Getting into the Twilight Zone

Twilight is perhaps the year's most anticipated movie. The reviews from the US say the movie has "no bite" (though the movie raked in $70 plus million on its opening day) and my friend Banana's short review through text straight from Vegas wasn't exactly glorious. A couple of my classmates caught the first screening in SM Manila and if I were to quote Joey, she confirmed more or less what Banana said: the movie was an acquired taste. Well, it's not like it's the end of the world if the movie wasn't good but I thoroughly enjoyed the series and passed them on to a lot of people including my mother, my best friend, my seatmate in Tax class and even my grandfather's 60-something cardiologist.
As much as my friend Kate was building the Twilight movie hype by sending me book quotes almost everyday for the past month, I was excited about something else - the soundtrack. After all when I was reading the books, only two tunes kept on playing in my head - Claire de Lune and a random Linkin Park song. Now with the soundtrack knocking the socks off my player in an almost daily basis, I can immediately come up with more diverse and interesting substitutes for my two overplayed tracks as I replay certain snippets from the book in my head. Now if the movie supposedly lacks the allure of the printed material, the soundtrack, for me, is almost as thoroughly engaging as Edward Cullen's dazzling golden eyes I almost feel like that poor waitress in the restaurant in Port Angeles. Each CD comes with a Twilight character trading card (I got Edward though I wish I got Alice) and the CD jacket folds out into a six-panel poster of Edward and Bella.
The selection opens with Stephenie Meyer's favorite band Muse. Before I read Twilight, I honestly had no idea of a band named Muse in existence. When the song started playing, I realized I actually missed out on so much. The song "Supermassive Black Hole" perfectly sets the mood, I daresay. With its brash guitars and its eerie-mysterious-dangerous sound, it seemed to adequately reflect the book's mood and and Forks' gloomy sky. Listening to the song got me wondering where I could get my hands on more Muse material as I really liked what I was hearing.
Another notable cut would be Iron and Wine's "Flightless Bird, American Mouth" which I just love listening to before I fall asleep almost every night. The melody is a straightforward walz and the lyrics are cryptic, giving the song that romantic feel with a cool metal edge. But my favorite song to replay would be "Leave Out All the Rest" all perhaps because of a bias for Linkin Park, one of my favorite bands. The song lyrics, much like the other songs in the soundtrack, are very much illustrative of Bella and Edward's relationship, such as when Chester Bennington gets all foreboding (and New Moon-y) as he sings "When the time comes, forget the wrong that I've done, let me leave behind some reasons to be missed."
Paramore has two tracks in the album but I like "Decode" better as Haley soars through the song in almost ethereal fashion, as if she were gliding through trees. I also love listening to the hints of vulnerability in Collective Soul's "Tremble for My Beloved."
Robert Pattinson, the actor formerly known as Cedric Diggory, was given the chance to sing for the soundtrack courtesy of the song "Never Think." Overall it was a commendable effort despite the fact that he did run into a few snags with the notes as he tried to do simple runs. Neither did it help that he mumbled about 3/4 of the lyrics so it was really difficult to figure out what he was trying to get across. I could not help but wonder if the song intro of a lone guitar, which shot past a whole minute, was done on purpose as to further fuel the anticipation of how Pattinson would sound as a singer. He was generally just all right with the vocals, sounding almost like a country rock star, but I need to hear more material from him to be thoroughly impressed and swoony.
The soundtrack ends with Bella's lullaby which, despite being a moving and beautiful piece, did not actually sound much like a lullaby. Nevertheless, the book has taught me to stick to the unconventional and that exactly is "Bella's lullaby". I don't think it is a "one size fits all" kind of lullaby. It is not sweet and mellow in a bubblegum, saccharine sort of way. The lullaby is almost reminiscent of that long, quiet walk a person takes as he traverses that road between consciousness and slumber which usually starts off in a rather wayward fashion then shifts into a more comfortable mood before finally swelling into an overwhelming sense of helplessness and ending with sleep executing its final knock out abruptly and without warning.
Now I can't wait for Saturday so I can finally watch the movie and see for myself how it measures up to the soundtrack.
Twilight Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Atlantic Records
1. Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
2. Paramore - Decode
3. The Black Ghosts - Full Moon
4. Linkin Park - Leave Out All the Rest
5. Mutemath - Spotlight
6. Perry Farrell - Go All the Way
7. Collective Soul - Tremble for My Beloved
8. Paramore - I Caught Myself
9. Blue Foundation - Eyes on Fire
10. Rob Pattinson - Never Think
11. Iron & Wine - Flightless Bird, American Mouth
12. Carter Burwell - Bella's Lullaby

