GISING BAYAN

     Below is a song in Tagalog, the melody of which follows closely the aria "Nessun Dorma" from Puccini's Turandot:-

       Gising Bayan! Bangon Bayan!                            
       O Princesang nadungisan, h'wag magtulugtulugan,

       Daing at taghoy ng masa sa lansangan sana'y pakinggan.
       Di mabilang ang mamamayang walang hanapbuhay at matir'han,
       Kailan kaya sila makaka-ahon?  Lalo yata sila nababaon.
   
       O Bayang kinagisnan, dati mong sagisag ay Kagitingan;
       Dati ika'y nataguriang maningning na Perlas ng Silangan,
       Subali't nadulas ka sa putikan ng Kasakiman, tuloy nadungisan...
       BANGON NA, GISING NA, O BAYAN!                             


                                                                by Skep/vdeperalta
                       
                              .
                       

Gratitude In The Face of Adversity

    Shown on the TV's Filipino channel (TFC) a couple of months or so ago was the routine of a fisherman trying to survive and support his family from whatever he could catch via his diving and spearfishing skills. He makes about 40 Pesos (about one U.S. dollar) a day, with which he buys rice, some salt, or maybe the cheapest ramen noodles available to feed his wife, his 2 or 3 children and himself.  Then, the next morning (when or if he awakes), he must be up and about and go diving/spearfishing again. You cannot hear him gripe or groan that Vita is Dura. He sees the sun is up.  No storm clouds in the sky. In his mind, he could picture himself catching a big, big fish and bringing home maybe 80 Pesos (about 2 dollars) this time for his family. He steps out of his ramshackle barong-barong with his fishing gear onto the narrow alley where the strong fragrance of dried fish being fried by his neighbor reminds him that his wife also wanted to have tuyo once in a while. With high hopes, he hurries on. He has one whole warm sunny day for fishing.    THANK GOD!

A Plea for Moderation

     History is replete with accounts of mighty cities, kingdoms, empires that for a time rose to power then declined and either sank into the sea or got buried in the sands of time. Let not the United States of
America suffer the same fate. We can glean some lessons from the pages of history itself. Rome fell because it was not self-sufficient; it spread its military forces all over the world and could not protect itself against the invading barbarians; it became entangled in all sorts of excesses and I fear the average
Roman citizen then was mostly focused on self-indulgence, pleasure seeking, and acquisition of material possessions...wealth at any cost. Like in the movie,  GREED IS GOOD! In a capitalist-driven society such as ours, that motivation may be good for a while - to start the engine of economic progress. But without MODERATION, self-aggrandizement swiftly becomes uncontrolled and  like any over-speeding car will fall down into an unseen cliff or embankment, collide with another incoming vehicle or some immovable rock or barrier, and CRASH! There was a time when the U.S. dollar was worth more than the Canadian. Now, it's the other way around.  I also recall during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines sacks and truckloads of Japanese military notes were printed as currency. It  did not take long for that 'money' to become utterly valueless.
     May our leaders then be reminded that our nation's HUGE problems cannot be solved with political bickering nor in haste. We trust their decisions on these matters will be tempered with prudence, foresight, and moderation.

Let's Do It

     There is a spot on Earth where the world's three great religions coincidentally converge--Jerusalem.  Here Jews. Christians, and Muslims gather to worship God. On second thought, I suspect the convergence is no coincidence at all. Was it not Einstein himself who said "God is Subtle but not Malicious"? Simple common sense tells us it was not God's purpose to select one place that would be considered special, holy, sacred by these three differing camps so that they may squabble, fight, even kill one another over it. We all know His objective - That, despite our differences, we must find a way to live together in PEACE...   SO LET'S DO IT!

The Hand of God (A Layman's Perspective)

    There is a theory that man's evolutionary development may have been pushed or assisted by the influence of gamma or cosmic rays originating from supernovae or even from powerful magnetic solar storms or sunspots from our own sun. These gene-altering rays  impacted on or collided against and unhinged man's DNA or gene structure, somehow putting man's evolution on a fast track. I understand even the eminent science author Carl Sagan had adhered to this view.  In short, it is not merely the Darwinian "survival-of-the-fittest" imperative that led man to adapt and become what he is today. Since earthly life apparently could be traced back to exploding stars eons ago, it comes as no surprise to me that star activity continues to influence us. But where did the stars come from in the first place, and where did the idea or plan or scheme or design turn  to the reality of starbursts then all the galaxies, this planet and then man? To date, scientists are mired at the portal of the Big Bang or the Singularity or the first Black Hole, for they could not see or measure the metes and bounds of a Divine Creator. Yet, they agree that there must be an invisible Dark Matter as well as another undetectable Dark Energy which explains the existence and present state of our cosmos. Isn't it simpler, easier for us to accept and understand that we and the whole universe are-- in God's Hands?
     Imagine a creative artist about to do an art work, say, fingerpainting.  He puts four globs of multi-colored paint in the cup of his hand. The 4 globs equal the 4% (our entire visible universe) and the cup of his hand the 23%  Dark Matter that holds the visible universe intact.  As the artist spreads out his palm, the paint flows all over his fingers allowing him to paint and color his canvas, (which we now imagine approximates the 73% Dark Energy being postulated by the scientists and which also sort of explains why all the galactic material and star systems are rapidly expanding out and away from one another... or being daubed or spread out on the infinite canvas of  space...  God, the Creative Artist, is at work.

EASTER

     Each Easter morn I must recall
     A vict'ry can spring from a fall;
     So be not burdened, O my soul...
     There is still time for us to turn
     Egregious faults as keys to learn
     Repentance, and to Christ return.


