The battle continues

I’m so sadly reminded the other day that the tug of war between the modernists and the postmodernists continues. Even within the church, conflict arises between these two cultural groups. Unfortunately, pastors themselves are the product of their own culture; while being mostly unaware of how culture has impacted them, our spiritual leaders invariably fall back on their cultural leanings on how to do church. Christian ethicist Jonathan R. Wilson wrote, “Culture is to human as water is to fish. Someone has said, “If you want to know about water, don’t ask the fish.” Similarly we humans are oblivious to the culture that shapes our lives.”

Since the seventeenth century, Reason, which is viewed as a universal personal embodiment, replaced religion as a guide to truth. Largely a response to the devastating wars of religion in Europe, reason was adopted as a means of acquiring peace. Set free from the chains of superstition, religion and all other external authorities, people established themselves as individuals capable of being self-governed by their own autonomy. Through reason, man became the center of the universe and can subdue everything through the powers of the Enlightenment. Postmodernity, on the other hand, is the current reaction to modernity, calling into question all the beliefs and practices of modernity. Reason is not some universal property but something constructed by different cultures in different ways. “Reason” extended into the arena of conflict becomes as much a source of violence as religion. Truth, that natural offspring of reason, is viewed as multi-cultural and varied; in other words, there are many truths, each acceptable depending on the lens one uses. Cultures, not individuals, are the real source of authority. Far from conquering or subduing nature, man is being subdued by nature. Moreover, postmodernists have turned faith into a matter of feeling rather than knowledge.

Yet, modernist illusions run strong. “When we present the gospel as a means to greater control of our lives… when we plot the survival of the church… when we think that church is something to “manage”… when we market the church,” according to J R Wilson, we fall into the modernist illusion.

While I do not profess to know the answer to this cultural clash within the church, perhaps the focus should not be in the gospel’s ability to replace but to transform…

The Stillness of a Brooding Soul

The year, tossed about by turmoil and the changing seasons of the heart, is on its last leg, like the rickety, murmuring steamboat approaching shore after a journey down the inscrutable stretch of an impulsive river. Just as a man is cloistered in year-end thoughts, so he must enter the stillness of his brooding soul. “And the stillness of life does not in the least resemble a peace. It is a stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention,” Joseph Conrad’s words (from Heart of Darkness) reverberate in the hollow clasp of his mind. Soon the implacable force moves him into the birth of a new year, with renewed hopes and perfect intentions, with a curiosity of impulses, motives, capabilities, and weaknesses forming the pondering props of a fresh play – and this year he promises to do all the things he sets out to do, unless he is frustrated once more by the excuse of his inexorable physical necessity.

But for now, a Marley’s ghost rattles the exasperating chains of flashing scenes, the what-could-have-been’s: the kindness that he could have shown to strangers or otherwise, the grace he could have granted to those weaker than himself by not judging them, the words of encouragement that he could have spoken to his own children and friends, the courage he could have demonstrated by speaking for the broken and the dispossessed, and the work that he could have done for the Gospel that sits unattended, cobwebbed and unlived. Of course, the mind’s defence is only too eloquent in justifying the many escape routes he has taken instead. “I am tired.” “I have too much to handle.” “I’m not qualified.” “I have given enough.” “Someone better will come along to do the job.” Rebellion has many faces; outright defiance is just one of them; the others are: compliance (“OK, if I have to I will,” but underneath it he is still a rebel), impotence (“I am unable to do it because I don’t have the power” – a kind of false humility), and negligence (“Oh, I forgot.”). He is the new Simon of Cyrene (Lk 23:26) who refuses, although politely, to carry the cross; he is on his way to the country and his burden is many. He just doesn’t remember that carrying each other’s cross is to fulfill the law of Christ (Gal 6:2). The tragedy is not that he cannot see but that he chooses blindness deliberately, with the brutality of a farmer who only sows weed. He probably thinks nothing of Nelson Algren’s verity, “… the court jester got laughs simply by sniffing the troubled air, implying that the stink of the herring begins in its head. In times like our own, it isn’t surprising to find men and women crowding the night clubs in hope of seeing someone sniff the air. In such times, clowns become witnesses.”