Schoolyard Lessons on Avenue Q

I have only punched one person in my entire life. And unless my very existence is at stake, I do not intend to do it ever again.

The details are rather sketchy. I remember I was around five or six years old and I was in school. The reason for the vagueness was that through the years, I had decided to push aside this strand of memory into the deepest innards of my brain's synapses because it was not really my favorite thing to replay.

I do vaguely remember my reason for allowing my fist to rip through the air like an X-wing fighter. I was being taunted to no end by a classmate and as a kid, I really disliked being taunted. My tormentor was a boy (yes, a he) who was bigger, taller and naturally stronger than me. Perhaps at some point, the taunting got really worse so instead of running to my homeroom teacher with tears as big as meatballs flying off my cheeks, I yielded to my irritation and decided to deal with him with my own hands (pun not intended). So I summoned all my strength and released my best punch like a rocket missile, a jab which my boxing teacher in college would later say was allegedly better than the punches thrown by some of the guys in my PE class.

If I struggle with the circumstances behind the fight, I do vividly and completely remember the feeling of my fist and knuckles landing on a wad of tissue, flesh, blood vessels and bone. The chorus of "Eye of the Tiger" playing in my head came to an abrupt stop. Nowhere in my strand of memory was it confirmed that it was a pleasant feeling to actually hit someone, even if he were a boy who perhaps deserved it because he derived great euphoria from making my life difficult by kindergarten standards. It was actually nothing short of sickening. The disturbing feeling did not end with that. It felt even worse to realize that even if the punch left my knuckles stinging, my opponent was still looming before me like the Empire State Building to a streetlight, unflinching and obviously unaffected by my pathetic attempts to be Muhammad Ali in a jumper.

I stood before him, hoping my defiant face was effectively masking my alarm. I mentally calculated how many milk teeth I could lose when he made his counterattack and tried to console myself with the fact that he would save me several trips to the dentist. I waited...and waited...and waited even some more. To my great surprise, he simply moved a step backward and then walked away. All the air left my body as I secretly heaved the biggest sigh of relief that my six-year old lungs could manage.

On that day, I re-learned one of the earliest lessons my grandfather taught me - by breaking it. He told me that in any battle I find myself in, I should not charge head-on brainlessly like a bull. I needed to choose my opponents wisely and I should weigh my chances of winning or losing. On that day in the schoolyard as a six-year old, I let my emotions rule over my head and I narrowly missed being beaten to a pulp. I thank that classmate of mine, wherever he is now, for not taking up on my false and misplaced bravado, for saving my head and my teeth and walking away, even if it probably meant for him to be teased for turning his back from a fight with a girl.

Every day of a person's existence may not always be a walk in the park. For me, it has been so for the past couple of years. The mornings find me struggling with pulling away from my pillow and dreading what the day will bring. Sometimes, in the course of studying, I allow my head to drop on my open book just to catch about 15 to 20 minutes of sleep. At night, I find myself closing my eyes and whispering a prayer of thanks for having gone through the day and emerging intact. If there is one thing I am thankful for is the vividness of my dreams. In my entire lifetime, I have never had dreams as realistic as the ones I have now. I even have dreams even when I am aware that some part of me is still awake!

We may win some of our duels and lose in significant ones too, breathe sighs of relief one minute and and later lick our wounds alone in a dark corner. An old song by Stevie Wonder has been gaining mileage in my MP3 player, a tune called "Used to Be." I particularly love - and hate - one particular line which goes "used to be that failure only meant you didn't try." A lot of things used to be true and I think I'll need to redefine a lot of terms nowadays.

