On Passion and Writing (regularly) Again

Today I watched the film Whiplash and was astounded by Miles Teller's performance. I know J.K. Simmons has all the Oscar buzz but Miles really served up some crazy acting in the film. I also watched him in other films—The Spectacular Now (2013) and Two Night Stand (2014)—but his performance in this Academy Award Best Picture nominee is miles away from the other two.

Teller plays a 19-year-old drummer who gets in a prestigious music school and secures a spot in the band of a great but temperamental conductor played by Simmons. It's funny, because this afternoon even before watching the film, I was already thinking about passion, and how I want to have it for something, especially now when I'm at a crossroads about the next step to take in my life. Then I start watching this film and Teller is just stellar, oozing out passion like there's no tomorrow. His character pounds on the drum kit with all his might, wounds and callouses be damned, never mind that he just survived a car crash (he literally walked away from the accident and ran to the concert venue). Oh to be consumed by such passion, the kind you live and breathe, so much so you almost die for it. My heart pounded during the last parts of the film, and the scenes left me breathless well after the credits finished rolling.

While I was tapping my thoughts away on Twitter, I get a tweet from a former Journalism classmate asking if I'm interested to contribute on her site (maybe I'll tell you about this someday, in case it prospers). I often saw her tweets about it, but back then I just thought she was a contributor. It turns out, she created the site! Again, props to people with passion.

While I'm still stewing myself in thoughts about what it is I am really passionate about, I thought of doing something just to keep my hands busy and trick my mind into thinking I am actually a productive individual. Just to get the rust out of my writing skills, I figured since one of the only consistent things I've been doing the last few months is watch a slew of US TV series, why don't I just write episode recaps of these shows?

I don't know if anyone will be interested to read them especially since they're a dime a dozen on the web, but I'm really doing this for myself. If I discipline myself into writing regularly, who knows what might come next?

I wrote this blog entry while I still have the mojo and also to serve as evidence. Now, the challenge is to actually start writing the recaps. I thought maybe I'd start with an easy one: Hart of Dixie. The new season just started so I only have two episodes to write about.

Will I be able to rise to this self-imposed challenge?

Stay tuned.

Time After Time

It's been a while since my last proper post and I don't really have a valid excuse except to say that I've been lazy and was consciously avoiding my own blog because of an unforeseen circumstance. But today I found myself backreading Patty Laurel's blog and while I generally love all her posts, nothing affected me as much as her entry on Time.

In her August entry, Patty was able to describe my exact thoughts and feelings about being on time and people who aren't as conscious about being late. Being late is one of my top pet peeves. All my watches are advanced and I'm almost always early for my appointments. It may be a type A personality trait, but wasting time just rubs me the wrong way. Being late speaks so much not just about how you value your own time, but how your respect other people's time as well.

Here are two paragraphs from her entry that summarizes my view on the matter:

A person's relationship with time is very telling. Punctuality does not make you a stickler, it makes you considerate of others. Of course, the same consideration allows you to be flexible and allow for a bit of a grace period in between the minutes. You'll forgive a 9:07am arrival for a casual 9:00am meeting but if it's a visa application, job interview, or a client presentation 9:00am roughly translates to 8:30am if you really want to make a good impression. 

It's not cute or cool or funny to be late, if you think about it---it actually is quite rude. In other countries, being on time is the only way to go. I can imagine being late in Japan, Germany or Singapore is like having LBM---it's something that could happen to anyone but it's something you would try your very best to avoid, something you'd be embarrassed about and something that could ruin your entire day and your dealings with others. Unless you have a valid reason like an emergency or a health related issue, then being late shouldn't become an option. 

You can read the entire entry here.

iWrite: An Open Letter to Malaya dela Cruz*

Hi Malaya, 

I read about the opinion piece you wrote on a news website and while I initially tried to ignore it, something stirred in me and made me decide to write a response. 

First off, I would like to know why you felt the need to hide behind a pseudonym, when the Iglesia Ni Cristo doesn't expel their members for asking questions about the validity, veracity, and practicality of their beliefs, especially when they are valid ones. Do we not practice transparency and accountability in the Church? Do we not state our whole name and affix our signature in reports of wrongdoing inside the Church, before an investigation is done to prove if the reports are true? 

