I had my eyeglasses refracted last Monday. I didn’t have an extra pair, so I went home consciously feeling a certain kind of lightness, as if some weight was lifted from my face. But other than that, everything was a blur—literally. I got my old lenses back as keepsakes.
In his blog several weeks ago, Tim Challies has written about how he hasn’t won anything in his life. He asked whether his readers have it differently, and I was planning on giving him a reply that says something like, “Not really, Mr. Challies.” This is a fairly accurate statement, at least insofar as it concerns raffle draws, because while I could point to certain memories of going up the stage to receive this and that prize, I could only remember two of them.
During one fiesta celebration in our village, my name got picked by Ma’am Valme from a tambiolo. She is a slim, middle-aged lady with a disposition of a preschool teacher and a charm of a politician. Clad in my old and dirty pair of rubber slippers, ill-fitted shirt and worn-out pants, I went up the stage to receive my reward. Just as I was about to leave, she thrust the microphone to me, and declared that I should say a few words. My voice was shaky and my pauses frequent as I tried hard to conjure an impromptu, Oscars-like speech. My brother was savoring the scene, and was laughing so hard at my expense.
My name also got picked during our church’s Family day celebrations this December. I became a recipient of an alarm clock and two sets of pens that I need. A lot of gifts were given that day that it seemed all you had to do to win anything was to be present.
However, beginning this December 13, I would be able to remember three. Here’s an account of how I won the third time:
After Tax 2 class, my classmates and I decided to eat at a nearby canteen. To be able to go there, we passed through the main entrance of the college. Tables were set and several people were coming in for a Christmas party that we had not been invited to and that we had no intention of attending. But this lady stopped us, and directed us to occupy an empty table. We were delighted. Free meals are always something to be delighted about.
Then, we were handed tickets, one for each of us. We obediently filled it out with our names. Mine bore the number 185. We were told the tickets were for the raffle draw. They were giving out, among others, two 19-inches Phillips LCD televisions. My classmates all wanted to win. I was the most cavalier. I didn’t want to come in front lest I be made to conjure an impromptu, Oscars-like speech again.
Then the guy picking out the winners announced my name. I won the television. And there was no need for the speech.
I gave the television to my parents when I came to the province for the Christmas break. Our old one is very old, indeed. My parents bought it when I was 8. I’m 23 now. When I told them my name got picked in a raffle draw, my mother thought I was joking. When she realized I was not, she exclaimed, “An unexpected blessing from the Lord.”
I agree with her. It is an unexpected blessing, indeed. It is a blessing because it is undeserved. I didn’t do anything good to merit it—I didn’t do anything at all except, perhaps, write my name on the ticket. It is unexpected because I came to school only to attend classes. I was not told there was going to have a party downstairs. I was not told someone would hand us tickets to fill-out. I was not told my name would be called. And it was from the Lord. I believe that God is in control of everything, even in the picking of a name from a fishbowlful of names.
The amphitheatre was adequately prepared for the occasion. The ground was level and unsullied, white flowers embellished the stage, and more than a hundred monoblock chairs were neatly stacked in rows. The participants, meanwhile, were garbed in their uniforms, feeling a concoction of excitement, sadness, pride, and apprehension. They were busy chatting with friends in their assigned queues, while they were waiting for the marshal’s signal for them to begin walking—or parading—before a pack of elated on-lookers cheering them on. By the time we got there, they were already seated, which meant that the ceremonies had begun.
It looked like the Olympic Games, but Beijing is a thousand kilometers away from where the event was taking place, not to mention the fact that the calendar says it’s April 2007 (and not 2010). The occasion was actually the commencement exercises of the University of the Philippines in Diliman. The participants were the graduates, of course; and their uniform—well, there really was no uniform—but the ladies put on a white, sepia or a similarly colored dress, while the men wore Barong Tagalog. Their apparel was adorned by a sablay—that piece of cloth-turned-sash, in which the letters “U” and “P” are printed in alibata.
Several of my friends belong to the graduating class of 2007. I rejoice with them and I praise God for His faithfulness in the lives of these people. Indeed, each one of them is a testament to His amazing grace:
Arbie Magno, BS Computer Science. We came from the same high school in the same province (with several others like Mike Cocjin who also graduated this year with a degree in Civil Engineering). Up until a few days before graduation, he was still working on his thesis, probably uncertain of whether or not he was going to march with the rest of his friends. He was asking us to pray that God will sustain him until the end. Praise God for the answered prayers.