Life after all the mistakes, is also all about second chances. People sometimes get too pessimistic they just focus on the negative aspects of failure, like a black dot on a piece of white paper. The dot gets all the attention. They forget there is so much to work with on the white space. If it would involve taking one step or getting through one 24-hour day at a time to get over the black dot, then so be it. The point is, you shouldn't be like an agar-laced petri dish simmering in a nice warm temperature, nurturing bitterness and anger in the best growth medium. People may have different motivations for taking a step forward but what gets me going through days of horror would be faith in my God's sovereignty and in His promises that His plans are always better than mine. Behind the seeming somberness in every dark cloud is the beauty of the silver lining.

I was talking to my best friend at around 1 AM a couple of nights ago about walking away and about letting go. "When do you walk away and venture into avenue 'Q'?" My best friend couldn't even say the word out loud, allergic as she was to it just like any other person on this planet. That's how I would rephrase our questions. As I sat by the window, looking at the half-empty street, I came to the conclusion that walking away or letting go of a battle to be fought can actually be as noble as duelling to the death. It is a resort which two kinds of persons have turned to through the years. The first person quits and stops midway not only because he is paralyzed by his loss of faith and belief in himself but also because he has to cling to his pride. The second person on the other hand stops and lets go not out of fear but because he knows he has to. He believes that his pride is not all it is hyped up to be. It is not something which should hold you back from doing something you ought to do. It is something which needs to be lost along the way and trampled upon because it may be the very hedge which keeps you from experiencing the endless possibilities of tomorrow and the days after. Ever since my botched attempt at a fistfight in the schoolyard, the years have taught me that the best and most memorable battles are the ones that are not only worth fighting for but also the ones fought really well.

******************

As a fitting epilogue to this entry, I'd like to congratulate another person who is equally allergic to Avenue Q. Huge hugs and congratulations to my friend Shashi (a.k.a. Sharon Rose de la Rama) for passing the Chemistry board exam. I know she would want to kill me for putting her second name here but since I'm way taller and bigger than her, I'd like to see her try.

She is one of the most amazing people I've ever been so blessed to encounter and she has gone through a lot in her life but has always emerged the winner. I have been so lucky to have crossed paths with her and to have her in my life not just as one of my closest friends but also as a sister in Christ.

Now that we have three chemists in our posse, maybe it is time to start on that...er..group project Doi thought about a couple of years back.

Of course, I am kidding.

Let the Rain Come

"And no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth..."
Genesis 2:5

The Bible is replete with simple parables which illustrate deep biblical truths. One of perhaps the most popular would be the Parable of the Talents where three servants were given three different amounts by their master. The first two servants returned bigger amounts than the ones originally given to them while the last servant did not make use of the amount given to him so he returned to his master exactly what he received. Of course, we know that the the last servant received a lot more than mere verbal bashing. However what the master told the first two servants is one of the most repeated lines from the Bible which best serve as an inspiration for the frontliners in ministry work. The words go, "Well done, good and faithful servant (Matthew 25:21)."
On August 7, in the stillness of the evening, one of God's faithful servants closed his eyes and woke up to hear those words from the Master Himself. It was a peaceful, painless transition, as noiseless as the quiet but fervently passionate manner of service he had always rendered the Lord. Pastor Rudy Acosta was finally called home to rest in God's eternal embrace in a manner befitting that of a faithful servant.

