God is a Verb and Other Truths from "The Shack"

I'm writing about a book I finished reading tonight, not as a critic or a literature buff, but as a lost child of God who has found her way back home. So, this will be more of a testimony than a critical essay on a work of fiction. I ought to caution you that if full disclosures of profound spiritual experiences is not your cup of tea, this will be a tedious, boring read. So, you may, as you see fit, leave this page, fully exonerated.

***

The instant I opened "The Shack," I knew it was written for people like me: lost souls in a spiritual desert. By the time I closed it, I was "home," my thirst for spiritual enlightenment fully quenched. And now that I've written it down, a new flash of insight, another epiphany: reading "The Shack" is symbolically entering this proverbial shack in the story, where the reader gets a vivid glimpse into the nature of the mysterious God compressed in 250 pages of fictional prose. I'm talking of The God that theologians and religious scholars spend 10 or 20 years studying about and yet do not fully grasp, let alone genuinely love. This is the same God you will grow to "truly" love, albeit not fully grasp, after reading "The Shack."

***

"The Shack" is a novel by William Paul Young, "a Canadian raised by missionary parents among a stone-age tribe in the highlands of New Guinea," so goes his brief biosketch. This much I knew about the author. But after reading his novel, I could tell he, too, was lost and found, broken and healed, blinded and enlightened. Reading him was a pilgrimage in print, a very enlightening crash course in theology, if we define "theology" as the study of God. Having said these about the author, I'm inclined to believe that he is an angel, if, by definition, "angel" means God's messenger. I believe, too, that it was no accident that the owner of this book, Miss Tessa Gonzales Yulo, is in my Literary Criticism class this semester and had the good heart to lend me the book. She, too, is an angel.

***

I will not go into a semi-detailed synopsis of the novel and spare you the agony of a verbose retelling. After all, it is your "obligation" to find out what this novel is about. You owe this to your self. My role here is just to lead you to "the shack," the way the protagonist, Mackenzie, was led to it by a cryptic note he found in his mailbox, signed by God Himself. I daresay, not many writers who could treat such a delicate subject matter as the nature of God the way he did would get away with it unscathed by both religious and literary critics. But Young pulled it off gracefully and brilliantly till page 250.

***

I mean, what author-- even of prose fiction-- would depict the Almighty Creator of the Universe as a corpulent African-American woman who speaks like Maya Angelou? The Heavenly Father appears in this novel as you would imagine Oprah in apron, covered in flour and reeking of oyster sauce. Jesus Christ is a Middle Eastern-looking guy in laborer's clothes who laughs a lot, eats a lot, and skips stones over the lake when he's not walking on it. The Holy Ghost is a lady gardener with strong oriental features dressed in plain jeans and brightly colored blouse.

***

But before you cry "blasphemy!" and judge this book as the myopic critics did, read it and see for yourself, as cleverly told in a compelling narrative by an enlightened author, the following Bible truths:

***

* God is a verb, not a noun, as Love is;

* God did not create evil and sufferings; we did, a long time ago in a Garden far away;

* God DOES NOT believe in religion; He believes in Relationship;

* Jesus is NOT a Christian (and he said this himself somewhere in the story);

* We were created by Love, because of Love, and for Love and the ONLY way to live is to LIVE LOVED...

***

This, and more earth-shattering, life-changing revelations about God's innermost thoughts and sentiments exposed as if God were flesh and blood.

***

I've dealt with Dante Alighieri and his Divine Comedy, but this medieval guy is sometimes too inaccessible for a Gen-Xer like me. William Paul Young is the Dante of this age, and I'm saying this with the conviction of a soul redeemed from her self-inflicted perdition.

***

There's one person in my life right now that I couldn't bring myself to forgive. Many times-- and secretly, of course-- I wished this person would die a most painful death. This person broke my soul. And it took a book to COMPLETELY heal me from this brokenness. "The Shack" is my catharsis. I was in there with the protagonist, confronting my own monster, my shadow beast, my id. As God was showing the protagonist how to forgive the man who brutally murdered her 6 1/2-year-old daughter, I was being shown how to kill my already-wounded ego. And, I'm telling you, the pain was so excruciating I had to close the book and weep. I have forgiven, in my heart and in my soul, the person who "killed" me.