His mind is a sepulchre in the blind whiteness of fog, of memories decayed and imprecise, which play back now and then – actions and deeds, the perfect Kodak moments of the paperback hero dispensing tender mercies along life’s path. Joy, sorrow, fear, valour, rage and desire provide the bewildering luminance of his career, effecting the final illusion that everything is coming up roses. There is no shame in this type of prevarication; after all no one is hurt. Principles are less than chaff in the wind. Today, he is just brooding and soon the tabula rasa that is his mind will greet him with the new year bell. He is ready to board the steamboat bound for next year’s river, and his right to passage, merely this: that he has lived through last year.

At year-end, we gather our thoughts, sort them in the warmth of our mind’s barn, probe them, and make our obligatory resolutions. Next year it must be better. Next year, we must put our name down for this cause or other. Next year, we must help with this or that committee. Next year.

And that man with the sepulchral mind, who is he anyhow? I sometimes think he is me…

(first written, December 1995)

The Grassy Knoll

This time of the year (November), we are reminded once again by a barrage of articles, documentaries, and op-eds of that fateful 1963 day in Dallas, Texas when John F. Kennedy was fatally wounded. Re-examinations of events, places and personalities sure enough surfaced to jolt us once again into our communal mourning. Did Harvey Lee Oswald act alone? Was there only a single bullet or three bullets? What was Jack Ruby’s connection with Oswald? Was there someone else, dubbed the Umbrella Man, on the grassy knoll that fired another shot? Was there a right-wing conspiracy that plotted the President’s death?

Once again, we are watching the presidential motorcade winding down Dealey Plaza through Abraham Zapruder’s Bell and Howell lens. Not surprisingly, we are still shaken by the minute but unmistakable red mist before President Kennedy’s head jerked back and the First Lady in her elegant raspberry-colored pillbox hat and coat crawled onto the back of the top-down Lincoln Continental to reach for the Secret Service agent moving towards her. A narrated tour of the various locations inevitably ensues. We visit the messy 6th floor of the Texas Book Depository where we are shown the bolt-action assassination rifle and the window from which a clear view of Elm Street was evident. We proceed to the Parkland Hospital Trauma room where JFK was pronounced dead. We listen to the interviews of Lee Harvey Oswald who still looks so mild and composed, and to my untrained eye, could stand in for the singer Bobby Darin’s younger brother. We see Oswald snaking through policemen and reporters when we hear the single pistol shot that ends his life. We then join the sombre horse drawn caisson bearing Kennedy’s casket along Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol Rotunda. We hear the sounds of muffled drums and the clacking of horses’ hooves. This is the state funeral that is forever seared into our collective consciousness.

I remember hearing the news over the car radio as I was being driven to my Manila high school. Like everyone else I talked to that day, we did not think that JFK was really dead, and that the news report was some sick joke perhaps emanating from Russia at the behest of Khrushchev who hated JFK for the Cuban Missile Crisis stand-off, to demoralize us all. That night, I finally believed that it was true after watching Walter Cronkite announce his death. There was a strange certainty and finality to Cronkite’s calm reading of the news flash. The world seemed a little more unfriendly and dangerous that night. I looked for reassurance. I stared out the window and the lone voice of a balut vendor only exacerbated the agonizing sense of alienation I felt.

I am returning to the Grassy Knoll from which I could see the motorcade and perhaps the larger implication of JFK’s death. Somehow, over the years, the Grassy Knoll has become a vantage point for me to see the larger picture of his death. It seemed distrust of government began with his murder and now paranoia over US government cover-up and conspiracy is reaffirmed crisis after crisis. As Kennedy represented the coda of freedom and civil rights, and an almost chivalric quest for world peace that only true democracy can produce, Oswald’s bullet shattered forever the visage of the modern Camelot where the knights of liberalism and truth stood ready to save the world. Finally, the once invincible American style of leadership was seen as fully mortal and finite. I am sure there are more social and political fall-out from his untimely death. As I watched the parade of TV commentators talking about the assassination, I sensed an air of collective guilt hovering silently, but no one dared address this specter.

As with millions of people, I am still baffled by the entire tragedy except for the certainty of the reprising lyrics from Camelot:

Yes, Camelot, my boy!
Where once it never rained till after sundown,
By eight a.m. the morning fog had flown...
Don't let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment that was known
As Camelot.

