Eliot, Encountered Anew

I never sought out T.S. Eliot. Jodie Foster brought Eliot to me. The actress gave an interview for her movie, Contact, and narrated how she was moved by her encounter of Eliot in Harvard, quoting:

…what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed

After that, I sought TS Eliot.

Yesterday, I was walking back to our flat on Stanford Road from High Street Kensington when I came across this T.S. Eliot commemorative plaque:

How wonderful, I thought! It seems that the path I have trod the past few days was a well-worn path, recalling warm memories of life as an English literature teacher. I took a picture of the plaque and was about to move on, when a voice to the side gently inquired, “Are you a fan?” An old man with wispy white hair, sporting a worn tweed jacket that wore him, was taking groceries out of his car when he saw me snap a picture of the plaque.

I explained that yes, I was very much a fan. He then excitedly added, “There is a church not far from here where Eliot served as warden for more than twenty years. Would you like to visit it? One could make many canny references to his work, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, after a visit to the parish.”

And just like that, I sought out Eliot again. The old man gave me excellent directions, easily unearthed from memory, I assume. I then found myself, through a series of small side streets, on Gloucester Road, one of the main arteries in this genteel part of London. I continued on for several hundred yards, and saw St. Stephen’s Parish Church, nestled at the corner of Gloucester Road and Southwell Gardens.

I remember how, when I was still teaching, I would often use some lines from T.S. Eliot’s Little Gidding to encourage my students to see all that they encounter with fresh, reflective eyes:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

I never sought out T.S. Eliot. But it seems that the elegant, erudite observations that Eliot made, which endure in the fond memories I have of life as a young educator, continue to seek me out.

London, Eyed

There is something about the lasting impermanence of our social media posts, and the limits to which we can embarrass ourselves on it, that appeals to the wastrel wanderer in me.

I remember when I first began to write. My mother gave me ruled red and blue pad paper. I first struggled to etch the letters out on paper, ever mindful of the need to make sure that these scribbles fit neatly within the three horizontal lines that sought to confine thought. In time, my struggles took a decidedly metaphysical turn. Instead of struggling to confine letters within lines, I began to worry about the smudges that obscured what I had written, an unfortunate side-effect of my being left-handed. I learned to adjust my cursive penmanship to reduce these shadowy strokes that trailed my carefully chosen words to something similar to the speed lines that visual artists use to connote motion, only to discover that my strokes forced me to put pressure on the little finger of my left hand, which resulted in the callouses that I wear proudly on my knuckles.

During this period (whose storied passage can be found, if only looks closely enough, in the calf-coloured callouses on the knuckles of my left hand) I wrote, either alone or in collaboration with my classmates and friends, poetry of varying degrees of mediocrity, short stories that remained mercifully short, the serialized fictional adventures of the Ateneo High School class that I belonged to (set in a fantasy world with a narratively convenient magic system and mechanized military technology, one of the first, and thankfully, largely unremembered attempts at steampunk genre writing) and later, another set of serialized fictional adventures, this time with my friends in the dormitory (set in almost exactly the same world, because the execution of the first series of adventures was so unrelentingly juvenile and awful, it resonated with the unrepentantly awful university students we were).

That was the very height of my creative writing career.

Now, I no longer labor to write on paper. Smudges are a thing of the past, and I occasionally chuckle when I recall how their existence used to bother me to no end. The reassurance brought about by the ability to type and tap with clinical precision, banishing my soul-searching irritation with smudges forever, is liberating.

But as I explore, once again, one of my favorite cities in the world, I feel the need to push pen to paper and happily smudge my way through snatches of sentences that make no sense, save for  the stories they evoke, and the callouses they have re-awoken.

In London, the wastrel wanderer has woken up. I hope that this is the worst thing that he will write this trip.

Photo Credit:

“London Eye, London Aquarium, and a Red Bus on Westminster Bridge” comes courtesy of Danny Howard.

What’s DAProblem?

