the space in between

Easter: When peace & justice embrace

At daybreak I heard something that came somewhat like an epiphany.

There in the midst of sunbeams breaking amidst the darkness, the speaker uttered: “shalom”.

Hebrews defined Shalom as a word meaning peace, completeness, and welfare. Its content bears more than language itself can contain in fact it can be understood as the whole essence of the transcendent message of the Christian scriptures, which means more than a state of mind, of being or of affairs.

I just finished watching the movie One Day, and it somehow led me into writing this, because the movie's theme of people defined and coming to terms with the nature of love and life itself as being ushered by a fateful day seems fitting for this occasion.

Some 2000 years ago everything came to a halt. All frozen: heaven and hell; past, present and future; life and death itself--bound together in a dreadful hill to witness the outstretched arms of one who gave up the ghost and died the tragic death of a martyr for a noble cause.

There in that hill time froze and all came into pieces. It might be said that it was serendipity unrealized. A divine question mark in humanity’s history of tragic comedy.

More than a week ago Earth First! Philippines, raised questions about World Wide Fund for Nature Philippines’ (WWF) affiliation with McDonalds, Aboitiz Power and their usage of tarpaulins in their materials on their Facebook page. Being an activist that values the capability of social media as a valid avenue of facilitating informed discourse I was taken aback by the response that the Facebook Page admin did. They deleted the comment.

Seeing that happen comes as a shock for me and when I tried asking about it all I got is a comment from another person affiliated with WWF saying that its because they’re about being positive and not negative. The answer gave me the impression of how ill-informed they are at the basics of social interaction within social media.

Sometime during the early 1990s Richard Linklater, made a movie entitled Before Sunrise, that told this story about an American named Jesse and a French girl named Céline, who meet on a train and disembark in Vienna, where they spend the night walking around the city and over the course of one night, and lead to their revealing more about themselves than they normally would, fall in love and make love and the following day vowed to meet again after six months. The film’s ending leaves audience to decide for themselves whether Jesse and Céline will actually meet again in six months –a fine test of a person’s perception of romantic love.

I think this film is worth reviewing since beyond concepts of romance and youthful idealized depictions of love the movie Before Sunset speaks a great deal about the anxieties that I feel are also facing a lot of us who have been quickened by the reality that what is ‘ideal’ and ‘perfect’ are illusive concepts that we may never really be realized in this life. I would like to think that this perhaps is what makes the movie Before Sunset quite remarkable because it strips us of this romantic illusion of relationships that pop culture constantly bombards us with in the media. It shows relationships as complex interactions of people, circumstances and decisions that we have to live with.

A classroom conversation is what got me into browsing at notes that I wrote last semester after viewing an excerpt from Akira Kurosawa’s cinematic depiction of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot.

The conversation that I had with my classmate was about presenting a distinctive portrait of the Christian doctrine of salvation, which puts particular consideration to the existential facet of conversion and the goal of wholeness which sums up the kind of life that was presented and made possible by Jesus Christ. Here I find our exercise on the character of Kinji Kameda, the Idiot in Kurosawa’s movie quite interesting.

2000 years ago there were young lovers.

They were minding their own business, when in the mediocrity of their lives something happened:

It arrived...unexpectedly...

It was strange, and altogether life changing, but nevertheless they looked at it as a gift from the Divine.

It was welcomed with meaning, uncertainty and faith.

Little did they know that altogether this something that happened, this gift, this baby would in turn become this Palestinian Jew who would in both words and actions announce that the Kingdom of God has arrived.

This man would reveal God to us as the one whom we can call "Father". Ultimately this something would be 'God with us' and in turn would "give himself for us" because he loves us.

This something came unexpectedly and there's a lesson to be learned in welcoming unexpected because it is in the unexpected that the obvious is seen and felt. It is there that God works and there that God meets us in love.

Gloria in excelsis deo.

Christmas: A rant

Let me say it clear: I do not want to abolish Christmas; I am just frustrated with the beast that it has become in recent years.

I hate the way Christmas turns people into proactive gift recipients who expect people to give them presents. Newsflash, the idea of a gift is that it is given because those who want to 'give' so freely chosen to render gifts it cannot be the other way around.

I hate the way taxi drivers see it as a license to overcharge, choose passengers whine and make you feel that you should give them an extra on top of their meter rate.

How long, how long, will I slide into the abyss that is myself?

God knows how much I try to make sense of this life by putting it in a perspective that is beyond me. But every time I do so I miserably fail. It must be a matter of will power, something that I sadly do not have an ample supply of. For someone who holds fast to a truth claim like faith in a loving God, I am one who always treads that thin line between belief and unbelief. In faith I wrestle with doubt. In faith I fall prey to the apparent certainty of my understanding. In faith struggle to climb out of the pitch-dark well that is myself...

Learning to 'mind the gap'

A couple of weeks ago I was blessed to have been invited to teach a Sunday School class on New Testament history and in the process of preparing the material I was constantly confronted with the nagging question of why would we need spend time and energy bridging the historical and cultural gaps between the modern world and the world of the New Testament era?

As of now I am still struggling with this question and below are some insights that I shared while giving the introduction to the lesson, to which I think the phrase: ‘mind the gap’ fittingly exemplifies.