The White Flag

I am surviving my life… not living it. It is like a continuous saga of countless efforts and so I continuously ask God too… about the “why’s” in my life. The efforts that I continuously do everyday are now becoming a burden greater than my shoulder. My face smiles but my heart is broken because I can’t find answers, answers to my never ending questions to God, to everybody… to myself. I don’t want to cry a tear for this damn situation and so my tears are now welling inside my heart, and now, it is too heavy and my heart can no longer contain these tears. The pursuit of happiness is indeed a fact…. Maybe, even a gospel (in my own view), cause we keep on pursuing happiness in life and that is why we struggle to live, to survive, just for that damn happiness. I am mad at it! I am so angry at it! I wish I could see God, I wish I could hold Him, I wish I could talk to Him and hear Him reply back to me because I am too damn tired and sick writing all my damn thoughts and feelings on this blog. I want God to see my tears cause nobody sees it. I am mad but I don’t know whom I am mad with… maybe I am mad at myself. Maybe because I am spending too much effort in this life or maybe because I am counting all my efforts when it is not right to count it. When we want something, making the efforts to have it must NOT be a burden… it must NOT be counted. Efforts must be done with a happy heart and without expectations. So I am sorry because I’ve been counting all my efforts lately…. Blame my heart because it is now weary and tired doing all the efforts to survive this world, to fight for life, to be strong for life. And forgive my heart for right now it is waving the white flag. My mind is commanding it to stop beating. I guess life is way much peaceful on the other side. I guess I can find God there and see Him face to face. But then again… I guess God doesn’t want to face me yet… cause everyday I wake up and find out that the air still fills my nostrils… I am breathing. My heart still aches so I know I am still alive and there’s nothing much that I can do about it… cause if I can’t face God… then I have to face life. 

Poisons And Tongues

Lagi nating sinasabi na “ mahirap mag salita ng hindi pa tapos” pero ang masaklap at mapait na katotohanan ay pwede naman talaga tayong mag salita dahil wala naman talagang tunay na katapusan. Patuloy na iikot ang mundo, patuloy na meron mamamatay at mabubuhay. Pwede tayong mag salita pero ang totoo, takot lang tayong mag salita dahil takot tayo na baka hindi natin mapanindigan ang ating binitiwang salita. Hindi tayo takot sa salita... takot tayo sa paninindigan. Pero kung tutuusin, kung may lakas tayo ng loob na manindigan... kaya natin mag salita at panindigan ang bawat sinabi natin... at hindi na natin muli sasabihin ang kasabihang - “mahirap mag salita ng hindi pa tapos”.

PrO BoNo

Way back when I was in college, our professor in our thesis class asked us - “if you can change the world, where will you stand?”



A lot of answers were given by my classmates but our professor seemed to be not satisfied.


I got tired of hearing their answers so I raised my hand. Our professor called my name and I answered - “if I could change the world, I will stand at the minds and hearts of the people, I will win their trust first because the world is made of different people and it won't change if I change alone. I have to earn first their trust, and when they finally believe in me, we all could have a common goal of change and so the world will change. A/an technology/idea not applied is useless, and technology/idea could only be applied if people will use it. And people will only use it if they believe and trust in it.”


Silence covered the whole class for a while then suddenly the bell rang for our next class.



Trust is something we always wanted to have but we cannot easily give. It is something that is asking for a proof... but what if there's something that cannot be proven? How can you trust? How can you believe?



So there goes faith. Faith is something more profound, more delicate, a higher form of trust. The highest form of believing.



This is the lesson God wants me learn. To have faith in spite of unbelief and betrayals. To have faith in spite of rational hopelessness. To have faith in spite of unfaithfulness.


The faith that believes that I can do the impossible. The faith that hopes even in the most hopeless situation. The faith that challenges fate until it accepts its defeat.



I've gone too far to return and even farther to quit... but I don't believe he had brought me this far just to leave me.


In God I trust!

Wandering Empty Thoughts

It was a ten hour drive from the city to the county. The passenger's sit was empty and so was my heart. I watched the sun rise at my left and sets at my right as the moon rises at my left. The stars start to appear one by one like a thousand diamonds scattered on a black blanket. It was BEAUTIFUL. The day had moved but I'm still on this long winding one way road driving... driving myself crazy. Crazy. Beautiful. Its dark but I could vividly see the silhouette of the mountains against the glowing gloomy moon.Scenes flash back as my mind wanders where my heart is. I have to rest for a while and I saw this crampled old brown paper bag. I grabbed my pen and wrote these wandering thoughts. It was dark and I'm alone on the road. the passenger's sit was empty and so was my heart




I wrote this on a brown paper bag while I'm on my way out of the city.

Side Of The Circle

This morning, an old familiar song was played on the radio and a line from it made me thinking throughout the day...

"Best things in life are free"... I don't believe it.