***

Enter "The Shack." Let go. Let God.

***

The World's Worst Place to Be a Filipino

Filipino [fih-lih-pee-nhow] or Pilipino [pih-lih-pee-nhow] adj.

(1) of the Philippines: relating to the Philippines, its languages, peoples and cultures; (2) the official language of the Philippines; an Austronesian language based on Tagalog; (3) somebody who comes from the Philippines (also, masc. Pinoy; fem. Pinay) -- Microsoft Encarta 2008

                           * * * * * * * * * * * *

If you are a Filipino and a globe-trotter, there is one extremely important survival tip you need to know: Do not ever consider going to The World's Worst Place to Be a Filipino (yes, it really must be written that way, like the title of a very important fact book.)

First, let me tell you about this place...

This country is listed as one of the world's most corrupt nations. In fact, for twenty years, it was run by a dictator, who bought his American porn star mistress an island using taxpayers' money, and his narcissistic wife who owned more than 3,000 pairs of shoes and who bathed in gallons of French perfume, while the entire nation was buried neck-high in foreign debt.

This country once elected to the highest office an action star who doesn't even use his real name and who built all his mistresses a mansion. In its Senate are a game show host, a few movie actors, a former basketball player, the former dictator's son, ex-coup plotters, a fugitive and some ex-convicts. In its House of Congress are a boxer, a former President who is under investigation for large-scale corruption, former movie stars, jueteng lords and protectors, and, believe it or not, the aforementioned former First Lady who owned more than 3,000 pairs of shoes!

The citizens of this country dump their trash at the very foot of the signage that reads: "Don't dump your garbage here, for crying out loud!!!!" They also pee like stray dogs do, i.e. wherever nature calls. Some of them also consider declaring as national hero a boxer who got filthy rich from beating the hell out of other boxers. They ousted two Presidents, but elected their sons (yes, their genetic duplicates!) to the Senate!

This country added to the World's Dictionary of Illegal Activities the following words and concepts: dugo-dugo, ativan gang, kuratong-baleleng, salvage (execution by a vigilante) dagdag-bawas, flying voters, jueteng, sakla, sabong, tong-its, video karera, botcha (double-dead meat sold in markets) among others.

In this country, being rushed to a public hospital is tantamount to signing your death warrant. You may be frothing at the mouth from food poisoning, but the hospital staff will need your cash deposit before admitting you to the ER.

When you need your birth certificate authenticated, when applying for a driver's license, passport, visa, NBI clearance, SSS biometric I.D. and the like, you need to prove you are not a terrorist or an impostor. You also need to pay "extra" to get things done ASAP. Also, you can have these documents faked anytime, anywhere...anyway.

Whereas, in other countries, you only get frisked by uniformed authorities when you're being arrested for a serious crime; in this country, they frisk you each time you enter a shopping mall.

Secondly, I'll tell you the most obvious thing-- why you shouldn't be in this place.

If you are a Filipino and you find yourself in the country described above, you'd feel like a single-celled microorganism, yes? You'd start asking yourself if you could still be proud of being a Filipino. Of course, there are still so many reasons to place your right hand over your bosom during the singing of Lupang Hinirang. But, do you still sing the National Anthem with as much conviction as you had before you realized where you were born and raised?

The best place to be a Filipino is where you can STILL be proud to be one. Perhaps, this is why I'm so dying to leave this country and go to where I can honestly say to my self and to the world that I belong to the nation that gave the world Dr. Jose Rizal and the first ever bloodless revolution. 

The Uterus Monologues

This blog entry was inspired by Eve Ensler's "Vagina Monologues," which I saw during its local staging here in Bacolod back in 2005. And, yes, it's a play about talking vaginas that make a lot of sense.