Art Torres, BS Business Economics. He was my roommate in Yakal when I was an undergrad. He finished his degree in three years and a half. He now has a stable job. More than these blessings, however, Art, by God’s grace, has found his satisfaction only in Christ.
Arvin Alfonso, BS Industrial Engineering. Kuya Arvin, I’ve heard, experienced some glitches in one of his few remaining subjects. He has been in the University longer than he would have wanted, and the thought of staying yet another year is not too encouraging. Praise God for not extending his stay in U.P.
Bryan de Guzman, BS Geodetic Engineering. We lived in the same corridor in Kalayaan Residence Hall when we were freshmen. I remember the time when a common friend of ours and I accompanied him to another school. He was seriously entertaining the idea of transferring to that school, having failed and dropped the dreaded Math 17 a couple of times. But God He has other plans for him. Bryan graduated on time, and most importantly, he now has a personal relationship with Christ.
Jhoanna Isla, BS Computer Science. Like a lot of people, she was unsure of her fate. She was supposed to graduate last year, but she encountered some problems with her courses, so she wasn’t able to march until now. God is, indeed, sovereign.
Joan Romero, BS Computer Science. She was almost sure she would graduate last year. We were kicked-off from the dorm fellowship, and her picture was posted alongside other graduating students in the dorm’s bulletin board. Then, she learned that she would have to wait for another year. It was a painful experience, but one which is filled with lessons, I’m sure. She must have realized now that God is the best teacher of life.
Congratulations to all of you.
During the mock recit…
Professor: Mr. Catedral?
Me: Ah…uhm…ah…
Professor: Thank you, Mr. Catedral. Sit down.
During Consti 1…
Professor: You, the guy wearing the black glasses.
Me: Sir, me?
Professor: Yes, you nerd-looking guy. Doesn’t he just look nerdy?
Me: Sir, I’m not a nerd.
Professor: Well, you certainly don’t look cool!
If I were to list down my favorite spots in UP Diliman, the Sunken Garden will make it to the top–that submerged patch of land area at the heart of the campus which is home to football players (and wannabe-football-players alike), to couples and their love affairs and catfights, and to people like me who just want to breathe in a dose of silence and solitude.
There are points in my college life when I just wormed my way from the noise and the chaos of the metropolitan jungle of Quezon City, and retreated into the Sunken Garden for a peaceful and quiet afternoon, no matter how momentary.
One of those points was when I was about to graduate from college. At that time, I had already taken up the law aptitude exam together with thousands and thousands of people fighting it out for the two hundred slots available. I thought I did poorly in the exam–what with the only ten math questions I answered out of forty-five. And I’m not even sure if I got the entire ten correctly!
You see, I have always dreamed of becoming a lawyer from the time my mother successfully dissuaded me from pursuing the medical profession early on in my gradeschool days. She had this spiel about doctors being at the beck and call of patients round the clock, and doctors not ending up in lucrative careers despite having gone to school in who-knows-how-long.
So after that exam, the future was as uncertain as the mood of a menopausing woman. I remembered going to the Sunken Garden with my Bible one Sunday afternoon. I just sat on the grassy area near the gnarled root of the Acacia tree in front of the College of Law. There, I lifted up my eyes to the heavens, and the words of Oswald Chambers came into mind: Be certain of God in your uncertainty. I opened my Bible to the Psalms and was reassured that God is sovereign and in control. I closed my eyes and laid down everything before Him. I asked him to teach my fainting heart to trust Him and His will.
That was almost one year ago.
Now, I’m in the U.P. College of Law. But my trips to the Sunken Garden didn’t end there. When I received the results of my first exam in law school–which I miserably flunked, I retreated to that same spot–that grassy portion near the gnarled root of the Acacia tree in front of the College of Law, and there, I poured out my heart before God. Then, I remembered that moment almost one year ago, and realized that the only reason I was in law school was because of His grace alone; and the only way I could stick it through for the next four years is only by His grace alone, as well.
I lifted up my eyes to the heavens, and I knew God would see me through.
It has been days since I typed the last period on my paper, and boy, how excited I felt! I was not particularly ecstatic about how my essay on the crisscrosses between George Orwell’s 1984 and the Judiciary turned out, because honestly, it was closer to what my friend calls a “writing diarrhea,” more than anything. I was excited because I am finally free from the painful clutches of cases and recitations and exams–well, at least for the next two weeks.
So what did I do after finally submitting that last requirement? Nothing, really. I just went back home, and thought about how faithful and gracious God has been for seeing me through in my first semester in law school–yes, despite of my own willful transgressions and unfaithfulness.
