Kiss my ash

[Journal Entry: Fri Feb 23, 2007, 4:12 AM, on http://lykwys.deviantart.com]

It’s Wednesday again (this entry was originally drafted on Wednesday). Time to get my lazy ass up, effort to rewrite my notes for the evening, walk about three blocks to catch my ride, and to talk for three hours on something that I’m half-baked at. Yup, Wednesday class.

Today’s a little different. It’s Ash Wednesday. From the point of view of someone who’s born as a Roman Catholic, who traces his roots in Mindanao, who is schooled in an Evangelist Protestant primary and secondary institution, whose parents are Buddhist (Well, dad’s really the one. While mum’s a Catholic, she’s also a practicing Buddhist. Same goes with the rest of my mother side kin and honestly, majority of the Filipino-Chinese community), and of course, proselytized in college, by its wolves and hyenas (it’s a personal affectionate term to describe the Youth for Christ group in college who’s active in Gawad Kalinga work. Proselytizers and blind zealots, really.), being pious means just as much as being confused. So, I’d like to better orient myself as a non-denominational Christian.

Now, can we talk about your religious convictions?

While my ride was stopping at Quiapo church to drop and pick up new passengers, I found myself gazing blankly at the newly painted statues of saints, and the bi-colored plastic and tarpaulin tents of street hawkers. Candle melters (Ooohh. I’ll have to write about that), bootleg media vendors (dibidisir, dibidi...), fortune tellers, vegetable sellers, mystic artifact (and remedy) merchants, and of course, hobos, all run abound. And to complete this vivid and picturesque scene, a huge TV screen on the Mercury Drug building. Times Square, baby.

It’s been a while since my mum pulled and nagged me to accompany her to go to Quiapo. I miss that. I miss going to the mass with her (and get dizzy while in the middle of the mass since there’s not much air circulation in churches), buy red candles and red wax figurines of my late pappy and granny on mum’s side of the family to be melted, shop around for the cheapest vegetables, and browse around at the newest collection of pirated media. Basically, I miss being immersed in that gritty masa (common people) environment. Commuting to Tutuban, Divisoria mall, 168 (which I have to embarrassingly admit that I haven’t been there yet) doesn’t count.

While my mind was wandering about that, I also cannot stop reminisce about this instant message conversation that I had with a particularly interesting and eloquent friend (whose name I’m not mentioning, heh) about her religious beliefs, her ambitions, as well as her frustrations, and our opinions on what’s going around with the community. She’s a very devout Christian - kind, good spirited, and very eloquent. She writes, and she’s the type of gal that’ll leave you feeling good every time you think of not only her, but of the abstract thought of how she thinks. And of course, definitely one who you would be proud to be bring to dinner with your parents. I hope I can meet and marry one like her some day.

So as not to digress (Since I’m getting carried away), part of what we talked about was on Gawad Kalinga.

I have nothing against the organization per se. In fact, I’m all for it. It’s a very ambitious vision and tries to reach that goal nobly - In theory.

Let me explain (for the benefit of all you Tony Meloto worhippers out there). What I hate about it is that the way it’s being packaged in my alma mater. It’s so skewed. It’s being promoted as bandwagon hip socio-civic work, where YFC people would proselytize you to being one of them, before you get to understand and appreciate the principle of the organization that it wants to build and sustain a community.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t that many volunteers from the Muslim (as you can see, I have sympathy bias for them since I also hail from the south), nor from the Protestant community. I (based on my personal experience) wouldn’t choose to be affiliated to one organization wherein the environment would frown upon you if you were different. On the other hand, I would be pessimistically surprised if these charismatic youth leaders (with their blind, half-wit donkey followers) would attempt to approach the “marginalized” religious community and invite them to have a healthy supercommunity of people towards a common good.

I'm sorry. Is that too harsh an observation for you? Does that sound too much like the truth?

I have the utmost respect towards my fellow unrepresented for not making a fuss about it, and seeing everything from a good light. Huge respect to them.

I pray to the One Above that He (and big J of course) would give these people the strength for them to realize their condescending mindset.

To end, a quote from HL Mencken comes into mind: “The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians”.