cross at full speed ahead.

A few years back, I could jump out with no sweat from a running vehicle at minimum speed, which act a man in the street called “haybol,” thus right in that instant, I remembered the stunt, moved out my upper-half body from the jeepney as I studied how to jump through memory recall.

And when my mind yelled “Action,” I quickly jumped out of it for once as on the running pavement I took a glance. I had a sheepish smile of victory after I heard my own shoes sounded “taka-tak-tak-tak” on the asphalt as if I just did a perfect tap dance.

I may have made it but there was a price to pay. My feet went numb thereafter and it hurt my knee.

Exhibit B, my eyes which are now gloomy.

I honestly believed then I’d have my first reading glasses when I’m sixty, but like other mortals I’ve had it just barely past forty. It’s precisely so hard once your eyes depend on something else just to regain twenty-twenty. It’s truly a big deal if you’d mistaken something because your eyes would fail. It could cost you the truth, or worse, even your life itself as well.

Just like a boy who was initially intrigued by a poster inside an optical clinic he visited which poster as he read said, “God is nowhere.” He told the optometrist about it as he wondered if the latter was an atheist, and the man adjusted the boy’s goggles until he correctly read the words as they should be: “God is Now Here.”

Like a blurred vision of that boy and his own sunglasses, just a little readjustment of heart and sight in this life is what we only need.