To be honest about it, I have yet to ask my mother how old he was. After all for me, he was as ageless as he was tireless. I have known him for as long as I could remember and yet I never noticed any radical change in the way he looked, except when I go through photographs taken during my parents' wedding and I see the marks of the years that pass on his face and on his hands. He was a little over five feet in height, diminutive even for Filipino standards, quiet, unassuming and in the latter years of his life, trodded along with a trademark gait that I can still picture clearly in my mind. His coversational voice was soft and melodic, laced with that trademark lilt that older Visayans especially have. However, when it was his turn to stand on the podium to deliver his sermons, the lamb became a roaring lion. He was possessed with fiery fervor and passion which exploded in every stomp of his foot, every twist of his hand, every slam of his fist, every hunch of his back and in each and every word uttered by his tongue.
I do not recall exactly when I first heard him speak or how old I was but it must have been in one of those occasions after Sunday School in primary level when I grew tired of waiting for my parents in the playground and my two bottles of Yakult had run out like the wine in the wedding in Canaan. Growing restless, I decided to venture inside the "boring church for grown-ups." I grew up in a white-washed, old-fashioned Baptist church with the towering steeples, wooden pews, stained glass windows and occasional bats where children were herded off to Sunday School in the mornings. When I planted my foot on the tiled floor and took a peek, I remember being captured by the image of this man with a thunderous voice which I figured couldn't possibly fit in his small frame. His presence was commanding and his stares were so intimidating they almost bordered on gloating. To me and my pigtails, he was scary. Scary enough to send my frilly socks flying off my shoes. Before I could turn around and run out to tell my friends how the boring grown-up church was not exactly boring after all, he shifted seamlessly to being thoughtful and reflective like a Ferrari on quick deceleration, with his head cocking to one side and his hand curled in a balled-up fist resting under his chin. For me, morphing from a T-Rex to a diplodocus in a snap was was nothing short of cool.
I remember on one weekday, my mother dropped by the church for some business. One of my friends was the associate minister's daughter so as the two of us snuck up to their house on the pretext of getting a drink of water (a prelude to our usual game of hide-and-seek), I passed by Manoy Rudy's living quarters in the church parsonage and I saw him inside, walking around quietly, with absolutely no trace of the fiery preacher anywhere. He couldn't seem to hurt a fly but on the podium, he was as consumed as a bonfire.
Now for a kid, the manner is what matters. But as I grew up, I looked forward to his sermons Sunday after Sunday not because of the way he delivered them but primarily because of what they contained. I look up to him as one of the greatest preachers who have walked my side of the world and I followed him around depending on which church he moved to, from Lapaz to Molo to Mandurriao to Jaro. His command of both English and Hiligaynon worked well to his advantage as he could swiftly shift from quoting the English text to bringing the point closer to home and heart by using poetic yet familiar words of our local dialect. His brilliance and intelligence were astounding and he overhauled the Bible like a backhoe digging through the soil and sifted through each word and every sentence like a goldpanner. He would squeeze the very essence out of scripture until the understanding comes like a fresh breeze. His theological viewpoints though were never compromising on accuracy and clarity and were always delivered with the strongest and most emphatic of punchblows, enough to outlast the toughest of spiritual pugilists.
Pastor Acosta was also an educator and he taught at the Central Philippine University's College of Theology. A lot of the pastors I've met were mentored by him and his influence is apparent in the way these pastors deliver their sermons. About two years ago, I met up with an old friend (who, since our days in the children's choir, had now become a pastor himself) in a church anniversary we both attended and in the middle of his sermon, he started to share one anecdote after another about Manoy Rudy. Then he lightheartedly said in the vernacular, "It should be obvious by now who my mentor was."
He remained unmarried until his death but like a sower hurling seeds across a field, he had brought many lives to Christ in the same manner that a child grows under his parent's tutelage. It is one thing to hear someone speak about Jesus and to actually see him walk the talk and in my opinion, that was what made him effective. He was not perfect of course, as none of us are but he was a man of humility who loved Christ with a quiet yet simmering ardor which was difficult not to emulate. He was a simple, quiet man and in the latter years of his life, I slowly came to regard him as a grandfather of sorts.
About a year ago, after Pastor Acosta had retired from the church he was ministering to in Jaro, my mother requested him to be part of her office's workplace ministry where he was to deliver messages or sermons once a month during our Sunday worship services. We were a little apprehensive as he would be speaking to a group of people who were practically strangers to Scripture so my mom asked one of the regular attendees how the service was for him. I personally remember chuckling as the attendee started raving about how everyone was entranced by the "old, seemingly feeble pastor" who surprised them by speaking very well while "bouncing" around the podium. "And we had gone straight from work to the worship service as there was overnight work to be done," he narrated. "But none of us fell asleep!" Thus began his love affair with this small group of people who always looked forward to and will sorely miss his sermons on the last Sunday of every month. He adopted a different paradigm with this group. Gone were the profound words and the complicated illustrations when he spoke before this crowd. He went back to the basics, spelling everything out in clear, broad strokes like an expert swordsman's demonstration.
The last time I saw Pastor Acosta was on April 27, a day after my father's birthday. It was his time of the month to preach and I remember he was surprised to see that I was home for the summer. He gave me a light punch on the shoulder, a greeting he begun to give me when I started dressing up grunge-style in my dad's huge T-shirts during my teens. He spoke about the Beatitudes and about being "salt of the earth and light of the world," a sermon I had heard him deliver years before when I was in high school. I noticed he looked thinner than I remembered and when I shook his hand, I turned his palm over and I told my dad that he looked a bit yellowish to me. He told me he didn't feel anything and that maybe it was because he was getting old and starting to lose his appetite.
On June 20, he was rushed to the hospital after he collapsed inside his home. My dad noted that he had a large mass in his liver. Alarmed by the size of the mass, my dad kept on asking him repeatedly, "Are you in pain?" His answer was a constant "no" and that amazed my dad. Usually, according to my dad, patients with a liver mass that big were writhing in pain but Manoy Rudy was not. He was discharged from the hospital after a couple of days and he still continued to accept speaking engagements after that. In fact about three or four weeks ago, he was off to another speaking engagement outside the city, tireless and dedicated to the Lord's call even as the sand in his hourglass was almost running out.
In one of his many sermons, he came up with a very simple illustration for faith which apparently a lot of people liked as it was quoted every so often. It's something I hope I won't forget at some point, as a way of holding on to the memory of a person who had brought me to the saving knowledge of my Maker.
Faith, according to him, was walking out into the hot sun with an umbrella in hand simply because you prayed for rain.
What I'd give to see Manoy Rudy drenched in Heaven's torrents.

