Tatay's 7th death anniversary
And here we are, looking more and more like him each day, and becoming, in a sense, like him.
And here we are, looking more and more like him each day, and becoming, in a sense, like him.
And here we are, looking more and more like him each day, and becoming, in a sense, like him.
My song is love unknown
I love hymns.
I love visiting churches with hymnals. I remember the hymnals as sweet-smelling maroon hardbacks aged by by overuse, with some pages detached and the spines torn. My grandmother’s Alliance church in Polomolok had those. During singing, the pastor would announce the song number; the congregation would flip the hymnal; the pianist would play the first two lines; then everyone sang.
It's not a stretch to claim that such formal liturgies have largely gone out of flavor. I’ve heard of churches that split up because half of the congregation did not approve of drums.
Many churches choose a more contemporary style of congregational singing, which is not wrong in itself. But I have a problem with shallow songs, with extremely repetitive lyrics, and hardly any reference to Scripture. Alistair Begg wrote about this phenomenon:
I consider myself blessed to grow up with hymns—not exclusively, though. The local churches I’ve joined played a mix of contemporary Christian songs and classic hymns, both beautifully played.
The songs in church—whether they're classic and modern hymns or contemporary songs by, say Don Moen or City Alight—connect me to God. They lift my spirit and calm my soul. They nourish my mind and bring joy to my heart.
Since last year I've been taking piano lessons, precisely because I want to play hymns. I have no ambition of doing a Rachmaninoff concert, but I should at least develop enough skill to play songs in the hymnal. My piano teacher Ma’am Deb told me I could get a hymnal in the local Christian bookstore but the stocks were empty that I had to order through Amazon. Hymns of the Christian life, albeit a secondhand copy, is one of my favorite books.
I’m on hiatus, piano-wise. My Monday lessons have to take the backseat for now. Ma’am Deb seems busy, too. But as soon as we resume, I’d love to learn My Song Is Love Unknown (1664), a hymn by Samuel Crossman. I first heard it sung when I streamed Redeemer Downtown’s Maundy Thursday service in Youtube (the song starts at 25:29 time mark).
I love visiting churches with hymnals. I remember the hymnals as sweet-smelling maroon hardbacks aged by by overuse, with some pages detached and the spines torn. My grandmother’s Alliance church in Polomolok had those. During singing, the pastor would announce the song number; the congregation would flip the hymnal; the pianist would play the first two lines; then everyone sang.
It's not a stretch to claim that such formal liturgies have largely gone out of flavor. I’ve heard of churches that split up because half of the congregation did not approve of drums.
Many churches choose a more contemporary style of congregational singing, which is not wrong in itself. But I have a problem with shallow songs, with extremely repetitive lyrics, and hardly any reference to Scripture. Alistair Begg wrote about this phenomenon:
H]ear our loss of focus on the gospel in our songs. This is no comment on musical styles and tastes, but simply an observation about the lyrical content of much that is being sung in churches today. In many cases, congregations unwittingly have begun to sing about themselves and how they are feeling rather than about God and His glory.Songs are vital in the believer’s life. My hero, John Calvin, wrote:
Now among the other things which are proper for recreating man and giving him pleasure, music is either the first, or one of the principal; and it is necessary for us to think that it is a gift of God deputed for that use. Moreover, because of this, we ought to be the more careful not to abuse it, for fear of soiling and contaminating it, converting [it to] our condemnation, where it was dedicated to our profit and use. If there were no other consideration than this alone, it ought indeed to move us to moderate the use of music, to make it serve all honest things; and that it should not give occasion for our giving free rein to dissolution, or making ourselves effeminate in disordered delights, and that it should not become the instrument of lasciviousness nor of any shamelessness…
And in fact, we find by experience that it has a sacred and almost incredible power to move hearts in one way or another….
What is there now to do? It is to have songs not only honest, but also holy, which will be like spurs to incite us to pray to and praise God, and to meditate upon his works in order to love, fear, honor and glorify him.