At times, I am the worst possible pundit on social media. I may seem erudite, but prove myself ignorant. I may be swayed by my emotions. I tend to express myself through self-serving cultural references that only I enjoy. At the height of the World Cup Finals between Germany and Argentina, for example, I tweeted this:

#ARG needs a miracle! #PopeFrancis said that a beautiful homily must begin with the proclamation of salvation. A Messi-ah! #WorldCup

As I have already proven myself inept at conveying my own thoughts, allow me to share the thoughts of others on the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) before I attempt an explanation:

1. Professor Randy David suggests that far from experiencing a constitutional crisis because of DAP, we are in fact going through a welcome exchange of dissenting opinions reflective of most healthy democracies: “In a season of devastating typhoons, there is no need at this point to add to our people’s burden by floating dire scenarios of a constitutional crisis leading to political paralysis. To the contrary, our institutions appear to be functioning quite well. If we are dismayed by a supine Congress that seems to have been fattened and silenced by pork barrel funds, we should be gratified by a Supreme Court that seems to have recovered its voice as an independent trustee of state power.”
2. Noted political analyst Jose Ma. Montelibano opines that despite its best intentions, the Supreme Court needs to be taken to task for the lack of clarity in its ruling regarding the unconstitutionality of DAP: “Because a Supreme Court decision of far-reaching impact could not sustain its clarity to the end, and the end is where accountability, culpability and penalty can be determined, it throws something allegedly purely legal to the realm of politics and social media.”
3. Dean Tony La Vina, who was initially discomfited by “the tone and tenor of the speech” that President Aquino delivered last July 14, 2014, noted that in one respect, President Aquino had cause to be angry at the ruling: “These are the lines in the decision that seems to perversely flip the presumptions of good faith, regularity of performing official actions, and innocence into presumptions of bad faith, irregularity and guilt. This discourse on good faith and liability, found in the penultimate paragraphs of the DAP decision, is what we in the legal profession call obiter—it was not necessary for the decision, it is not needed for the resolution of the issues litigated, there are certainly no finding of facts about liability in the decision, and it is definitely not binding on any future court or proceeding.”
4. Dean La Vina goes on to suggest that: “All the decision does is enumerate acts prohibited by the  Constitution. In that sense, the Executive Department should welcome the decision as it provides clear guidance on how to move forward. The resolution on the Motion for Reconsideration might also be a good opportunity for the Supreme Court to make this clear.”

 

Why have so many people expressed such vitriol towards the positions that the Supreme Court and President Aquino have taken on the DAP? When I was taking up my studies in Film, a teacher demonstrated the power of the art form to shape perception through juxtaposition by a demonstration of the Kuleshov effect:

“Lev Kuleshov, a Soviet filmmaker, was among the first to dissect the effects of juxtaposition. Through his experiments and research, Kuleshov discovered that depending on how shots are assembled the audience will attach a specific meaning or emotion to it. In his experiment, Kuleshov cut an actor with shots of three different subjects: a hot plate of soup, a girl in a coffin, and a pretty woman lying in a couch. The footage of the actor was the same expressionless gaze. Yet the audience raved his performance, saying first he looked hungry, then sad, then lustful.”

To a certain extent, this accounts for the vociferously virulent reactions towards the personalities involved in the DAP issue. People need context in order to make sense of things, and if their previous experiences have led them to assume certain things about certain people, then it becomes very difficult to engage these people rationally.

With all due respect, and with all the credibility of one who once tweeted,

“I haven’t seen a #USA comeback like this since the Ducks buried Gunner Stahl & Team Iceland in the Junior Goodwill Games! #DucksFlyTogether”

let’s all take a deep breath and relax. Yes, some portions may be considered unconstitutional. No, you can’t just move money around like that. Yes, a state of war between the President and the Supreme Court would be just as wasteful as the War of the Five Kings, given that winter, in the person of the White Walkers marching inexorably towards the Wall, is truly coming. Now, where do we go from here?

P.S. I for one, would like to go back in time and spell Gunnar Stahl’s name correctly. Sadly, the immediacy of Twitter doesn’t lend itself to coherent thought, much less preserving my previously spotless spelling record in social media.

Don’t Look Back in Anger.

On July 8, 2010, Lebron James announced his intention to leave his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat through an ill-conceived, poorly executed, and excruciatingly painful television special dubbed The Decision. As a casual admirer of James, and a lifelong student of the game of basketball, I was disappointed, but not entirely surprised, by his decision to leave Cleveland. Lebron wanted to win, and he felt that he could not do it in Cleveland.

On June 22, 2012, Lebron James capped a transcendent playoff run with a triple-double (26 points, 11 rebounds, and 13 assists) to win his first NBA Championship. As a casual admirer of James, and a lifelong student of the game of basketball, I was elated, but not entirely surprised by the outcome. Lebron wanted to win, and he dragged an almost fatally flawed basketball team, built on the talents of three exceptional players and an almost uniformly unimpressive cast of dutiful role-players, to the very peak of competitive professional basketball.

