Someday I’m Going to Die
I woke up to thoughts of the end. The end of stories, the end of wonderful things, the end of life, it’s all going to end some day.
Someday I am going to die, and I’m grateful to God for His promises, that there is no need to fear death.
For now, I want to experience the richness of this part of my life, and it truly is just a small part of the eternity we live in.
I realized that the good life has very little to do with the number of days, and more to do with the passion within each day.
It has less to do with how much you have, and more to do with how much you gave.
It has less to do with the comforts you enjoyed, and more to do with the comfort you extended.
It’s not about becoming better than others, not even about bettering one’s self, rather, it is more about making others better.
It’s not so much what we have experienced, but more about the people we shared the moments with.
It’s not so much about finding acceptance, but more about accepting what you’ve found.
It’s not about garnering respect, but learning to be awed by respectable things.
It’s not about the joy of being acknowledged, but about acknowledging the joy of just being.
It’s not about being entertained or caught in euphoria, but about discovering the rapture of what is truly beautiful.
Somewhere, at some point, we lost it, when we decided it was better to love living than to live loving.
Let’s Make This Last
Saw this among my old videos. It’s the original version of a song I wrote and played for my brother’s wedding entitled Let’s Make Our Last.
Lyrics:
I.
I’m recounting
How it all began
One smile,
One okay,
One laugh,
Another day
Another everyday day with you
Another everyday day with you
Chorus 1.
I was hoping
Somehow knowing
It was you
I was soaring
Completely falling
Fast for you
Still many things unplanned
But come take my hand
The future’s vast
Let’s make our love last
II.
Has it sunk yet?
Has it sunk at all?
The thought,
Of you,
Of us,
Us two
Finding the best thing that there is
We’ve found the best thing that there is
Chorus 2.
I was wondering
Was I dreaming
But it’s true
Life’s unfolding
I’ll be growing
Old with you
Still many things unplanned
But come take my hand
The future’s vast
Let’s make our love last
Bridge:
I
Neve thought
I needed someone
Was fine on my own
‘Til you
Came along
And proved me
So wrong
Now I’m captured
Enraptured
Captured
Enraptured
Captured since you answered
Repeat Chorus 2.
I was wondering
Was I dreaming
But it’s true
Life’s unfolding
I’ll be growing
Old with you
Still many things unplanned
But come take my hand
The future’s vast
Let’s make our love last
Love Means…
“To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.”
- G.K. Chesterton
Mother’s Day Lesson: Make the Sacrifice
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
- Mother Mary
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
- John 15:13
This is a long post. It’s Mother’s Day, and I think it deserves a lot of attention.
In my last post, I shared about my conversation with Carlos Antonio and how he recounted his marriage talk with his 6-year old girl, Bella. You may read it here: Walk Me Down. This is sort of a part-2 post but switching gears for Mother’s Day because during our conversation, I started teasing Carlos that Bella got her incredible emotions and sweetness from him. For those of you who don’t know Carlos, he is a very gentle, kind, very welcoming, understanding, tactful, patient, forgiving, very thoughtful, sweet, and emotional guy, which basically means he’s everything girls complain that their man is not, and which also means, I have a looong way to go, a looong way to go.
Anyway, back to Carlos.
The interesting thing about his friendly personality and approach to life, is that his whole family is like that. I was classmates with his sister, Janelle and have met his brother, Gerard, and they’re all incredibly nice people. So I told Carlos, with admittedly some envy, “You’re all so nice. You, Gerard, Janelle, you’re all such amazingly sweet people, and now your kids are super sweet too. Even your mom…”
And that’s when I realized, the fruit truly does not fall far from the tree. They were nice, incredibly nice, because their mother, Tita Ditas, had modeled that lifestyle to them. From what I remember of Tita Ditas, since I haven’t seen her in a long time, she is very prayerful, always full of joy, loves people, loves to serve, and hardly ever negative. She reminds me of another great mother I admire, Doris Albornoz, who raised one of my childhood best friends, Zach.
Before leaving for the US a few weeks ago, I spent some time with Zach, his wife, Rinka, and their new baby, Malaya, who I happen to be a godfather to. We talked about how our lives have changed from when we were kids, how we now have to take responsibility for the outcomes of our lives, and in his case, his family. I was looking at their new baby, their new loft, and I was incredibly happy for my friend. Driving back, I remembered how his mother, Tita Doris, would drive him to school in a really old car, how she would wait for him and his sister, and how she was also able to help, along with my mom, in Sunday School back in the 1990s, how she met with other women and encouraged them, and how she managed to be in every wake and every funeral to comfort people. Tita Doris remembers everyone’s birthday, and come to think of it, Zach does too. On the outside, Zach looks like he crushes people to a pulp for a living, but when you see him with his family and hear about his insights, you know that this person has depth. I credit that to the perseverance and prayerfulness of his mom.
Sacrifice
When I think about Carlos and Zach, and how they’ve become deep responsible adults who not only take care of their families, but also play a part in their community, I think about the mothers who raised them.
See, I haven’t mentioned that both Tita Ditas and Tita Doris are single mothers. For whatever reason, they found themselves in a situation that wasn’t ideal, and even more, a situation that was very difficult. But they overcame their circumstance with faith, with hope, and, the greatest of all, love.
They didn’t rely on a man, their men had let them down. They didn’t rely on the money, they couldn’t because they didn’t have it. They didn’t rely on their superior strategy, there is none with kids. There was no assurance that their hard work would pay off, I remember Zach and I getting into all sorts of trouble as young men. They overcame by their faith in God, they held on to their hope for their families, and they showed their love through their sacrifice.
I remember my own mom and the sacrifices she made to raise my brothers and I. What a lot of people don’t know is that before we were born, my mom had a copyrighting business. She was brilliant, incredibly creative and a UP scholar. She didn’t become a full-time mom because she couldn’t get another gig. She just knew that she wanted to be with her kids, and we were more than a handful. Yesterday, while at the supermarket with my mom, I remembered how I once crashed the cart through an exhibit of stacked Nescafe bottles. That must have been incredibly embarrassing for her. She also used to tell me of when she used to cry every night because of my stubbornness and temper. I’m not going to mention our adult stubbornness but there’s a lot of that too.
But the point of all of this is one word: sacrifice.
People don’t like that word today. That word conjures images of altars, dead animals, and a lot of suffering. People today have a romanticized view of life. They see a few celebrities living it up and they think that’s what life should be like. We see that in parenting as well. Who doesn’t want to become a glamour parent who looks hot, has money, wears the right things, and gets all the compliments? While there’s nothing wrong with any of these things, none of these have anything to do with being a great parent. If you have these, great. If you don’t, it’s just as great. What’s important is that we put our children first, by that I mean we put their well-being, their character formation, their education and development before our own needs and desires.
That’s tough! Which is also why they should be honored. But honor them for the right reasons don’t glamorize them.
When I look at examples of great mothers, they’re usually under-appreciated, but fulfilled. They understand the joys of sacrifice because they see it very differently from people like me who can be more selfish.
Sacrifice is not weakness. it takes more strength to say give me your load. It’s much easier to delegate child-raising to others.
It’s not stupidity, it takes wisdom to know that someday, all the bags, all the pampering, all the parties, all the society photos, all the vacations, all the workouts and fat lost, all the compliments in the world, will not come close to the fulfillment of building a family that loves each other. It’s a longer term investment, and it is difficult, but as any value-investor will tell you, you have to give it time.
All the successful people I know, in any field, made sacrifices to get to where they are. It makes complete sense to make the biggest sacrifices for the people we love most.
Reward
A few years ago, while attending Zach’s wedding, I remember him taking the microphone and begin honoring his mom. I had never heard him talk that way about her before, but on that day, the day his mom was giving him away, Zach went on and on about just how much he loved his mom and was grateful to her for all the sacrifices. All along, even during the times that seemed like he didn’t care, he was seeing his mom’s sacrifice and it was making its mark. I remember the way Tita Doris looked, and I don’t think she was wishing she spent more time at the salon or at the mall. I don’t think she regretted missing out on parties or never owning a Birkin. I don’t think she was complaining about not having more facials or a nicer house.
No. Not even close.
She was radiating. She had made the right investment. She knew that there’s only 24 hours in a day, she had to devote as much as she could to her family. She knew that there’s only so much energy, so she invested it in pickups and service. She knew there was a window of opportunity that closes little by little as a child grows, so she prioritized. And at that moment, listening to Zach, we were all witnesses to the return on her investment : his love in loads. She was investing wisely all along.
My mom never became a self-made woman. She never really had her own money, and instead relied on my dad’s income which wasn’t always enough. She traded her career in writing to wipe asses and teach her sons not to say, “Son of a Bi***”. (That really must have hurt on hindsight.) I’m not too sure if my mom’s investment has paid off for her. I look at my own life and the patchwork of good, bad, and ugly decisions and wonder how things are going to work out. But someday, I know, people will call her blessed because there’s love, and that’s what makes anything worth it.
Don’t overestimate the glamour. It’s not worth it.
Don’t underestimate the grind. It’s a lot of work.
Make the sacrifices. It will pay off.
Reap the love. It’s worth it.
Love Is As Love Does
I’ve been using the jetlag from my recent trip to accustom myself to new sleeping habits. I’m now in bed around 10-10:30pm and up by 5am. Since I’m not used to sleeping so much I’ve been finding myself up at 12am, going back to bed, then up again at 3, then back, or, like today, I just stayed up and read.
While reading earlier I came across a refreshing take on love by author Sherryl Paul. It’s not original. It is basically what the Bible teaches us love to be in 1 Corinthians 13, but it’s refreshing to read a more unselfish picture of love than the ones we are used to receiving.
She talks about the “delusion of love” propagated by mainstream media and how we’re chasing a feeling that is bound to fade. Instead she says:
“Love is action. Love is tolerance. Love is learning your partner’s love language and then expressing love in a way that he can receive. Love is giving. Love is receiving. Love is plodding through the slow eddies of a relationship without jumping ship into another’s churning rapids. Love is recognizing that it’s not your partner’s job to make you feel alive, fulfilled, or complete; that’s your job.”
She then follows this up with a classic from The Road Less Traveled:
“Love is as love does. Love is an act of will — namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love. By stating that it is when a couple falls out of love that they may begin to really love I am also implying that real love does not have its roots in a feeling of love. To the contrary, real love often occurs in a context in which the feeling of love is lacking, when we act lovingly despite the fact that we don’t feel loving.”
I was hit by the reminder that true love is most real when it is given despite the lack of romantic feeling and even despite pain. She has more to say on love and the need for a shift in our thinking. You can read it for yourself in the link I included above. I do want to highlight what she says about choosing a mate: find someone with the most underrated quality of character.
Character. Let’s look that word up and discover what it means, that we may recognize it when it’s there and know when it’s not, that we may teach our children to pursue good character and not passing feelings. Even further, let us draw near to God and discover His character. He loves in word and deed, and His perfect love casteth out fear. (1 John 4:18)
Thoughts On Love
Love is most threatened in offense,
Most necessary in weakness,
Most powerfully displayed in forgiveness.
If You Want…
One of the questions people ask me quite often is “What is your type of woman?” I don’t know why anyone is interested. It’s not like I consider myself part of the proverbial “market”. But I guess we are like that. We like to make other people’s lives our business, even as areas of our own life need more attention.
I’ve had some time to think about my answer to this question that was initially triggered by questions on my formspring page, and then was spurred by recent events in my life and my dad’s continuous comments on how he wants grandchildren. As I typed thoughts on the plane ride to Tokyo, I remembered when my mom once told me to make a list of the kind of wife I wanted. I jokingly put things like “can cook”, “can clean the house well”, and “can change a flat tire”. Remembering that list, though funny, reveals the reality of the selfishness of my heart. Even as I was supposed to think about the wife I would love, I was really thinking more about me.
So I’m giving this question more time and will publish my personal thoughts on the topic as they come.
For starters I’d like to leave you with a paraphrased version of what Mark Driscoll, on one of his podcasts, said: “instead of dreaming up your ideal partner become that ideal partner”.
So here’s the reminder for us:
If you want to be loved unconditionally, love without conditions.
If you want to be trusted completely, entrust yourself completely.
If you want to be shown kindness, be kind to others.
If you want to be fought for, fight for something, or someone.
If you want to be generously blessed, bless others generously.
If you want to be forgiven, forgive.
I Think About You
When I think about goodness
When I think about mercy
I think about You
When I think about power
When I think about grace
I think about You
I think about You
When the storms start to rage
I think about You
When the sun shines on my face
I think about You
Through dark and lonely evenings
I think about You
Because Your love fills this place
Remains of the Day
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
- 1 Corinthians 13:13 (now that’s a lucky verse!)
Drops In A Bucket
I received this question on formspring: Are you aware of the KONY 2012 movement?
A simple question that has led to a long answer. Haha! Here it is:
Yes. I saw the video and read a little about Kony the person. It’s a good sign. I think more people should get involved in social advocacies and serving others BUT I think this should be done responsively and strategically, not just emotionally and impulsively. What the Kony Movement shows is that people DO want to get involved in something bigger than themselves that helps others.
This is a good thing.
It’s a good thing we can practice every day of our lives by showing radical kindness to others, starting with our own families, friends, employees, and neighbors, and serving one another. If “likes”, Facebook and Twitter shares, and a moving video can create so much support for addressing an issue in a region of a continent most of us have never been to, how much larger will the impact be when actions of love are exhibited by us daily in our own homes and communities. It’s easy to “like” and share a video. It’s hard to go to Smokey Mountain or Payatas and tangibly show love to these people daily. It’s even harder to forgive and serve our own families daily. It’s easier to say “I am against armies of children” than it is to say “Yes dad, yes mom, I’ll serve.” I’ve seen this in my own life very often. I’ll excitedly go to a community to help build homes but be hassled and complain about having to pick up my parents at the airport.
“Um… David, children killing each other with guns is way more serious than giving your parents a ride.”
You’re right. But what’s more serious an army of children or the child trafficking in our own country? I actually don’t know. Emotionally, I’ll say child trafficking is more serious but to the people in Central Africa, the fighting there is more serious. The point is, we really can’t tell what’s more serious.