As for the rest, it is necessary to remember that which St. Paul hath said, the spiritual songs cannot be well sung save from the heart.…For a linnet, a nightingale, a parrot may sing well; but it will be without understanding. But the unique gift of man is to sing knowing that which he sings. After the intelligence must follow the heart and the affection, a thing which is unable to be except if we have the hymn imprinted on our memory, in order never to cease from singing. For these reasons this present book, even for this cause, besides the rest which has been said, ought to be singular recommendation to each one who desires to enjoy himself honestly and according to God…
I consider myself blessed to grow up with hymns—not exclusively, though. The local churches I’ve joined played a mix of contemporary Christian songs and classic hymns, both beautifully played.
The songs in church—whether they're classic and modern hymns or contemporary songs by, say Don Moen or City Alight—connect me to God. They lift my spirit and calm my soul. They nourish my mind and bring joy to my heart.
Since last year I've been taking piano lessons, precisely because I want to play hymns. I have no ambition of doing a Rachmaninoff concert, but I should at least develop enough skill to play songs in the hymnal. My piano teacher Ma’am Deb told me I could get a hymnal in the local Christian bookstore but the stocks were empty that I had to order through Amazon. Hymns of the Christian life, albeit a secondhand copy, is one of my favorite books.
I’m on hiatus, piano-wise. My Monday lessons have to take the backseat for now. Ma’am Deb seems busy, too. But as soon as we resume, I’d love to learn My Song Is Love Unknown (1664), a hymn by Samuel Crossman. I first heard it sung when I streamed Redeemer Downtown’s Maundy Thursday service in Youtube (the song starts at 25:29 time mark).
My song is love unknown,
my Saviour’s love to me;
love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I,
that for my sake
my Lord should take
frail flesh and die?
He came from his blest throne
salvation to bestow;
but men made strange, and none
the longed-for Christ would know.
But O, my Friend,
my Friend indeed,
who at my need
his life did spend!
Sometimes they strew His way,
and His sweet praises sing;
resounding all the day
hosannas to their King.
Then 'Crucify!'
is all their breath,
and for His death
they thirst and cry.
Why, what hath my Lord done?
What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to run,
he gave the blind their sight.
Sweet injuries!
yet they at these
themselves displease,
and 'gainst him rise.
They rise, and needs will have
my dear Lord made away;
a murderer they save,
the Prince of Life they slay.
Yet cheerful He
to suffering goes,
that He His foes
from thence might free.
In life no house, no home
my Lord on earth might have;
in death no friendly tomb
but what a stranger gave.
What may I say?
Heav'n was his home;
but mine the tomb
wherein he lay.
Here might I stay and sing:
no story so divine;
never was love, dear King,
never was grief like Thine!
This is my Friend,
in Whose sweet praise
I all my days
could gladly spend.
Life happened
I know. I don’t post here as often as I should. When I do, I hardly write anything at all. I post fillers: random photos of my daily grind; quotations from books and articles I like to commit to memory; summaries of my meditations; epiphanies and random links to miscellaneous items I hope to return to but don’t. When I scroll through my blog history, I’m surprised that I’d posted about a film I would have otherwise forgotten if I hadn’t written about it in the recent past.
In the early days of this blog I wrote many entries each month. There were years when I’d post something daily. It was fun. Updating blogger.com was enmeshed in my routine as toothbrushing; my day wouldn’t be complete without it. And then I gradually skipped it. The short of it is: life happened. And the internet became a dangerous place. I became more mature and private, relishing the absence of web footprint, while the world—including my circle of family, friends, and acquaintances—was only discovering the joys of sharing their lives. I joined the counterflow to the prevailing emergence of social media, which initially showed people around my private space in the web. Later, Facebook would essentially render my blog dead. I’m not around Facebook myself. My account is deactivated, except for the moments when I feel the need to poke around the Palengke to buy a cheap bottle of fountain pen ink.