But that aside, as your brethren, I would like to ask how you've been, how your workload is as a student, how many units are you taking, and how often have you missed out on attending worship services because of your studies? Because isn't that part of how we take care of each other in the Church, we check on each member's situation, ensure that everyone is making it out well and that no problem or sickness or obstacles prevent us from continuing our service to God? 

I ask this because I am confused. As someone who was raised inside the Church and being a minister's daughter, I would think that you of all people will have a first-hand source to answer all your questions and clear your concerns. I ask you, before you sent in your piece to that website, have you talked to your father about these concerns? Or any other minister, even any other member? Because my Dad was a policeman and my Mom is a practicing Catholic but I can answer all the questions you didn't ask in your piece, even though the article's intro stated you were questioning the teachings you grew up with. I ask again if you've attended worship services lately, because if you have and you weren't spacing out or dozing off, all your arguments would have been addressed. 

If you are active in Church activities and are present in your father's officiation of Bible studies in doctrine and Evangelical missions, then I doubt you would be asking those questions. 

Now since you never mentioned even one bible verse in your piece, I won't do so here as well.   

I won't be able to answer your piece point by point because whenever I try to refresh the webpage, it takes forever to load (probably from the many commenters who give their two cents without really thinking about where the other side is coming from). But I'll try to remember what I can. 

Reading your piece, I felt like you were speaking from a socialist point of view, and no longer from a creationist one, where clearly the INC is coming from. Why you have that view now, I can only guess is from your university education, where you most probably were exposed to the harsh realities of how capitalists, oligarchs, economists, bureaucrats, and all the other powers-that-be rule the world. 

When I entered UP Diliman, I was also exposed to all those views. I mention this not to brag, but to make you understand that I see where you're coming from. Atheists, agnostics, existentialists, activists—you name it, I have a friend from UPD who subscribes to one of those beliefs. And strongly too at that. I have a non-INC friend from high school who became an activist when she entered UP and eventually immersed herself to the kilusan, and years later when she died from a car accident while being chased by alleged military personnel, all her high school friends—including INC members, because we all graduated from New Era University—went to her wake and some even attended her funeral. I was one of those who sat quietly and respectfully (non-apathetically if I may add), while her comrades from the kilusan spent about half an hour in front of her coffin edifying those who went to pay their last respects to my friend. They called my friend a different name (she was called a very Filipino name much like your pseudonym, Malaya), one that her family and friends didn't recognize, and barely gave her loved ones a moment to say goodbye. Because to them, my friend already belonged to the movement, to the society, and no longer to her family. And they persuaded us to continue her fight up until the last pound of dirt was shovelled into my friend’s grave. 

I tell you this because I want you to know that I agree with you on questioning your beliefs, because no one should blindly follow anyone else or any one religion or organization, especially when they have been given the chance to learn and question and inquire. But I also remind you that we always have the freedom to leave when we no longer subscribe to those beliefs, and having a religion should not prevent you from being a human being, a friend, a daughter, a son. My activist friend still went to our reunions whenever she wasn't immersed in the mountains. She still spoke to us like we were carefree Girl Scouts gossiping about our crushes. I have friends who are Muslims, Born-Again Christians, Seventh Day Adventists, and Buddhists. I have friends who are gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, and transsexuals. But we all manage to continue being friends without calling the others’ belief myopic or liberal. 

Now about those medical and relief missions that you say are only done to gain more Church members. That's partly true, we do conduct evangelical missions vis-à-vis our medical ones. That has always been a component of religious missions, regardless of the religion. But to say that we're doing that because our ONLY goal is to gain more members, is an absolute mockery of the brethren and medical volunteers and professionals who attend those missions. Are we all heartless people who tell our guests, “You have to stay for the evangelical program because if you don't, we won't give you the medicines/check-up/relief bags?” Do we tell them they need to be members of the Church first in order to receive these voluntary services? Isn't it a bit off to call the program “Kabayan Ko, Kapatid Ko (My Countrymen, My Brethren)” if we don't really care about their welfare? 

And let me just categorically correct you on one thing: we don’t try to convert people out of the utang na loob (debt of gratitude) mentality. As I’m sure your minister father and any other member (active or otherwise) can tell you, we ask them to listen, study, think, and decide if they agree with our teachings or not. And if they don’t, we don’t take it against them. It’s part and parcel of conducting a mission. 

