More than one life to live for

KITH & KIN (the nearest and dearest)

Over a bowl full of seasoned ground beef, we sat around making lumpiang shanghai and preparing for Noche Buena (Christmas dinner). One thing I love about the Christmas holidays is the time spent with my beloved extended family. This year, I especially loved that the conversation revolved around not only the happenings of the year that passed and the constant bantering about why we singles seem to be taking forever to settle down and have kids. This year we also talked about what lay ahead for our family as a whole.

I have heard the story a million times before. My grandparents, Daddy and Mommy Old (as we fondly call them) both came from poor families. They put themselves through school, most of the time as working students until they both got their degrees in Education. Daddy Old was the vice principal and Mommy Old a teacher of an elementary school in a tiny Mindanao town called Tacurong in Sultan Kudarat. Apparently, dusty Tacurong was cloud 9 for them as it soon became the ground on which their fervent love for one another would take root. To cut the story short, they got married and had a dozen kids. Literally a dozen. My mom is # 5 of the 12-member troupe.

You don’t have to be an economist to equate that 12 kids (plus relatives) in a household supported by two teachers would not amount to abundance, especially when Daddy Old decided to go back to school to pursue a Law degree. Mom used to tell me that breakfast would usually consist of fried rice and scrambled eggs spread as thin as paper so that everyone could have a bite or two. She had to color a part of her white socks black to hide the fact that her shoes had a lingering hole on the side. She would use these stories repeatedly; I’m pretty sure so that we would grow up humble and be ever thankful of what we have now. Nevertheless, what the family lacked in wealth, they made up in education and hard work.

Today, all 12 siblings are professionals, stable and respected in their own circles of influence. Doctors, dentists, scientists, educators and more. God has definitely been great to us.

….Back to the kitchen table with lumpiang shanghai….

Because of their past, I assume that my mother and her siblings all strived individually to prosper and provide for their own immediate families, i.e. spouse and kids. Though there is no doubt about each one’s love and concern for the greater family, it was only now that we were verbally sharing our dreams for the family as a whole. What is this family called for? What is our family legacy? How can we help each other and influence the community? These were some of the agenda in our impromptu meeting which lasted about 2 days. We talked about excellence, musing over how we could bring glory to God as a family and how we could train the younger ones to take on their future with confidence and a strong sense of purpose. We prayed. And talked some more…

ONE MAN, COUNTLESS GENERATIONS

Not long ago, I heard one of our dear pastors share about how we were ‘born to shine’. A story about two families- the Jukes and the Edwards family was told. Tracing their roots and examining the generations that followed, the fate of their bloodlines were recorded.

The Jukes clan consisted of 1200 people. 400 of them lived wayward lives. 310 were beggars, 173 criminals, 60 habitual thieves, 50 common prostitutes, 7 killers and only 20 (a mere 0.016 per cent!) learned to make a living.

On the other hand, the head of the Edwards family- Jonathan Edwards was a godly man. He was President of Princeton University, a Christian leader, pastor and evangelist. In his lineage of 1400 people, 13 became College presidents, 65 were professors, 100 lawyers, 30 judges, 66 doctors (including a medical school dean), 80 holders of public office (3 US Senators, 3 Mayors, 3 Governors, 1 US Vice President) and the other 1,000 were all professionals.

Talk about the difference one virtuous man can make!

I do not think that it was because Jonathan Edwards was president of Princeton that his family was so successful. I believe it is because he had the favor of God in his life, and as he led and stood as an example for his family, the blessing flowed to them as well.

This is what I dream for my family. I dream that we would live lives relinquished to the will of God – not necessarily as pastors or church workers (although that would be very honorable, just as the eldest of the grandkids, Ate Ahlmira and Kuya Paul are epitomizing now), but as people who choose to be excellent wherever they are; as people who genuinely love, generously give and graciously comprehend that the long journey they have surmounted is actually just beginning! There is so much more we can do. When we live according to His purposes, our destinies become greater than we are. We cease to exist for this generation alone and we start to instigate greater things for the next.

