Zeroes

Shaq was one of the best centers of the NBA. He was a great player. Yet now he finds himself seeking a team to play with. It seems that no one wants him. Clearly life doesn't always offer you diamonds and gold, sometimes you have to accept the bricks and mud. 

Same goes for most of the blog sites, social networking seemed to have taken the upper hand. I once had a lot of visitors to my site and multiply was once buzzing with people. Now, it's already busy if you get two or three people posting a week on their multiply accounts.

We all get zero moments. One time we see ourselves at the top of our game only to find out that we're at the lowest the next day. Think about it, Bible heroes, rich moguls, famous celebrities, they've all gone from the brightest to the darkest.

One amazing thing about zeroes is that the more zero you add after a number, it's value increases. The same way with life, the more zeroes you get after a feeling of high, the greater the experience you get. In some ancient cultures, a zero is called zefiro which means "west wind" or, simply,  "wind." We all know what winds do to boats, it gives it power and direction. Same goes with zeroes. When we reach the lowest and darkest moments in our lives, take the easiest and most practical direction: straight up! 

Recently, the  Praise Team was selected to lead the singing to a video recorded crusade. It would happen in a two weeks - ten nights event. We practiced for weeks on end even sacrificing our personal time. Yet as the event rolled on, morale became low somewhere along the way. Things like the schedule, miscommunication and lack of appreciation seemed to have taken its toll on the group. Most of us, including me, became discouraged and opted out of the event and give it to another group. Yet I realized that it would be a big embarrassment to God if we left Him hanging. It's not about taking the spotlight or the center stage, it's about doing what God has sent you to do and doing it with joy.

As people get all the ups and downs, God never fails. Throughout the Bible, the rise and fall of the people always reveals a high God behind it. It's not about the rising and falling but about the high God who cares and shows that all would go well when you abide in Him.

Would you abide in him? 

The Real Never Ending Story

I remember the movie as a kid. A boy named Bastian acquired a book with a story that claims to have no ending. It turns out that Fantasia, the land in the book needs a savior and the only person capable of saving the day was none other than Bastian himself. Thus he was transported in the book, saved the book world and lived happily ever. That is, after Bastian sends the mystical dragon that looks a lot like a dog to literally trash the neighborhood bullies.

Thus was the story within a story called the neverending story. It never does end since the story in the book was connected to Bastian’s story. The story really is never ending.

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TV Appearance for a Price.

Cameras and lots of wiring were the main attractions of Pasay Adventist Church (PAC) from the 17th to the 30th of July.

 

The Central Luzon Conference (CLC) of SDA decided to conduct their More Abundant Life In Jesus Crusade and TV program in cooperation with PAC. What seemed like a simple task of conducting a program became an overwhelming project. Cameras were set up, the sound system was given an upgrade, various wiring and contraptions were set up on the pulpit, and the worst part was that the internet connection was given up for them to upload a live stream of the production. It was all for the production.

As part of the program, PAC was given the charge of arranging the praise team for the program. Since the only praise team available (and the only one at PAC) was the Youth Ministries Praise Team, we were the ones tapped to do it. With the help of some import singers and musicians from MAMC College Church, we were set to learn the songs including the theme song "How Great Is Our God" of Chris Tomlin. We had two weeks of practice with some inconveniences when it came to the musicians. We had trouble getting musicians, but we were able to settle for a guitarist from the neighboring college church.  

The first night was a night of revelations. Television wasn't as glitzy or glamorous as I thought it to be. Rather it was more like a toxic time bound environment where people could easily snap if you just pulled the wrong strings. The deadlines were by the minute and things like professionalism and ethics were either taken very highly or taken for granted by most of the people. 

We were able to sing, although I leave it up to you to judge if we did well. None the less, for the next few nights, I expect to get home later than usual. It's a sacrifice we had to do to serve God in our own little ways. But that wasn't the price I had to pay for my first international TV appearance, it was the virus I couldn't get out (yet) on my notebook. I had the honor of arranging the powerpoint slides for the praise team. Apparently, in my haste to set up the slides, I plugged my USB to a virus infested computer and then to my notebook without scanning. Now, I can feel the presence of this virus whatever it maybe, but I have to let it stay there for now, until I could get time to scan the whole system.

If you're interested to look at what happened from the first night of the crusade until tonight, visit http://www.adventist.ph

Lessons from the Dead

A sad moment comes to any family when death knocks at their doors. For our family, it happened a day after my birthday. Our uncle who was battling against a lung disease succumbed to the disease on a Sabbath morning. It came as swift as it went. We buried him three days later.

All throughout those nights, I was there often taking part in the service for the comfort of the living. I haven’t been to many funerals so there are things that I don’t know. Of those that I have attended only two had great significance to me the others, I merely came as an observer. However, in those two times, I have learned a lot of lessons. This last one probably opened up my eyes the most... [READ MORE]

24

24 is the name of a famous television action drama series.

