a little self-love

This is the sadness.
This is the writing
without the sugar rush
or the adrenaline.
This is the bedrock me.

Bedrock of who I am:
my person's Part and Parcel.

I embrace you, lonesome creature.

I hear you.
I listen to your voice of pain, of anger,
of resentment.

You are valued.

I shall wash you--
arising from ashes--
in a tub of tears.

I will pat you dry till
you are one with the sky.

Cherish the hard questions

You have to cherish the hardest questions. You have to cherish the friend that asks you these questions. That friend is true, and loyal, and has a sharp eye. Value that friend.

Sometimes it takes asking the hard questions before life stirs you. It takes facing the hard facts, the difficult truth, the one you don't like to face and hide your face from, for the phoenix to realize it has been laying dormant in ashes for so long and it's now time for rebirth.

There's so many ways to hide from these questions. Nicotine. Alchohol. Destructive sex. Chatting. The internet. TV, watching gyrating women in noontime shows giving false hopes to the impoverished. Listening to celebrities talk about the lives of other celebrities in gossip shows. Hanging out with people you secretly dislike but need to distract you from taking the necessary path to wellness. These people tell you lies: "Okay lan yan, pare!"

"Tagay muna!"

"Me ganon?! Kailangan pa bang i-memorize yan?"

"Like hello?! Don't say that! At least you're not like so-and-so," and so, instead of facing the fact that you have money problems and increasing debt, you compare yourself to one of your officemates who is a single mother of three and struggles to make ends meet. "I mean, hindi nga sya makabili ng disenteng damit, `di ba?" your destructive friend would say. So you purchase an extra pair of shirts and shoes you don't need to clog your already full closet in the hopes that designer clothes can buy you self-esteem. Never mind that you can only pay the minimum P500.00 in your credit card bill. Never mind that you are afraid to answer the phone because it might be the collectors again. At least your friends would think you are well-off.

"Wow, bago sapatos! Iba ka na talaga, `di ka na ma-reach," they say. You glitter with the compliment but to prove them wrong, you reach into your wallet and buy them another round of drinks so you keep them close. "Naks, naman! Yan ang gusto ko sa'yo! Di ka nagbabago!"

These are poisonous people. They don't want you to change for your own good. They don't want you to change because they want to keep you useable, for their ends.

"Alam mo, true love yan. Eh ano kung pareho kayo ng gender? Basta, I am happy for you that you have found the one." This is said with a smile on their lips, but they never say anything about men and women who have thrown their lives away chasing a sexuality that goes against God's design, and feeling utterly alone and suffering the consequences of their sin even in their old age. So you see a matrona in his 80s, wearing make-up and tattooed eyebrows, walking down the street. You sneer "May asim pa ang Lola mo!" and miss to see the sadness in their eyes.

"Sexual preference mo iyan, ano bang pakialam ng iba?" ... and boom! You are convinced.

"Naku, kalimutan mo na yang ex mo na yan. May papakilala ako sa'yo. Papa!" ... and as soon as you succumb you begin the cycle of destructive relationships again, knowing well that the person only wants you for your body or your money and will leave you as soon as someone comes along who is sexier and wealthier.

"Guys, let's meet on this. What can we do to solve this problem?" says your patweetums sycophant colleague, and then he goes off and steals your ideas to make him appear brilliant. You are glad that it was your idea that saved the day, but you seethe in the sidelines knowing someone else took the credit for it. But because your colleague is patweetums and super-friendly to you, you keep a smile on your face.

"Tagay pa, p're! Hina mo naman!" says your newfound officemates as you blow your first paycheck in a beer house. Never mind that you have to drive home. Never mind that there's bills to pay and a family to provide for.

You block and you block yourself from the clarity you need to heal. A doctor can never fully help you unless he makes the correct diagnosis. And a doctor asks questions.

For once, be hard on yourself. Face the difficult questions. Deal with the discomfort. Remember that at first flush, going sane feels like going crazy.

Hard questions are those that force you to come up with the answer, the bedrock truth. No one needs to shove that truth down your throat. Simply own up to these questions and you realize the answers are there.

"What's the payoff you get for remaining in that destructive relationship?"

"Do you really need a boyfriend to be happy?"

"Exactly how much are you making each week? How much are you spending? Can you simplify your lifestyle?"

"Is that the best use of your time today?"

"Have you prayed about it?"

"What does the Bible say about your current situation?"

"How healthy is your diet? How often did you exercise this week?"

"When will you start taking good care of yourself?"

"How much longer will you wallow in self-pity and not move to better your situation?"

"Didn't you talk to me about this over a year ago? Haven't you done something about it?"

"How has your worrying helped you get closer to solving the problem?"

God and manzanilla

A bottle of chamomile oil can heal more than an aching tummy. It can also heal a doubting heart. Read on and find out.

I don't remember the details now. I don't remember when exactly, but it was some years ago. YESHUA was still an active ministry then. I don't remember the place, but it's most probably a church in Batangas, where a certain Pastor Weiner ministers. Pastor Weiner is a favorite among the single ladies in YESHUA.