The audacity of parenting

The invasive parenting phenomenon has been around for a while now in North America. You can easily spot this growing species of parents who hover over their children like a Huey on a search and destroy mission, designing their every extracurricular and academic activity and treating each offspring like a Francis Ford Coppola production. They pipe Mozart music into the kids’ bedroom, install nanny-cams to monitor the helpers, attend to their music and language lessons, discuss and analyze ad nauseam their children’s progress with the teachers, complete school/college applications including writing their entrance essays, and stalk their kids everywhere even equipping their kids with GPS-enabled cellphones. According to some scientific studies (Marano, e.g.), there is some “dark dependency, some transfer of the parent’s identity to the child" behind over-parenting. It is difficult to disagree with this observation.

Now that both sons are grown up, with one still going through the ordeal of graduate school, I wonder if I had been such an invasive parent. Although I did not install any nanny-cam (this never entered my mind, but mind you, nanny-cam wasn’t a developed technology then; there was the baby monitor though but it was there to make sure we responded to them the moment they started wailing in their cribs; our baby monitor had the added benefit of picking up sounds from our next door neighbours who might have monitors on the same frequency as ours - and the voices and fights we heard – but that’s another story!) nor did I pipe in Mozart music into their rooms, I did buy them Mozart cd’s and insisted that my wife listened to classical music while she was in the last trimester of pregnancy (this was for her relaxation and rest). Also I admit I enjoyed the frequent parent-teacher conferences in which we poured over the learning outcomes of each subject to make sure our children achieved some modicum of success. Yes, there were the piano, math and language lessons they had to take, but when they outgrew their interest, they dropped the lessons (especially the Chinese lessons that demanded rigorous and repetitive copying of characters; even now it breaks my heart to remember the large cannon-ball size tear-drops one son would pour on the exercise sheets). And no, we did not write entrance essays for them but I did give him a few pointers of what schools are suited for their gifts.

It’s funny how one compares notes with other parents and how easy it is to see the speck in their eyes. In one instance, I felt embarrassed by that tinge of superiority that came over me when I mentioned I was friend with my children in FaceBook. The general rule of course is that the last people our children wanted to be friends with in FaceBook are the parents; it just leads to strong possibility of cyber-stalking; I am the aberration – or so I consoled the other parents.

I suppose time will tell, whether I had been that audacious parent whose control over their children’s lives lead to their subsequent dysfunction. By that time, I suppose I’m willing to spring for the cost of their therapy. Then, again, reading about the lives of great authors and artists gives me the comfort that all of them in one way or another had to deal with one or both controlling parents and that it was through such conflicts they had found their place as artists. In the novel Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy writes "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I am hoping my children came from a happy family. I am also betting that their growth will be exceptional and without difficulty. What are the odds though?

A Country For Old Men

Autumn is certainly a country for old men. The fallen leaves, the chilling wind, and the dark foreboding clouds point us to every tatter in our mortal dress. No more “salmon-falls, or mackerel-crowded seas: Fish, flesh, or fowl, which commend all summer long; nor whatever is begotten, born, and dies, caught in that sensual music,” except the sight of winding stairs towards decay. Unlike Yeats, I don’t long for Byzantium to sing to the lord and ladies of what is passing, or pressing or to come. These days, I feel the gnawing grip of arthritis, and the slow pain in my tattered bones which heralds one ringing truth: an aged man is but a paltry thing. But in my dream, I see the familiar shore of my home country and the hospitable crowd in their chorus of smile and love.

As for me, it took a decade or two to adjust to the Canadian climate, and it might take longer now to revert back to the culture of my youth. Then there is the medical requirement: having been sustained on a regiment of pills for my diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol, and other inconveniences, I would think my habitual pilgrimage to a physician would bankrupt me if I were living back in Asia.

After all that is said and done, perhaps I am in the right country – for old men. What remains is still to make new songs. “My songs of old earth's dreamy youth: But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou! For fair are poppies on the brow: Dream, dream, for this is also sooth…” (from The Song of the Happy Shepherd).

Political Parodies and Impersonations

A recent SNL episode where Will Farrell and Tina Fey played such convincing impersonations of US political personalities reminded me that a tradition of impersonating political figures somehow never took hold in the Philippine comedy scene. The few TV comedy productions that managed to land here locally (i.e., in Canada) are basically sit-coms, more slap-stick style, depicting Filipinos in their familiar social angst, romantic encounters, and so on, generally made as if the comedies of Chichay, Dolphy, Pancito and their irks of the 50s never evolved, and caught agonizingly in an artistic time warp. A few parodies of, say, GMA or Miriam Defensor, including some political ads, had appeared on YouTube; although some are side-splittingly funny, in the main these are amateurish productions and not meant for the mass media. The obvious gestures, facial distortions, and speech patterns of trapos are a gold mine of materials and surely easy pickings for accomplished Philippine comedians or actors, but why is that there is a complete absence of SNL or MadTV type of political humor in the Philippine TV landscape? Could it be that the Philippine art scene is not ready for this genre? Or are political impersonations something considered off-limits by conventional artists?