So what does my uterus think about all these raging debates on the Reproductive Health Bill? See, if my uterus could think-- which, I suspect, it does, the fact that I'm still single and childless at 35-- and if it could talk (which, unfortunately, it can't do), this would be her take on the issue:

I. "Argumentum ad utero"

"Listen up and listen good, all ye erudite and eloquent people of the so-called Upper and Lower House.

I am not comfortable with the fact that 98% of you, who decide whether I use contraceptive pills, condom, or the good old calendar are members of the male species--  the senate, congress and clergy being male-dominated provinces.

How dare you, sperm-producers and ejaculators, debate over my natural rights and welfare on national TV. How dare you prescribe methods that might be detrimental to my psyche as a woman, because these methods mess up with my hormones and deprive me of sexual pleasure! You are giving me a serious case of dysMENorrhea!

Seriously, gents, I live for the day when you would start empowering and giving more voice to women. Encourage women assemblies and fora and listen to what we believe is best for us. Ever heard of "women's intuition"? The "mothers know best" truism? The "hand that rocks the cradle rules the world" maxim?

For ages, we have been dictated by patriarchal societies across cultures on how to be a good wife and mother; we have been told what to do and what not to do on which days; we have been taught what to believe and not to believe in male-dominated schools and institutions; we have been required when and whom to marry.

Now we are being told when not to have sex with our own husband, who seem to want to have sex on days that end in letter "Y." What if "abstinence" is NOT in my husband's vocabulary, Father, because, as a little boy, he never learned from his father how to delay gratification, and, in Sunday school, you taught him that he should "go forth and multiply"?

But the youngest of my six kids is barely a year old and I've barely stopped lactating and, already, my husband is demanding that I do my "marital obligation." So, I go to my OB-GYN, who recommends pills and rubber and that anticlimactic coitus interruptus. Then I go to hear Mass and I go home confused and miserable. With what this society is doing to me, no wonder I bleed every month!

II. "Walk your talk"

How about this, gentlemen of this highly-civilized society: educate your kind, the male species, from boyhood so that they grow up to become responsible fathers and caring husbands. We have been doing our part as mothers, but these boys just DO NOT see enough good examples.

How about teaching them the art of delaying self-gratification by setting an example? See, if you impregnate your wife before your youngest kid could walk, you're not teaching him self-restraint.

How many of you who try to outwit each other at the Senate and the Congress on the matter of Reproductive Health are bright shining examples of men who are capable of abstinence and delayed gratification?

If you have eight kids by your wife and five by your mistress, then you must have a skin as thick as a crocodile's for being there, lecturing us on reproductive health!"

11:45 P.M. "Gut Monologue"

"We may be done with the past, but the past is not yet done with us." -- famous line from the film "Magnolia" (directed by Paul Thomas Anderson)


I'm done questioning God why I was born to uneducated parents. I'm done blaming their parents, who I did not have the fortune (or misfortune) of knowing, as they all expired before I was born. Thing is, this chapter of my life history, i.e. the part about my parents not being sent to school to be educated, keeps haunting me. Every single day of my 35 years has been a tragic testimony of a very unfortunate past...

Imagine being born to parents who couldn't understand enclosed instructions on how to administer an antibiotic because they couldn't decipher the English language. Imagine being raised by parents who do not have the slightest idea what adolescent angst is, or what child psychology is (which is why I made it a point to major in Child Study). Imagine having to translate to your father the contents of National Geographic magazine, because he happens to love reading, but is illiterate in the language.

Imagine these: (1) Your mother has to be confined for hypertension and palpitations because she took an energy drink every night for a full couple of weeks, not knowing its consequences; (2) Your father being bullied and deceived by his boss for more than 10 years because he did not even finish the 4th Grade and he doesn't know his rights; (3) Your parents never attending the PTA meetings EVER, because they feel like a microbe amidst your classmates' professional parents; (4) Being bullied by your own parents all your life because they're so insecure about their lack of proper education they think they're only powerful when you're under full parental control...

