5 Songs for the Spirit
The biggest thing to happen to me in 2011 was the decision to take The Walk. I consider myself a progressive Christian: a lot of my views are deemed non-conventional, evidenced by my support for Mideo Cruz’s “Poleteismo”.
I believed in Christ, it was difficult to reconcile what I felt was right in conscience to what was being preached in churches I’ve attended over the years.
Then I found Church Simplified. Click the link and see for yourselves what it’s about. Maybe I’ll see you on Sunday?
The songs below are just some of the highlights of my journey through Christ thus far. For me, faith is a very personal journey, but wherever you are in your life – may these songs seek to uplift and inspire you.
After the Cut:
1) Gungor’s – “Beautiful Things”
You make beautiful things out of dust, You make beautiful things out of us
2) Sara Groves – “Painting Pictures of Egypt”
The place I was wasn’t perfect, but I had found a way to live,
It wasn’t milk or honey, but then neither is this
3) Jars of Clay – “Shelter”
May this place of rest in the fold of your journey, Bind you to hope
You will never walk alone
4) Steven Curtis Chapman – “Remembering You”
And I watch as the cold winter melts into spring, And I’ll be remembering You
and I’ll be remembering You, I’ll be remembering You
5) Jay Enrile – “Thank You”
Thank you for emptiness, thank you for rage
Thanks for confusion and the labyrinth it’s made
Thanks for denial, thank you for lust
Thanks for rejection and all the hurts from those I trust
Thank you that I haven’t heard the sweetest sound
Cause I know that’s the only way my knees will scrape the ground
miiEtiquette: Play Nice, It’s Not Your Party
To my dear guests,
You are cordially invited to my totally awesome Christmas party. I promise you it will be epic: fire dancers, Cirque du Soleil, Michael Jackson rising out of the grave, with a 5-star Michelin buffet. The party I have in mind will be the stuff of rap videos. And I want all of you, people I consider my friends, to be there. We will have fun, sober or not.
I only have one condition: leave your baggage at the door.
I don’t mean your bags. I also mean the baggage you have inside you. Because my guest list includes your ex something, or the person you find annoying, maybe even your distant cousin from your Dad’s third family or something. They are not on my list to spite you. They are on my list because I find them fun. Look, there’s room enough for warring parties to do their high school thing and form cliques. Heck, just for that night, fake being nice. Ignore them even. But don’t ruin it for the rest of us by dragging your dislike and hatred through my front door.
I am your host. I am there to make sure you have fun. You are a guest at my party and it is your responsibility to have fun and stay clear of those who ruin it for you. Or hey, there’s the door.
I’ll be blunt: it’s not my problem if you had a one-night stand with so-and-so who happens to be there. It is not my problem if you don’t like whoever for whatever reason. So don’t make it my problem by picking a fight and putting out my fire dancers while toppling over my 5-star buffet. That’s when I get pissed. And I don’t want to be pissed on Christmas.
Remember the wise words of Marshall from How I met your mother, “It’s only awkward if you make it.”
So don’t make it awkward. Make it fun. Or you’re going to miss one hell of a party.
Sincerely,
Mii
miiEtiquette: Play Nice, It's Not Your Party
To my dear guests,
You are cordially invited to my totally awesome Christmas party. I promise you it will be epic: fire dancers, Cirque du Soleil, Michael Jackson rising out of the grave, with a 5-star Michelin buffet. The party I have in mind will be the stuff of rap videos. And I want all of you, people I consider my friends, to be there. We will have fun, sober or not.
I only have one condition: leave your baggage at the door.
I don’t mean your bags. I also mean the baggage you have inside you. Because my guest list includes your ex something, or the person you find annoying, maybe even your distant cousin from your Dad’s third family or something. They are not on my list to spite you. They are on my list because I find them fun. Look, there’s room enough for warring parties to do their high school thing and form cliques. Heck, just for that night, fake being nice. Ignore them even. But don’t ruin it for the rest of us by dragging your dislike and hatred through my front door.