But this we know: At the heart of society’s issues is our personal selfishness. It’s the attitude that “I” am more important than others. That my feelings, thoughts, methods, interests, and needs are more important than those of others. If you read more about Kony and the LRA (his army), you’ll find that he actually thinks he’s doing the right thing and that they are a very religious group. They are so convinced in the superiority of their beliefs that they act superiorly over others – which includes killing others.
If we really want to serve society, we need to show the same passion and unity in facing the selfishness in our hearts, and we do that by putting those around us first, whether that means willing to skip massive economic gain to be a good father, or giving up “me time” for “you time” again and again, building someone’s home, buying someone groceries, babysitting for free, serving in church, serving at home, being inconvenienced by picking up the garbage of others, forgiving one another, saying sorry to one another, in short loving one another.
This is difficult. I have failed at this in every single day of my life so far. But I personally can feel an improvement, which, for me, happens when I am made aware of three things:
1. My own personal spiritual and moral poverty
2. God’s overwhelming love for me despite my poverty
3. That there is an overflow of love for me to share
I hope you don’t feel that I sent you a flood when you asked such a simple question. As I thought about your question, I realized there’s a deeper principle we can explore.
By the way I “liked” the video. It’s a drop in an amazingly huge bucket. Let’s start pouring the drops of our lives in the buckets of our own homes and the lives of the people we say we love.
Mystery
Why?
Why do You do things
the way that You do?
Why take me, broken as I am
to make me all brand new?
I don’t know…
I don’t know why
You would die
for me…
It’s a mystery
Why?
Why do You love those who hurt You
and make their dreams come true?
Why do you stay forever faithful
despite all the things I do?
I don’t know…
I don’t know why
You would die
for me…
It’s a mystery
My heart can’t contain
A love so high and wide
My mind cannot grasp
Your amazing grace
It’s all too grand for me
I’m too small to understand
So I bow in humble thanks
To the wonders of Your mystery
Love Through Attentiveness
I wrote this maybe 2 or 3 years ago. I wrote it while going through another of the seemingly never-ending challenges that come with running a business. There was probably not a day when I didn’t question whether I was in the right business. There was not a day when I didn’t question whether I was doing the right thing. I doubted my ideas. I doubted my decisions. I doubted myself. But I picked-up on a word while reading this nugget of wisdom:
Lazy hands make a man poor, but the hands of the diligent bring wealth. – Proverbs 10:4
That word was DILIGENCE.
No business, in fact no talent, no opportunity, no relationship, no artwork, or effort, nothing, can succeed to great heights without diligence. Diligence is “Persistent and hard-working effort in doing something” and to be diligent means to be someone “Showing persistent and hard-working effort in doing something”.
Today we understand the word diligence to mean hard work, but when you trace the etymology of the word diligence we hit the words diligentia and diligentem, which connotes attentiveness and carefulness, and another word “diligere” which means to value highly or to love.
Here we find an incredible definition for the word diligence: Love through attentiveness.
Little Of Me
Let only that little be left of me
whereby I may name thee my all.
Let only that little be left of my will
whereby I may feel thee on every side,
and come to thee in everything,
and offer to thee my love every moment.
Let only that little be left of me
whereby I may never hide thee.
Let only that little of my fetters be left
whereby I am bound with thy will,
and thy purpose is carried out in my life—and that is the fetter of thy love.
- Rabindranath Tagore
Love First
There is the great lesson of ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.
Every Other Way
Verse 1:
Is it strained, when I call you
Or do you think, that I might forget
Oh your love, is radiating
The farther away
I go
I go
Verse 2:
Do you count, on me now
And do you wait, up for me all night
I wish I could run, to you when you need me
You know I can’t be far
For long
For long
Chorus :
Heart don’t fail me now
Cause there is no time to waste
Don’t shut me out, we shouldn’t wait another day
I’ve searched for you, on my hearts high speed chase
Hear me out, may be the only chance to say
Hold me now
I’ve said it Every Other Way
Bridge :
These tears I’ve cried
More moments gone to waste
I’ve searched for you
I’ve said it Every Other Way
Chorus :
Heart don’t fail me now
Cause there is no time to waste
Don’t shut me out, we shouldn’t wait another day
I’ve searched for you, on my hearts high speed chase
Hear me out, may be the only chance to say
Hold me now
I’ve said it Every Other Way
Meditation
Hear my soul, that restless storm
Feel my heart, that beating drum
Oh that Your Spirit would visit
My silent loneliness
Speak to my soul, that needy child
Touch my heart, that hardened man
Oh that You will reside
In my emptiness
False Love / True Love
In false love your aim is to use the other person to fulfill your happiness. Your love is conditional: You give it only as long as the person is affirming you and meeting your needs. And it’s nonvulnerable: You hold back so that you can cut your losses if necessary.
But in true love, your aim is to spend yourself and use yourself for the happiness of the other, because your greatest joy is that person’s joy. Your love is unconditional: You give it regardless of whether your loved one is meeting your needs. And it’s radically vulnerable: You spend everything, hold nothing back, give it all away.
…nobody is actually capable of giving true love. We want it desperately but can’t give it…
… All our love is somewhat fake. How so? Because we need to be loved like we need air and water. We can’t live without love. That means there’s a certain mercenary quality to our relationships…
… What we need is someone to love us who doesn’t need us at all. Someone who loves us radically, unconditionally, and vulnerably. Someone who loves us just for our sake. If we received that kind of love, that would so assure us of our value, it would fill us up, that maybe we could start to give love like that too…
… Who can give love with no need? Jesus.
Postcard
Keep growing but not in girth
Keep fighting but not with me
Keep remembering but forget my faults
Keep smiling – my way
Keep laughing like a child
Keep praying for miracles
Keep loving like the first time
and don’t you ever ever ever let go
Passing the Other Side
I was reading on the Good Samaritan, and as I read other versions, I came across this paragraph on Wikipedia:
Priests and Levites
In Jesus’ culture, contact with a dead body was understood to defile one. Priests were particularly enjoined to avoid uncleanness. The priest and Levite may therefore have assumed that the fallen traveler was dead and avoided him to keep themselves ritually clean. On the other hand, the depiction of travel downhill (from Jerusalem to Jericho) may indicate that their temple duties had already been completed, making this explanation less likely, although this is disputed. Since the Mishnah made an exception for neglected corpses, the priest and the Levite could have used the law to justify both touching a corpse and ignoring it. In any case, passing by on the other side avoided checking “whether he was dead or alive.” Indeed, “it weighed more with them that he might be dead and defiling to the touch of those whose business was with holy things than that he might be alive and in need of care.”
That last sentence keeps ringing in my mind.
“It weighed more with them…”
It weighed more to stay ritually clean. It weighed more to stay culturally right – which wasn’t a bad culture, they were priests and Levites. It weighed more that they stayed safe. It weighed more that they weren’t inconvenienced or threatened. All of these, the rituals, rules, roles, hassle and danger, weighed more than the person.
May I be like the unsafe, unclean, and culturally-rejected Samaritan that pleases my Lord.
Whenever
Whenever I’m lonely
I think about the days
When I was all alone
With just the promise of Your face
Whenever I’m empty
I remind myself to praise
Then You still my heart
And fill me with Your grace
All Your promises are true
All my hopes are found in You
For You are perfect love
And You cast out all fear
Let me see Your light in the heat of the sun
Let me see Your blessing in the storm
Let me see Your power in the shaking
Let me see Your hand transform
A Pottery Lesson
A few months ago, I attended Mia’s exhibit. She, along with other potters, was displaying her latest work. I remember seeing the variety and, being the curious cat that I am, started asking the artists the whats, whys, and hows of their work. After listening to them, I started being able to recognize the specific nuances of each artist. They didn’t have to try to show that a certain piece was theirs – you just had to look at it and you would know that it was from the same set of hands and the same soul.
Coming home from that exhibit and remembering the conversations with Mia, I thought about the creation story in Genesis. I remember first hearing the story of man’s creation as a child, and I remember imagining God’s hands reaching down into the ground, scooping up some dirt, and expertly forming man in His image. I would imagine God look into a mirror then at His creation and make the necessary adjustments.
Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. – Genesis 2:7
Of course God probably never had to look at a mirror. He’s God after all. But the point of the story is clear: He wanted us to be just like Him.
I guess the reason He wants us to be like Him is because the Bible says that He is love and to be like Him is to love, and God wanted someone to be in love with. I’m not a theologian or a Bible expert. I’m actually not very good at doing many of the things it says. I’m learning though, admittedly very slowly, because I’m learning to love. And somehow I feel that He’s taking my dirt and forming art with the same loving hands and the same loving soul.
Hopes and Dreams
Dreams…
Visions greeting the night
Restless souls taking to flight
I find…
I’m in an endless sky
Feeling my bounds untie
Making my way
To someday
With you…
Hopes…
Wishes that do come true
Moments about to breakthrough
I know…
With every sad goodbye
Each day that passes by
I’m closing in
To begin
With you…
It’s About Whatever It Takes
I’m having a late dinner as I type this at my favorite Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, the one with the best view of Burgos Circle in Fort Bonifacio. I don’t know how many stories, or talks, or blog posts I’ve written while eating one of the three relatively cheap meals I rotate here.
Tonight, I have decided to write, finish, and post the last part of my 5-part series on relationships. This is the nth time I’m attempting to write this, and my laptop contains more than a few unfinished versions. In reality, each of the last 4 parts have been difficult for me to write. They’ve been hard because I’m talking about an area that is not exactly a strength of mine. I haven’t always valued people, I haven’t always chosen right, many times I get the wrong message across, and I do fall into minimum requirements and entitlements. So writing this, thinking through my position on relationships, has really been an exercise for myself more than it is a how-to guide for perfect relationships. So again here’s my disclaimer:
I am NOT an expert on this. Not even close. As I share this, I don’t share the thoughts of a wise man, but those of a simple person learning through prayer, observance, study, and mistake after mistake. It’s important to me that my readers don’t ever think I’m this super great guy or a role model. Life has enough pressure on it’s own, if my thoughts can help then great, but I don’t need nor want unrealistic expectations of this good guy that’s very far from who I really am. What I am, who I am, is a guy who wakes up early, works hard, makes mistakes, says sorry, fixes things, makes more mistakes, and more, and learns sometimes, but the whole way never giving up and always running to God over and over and over again because He never gives up on me.
And this is the best point to jump into Part 5: It’s About Whatever It Takes, because that’s God’s way with us. To some, He has met us in our youth, to others later in life. Sometimes He speaks to us through a book, sometimes we hear Him in a song, or find Him in a moment both dark and amazing, and even sometimes through someone else. But whoever we are, whatever way to reach us, whatever language we understand, or whatever circumstance He has to place us in, or people to surround us with, for as long as is needed, He, our Father, does whatever it takes to reach out to us to show us His love so that we can enjoy a relationship with Him.
In our relationships, are we doing whatever it takes?
Whatever it takes to what?
Are we doing whatever it takes to show them that they’re most valuable, that we chose them and choose them daily, that we’re excited about the unlimited possibilities, and that no matter what happens we’ll find a way, or make one, to show them that we love them.
And let me make it clear that the goal is to love them NOT be with them. Sometimes it seems that we do whatever it takes to stay in a relationship but don’t put enough effort to love. Relationship is the form but love is what powers that form.
Aren’t they the same thing.
No.
Being in a relationship means being with someone. It may mean having a friend, or a husband, or wife, or mutual understanding, or one of those crazy other terms that dont make sense to me. Loving someone means being patient, kind, not envying, not boasting, humbling ourselves, not being rude, not seeking our own ends, not being easily angered, it’s rejoicing in the truth, always protecting, always trusting, always hoping, and always persevering.
Sometimes, maybe even many times, we find ourselves in relationships that have gone dry and we’re wondering what’s missing. We feel unfulfilled in the relationship so we wonder whether it’s us or them, whether we did something wrong, or where we went wrong, what can we do to fix things, or compare notes with talk shows, websites, and “experts”. Some people will advice finding similar interests or hobbies, getting makeovers, taking a vacation, or buying new stuff, and these aren’t bad, but they’re shallow and cheap, and won’t fill that high-standard hunger in every human being to be truly loved.
My opinion, and that’s all this is, a humble opinion from a non-expert with a track record of mistakes, both of you should DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO LOVE. It’s not about having a certain number of hours together, or having me time or her time or alone time, or our media-planted romantic gestures, or remembering birthdays, or buying expensive things, but about doing whatever it takes.
And if it includes all the above, then it includes all of the above.
So value the right things, value the right person, and choose well depending on who you and what you value because when you’ve chosen you have to do whatever it takes to love them.
That’s a lot of work.
That’s probably why I prefer the office.
But if you value the right things and have chosen well, you don’t need to worry, because, as I’ve said in the past, you can never go wrong with the priceless things will always be great no matter how expensive they are. They’ll always be a steal.
To read the other 4:
1. It’s About What’s Most Important?
2. It’s Not About What You Think You Deserve. It’s About Who You Choose
3. It’s About What You Got Across Not What You Think You Said or Did
4. It’s About Infinite Possibilities Not Minimum Requirements
The Passionate Lover
I wasn’t planning to write today. I’ve been so busy working I haven’t really had time to think through a post. But sometimes I read something that just triggers my thinking. I just read a post entitled Kawawa Naman si God which translates to “Poor God” or “Pitiful God”, and the author went on to describe the different things that God has done to reach out to us because our sins take us so far away, culminating in the ultimate sacrificial act of His dying on the cross. The whole point of the article is that God’s love is so amazing – which I completely agree with.
I am amazed by God’s love too. He has really shown me much much more than I deserve. But here’s where I don’t agree: I don’t believe God is KAWAWA (which again translates to “pitiful” or ” “poor”). In fact, the Bible says in Hebrews 12:2, that He endured the cross and scorned its shame “for the JOY set before him.”
To Jesus, we were, we are, His JOY, and that’s why He died for us and that’s why He continues to reach out to us. He isn’t a pathetic guy trying all sorts of things to win a girl. He’s God, who doesn’t need us but because of His love for us, it’s His JOY to reach out to us. There’s nothing pitiful about someone doing something He enJOYs.
If there’s anyone who is pitiful or kawawa, it’s us.
