The Significance of Insignificant

“If you focus yourself in the Bible would make you a very insignificant one in society. You are not encouraged to improve in your career. You would just stay small as a pinhead in your place.”

I was taken aback upon hearing this comment one time from one among the respected officials I had lunch with. Honestly, I wanted to comment and say, “yes you are really very insignificant on what the world calls significant but you are highly significant on what God calls a significant world,” but a “worldly respect” set my lips zipped. I faintly smiled back instead.

Have I questioned myself before since the time I surrendered my life to the Lordship of Christ of my significance to Him if I become His child?

I pray to my God who is mentioned in the Holy Bible. I ask Him to answer my prayers. I request Him to grant my needs. I worship Him. I praise Him. I adore Him and thank Him for everything He gives and do in my everyday life. I love Him and will always love Him. I keep my faith in Him. All of these I do because I am highly significant in Him and in a world where I live. I am in my freewill to be so and nobody nor nothing controls nor dictates me to believe that I am highly significant in this world while focusing my life in the Bible. Life may seem so cruel though but I would never exchange my significance in Him for anything.

It never crossed my mind to think that I will be insignificant if I focus my life in the Bible which means that I will believe in my God Jesus Christ, pray to Him and read His words. The more I focus on Him the more significant the things I do and will do. If I did never focus on Him and on His word, the Bible, then I would never had become His child. I would not have accomplished the things I needed to accomplish. I would never have reached the state where I am today. He never fails me but sad to say that I fail Him.

Is it true that one becomes insignificant if he focuses his life on the Bible? It is a very big lie from the devil! Anyone who believes that he becomes insignificant if he focuses on the Bible perceives the situation in an inverted triangle allowing him and his life in total deceit!

The Beloved Mascot Dog of IH "Adobo"

Adobo? Adobo! Delicious!

Yes. It's adobo, a savoury Filipino dish but I'm talking about a different adobo. Adobo is the pet dog of residents semesters in and out at the International House (IH) of the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, Laguna. Just like you, when I first learned of his name, I was amused. Later, I asked why and how did he ever got his name. It was a long and funny story however.

No one knows exactly how old the dog is but basing on the story how and when he arrived at the residence hall, I am certain that he is more than 10 years old now.

During my first days of stay in IH I have seen how Adobo was taken cared of by several of the residents. Anything that a dog can eat was always available on his plate. One of the residents Kuya Rene, was his constant company going out for an early morning jog. During my later weeks during my first semester in the hall, I also became fond of Adobo. I usually played with him running and jumping during the late afternoons at the parking lot infront of the hall if not going for an early morning or late afternoon jog. And whenever I came back from the province, he would usually meet me under the mango tree wagging his tail and rolling on the ground happy to welcome me home.

I will never forget our Kuya Cons though as he is fondly called, who had been so caring of the dog when Kuya Rene was out from our hall for weeks or months. I learned great lessons from him through his taking care of dogs and cats. He understands the language of his pets. Whatever his “ulam” is would be also the “ulam” of Adobo and some cats that would stay in the IH kitchen for certain months and slip away for reasons cats would behave. He would always see to it that the dog is fed before he leaves for school. Sometimes I would entertain myself by watching Kuya Cons bathe Adobo and the cat even if they hesitate. While watching him he would lecture me on how to live with cats and dogs, their behaviours and how to handle some of their ill manners.

I would just smile to myself watching him shampoo the dog 2 to 3 times then putting some kind of aromatic gel to finish him off. Then I would laugh aloud sopped up when all of a sudden a clean Adobo with his sweet smell would immediately loose himself away from Kuya Cons and run shaking around then would roll on the grassy ground under the coconut trees infront of the hall or down the parking lot putting himself back to dirt again!

After 2 or 3 of my semesters in the hall, another guy also became so fond of Adobo adding him as one of the masters in the dog’s life. As one of Adobo’s masters, he also became one of my friends for all seasons hahahahaha…. His name is Jaime. He calls himself a guy who lives just on the next door of his neighbor !!!haha.. And...just like Adobo who becomes naughty many times, Jaime becomes one too especially in the YM....