It's pretty messed up. It sucks big time.

There was a time when things were so screwed up and my family was falling apart, because our parents thought they were right (when they're freakin' not!) and I was lying in bed in a state of stupor, muttering curses to my grandparents. I blamed them for my parents' ignorance.

I blamed them for thinking that their daughter's place in this world is limited to the kitchen and the delivery room. I blamed them for entrusting their son's future to the so-called "destiny," dispatching him to the streets to work, instead of sending him to school so he could be a lawyer or an engineer or a bank manager. My father, an elementary undergrad who has excellent leadership skills and is very trustworthy was almost promoted to managerial position at a gas station franchise. When his boss learned he never finished grade school, the promotion went to some bloke who has a college diploma. The usual story, you know.

My mother wanted to be a lawyer. But her father, who was a Fil-Hispanic born in 1891, thought she's better off being some guy's wife (God forgive him). I've heard a lot about him from my mother and my aunts. He was apparently educated and cultured; conversant in Spanish, English, Nippongo and the dialect; married five times. But why didn't he ever think of giving his many kids a good future?

Perhaps this is the wisdom behind the tragedy of not getting to know your grandparents. If they were alive today, there would only be bitterness and blames and enmity between us. 

When I look at my parents now that they're old and gray, I see the failure of the past. I see the tragedy of ignorance, the misfortune of being born to parents who are also part of the vicious cycle of ignorance. 

But here's my parents' redeeming factor, ignorant as they are: they sent me to school. 

1:25 P.M. "Living on a time bomb"

"Some say the world will end in fire,
some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire.

But if I have to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
to say that, for destruction, ice is also great

And would suffice." - "Fire and Ice," Robert Frost


I've always loved this poem so much I committed it to memory. I love poems that make sense...

...and are timelessly relevant. This poem makes the most sense to me today, the supposed end of the world as prophesied.

Why do people keep predicting something that has already begun to happen? And when will they realize that this world will continue to exist, even without its human inhabitants? So, technically, it's not the end of the world, but the end of human existence.

This planet has been surviving for more than 4 billion years. There have been several ice ages, mass extinctions, and geological "facelifts," all in the name of planetary survival. This planet has a way of purging itself when it couldn't take anymore poison and abuse from its "tenants." 

When will these prophets of doom realize that the end has been happening for ages now? It's happening in stages. Like cancer, the end day is showing its "symptoms;" all we have to do is open our eyes and our ears to the signs of times:


...newer and stranger "religions" have been cropping up for centuries, claiming to be the truth, but drawing the people away from the One True God;

...materialism and capitalism have been embraced as religion by most people of this age who call themselves "yuppies" (Young Urban Professionals) and who believe that the ultimate goal of one's existence is to amass wealth and be popular, even at the expense of others;

...mass media has been distorting our concept of love, self-image, faith, hope, family, and everything that matters by "repackaging" role models and by redefining values and virtues according to what they think will sell big;

...people all over the world build walls, instead of bridges; they choose to hate, a real-life scenario that the movie industry is just too willing to depict in their blockbuster movies;

...the scientific communities around the world have been playing God, cloning organisms, altering life's genetic makeup, building particle accelerators that could produce enough energy to incinerate the whole planet, developing more efficient weapons of mass destruction and more efficient fuel sources at the expense of the planet;

...the corporate world has been turning humans into soulless machines by creating these "spiritual blackholes" (term borrowed) called "call centers," depriving their agents of a healthy social life as well as a meaningful spiritual life...

The list goes on and on. This culture of hate, humankind's unrestrained self-indulgence, materialism, distorted value system, etc. -- these will bring about the end of our existence. We're living on a ticking time bomb, which we ourselves will detonate. It's only a matter of time. And we're running out of it.

Meanwhile, this planet will go on.

11:44 P.M. - "Burning Out"

They say that a teacher is like a candle. In order to give light, it has to burn itself, until it burns out.


I couldn't agree more on this apt analogy. True, I'm a candle that has been burning for 14 years now.