                                                by Skep/vdeperalta

A Lenten Thought

     I kept hearing over and over the chant "For Christ's Sorrowful Passion, For Christ's Sorrowful Passion," ad nauseum, from our TV's Comcast 229 channel. Why characterize Christ's Passion as 'sorrowful'? Shouldn't we rather sing "For CHRIST'S  VICTORIOUS  PASSION"?

Tempus Fugit, E.T.

     There was a time not long ago,
     Elizabeth, your am'thyst eyes
     Made wint'ry hearts light up and glow,
     Provoking sonnets, songs, and sighs,
     Upending stalwarts to the ground;
     So,too, I gazed and almost drowned...

     Few can forget you did a lot
     Untying -- ( with your beauty spot?)--
     Gordian knots to release a trove
     In aid - 'gainst AIDS - and all for love...
     Twinkle on, Bright Star,  up above;

     Ethereal Muse, tho' Time may fly,
     The torch you lit will never die!

                                    by Skep/vdeperalta

Jihadist

     Again at the Barnes & Noble's section on Arabic lore, I read a reference  to "jihad" completely opposite to the current meaning being attached to it by Western media. A jihadist is not supposed to be a terrorist bent on killing other people specially innocent children or civilians. To be on a jihad is to be on a path to overcome one's own weaknesses and to be a better person from the moral and spiritual standpoint. We should not even point to the cohorts or followers of Osama Bin Ladin as "terrorists", for in effect we are conceding that indeed we're afraid of them. True, there is obviously an urgent need to open the eyes and minds of our Muslim brethren. Education, modernization of living conditions, probably even more frequent contact with civilized behavior could be a quicker, better, even less expensive solution than warfare. As their own Sufi once suggested: - Change your foes to friends and you have no more enemies.

ADM (circa '50 - '57)

      At twilight, as I bid another day good-bye,
      These vivid memories of youth flood my mind's eye:-
      Ebullient freshmen ensconced in quaint quonset huts,
      Nudged, prodded Jesuit-style, we were taught to have guts.
      Eventually, we also had morning classes
      Out there at Loyola Heights - (where lovely lasses
      Distracted us, lunchtime, at the U.P. canteen).
      Each lad with the proms in mind had his secret queen...
      Mine, I still believe, was the very loveliest.
      A guidon, an aegis, this is our life-long quest--
      No true Atenean can forget-- "Mens sana
      In corpore sano."  Here's the final scena:
      Love pure and chaste (like that mad old knight)  -  from afar,
      Ad Deus, Never Falter, Go Follow Your Star!

                                                                
                                                         By Skep/vdeperalta

Who to lean on

    There is a TV show depicting the survivor man's life challenges in all sorts of wild environments and with nobody nor any sophisticated equipment to assist him. That one man alone can indeed survive in tropical jungles, in deserts, or desolate ice-covered regions for about a week or a few days is frankly no surprise to me. The human body can endure and survive extraordinary physical battles or confrontations. However,more often than not, we become entrapped or we stumble and fall not because we have a weak physique but because we preferred to rely on the Devil's "easy-way-out" solutions. We must learn to strengthen our will to resist the Enticer's tempting promises of pelf, power, and prestige. After all, Mammon is just another created being. You would be a fool to rely on him when you know there is the Almighty Creator to lean on.

                                                                                     By Skep/vdeperalta

The Middle East Phenomenon

     There appears to be an unstoppable wave of anti-establishment demonstrations in the Middle East. A tsunami of protesters rebelling against overstaying despots or autocratic rulers has captured current media headlines. Like the hills near San Francisco Bay, the minds of these rebels might have been misted over or befogged in the earlier years or decades of their ruling elite, but the bright sunlight of global communication via the internet and the ever-increasing spread of televised events have swept away the heavy curtains of illiteracy and opened the long-suffering masses' eyes to the "better life" of freedom and the vision of greener pastures that can be reached via individual aspiration, education, and initiative. This calls to mind Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's hypothesis that the cosmos, man included, is on an unstoppable evolutionary course to 'Omega Point' or to fulfillment, enlightenment, even unity with the Divine Creative Life Force/God. If our Islamic brethren were previously blinded and beclouded by misunderstandings, misinterpretations, mistranslations, even downright self-centered  quackery by their leaders, I hope this time the followers of Mahomet have now taken one more step up the ladder to the true meaning of Islam and Enlightenment. Koranic scholars apparently concede 'Islam' is derived from 'Shalom'. And both words actually mean 'PEACE'. The simple truth is that charlatans may fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but sooner or later-- MURDER WILL OUT!

Be not too proud, manthing--

    This world we live in, per latest 'best-guesses' of cosmologists, consists of three distinct parts:- 4% is composed of the entire visible universe (all of humanity, all the stars, planets, solar systems, galaxies in the sky; then 23% 'dark matter', and 73% 'dark energy'. Dark matter keeps the galaxies from dispersing into discrete stars or systems, while dark energy is supposed to be the reason why all galaxies, star clusters, etc. are speeding away at an accelerating expansion rate from each other, instead of slowing down despite the millenium time lapse after the Big Bang. Actually, we cannot even pretend to fully know all of that  4% that is supposed to be visible or perceivable by humans. We could not even see our Planet Earth half a parsec away from our Sun.  I think it was Thomas Edison who said "We don't know a millionth of 1% of anything."  Every day we learn, and we may think we know a lot.  In truth, we probably know less than a billionth of 1%  of anything.

                                                                   by Skep/vdeperalta