I left IH in November last year after four long years of stay. I left Adobo behind including those people who touched my life. They’ve made my stay in the hall a very memorable one. I still have that nostalgic feeling. And as I see these three names that made Adobo a mascot dog in IH --- they seem to share a common denominator… hahahahahah……Jaime, Peace ha!

The Baby In The Manger

            I ask you a question. Have you ever heard of news during your generation or witnessed a human baby born in a stable or under where animals are kept and placed in a trough or manger?

Answering this question for myself, I haven’t yet. When I gave birth to my now seven-year-old girl, it was in a hospital with a private obstetrician. On the minute light illumined on her form at the delivery room, she was immediately wiped by the doctor’s assistants, wrapped with a sanitized cloth and placed in a small crib in the hospital’s pedia ward for proper SOP’s for newborns before she was finally given to me.

            For what on earth then is my giving birth got to do with a baby born in an animal house and placed in a trough or manger?

           December is the finale of the year when both colorful decors and lively choruses warm the breeze of the season signifying the celebration of Christmas. This month made it’s way to the details of the story of the nativity as told in the first chapter in the book of Luke of the Holy Bible.

            Years ago since I first heard of the nativity, I haven’t felt strangely about it until one particular morning during a new children’s Bible Study held in our house every Saturday that began around mid-November this year with a group of kids from our neighborhood. It was the fourth Bible Study that started with who Jesus is, how He came to earth, what He wants for us and finally about His ministry. When our lesson was about Jesus’s birth, I described the part by how He was conceived until the point of Him being placed on a manger likely with dried hay as bed on a very cold night in a stable where sheep and other ruminants that time were kept and probably with many mosquitoes whizzing around. A strange feeling immediately crept inside me while narrating the story of which deeply touched my being and bringing me into tears. It was a feeling I never experienced before. I was with children about 10 of them aged 4-11 including my very own daughter and I was very certain that they were born in a hospice in the care of birthing aides. If ever one of those kids in front of me got born among cows, goats or horses kept in a stable, I’m sure he/she would have been the top list story in the community and his/her parents might have been the center of unfathomable ridicule. It was at this very point then that I got teary and felt somewhat physically drained. (I managed though to hide my face from the children). I found and felt the truest humility ever of God turning Himself into a human form and born into this world without any assistance from a doctor nor laying down on sterilized birthing accessories.

       As a mother having experienced pregnancy, I imagined myself as Mary with my husband Joseph knocking on doors of a strange village on a very cold night praying that someone would shelter us because I was in severe pain laboring for birth. But nobody did so we ended in a cows’ and horses’ shaded corral. We were wearing thick rugs and our feet so dusty. We smell sour because of sweat maybe. With human feelings I pitied myself. I felt so insecure. I felt a tinge of anger against the innkeepers and the villagers. I shed a tear. Then I gave birth. The pain slowly ceased when I heard my baby cry for the very first time. Jesus our God and Saviour was born fully as a human being.

          In the context of social science, one can never understand the behavior of a person or group of persons without putting himself in the shoes of the sample vis a vis the sample with the sampler. This situation is a metaphor of God turning Himself into human form. The reason? Because of His unconditional love to you. To me. And to the whole humanity. He loves us very, very much.

        Like us though, He experienced hunger. He experienced thirst. He experienced pain. He laughed and cried and even got angry. He was ridiculed. He had to walk kilometers or possibly even miles and miles on mountains, plains and deserts during His ministry. He never slept in a cozy bedroom. He was born not in a palace. Educated not in Harvard University nor at the University of the Philippines nor at the Hebrew University in Israel nor at any prestigious school around the world. Yet He knows all. He knows every detail of your and my system. He knows you and me. He does not do magic yet He can cause the lame to walk, the blind to see, the deaf to hear and the dumb to talk. He is immortal.