It’s like a royal prince of incredible beauty, love, kindness, strength, and wealth trying to win the heart of a dirty, poor, lost and lonely tramp. She has more to lose than he does. She’s the pitiful one.
I’m that dirty, poor, lost, and lonely tramp. I’m the pitiful one with all my mistakes and sins. So I run to God, not a pitiful God, but a beautiful, loving, kind, strong, and wealthy God who for some reason sees me as His joy.
And that reason is LOVE.
A guy passionately pursuing a lady he loves is pitiful and pathetic to everyone, but himself. That’s because he loves her in a greater way than the others. He will do more, try more, and offer more than anyone whose love is less. He will even suffer more, and by the way the word “passion” means “suffering”. This is also where we get the concept of the “Passion of Christ” or the “Suffering of Christ”. Yes it was hard. Yes it was painful. Yes it was shameful. But it wasn’t pitiful. It was passionate.
It was so passionate the centurion looking up at Him at the cross didn’t say, “Poor guy” but instead he said, “Surely He was the Son of God” (Matthew 27:54). You don’t say that about someone pitiful. You say that to someone who commands honor.
Love is a personal thing. It doesn’t have to make sense to others for it to make sense to you. In fact, it won’t make sense unless they love the same. This is why it’s impossible to fully comprehend God’s love, because we don’t and can never love Him as He loves us, so it won’t ever make as much sense to us as it does to Him. To us, God is kawawa because we feel bad for Him that He can relentlessly pursue people who stubbornly turn away (including myself). But what’s amazing is that He doesn’t pity Himself because He is chasing His joy, and even more amazing, like the lost sheep, the lost coin, the pearl, and the treasure in the field, to God, we’re worth it.
Now on the flip-side, are we responding to His love in obedience? My personal answer is, not always. Many times I find myself loving something that turns out to be meaningless. And that’s why I’m the poor man who is so grateful for my Father in Heaven who, despite that, is passionately in love with me.
Living by Design
The older I get (and that’s not old at all at 27!), the simpler I want my life to be. I don’t want to imagine how I will look like at 60 or 70, maybe wearing nothing but a straps of cloth to cover my private area, long shaggy hair, and a long unshaven beard.
Ok, maybe that’s a little extreme. My imagination has a way of taking over sometimes.
But as I was looking at the original meaning of the word “simple” I came across a very interesting definition:
simple: plain; artless; not given to design…
I told myself, “I don’t want to live without art! I love art.” So I’m re-terming how I want to live life, not simple and without art, but “by design”, meaning, I want to live my life, which includes treating my body the way it was designed to be lived and treated. This of course assumes that there’s a design to follow – and there are a few guides you can follow:
1. Moderation - you don’t have to eat until you’re bloated. You don’t have to drink until you’re drunk. You don’t have to work until you collapse. You don’t have to sleep until noon. There are many things that are great when taken in moderation, the same things that are destructive when taken out of bounds. We should listen to our bodies and stop when enough is enough.
2. Patience - I’m terrible at this. I want everything right away, but I’m learning. Life is many times better, and healthier to live, when we allow things to fall into place in time. I’m not saying be lazy or complacent. I’m saying, like any good farmer knows, there are seasons, and as long as you do the work needed in each season, you will reap at some point. You don’t have to force it.
3. Love- I’m not talking about looking for a mushy feeling daily. I’m talking about living a life that pursues and protects the things and people we love. We were designed to fall in love, but we weren’t designed to fall in love with stupid things (um… that’s why our hearts were partnered with a brain). But life was designed to be propelled by love though many times we end up living motivated by needs and wants, which are not necessarily bad, but not half as great as the things we love.
I know you’ll discover your own guides to help you live a fulfilled life. If you don’t know you where to start, go grab a Bible, that’s our manual. I hope you have a healthy week and enjoy the benefits of living a life by design.
Read more at Naturalhealth.ph
Definitions (Part 1)
This is my Fathers Day Post, though it is not exclusively about fathers. It’s a post about one very important role they play, and it’s also about reason, the reasons “why” we do things, but mostly, it’s a post about meaning.
Why am I writing this?
I have three reasons:
1. As a reminder to myself, an exercise to keep taking stock of my life and to purposefully live a life of significance. I’ve realized that I’ve used too many words loosely. It’s sad because I know I have a gift, and it’s meant to build others up. So it’s important, when I take stock of my life, to check and see if the gifts God has given me are being maximized. I know the weight of my words, and while I try to use them to encourage others through this blog, I’ve also used them to devastating effect. It’s one more item on my looooong list of things to improve on.
2. As an encouragement to others to not take life for granted, but instead enjoy it as something meaningful, and to take charge of defining their lives as something significant.
3. And for my last reason for writing this, is that it is my way of honoring fathers who take it upon themselves to set their children on a life of purpose, specifically my Pop, the father that I depended on as a child, and my heavenly Father that I depend on more than ever as a man.
Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say
One of the things I like to do, which many friends find irritating, is to ask people the definition of a word they just used. I hear people say simple words like “cool”, “favorite”, “best friend”, or even “love”, and I’ve noticed that most people are unable to define what they mean. I usually get the same reaction:
“I know what the word means, David, I just don’t know how to define it.”
No wonder so many lives are lived without purpose, longing to be “cool” and not realizing its mutability, that what is “cool” changes depending on time and place. No one thinking rationally would swallow smoke for dinner. Yet we chase “cool” and think achieving that will fulfill us.
No wonder we have so many broken promises. We don’t realize that to “promise” is to make a declaration and bind yourself either in honor, conscience or law to fulfill a certain act in the future. The worth of a promise has everything to do with the promise-giver.
No wonder we take advantage of “best friends”. We don’t realize that the word “friend” means:
One who is attached to another by affection; one who entertains for another sentiments of esteem, respect and affection, which lead him to desire his company, and to seek to promote his happiness and prosperity; opposed to foe or enemy.
And the word “best” means:
The most good. Most advanced. Most complete. Most correct. Most beneficial.
Put them together and we realize that the people we should be calling our “best friends” are actually not that many. That there is a spot for the “best” among just the “good”, and that if someone was our “best”, we should be seeking to promote his or her happiness and prosperity the most.
No wonder our relationships are so messed up in a society that sings, “All you need is love.” Who knows what love really means anymore? To understand the original meaning of love is to know that the definition of “love” is tied very closely to the concepts of “value” and “beauty”. We fall in and out of love because it’s been watered down to feelings and emotions on one extreme and obligation on the other. But to put it simply, love is to find something so beautiful and so valuable, that your emotions lead you to show affection. It’s to realize how excellent something is that you want it so bad. Love is reserved for excellent things – not shallow, empty, frivolous things. This is why to know God, to see His beauty and worth, is the best way to learn to love Him more. And that is why to love Him is our first duty – because He is most excellent, He is most beautiful, and He is most worthy. To love someone is to find and know for sure what makes that specific person beautiful and what her worth is, and to show your affection in word and action.
Words are important. They are powerful. They are powerful not because of the boldness of their font or the length of their spelling. They’re powerful because of one thing: their definition.
To define something is to put clear boundaries around it and say, “This is what this is. This is its meaning. This is its significance.” When we don’t know what something is, when we can’t clearly state its meaning, or don’t realize its significance, we drain our very powerful tool of its potency. We lose our ability to define our lives and default to the definitions others put. Worst of all, when our words, the terms that define our lives, are muddied, life itself becomes muddied chasing feelings, and not realizing to its fulness, the object, the moment, the person, that made the emotion meaningful.
To be continued…
A Year With You
Thinking of what’s past
My mem’ries flying fast
It’s been one amazing year
Having you right here
With me
Rain is falling hard
On our graveyard
Remembering the start
And how you stole my heart
Away
Old limits surpassed
Hoping this will last
Despite the heavy luggage
On our secret voyage
To us
Wishing on a dark sky
It’s giving no reply
But it’s been one amazing year
Having you right here
With me
We Can When You Can
Photo from Montalban Cycling.
“So much attention is paid to the aggressive sins, such as violence and cruelty and greed with all their tragic effects, that too little attention is paid to the passive sins, such as apathy and laziness, which in the long run can have a more devastating effect.”
- Eleanor Roosevelt
I’ve finally finished my work for the day as dictated by Text Edit files on the desktop of my computer. Beside me hums my MacBook backing up files on the Time Machine, while yet another Apple product, an iPad, churns out a seemingly never-ending stream of email. Another quiet yet busy evening for me.
But it’s not work I want to talk to you about tonight. Well, it does entail work, but it isn’t for financial profit. It’s for something greater, something more fulfilling, and longer-lasting. It’s something of greater value.
And what can be more valuable to us than the life we’ve been given?
Every day, everyone everywhere, is given the gift of life. That gift is part time, and part opportunity, part dream, and part work, it’s part laughter, and part fight, it’s part chance, and part perseverance. It’s a multi-part, multi-faceted gift that many people, and I would say even most, take for granted.
If you knew just how precious your life is, not someone smarter’s life or someone richer’s, but your life, you’d live differently. You wouldn’t sleep -in so late, or spend so much time on Facebook, because time is gold. You wouldn’t stuff your body with junk, because that’s your vehicle through this life. You wouldn’t let people’s criticism affect you so much, because you know you have a purpose. You wouldn’t give yourself so easily, because you know that you don’t trade for less than someone’s all, because love expects all and only trades for all.
Most of all, if you knew how valuable God’s gift of life is, you would treat others different, because you understand the worth of another that is made in His image.
I hope we don’t miss the fulfillment that life has to offer because of the passive sins of apathy and laziness, sins that have left us warming the bench, complaining and criticizing, with not a statistic in the game.
It’s with this in mind, this understanding of God’s gift, that we introduce the U! Can program of U! Happy Events and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. U! Can is our way of activating everyone to bring value to others by participating in fun and helpful activities. U! Can, with its partner organizations (such as my personal favorites Real LIFE Foundation and Habitat for Humanity), work together to create unique-serving-experiences for people who want to start contributing.
Giving doesn’t always have to be big. It can start small. What’s important is that you give from your heart. We know that someday, as you give, you will be blessed beyond imagination, and we hope your heart stays where it started: beating for others.
To join U! Can just visit your nearest Coffee Bean outlet and sign-up on the message board. If you need more information you can ask the baristas who’ll be happy to help you. Our first event is on May 21, and sign-up sheets are already on the boards. The fee for this first event is P300, but that comes with a shirt and a lot of fun. Part of the proceeds will also go to the partner organization. I’ll be there along with our president Harvard Uy Debaron, and the famous magician and Mr. Big Heart JB Delacruz, and the rest of the U! Happy Events and Coffee Bean teams. I’m looking forward to seeing all of you there.
I know you’ll contribute greatly. I know this for sure.
I know U! Can.
-
Someday, my sons and daughters will thrive in a different, more beautiful Philippines, where the sun shines on a canopy of thick trees surrounding beautiful cities. There will be no more slums for everyone will have a home, or will open their home to those cast out. There will be a spoon, a chopstick, a straw to feed every mouth. Movement will flow smoothly because people give way and enjoy the safety of efficient public transportation. The rich will give freely without condescension and the poor will work without entitlement. There will be harmony because we embrace the truth that we are destined to be one people by an omniscient Father.
I could go on dreaming, but it’s late.
Time to sleep, and dream some more.
Midnight Thoughts
Big Reminders with a Big Breakfast
Remember to Give
I’m sitting in a corner Mc Donald’s somewhere in Taytay. I’m having a not-at-all healthy breakfast and killing time here with my faithful driver, Non, before I head back to work. I haven’t eaten in McDonalds in a while. Don’t plan to come back anytime soon. My body is so used to healthier things that eating junk doesn’t appeal to me anymore.
Very early this morning, before the sun was up, I had gone to the Habitat for Humanity site in Pasig 2 for a home turnover that was featured on Umagang Kay Ganda (which happens to be the show of my sister-in-law, Carla). We’re building 416 homes in partnership with the city government of Pasig for families living in disaster risk areas, particularly those living beside the infamous Pasig River. Housing is an incredibly serious issue in the Philippines and its social impact is felt even more in urban settings. The home deficit is about 3-4,000,000, and I believe that’s only in an urban setting. That’s not hard to believe when you take into account that Metro Manila has 12,000,000 people and the whole Philippines has a population of 97,000,000.
That’s a lot of people.
Shelter is more than just building a shell, it’s about security and dignity, and part of bringing security and dignity is connecting with groups that can bring in other home necessities such as running water, sewage, electricity, livelihood, values formation, and other similar soft programs.
It’s really a huge effort. But it’s also very rewarding, which is why I don’t hesitate to invite, people to join our builds, donate their idle land, contribute in cash, or find some other creative way to take part in Habitat for Humanity or my other favorite, Real LIFE.
Don’t wait until you have more. Don’t wait for tomorrow. Don’t wait until someone’s looking. Don’t wait until you’re perfect. Don’t wait until you figure it out. Just give.
Remember to Let Go
Last night, the Real LIFE team had a thank you dinner at Tina Pamintuan’s restaurant L’incontro for Dr. Joey Castro. Doc, as we all call him, is the founder of the Real LIFE Foundation but is moving to Brunei to do ministry there.
I would count Doc to be one of most influential men in my life and I thank God for Him. I couldn’t ask for a better first boss (though he would say I did the bossing around). While many young graduates are mentored in finance, administration, sales, marketing, and other business functions, what I got was a first hand lesson in value. It was during my time with Doc at Real LIFE that I understood that more than programs and superstructures it is people that are most valuable.
I’d be the first to admit we didn’t know anything about scholarship programs, much less about building a foundation. But we saw the need and knew someone had to fill it, even if we were only going to fill it with faith. Looking at what Lynn, Sony, Rhia, Ariel and Vince are achieving at Real LIFE, I’m so grateful to God that despite our limitations when we started he honored us by blessing this work and entrusting it to capable stewards.
True to form, Doc Joey had no problems with handing over the foundation. I remember talking to him about his plans to go to Brunei and asking him how he felt about where the foundation was going, and I remember him telling me, “David, Real LIFE has reached levels beyond my wildest dreams. I know this team can take it further than we could have ever taken it.” I was amazed at how he had no ego, no founder’s complex, no entitlements, just a pure heart that knew when to let go.