You also wrote something about us revelling in the Philippine Arena and the Guinness World Records, making it sound like it is all we care about. Malaya, I'd like to remind you that it is the media who covered and featured those things, because aside from our bloc voting, those are the only things they seem to think are newsworthy about our Church. Are they going to write about how many countries, territories, and nationalities our Church has already reached, how many houses of worship, buildings, residential housing, and district offices we have in all parts of the globe? When have we ever read about that in mainstream or social media? No, we find out about this during our worship services, in our own media channels, in our own publications. Because is it not the brethren who deserve to know where their offering (voluntary amount that they give, and NOT ten percent of their income as the public is widely misinformed) is going? And how, even when majority of our membership live below the poverty line, we manage to build a world-record holder of an edifice, all without financial help from any politician or any private entity? Do you believe otherwise? Because you do know, Malaya, that this specific fact was mentioned by our Executive Minister in his circular, right? That we have achieved all these because of each brethren's contribution and, above all, by the good grace of God?  

And that if you know of some wrongdoing, you can always file a report and expose it, right? You do know that there are a lot of members, yes even ministers, who were expelled from the Church because they started to live a life that's not in keeping with the Christian way, right Malaya? 

And you are aware that there are others who voluntarily left, those who left without notice yet are painstakingly searched for by our dutiful brethren, because isn't that how we take care of one another? That no member is bound in shackles to stay in the Church if that is no longer what they want.

You talk about empowering society and mobilization. Do we not empower society by encouraging our members to work, discouraging them from being lazy and leaving everything to chance like gambling (which drives both the rich and the poor to financial destruction) and participating in illegal transactions? Do we not tell them to persevere, to pay the right amount of taxes, and not rely on dole outs from anyone?

Lastly, about the bloc voting, I can't officially speak in behalf of the Church. But thinking rationally, isn't it right to ensure the freedom of the Church to continue practicing its faith, and to do so, ensure that we elect officials that won't hinder us from exercising that right? Just like socialists, reformists, activists, and members of other religions, should we not support those who have the same plans and goals and ideals as ours, or at the very least, those who tell us they will not in any way prevent us from freely being Christians or persecute us just because we don’t share the same religion? Would a communist party vote for a capitalist? 

I ask you from a journalism graduate to a university student, from one brethren to another, are we compelled to take a photo of our ballots, document our inked index fingers, are we followed by Church officers to the voting precinct, to the voting booth, to ensure we exercised our doctrine in unity? 

And isn’t that just what boggles your mind and everyone else’s? How millions of people—each with his own mind, each exposed to the harsh realities of the world, most of them living in it—still choose to participate in that unity?

You see Malaya, this is probably what you have forgotten to think about while you were writing your piece. You may have forgotten that we are not talking about the law, or any other system of belief here. We are talking about faith, or the Christian faith to be specific. The American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition classifies faith as a noun which means: 

“1. Confident belief or trust in a person, idea, or thing. See Syns at belief. 2. Loyalty, allegiance. 3. Often Faith Christianity Secure belief in God and acceptance of God’s will. 4. A religion.”

Faith doesn't operate just on what can be seen, what can be validated or certified or proven. That's how powerful faith is, how something that seems unbelievable to many can be the most ordinary and automatic thing to some. How it's possible that one's absolute truth is different from the other's absolute truth. I can give you all the rational explanation to make you remember what those doctrines mean, but to the faithless, it will never suffice.

Maybe it also momentarily slipped your mind how, as human beings, we learn to respect one another's faith and beliefs, how we understand that not everyone can accept our own, and how we should have the freedom to choose to whom, to where, and in which we put our faith. 

Malaya, as you continue learning, I hope you find what it is you are looking for, and I hope you stand by it long after you've finished your studies. I hope your questions about faith and religion be answered and clarified, and your convictions about socialism remain strong whether you are living a convenient life or a less comfortable one in the city or elsewhere. 

Because I can tell you one thing: you can speak your mind all you want, and I will listen and respect your right to that opinion, but I will never turn my back on the Iglesia Ni Cristo nor dream a life outside of it. No matter how people like you persecute me for exercising my right and defending my faith.