There is something therapeutic about watching political impersonations. Tina Fey’s impressive amplification of Sarah Palin’s every swagger, provincialism and Alaskan accent makes me see Palin as a more likable, very human, personality. As for George W, Kelefa Sanneh writing for the New Yorker, says, “Will Ferrell played the second President Bush as a cheerful idiot who had been thrown into the deep end; he captured the winsome earnestness of a guy doing the best he can.” While the jury is still out about the benefits of political parodies on people’s political understanding, in my opinion edification of political issues and platforms somehow still results. To me, parodies humanize, instead of demonize, their subjects. Of course, the circumstances and issues portrayed in these comedies are half-truths, but then when do we see the whole truth anyway?

I have heard though a certain sophistication or intelligent level by the audience is needed to truly make political impersonations popular and some may argue that the common Filipino has not attain that level of political maturity. After all, it has to be devastating to a comedian for someone to respond with “I don’t get it” after the punchline is delivered. But is the Filipino audience really unable to appreciate political humor? I am not sure. Just imagine a petite actress playing GMA while she makes her ‘The Lord puts me here” speech, complete with her smirk, the facial mole that rises and falls with each emotional outburst, and the finger-pointing punctuations, would you not hear the roar from the audience? Since I am not familiar with the current line-up of actresses, I wonder who can play her to the T?

There was a movie about the downfall of the Marcos dynasty a number of years back. Made by a North American company, it ended with the ousted Imelda on the evacuation plane singing “New York, New York” to herself, almost like a Verdi aria of a person heading for the gallows. But then this was a serious drama. However, the poignant portrayal of the Marcos downfall seemed such a parable to me about power and its corruption, in addition to my contradictory sympathy for the fallen First Lady. So I thought watching it was worthwhile and educational. I can’t remember now who played Imelda but she was skillful.

So, I ask you again: why is political parody such a rare thing in the Philippine media scene?

Canadian Thanksgiving

While there was much rumbling, most notably the bears tearing down the markets on a global scale, it was good to sit down for a quiet family thanksgiving dinner, with all the trimmings. The FEC presented a thought-provoking concert, with a mezz0-soprano giving us some glorious tunes -- not Brahms, but close enough. Dubbed "He Has My Voice -- Psalms from the Heart." As m.c., I borrowed from theologian Richard Foster, in the middle of the program, with a simple story:
One day a man was walking through a shopping mall with his two-year-old son. The child was in a particularly cranky mood, fussing and fuming. The frustrated father tried everything to quiet his son but nothing seemed to help. The child simply would not obey. Then, under some special inspiration, the father scooped up his son and holding him close to his chest began singing an impromptu love song. None of the words rhymed. He sang off key. And yet, as best he could, this father began sharing his heart. “I love you,” he sang. “I’m so glad you’re my boy. You make me happy. I like the way you laugh.” On and on he sang as they went from one store to another, quietly singing off key and making up words that did not rhyme. The child relaxed and became still, listening to this strange and wonderful song. Finally they finished shopping and went to the car. As the father opened the door and prepared to buckle his son into the car seat the child lifted his head and said simply, “Sing it to me again, Daddy! Sing it to me again.
"I added the following comment as closing:
If you think about it, prayer is like that simple father’s song. So with simplicity of heart, I hope you have allowed yourself to be gathered up into the arms of the Father and let him sing his love song over you.

Unconditional Love

Stella and I were at some friends' house for dinner a few weeks ago. After the wonderful meal, my host excused himself to go pick up his mother and daughter. When he was gone, their pet Maltese waited by the veranda door, eagerly waiting for 'Daddy' (as my host fondly refers to himself to his dog whom he regarded as his son). The dog was transfixed with his eyes gazing out the sliding door, watching the dark street where his master would appear hopefully soon with his van. I noticed how excited the dog got when my friend finally came home, rushing to him, truly like a son anticipating his father's return. This was unconditional love in action I said to myself. Should we be so lucky to have our own children rush to us like that when we walk through the door!