It is also the number of hours in a day 

the number of books in the Hebrew Tanakh

the atomic number of chromium.

the number of ribs in the human body

the number of hours needed by a hen to produce an egg

the number of hours needed for the green algae to reproduce

the number of furlongs in one league

the number of carats that make up pure gold

the number of cycles in a Chinese solar year

Talking about this number and years, it also my age this July 9th. There wasn't any grand celebration as these days are just meant to pass for me. I never even received that much greetings since I never bothered to put it up on facebook or any other social networks. I figured it would have been better to just let the day pass peacefully with only the ones who really could remember it would remember to greet me. I thought of it also as a test if you really value me. (Don't worry though, it's not a grave offense and it is not offensive at all to forget my birthday) 

24 years of existence is too few for a person. It is still considered young by modern standards, Though in my 24 years of existence, I have seen people younger than me die of disease, accidents and many other thing and I have seen people taking a wife or husband at an age younger than 24. In some cultures, this age could mean a person is at his peak or a person is already near maturity. 

For me though, it doesn't seem to mean a thing. I still remain as one goofy guy with lots of things on his mind including a nice meal at World Chicken or a nice glass of blended fruits (these aren't my favorite food). I still remain as a guy dreaming of owning a lot of gadgets and a solitary cottage on the edge of a cliff facing the vast ocean with me enjoying the view while writing reflections of each kind.

Looking back at my 24 years of existence, I find it reassuring that God trusted me to live this long to learn a lot of things and to overcome a lot of obstacles. I am still limited I know and I still fail a lot of times (hey, my birthday sermon in church turned out to be an epic fail because I prepared a longer sermon than necessary).But I am willing to accept the defeat if it's the only way God could teach me things in life those are the biggest blessings. If there's anything I could wish for right now, it's for me to enjoy a meaningful life of fellowship and devotion to God. 

If you're thinking when I celebrated my birthday, I wouldn't tell you here. One thing is for sure, it's not today.

Ode to Light

I'm experiencing a inevitable setback for a few weeks now.

I bought a few books this week to replenish my already dwindling reading list. I was about to start reading one of these books when suddenly someone took my picture. I knew someone did, there was a flash of light. One thought hit me: I HAVE STALKERS IN MY ROOM!!!

Then, it happened again, a flash of light. Then again, and again. Now I felt like my room turned into a dance floor with the flashing lights. These couldn't be stalkers unless they have ultra super fast but super small SLR cameras, which would be very impossible.

The culprit was none other than my reading light. I closed my book and went to sleep. Tomorrow I'll try to find out what's wrong with my light.

That was two weeks ago. My bedroom light had a busted florescent lamp - a 15 Watt lamp. It's still broken. 

When I asked my brother to buy a replacement lamp, he found out that they didn't sell any of those any more. They never ordered one of those for a long time. How convenient! Did I also mention that he tried all of the hardware stores in our vicinity (J.P. Rizal Street in Makati has more or less 10 hardware stores).

What's frustrating is that I could understand why. I received this bedroom reading lamp when I was still in high school. My parents discovered that I was slowly occupying the whole bookshelf with my own books and I was about to exhaust all the books in our school library, so they gave me a reading lamp they won from some promo. I couldn't remember the details. It was that long ago. All I know was that my complaint then was that staying on the lower deck of a double decker, you don't get enough light to read anything.

For the record, the lamp has been replaced less than 5 times in span of almost 9 years. It's that economical. I have used it to read more than a hundred books and has been a great help when I was writing those long articles we used to submit before our journalist teacher. It has seen a lot of action. In fact, it has the battle scars to prove it. It has a busted outlet where I used to plug in my charger. How it got busted was long forgotten.

I like that lamp. I hope to find a replacement lamp or I won't be able to read any book, which is really scary.

New Ear Tingling Addiction

"This city is shouting you down; a personal music player is a form of self defense. It creates a force field around you, shuts out the world that is trying to swallow you whole, and defines, however tenuously, a space that is yours." - Jessica Zafra, Twisted 8 1/2

I bought a music phone just in time before my MP4 player broke down. Yeah, the MP4 that used to have NES games broke down.

That was months ago. Since then, I have been relying on my phone to play music while walking to and from work or wherever. Aside from making it an excuse to join the deaf ministry (joke!), I somehow shared the same sentiments of Jessica Zafra. Hence, I walk around the city with music blaring in my ears.

I only played music despite the advice of a lot of friends to try audio books or audio sermons. I refused most of the time. I figured that my sleepy headed-ness would get the better of me once I listened to a person talking on the head set.

This week I tried to experiment. I loaded an audio sermon on my player and tried to listen to it on my way to work. Instead of falling asleep, I found myself more alert than ever. The sermon even disturbed my innermost thoughts. I was forced to pause the sermon midway because of work and I was left hanging. I was left with a lot of questions that I couldn't wait to hear the conclusion when I reach my break after 3 hours.

After that, I found myself deleting more than half of the songs on my playlist and replaced it with audio sermons and lectures. I was daily captivated by the likes of Ivor Myers, Allan and Nicole Parker, Karl Tsatalbasidis, among others. Their dynamic delivery of messages and great insight on a spirit filled living propelled me to load more sermons.

This is a brand new addiction. It's healthy and inspiring. So if you see me spacing out with a headset on my head, don't worry I'm just listening to a new insight.

I still have apprehensions with audio books though.