More and more I’m realizing that just as important as taking something and making it better, is being able to let go and release something or someone into something greater.
Remember to be Childlike
I watch the kids just outside the glass panes playing on a dusty sidewalk. I can’t tell what they’re doing. To me, it seems all they’re doing is playing with dirt, and I remember a time when I used to make mud pies in our backyard and, like these kids, I would be having the time of my life. I didn’t need a buffer of three months worth of living expenses. I didn’t need a title, or a position, or to prove myself. I didn’t need to live up to anyone’s expectations.
I was just playing with mud and I was having a lot of fun.
I’m reminded of something Seth Godin wrote about staying childlike (versus being childish):
“Childlike makes a great scientist.
Childish produces tantrums.
Childlike brings fresh eyes to marketing opportunities.
Childish rarely shows up as promised.
Childlike is fearless and powerful and willing to fail.
Childish is annoying.
Childlike inquires with a pure heart.
Childish is merely ignored.”
As I end my thoughts and my time in McDonalds, I signal to Non to get the car. I’ll have to switch my mind back to work, but let me leave you with this:
Remember to give for it is in giving that we receive. Remember to let go for it is in releasing that others can fly. And remember to be like a child, always curious, always fearless, and always discovering.
His Parents Don’t Approve of Me
I’ve been getting a lot of questions on my Formspring that I’ve actually answered more than a thousand questions already. I’ll be posting some of my answers to your questions here under the “Ask David” category hoping that maybe my opinion might help others.
His Parents Don’t Approve of Me
“My boyfriend’ parents do not approve of me. Is that enough reason for us to separate?
I don’t understand why people ask me relationship questions. It’s one area in my life that I have no proof to show expertise in whatsoever. Whenever I think through my answers to these type of questions, I realize that it goes back to my whole value-oriented thinking which is basically, when making a decision, look at what’s most important to you and make the decision that brings you closer to that which you value.
Of course this becomes a problem with our values are skewed or wrong or negotiable, but that’ another post.
So Juliet, the answer to your question is another question thrown back at you: What is it you value most? I’m going to guess that the answer is “I don’t know.” so the better question is: What or who should you value most?
That’s something only you can answer.
Here are some considerations I suggest you look at:
1. History – So many people throw away old and established relationships when a new more exciting one comes along. If your parents don’t approve, there’s probably a reason why. Listen to their points without needing to defend yourself, at the very least you’ll learn what you need to work on to gain their approval. Remember that parents are a mix of hopes and fears for their kids and sometimes these things seem to irritatingly stifle, but beneath all of this is usually (hopefully) love.
2. Readiness to lay your life down – No one is ever really ready for the things they have to face. There’s always a surprise out there. But at the very least, when embarking on something as crazy as a relationship, you have to be ready to be responsible – willing and able to respond to the needs of your partner. If you’re not ready, or if he’s not ready, it’s probably not going to work. I’m not saying you have to know the future, have all the money you need, or be done with college. I’m saying you have to be willing and able to do whatever it takes to make it work. That’s easy to say but terribly hard to do in real life. Whatever it takes can mean anything from waking up in the middle of the night, working extra to pay the bills, swallowing your pride to keep the peace, and/or even taking care of a sick partner. Loving someone includes the beautiful emotions, but it also includes the equally beautiful laying down of life. That’s the best way to prove your love to that person and to others.
Of course you might wake one day realizing that you laid your life down for a complete jerk. So don’t jump in.
3. Ask God – Bring to God your questions and requests. He always answers. Maybe not in the way we always want, but it’s always in a way that’s best. There are no formulas to life and love, no fool-proof steps to achieving our dreams. But there’s faith and grace, provided by God to take us to where He wants to take us, to help us do what He wants us to do, and to build beautiful relationships with who He wants us to be with.
If you’re worried you’re going to make the wrong decision, don’t second guess yourself. Chances are you’re making the wrong choice. But if you’re sure, be firm in your decision.
For God So Loved…
Last week I wrote an article on Naturalhealth.ph about preparing for Christmas. In the article I talked about how we need to prepare our hearts, minds, spirit, and body for the season so that we don’t miss its essence – which is not hard to do given the grandness of the festivities. You can read the full article here.
One great way of preparing yourself, your family, and your friends for Christmas is by practicing a tradition known as the Advent Wreath. You can read more about the Advent Wreath online but basically it is traditionally a time of preparation for Christmas.
Traditions are important to helping us remember the essence of what we are celebrating. They’re also great for sharing with others and enjoying together. Most of all, traditions help us pass on to a new generation the ideas, stories, and values of the occasion.
The Advent Wreath is a tradition my family has been practicing for years, since I was a kid, and this year I decided to begin celebrating it my own home now that I’ve moved out. I wanted to share and pass on to others what I enjoyed growing up.
Last Thursday, December 2, I invited some friends over to my apartment for after-dinner snacks and to kick-off our Advent preparation. For the next 4 weeks we would be sharing on a new concept to prepare our hearts for Christmas.
I’ll be posting the titles and themes here just in case you would like to celebrate this with your own families.
Week 1: For God so loved the world…
Gold Candle: Value
Text: John 3:16
Here we talked about God’s motivation for sending Jesus: His love for us. That God values us so much that He paid with His own son to purchase us. This whole story is a value story. A story of a God who shopped through His creation and chose us to be most valuable to Him. This is an awesome idea that I can’t comprehend. I am incredibly grateful for this truth though. This is the starting point of Christmas: God’s love. That He loved us so much that He sent Jesus to save us.
I wrote a post saying that when it comes to relationships and love, it’s not about what we deserve but about who we choose. This is clearly displayed in God’s love for us. We don’t deserve His goodness and He deserves better than our unfaithfulness. But He chose us, and He has made a way for us to be with Him, and because of Jesus we are redeemed. Even as I type this my heart is overwhelmed by repentance and gratitude. Repentant because I really don’t make the cut – not in even close. Grateful that I have a Father who doesn’t treat me as my sins deserve and whose love doesn’t change depending on my output. For God so loved the world that He chose me and you, and paid for us with His Son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish.
1 John 4:7 – 21
God’s Love and Ours
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son[b] into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for[c] our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Come What May
Never knew I could feel like this
Like I’ve never seen the sky before
I want to vanish inside your kiss
Every day Im loving you more and more
Listen to my heart, can you hear it sing
Telling me to give you everything
Seasons may change, winter to spring
But I love you until the end of time
Come what may
Come what may
I will love you until my dying day
Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place
Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace
Suddenly my life doesn’t seem such a waste
It all revolves around you
And there’s no mountain too high
No river too wide
Sing out this song I’ll be there by your side
Storm clouds may gather
And stars may collide
But I love you until the end of time
Oh, come what may, come what may
I will love you, I will love you
Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place
It’s Not About What You Think You Deserve. It’s About Who You Choose.
This is part 2 of my five part relationship series. These are opinions NOT expert advice.
To read all 5:
1. It’s About What’s Most Important?
2. It’s Not About What You Think You Deserve. It’s About Who You Choose
3. It’s About What You Got Across Not What You Think You Said or Did
4. It’s About Infinite Possibilities Not Minimum Requirements
5. It’s About Whatever It Takes
A Little More on Value
I’ve written quite a bit on a variety of topics with only the concept of VALUE tying all of them together. One thing I noticed, based on the feedback I get with each post, is that people seem to respond most to the ones about family and relationships. It’s just more proof that deep down, whether consciously or unconsciously, relationships are what we value most.
Think about it, on their deathbed, no one ever wished they played more Playstation, or ate more burritos, or earned more money. What we regret are the relationships we should have paid more attention to, the thank yous and I love yous we should have said, the sons and daughters we should have parented, and the dreams we should have shared.
I guess that’s the important thing about marking your values clearly, because when you do you can head towards it, when you don’t two things usually happen: you never get what you want because you don’t know, or worse, you get what you think you’ve always wanted and realize that it wasn’t worth it. The words “worth” and “value” are very closely connected. What’s valuable will always be worth it.
Clarifications on Value
I got some comments that I found interesting enough to address here because some of you might have similar questions. Here goes:
1. This is a great article for guys – I don’t know about the article being “great”. It’s just my opinion, and again, from a non-expert. Second, I wrote this for both men and women. The whole value thing won’t work if one person values the other but is not valued as well. Someone’s bound to burnout or become a martyr or get hurt. That’s not a sustainable situation.
2. You can’t jump to conclusions – Just because someone’s too tired to drive doesn’t mean they don’t value you. Maybe they’re really just too tired. This is a very very valid point raised by none other than my mother. And she’s right about this. My example needs qualifying. If let’s say you’re in a relationship, and you know that someone’s too tired to drive you, because you value him or her you put them ahead and make them rest. In the same way, if he or she values you they’ll do their best to serve you. But the reality stays that people have their limits, emotionally and even physically, but when you have two people valuing each other they adjust without feeling unvalued because they’re secure that the other holds them as most important even when they’re limitations become apparent. Having said that, a pattern of mistreatment is obvious proof that someone doesn’t value you or you don’t value someone.
3. All nice and sweet but people are humans and make mistakes. How can you say that making a mistake in a relationship means that person doesn’t value the person – This is a great point! No one can say they’ve never hurt anyone – especially me. Hurting someone doesn’t mean you don’t value that person, it only means that on that specific moment, whatever you were doing was more important. For example, when I say something tactless, which I do a lot, it just means that airing my opinion is more important to me than the feelings of someone else. This doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t value that person, just not as much as I should at that moment.
The problem is when the pattern of our life is one that takes the truly valuable things for granted. Some might argue that values are relative, and they’d be correct to an extent, but at the very least we should know what’s personally important to us, and live a life that moves towards that.
What about our mistakes? No one’s perfect. We will all make mistakes. What hope do we have?
I remember my dad explaining a critical component of relationships; it’s what reconciles us and allows us to enjoy the benefits of a valued relationship despite the reality that we are flawed and will make mistakes. That component is forgiveness. I’ve realized that forgiveness is more than just getting a clean slate. Forgiveness is another chance to enjoy that which you really value – and if you take this new chance for granted don’t be surprised if someday you’ll lose it, maybe even completely.
The simple point of the whole value thing is this:
KNOW AND DEFINE WHAT YOU VALUE. LIVE A LIFE THAT REFLECTS WHAT YOU VALUE. AND WHEN YOU MAKE A MISTAKE, CORRECT AND GO BACK – IF IT’S NOT TOO LATE.
4. I wish my boyfriend thought this way – when I was writing this, I wasn’t thinking about how I wish my partner would be like. I was writing this as a reminder to myself to be the type of person who knows who and what he values, and to be the type of person who enjoys the privilege of cultivating the valuable things in his life. I didn’t write this for people to use as a standard to compare their partners to, I wrote this as a guide for myself. I can’t say that everyday of my life is faultlessly value-based. A lot of it, maybe even most of it right now, isn’t. But I have a guide, and slowly but surely, in time, I’ll be deciding more based on what’s really valuable to me and not have as many regrets. Sometimes when I read your email I wonder if you’re talking about someone else and sending it to me by accident. I’m not a great guy that knows these things. I’m, like a work in progress, discovering things as we go along, and trying to make something out of the limited time we have on Earth.
And this leads me to the next portion of this series, and again I have to warn you that this is MY OPINION.
Off Your High Horse
Many times we have this picture of this dream relationship where everything works and is perfect, where everything is fair. I love him, he loves me. I’ll do anything for her, she’ll do anything for me. I write her, she writes me back. It’s perfect…
…until she forgets to text back right away after you sent her a sweet message. Or until you’ve bent over backwards and he’s sleeping on the couch. Or even until he gets fat after you get married, while you work hard to stay slim. Until these things happen, and you’re left asking yourself, what the heck is this???
For me, at least historically, when things get too complicated, that’s the time to press the EJECT button.
But I guess this all starts when we stop thinking about what’s most important TO us and we start thinking about what’s most important FOR us. We start thinking about what we deserve. We start having one of the most dangerous sicknesses you can catch – entitlement.
Entitlement is a dangerous case to have. No one owes us anything – not even the people we’re in relationship with. Sometimes we think guys have to be like this, girls have to be like that, and the truth is they don’t. No one has to give you flowers or cook you dinner. No one has to court you or make it easy for you to court him or her. No one has to do any of that, and you’re not entitled to any of that.
Some of you are asking, “I’m not?”
Nope.
“Then what am I entitled to?”
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
But before you throw stones at me read on. (Besides my hair will soften the impact anyway.)
Here You Go
Love is a gift, not a trade. It isn’t bartered or earned. It is given, and in the case of true love, given completely. Sometimes we forget this, and we start saying things like, “If you truly loved me you would or wouldn’t…”.
You can complete the sentence.
When you give a gift you prepare it and make it special but you don’t expect anything in return. How ridiculous would it be for a kid to attend a party, give his gift, and go feel cheated when all he gets in return is a goodie bag?
“I gave you a Nerf Gun and you gave me lollipops!”
But we’re like that sometimes, always expecting a fair trade. “I did this. You didn’t” “You don’t deserve me!” “I don’t deserve you!” Tit for tat, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth is not the recipe of love but of feuds.
So what can I expect then?
Nothing. Nothing but the privilege to love unconditionally, to say “Here you go. You have everything.”
“That sucks, David.”
Why do you think I’m not married?
It’s About Who You Choose
Of course it doesn’t really suck. I’m exaggerating. We do get something, and it’s not necessarily what we think we deserve. We get whom we choose. This is why we need to choose well. This is why we don’t just jump in. This is why counting the cost is important, and there is a cost.
I liked this girl once, and looking back she really was cool, but I remember my dad telling me, (after asking me how I planned to feed her!), “David, no matter how pretty she is she’s going to take a crap someday.” My dad has a way of saying things. I guess this was his way of telling me no one’s perfect, don’t go blind, see things as they are.
Of course choosing well can mean different things to different people but here are two things I think are important:
1. Shared values – Do you agree on what the most important non-negotiable things are?
2. Shared love – Do you even like each other? Do you both put each other first?
For some funny reason we’re back to the questions “What’s most important?” and “Who is most important?” Trying to make sense of this, I’ve realized whom we choose reflects what’s important to us. We’re attracted to what’s important to us. So know for sure what’s important to you and choose well. As I said in another blog “everything costs something but not everything is priced right”. Choose the one you value most, know the cost, and pay it in full no matter how expensive. As I also said in another, “But you can never go wrong with the priceless things. They’ll always be a steal.”
