The ride from the airport early
this week showed me roads that were almost empty, as in the pandemic lockdown.
So hot was the weather that the grass by the road turned brown, and the trees
looked thirsty.
At home, the air conditioning is in full blast. Even
Paul cannot stand the heat and would curl up in my mother’s bedroom, where it is
cooler, and where he is conditionally allowed to stay as long as he remains a
good boy.
I spent the greater part of Good Friday in church for
prayer and fasting. Delighting in God’s Word was the theme of the congregational
meditation, drawing from the riches of Psalm 119 and from the reminder that the
Word is with God and the Word is God Himself (John 1:1)—beautiful theological
and practical truths that animate my life and those in the household of faith. I
was rewarded with a nourishing meal, the perfect arroz caldo, our local church’s
tradition to break the short fast.
During this season I also enjoyed
The Chosen (season 1) on Netflix. What I love about it is the tender portrayal
of Jesus living a perfect life in an abject, sinful world, choosing to mingle
with the demon-possessed, the lepers, the lowly.
I finished
Marilynne Robinson’s Reading Genesis, her meditation on the first book of the
Bible. Her close reading of Genesis has stirred in me a gratefulness for the
priceless truths of Biblical Christianity, even if being a Christian has fallen
out of flavor in the secular world. She writes about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
Noah, and Joseph; and compares and contrasts Genesis with the Enuma Elish and
other similar accounts from surrounding cultures at the time. I read, but not
wholeheartedly agree with, everything that Robinson writes. I do not find her
particularly relaxing but always worthwhile. I often have to repeat myself and
am rewarded by greater illumination after several rounds of rereading. I must
have listened to all her podcast and YouTube interviews, and I love her novels
and her essays. I am what you call a huge fan.
I finally got to finish The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, a gift from my friend Racquel Bruno in 2015, during our residency in internal medicine. I
started reading it nine years ago. I got preoccupied with work. I was also bored
by the first few chapters that I had to set it aside, hoping I would probably
find the stamina and encouragement to complete it. In January this year, I took
a brief survey of my book collection. Catton’s novel stood out like a sore
thumb. I read it from the beginning—not from the middle where I had placed my
bookmark, because so much time has passed that I’d already forgotten the plot.
It is the longest book to win the Booker Prize with its 800-plus words. There
was sweetness and deep joy in reading it the second time around, a reminder to
myself not to give up too easily. My favorite part, ultimately, is the love
story between the naïve but good-natured Emery Staines and the prostitute Anna
Wetherell. Now I am itching to visit New Zealand and to read Catton’s Birnam
Wood.
It is Easter Sunday today. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.