Best things in life are NOT free, they have their own prices... worse, they worth more than money.

Money is cheap... it cannot buy you happiness, love, peace, family, not even success.



But these best things in life like happiness, love, family, peace, and success... they have their tagged price... before you could have any of those so called "BEST THINGS" have you ever thought about what you have gone thru before having them? Your sacrifices? Your tears? Your Pains?... now tell me... are they really free? Think about it...


Best things in life are NOT free... they are just too expensive that even money cannot buy them.

NoVeMBeR MiST

Soon I'll be wrapping my year again. And summing it all up... I'm afraid I don't get even a half of what you call fulfillment. The whole year has been a total routine of shattered plans and failed dreams that I routinely hide behind my smiles and laughs everyday.


My life has been walled with protection, but these walls has been destroyed and shattered into ashes many times – countless! And as countless as it has been, countless times I tried my best to rebuild it again and again. But every time I'm just about to start, it is again destroyed, badly tortured and pulverized without mercy. It is like the universe is conspiring and they are taking away everything even the only hope I've got.


I'm tired... and I swear, I could just rest in peace now.


Tell me to hope that the sun could actually shine at night. Tell me to hope that I could really see a rainbow in the dark night sky... but how? When even a shooting star could not make itself fall for me... how could a wish come true?


So I tried my best to look for the lesson lurking behind this scene that I'm in. Perhaps God designed my walls to shatter so that I could fall... so that I could learn the art of falling... because if I don't fall... how could I ever reach the ground where the broken pieces of my walls landed? If I don't fall, I will never reach the ground... how could I possibly pick up those bricks that once used to be the building blocks of my walls? I'm afraid of falling but I'm learning to love it.



Perhaps, God designed my walls to shatter because He wants me to live without protection because God wants me to realize that He is the only protection that I really needed in life. That in life... safety does not mean the absence of danger but the presence of God. I guess I won't be needing those walls anymore.



Perhaps, God designed my walls to shatter because He wants me to learn something so beautiful yet so difficult as well... that is to hope in spite of hopelessness... to hope in spite the fact that even my very own instincts tells me not to. To fight my own will or even God's will though I know I am fighting a matchless fighter. To fight even though I know from the start that I am already doomed. To hope that things might change. To hope... that is.



This is the end of truce...
The birth of oblivion...
The dawn...

The Window Pane

As the moon glows melancholy on a starless night sky like a shining diamond on a black sheet... its beautiful but lonely. So I have to flip yet again another page of my book. I could have stayed on that page, it could have been so beautiful, but the story continues to another page... so I have to move on. I wanted God to lift the page for me but I guess, God doesn't want to lift even a finger. It is not that I'm losing my faith... no!... my faith in God is faithful. I trust God but I don't believe that He wants me to have my kind of story. I guess, God got tired of writing the same old stories with happy endings and so He thought of writing a tragedy.. and He choses me to play the leading role. God thought that this will be a great story and people will love love it... but the script is a tragedy... more tragic than Romeo and Juliet, more complicated than Tristan and Isolde, more painful than Jack and Rose. Being the chosen one is a blessing in the eyes of the viewers but it is a curse to the one who plays it. It is like burning your soul in the fires of hell so that others may reach heaven.


The chosen one.


I can't help but think that even Judas Iscariot was a chosen one. And being the chosen one, he never had the chance to say “NO!” … think of it... if Judas did not betrayed Jesus, we could have questioned the credibility of Jesus' prophecy that one of His 12 disciples will betray Him and he that dippeth his hands in the dish is the same person. If Judas did not kissed Jesus, there could have been no famous “Judas Kiss” and if that did not happen, Jesus could have passed the cross and did not die for our sins... there could have been no resurrection at all and maybe, we were never redeemed at all.


You see, Judas played a great role in the script of God. He was actually God's pawn in fulfilling the prophecy. People now are condemning Judas but what they do not know is that Judas only obeyed what God had told him to do so even if it cost him his own soul in hell, even if it cost him his name being condemned.


The truth is, if ever I get to heaven and meet Judas there... I won't be surprise. And I bet God will explain why Judas is up there... but I will be the first to tell him... “ I always knew you will be here.”


I bet people will think that this article is full of blasphemy but the point of this whole Judas thing is that we should not judge others because it is never our place to judge.


You judge a girl by the way she curls her hair and by the way she carries herself... but who are you to create such illusions of her identity? Who are you to create your own set of her character?

You are judging a book you never even tried to open... how could you know the story?


I don't give a damn... but don't provoke me.


The rain starts to pour hard gushing on the window pane... the water tastes like a saline. Like a gutter flushing all the rain to slide on the window pane... the window pane... they are my eyes.

SURREAL

Cool breeze and autumn leaves sets the view as I walked aimlessly, nonchalantly, and nowhere to go in the busy streets of the city. Trying to find an inspiration, something that will make sense out of all these insensibility. My lone pair of watchful eyes oversee the living. The tortured souls and unhealing wounds... I am one of them. But no tears could well in these pair of eyes because the paleness of the moon and the coldness of the night made it frost.