Odysseus and Eumaios converse in front of Odysseus' palace:

Now as these two were conversing thus with each other,
a dog who was lying there raised his head and ears. This was
Argos, patient-hearted Odysseus' dog, whom he himself
raised, but got no joy of him, since before that he went to sacred
Ilium. In the days before, the young men had taken him
out to follow goats of the wild, and deer, and rabbits;
but now he had been put aside, with his master absent,
and lay on the deep pile of dung, from the mules and oxen,
which lay abundant before the gates, so that the servants
of Odysseus could take it to his great estate, for manuring.

There the dog Argos lay in the dung, all covered with dog ticks.
Now, as he perceived that Odysseus had come close to him,
he wagged his tail, and laid both ears back; only
he now no longer had the strength to move any closer
to his master, who, watching him from a distance, without Eumaios
noticing, secretly wiped a tear away, and said to him:

"Eumaios, this is amazing, this dog that lies on the dunghill.
The shape of him is splendid, and yet I cannot be certain
whether he had the running speed to go with this beauty,
or is just one of the kind of table dog that gentlemen
keep, and it is only for show that their masters care for them."

Then, O swineherd Eumaios, you said to him in answer:
"This, it is too true, is the dog of a man who perished
far away..."

So he spoke, and went into the strongly settled palace,
and strode straight on, to the great hall and the haughty suitors.

But the doom of dark death now closed over the dog, Argos,
when, after nineteen years had gone by, he had seen Odysseus.

October things

The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.
-Dylan Thomas, Poem in October

I suppose the poet Thomas and I have something in common: we're born in the rainy autumn and walked abroad in a shower of all our days. I did my morning walk by the Steveston dock where conversations with sea gulls and sandpipers are unavoidable. Today was particular gloomy, I suppose reminding me that summer and sunshine are over. Like that condemned reading gaol prisoner, I too look wistfully at the sky.

A few more days, my big Six-O and the glee of being able to apply for early CPP benefits. In some places, I might even be entitled to a senior's discount, if not some respect from girl scouts willing to escort me across the terrifying road. I prayed though as I walked, always hopeful that the inward walk was as fruitful as the outward one. This morning, I remembered my father who passed away in 1994. He too dreaded the October wind and the greyness of the Vancouver sky. I recalled the poem I wrote and a tinge of sadness came over me:

This same power that grants me sighs at dawn
Makes me remember his absence
One year aftter he was planted in the greener lawn.
I watch the green blooms in his grave plot
mark busy growth that struggles for the shot.
Under Oceanview are his bones submerged
In a site they named Calvary
Much like the mount of skulls
When Death saw its own abdication
And the Word that sets men free
Dying for him too was my absolution...
The mourning son is brave in his narrow love,
He begs to return to past conversations
In the ancient minutes when his limbs were fresh,
When like sugared, red robbed birds,
His words sprouted wings, although without direction.
The talks were nothing but were seeds of everything -
And mourning seeks the buzzing,
the sound of breathing
Of the familuar mourned.
"But a man is not made for defeat -
A man can be destroyed but not defeated,"
echoed his Hemingway borrowing.
I suppose he is as gentle in his leaving
As he was in his entrance.
The elegy for a father does not lie unsaid.
And the prodigal soon forgets the welcome feast
But retains forever
The gentle echo of his father's voice.

Bailout woes

It's difficult to watch your portfolio dive like some kamikaze plane -- and the skies are filled with mayday divers, some nearly plunging into the deep void. But, we ought to walk by faith not by sight and today there was a bit of a comeback, and perhaps my plane is now levelling. How the metaphors start to come out after the bailout failure, and political fingers are wagging relentlessly while the real financial hardships for some have turned some to despair. And the pundits are all in the audience shouting I told you so.
There is no better time not to panic. To everything there is a season.

Swift current

Can you believe it? It's end of September, and it's been nine months since I've gone into semi-retirement, expecting to read all the books we've bought in the recent decade (or two). Lucas is now nearly one month at Columbia, slugging through his graduate studies in English Lit.
It was only yesterday that we were strolling down Broadway lugging all the stuff we bought from Bed Bath and Beyond to Luke's apartment where a black ominous cat waited behind locked door ready to stare us down with his (yes, it's a he, because I turned him over to check) hypnotic eye. Maybe I'm just not a cat person, but it's just too mysterious for me.