Romy

Romy Antonette Peña is a journalism graduate from UP Diliman and grew up as a member of the Iglesia Ni Cristo. When she was eleven years old, she listened to the doctrines of the Iglesia Ni Cristo and was baptized on February 20, 1999. She works as a website editor for a telecom company.

UPDATE: Hours after I published this entry on my blog, it reached Malaya and she left a comment here. I was happy that she was willing to talk. I gave her my blog's email and waited for her to get in touch with me privately.

On August 26, I opened my blog's email to check if she did. Instead, I saw an email from Rappler asking my permission so they could republish my entry on their site. I agreed. It was published on the same day.

On August 29, Malaya left another comment saying she wanted to communicate via Facebook instead. I am still waiting for her reply.

I consciously don't read the comments on Rappler because I love myself, I love my life, and I don't want to add stress to it. I wrote this letter because I genuinely want to know Malaya's thoughts, what specific changes she wants to happen (because her letter and Facebook note seems so vague and full of jargon), and if she is indeed a brethren, how her faith can be strengthened. That is all. While I respect everyone's right to free speech, I don't want to engage in any word war/debate with anyone.

I do hope our exchange will yield positive results for both of us.

Thank you for visiting my site!
  

Music Bits - Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and then some.

Here I go again.

Before I opened my blog I had a lot of things going in my head and I thought, "I should write this down now before I forget it." And what do you know, my mind's a blank.

I know I wanted to write something interesting about my record player. I just finished watching the film adaptation of The Perks of Being A Wallflower and looked up the song list when I saw that they used a different song for the tunnel scene. In the movie they used "Heroes" by David Bowie but in the book it was Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide". I remembered that I have a vinyl of Fleetwood Mac's album Rumours. I dusted it off and discovered "Landslide" wasn't in it. I played the record anyway. A quick search on Wikipedia and I find out it's the band's most successful album, and even won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1978.

My copy has several scratches so I didn't get to enjoy some of the songs but it's good enough that I listened through the skips. There's one familiar song, "Dreams." You'd know it if you're a 90s kid and watched The Corrs on MTV.

I've always been partial to sad/slow songs so my favorites are "Never Going Back Again", "Songbird", and the last three songs: "I Don't Want to Know", "Oh Daddy", and "Gold Dust Woman."

I plan to listen to its remastered version which was released in 2004. During my morning commute I usually listen to The Morning Rush podcasts, but lately I've been mixing it up with my playlists. It's been a while since I got hooked on an album. I only have two on my phone, Beyonce's self-titled and Sarah Bareilles's The Blessed Unrest. I guess I'll be adding Rumours now.

Four years ago, when I didn't care about how much things cost, I bought this record player in Rockwell from a man who then sold me other stuff, including a stash of vinyls and an antique electric fan. I've gotten a lot of jabs from my family and friends for spending (they used the term wasting) money, but I'll never regret buying my player. They're making a come back and they're more expensive now, but when people ask me, I can tell them I was way ahead of the pack.

That's all. Good night world, hope you had a nice weekend! 

P.S. Listen to "Landslide" kids, seriously. 

Cheers to being twenty-seven!

photo from Pinterest

Thank you to everyone who greeted me on my birthday. Today I woke up to the sounds of tricycles and noises of a town in a province where my Dad was born. There was no fancy food nor a birthday cake but I was with my family and it's more than enough. Life has been an uphill battle lately, I've been on a slump and the thought of staying in bed gets to me most mornings and almost wins. My wallet got stolen four days ago. And yet, I'm still thankful. I'm pretty sure I have more than what I need. I am healthy, I am strong, I have a job, and my family is two hours away at most. I have a man who loves me. I get to sing for the choir. I started becoming active again with badminton and I've been eating healthy five days a week. I already lost a couple of pounds. To make myself more excited in the mornings, I started dressing up more thoughtfully and made sure my days are filled with happy thoughts and good vibes. I sing more. I read more. I write more.

I usually don't wish for anything on my birthday, but my 2014 motto is "Try something new." So on my first day as a 27-year-old, I listed my dreams and I'm claiming them. I asked God that if He granted just one of those things, I'm set. If He grants nothing, I'd still be thankful. Because I know He must have something even greater planned. My life has certainly seen better days. But then, there's no way to go but up! :)