It looks like I'm burning out.


Heaven knows I've been working myself to death for almost a decade and a half now. That's practically half my life. Almost a decade and a half of working on my lesson plan till the wee hours, of getting up early in the morning, grading papers, recording grades, dealing with raging hormones, and not having a "private life." That's almost 15 years of being married to a profession that requires you to work even on weekends and holidays.


Perhaps, this is why I'm burning out this early.


When I'm in the classroom, I give my best 98% of the time (2% of the time, I'm either too sick or too tired). I read ten chapters ahead of my students. I come up with new strategies. I don't recycle lesson plans. I go the extra mile with students who want to take the journey beyond the four walls of the classroom. I keep myself updated. I pursued graduate studies and am pursuing post-grad in order to be relevant and credible.


I used to think that creative teachers don't get burned out, because they always find a way to do things differently everyday. What I didn't realize is that trying to be creative everyday of your life can be very exhausting. We're all prone to fatigue and stress, teachers especially.


I can't even tell myself, "Shut it, H. This is what you signed up for." If truth be told, 14 years ago, I'd rather be a proofreader or an editor or a writer. But back then, teaching seemed to be the only "means of generating income" while I was waiting for something "more desirable" to happen to my life. And then, life happened.


I realized now that I was "called" to this profession. I'm tempted to call it a "vocation" or "ministry" or "calling," but, no. I might sound too mushy. I'd like to believe that, when Sister Francesca Montessa, OSA hired me to be a substitute kindergarten teacher at La Consolacion College, she had a prophetic vision that I would one day become a great teacher. I'd love to think that.




Maybe this is what keeps my candle burning-- the thought that, once upon a time, someone believed in me. And, so far, I believe I'm not letting her down. I still burn. 

6:26 P.M. - Confessions of a Facebook Quitter

Could be "doomsday anxiety." Could be sheer boredom.

But there's one thing I'm quite certain I'll be doing soon: quit Facebook.

Life before Facebook was okay. Better, in fact, now that I've taken time out to ponder on things that really matter (like most people do, in anticipation of the world's impending end). 

There was a time when quitting FB was like tantamount to regressing to the Stone Age, or like confirming I am the founder of "Geek Civilization." But then I figured there are people who get on with their lives better off without such new age distractions as FB, Twitter, My Space, etc.

Maybe I'm a geek, after all. Hyper-introverted, uber-intrapersonal semi-hermetic nerd.  But I'd like to think I'm just more cautious, more circumspect, more discerning as I grow older. After all, I'm not getting any younger. I'm also a very private person, which makes me think that joining FB is totally against my grain, totally uncharacteristic of me.

So, after weighing the pro's and con's, there are three very compelling reasons why I should quit FB:

One, FB has been luring me into total self-disclosure: my personal photos, personal profile, whereabouts, etc. -- things I shouldn't be sharing with the world, because this is how I become an unwitting victim of identity thieves, hackers, swindlers, stalkers, etc.

Two, FB has been turning me into an egocentric, narcissistic, self-important vermin who constantly (or secretly) seek other people's approval by posting my best-taken photos and anticipating flattering comments. I'm turning myself into a vacuous teenager at 35!

Three, FB is turning me into a "nosy neighbor," tempting me to sneak a peek into other people's business, go through other people's photos (which they post for public viewing, anyway), and post approving comments to feed other people's bloating (or already bloated) egos.

I recently unearthed something I wrote years ago. It's called "My Principles and Philosophy." All the above-enumerated effects of FB on me go against all of my principles, I found out. I couldn't help thinking how many times I betrayed my self.

I also figured that most of my role models weren't FB junkies. JC, Gandhi, Confucius, and the Buddha weren't on FB, not because there was no FB yet, but because there was no ego to inflate. Their followers would never have considered creating a fan page for them, knowing it's a futile pursuit.

People subscribe to FB for many different reasons and I respect them. But as for me, I have grown tired of this social networking habit. I have more important things to attend to and my 18-hour work schedule just ain't enough.