It’s About What’s Most Important
Paolo Punzalan recently mentioned me on his blog on relationships. I don’t know why he suggested me as having insight on this (maybe because my views are entertainingly controversial), but I’ve been getting some questions regarding relationships on my email, Facebook, and formspring. So to answer all your questions more efficiently here are my thoughts on how to make a relationship work. I do have to make it clear from the start that I’m really no expert on this, so don’t go taking this as expert opinion. This is MY opinion on a subject I am historically known to be NOT very good at. But I’m learning, and over the next few weeks I’ll be posting 5 lessons I’ve learned so far:
1. It’s About What’s Most Important?
2. It’s Not About What You Think You Deserve. It’s About Who You Choose
3. It’s About What You Got Across Not What You Think You Said or Did
4. It’s About Infinite Possibilities Not Minimum Requirements
5. It’s Not About Formulas and Benchmarks. It’s About Whatever It Takes
Ok, here we go…
It’s About What’s Most Important?
Of course I had to stick in the word VALUE at the very top, because relationships are about what’s most important to you or what’s valuable to you. A lady from the microfinance group I’m a part of emailed me the other day asking about some life decisions. I told her to ask herself, “What’s most important to me?” and to order clearly the hierarchy of importance in her life. Because what we value affects our decision making. When something is important to us we naturally try to bring ourselves closer. When something is NOT valuable to us we naturally stay away or forget something even exists. It’s like the kid who can’t remember his subjects but can remember the stats of his sports heroes. It’s not a question of memory. It’s a question of value.
In a relationship, you need to be able to say that, after God, she’s the most valuable thing to you, and your decision-making, and your execution of your decisions (your actions) should show it. My dad always encouraged my brothers and I to make the big decision, because the smaller decisions become easy when you make the big decision. He used to say that it’s easy to choose what to wear to work when you’ve already chosen to actually go to work. In the same way, many people find it hard to do the little things for the person they’re supposed to love simply because they’ve never made a conscious decision to set her aside as most important.
If we’re impatient with someone it only means we value our impatience more than we value the person. If we’re angry at someone it only means we value our anger more than that person. If we’d rather sleep than drive for our wives or girlfriends it only means that we value how tired we are or our convenience more than them. This is hard to accept but it’s true. When I am misbehaving towards someone, I can give every reason I think is valid, but the bottom line is I value my reasons more than that person. Because IF the person is MOST valuable, than she should be MORE valuable than my reasons no matter how valid they are. Again it’s hard to accept, even for me. But when I think about the reasons why my dates never went past a few months the answer is the same, while I always try to make a positive contribution in the lives of others, at that moment, what was most important was… drumroll… ME.
Are You Ready?
I remember once being asked at a talk (why I get asked to talk on relationships is a mystery to me), “How do you know if you’re ready for a relationship?” And I answered:
When you’re ready to put her before you. When you’re ready to put her needs before your needs, her wants before your wants, her dreams before yours, her comfort before yours, her feelings before yours, her convenience before yours. When you’re ready to lay your life down that’s when you know you’re ready.
Of course I followed this up with, “And that’s how I know I’m absolutely NOT ready.”
Insecure Value
Sometimes I come across people who are so insecure about where they stand in a relationship and I realize it’s because they themselves and / or their partners have never settled in their hearts that the other is most important. When what’s most important isn’t decided on, everything becomes negotiable. I can go out and get drunk because he offended me. I can text others since we’re not cheating anyway. I can gossip to my friends because he’s a butt. All of a sudden we can negotiate in our mind to do the things that will hurt the person because we have never really set them aside as valuable – meaning even their value is negotiable – they’re only valuable as long as they do as we like. I’m so grateful our Father is not like that. Because, while I have decided on my values, sometimes I find myself negotiating and rationalizing my mistakes. But our Father, He doesn’t negotiate our value. He has marked us as important to Him even when we fall short, and that is why His love never fails. God’s love doesn’t change with our roller coaster of a life. It actually reminds me of Shakespeare’s very famous Sonnet 116:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Love never alters. It doesn’t bend. It is an ever-fixed mark that is never shaken. When that’s the love you enjoy you’ll be secure.
Someday There’ll Be Treasure
Someday, I’m going to type her name on this blog, and like a white flag waving, that will signal my fall. When that day comes I have to surrender and say, “You’re most important now.” There will be times when I won’t get my way, but that’s ok, she’s most important. There will be days when I won’t understand, but I’ll have to trust, because she’s most important. There will be days when I’ll get mad (maybe a lot of days with my impatience), but I’ll have to swallow my pride, prepare a peace offering, and apologize to the one who is most important to me. Just typing this is making me dizzy, but then I realize I won’t have to worry, because I’ll be what’s most important to her, and as the Bible says: perfect love casts out all fear.
4 Turnaround Lessons
I’ve spent most of the day looking at financial statements. One of the things I’m doing now is working on the turnaround of Issho Genki Interntional, the producers and distributors of the most trusted brand of Squalene (which is currently a small yet growing category). We’re not completely out of the woods yet, but this last quarter is looking very positive for Issho Genki. We have improved enough to make me a little more comfortable with writing about the lessons we have learned from our mistakes. There are actually a lot of lessons I would like to share but I’ll start with these four.
What Do You Love?
Squalene is a natural antioxidant which protects and enhances the body’s cells. I’ve been taking the thing for about 15 years now and love the stuff. So aside from the challenge and necessity, loving the product was an attraction to me. I’m not really a salesman. I can’t sell anyone anything. What I am is a highly contagious sick man. When I fall sick in love with something I’m going to infect you with it if you hang around me long enough.
Turn Around Lesson #1: Work on something you’re passionate about. Turnarounds have a lot of baggage that can distract and discourage you. Working on something you’re passionate about helps keep you motivated. While need is a great motivator, never underestimate someone who is madly in love.
Go Treasure Hunting
Issho Genki used to be a very popular supplement brand but dropped out of people’s consciousness when management was not able to transition well into retail outlets. It’s a classic case of a business that did well, overspent, didn’t change relevantly, and descended. The good part though is that there was a lot to work with, such as the brand recall due to its, at the time I took over, 13 year existence, historically large distributor base, high-quality manufacturing base in Japan, and existing distribution relationships with Mercury Drug, Watsons, and other retailers and customers. The most important thing the company had though was some really trustworthy and hardworking people that made the chance of a turnaround possible.
Turn Around Lesson #2: Look for the pieces of value. These are things you’ll be able to work with and build on. What are the assets? (Of course depreciate accurately!) How much cash? (This is your blood. Even if people owe you, you run out of cash, you’re dead.) Can you use your assets to generate cash? (Either through sales or as collateral) In our case, we didn’t have any hard assets aside from a very nebulous concept of brand goodwill. We had no way of accurately measuring this so working with that was a step of faith. We also didn’t have a lot of cash. We had a third of what we needed to survive month 1. (That month was very stressful for me!) But what we did have other than the brand were good people who made the sales happen and extended payables and stretched and stretched. Good people are always a great asset.
Cut the Fat
When I walked into my corner office on the 25th floor of a nice commercial building in one of Metro Manila’s business districts I had the following thoughts in sequence:
1. Wow. This is cool.
2. This is really big. Too big.
3. This must be expensive.
4. This has to go.
One problem businesses have as they go along is that they take on too much fat. That’s actually like us humans. Hehe. We take on so much unwanted baggage that weigh and slow us down, or worse, choke our organs which kills us. We had to do a lot of cost cutting in Issho Genki, more than a third of our operating expenses. This also meant there were contracts we could not renew, people we could not hire, perks we could not enjoy, and rewards that had to be differed. Of course not everyone was happy – including me. But you have to do what you have to do.
…By the way, while there’s still a lot to do, sales are up and expenses are down. That’s always a good sign.
Halloween Thoughts
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
- 1 John 4:18
What I Want
Image by Victart.
Not a mansion in heaven
Not a castle in the sky
Not a mountain top experience
Not my name in stone
Not the respect of men
Not the applause of crowds
Not barns overflowing
Not vans with new wine
Just Your love
Someday her love
In my home
In my heart
As the light
Of my life
Harvest Moon
Full moon golden
Heralds love awoken
Two hearts smitten
Celestially stolen
Completely fallen
Yet remains unspoken
City Escape
Mosquitoes nip on my legs, but let them feast on our entwined limbs. The scrapes on my knees sting, throbbing like our beating hearts. Security patrols the grounds, envying us, for our moment, with hopes burning brighter than the stars. Inevitabilities may haunt us, but close your sad eyes and calm your anxious heart. My love for you stays, even when I’m not around, to be your open field in a cruel city, your starry night in dark times. So you won’t forget, which I fear someday you will, let me remind you with a kiss.
Helen
I wrote this in August of 2007. I was 23 years old.
I was suppose to meet up with some friends but felt like I really didn’t want to see too many people I knew, so I decided to have a quiet dinner with a book on global corruption (A Game As Old As Empire – read it, it’s very interesting), and my journal to write and draw on. I went to look at art materials after (I’m suppose to be an artist now, so I can rationalize these purchases) and realized that the only color I needed was the color they lacked – White! I found it really interesting when the salesgirl tried to sell me something else in place of white:
Salesgirl: Sorry sir, we don’t have white eh.
Me: That’s alright. Thanks.
Salesgirl: We have a lot of black if you like.
Me: That’s ok. Thank you.
Salesgirl: How about brown sir?
I figured it was late, and she had been working the whole day, that she no longer remembered that you can’t paint a “white” flower with “black” or “brown” paint. I did appreciate her very pleasant attitude and willingness to help me. (Maybe she thought I painted with bleach.)
My last stop was suppose to be a bookstore that I frequent on lazy nights. The manager is very friendly and never fails to ask me what my new “escapade” is, and always asking questions about Afghanistan. He’s much older, turning 59 this year I believe, and reads about almost anything (this is why we get along). Since it was nearing closing time I asked him if he would like to have coffee for a bit. He thought that was a good idea, closed shop, and we sat down with some cappuccino for him and tea for me.
I had a great time conversing with him on a multiple of disciplines and arenas, from art, to classical music and opera, to history, religion, and polictics and economics. In conversations like this, I prefer to listen and ask questions. By virtue of the fact that the guy has been alive more than twice as long as I have, he’s got to have more to say. I found his stories very interesting, and I was happy to talk to someone who appreciated Debussy, Saint-Saens, Hosseini, and Chernow as much as I.
Then I asked him if there was a family he went home to, and he said there was none. That really changed the mood of things. Sometimes I wonder why I ask these things. Reminds me of when Stephen and I grilled one of his employees on which of his two girlfriends he loved more. (That’s a differnt story.)
He told me that he had never gotten married. I asked him why not, and I will never forget his answer, nor the longing in his face as he told me, “There was someone once. She was a ship that came and passed. What went wrong? We started thinking about the ‘what fors’ and lost the ‘what ifs’.” I appreciate style, but I normally like to talk in English, so I asked him to explain.
We talked about how at the start of things, their relationship was all about the what ifs. It was all about the possibilities. “What if we do this? What if we take a trip? What if we settle down here or buy a house there?” Everything was an option as long as they were together. But the realities of life eroded what they had, and the impracticality of the possibilities removed initial considerations. Situations and circumstances proved less than ideal. At the end of it all, they found themselves questioning what they had. “What is all of this for? Is all the effort worth it?”
I guess they didn’t think so. They’d probably be together if they thought otherwise.
He did leave me with some take home. He told me, “Never trade the possibilities for the practical compromises. Mediocrity is Monstrosity. You can not settle. All the masters, from painters to singers to athletes to heroes, there is a passion, almost an obsession, for something, sometimes something unattainable. That is why they’re masters. Either you give it everything or you don’t. When you hold back, your expectations will never be met, and you will inenvitably question what, that thing you once enjoyed, is for.” (I never got to ask him if he noticed that a lot of the “masters” were depressed and quite unstable. He could have told me that the “what ifs” are basically his stylized way of talking about the possibilities, and the “what fors” are the questions he asked when things got difficult. )
I paid for the bill and I thanked him for an interesting conversation. Then I went home, tried to type this blog, practiced piano, and went to bed.
I remember asking him what her name was.
Lost in his thoughts, with a faraway look, he told me, “Her name was Helen.”
Ladies & Gentlemen Your Response Please
Once in a while, we find the past making an appearance in our present. Like a movie flashback we find ourselves reliving a memory long dormant and forgotten.
That’s exactly how I felt standing in front of one of the halls in Teachers Camp, Baguio. As I looked through the dusty windows of the empty room, I remembered very vividly a scene from many year back as a young nervous boy:
It was the night of the camp ball, I had been selected Mr. Campference, and as is the tradition, I was to have the first dance with the year’s Ms. Campference - a much taller girl. Growing up, I was always the smallest in my class. I was tiny come to think of it. I can’t begin to describe how scared I was to walk out there and dance with a giant of a female in front of everyone. To me, back then, that was the scariest moment of my life.
I still feel that way, like a schoolboy dancing with responsibilities much too big for him. Sometimes as the music plays, the weight of supporting her through the dizzying turns and steps can get very tiring.
People ask, “Why take on responsibility in the first place? Why bear the burden for others? Why complicate your life?” I don’t really have an answer for them. I see responsibility differently.
To me, to be responsible is to respond. Respond to what? To the needs of people around us and also to the opportunities presented. It’s like that yema boy I wrote about, who, without saying a word, asked me, “David. David. Your response please?” Or when I was asked to join Habitat for Humanity or Real LIFE, “David. David. Your response please?” How do you know that you’re the one to respond? You’ll know if you’re listening, because need and opportunity call you by name. But you have to be listening because everyday there are calls coming out for help, for food, for a chance, for forgiveness, for leadership, for strength, for hope, for love. There’s so many calls that you’re bound to hear one calling you specifically and you can’t miss it, because it’s saying your name over and over and it’s asking, “your response please.”
