A Call for A Resuscitation of an Old Love

Ever since I learned to write in Baybayin, the one’s our ancestors freely used before the Caucasian conquerors arrived, I’ve begun to love it and therefor think about it with a bit more care and attached to that connotative idea of care is the whole other concept of reinstituting it as a national form of writing.

I mean, our use of the Roman letters is not really bad and unpatriotic, it’s what we have inherited from our very good and benevolent Iberian colonizers. Our use of the Roman alphabet made communicating in our sentiments, emotions, feelings and general political unrest to the whole world a lot easier during those terrific times of the late 18^th and 19^th century. What could’ve the great Gat Jose Rizal used if not these very letters I am inscribing now on this digital paper, with the only difference being the numerous diatrical marks spread across the various accents the Spanish language and indeed even German needs and exhibits (Rizal was just marvelous in German, based on his letters with Herr Blumentritt). Yet let us look on the examples of our Asian neighbors. Yes, indeed, the Philippines is very much part of this great continent we call Asia. But I see the Philippines as a rather over extended extension of Latin America. To be frank, we are indeed the Latinos of Asia, the primary reason being of the common culture we share with our Latin American brethren on the other side of the Pacific, a culture gushing forth from the blessings our Iberian colonizers imparted to the both of us.

            Well not to digress any longer, what I am fighting for is a restoration even of just teaching the beautiful Lumang Baybayin to the youth of today. Frankly, I want it to be included in the curriculum itself. It says something about heritage, something that we Filipinos could be proud of, that we were indeed civilized peoples even before the white man came to our blessed shores. Baybayin is a long standing proof of this thriving culture.

            Yet, we do have to consider the interest of the nation on Baybayin. Perhaps many just see it as a reminder of our past, a past that is fleeting to recall yet has no real importance for today. What is the aim of bringing back from the dead this ancient style of writing? Personally, it’s a matter of pride, it’s a matter of nationalistic ideals and patriotic aspirations. Having this as another expression of our culture strengthens it further more. Our writing tells something about us, as a nation, as a people. It’s good to have something distinctly our own and not something borrowed and later utilized for a conforming benefit. I only want to see a Philippine nation proud of what is and the identity it possesses.

            Let us resuscitate back to life this old Love of a people constantly searching for its true and authentic identity.

God in Nature

Perhaps Nature is the most evident proof of God’s transcendent existence. I mean, every intricate detail you find in Nature’s vastness is not just a result of an accident, of careful evolution, of millions of years of uneventful seismic or even interstellar events. All of creation was intelligently designed according to the perfect will of God, according to His wisdom. This theist argument of God’s existence, of His reality through the lens of Nature’s complexity may not convince all skeptics. But there is one time I need not all the arguments of the world concerning God’s existence. I had before me my own proof, my own personal encounter with the intelligent being, the source of creation, the source of everything that is, the very essence of Being, the one we call God.

We had a retreat a few weeks back in the heights of Batangas. It was my first silent retreat and to be honest I was pretty excited just to have time for myself. I never was concerned of being deprived of conversations for I considered myself a true introvert. Give me a notebook to write on or a book to read and I’ll be fine. I didn’t sought out for human company for this retreat because I needed this retreat to be a time solely for me and God, a time I’ve been honestly in lack of.

The experience was fruitful to say the least. I had time to admire the beautiful caricature of God’s handiwork right in front of me. The jagged lines of the mountain laying majestically on the landscape of Batangas, proud and tall in its splendor and glory, was breathtaking sight. Imagine its slopes with multiple “peaks”, making it seem an image of a handwritten signature. I saw it as God’s own signature on this beautiful canvas riddled with running hills and the unending horizon. Such beauty can never be matched by any of man’s own creations.

            Another “exhibition” of God’s art work I came to behold when darkness covered the sky, and when the stars were scattered throughout this wide scope of limitless blackness and oblivion. The different exploding suns of the universe shone brightly that night, compensating the absence of the celestial moon. The only other time I had the opportunity to gaze at such plain exquisiteness was when I was in Mindoro. Due to the lack of lights glittering the land, the stars shone as bright as they can. It’s as if they’re reclaiming their rightful places in the heavens and at the same time regaining their lofty pedestals in people’s minds as celestial bodies worthy of awe and amazement. Now within the darkness shown numerous points of light, truly as many as the descendants of Abraham.

            These two wondrous instances in that retreat made me contemplate on this great Truth, that all of my eyes had seen were made by this intelligent being, designed by this God into their own perfect characteristics. They served as sings and symbols of God’s reality, of God’s utmost truth, of God’s transcendent, eminent existence. Everything surrounding me is also a reminder of God’s eternal beauty. That every form of beauty creation manifests pertains and points, returns and receives its beauty to the perfect beauty of this firmament of existence, God Himself.

            I further confirmed to myself this very fundamental truth when I glared on this plant sprouting from upon this delightful garden. I then remembered those days studying Botany and in that rigorous examination of plants I found God. I found Him in the minute details of the cells so meticulously arranged together that you would just ask yourself how all of this came to be from an “accident” and not from the wisdom of such a being, or of Being Himself.

