Posting, post-Lent

In spite of myself, I found my fingers leafing through my CDs and going for my copy of The Madz's "Acclamation", that well-loved compilation of religious hymns ("I Will Sing Forever", "Anima Christi", and "Panalangin sa Pagiging Bukas-Palad" are my favorites), pushing the play button, walking into the porch, sitting on my tiny stool, and falling into reflection at the beautiful strains of the choir's impeccably-blended voices. I was grateful for the quiet that only an early morning can bestow, the mild sunlight, the pause that the world takes come Holy Week.

Even as I have learned, over the years, that religion is in one's heart, or that respect for all kinds of faiths is the right thing to cultivate, or that prayer is best done heartfelt and not through routine and custom, I still found myself pulled in by the impressions of muteness that had embraced my side of the world, saw my much, much younger self lost in a sea of people, staring down at a dusty road peopled by people's shod feet, trailing the heels of a life-sized figure of a Mary Magdalene decked in a deep-blue, bejeweled cassock, the scent of burning candles saturating the air, the drone of prayers and conversation filtered by a warm summer breeze, that younger self walking, walking, feeling the ache in her feet, but trudging on despite the dust in her new sandals, because Mama said to keep walking, and besides, friends (who had decided they would rather be St. Peter's disciples because he was first to go) waited somewhere along the fringes of the church, where there was promise of five-peso hotcakes and softdrinks-in-plastic later, endless chatter on the way home, where Dad and Mom waited, a cup of hot tablea chocolate on the table.

Oh, but how far back it was I had gone. I had not meant to. And I didn't mean to, now, thinking of that peaceful morning when I was pensive and quiet. I didn't mean to look that far back, not with the distance cleaving those two worlds. But I long to cross the chasm. If only time weren't so locked in. I would have jumped, head-on, if jumping meant going back.

This little banquet

"It struck her... that here was spring, and the whole year to be lived through, once more."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay

My current fixations:

milk tea, scented oils, tea light candles.

After a long day at work, and a drawn-out week crunching away at data, daylight, and anxiety, there's nothing like a large cup of cool milk tea, or the sustained whiff of fragrant oil kindling mildly over the soft flicker of a tea light candle.

The milk tea invigorates, the scents bring pleasure to the tired mind, the sight of the candle's softly quivering flame subdues the cares and the distress... ah, but life seems kinder when the air is filled with strawberries, or apples, or amber, or vanilla-and-cinnamon-flavored donuts...

And outside, flits a lone moth and nine fireflies, a breeze lingers just a bit longer, trees breathe over weary pavements, moonlight slants,  invisible, on the surfaces of things.

The daily grind is sapping enough, so sip away and take it easy.
Have some tea and candlelight today.

1st of April

The book I'm reading, even as it is remarkably written (and perhaps it is owing to this, too), hits too close to home and I find that I have to put it down, time and again.

I am more than halfway into it. I will finish in due time.


I guess the Holy Week does bring gray skies. Bright blue would be too much of an incongruity.

Last year, I wrote this. A little ashen, as it should be.

Mulling Over My Week

My dad sent me a text message this afternoon, asking me what I did during the Holy Week and it got me thinking: what did I do this Holy Week?

It occurs to me that without having mapped out anything in particular, things simply conspired to provide me the "air" I needed for the culmination of Lent, namely: I came across "Jesus of Nazareth" while channel-surfing yesterday (Holy Friday) and decided to watch it (what remained of the 6-hour film, anyway), finding myself involuntarily reflecting on the world's current religious/spiritual state and, inevitably, leading me to ponder my current spiritual state;

and this morning, I finished reading Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, which is a seemingly tongue-in-cheek story told for laughs, but from which we just might get the reflections we seek in the other, more serious books of our faith and could not seem to find. Now, I started reading this book a few weeks ago, with no thought, at all, of the Holy Week and it strikes me as significant--even strangely calculated--that I should get to the final chapters (where the Christ's passion is relayed) during Holy Friday, and finish the book by Black Saturday.

Below are some lines in the afterword that had me musing:

"This story is not and was never meant to challenge anyone's faith; however, if one's faith can be shaken by stories in a humorous novel, one may have a bit more praying to do." -p. 443-

Tomorrow, Easter comes. I wonder what'll be in store for me, then, and thereafter.