So for those of you responding I’d like to encourage you with what I shared in Baguio, in that same room that once scared me. Here are 5 short points on HOW to respond.
1. Make love our motivation – While we respond to need and opportunity, let it be our love for people or our passion for a concern or cause that drives us. There are so many needs and so much opportunity, a good way to know which one is for us is to check our hearts and ask ourselves, “Do I love this?”
2. Make vision our guide – To respond to a need or opportunity usually means to enter a situation that’s not ideal – probably far from ideal – and that’s why there’s a need or opportunity in the first place. There’s something missing, something we can bring to the picture. That’s why we have to see the big and greater picture, a picture we remind ourselves when things get challenging – and they always will because nothing worth doing is without challenge.
3. Make discipline our practice – Our passion and our vision should lead to consistent action. This is one area I need a lot of improvement in. It’s nice and fun to be involved in something we like. It’s nice and fun to dream big. But it’s the daily steps and ceaseless plodding that takes us closer and closer to these targets. Unless love and vision are applied in action, they will never produce the masterpieces they were intended to create.
4. Make joy your strength – There is a different energy that comes over us when we’re enjoying what we’re doing. Our work becomes fun, and what’s fun we can sustain longer. Responsibilities don’t always have to be tiring and tedious. We can enjoy the growth, the learning, the discovery, and relationships.
5. Make faith your hope – No matter how motivated we are, no matter how grand or precise our vision, no matter how disciplined we are, and no matter how much satisfaction we derive, we will all face a challenge that’s much much much bigger than us. This is why we need faith in God, that we know we can place our hope in Him and trust that what is too big for us will never be too big for Him, not our responsibilities, not our limitations, not our sins, not our failures, nothing.
As we traveled back to Manila after just 6 hours in Baguio, I was filled with gratefulness to God for even including me in this amazing thing He has designed called life. I know I don’t deserve a spot on the team. I would never make the cut. When I’m very honest with myself I’m reminded, that if I were to take them, I’d fail the leadership test, the integrity test, the faith test, and the excellence test. But that’s the amazing thing. Despite all my shortcomings, there’s a call with my name on it, and it’s not asking if I’m ready. It’s asking for a response.
The Sparkling of the Stars
D:
The sparkling of the stars
The glimmer of the sea
The shining of the moon
Shining over you
Maybe ‘cause the lighting’s changed
Maybe it’s the moment we linger in
Maybe now my eyes see clearer
Seeing from the heart
So I’m asking
I’m asking for a start
With you…
F:
The howling of the wind
The beating of my heart
Things fly past so(o) fast
Scared that we’ve trespassed
Maybe ‘cause the times have changed
Maybe it’s a dream we linger in
Maybe now my mind knows better
Than to go too far
I’m so scared
To wish upon a star
For you…
Valentines Day
A man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.
- Don Vito Corleone to Johnny Fontane, from The Godfather
L.O.V.E, it’s a mystery
Where you’ll find me, where you’ll find
All is Love, is love, is love, is love
- Karen O, All is Love from Where the Wild Things Are
Valentine’s Day
Contrary to what people might think, I actually like Valentine’s day. Growing up, my ever thoughtful mom used to put heart-shaped patterned goodie bags filled with heart-shaped chocolates, heart-shaped gummies, and other heart, cupid, rose, or some similar Valentine’s-cliche-shaped sweet. My brothers and I already had the best lunch boxes, we each had one cooler (Yes, a cooler.) of Ritz Bits, mini Chips Ahoy, some fruit leather (Which I used to refer to as Fruit of the Loom until I saw the underwear. You can’t chew on those, well, you can, but you’d look like an idiot.), milk in a pack (Of course we had to have milk.), granola bars, and on Valentine’s Day our treasure chest turned into a personal ADHD resource.
As if we weren’t hyper enough.
Valentine’s has changed for us now that we are older, such as Joe’s traditional car stalling when Carla and he celebrate Valentine’s. I think Tammy the Tamaraw is jealous that she no longer gets Joe’s undivided attention. I think it started changing for me the first time I gave a bunch of roses to a girl. I got the colors all wrong and gave her white ones because I wanted mine to stand out. Now I know that tradition matters more than color – so stick to red. But I’m sure she liked them anyway. Because she told me she liked me like crazy.
Or did she say she was crazy for liking me.
I forget.
It doesn’t matter. Everyone who likes anyone like crazy is crazy for liking anyone like crazy. If you found that confusing, well, so did I. But that’s part of the fun.
My parents seem to have warmed-up to our bringing females to meet the family, especially with Carla and Kristie around. At one of our recent dinners, my dad had reserved the seat next to him for Carla, for his new daughter, so that he could tell her to start calling her pop. He’s sentimental that way. Which is also why he watches Joe’s wedding video for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
It wasn’t always this way. I remember on one of my birthdays, my mom gave me a copy of Joshua Harris’ book I Kiss Dating Goodbye. I gave it away the next day. Christmas that year she gave me another copy. What kind of sadistic mom gives a book like that for Christmas??? I think I used that copy to build a camp fire or something. She then gave me a third copy on my birthday the next year with terrible acting, “Oh have I given you a copy of this?” “Um.. YEAH… for the past three disappointing gift occasions.” With me, they always had this idea that I only went out with females solely because of their looks. Which was absurd. All of them, and they’re not as many as my brothers make them out to be, were attractive, interesting, and incredible in their own different way. But I wouldn’t recommend my path to anyone, in fact, after witnessing Joe’s wedding, I’d suggest you emulate him, not so much so that you’ll bag an actress, but so that we’ll see how God works when we let Him. Ok I shouldn’t use the word “bag”, but you get the point. Besides, I prefer someone low-key and away from the limelight so that I don’t have to worry about getting photographed while I’m picking my nose or losing my temper on the tennis court.
February 14, 2010
Earlier today, the family, which is pop and mom, Joe, Josh, and their better halves, Carla and Kristie, and I got together for a home made Valentine’s lunch. Not to be undone, I invited my own friend from Japan who is also into sailing. I only realized later on that he was the same friend I brought to Christmas dinner when my mom mentioned it. Which prompted Josh to say:
“So, David. Are you trying to tell us something? Are you introducing him to the family?”
My brother is insane, and my other seemingly angelic but also quite as crazy older brother and he decided to pick on the remaining single brother by playing a twist to a family favorite game called What Would You Rather. This one is called David, Who Would You Rather End Up With.
Brothers: David, who would you rather end up with… K or I?
David: I don’t know them both.
Brothers: Just based on looks.
David: I don’t know how they look.
Mom: You don’t? K has nice legs.
David: Yikes mom…
Mom: Here. (Showing me a picture of K on her computer)
David: It’s blurry. I can’t see the detail. I like detail.
Mom: You like detail? Here. She has a nice necklace.
David: Like that matters when you’re married… More like, does she like classical music?
Brothers: Like THAT matters…
Brothers: C or H?
David: C.
Brothers: Woohoo!
Brothers: What about C or P?
David: Definitely P.
Brothers: What happened to C?
David: P is hotter.
Brothers: Woohoo!
Brothers: P or R?
David: R by far.
Brothers: Nice to know you still have some substance left.
Brothers: P or P?
David: P. Like I said earlier, she’s hotter.
Brothers: There goes the substance.
So the game went on. F or Y? C or T? P or Z? A or double X? Actress or business woman? Chef or athlete? Musician or writer? Old or older? (Note: The letters I put are random. They do not correspond to anyone specifically. Well, they do, but not logically but by chance.)
All this talk got me thinking, “Who is someone I can’t live without?” It didn’t take long for me to realize. Because if you were to ask me if I would rather be doing anything else, I would tell you no. I can’t think of anything I enjoy more than being with my family – even if I am the seventh wheel, and even if it means enduring another round of Who Would You Rather.
It’s always been clear, that having some-one to yourself doesn’t really matter when you’re surrounded by the ones who mean everything.
Besides, I’m saving up for a sailboat.
Boys & Girls
On an empty path with fallen leaves, crumpled grass, beneath a canopy of trees, lay a little girl with eyes shut tight and all four limbs outstretched. “I’m floating down a river, the great river that opens to the ocean.” she whispered to herself.
“Excuse me”, said a little boy, a little boy she didn’t know had been watching her for close to a minute, and a minute is a long time for a little boy. “You might have forgotten but you’re on grass. You’re not in a river. And our river, it doesn’t open to the ocean. It opens to more river and a hundred other rivers before it opens to the ocean.”
“Can’t you see I’m imagining?”
“I didn’t know girls knew how to imagine.”
“Of course we do! We can do everything you can – and better!”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest that you weren’t as good as…”
“What were you suggesting?”
“Nothing. I wasn’t suggesting anything. I…”
“Then mind your own business!”
“Ok ok… Take it easy. I’m going. I’m going.”
“Girls are crazy.” he told himself. “I was only trying to help. How was I to know they also imagined?”
Naïve as little boys are sometimes, he didn’t realize that little girls do. Do imagine, I mean. And even as he turned his way, this little girl’s mind was already forming, the images, sensations, and a matrimonial storyline.
“He loves me. I’m sure of it. And I love him too!”
Our Father’s Favor
Because You're Worth It.
I was wondering
Was I dreaming
But it’s true
Life’s unfolding
I’ll be growing
Old with you
Still many things unplanned
But take my hand
The future’s vast
Let’s make our love last
– Let’s Make Our Love Last
“I promise to constantly pursue you, make you feel loved and wanted… because you’re worth it.”
– Sapster
January 28, 2010
The night before the wedding, while sharing our last casita with Joe before he clamped on his ball and chain, I asked him, “You sure about this? It’s not too late to back out you know?”
He just looked at me and shook his head.
January 29, 2010 – right before marching
Me: “Joe. This is your last chance. Once the music starts there’s no turning back.”
Joe: Shaking his head again.
Me: “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
So we marched. Like guards escorting a convict down his final green mile, we walked the sandy aisle. Then Pastor Steve administered his last rites, and before you know it pronounced the sentence: man and wife.
I’m convinced Cupid has us fooled. He isn’t a baby in Pampers with a mini bow and arrow. In fact, I think he sort of looks like General Rommel, The Desert Fox, and drives around in a massive tank. When that turret is aimed at you, it’s not to pierce your heart. It’s prepared to blow you away. Blow you away for good.
I’ve taken a few shrapnel wounds myself but Joe sustained a direct hit. The blast was so strong it threw him into a white suit and Korean bangs.
Seriously, my “non-showbiz” brother, Joseph’s wedding to his “showbiz” best friend Carla “Rica” Peralejo was amazing. I was so proud of my brother because he looked every bit the man that he really is, still slightly geeky with his Zoolander Magnum look, but also decidedly confident, and prepared to take on this responsibility. Most importantly he was a testimony of God honoring a man that has dedicated his life to honoring Him.
It was both an encouragement and a gentle rebuke to me.
Carla looked especially beautiful. I mean she’s pretty, everyone knows that. She’s an actress – she has to be. But the way she looked that day was something else. It wasn’t “hot” or “sexy” or “cute” or “pretty”. It wasn’t the kind that makes you think “Wow, Joe’s going to have one heck of a night tonight.” (Though that was probably in Josh’s mind.) This one was BEAUTIFUL – pure, unadulterated, un-manufactured radiance.
Before the wedding was over Josh and I had agreed, “Joe’s going to have one heck of a night tonight.” (”But you just said…” I know. I know. That’s what you get for growing up in a group of three boys.)
I heard a lot of hearts were broken that day. I’m not surprised. People like beauty. Carla is beautiful for obvious reasons, Joe, has a beautiful… um… mind?
A lot of hearts were also lit alive with love on that perfect day, in a perfect place, with a perfect sky, and a perfect breeze, when two imperfect people were perfected in love by a commitment to a union with each other and our Lord.
Thank Yous
The wedding was executed very well. Thanks to Pastor Steve (officiating minister, and really our third father: God, then Pop, then Pastor Steve), Teena Baretto (amazing wedding planner), the master storytellers Lito Sy (photos) and Jason Magbanua (video), Seren8 (music), Josiah’s (food), Tita Pin Antonio (renowned hair stylist and another close friend of the couple’s), Tito Gary Valenciano (song numbers), always a treat to have him, Donita Rose and Pastor Dennis Sy (hosts), and I must add Franco Laurel and Archie Castillo (who respectively sang and arranged the song I wrote). I’m sure I missed people but this isn’t really my job. Joe for sure will be thanking everyone when he’s not so preoccupied.
You understand of course. As he said in his own speech, he has to “conserve energy”.
I was actually surprised they showed up at the house yesterday. If I was Joe, and had a license to kill, I would fire away.
That’s probably why he’s the married one.
Anyway…
Joshua Strikes Again
Earlier before the wedding, my dad and I were trying to get Joshua to prepare for his toast. He couldn’t understand why he had to prepare anything when all he had to say was “CHEERS!”
So he thought…
When Paula, Carla’s sister, shared a well-prepared heart-felt message, Josh all of a sudden felt pressured to say something. So to buy him some time he did an impromptu dance that was followed by an incredibly funny impromptu speech. I can’t do justice to what he said so I’m hoping someone posts a video of his toast.
He ended his speech by toasting to “Beuwolf!”
Why? Who knows?
Josh and I are opening a Bestmen for hire business with Teena. This actually matches Proposals by David. Isn’t matrimonial capitalism beautiful? Back in William Wallace’s day all you needed was a guy and a girl, a priest, a horse, and a lake. Today, you have a billion dollar industry.
Next?
I get the thought process. My older brother gets married so it’s only logical that his direct younger brother is next. But that logic only works if age and birth order were the only criteria for eligibility. In reality both aren’t as important as, let’s say, shared values and same taste in music. (Seriously, the former is a need, the latter a want.)
I don’t know if this is true, but about 4628 couples get married every day. So there have been more than 12,000 couples who have gone next already, and if, let’s say again, I stay single for another 10 years, that would give us a formula and results of 4628 couples/day X 365 days/year X 10 years = 16,892,200 couples X 2 person/couple = 33,784,400 people next.
In short, I’m not next.
Changes
There’s going to be a few changes in our household. For one, there’s going to be more food in the fridge. Joe eats a lot. And my clothes won’t keep disappearing. Looking forward to that.