            God indeed is present in everything and He is truly there within the tree, within its leaves, within the mountain and its riches deep beneath it, within the sky and the glorious sun raining its radiant light upon the earth, within the wind gently kissing your cheek as the breeze whiffs your hair to each and every direction. God is in Nature, you need not look far to find Him there. 

Finding God in Music

Have you ever listened to music in a different way than just plain listening to it? You know that fleeting feeling when you dig yourself in to the harmonies and melody of the notes and staffs, of the measures and chords; when you begin to disregard the lyrics of the song and listen to the soft caress of the acoustic guitar and the gentle touch of the piano; when you listen to the unified sound of an orchestra, the blending of beautiful choral voices. Haven’t you asked yourself how all of this beautiful tones come to form a single beautiful sound so pleasing to the ear that you can just close your eyes and let the music rapture your very being? I experienced that when I sang with my former choral group. I performed with an all-male group, myself being a Tenor. I miss reaching those extremely high notes and my conductor demanding me not to shift to my falsetto for the sole reason that it will ruin the blending of the other 3 voices. But how beautiful, how wonderful, how marvelous it is when we reach the epitome of the musical piece we were rendering.

I found sacred pieces the most beautiful of choral works whilst ethnic ones, wherein we as a choir had the specialty in, came in as a close second. My affiliation with choral music led me to delve into the classical realm of music. In the same time that I was introduced to the likes of Franz, and Filipino composers such as John Pamintuan, Fidel Calalang Jr., Anna Piquero and Eudenice Palaruan, I also came to know the beauty of the work born into the world from the minds of familiar names as Beethoven and Mozart. It was either I was listening to world-class choirs or I was being brought back to the past with the time machine of an orchestra, slowly, surely, bringing me to the royal courts of Vienna and Paris. Such was my amazement and awe with Classical Music, and how did I adore so much this beautiful form of art, without which our world would degrade into a much more bland and gloomy existence. I thought that this is the highest degree I would come to praise and magnify music, but still there was much more than just relaxing in your chair, closing your eyes and listening intently and attentively to each movement and transition of the notes. I found God in between those measures, I found God in between C Major and E minor, I found God in each stroke of the bow on the violin, and I found God in the resonance of the soprano timbre making itself one with the excellence of the tenor. Basically I found God in the most obvious place to find Him, in Music.

I first had this realization when I had the opportunity to perform Handel’s Hallelujah with the complete set of voices, female members of another choir present. It was a new experience for me, my ear being all too familiar with the male voice that it failed to recognize how much the female voice completes the entire soul of choral music. When we rehearsed together for the first time, it was as if I was lifted by angels, by the great seraphim even, to the closest possible presence of God. The unity of each note with its fellow musical notation was just heavenly. I understood right then and there how beautiful the music Handel composed is. I imagined that day when Handel finished his Hallelujah that the angels themselves sang in the heavens praising God for such an achievement. I tell you, it’s very much different when you perform the actual piece itself tan just listening to it. It feels that you are doing a world a great deal of help a more aesthetically pleasing existence in performing such awesome splendor, such majestic grandeur. How blessed did I feel that day.

Music has become the means of man to self-expression, much like the other forms of art are. But music is special in the way it connects to the deepest fibers of the human heart. When a loving song, a song for a particular beloved reaches our ears, it immediately strums the strings of the heart longing for its one and true love. Music also evokes tears, grief and pain, man’s effort to discard this emotion and at times a way for him to even wallow in that pain. Music has become part of the human person, of the human psyche, of the human being. It is much as part of us as the heart is. Imagine a world without music. Perhaps we might’ve just lost a part of our soul if that happens. Much like love, music makes the world go round. Music has become an imprint of cultures and identities. But ultimately, all good music points to the very beauty it emanates from, the perfect and highest degree of God.

Discovering God in Music becomes a way for us to discover ourselves also. We find our identity in the kind of music we listen to. I am in love with classical music and even with a little bit of pop and that is enough to say a certain degree of yourself, of who you are as a person. My love for classical music perhaps pertains to my rather reserved and reflective personality. I prefer calm and peaceful music to rather loud ones. Music points to our identity also. And in a way points to how we relate and familiarize ourselves with God, to how we know Him personally.

Music has become integral to the human attainment of peace and satisfaction. It accompanies man in his aspiration for greater beauty, that indeed such beauty exists and is very tangible, very much within his reach. That beauty so old and so new does exist and is very much alive, present in everything the eyes can see, the ear can hear, the tongue can taste, the skin can feel, the heart can grasp. That beauty is God. He is the total feeling of elation felt in the wonderful bliss of the concert hall, the complete sense of fulfillment among the different voices singing one song, the ultimate joy present in within the church walls as the faithful sing in resounding praise the glory of God in the highest heaven. God is everywhere. God is especially present in Music. Try and find Him, He won’t leave music’s thresholds but in fact will continue to transcend it until all of us are gathered to sing of the eternal praise of His name, His majesty, His glory, there together with Him in heaven.