         To most of the children whom I was telling the story was their first time to hear of the entirety of it. They only know the names of the figurines of the nativity scene that is popularly displayed every December - where there is Joseph and Mary, the baby Jesus, the sheep around and the “three kings” (the children haven’t heard of the wise men) who brought them gifts.

        If God had not become a man, I would never understand His sacrifice just to save me from my evil ways. He had to obey death – death on the cross. He is the reason why there is CHRIST in Christmas! He was the baby born on a very cold night in Bethlehem. He was the baby in the trough. He is the Almighty God and I worship Him. Amen.

Playing God or Just Weird?

Technologies today rapidly change the manner of living into systems that were unimaginable 10 or 20 years ago driving humans to live an odd life eventually changing our world into an uncanny one especially in the empires of computers and biosciences.

Since the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA by Watson and Crick in 1953, researchers continue to operate through their creepy imaginations where newer tools of genetic science are now on the racetrack. Scientists today play God by trying to mix and match almost any unmatchable units of life and try to fit into another genome and finally declaring in the whole universe that they’ve created a new species! Think of the recombinant DNA technology in which a copy of a piece of DNA containing one or few genes then transferred between organisms or "recombined" within an organism. Think of the stem-cell researches that would eventually solve terminal diseases of the human race as claimed. Think of xenotransplantation, an alternative to allotransplantation, that involves transplanting or grafting of animal organs, tissues, or cells to replace failing organs or to treat disease in humans. Researchers however continue to stabilize the rejection problem of transplanting animal organs into the human system. One example of xenotransplantation is the transplanting of a healthy heart of a pig into a human being who has a failing heart to further extend life.

Other examples of somewhat weird products of advanced bioscience researches are transgenic animals that carry foreign genes deliberately inserted into each one’s genome i.e. sheep, cows and goats to express foreign proteins in their milk as well as chickens that synthesize human proteins in their egg whites. Think also of the goat that produces spider silk as raw material for security vests, ropes for towing ships and materials for currency bills. Think of “Dolly” the cloned sheep in 1996. Think of the potato and the tomato that was called pomato, which can bear fruit when fused together. Think of the flavor-savor tomato. Think of the seedless yet still sweet watermelon. Think of the crops and animals that are and were bred so they can resist pests and pathogens or can withstand adverse environments: i.e. BT corn that can resist corn borer, rice and corn that can yield in saline waters, cows and sheep that can give liters and liters of milk or can give leaner meat than fatty meat and many other crops and animals that yield beyond the normal amount, size and weight! Scientists then call these organisms that carry manipulated DNA, Genetically Modified Organisms! And who could have thought that all of these things will practically happen after ten, fifteen or twenty years ago!

I consider the process of how GMO’s produced as eerie because they don’t undergo the normal divine steps of growing. There’s human manipulation! The impossible square peg that can’t fit into a round one can now be disproved! (The main goal however of crop and animal biotechnology researches as scientists claim is increased food security for the growing population).

And…as my Mangyan friend once jokingly told me of his weird imagination - when will rice breeders breed a rice variety that will yield single large grains so that each grain could fit into a large cooking pot enough to feed a family of twelve in one meal?! It would be an amazing research! Well, it all seems that nothing is impossible these days my friend! There’d be no more rice crisis in the Philippines if that would be so, where even the headquarters of the International Rice Research Institute is based! When that time comes though if I would still be alive, hope I won’t get frightened if I’ll see one!

Long Walk

I woke up late on the morning of October 14th and found messages and missed calls in my cell phone. They were messages greeting me because it was my birthdayyyeeyyyeyyey....!!!! It was my 37th birthday!!!

I was however surprised to receive greetings from around mid-day from two dear friends whom I thought all the while have forgotten me because I only had occasional communication with them for the past 2 to 5 years. They spared few minutes of their time just to either call or send text message of their greetings. One even tauntingly asked me, "Hey Yoli, how old are you now?"