Now, I desire to praise God as I recount my experiences–both fun and horrible, life changing and painful, and those in-between–accumulated from my first four months of studying the law. I hope to accomplish this during the sem break.
So, stay tuned. Hahaha.
Law school officially starts on Tuesday. But for me and the rest of my batchmates, it has already begun.
I used to think that, before the inevitable day comes, I would still have the time to dilly-dally and to “stop and smell the flowers,” as it were. But all these have been sacked out of my system in an instant. Who would want to smell the calachuchi in Palma Hall when he is told during a freshman orientation that he has to read two cases and another article in one night? This, or the foreboding “or else”.
No, I’m not complaining. I just didn’t expect the ride to be this soon. I am like a naïve promdi in his first trip to the city. While waiting at the bus stop for a vehicle that is due to pick him up in thirty minutes, he is caught in a deep reverie—the chaos of the metropolis in his head suddenly becomes romantic in the same way that it is dangerous. And then in a split second, the bus comes. He is suddenly brought back from the dangerously romantic chaos into the bus stop. The ride has begun. Reverie has morphed back to reality.
The ride is going to be bumpy, I know. But I take comfort in the fact that I’m getting to where I’m headed, because the Driver of my bus will make sure that I do. Furthermore, He is with me the entire trip. And this is enough comfort for me.
I used to have two prayer items when I was a freshman: one, that I could graduate on time; and two, that I would not find myself as the dumbest, the slowest, the most witless in the class.
I guess, my prayers have been answered.
But I’m not going to talk about myself, because surely, there is someone else whose existence is more colorful than mine. Neither am I going to recount some success stories that inspired me in my studies, because there are none; nor some tips and pointers on how to make it big in the real world, because, honestly, I am more clueless than a student who shows up in the middle of a math exam, after having been absent the previous six class meetings. What I have is a point that I think we all know, but needs to be stressed nonetheless—that point is, we ought not to stop thinking.
If there is one thing that I learned to imbibe from the University, particularly from the College of Arts and Letters, it is the lifestyle of thinking. Indeed, we were taught not merely to read, but to read keenly and carefully—paying attention to the minutest detail of a work of art or a piece of literature. We were taught not merely to produce them, but to consider acutely how we do them and why we do them. We were taught quite a handful of theories, and poetics, and techniques that will serve valuable in the honing of our craft and the understanding of our subject; but along with these, we were also taught to struggle with them, hoping to evaluate them not merely on the merits of their logic, but also on their political and historical contexts.
We do not readily accept Noam Chomsky’s explanation on the language development of children without scrutinizing his claims or without evaluating his hypotheses. We do not take a writer’s critique of our educational system, without going back to the American colonial education and examining all its ramifications. We do not act on and take the issues that beset our country at face value, without hearing and fleshing out all the arguments from all sides.
This lifestyle of thinking, of course, comes hand in hand with the lifestyle of asking. Indeed, the depth of our thoughts is only as deep as the questions we ask; and the breadth of our mind is only as wide as the inquiries we make. And the University, particularly our professors and teachers from this College have taught us to ask relevant and pointed questions.
We then need to constantly ask and honestly evaluate ourselves: Who is my master? Whom do I serve? What is the end of my work, of my art, of my craft?
An honest and thoughtful consideration of the questions, at some point, can cause us to choose one side—often times, at the risk of losing popularity and favor in the eyes of others. At other times, our answers to these questions will test our loyalties, as well as our convictions.
I admit that it is oftent easier to abandon this kind of lifestyle, and to simply resort to “going with the flow.” Careless, thoughtless, and cavalier behavior is, after all, easier to do than an honest self-appraisal.
I, myself, have done some thinking. When I was a freshman, I had two prayer items: one, that I could graduate on time; and two, that I would not find myself as the dumbest, the slowest, the most witless in the class. What amazes me is not so much that the requests were answered, but it is the God who answers them. As one who is a recipient of God’s abounding grace, I can not help but to give Him my all, and endeavor to exalt Him in everything. He is my master. I serve Him only. I exist to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. It is the knowledge of who God is and what He has done for me that is the source of my desire to stay in this country, to help maintain the freedom that we enjoy through my craft, and to help and love others.
Soli Deo Gloria.
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*This is the "speech" I submitted to the Graduation Committee last week (with slight modifications, of course)–the result of some random, inchoate thoughts that I managed to organize in three hours. (Yes, I was cramming again—even way after I submitted my last paper in my undergrad life. Hahaha.)