But for Scott Raab, author of The Whore of Akron, none of what Lebron James did really mattered. Raab is a lifelong Cleveland sports fan and journalist who has dedicated his life towards rooting against Lebron James. When, earlier this year, the Miami Heat seemed to be well on its way to winning its first NBA championship, Raab opined that despite it all, he will continue to root against Lebron James:

“…Heat are the better team so far in these NBA Finals. Two more wins and they will be champions, and the Whore of Akron will have his ring. He will be gracious. He’ll be gracious and humble and generous of spirit, because it will come easy for him then. He’ll be riding high and full to bursting with a sense of hard-won triumph. What could be sweeter for a front-running, back-stabbing SOB like LeBron?

I’d much prefer seeing him handle disappointment and defeat with equal grace, of course. That would be a truer measure of the man — of any man. Including me.”

Raab’s anger might be justified. His anger might reflect an intense personal reality that he continues to bear, day after day. His anger might even have redemptive qualities, such as helping others understand deeper truths about themselves, the game of basketball, and the even bigger game of Life.

Yet, his anger also prevented him from enjoying what many lifelong basketball fans experienced earlier in the year: perhaps the finest individual playoff performance of the past decade.

It is interesting to note that many Catholics who lobby for the passage of the proposed Bill on Responsible Parenthood cannot help but express their anger and dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church.

This anger, in many instances, might be justified. This anger might be, for many Catholics, an intensely personal reality that they continue to bear daily. In fact, this anger might have redemptive effects, such as helping other people understand deeper truths about themselves, what it means to be truly pro-life, and what it means to be a person of faith in an increasingly faithless world.

Yet, we must ask ourselves. What does this anger allow us to see? Or, more tellingly, what does this anger prevent us from seeing?

To a certain extent, many Catholics have difficulty understanding the position of the Catholic Church on the proposed Bill on Responsible Parenthood because they prefer to counteract the “intolerance” of the Catholic Church by being “tolerant”. Unfortunately, these same, well-intentioned Catholics act that way because they have difficulty understanding the relationship between intolerance and broadmindedness.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once observed, “Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles, but never to persons. We must be tolerant to persons because they are human; we must be intolerant about principles because they are divine. We must be tolerant to the erring, because ignorance may have led them astray; but we must be intolerant to the error, because Truth is not our making, but God’s.”

We are oftentimes encouraged to “Hate the sin, and not the sinner.” Ironically, the wisdom of such an approach has been acknowledged by many agnostics, who reserve the right to “Hate the religion, and not the religious.”

Regardless of whether one is of a religious inclination, or whether one hews to a secular orientation, it makes sense. We tolerate people, because they are capable of growth. We are intolerant of principles, because the reasons by which we live our lives should reflect what life is really all about.

More than anything, it is this shared tolerance for people, and intolerance about the principles which govern human conduct, that offer the brightest hope for moving forward on the issue of responsible parenthood. As the bright young rebels of my happily misspent youth once observed in song, “Don’t look back in anger.” Let’s move forward in joy.

Anti-RH? Pro-RH? Pro-PH!

For my personal stand on this issue, kindly refer to:

Free to Choose!

Communication, Not Excommunication

#PH

I feel that we, as a nation, are on the cusp of greatness. If there is anything that the impassioned, transcendentally furious debate on House Bill 4244 has demonstrated to me it is this: if the Filipino people ever decide to act as one, there is little that we cannot achieve.

The remarkable thing in all this is how similar both the pro-RH and anti-RH proponents are. While they have approached the issue of Responsible Parenthood from different philosophical and perhaps ideological perspectives, they have both come to the same conclusion. The true issue is not about Responsible Parenthood. It is about acting responsibly.

Help Sendong Victims: Living on a Prayer!

My family and I celebrated a quiet Christmas with our loved ones. And unlike previous Christmases where my family’s joyful reflection on the miracle of our Savior’s birth was accompanied by a raucous revelry more appropriate to Rio de Janeiro’s famed Carnival, this year, it seemed that almost all of Metro Manila shared our family’s desire for peace and quiet.

For many of our brothers and sisters in Cagayan de Oro, Iligan and Bukidnon, Christmas came and went in a wave of tears. Due to the wrath of Typhoon Sendong, many good friends in Cagayan de Oro spent Christmas on the streets. In place of the traditional noche buena meal, which is normally an occasion to test the limits of gastronomic endurance, they feasted instead on the simple generosity and tireless kindnesses of friends both old and new.

A Root Canal for President Noynoy?

My son, Juan, filling in for papa today.