Joy in the Shadows

What does it mean to have been touched by God?

Those were questions I pondered on during the Holy Week, in between breaks as I studied for my first batch of final exams which I hurdled early this week. Good Friday reflections in our church tackled how the life of Jesus had changed his twelve apostles lives in the process. How had he changed mine? There were myriads of answers so I struggled to sort my thoughts out. After all, it makes no sense reflecting on a muddle.

I went back home and started sifting through the clutter of papers and cases on my desk when I came across a notebook which had fallen behind my table. I leafed through the pages and found a poem I had written three years back, a poem which summed up what I felt about knowing Jesus and having Him in my life.

To be touched by God, to have been changed by God is to be filled with joy so deep-seated it sprawls to the innermost recesses of your very being. It does not mean the absence of difficulty or pain and frustration but the ability to look beyond the sting and see that there is still so much to be thankful for and to rejoice about. It means finding a new reason for breathing apart from what you want and what you dictate. It's about learning to let go and watch each day go by with utter amazement as to how something beautiful could unfurl at the best possible moment. It is the kind of joy which carries you past the roughest tempests and fills you with hope, the kind of joy that dwells in the shadows...in the shadow of the Cross.

Joy floods my heart as I think of Your love,
Eternal, unceasing, never-ending.
Source of all Light, my words fall short of You.
Unworthy, I wandered in the dismal
Shadows, tormented by uncertainty,
Clawed by the deep, unforgiving darkness.
Had my mind forgotten, my mind would not.
Raging love of heaven burned before me.
I, indolent, could not be offered such
Sheer, unconditioal sacrifice, one
That only You could offer, I then accept.