It was either we were invited to teach a two-day workshop or we had a show. But we were there Saturday and we were set to come home the next day. I know because the story I am about to tell involved us having to stay at the church overnight.

Late in the evening, I was awakened by a very uncommon ache in my belly. I had the gas. It was colic. I couldn't sleep. I didn't know why I got it. I only knew I was uncomfortable and couldn't ask anybody for help. All the other YESHUAns were asleep. The whole church was quiet.

"Get up!" I think I felt God was saying.

I cried. "Father, my tummy hurts. It hurts so bad. Please make it go away. Just say the word and I'll be okay. Please!"

"Get up, my child," went the insistent voice.

So, in pain and difficulty, I got up.

"Walk out of the room and go into the other room."

"You mean the room where the girls are sleeping?"

"Yes."

I did. All our bags were gathered together at one corner. On the wall was a medicine cabinet.

"See that green bottle? Put some on your tummy."

"Okay," I seemed to answer the voice back in my head. Gingerly, I walked up to the cabinet. I was worried someone might walk into the room and think I was stealing. There were pills in the cabinet box and I'm sure one of these were made to relieve the pain I was in. But green oil it is. I opened the bottle and put a few drops into my palm. I rubbed it onto my tummy.

The relief was instant. I walked back to the other room and fell soundly asleep.

I woke up and thought it was all a dream. So I hurriedly went to the other room. Sure enough, there it was. "Manzanilla," I read from the bottle.

Whenever I feel crabby, tired, uncared for, unloved, neglected, left alone even by God, I remember this story. I remember this story and I think, God loves me and the solution to the problem/situation/ache I may have at the moment may just be in the other room, within reach, if I just simply ask Him for help. For we all are never out of the reach of God's love.

Name Game

Marivic and I did this a while back and it was fun and also insightful. I hope you find time to play this little name game, too.

First, google your name. Add the words 'name,' 'meaning' and 'origin' as keywords in the search field. What you're trying to do here is to find out what each of your names mean. Do this step for each given name (if you've more than one), and for your middle name and last name. Then try to form a slogan out of it.

Here's what we got:

Rico -- rich in Spanish is ricoh
Duran -- my middle name has a French/Latin origin meaning firm and enduring. This felt good because I always thought that Duran came from the Filipino "duraan." "Dura" in our language means to spit, or spit, so "duraan" can either mean to be spat upon or spittoon. I tried to google if that had any historical truth, but again and again, only "endurance" kept coming up, so I'm sticking with that.
del Rosario -- of the rosary, in Spanish, too

So I've rich, enduring, of the rosary. My slogan is: The enduring richness of a string of prayers.

My wife's maiden name is: Marivic Salonga Javier
Marivic is a combination of Marie and Rebekah.
Marie -- bitter, Hebrew origin
Rebekah -- to tie, also of Hebrew origin
Salonga -- this has a Filipino origin. It was derived from "salungat" which meant to oppose
Javier -- means bright

I'm thinking her slogan can be: To oppose and tie bitterness and bring out brightness.

Dana Javier del Rosario
Dana -- Arbiter
Javier -- Bright
del Rosario -- of the rosary

Prayerful and Bright Arbiter. Or Bright Arbiter of Prayerfulness.

So, what's yours? Please post them here.

Gmail and writing

I like gmail. Gmail is so flexible. With gmail, you can have multiply inboxes so one will show only unread mail and one will show everything in inbox. You can put color-coded stars so you know which mail is most important to read. You can label mails so they automatically go to separate folders. You can see youtube videos and picasa photos using gmail. If your friend sent you an mp3 via email, you can listen to it right away with gmail. Plus, it never runs out of space for you! You can play the old snake game on it even.

You can also chat with gmail. That's how I chat with my Mom from Canada. My little sister, Erin, happens to have gmail and when she's online, we chat.

There's also a nifty Search field so you can find the email you want to read just by putting in a keyword. You can also filter out unwanted email. Plus, all replies to mail you send are in one single thread, like when you post in online newsgroups.

Once I got this great idea for a story loosely based on gmail. I was much younger then. I made the mistake of telling my friend my story idea. The reason I told was because I wanted my ego stroked. I wanted my friend to say, "That's a great idea for a story! You really are a writer."

Instead, my friend shot down the idea with one well-aimed remark: "Google will sue if you use their trademark in your story."

That story, until now, has remain unwritten.

There's so many other great features in gmail but there's also the option of setting it to "Basic HTML." That's gmail stripped down to the very basics. It's how it looked like when it began years ago. (I was one of the very few who was sent an invitation by a friend to start a gmail account when it was still on Beta. Back then, you had to be invited to get a gmail account. There was a sense of exclusivity to it. Now it's free and popular, although not as popular as yahoomail. A lot of my friends stick with yahoo.)

When you set gmail to basic html mode, you temporarily lose the chat feature and many other add-ons you may have added. That's okay. You can always set it back to "standard mode." But sometimes I like it pretty basic. You send and receive email, that's it.

Writing should be like that. Basic. Just baring one's essential self onto paper. "This is who I am, really..." When stripped of ego, writing can be very powerful. Then, no one has to say "You're such a great writer!" for you to feel like one. You simply write.

The act of writing makes you a writer.