I came in for a cleaning. I left with a root canal. And that’s why I’m smiling.

When I entered the Dr. Aileen J. Ansaldo’s dental clinic, I was feeling rather good about myself. Whereas most of my friends actively avoided trips to the dentist, I actually looked forward to them. In retrospect, these dental appointments were less about healthy teeth and more about my unhealthy sense of self-worth. In a very real way, I thought that the relatively excellent condition of my teeth, which manifests beautifully into the incandescent wonder that is my smile, was incontrovertible proof that indeed, “God loves me!” and that “I’m special!”

As the gap where my second lower bi-cuspid attests, I was wrong. Two years of attentive flossing could not overcome three decades worth of improper dental hygiene. Worse, because the fracture in my second lower bi-cuspid was masked by an ill-advised filling, the problem had deteriorated rapidly, and in relative anonymity. I would have lost more than a tooth.

Recently, much was made about how the current administration treated the travel request of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, in the end, argued that national interest should take precedence over individual constitutional rights.

I won’t even bother to discuss the ramifications of upholding national interest to the detriment of our constitutional rights. Teddy Boy Locsin has a wonderfully erudite entry on that in his Teditorial. But I would like to suggest a course of action for President Noynoy Aquino.

Why not have a root canal?

One of the reasons why I ended up voting for then presidential candidate Noynoy Aquino was because I agreed that “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.” I believe that President Noynoy Aquino is sincere about wanting to stamp out corruption. I believe that President Noynoy Aquino is sincere about holding people accountable for past actions. But I also believe that President Noynoy Aquino is sincerely misled, perhaps by a passionate moral outrage that, unhindered by an even fiercer compassion for the redemptive qualities of justice founded in truth, was all too quickly fanned into an ill-advised foray into the morass that is retribution.

I don’t know. I may be mistaken. I am not privy to the workings of power, or what really happens in the hallowed halls of Malacanan. But I can’t help reflect on what I had, inadvertently, inflicted on myself today. I came in for a cleaning. I left with a root canal. And now, I’m smiling.

The Hand of God?

He's fine now, thank you!

Early this morning, we slammed the car door on Manuel’s hand. My son’s eyes grew wide. And, as surprise quickly gave way to pain, he let out a howl that shook the car from end to end.

Recalling what little I knew of first aid, I quickly asked our helpers to get some ice to soothe our little boy’s pain and reduce the swelling of his hand. To my astonishment, we had no ice at home. I asked our helpers to ask our neighbors for ice. Alas, the widespread use of water coolers (at least in our little corner of Pasig City) seems to have made cubed ice obsolete.

My first reaction was one of despair. My health card had just expired last week, and I had no money, or access to any money, to rush my son to the doctor. The sheer ridiculousness of the situation threatened to overwhelm me. My wife and I have always tried to live simply. We got the health card precisely because we wanted to be prepared for any medical emergency. We decided that I should not use a credit card because we wanted to be prudent in the use of whatever money we have. And now, as my son bravely whimpered through the pain, I could not see any way to help him.

But my initial despair, much like my son’s reaction to the car door that hurled itself with alacrity at his hand, quickly gave way to the sort of joyful hope that characterizes not only the Christmas season, but the celebration of the Eucharist at Mass. We chipped away at the ice that lined our freezer. As we were looking for ice, we stumbled upon the Nexcare reusable cold and hot first aid pack that we thought we lost sometime ago. And my lovely wife Tina put a waterproof Lightning McQueen bandage on Manuel’s hand to commend him for his courage.

What could have been a sad, painful encounter with a car door for Manuel turned into a happy, gentle reminder about the need for vigilance when entering or leaving the car. It was also a gentle reminder for Manuel’s dad, who couldn’t imagine dealing with the situation with as much grace and good cheer as his son. People say when God closes a door, He also opens a window. In our case, God slammed the door. But only because He opened a window into what really matters: to wait in hope, act in faith, and to bear with love.

Let’s chalk this up as a win. My family and I have a great day ahead of us!

Alpha: Back to FUNdamentals!

Dr. Benie A. Sy, Angelo Rodriguez and the Alpha, Tukod Network volunteers.

When I switched from using a PC to using a Mac, I was an insufferable Mac evangelist. I would begin my “conversations” with my friends by making snarky remarks about Windows-based PCs:

“Should it really take a laptop five minutes to use whenever you turn it on?”
“Wouldn’t it be great to just use your laptop without worrying about viruses?”

