discharge

The cold air that whiffs of isopropyl alcohol, in hospitals function as salient reminders that we are heirs to humanity’s perpetual struggle to ponder the metaphysical. It is the place where time stands still in deafening silence reminding us of our frail mortality that is rendered to meet its terminus in a veiled yet appointed deadline that we will only know once we are there.

This was the thought that he had in mind as he reclined from the bench and felt the cold steel of the bench’s armrest rub against his dry skin in this ungodly hour at the hospital where nothing but the symphony of pulsating instruments fail to lull him into slumber.

It was dark and the atmosphere was despondent due to the fact that earlier he had heard a song from the Norwegian band, Fra Lippo Lippi, to which the line: "Life it seems, sleeps away just like any dream," resonates, unceasingly like a siren who's screeching sound seems untouched by the doppler effect.

It was hours of dragging and eager anticipation in the dark, cold and desolate aisles of the hospital when suddenly beams of light pierce and make its presence felt in the darkness of the room where he lay confined with uncertainty.

It was there after long hours of restless waiting that he heard what could have been music in the words of the doctor who uttered: "you are fine, all will be well its time to ask your companion to process the discharge papers, you’re going home."

digital metamorphosis (a short story)

Makati City. 8:15 AM

The train stops and the door slides open.

Suddenly the empty MRT station bursts into a sea of people rushing amidst the morning rush hour in Ayala Avenue.

The sight has been the norm for Simon, whose brisk walk suddenly turns into strides as he hurries off to his 8:30 meeting.

Ironically, the chorus: "♩I’ve been working for the rat race…♫" echoes in the background as Simon, listens to The Specials’ discography in his IPhone, which was fresh-off his Torrent library.

After half a kilometer and 5 flights of stairs, barely catching his breath, he arrives to find his office complex, completely shut down.

All Things New

"...behold I make all things new..." Rev. 21:5

In an age of unfathomable pain and suffering; at a time of inconceivable disparity between rich and poor; amidst wars and rampant environmental destruction; does the promise of Jesus’ Easter, resurrection still make sense today?

...behold I make all things new...

This is the promise of the ultimate consummation of all things to glory in Christ, whose resurrection assures us that indeed the world can and will change because the one whom God brought upon this earth has dared to challenge its sinful status quo to the point of costing his life has triumph over the greatest potency of sin –death.

...behold I make all things new...

The empty grave of Jesus, tells us that indeed all things are becoming new and that death doesn’t have the final say in the struggle for a better world. It tells us that Christ’s resurrection has turned the tide against the power of sin and death.

last day: re-orienting our loyalties

Today ends the retreat with a personal question: “What does Greenpeace Southeast Asia mean to you?”

To me Greenpeace Southeast Asia is everyone who has made a commitment to act upon the invitations we’ve offered them to act upon the issues that we’re working on. They are our volunteers, donors, supporters, partner organizations. Communities, Facebook fans, Twitter followers and email subscribers. They are the ones who are not here, but have done so much more (to the point of risking life, limb and liberty) than those of us who have become privileged with the opportunity of becoming a paid staff of the organization.

As the session ended I went public in committing myself to everyone there that I would do my best to stay true in being on the side of those who’ve given more than many of us has ever done in our professional engagement with Greenpeace.

Here’s to the many who are not paid.

Integration: embracing the complexity of ‘why’

Emotionally storytelling invites one to feel empathy, that is to situate ourselves in the shoes of another person. We cannot feel for another if we do not know where the other is coming from.

This is perhaps one of the most important challenges that integration faces if we are dead serious on struggling to become part of the movement to change the world, by challenging the stories that we have been led to believe by the status quo, that benefits from the present state of things.

That is why I guess activists should likewise invest in their beliefs once again, because it is in investing in the core of what drives us that we begin to realize the need to organize not only our movement but more importantly to organize a movement of leaders.

storytelling: we can do no less

Yesterday, we had an interesting time giving a workshop on organizing and mobilizing to campaign staff in our office and one of the prominent points that we discovered there is that as a campaigning organization that seeks to replicate ourselves in the people that we hope to mobilize for the environmental problems that we are addressing –we need to get better at storytelling.

In the session all the workshop facilitators tried to integrate this early on by sharing our first and/or most memorable experience of becoming involved in a campaign. There I tried to recall the campaigning work that I became involved with as a student activist and I remembered the nationwide walkout for the abolition of the mandatory Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program in Philippine universities. Under the program all male college are required to receive basic military training and officer training for their chosen branch of service, through the ROTC unit at the college or university, there students become subject to four semesters of drills and lectures on military tactics as part of the curriculum which is intended to basic training for college students to become prepared in the event of war where they would be activated as reserve officers in whichever branch of military their university assigned them to.

thesis+antithesis=synthesis

Lately I've been finding myself in conversations about Hegelian dialectic, which basically explains why I'm posting the stuff below here.

The best place to start in understanding the axiom: “thesis+antithesis=synthesis” is to establish dialectics as a method for resolving disagreements by using a dialogue between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject, who wish to establish the truth of the matte, with reasoned arguments.

Hegel explains his dialectical method in a threefold manner as comprising three stages: a thesis, giving rise to its reaction, an antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis, and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis.

The very essence of Hegel’s method is based on trying to create a conceptual framework in terms of which both the past and future could be philosophically understood.

Show. Don’t Tell.

" …and the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" – John 1:14

The mystery of the incarnation is not all about the omni-attributes of God being enshrined in the flesh of Christ nor is it in the hypostatic unity of spirit and matter[1].

It is also in the mystery of God revealing himself in one who is co-ordinate in living out the values that he puts in the realm of the material.

concussions that demand closure

Hell no we wont go…

A reflection on the inconsistency of hell with the ethical call of discipleship

The talk of hell and eternal damnation finds common place in all expressions of the Christian faith. It has been said that one goes to hell because God’s requirement of holiness is something that would never be realized by sinful humanity, hence the need for someone to come in our place to save us from the wrath of God’s consuming holiness.

I have no disagreement with such explanation.

Experience, scripture and the study of human history testifies to that. In fact, it is my study of history that I find significance in the redeeming work of Christ that I believe humanity finds salvation from its present predicament, ultimately reconciling us from our present alienation from God.

However, I find the fire and brimstone rhetoric of preachers that tries to paint a vivid picture of Jonathan Edwards’ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, every Sunday or every available occasion to guilt us enough to have the fearful motivation to step forward for the alter call, to raise our hands amidst the closed eyes and bowed heads of the congregation or to repeat after the pastor’s rendition of the Sinner’s Prayer.