(Amberle Brin, January 2005)

Watercolors

When I was a little girl, I was so utterly convinced that I was a gifted painter and was destined to be the next Claude Monet or someone of that calibre. I always had this thin, rectangular watercolor palette between my fingers (I even remember the brand: Artex) and I spent endless hours lying on our wooden floor, swirling colors on paper after paper after paper.
Once, I left one of my "masterpieces" out in the garage to dry. About half an hour later, I heard rain pummelling our roof and I immediately thought about the "painting" I had left outside to bake. I watched in horror as the fat drops of water crashed into the piece of paper like bombs, each one literally exploding into a gazillion microscopic droplets of color.
The rain eventually ceased its campaign on my artwork and all I had left was a drenched piece of paper with some streaks of color here and there. Everything I had painstakingly drawn was gone. As I peeled the wet paper off the cemented path, I stopped to examine what was left. Right under the paper lay an entire spectrum of colors glistening in the sunlight. The rain had washed away the watercolor from the paper but a significant amount of it was trapped under the wet paper. The myriad of colors on the cement path, a harmonious medley of blues with greens, reds topped with yellows and purples highlighted with pinks, was a far more beautiful sight than my attempt at a painting. A couple of minutes later, I watched as the watercolors slowly started to disappear as more water from all corners began to spread itself over the area, stripping my personal rainbow of its very essence. After a couple more minutes, the colors were gone.
Yesterday, on the day of hearts, I saw those colors once again almost immediately after the lives of two well-loved people ended in a manner more vicious than torrents of rain attacking a helpless piece of paper. In the morning of February 14th, one of the pastors in our church, Rev. Kevin Alamag and his wife Belle were killed when a passenger bus slammed into their Nissan Sentra in that junction in Commonwealth and Tandang Sora in Quezon City. He was 37 and she was 46, parents to two very young children below the age of 12. They were both literally rays of sunshine. Ate Belle, as she was known in church, was always radiant and I could never picture her without her warm smile. Pastor Kevin was enlightening. He was profound in his speech, meticulous in his work, passionate about his country and consumed with his love for the Lord. He was dedicated to the ministry and I almost always imagined him outrunning the Energizer bunny anytime anywhere. They were both as vibrant as midsummer's day.
Then they were gone. It was just a couple of weeks ago that I sat in a meeting with him in the church choir room and he was plopping one butterscotch after another into his mouth while announcing, "This would be great with coffee." Just like that, just like watercolors disappearing into flowing water.
I've been to a lot of funerals and I usually hear a lot of this: "He was a good man," or "She helped me in this way." Maybe it's just me, but I rarely hear about people talking about going beyond the act of helping by actually touching people, by connecting with them. I don't know if there should be a distinction since helping partakes of an element of giving some part of one's self away but I think there are certain ways of helping wherein you go beyond what is required and actually make a commitment to another person. It's like that line from a song by Nicole Nordeman: "I wanna leave a legacy, how will they remember me? Did I choose to love?" That kind of love rivals rainbows and miles of wildflowers.
My friend Banana (who's now on another offshore project in Vegas) was more alarmed. "It's so weird," she said. "He ministered to us in my mom's funeral service last year and he even attended her burial on February 14. Exactly a year after, he's gone."
My cousin Tren was one of the many people Pastor Kevin ministered to in Church of the Risen Lord. Pastor Kevin apparently led their Bible study group. She called him "PK" (as opposed to my more formal way of addressing him). "He taught us so many things," she said as she ended her text to me with a ':(.'
It was one of my classmates who was deeply affected by Pastor Kevin's untimely death. She headed a bible study group with Him in Church of the Risen Lord and much of what I know about Pastor Kevin's life and testimony I learned from her. Once, she told me a rather interesting story. When he was with CRL, Pastor Kevin used to drop off some of the members of his bible study group in their homes, my friend included. He would insist that all of them would sit in the backseat, leaving the front seat vacant. "He didn't care if he would end up looking like a driver," she related. My classmate asked him why and he answered that the seat was reserved only for Ate Belle.
It was her thoughts after I told her that he died which made me believe that there was a semblance of beauty in the midst of a death as a tragic as his and Ate Belle's. "He believed in me," she said of Pastor Kevin. "He was the kind of person who wanted to be proud of you."
And the stories abound, enough to rival rainbows and miles of wildflowers even as watercolors disappear into the flush.

Rev. Kevin and Belle Alamag's memorial service at the
Church of the Risen Lord earlier tonight