But we’re also going to miss Wyatt Earp aka King Arthur aka D’artagnan aka Simon the Chipmunk. I feel like a comrade was lost in arms – lost to matrimony, that great unknown where none come back the same – if at all.
The bar is really set high, now that Joseph “sapster” Bonifacio has joined the leagues of Lord Byron with his “I promise to constantly pursue you, make you feel loved and wanted… because you’re worth it.” I’m seeing his quote all over the place followed by statements such as “Can I clone you Joe?” “I’m waiting for my Joe.” “the Legend of Joe Bonifacio” and my personal favorites “Oh my Joe” and “Santa, wrap me a Joe I’ve been good this year.”
Ok, I made those last two up.
Being positive about it, we do gain something my brothers and I have always wanted: a sister. Finally, my mother has another female to plan tea parties and cross-stitch with.
Just kidding.
I have a sister now, and I love the thought of it.
Technically, Joe doesn’t have one yet. He’ll have to wait for 33,784,400 people to go first. Unless Josh surprises us.
Now I need a new title for this series. Bonifacio Brothers and Chick, Bonifacio Brothers and Female, Bonifacio Brothers and Wife, Bonifacio Brothers and XX Chromosome. It’s late. I don’t want to think.
Our Father’s Favor
My brothers and I, like many other children, have had to live under the shadow of expectations for most of our lives, such as spiritual expectations, moral expectations, achievement expectations, behavioral expectations, conduct expectations, financial expectations, relational expectations, and others, some of which we have placed on ourselves, but many of which just comes with being the children of my parents. I’ve struggled with the knowledge that given all my flaws there’s no way I can live up to these standards. I’m sure my brothers have felt the same at times, and maybe some of you have your own versions.
But standing at my brother’s wedding that day, watching a miracle called marriage take place, and it was a miracle, I felt our Father, Joe’s Father, my Father, your Father, our Father, impress in my heart, “Isn’t this greater than what you expected? See what I can do when you let me?”
And again, another humbling moment for this arrogant middle son, I thought to myself, “Yes, I see.”
So I’m reminding myself to forget the expectations, and release the criticism, to stop struggling and striving, and to remember to obey and to trust. Because even as I was brought down another notch in my never-ending need for humbling, I heard His voice once again in my heart say, “Then let me do greater things for you.”
The Songs of My Heart
I close my eyes as I play this piece, a cry of help to my King.
From the bottom of my soul to the tips of my fingers, from my fingers to the keys, from this instrument to heaven, hear my offering, be pleased.
I don’t have the words to say how grateful I am for grace, for love, for forgiveness.
I don’t know how to phrase my never ending requests for strength, for rest, for redemption.
Listen. Please listen, to the songs of my heart. They’re for you, only for you.
Answer. Please answer, the songs of my heart. They call for you, only for you.
Forgiveness & Love
What allows a life spent so lost in selfishness a second chance? Forgiveness.
And what allows a third and fourth and a fifth and a sixth chance? More forgiveness.
It’s funny. I hate that word when I think about those who have wronged me. But then I love it when I think about who I am and how much I need it.
And what allows such amazing forgiveness and complete redemption? Love.
A Pain in the Butt
Sometimes after biking, and sitting in that painfully designed piece of torture known as the bike seat, I feel like someone grabbed my ass cheeks, one cheek in each hand, and in one quick motion, ripped it apart.
Speaking of pains in the butt, I read about someone once, who was born to a family of modest means. His parents belonged to two different religious denominations so he pretty much grew up with mixed beliefs.
When he was sixteen he stopped studying so that the family could save money to send him to a better place. In his idleness he would learn the pleasures of sin, the temporary gratifications that lead to continuing regret. What started with pick-pocketing and stealing extended to promiscuity.
At 18, he met a girl, and she must have been beautiful because he would fall in love with her. Her name was Una, and though he would never marry her, she would be the mother of his son, and he would be faithful to her – at least for a significant amount of time. But faithfulness is like that, when you’re no longer faithful once, you’ve become unfaithful. It’s that simple.
In his searching, he would join a cult, and being who he was, he dove in deep, studying their teaching, and leading others to it. He wouldn’t be satisfied with the inconsistencies and move on to other things.
Finally, his mother prevailed on him to give up his mistress and find a wife. But it’s never that simple to just turn away, especially from something you lust for, from something you’ve learned to love. Passion is a double-edged sword. Controlled, it becomes strength, an enabler to do more, go further, and reach higher. Uncontrolled, it is wildfire, burning everything in its way. So he burned, and in his confused condemnation prayed, “Help me turn away. I know I need to. But not yet. I’m having too much fun.”
He would find some soothing in intellectual pursuit. Hoping that the gathering of wisdom would lead to true fulfillment and true spirituality. But his contemplations only highlighted one thing: who he was and how far he was from who he was supposed to be, even more, how far he was from who he wanted to become. So he continued in his promiscuity.
Imagine if he was your kid, if he was your brother, or uncle, or employee, or friend, or student. He would be a real frustrating pain in the ass. You might even say you know exactly who I’m talking about, that he shares your office, or last name, or that he lives in your home, or even sleeps in your bed.
But you’d be wrong.
Many years later, this man would genuinely find God, through the prayers of his mother, the patient teaching of an older man, and because he continued to seek, just as Jeremiah had written, because he searched for God with all his heart. (Jeremiah 29:13)
And history now remembers him as St. Augustine.
What allows a life spent so lost in selfishness a second chance? Forgiveness.
And what allows a third and fourth and a fifth and a sixth chance? More forgiveness.
It’s funny. I hate that word when I think about those who have wronged me. But then I love it when I think about who I am and how much I need it.
And what allows such amazing forgiveness and complete redemption? Love.
Because I Didn’t
This is a true story of a missed opportunity. Many times we don’t, not because we can’t, but because we won’t.
Because I Didn’t
If I could, I would. If I could have another shot I mean, another chance with RJ. But the chances of that happening are slim, and while nothing is completely impossible, there are things that are highly improbable.
And it’s that thought that bothers me whenever I remember him. That remembrance quickly turns into regret, a regret strong enough to wake me up when his face visits my dreams.
I met RJ when he tried to sell yema to my table at a popular dining location in Metro Manila. Yema is a Filipino sweet (or is it Spanish?) made up mostly of milk, egg yolk, and sugar, it is easy to prepare, relatively cheap, and is many times sold by street vendors. RJ was a street vendor, a very young street vendor, but he had an excellence to him. His hair was fixed, which is something I’ve never learned how to accomplish, his clothes were old but he was clean, and he stood and spoke confidently as he offered his goods.
I told him I’d buy all the yema he had if he would sit with us for a while. I offered him some ice cream but he politely declined. If I remember right I think he settled for a Coke. I really wanted to help him, so I told him that if he would meet me every Saturday night for one hour, we would spend half the time studying the Bible, for the other half I would teach him what I knew about business, and, lastly, which was most attractive to him, I would buy all the yema he could bring.
And that was how it started.
Every Saturday night for the next few weeks we would meet, and I would bring friends (come to think of it, friends I haven’t seen a while) with me to share and encourage him, particularly Wendel, who now works for GE, Jon aka Mr. Coconut, and Rads, who shared his incredible testimony with RJ but someone I can’t really say anything good about anymore. That’s another story. Of course we all quickly got tired of yema. It went the way of anything we have too much of, from delighted to despised.
But RJ we fell in love with.
It turned out that he was 12 turning 13 years old, and that at nights he would travel from a few hours away, by himself, and visit the malls that had become part of his circuit selling yema. He would finish late at night, maybe even get home early morning, sleep, go to school, study or do homework while his aunt prepared more yema, then he would go sell. This was his routine, which our Saturday night dates became a part of.
One Saturday he didn’t show. So I sat there and waited, thinking he was late, hoping nothing bad happened to him. But he didn’t show up at all.
The next week he didn’t appear again, neither the next, nor the next, until it was clear he wasn’t showing up anymore. Every Saturday I’d pray and hope he would show up, and I would sit there, sometimes dragging another friend along to wait with me.
But he never showed.
One evening, in another mall, in a reenactment of our first meeting, he sold me yema while I was having dinner, not recognizing who I was. I asked him why he didn’t show. He said that they kicked him out one Saturday, and he thought I’d be mad at him for not showing up, so he stayed away. I told him I wasn’t mad at all, more worried, but not angry. So we agreed to resume meeting at another place, and, of course, I bought his yema.
The last time I saw RJ he was being escorted by cops, with his head down, and handcuffed like a criminal. He turned and I know he saw me, because he looked at me, and that’s the look that I can’t forget, his face afraid and his eyes pleading “help me!” I was with my friend and we went to try to talk to the police, but they said that if we weren’t guardians there was nothing we could do, and that they would implicate us in something if we got involved.
I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was frustration. Maybe it was laziness, or an unwillingness to inconvenience myself. But I took their advice and gave up. I watched, just standing there, until I could no longer see them, and I turned and went my way.
Fast-forward to today, and I wonder what RJ is doing as I type this. Is he in college? Is he out in the rain? Is his yema wet? Is he still selling yema at all? Is he all right? What happened to him that night? Is he ok? Is he even still alive? I think about what he could have been, what I could have helped him become. I think about how, if I could do things over, I would trade the convenience for the complications of getting involved, because I know now it would have been worth it.
If I could, I would do so many things. But the sad reality is, back then I could have, but I didn’t.
-
For those of you who want to try it, I found this online.
Recipe for Yema
Ingredients:
1 cup condensed milk
5 egg yolks
1/2 cup mashed potatoes
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 tablespoon butter
Syrup:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
Directions:
Combine all the ingredients for the yema and cook until the mixture is thick.
Set aside and cool.
Roll into balls of about 1 inch in diameter.
Prepare the syrup: blend all the ingredients for the syrup.
Bring to a boil until syrup is caramel-colored.
Insert a toothpick into the yema ball and dip into the syrup.
Cool on greased baking pan.
The Beautiful Interruptions
My articles are getting longer. I notice it too. So I’ve divided this into three parts. Maybe I’m becoming too ambitious with my writing. Maybe I have more to say. Maybe it’s treatment, what a friend called my catharsis, for tiring work days. Maybe I’m hoping that somehow this gives a better contribution to make up for the tactless things I say.
Nights Are A Good Time To Remember
The past few nights, instead of sticking to this month’s reading list, which include a book on Lorenzo de Medici, Islands in the Stream by Hemmingway, a book on Bear Stearns’ financial collapse, Basho’s haikus, and the highly uncharacteristic (for me at least) Seven Levels of Intimacy, I decided to read through my old journals, mostly contained in oilcloth covered Moleskines.
These Chatwin-inspired notebooks may not be the most practical of purchases but they do have their appeal. For one, they have pockets, which are useful for notes, really old but really good letters, for filing old Post-its, and, according to their marketing, they were used by the likes of Picasso, Mattise, and Hemmingway – even though the brand itself was registered in 1996. Picasso died in the 1970s and Hemmingway in the 60s. You connect the dots. Another thing I like about them, and this is why I choose to be gullible, is how nice the uniform little black books look lined-up on my shelf.
But what really make my Moleskines special (special to me at least) are the lines that form the letters and numbers, and drawings, and words, and phrases, and sentences, and paragraphs of events, reminders, and plans, and emotions, and thoughts, and hopes, and prayers that all combine into one big story – the story of my life.
We All Have This In Common: We’re All Different
Much like everyone else’s life story, mine does not fall under one genre. It’s a little adventure, a little mystery, a little horror, a little comedy, a little romance in 1 or 2 quarter segments, a little drama, and even science fiction. Sometimes I forget how amazing my life has been, and envy the experiences, the opportunities, and the resources of others, and when I feel this way I take one of my Moleskines and remind myself of the treasure I enjoy each day. See, the problem with trying to live someone else’s life is that we will fail in two ways: to be fulfilled in a life not meant for us, and to miss the fulfillment in the life we should be living – our own.
The next three offerings are, as I said, divided into three parts: The Beautiful Interruptions, The Beautiful Strangers, and The Beautiful End. I wrote them basically as reminders to value everything in every moment, especially the people, who make these moments, come alive.
The Beautiful Interruptions
One of the things I particularly don’t like about our educational system is that it expects everyone to mature at roughly the same pace. It seems to presume that when you’re a certain age you’re supposed to have a certain level of learning and able to join a certain grade. But people don’t grow, or mature, or learn at the same pace. Not so much because some are smarter than the others but really more because people live different lives, and are exposed to different things at different times leading to different experiences and different learning.
To put it succinctly, the problem with a rigidly programmed educational system is that many times it fails to prepare us for the unplanned and the unexpected.
Reading through my journals made me realize that very little of my life has gone according to plan. Investments that never materialized, business turned sour, my MBA in Spain stunted right after a great interview, relationships strained, paused, or completely ruined, broken limbs and scar-leaving stitches, a suicide bombing, lost luggage, and quite a number of planes and trains missed, I have to say a lot has not gone according to plan.
And that isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes God has to interrupt our plans to make way for something better, to make way for Him. Sometimes I cringe at the thought of what my life would be like today if my plan had pushed through. Maybe it would even be over.
There’s one incident that really underscored this for me. It happened years ago on my only visit to Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a beautiful country with beautiful people of amazing strength. I would definitely encourage anyone who knows they are called there to not hesitate and go. That year was 2004, I was 20 years old, and was sporting the most pathetic looking facial hair in the land-locked nation. I was with a long time friend who used to work for the family but decided to go on a series of mission trips. In Aghanistan, while shopping in a popular area, he reminded me that we had a meeting to go to. I corrected him saying that we had a few hours, but he insisted we left. So we left, and arrived at an empty safe house, a few hours early for the planned meeting. I was a little annoyed at him for getting the facts wrong, but the annoyance quickly disappeared as we watched the breaking news on TV. A few minutes after we left, on the street where we were, a suicide bomber had done his thing and taken the lives of a few people. Things didn’t go according to my plan, but I’m glad it didn’t. I’m very happy to be alive today. Besides, there’s a time for everything. The next day we went back to finish our shopping, knowing that a suicide bomber gets to strike only once.
Over the years my friend and I have gotten closer, and I stood as one of two best men on his wedding day, and now am godfather to his son blessed with the amazing name, David.
