Dear Hotaru - August 18, 2004

August 18, 2004

Dear Hotaru,

I have forgotten how to write. For some reason, my muses have left me, and it is not for a lack of stories that I have not written you for a long time… just a lack of putting things into words.
It has not been raining as I have expected. Although sometimes an inconvenience, I would still have welcomed the frequent rain, if not for the flooding it would cause on the places I am now working at. I have started work, by the way. Actually, since five months ago. I’m working with fisher folks in this boiling hot of a place called La Union. It is nice to be near the sea again as when I was in Masbate. But the sea here is not as near as I wish it would be. I stay most of the time in a house cum office near a terribly noisy highway… so it is not the waves of the sea that I hear most of the hours that I am awake or asleep. And you have always known my abhorrence of tricyles. Terrible invention, I really think it is. For all the noise and bad air it contributes. As to the income it gives thousands, no, probably millions of men here in the Philippines, I have to concede. But if I ever get to be President of this already desperate country of ours, I would definitely think of a way to get these drivers some other job. You nudge me to check my attitude, but I assure you, I am not whining. Just stating facts, he he. It really is boiling hot where I am, and the highway really is noisy, and tricyles really do contribute noise and bad air. I am also a lot darker than my usual color, and people have been telling me how emaciated I look. I have cut my hair as a symbolic gesture of letting go of the hang – ups I had from the last place I had been and as a welcoming, sort of, of this supposed new chapter of my life. It has been growing much faster than I thought.
What have we been learning lately? Blame it on the muses, much of my profundities have gone somewhere other than letters that should have been written to you. I did try to send some, in 160 characters, taking advantage of the technology now available to us. I do not think you received much. I think I kept much of them to myself, not that I sent myself my own SMS. There are such things as messages unsent. Messages kept. As there are messages sent, messages misunderstood, or messages ignored. Wonderful, really, how this world has come up with these things that mock distance, time, and energy. I guess, for some people, writing a letter by hand would be more for the drama than the need. Archaic as it may seem, the hand written letter is still one of the most expressive mediums of the heart. But I should get out of this dreamy like thing of talking about letters…
I have not been to places quite lately. The longest ride I’ve had recently was six hours and it was to a place familiar. But there is one place, you probably might not have heard of, and I just came from there. Moriah. It was where this old guy from the Bible called Abraham was about to bring his son so he could roast the boy. In obedience to God. I will not tell you the details of how or why I had to go to Moriah, but I will tell you how it feels. It hurts. It’s the most crushing, most agonizing feeling you could have. Like the death of a loved one. The death of an only son. Being always errant, I can never fully understand total obedience and submission, especially when you’re never really sure the things you hear inside your head is the voice of God or those little deceptive imaginary creatures you call your demons. But God does speak. And He said lay your heart’s desire down; bring the precious of your soul to the altar. Stop. Let go. Wait.
Stop. Let go. Wait. For you, these commands may seem trivial, but it is torture. And there is no other source of comfort but the knowledge that God desires the best. A perfect assurance and satisfaction in His love. What is then torture and agony will become steps of faith. A greater expectation of things to come. And release.
My humanness will require me frequent trips to Moriah. Maybe you’ve been there. You just might not have recognized the place. It’s a place of struggle and testing. It’s a place of doubt and questions. It’s a place of letting go. It’s a place of obedience to Divine mandates, or integrity to convictions, at a price. It’s a place of death, death to self. It’s a place of total surrender. These are things I have to learn, over and over again.
I pray you are well. God bless you.

Always,
Kulibangbang

Therefore, I urge you brothers in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing God - this is your spriritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will. - Romans 12: 1-2

The Lord redeems the soul of His servants; and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.
– Psalm 34:22