But I still love my blog. That does not preclude my intermittent questioning about its existence. I’m surprised that some people still ask about if I’m still at it—blogging—a tell-tale sign that they haven’t visited in a long time. I don’t mind. I should at least post something substantial—meaning, an article longer than two paragraphs and a photo—once a month. I realize that this act of writing builds muscle. On ordinary days I write scientific articles, edit my students’ and residents’ research proposals, but I should write about other things, using my other writing muscle.
I also still like blogs and read them. I visit Dooce.com, many months after Heather Armstrong’s death. I learned about her death while I was on my way to the airport. It affected me, having known her and her family. By “known” means “having followed, tagged along, read about her life”—but that was, and is, the closest thing one can get to understanding a life shared online. I do log on to The Old Reader, my free RSS reader, which points me to, among other blogs, Paradox Uganda, about a doctor-couple in African who have chosen to share Jesus to part of the world. Their posts lead me to prayer. I manually type in LaVie Graphite in Safari; I appreciate the writer’s meditations, plus the fact that he uses pencils, typewriters, and notebooks. I visit Kottke.org; Jason points me to interesting parts of the web. His curated interests are far better than AI-generated algorithms. I visit The Homebound Symphony because Alan Jacobs reminds me what blogs can be; I also get teaching tips from him. I visit JosephPascual’s Livejournal; it has’t been updated in a long time. Life, for him, probably also happened, but his photographs remain beautiful and timeless, even if they feature people who smoke and look weary of this world. As a doctor, I’m obligated to tell you that smoking is dangerous to your health.
I’m blogging about blogging because I recently just renewed my dot-com domain name. My older brother Manong Ralph gave it to me as a gift many years ago. He just turned 40 yesterday; I’m 38; Sean, my other brother is 35. Bottled Brain is 24.
But we don’t feel old at all.
On boredom
Craig Mod, who writes one of my favorite blogs:
I walk for weeks at a time. The longest walk I’ve done was about forty days. Do this day after day—the intense mileage, the intense wordage, the looking, the talking, the boredom-bathing, the wringing texture and life from a day—and you are changed. It’s impossible not to be. The whole thing, an ascetic practice. I even shave my head like some performative mendicant, one who lives off stories as alms. I’ve been doing walks like this for six years now, and they’ve made me more patient, kinder, more optimistic about the world, people, more amazed than ever at how many goofy-ass animals (monkeys jumping off bridges, tiny bears running like little pigs, mountain crabs that have no right to exist up on a lookout) are out there in the woods.
I placed an order for his new book, Things Become Other Things: A Walking Memoir.
Tree-lined roads and komorebi — and the sadnesses of road-widening in South Cotabato
The sight of trees killed, maimed, and cut down depresses me. That's what I pretty much see along highways in South Cotabato these days. The powers-that-be widen the roads but kill the giant narra, mahogany, and acacia trees that have done nothing else but provide beauty and shade.
When I'm elsewhere, I capture the beauty of trees, as in this quiet street in Fukuoka. The trees create a komorebi (木漏れ日), a "Japanese word for the play of sunlight and shadow created when sunlight filters through the leaves of trees. It describes the dappled light and shadow patterns on the ground beneath a forest canopy. Komorebi also carries a sense of serenity, tranquility, and appreciation for the fleeting beauty of nature, reflecting a deeper connection with the natural world."
When I'm elsewhere, I capture the beauty of trees, as in this quiet street in Fukuoka. The trees create a komorebi (木漏れ日), a "Japanese word for the play of sunlight and shadow created when sunlight filters through the leaves of trees. It describes the dappled light and shadow patterns on the ground beneath a forest canopy. Komorebi also carries a sense of serenity, tranquility, and appreciation for the fleeting beauty of nature, reflecting a deeper connection with the natural world."
Laugh-and-cry ending — and an absolutely spectacular book
David Mitchell's Utopia Avenue is brilliant! The ending will break your heart and make you laugh. I don't know how David—feeling close!—does it.
