The Boy Who Lost His Kite

One morning, a lazy kid got up in total defiance of his mom asking him to do some errands. Instead of going straight to the kitchen sink, he went out to play, he brought with him his favorite kite that he never misses to wipe clean, the strings are quite old but its not obvious cause of how he cared so much for it.

And so he danced, and jumped, and played with his kite. He did not noticed an open hole just in front of their yard. Before he knew it, he stepped into it, and there was darkness all over him. He tried to shout to call his mom, but he was too far out of reach even if anyone cared to listen to him. He sat down crying, with a wounded knee and a sore feet, he tried to inch slowly towards the rough stones that surrounded him.

He stayed there, cause he can't get up, and no one is listening to him. Then he remembered he still has his kite with him, it was a bit broken as well because of his disobedience, but he carried it into his arms.

Days went by without anyone noticing that he is missing, he is hungry, tired and all wet, stinky and dizzy, he looked at his kite, it was silently staying with him. But one day, the kite just disappeared while he was sleeping, he was not sure if a rodent carried it away. He is even sadder to be alone without his kite.

He misses his mom, his room.. and his kite..

What could he do, it was all because of his disobedience, now the wounds at his back is eating the whole of him. So he decided to sleep again, hoping that he would never see that dark hole where he is trapped. He cried alone, he cried silently, he cried without a word..and then it was dark..

"When someone is crying, of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them"

Suddenly No One

Brave steps lead me to the light
While the fallen dew glanced at her night
A broken arrow has failed to hit its mark
Passed the narrow streets in the dark

Arms raised in awe of your own embrace
Though my ears haven’t heard of such grace
I pity the shadow that slowly follows
The footsteps above a ground so shallow

Biting a nail in a crowded flair
A deafening applause from those who tried to care
One mischief after another
Behold the friends who do not even bother

A brother you are, or did you say?
That fathers and mothers ought not to play
Hide and seek, plain and meek
Like a stuttering poet, six times a week

Bless the one who gave me their peace
Praise the One who gave them as is
Now I’m the one who longs to be my own man
A lonely one, when suddenly no one

Remembering the Yellow Avenue

It was 10 days before my 7th birthday, the first quarter of being a first grader. I remember running around our old compound like an adult who lost his Facebook password. Three of my aunts together with my mother are glued in front of the old 14” colored TV that the whole clan seems to own as their version of Times Square Cinemas.

For a young kid like me, it was just any other news that my family used to watch on a regular basis. Little did I know that the future of Philippine democracy is shaping up.. by virtue of the death of a certain Ninoy Aquino.

A few years later, after watching consecutive episodes of the Aug 21 tribute to the late opposition senator, I began to understand in my tiny brain that there is this bad person who is in power who is in one way or another, responsible for the death of the other good person.

He was jailed and exiled. In my young age I started to take interest on his speeches, his strong personality was enough to capture the minds of both young and old.
I remember watching on TV over and over again how he died, he was all white in a second then blood stained the next.

Eventually he became a hero. And he was survived by a wife who then became the next president; the catalyst of a united Filipino towards a new Philippines; the icon of change; the dawning of a new era of politics. She was Corazon Aquino.

Fast forward to the headlines a few days ago, the wife joined the husband in peace, and once again, the Filipinos were reunited on the same place were the battle tanks were peacefully halted. This time not to oust a dictator, but to pay respect to the person responsible for the ouster of a dictator in power.

The avenue that was once yellow in one voice against a power hungry leader is again yellow in one last respect to the person worthy of that respect.

The last time we saw the yellow avenue it was a battle between good and evil. The evil lost and the good prevailed against all odds. There is an “annoying” antagonist and a protagonist who holds the yellow flag of victory.

Would you mind if I say Deja vu?

“To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history”
Barrack Obama

Photo:http://fjsanchez.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/cory_aquino1.jpg

Former Opponent, Now My President

John McCain's speech on Barack Obama's victory is as historic as the recently concluded race to the White House. How I wish the rest of the world would see him as a role model in accepting defeat.

2010 aspirants, kindly take note!

Uncommon Valor

Twice the speed of the bullet that cut through a few inches away from the nose of the bleeding young soldier, his grasp of reality came as a whirlwind ride. The fuming sound of an incensed battlefield sang alternate chorus to his numbing ear. The mud on his worn out boots replaces the shining new pair that he once had before enlisting as a front liner. A gap between his nervous breath is less obvious as one by one he witnessed his fellow soldier bid goodbye to the dance of death that commenced a few hours earlier. It’s just him and a few rounds of his rifle; he dropped his blade on the swamp just across the enemy lines.

He was fighting for freedom, and so does his enemy.