And I would often end with the self-righteous observation that “Windows is like the Galactic Empire. The Mac OS is like the rebel alliance.”

My early days as a Mac evangelist have long been tempered by three realizations. First, I suspect that George Lucas intends to spend the rest of his life ruthlessly, callously and joylessly expunging everything that was transcendental and amazing about the original trilogy, Star Wars: A New Hope. Second, if there is any multinational corporation that has assumed the dimensions of the Galactic Empire, it is Apple. Third, I probably turned off many people entirely from trying out what was once the coolest, most intuitive and most dynamic OS on the planet simply because I was insufferably negative and unbearably preachy.

Preachers often do well only with those who are already inclined to believe. When I would talk with some of my friends about the virtues of using the Mac, many of my friends who were involved in graphics design or web development would wholeheartedly agree with every statement that came out of my mouth as if it bore the stentorian sanctity of Gospel truth. Of course, these people would oftentimes already be using a Mac.

Like many people who have a renewed relationship with Jesus Christ, when I first came to revisit my faith, I was insufferably negative. I realize now what a douche I must have been. If you have to tear something down to feel good about yourself, then there’s not much good there, period.

I was also unbearably preachy. What I failed to realize then was that many Filipinos, much like myself, have been “sermonized” into submission. We refuse to explore our faith because we never felt that we could. 

This is why it is important to celebrate the vision and the courage of clergymen such as Archbishop Antonio J. Ledesma. He knows that by and large, many Filipinos’ hearts are in the right place. However, due to the massive responsibilities heaped upon the Catholic clergy, the Church hasn’t had much success engaging the ordinary churchgoer as fully as the Church wants to. Thus, the Alpha Course.

The Alpha Course is a short series of brief talks, long discussions, and satisfying meals where we engage people to explore the dimensions of their faith in Christ. And while most traditional evangelization relies heavily on a charismatic presence to bring people to a personal relationship with Christ, there are no such onerous start-up requirements in the Alpha Course. All you need is a humble heart, a generous spirit, and a killer pasta sauce. Well, perhaps not the pasta sauce.

Dr. Benie A. Sy and his crack team of Alpha volunteers (with special thanks to the tireless and tirelessly enthusiastic Tukod Network volunteers) are currently running an Alpha Course every Thursday in Misamis Oriental General Comprehensive High School.  One hundred and fifteen students (115), from sections Dalton and Lewis, have begun exploring their faith. And if the videos they have been posting on Facebook are any indication, then they are certainly having a lot of FUN exploring the FUNdamentals of their faith. 

His Excellency, Most Reverend Archbishop Antonio J. Ledesma, has endorsed the Alpha Course for use in the 45 parishes of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro. Why? Because evangelists shouldn’t preach. We should engage. Exploring the big questions in life should be FUNdamental.

Related articles

• Abp. Ledesma pushes for culture of peace in media (bukidnonews.wordpress.com)

A Lion Among Lannisters.

Where do good stories come from? Some of the best stories are rooted in ideas. One could argue that the enduring appeal of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy stems from his sustained, sublime execution of what one commentator has called “theology set to music“, and what yours truly opines is “music set to theology”.  But in our modern age, perhaps as a reaction to the increasingly complex and unrewarding fast-paced lives that we lead, we find that a surprising number of good stories are rooted in character. And in the richly imagined universe of Game of Thrones, there are few characters more interesting than Tyrion Lannister.

Many viewers of the critically acclaimed series remember Tyrion Lannister for his outrageous pronouncements, witty one-liners, and his seemingly boundless capacity for depravity. But to reduce the dwarf son of one of the richest and most powerful families in the fictional kingdom of Westeros to a walking snark machine is to overlook one of the most finely wrought characters in fantasy.

It is true. Tyrion is outrageous. 

Tyrion is witty. 

Tyrion is depraved.

But Tyrion is also the only Lannister you would root for. He is kind to young Jon Snow. He slaps his nephew Joffrey when Joffrey refuses to offer his sympathies to the plight of the now-crippled Brandon Stark. He also seems to be (for now) the only Lannister who agonizes about the state of his soul. 

Tyrion once said, “I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples, bastards and broken things.” So do I. And, like many people who watch this series, I’ll be rooting for Tyrion. 

Photo Credits:

Picture of Tyrion Lannister comes courtesy of HBO.

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• ‘Game Of Thrones’ And Peter Dinklage Earn Emmy Nominations (moviesblog.mtv.com)
• The Madness of Mercy, on Game of Thrones [Video] (io9.com)