Enduring the Kick-off

Quite a number of people from the different dorms got kicked-off last Wednesday night. Including me.

No, we haven’t done some horrible crime that would merit such an action. On the contrary, we have tried our hardest to become good students. We have burned our midnight lamps studying for exams, tried to make sense of the equations on the board (English majors like me need to take Math 1 and 2, you know), prepared for quizzes and recitations and workshops. And now, after all these years, we are finally graduating.

And as is the tradition in the Dormitories Christian Fellowship (DCF), we have to endure the sharp metallic heels and the pointed shoes of our friends. Hahaha!

If my intuition serves me right, the term “to kick-off” is roughly a filipinism for what native English speakers would call a “send-off” (or in Spanish a “despedida”)—an activity that revolves around wishing a person good graces as he would soon embark on some journey of sorts. In the context of the DCF, however, this activity is an opportunity to pray for some members who are expecting to graduate in April. More than this, however, this activity is an opportunity to glorify God by recognizing that it is only because of His sheer grace that these people are about to finish college.

I have learned a lot that night, especially on the teaching about being a “tent-maker” to the place God will be leading me. As a Christian, I am called to share God’s wonderful message of salvation wherever I am. Yet, this sometimes proves to be an incredibly difficult task. It is my prayer then that God would give me the courage and the boldness to share the gospel to my friends, classmates and dorm mates.

Even if I’m already graduating, there are still a lot of things that I need to learn and re-learn, especially in God’s classroom.

Clean Fun

I am not a big fan of basketball.

During the times when the entire nation is glued to IBC-13 watching those sweaty people trying to score some points, I am probably in my room counting the nail-heads in the ceiling desperately hoping for boredom to lull me to sleep. During the times when kids my age fight tooth and nail over the wrong calls of the referee in a barangay league, I am probably arguing with my brother over Garamond being a better font style for my thesis than Times New Roman.

When I was young, I had asthma; so this meant that the kind of games I played excluded those which could induce my sweat glands to excrete more than normal amounts of bodily fluid. Hence, when my classmates were beginning to act like they were the offspring of Michael Jordan—with their shooting accuracy and smooth lay-ups—I was stuck to playing the harmless Hide-and-Seek. I only got to finally shoot a ball when I was in Grade 5. In P.E. class.

That was nine years ago.

So today is quite a special day. After nine long years, I got to dribble and pass and shoot a ball again. This time, not as a requirement of some class, but as a blessing of an “extended weekend;” not with the teacher eyeing me with distrust, but with the company of my friends from the dorm fellowship.

I truly praise God for allowing us to take some breather from the daily grinds of school work, pre-labs, graded recitations, long quizzes and class lectures. I praise Him for allowing us to have clean, God-glorifying fun that is devoid of coarse jokes and insults and dirty tactics; but one that is filled with laughter and encouragement and delight.

I hope to play with them again some other time.

A Salty Blessing

I have always maintained that a dormer who hoardes table salt in his room is weird.

This was what I told Paul, a friend of mine who scurried into my room hoping to find a considerable amount of NaCl there. I learned that he would need it with water to gargle away his three-week old sore throat.

I don’t have table salt in my room. He would have found on top of my shelf an ancient pack of orange juice, whose original powdery state has already morphed into little coagulated balls as a consequence of old age. But salt, he wouldn’t find a single trace.

Because of this, we went knocking on the doors of the other rooms trying to get the residents to admit that they have some, along with a loaf of stale bread or half-cooked pancit canton. We were like election candidates flashing a radiant smile—which is really a poised and dignified variant of begging and cajoling.

After a few negative feedbacks from these people, I was becoming more and more convinced as to the validity of the claim I made early on. I was even convinced that even if we campaign on all the rooms, we wouldn’t be able to find any.

Well, Paul and I didn’t. But someone did.

I’m sure Paul has already gargled away the salt, and I hope that his throat feels a little bit better now.

As for me, I went back to my room, and suddenly curiosity struck like a flash of lightning, and so I checked the concordance of my Bible to see if there are references to salt. Here’s what I got: Genesis 19:26 and Matthew 5:13.

I find the reference in Matthew particularly very interesting. You see, prior to Christ’s exhortation as regards the disciples being the salt of the earth, He had earlier on called and told them that they would be fishers of men (Matt. 4:19). Furthermore, Christ hinted that they would be insulted and persecuted when He talked about the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. By labeling His disciples as salt, He is telling them that despite all the mockery and maltreatment that they are going to endure, they are a blessing to the world because through them the gospel will be preached.

Matthew Henry has this to say regarding this point: “The prophets, who went before them, were the salt of the land of Canaan; but the apostles were the salt of the whole earth, for they must go into all the world to preach the gospel… one handful of that salt would diffuse its savour far and wide; would go a great way, and work insensibly and irresistibly as leaven, Matt.13:33. The doctrine of the gospel is as salt; it is penetrating, quick, and powerful, (Heb. 4:12); it reaches the heart, Acts 2:37. It is cleansing, it is relishing, and preserves from putrefaction.”

I still believe that any dormer who hoardes salt is weird. But as Christians, we don’t have to keep a good measure of salt in our rooms. We are the salt. And by God’s grace, may we not lose our saltiness.