Daily we are faced with a similar plot, we may have never stepped on a real battlefield but a hundred emails on a coffee break would yield similar bloody results. We may not cohered a platoon of defenders to watch our back but we are sunk deep amidst an array of nine to fivers bound on a rat race. Who will be the best rat? The highest paid rat? The most successful rat? The most influential rat?

If we call it a rat race, aren’t we all rats?

How do you find the bravest soldier? Is he in the battlefield? Or is he in command? I say neither, for there is one place that war has seldom define and less audacious to discuss. It is a place where night time does not make any difference with day time, where food is as scarce as hope, where water runs dry as much as the body does. Most of the time this is the place where brave soldiers get to meet one person alone – themselves.

Ever heard of P.O.W.s who made it home? Most of them can not tell the difference between the uncanny prison cell and their comfortable home, for in their hearts a certain prison cell exists.

Yes, sometimes the bravest of the fighters are those who sit still, the greatest irony of fighting is when you need to be at peace with yourself, knowing that braving it out with all your strength would just prove fatally useless, especially when you are instructed to “Be still”

The Bravest One took the nails, He could have blown the mob into kingdom come with a gentle whisper, He could have made the Roman soldiers look like useless match sticks, He could have held His hand high and then came a new earth, He could have just said one word and the equation of life will change drastically.

But He did not.

He chose the nails. Why?

For us, we should have been there; we should have been the one fighting for our life, reducing the fruit of our sins. We can’t take a staple for one, but praise God; we need not take anything else because He took it all.

Amazing Artistry Across the Evening Sky

When I see the beauty of a sunset’s glory
Amazing artistry across the evening sky
When I feel the mystery of a distant galaxy
It awes and humbles me to be loved
By a God so high

Paul Baloche, Graham Kendrick

God so high, how high, its beyond space and distance. History may have taken great names with her, she might have changed great lives, but before God, history is just a blink of one moment of His faithful time.

The afternoon looms, with a pale warning of the night’s coming darkness. Everyone seems to be tired, the rest are enjoying the little strength left for them to hope, I’m caught in between.

The late Domino Harvey defined life as having three kinds of people, the rich, the poor and everyone else in between, could it be that there are three dimensions of life curved in a variation of wood labeled – destiny?

I don’t enjoy afternoons so much, it reminds of the coming darkness of night, I need to be reminded that it’s time to rest, the whole world sleeps at night, I might as well grab my own pillow and let the comfort of my soft bed consume my dilemmas.

It’s scary when enough’s not good enough. And when the well of inspiration perspired and dried up. It’s scary when you forget about tomorrow and the only timeline left in your agenda is now. It’s scary when the hours are numb, when the arrows are struck, when your fellows are foes and most of all when you follow the dark hole straight to the bottom of the food chain. Silently you realized you don’t have anything to eat, while everyone else can have you for dinner.

What can I do?

“Amazing artistry across the evening sky”, there’s something great about the evening sky after all.

“The mystery of the distant galaxy”, great minds would not quit labeling all the galaxies that they can think of, but the mystery is sweet when you owe it to one Great Creator.

“It awes and humbles me to be loved by a God so high”, a Great God not getting tired of oblivious pricks like the man in front of the mirror from where I’m standing – err! That’s me.

The last line of the song says:
“Now You’re making all things new by the power of Your risen life”

Praise God!

A Few Hours Past Tragedy

I just had the greatest day of my life walking out of a recent tragedy. It’s not my own though and I would clearly agree there’s no such thing as “greatest” and “tragedy” piling up on the same line. You seldom see people smiling after a great loss; you seldom share laughter with people who are supposed to be in pain.

But I am a few hours past that encounter; we just visited a friend who has just recently experienced so great a loss that the usual remuneration would be a trip to the dark corner of your room, and emptiness that would out sleep your guts, a fiery silence that would harness the greatest questions out of life.

Maybe it is just a straightforward testimony of how the grace of God is really sufficient for all of us. No matter how big the waves you are facing, no matter how loud the lion roars, nothing beats a still, silent heart in utter knowledge that “God knows”.

I remember this phrase from a book that I scanned a few hours earlier; it talks about the atrocities that Christians in China are experiencing. It holds in full account how lives are shattered because of faith. A few words from a missionary that I did not have the luxury of time to know speak something like this.

“After knowing how the Christian converts are being arrested and harassed and harmed; we just lift the burden with ease to God, and knowing that He knows we are comforted in overcoming this great tragedy”

“Lift the burden with ease to God”

It’s close to impossible right? Clearly it's grace that enables anyone to face opposition with ease, to counter chaos with silence, to render truth calmly amidst a rage of fallacy.

Praise God for the opportunity to witness grace at work in other people’s lives. How wonderful our God is, how vast is His wisdom and provision that His purpose never fails. His sovereign will defy all other life-long scientific proven truths. The One who defied gravity has done great things, more than enough, just in time.

Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?
Jeremiah 32:27