I try to remind myself, when things go wrong, or are delayed, or are blown away, to be grateful for the beautiful interruptions, knowing that everything happens for a purpose. Maybe it’s to teach us a lesson. Maybe it is patience we need to learn. Maybe it’s to protect us, from ourselves, our own plans, or someone else’. Maybe it’s to teach us to appreciate when we finally have something or someone. Maybe it’s to keep us somewhere long enough so that we won’t miss the sunset. Maybe He wants to remind us of how it feels like to be blessed by the rain. Even, maybe, it’s to prolong the suffering so we’ll know how to comfort those in pain. Whatever it is, there’s a reason, and while I hate to use this corny line (I really really do), that reason is you.
Proposals by David
I’m not known for being a very romantic guy. (Which is a misconception. I actually am.) But I’ve decided to enter the proposal planning business. I thought about it really hard and it was such an obvious decision. I mean, there just isn’t any other industry that will allow me to fully utilize my evident strengths which are sensitivity, and a complete and deep understanding of romance and females. (Maybe besides writing a book on “How to Love Your Female: Cultivate a Relationship That Lasts beyond 3 Months”, but this would be a little too easy for me.) Besides ordering people around has always come naturally to me. And even better, I already have my team:
1. Flowers and Candles by Anna Moran with sought after Candle Lighter Jonathan Murrell
2. Styling by Jen, Janina, and Ryan Punzalan
3. Creative Watcha-ma-call-its by Linnie Lareza (with no extra overtime charges)
4. Video and Lighting by JA Moran and Paolo Punzalan
5. Constructive Criticism by James Murrell
And my personal favourite:
6. Bossed-Around-Do-Everything-I-Say-Guys Paolo and Darwin
The Competition
Now, I’ve scoped the field and there’s really just one competitor I’m worried about:Ganns Dean’s Perfect Proposals. He’s had a head start and has proposed to more females than I have. I’ve never actually proposed to anyone. It’s sad, I know. But at some point you get used to the females doing the proposing and it doesn’t bother you anymore – and this is my competitive edge: I know how I would like to be proposed to.
Anyway, I decided to try some spy tactics and interview Ganns himself:
(Paraphrased)
Me: Ganns, do you still have that proposals company?
Ganns: Why yes. You planning to propose?
Me: Well, yeah…
Ganns: Great! I didn’t even know you had a girlfriend.
Me: You know me. I’m really private about these things.
Ganns: Ok…
Me: But you know that feeling, when you keep thinking of someone, and no matter what you do you can’t get them out of your mind? Like no matter what focus techniques you use to block them out they still dance around your brain?
Ganns: Yes! I first felt that way with Debbie Gibson.
Me: Who’s Debbie Gibson?
Ganns: My first crush. Then she came out on playboy and that destroyed the dream.
Me: So you know how it feels. Like that last piece of crap that won’t come out no matter how much psylium husk you drink.
Ganns: You’re so romantic. Here’s my advice: To thine own self be true. If you ask her in a way that’s un-you, it isn’t authentic. And she probably knows you well enough to know.
Me: And if she doesn’t like me then what?
Ganns: You are one of the most charming, articulate young men I know. I’m sure she likes you. And if she doesn’t, well, it’s not the end of the world.
Me: It’s not? How’d you feel when Debbie Gibson fell out of your life?
Ganns: Dude, she was a blonde, blue-eyed Jewish singer. I was this pimply adolescent Filipino. But I’ll tell you this, when I did ask my first girlfriend to be my girlfriend, it was at a piano, and I was making the words up as I went along. That’s who I was. It’s the same thing with you.
Me: So do you think my crap analogy will work?
Ganns: Um… No.
Me: But what happened to being true?
Ganns: That’s the exception.
Me: Ok. We’re dead.
And here’s the winning line,
Ganns: It’s not about the batting average. You step up to the plate, you take a deep breath, you swing, and you hope you hit a home run. If it doesn’t work, you get another chance up at bat. If you don’t get another chance, there will be other ball games.
I thought that was a brilliant way to put it. Then I remembered hearing something like that from the movie Martian Child, and I wondered if Ganns was actually an extraterrestrial.
The First Test
After my little reconnaissance of the competition, I did what all sought after proposal planners do – I waited to be sought. It didn’t take very long until, by purely word of mouth, I got a first client, my brother, Joseph.
Joseph: I need your help Dave.
Me: I know you do. I’ll help you because I’m an expert at these things and know all there is to know about proposing.
Ok, that wasn’t believable at all. It didn’t go anything like that. It was more like:
Me: You do know that you’re going to be stuck with her if you do this?
Joseph: That’s the point, Dave.
Me: Right.
To make a potentially long story short by removing all the feminine interest angles, we succeeded in helping my brother in his suicide mission. And that’s exactly what it was: a suicide mission. To love someone is to lay your life down and die to yourself. And we planners are guilty of euthanasia.
Last Night in Lisbon
On my last night in Europe, I look out from the roof terrace of the Barrio Alto Hotel in Lisboa, Portugal. In front of me are buildings more than a hundred year old sloping down to meet the coast of what was once the most important port in the world. The yellow glow of the lamps, which still hold their gas predecessor’s form, bounces across stone walls and floors of the narrow alleys. Sometimes shadows break the light, a man old enough to be hunched but strong enough to hike, the conjoined shadows of lovers returning from a date, or those of a family, walking side by side, that remind you of the paper-cut figures from preschool linked at the hands and feet. I wonder why they’re all still out. It’s late.
I look back at the sea, and I remember a conversation I had earlier with a man, full of experience and at least thrice my age, as we walked along the bay, he with his tie loose and his coat flung across his back, and I still in business mode. He said, “Many times, I have come to the sea to get my life back together.” I told him that was one of God’s gifts. He nodded towards a lady who smiled while passing us, “THAT is God’s gift! And you seem to be a gifted man. Stay away from them. They’re trouble.” I answered with a smirk. He then started to talk about his third wife, “We were beautiful once. We are no longer. I look at her in the morning, and I say, ‘Who is this fat cow with skin like marble???’ But I love her. I loved her then and I still do. Because she is the only woman I know who wakes up laughing. Can you imagine? A laughing cow with melting skin??? She is lucky to have a man like me! She seduced me, that temptress, she did!” I asked him how a cow sedduced him. He gave me a look that said, “Don’t be a wiseguy.” I decided to change the subject and asked if he regretted his other wives, he said, “I’ve had expensive losses, but I’ve also had expensive profits. I have no regrets.” Looking back it wasn’t the best subject to change to. Unlike him, I can’t say the same. I do have regrets.
The cold wind brings me back to the terrace, and somewhere I can hear singing, like the lady at the restaurant earlier that sang the saddest sounding amore’ I have ever heard in my life. That was the only word I understood, and that was enough. In a way, that describes very well what this trip has been for me. Come to think of it, it describes life very well. Despite not understanding, or misunderstanding, the little we do know is many times all we need.
In places where everything is foreign to you, and you’re foreign to everything, you learn to feel with your heart and you learn to comprehend with your soul. You find that the world is no longer just brown, black, or white, but also reds, and pinks, and ochre, with cerulean, and light. And in the complexities of what’s happening in today’s world, it’s nice to be able to step back and be reminded that somewhere the accordion still rocks, and the sea still speaks, that sons still dance with their gypsy mothers, and that people say I love you in a million different ways.
Stations & Trains
Sometimes, no, many times, I like to escape into my own mind, into the magic of my imagination. Here I dream of stories, some of people around me, some of me, some of characters completely made up. Many things trigger it, nothing in particular, but many things can take me from the traffic of Manila to Pencey Prep. I try to write them sometimes. Most of the time they file themselves in my hippocampus. I think that’s where it is.
Here’s one inspired by all the trains I’ve been taking.
Stations and Trains
I thought she was his daughter. She was just short. Really short. But when he leaned over to kiss her, she on her tiptoes, there was no mistaking they were lovers. I looked around me, and it seemed my eyes only saw the goodbyes. Fathers waving away, flying kisses from a wife, handshakes with partners, tight embraces, and the audible I love yous and thank yous, we’re all saying goodbye in our own way. Maybe because, in our own way, we’re all leaving. Leaving yesterday, leaving our youth, leaving people, leaving anything – leaving everything. We’re leaving pieces of ourselves behind, little pieces, until ultimately, we leave it all.
Soon, just like me, after all the goodbyes, they will board trains to who knows where. They will sit in chairs, first class, second class, it doesn’t really matter. It’s not so much the seat that matters. It’s the train that counts. For those who’ve left someone behind, they will stare out the window, at the fields and trees, at the sky, and on night trains, the stars. In everything they will see the faces, the faces of those already missed. I look out the window, and see fields, trees, and sky.
The man sitting across the aisle is looking out on his side. The side of his forehead is leaning on the glass and his chin rests on his fingers. I wonder what he sees. I wonder who she is. I look out my window again. I see graffiti. It’s mostly either one of the following: someone’s angry, someone’s insecure, someone’s irresponsible, someone needs to shout something he can’t tell people, and also very common, another someone’s ill-fated attempt at romance. One of them keeps spraying “PUBIS”. I doubt he or she knows what it means. If I were him, I’d pick another name. Something not so nether regionish.
Through the cracks of the seats in front of me I can see an old couple. They’re sitting on chairs facing the other way. I know they’re old because they look old. White hair, wrinkles in the right places, and an aura of contentment only people with pure hearts have. Logically I’d say their best years have passed them. Seems someone forgot to tell them. They’re both pointing at things outside the window, pointing to things they want the other to see. Very sweet. I try to look behind me, to where they seem to be pointing. I don’t see anything, nothing other than fields, trees, and sky. Maybe they’re imagining things. Maybe their senile. Maybe I missed it. Maybe I’m blind.
I close my eyes, to begin what was my childhood’s favourite pastime. I close my eyes to dream. In my dream I’m in a train, first class, headed towards the sun. In my dream I look out the window, and I see it. In the light of the sun I see it. With my nose and finger tips greasing the glass, I stare. I do not even blink.
Table Watching
Across me is a father and his daughter. They’re in a table for 2, and they’re both leaning forward with their elbows on the table looking like lovers before they realize there are a million sacrifices that come with staring into each others eyes. He, the father, is wearing his daughter’s backpack – her small purple backpack.
“This is my favorite color,” she says as she points to a pink balloon she just colored.
“I know.” He says, “I know.”
Hellen
I was suppose to meet up with some friends but felt like I really didn’t want to see too many people I knew, so I decided to have a quiet dinner with a book on global corruption (A Game As Old As Empire – read it, it’s very interesting), and my journal to write and draw on. I went to look at art materials after (I’m suppose to be an artist now, so I can rationalize these purchases) and realized that the only color I needed was the color they lacked – White! I found it really interesting when the salesgirl tried to sell me something else in place of white:
Salesgirl: Sorry sir, we don’t have white.
Me: That’s alright. Thanks.
Salesgirl: We have a lot of black if you like.
Me: That’s ok. Thank you.
Salesgirl: How about brown sir?
I figured it was late, and she had been working the whole day, that she no longer remembered that you can’t paint a “white” flower with “black” or “brown” paint. I did appreciate her very pleasant attitude and willingness to help me. (Maybe she thought I painted with bleach.)
My last stop was suppose to be a bookstore that I frequent on lazy nights. The manager is very friendly and never fails to ask me what my new “escapade” is, and always asking questions about Afghanistan. He’s much older, turning 59 this year I believe, and reads about almost anything (this is why we get along). Since it was nearing closing time I asked him if he would like to have coffee for a bit. He thought that was a good idea, closed shop, and we sat down with some cappuccino for him and tea for me.
I had a great time conversing with him on a multiple of disciplines and arenas, from art, to classical music and opera, to history, religion, and politics and economics. In conversations like this, I prefer to listen and ask questions. By virtue of the fact that the guy has been alive more than twice as long as I have, he’s got to have more to say. I found his stories very interesting, and I was happy to talk to someone who appreciated Debussy, Saint-Saens, Hosseini, and Chernow as much as I.
Then I asked him if there was a family he went home to, and he said there was none. That really changed the mood of things. Sometimes I wonder why I ask these things. Reminds me of when Stephen and I grilled one of his employees on which of his two girlfriends he loved more. (That’s a different story.)
He told me that he had never gotten married. I asked him why not, and I will never forget his answer, nor the longing in his face as he told me, “There was someone once. She was a ship that came and passed. What went wrong? We started thinking about the ‘what fors’ and lost the ‘what ifs’.” I appreciate style, but I normally like to talk in English, so I asked him to explain.
We talked about how at the start of things, their relationship was all about the what ifs. It was all about the possibilities. “What if we do this? What if we take a trip? What if we settle down here or buy a house there?” Everything was an option as long as they were together. But the realities of life eroded what they had, and the impracticality of the possibilities removed initial considerations. Situations and circumstances proved less than ideal. At the end of it all, they found themselves questioning what they had. “What is all of this for? Is all the effort worth it?”
I guess they didn’t think so. They’d probably be together if they thought otherwise.
He did leave me with some take home. He told me, “Never trade the possibilities for the practical compromises. Mediocrity is Monstrosity. You can not settle. All the masters, from painters to singers to athletes to heroes, there is a passion, almost an obsession, for something, sometimes something unattainable. That is why they’re masters. Either you give it everything or you don’t. When you hold back, your expectations will never be met, and you will inenvitably question what, that thing you once enjoyed, is for.” (I never got to ask him if he noticed that a lot of the “masters” were depressed and quite unstable. He could have told me that the “what ifs” are basically his stylized way of talking about the possibilities, and the “what fors” are the questions he asked when things got difficult. )
I paid for the bill and I thanked him for an interesting conversation. Then I went home, tried to type this blog, practiced piano, and went to bed.
I remember asking him what her name was.
Lost in his thoughts, with a faraway look, he told me, “Her name was Hellen.”
This Is Real
Why watch a kiss?
When to be with you is bliss
A story like ours,
You don’t want to miss
Why play a game?
When I’m calling out your name
To have something real
You’ll be happy you came
Why sing someone else’s song?
When our melodies belong
Together…
Lifelong
Why not come rest?
My desire professed
Be secure
Our love is blessed