A BABY (AND A DREAM) IS BORN

Two weeks ago, my niece Rebecca was born. She is the fourth of Daddy and Mommy Olds’ great grand kids. She is officially the new ‘star’ in the family, the bearer of the crown until another baby will dethrone her . About two days after Becca was born, her mom Ate Malou was rushed to the operating room because of postpartum bleeding. She lost three pints of blood and caused my brother Hary to cry four. News spread in our family like wildfire and soon enough, Mommy Old made that long distance call to me (and I guess to others all over the world) saying that she was setting up a prayer chain for Ate Malou’s health and fast recovery (I love Mommy Old ). Thank God everything turned out ok. I thanked God even more when I later read Ate Malou’s post [http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/notes/malou-hartantyo/the-lower-50-of-the-5050-chances-of-giving-birth/501647170522] saying that if it were not for Becca’s need to stay in the hospital another day, causing her to be discharged late as well, the bleeding might have caused her to die were she at home 30 minutes away from the hospital. If that isn’t proof enough that God is with us, I don’t know what is!

Becca’s need saved her mom’s life. What was perceived as an obstacle was actually heaven-sent. And so in the same way, we should not fear that our limitations will hinder our pursuit of greater things. We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them (Rom. 8:28).

Our family isn’t without flaw. We have our share of quirks and shortcomings; our share of carnality as any other family would. But what difference does a day of imperfection, a week of doubt or a month of fear make if our intentions are set to reach that big destiny? And if our trust is grounded in him who knows no impossibility, his light in us will continue to shine, even long after Becca will be dethroned the 100^th time. We live one life. But it can matter to millions more.

>> Joshua 24:15- “But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Proud Daddy and Mommy Old with a handful of grandkids

A happy bunch of us on Christmas morning 8)

How not to kill a roach

It is a very unfortunate reality that if you would spend a few days in a Filipino home, you’d likely  encounter at least 1 cockroach. No matter how clean the house, I suppose the temperate weather makes it idyllic for these crawly creatures to breed.

As a result, Filipinos have devised a local tool for pest control. It is inexpensive, available to all levels of society and is used in a simple “aim-and-hit” manner, as follows:

Hahaha! I remember a few years ago when we lived in a small, kind of dingy rented house in the dusty city of General Santos. Though our pest problem was not at overwhelming levels, I was used to hearing mom’s occasional shriek as she saw cockroaches skittering across the living room or kitchen floor. These screams would usually be followed by her hollering at me to pick up a rubber slipper and kill it…which of course would be ensued by my refusal to do so.

On one of those days, I distinctly remember mom running around with one slipper (the other one in her hand) trying with high spirits to slay an ill-fortuned roach. Having cornered it, she figured her time of revenge had come. However, the little thing suddenly flapped its wings and started to fly around. In her alarm, mom started aiming with her slipper but as it scurried about even more, she panicked and with a loud thud stepped on the poor thing- with her bare foot!

Haha! Mom was caught between hysterical laughter and the sickening feeling of having a squashed roach stuck to her foot. I laughed so hard I thought I would faint.

The lesson? Panic clouds the verity that there is a proper way of doing everything. 8) True, mom did effectively carry out her objective but in panic, she did so with a bad consequence. So in stress- and panic-inducing situations, let’s not get ourselves caught with that sickening feeling of having made a bad, rash decision. Breathe in, visualize that goo on your foot and take a moment to think it through.

>> 1 Thes. 5:8, “But let us who live in the light think clearly, protected by the body armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation.”

The Beholder

Q. What do you see in the diagram below?

Answers:

• From a mathematician: It is a circle, a shape with all points equidistant from its center.
• From a writer: It is the letter ‘O’, the 15^th letter of the English alphabet.
• From a chemist: Oxygen.
• From an over-zealous biologist: It is the circle of life.
• From a Tagalog-English web translator: An informal way to say yes.
• From a Malaysian waiter: O means ‘without milk’, i.e. kopi-O means coffee with no milk.
• From a woman in love: It is my future wedding ring (you have to tilt  it to see the amourous inscriptions we will get engraved)
• From a 3-year-old: It is the moon.
• From a blogger who wishes to get a point across: A simple illustration that shows us that we see things not as they are but as WE are, according to the ‘lenses’ that we wear.

We react to charity either with thanksgiving or with humiliation. We consent repeated failure as either a step closer to success or as the seal of our futility. We view love as either something to crave or something to offer.

Faith: a blind hope or the substance of things hoped for? The Gospel: a consenting remedy for man’s feeble efforts to reach God or an expression of His relentless love for us?

Wisdom and revelation: stumbled upon or deliberate divine pursuit?

We DECIDE how we see things that we face. We do so either with wisdom or with imprudence and offense. What lenses do you have on? I hope O means more to you than nothing. 8)

>> Proverbs 8:1,9- “Listen as wisdom calls out! Hear as understanding raises her voice! [Saying] My words are plain to anyone with understanding, clear to those who want to learn.”