Well, friends I just left the toe pad still a few meters away and have yet a long walk to the finish line.

I am one among few people who do not pay much attention to birthdays, special holidays and anniversaries. Besides, the meaning of these occasions are truly convoluted especially at this very generation. Most of the time I would just give thanks to the Lord and let the day pass by.

October 14 was a rainy day in Los Baños (where I was that time) so when one of my long time friends called, I mentioned to him about the day. I was told however that the rain was a blessing and implies more blessings to pour for me onthat very particular day! All I was able to say back to him was my sincere thanks. Thanks that I have friends like him who truly cares and who are very thoughtful even if I'm not and was not thoughtful enough to them. And no matter how distant we all are from each other.

Looking back then to those years that passed in my life allows myself for re-assessment. I questioned myself again as I usually do. Who am I now? Where am I now? Where do I and should I continue my walk from here?

I am a weak vessel prone to sorts of dangers along my walkway. Many times i slipped to the wrong path. Thanks though to the grace of God that restores me and stay right. If I weigh the failures in my life versus the triumphs would bring the scale into a diagonal position with the failures outbalancing the triumphs at nearly 100%.

But how did I respond to all of those failures until today? I found out though that those questions along the years in my long walk are answered with questions also. How many people have I hurt because of my insensitivity, uncaring ways, thoughtlessness, impatience and wrong values? Was I able to restore old friendships? How did I and do I treat my parents, my brothers and sisters, my husband, my daughter, my neighbors, my friends and everybody I meet and have met? How do I talk? How do I tell jokes and respond to filthy jokes? How do I care for myself or for my health? For my surroundings/environment? And most of all, how is my present personal relationship with the Lord?

oOo

TSISMIS

Lately, I got messed up with four of my dorm mates because of our very own offensive manners during our past daily conversations. The end result? - piles of stories were fabricated not only against me but to each of the five of us. In the first place though, I didn't guard my tongue. I allowed myself to wallow with them in the misfortunes of others and even helped them build the fire by wrongly treating some personalities through our conversations or through --- TSISMIS! (character assassinations). The result? -- battling eyes on the hallway, straight face, hatred and the over-all reaction? --- 'DON'T TALK TO EACH OTHER" situation! Again -- PRIDE is underway!

Right now, I'm very much puzzled of how well engineered stories and situations come surprisingly tumbling down in front of me because  I'm accused as the doer or the one who said such statements. I just kept and keep quiet, observed and observe and listened and listen more of what was and is still going to happen. In fact, I have heard many absurd character assassinations against other people from the very own mouths of these four individuals themselves. I just dropped them all to the trash bins. No need to recall them even if some of these individuals demand me to retell those tsismis against them that the other person they think have told the tsismis.

As of now, double-edged tongues still keep fabricating stories which are being hurled back against either each one of the five of us. Even my established freindship/s in the dorm were and are obviously affected! for whatever motives do these people wanted makes me even more puzzled. I don't understand it at all!!!

This situation I got into grieves my Maker a lot just like the situations during those long walks in my 37 years. But thanks for His saving grace that restores me always. It is my fervent prayer then to the Lord that from now on, I will allow Him to fully control the throne of my life and ask Him for forgiveness and for Him to teach me more how to understand the deeper meaning of forgiveness, for Him to take my hands and lead me more into His righteousness, for Him to help me guard, control and use my tongue in the proper way (James 3:1-12), for Him to help me walk the (long) way ahead with right attitude.

PSALM 139

	A Psalm of David in the King James Version
1	O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.
2	Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising; thou understandest my thought afar off.
3	Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
4	For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
5	Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
6	Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
7	Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
8	If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
9	If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
10	even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
11	If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.
12	Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
13	For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.
14	I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
15	My substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16	Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
17	How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!
18	If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.
19	Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.
20	For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.
21	Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?
22	I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.
23	Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
24	and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.