I am your host. I am there to make sure you have fun. You are a guest at my party and it is your responsibility to have fun and stay clear of those who ruin it for you. Or hey, there’s the door.
I’ll be blunt: it’s not my problem if you had a one-night stand with so-and-so who happens to be there. It is not my problem if you don’t like whoever for whatever reason. So don’t make it my problem by picking a fight and putting out my fire dancers while toppling over my 5-star buffet. That’s when I get pissed. And I don’t want to be pissed on Christmas.
Remember the wise words of Marshall from How I met your mother, “It’s only awkward if you make it.”
So don’t make it awkward. Make it fun. Or you’re going to miss one hell of a party.
Sincerely,
Mii
Maybe this time
GMA News: PAGASA: Weather clear for November 9 asteroid ‘sighting’.
It seems silly to take the word of a hit-or-miss weather bureau and a daily known for dipping into tabloid fodder. Yet as I while away in an office the end of the world seems all the more likely. Why not now, after all? We’ve survived plagues, technological breakdown, forces of nature…what’s one asteroid to end it all?
What would you do? A friend asked. Simple, I replied. I’d stop cramming. I’d finally write the poems I’ve been meaning to write, that treatment I’ve meant to finish, exorcise those scenes that have lived in my head since I was 12. I’d put them in a little tin box: the kind that seems to survive meltdowns. Whatever lives after the fall will be sure to find it.
Then I’d wander. Wonder what Manila would look like through graduation goggles? Traffic must seem so wonderful. It’s like a time paradox: funny how life goes on while you’re stuck in place. Trash would be so nice, evidence of a time it was relevant, when it smelled nice, when it was of use.
If I had the cash, hopping around Asia as a grand finale also sounds sublime. I’d be Lara Croft rolling through the ruins of Angkor, chasing after my own shadow. I’d be in search of the perfect pad thai and thai coffee.
Maybe I’d end it all at the topmost level of Borobodur in that deceptive quiet, napping against a stupa.
But no, home would be the best place to wait for The End. Exhausted after all that traveling, all that writing, with the blasted pets stepping all over me as I collapse into bed. Just a little extra to the ordinary.
Where will you be when the asteroid hits?
Art as Conversation
My approach to art is to see if it works as a whole. I wasn’t wowed by Mideo Cruz’s “Poleteismo”, but I get it. If the only thing we see is a condom and a dildo over pictures of Jesus and Mary, then the criticism fails.
I overheard a colleague criticize Mideo Cruz’s work as being too controversial, because, “If this were a Middle Eastern country he’d be dead.” Yes, but then the rest of the world goes on to call them barbaric.
“Poleteismo” was shocking, but I wouldn’t say controversial because it is a slice of the real world. I thought what made it more disturbing for other people was the placement of pop culture posters right next to religious imagery. For those who thought it tasteless, I say they haven’t been inside a typical poorhouse where it’s not weird to see FHM posters are put up next to the Last Supper. It’s not about being sacrilegious to them. It’s just decor, it’s their aesthetic. Agree or disagree with it, it’s their concept of “maganda”.
As the debate on reproductive health rages on in the country: Do we also continue to deny that religion, Catholicism in particular, continues to meddle with what should be state issue of reproductive health? Review your facts. The symbolism of “Poleteismo” isn’t even that much of a stretch.
In the time I’ve spent with the arts, I have not seen any government or church body support or uphold a standard for art and aesthetic. I have seen a lot more toned down, even outright banned.
This is what agitates me most about the Mideo Cruz fiasco: why are we so concerned about what shouldn’t be seen, when we haven’t set the foundations for good, local art?
Recommended viewing: “Hamlet 2” by Andrew Fleming.
“It was stupid!” “Yes it was stupid, but it was also theater.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giBWNkRta5o]