I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness-- Jeremiah 3:3

Sunday, March 25, 2012

WHERE DREAMS COME KNOCKING




God does love me.

Truly, there are good reasons why some unlikely changes have to take place in my life.  To a human who in his vantage point is capable of looking at things in his capacity as a rational being will naturally repel to the idea that goes against what is normally comfortable to him.

There are moments I get to feel small when I begin to compare myself with my other colleagues who have stayed well-compensated in a place where I used to hug as my work hall while I’m here in a small corner of a public school earning just barely enough for a family of three.  But moments like these are my unguarded times where I am free to spill my bare humanity to my creator, who while listening to my confused cries, remains understanding. And in his seeming silence, I deem it best that right after crying I remain in the posture of waiting and trusting.  I would not say this comes easy. It’s a long journey in the desert, I tell you.  I have no other means of surviving but through this.

And then all of a sudden, the old dreams that I dreamed came all at once not in drizzles but in torrents at a time when I don’t expect them.

I always thought for a dream to come true I have to have the cash, the connections and the courage. I don’t have the three, especially the third one. But now that I’m a Journalism teacher in an institution where I’m only content to work in a classroom with my 34 teen-agers eager to see how life turns with a new weird teacher, things simply began to fall into place. You do your honest day’s work and you get some surprises. Mine came in the form of me being snagged to coach a radio broadcasting team bound for the National School Press Conference.

My boss came up to me and told me to prepare no less than P10,000 for the travel and registration to the Palawan stint. I was thrilled with the thought of going to a dream world called Palawan! But I had to decline as I don’t have the money. I couldn’t produce the money needed even if we were promised a refund from the city local funds.

I told God that if He really wants me to go He would make me go come what may but if He has a better idea for me this summer then I wouldn’t mind. He’s God and remains God even if the sweetest of dreams have to crumble to pieces.

And then last Monday, March 20, my boss came up to me after the nth time and told me, “OK, prepare your things. You’re coaching the team with me, with or without your 10,000. You should not decline this offer to come with us. There are others who are dying to come. But you’re going with us!”
I was dumbfounded. But I heard him right. God does love me.

You bet, I’m going to Palawan with the team!

Monday, March 12, 2012

ANG IMONG MGA BALAK





Ang imong mga balak


Mao ang mga higot nga naghugpong


Sa mga lipak-kawayan


Sa atong bungbong.






Ug ang imong mga tinutukan


Mao ang kisame nga musagang


Sa atong atop-amakan kung kini


Unya magabok, mahunlak.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

How Can I Tell You About Love?



(To a three-year-old wonder who is tossed between what love is what is not)


Will I begin with drizzles of kisses and couplings?
Of prince charmings and bits of glass shoe sequences?
Should love be all glitz to your eyes or sweet pastel looks,
Or whisperings of the mush when the sky's blue?

Shall I not tell you of Scarlett and Rhett who darted wars and guns
And yet moved the hand of time,
While their chests minced Romeo and Juliet's rhyme?
Or that of death's woes of Jack and Rose?

But how can I make plain the craggy mountain that stood strong
Embracing his sky despite the jealous sun's glare?
Or the tear in a mother's cheeks upon seeing
The tiny finger that wraps hers for the first time?