Stories are everywhere and so I am everywhere. And that makes me a person with no place to go. Do you know exactly the feeling of being everywhere? Of not having a place to go when you are tired and broken? You got no idea.



For a moment my ears got tired of hearing stories... their stories. Because they endure alone their own pains while I endure the sum of all their pains. It is making me numb and numbness is worse than the pain itself.

Stories are rare forms of poisons and antidotes. They could make you hope or leave you in despair. And being always with them, stories left me all alone in the middle between hope and despair. To hope is hard, to be in despair is painful, but not knowing what to do is the worst kind of suffering. The heart deceives even the very owner itself so who would know? Who could realize the right from wrong? The heart is the most poisonous thing on earth, hence, the heart starts and ends the story. And when the story ends... that is where I am... giving hope, telling everyone that every ending springs forth a new tale where hope lurks, and it is up to one's heart. Temptation leers when conscience fades. The heart only beats what it wants to beat... hope or despair? This heart screams in agony.



A story of a man who died on the day before his daughter's 25th birthday. He wrestled with the angel of death with all his might, holding on to that picture of his daughter in his mind. But angels are immortal, how could he defeat one? So I look for a reason to hope, that though he died in a time he wished he could still live and bring her daughter a nice gift, I told him - “ your gift to your daughter is already in her hands. Just a year from now she will become a good doctor and that is your gift to her... her future. The gift of healing.”



A story of a girl who begged for love but love sometimes come in a form of hatred. A man who redeemed himself through a heart of a poor girl. Everyone laughs at her shame and everyone salutes his glory. So I look yet again for a reason so I could give hope to that poor girl who now lives in shame. Whatever love throws at you, believe in it. There is nothing you can do. Better is the heart that gives love even though no one has ever loved back that a heart surrounded by love but doesn't know how to love. That is life...still life.



A story of a kid who loses his home from the recent calamity that hit the country. He asked me - “why does the sun go on shining like nothing happened? Why do people continue to live their lives and never cares that many people are dying and starving because of the drowning flood? Look at them, they continue to go to school, to go to their offices, to go to their work places. Why can't the world pause for a while and look at me?” So I look at him. He smiled and said - “ I'm glad you are looking at me, I'm glad you paused for a while and listened to me.” I raised my brow and said nonchalantly - “ I did not pause for you. I am one of them who continued living our lives like nothing happened yesterday. I am looking at you not for you but for myself... don't you get it? We are a bunch of selfish beings. You think we are selfish for not looking at you but did you ever thought that you too are selfish for wanting everyone of us to look at you?... and yet, did you ever look for someone else too?” The kid was in a moment of shock.

So I look again for a reason to give him hope - “ The sun shines like nothing happened yesterday because God wants you to continue to live your life, He wants you to face another day and another day so you could pick up all the broken pieces of your life. Life never ends yesterday, life continues for as long as tomorrow comes. The sun shines not because it doesn't care at all but because God cares and He wants you to rebuild what the yesterday has destroyed. Happy moments become evil when they are gone, but that doesn't mean you can never have happy moments again. Remember, some lessons cannot be taught, they must be lived to be understood. That is wisdom.”


I left the kid pondering.


Cool breeze and autumn leaves sets the view as I walked aimlessly, nonchalantly, and nowhere to go in the busy streets of the city. Trying to find an inspiration, something that will make sense out of all these insensibility. My lone pair of watchful eyes oversee the living. The tortured souls and unhealing wounds... I am one of them. But no tears could well in these pair of eyes because the paleness of the moon and the coldness of the night made it frost.


The sun shines and it whispers hope - “ A faithful heart makes a wish come true”.

The Frail Faith Of The Faithful






“Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies.”
-The Shawshank Redemption-


I've been through worse, and I can prove that. And being there, I've learned how to praise God in spite of my rage and angst against Him. I'd realized long ago that the best way to worship God is to praise Him in your most darkest and angriest moment because in spite of your human emotions the goodness of the heart still prevails.


A thanksgiving prayer is beautiful, a mourning heart prays sincerely, but the prayer of an angry heart is the most fervent because it goes beyond the will but still manage to make it. It is surpassing a very tempting test. The temptation not to pray and to praise God because of anger is hard to overcome... and so I say it is the most fervent prayer if you had overcome that temptation. That is the frail faith of the faithful.


The frail faith of the faithful still believes that in spite the unwilling prayer, God still hears.


Trust is believing what you can see but faith is believing something you'd never seen. Faith is hoping in spite of hopelessness, it is believing beyond doubts, it doesn't seek for signs nor for miracles, nor for reasons to believe because faith hopes that the impossible will become possible... good thing... in God, everything is POSSIBLE.