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.