Bottled ※ Brain

It is quiet at 4 am. I brew a cup of espresso, reheat the ensaymada given yesterday by a colon cancer patient now in remission (praise God!), and start my devotions. I turn my iPad on and scroll through the ESV app. Ephesians 2 --that glorious chapter. That life-changing " but " that has given me, and so many others, hope and eternal security. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— My heart cries out, "Thank you, Lord!" I have seen too much human suffering the day before. I need perspective, clarity, and hope. The secular world does not have these things, but Scripture does. This is where I should be looking. The ensaymada is delicious, imbued with the perfect softness, layered with melted cheese that has begun to crunch. The coffee keeps my stomach warm. My pen glides with green ink on soft, unlined, Japanese p

via Instagram Written using Vintage Parker Duofold (ca. 1930s) in Sheaffer turquoise ink—among my life’s miscellaneous joys. I found in vintage pens a marriage of my fascination for fountain pens and history. During the Christmas break, I discovered eBay, the online marketplace, repository of all things old and new. It has been recommended by Dr. Butch Dalisay , whose fountain pen collection is a continual source of admiration. I tried my hands at the auctions—a relatively harmless pursuit, I supposed, something I considered similar to haggling, only with a computer and sans the chatter. It took me a while to learn the ropes. I lost many times. There was joy in that, too, because the process left me with the possibility that I could win—what if nobody else cared for that 1930 Parker Duofold or that rotting model of a Vacumatic? What if I could get the pens at a low price? Part of the thrill was the existence of these what-ifs. Another was the possibility of holding in my hand,

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A jeepney parked along Timog Avenue, Quezon City makes you wonder if the driver, or his daughter, conceptualized the design. Either way, it's hard to ignore how cute it is.

A great blessing in my Christian walk is the weekly fellowship I have with brothers from Pilgrim Cell. This quote from Stephen Charnock's The Doctrine of Regeneration , a massive piece of theological treatise and exposition (I'm only halfway through!), resonates with the fact that Christians who walk on this earth are on a pilgrimage. Use the world as travellers an inn, to lodge, not to dwell in, to accommodate you in your journey to that Father of whom you were born. Let a heaven-born nature be attended with heavenly flights, longing for that happy state wherein nothing but the divine nature shall be seen in union, as nothing but fire is seen in melted gold. Taiwan, December 2017

Tricycles along Alunan Avenue, Koronadal City that's in a perpetually festive mood. My mother snapped this photo. (I wrote about this little project I started with Nanay , in the hopes of getting her out of the house, once in a while.)

Scribbled using a J. Herbin Verte Ink with TWSBI Diamond 580 1.1 mm stub nib. Too bad the hospital doesn't allow other colors in the chart except blue and black.

I've asked my mother, who refuses to engage in social media and warns me not to post indiscriminately about her, to take random photos every day. I installed a Flickr app on her phone and iPad, and configured them to automatically upload all photos taken when she is connected to the internet. She has retired from her private practice but occasionally sees old patients for some minor dental work. Otherwise, she refers her patients to Sean and spends time indoors, with her huge flat screen TV perpetually connected to Netflix. Our conversation revolves on the series she has watched; she calls them "season-season," having learned that some items there require more than one week to finish. She sometimes prefers watching films and has sampled all sorts of them, with languages as varied as the French, Spanish, Turkish (her favorite), and now, she tells me, Korean. She also does a lot of gardening, which involves her telling Auntie Nanic, her cousin who lives with her, to transf

via Instagram This is a nurse texting me that I have ice candy—that quintessential Filipino childhood dessert, to which no Italian gellato or American ice cream can compare!

When midnight struck, I had a meal with my brothers, walked out to St. Paul Street to find some neighbors watching the fireworks, and returned to the bedroom with my Kindle at hand. The book was Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards , edited by H. Norman Gardiner. It was printed in 1904 by the MacMillan Company, but I downloaded mine from Project Gutenberg. A theologian in New England and considered as America's foremost intellectual and spiritual thinker (a shame that we don't year a lot about him as often), he considered himself primarily a preacher. In the book's foreword is a description of his work. Even in his most terrific sermons he never appeals to mere hope and fear, nor to mere authority; in them, as in his theological treatises, he is bent on demonstrating, within the limits prescribed by the underlying assumptions, the reasonableness of his doctrine, its agreement with the facts of life and the constitution of things, as well as with the inspired teaching