Remember the snake in the Garden? Well as it turns out when he gave you the fruit of knowledge, that plump, juicy red fruit, he also promised to tell you what real love is. And is it no wonder then, that ever since man took a bite, and as he swallowed the flesh and rind, he swallowed the snake as well? And it slithered inside, inside, until it curled and twined in the heart, and it laid its eggs that hatched in time. And so when they say the heart is deceitful above all things, oh if you could only see it with your own eyes! Because it is a hundred snakes of deceit, entangled and coiled slippery with each other as your heart beats, beats. And that is why when you say you love her it is a single snake wriggling out of your chest, but before it even comes halfway it is swallowed by another, and swallowed by another, and swallowed by another. And soon your heart is spilling over, with slimy half-loves snaking their way into crevices, and into holes in the earth, and up other women’s skirts. And you cry, ah, my loves! And even as victims shriek in terror, and as your poisonous snakes leap and bite their venom, or as the bigger snakes crush and constrict innocent hearts, you insist yes, yes, this is love indeed.

Never satisfied, always hungry, and so your love rings:
The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life…
The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life…
The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life…

This is the generation of Jannes and Jambres, who make wooden snakes come to life, weaving their Egyptian magicks, and dreaming the powerfully erotic. And what will it take then, to be saved from the viper’s tangle, and to be saved from the snake pit? Something like Moses crafting a bronze serpent and lifting it high, high on a banner, just like the Son of Man must be lifted up… but do you really believe that those who are bitten will be healed? Because in this world you think you know how to love but why does it always want more than it really wants? And why does it make you stagger and crumple on your knees? And why does it hurt you more than you know it will please? Like a clear and bitter poison coursing through your veins, coursing through the world, underneath bright, glittering things and everything that you think will make you happy. If you would only lift up your eyes.

Remember the angel with the flaming sword? Well God said, “Since Paradise is no longer, and there’s really nothing left to guard, why don’t you lend your sword to this man?” And so in the middle of the night, while the man tossed and turned in his bed, plagued by the hissing of desire, the angel came and lent his great sword. And the man asked, with both hands trembling, “Tell me sir, what is this?” The angel said, “Well what else could it be? If not the Love of the Lord?” And the sword glowed pure and hot, and it shone with everything that earthly love is not, a sheen bright and beautiful to behold. The angel said, “So what are you waiting for, won’t you try it out?” And as a tiny, coral snake approached, the man let his sword drop and chopped off its head. And as it writhed and died he felt the greatest burden lift from the bottom of his chest. It was the feeling of something like… something like… contentment! And he shouted for joy and started swinging the flaming sword all over the place, like an angry warrior, killing snakes left and right, left and right, hunting them down the very corners of his heart.

When it was all over, and the corpses were spread under the sun, the man scratched his head and turned to the angel and asked, “What now?”

The angel answered, “What do you think? If you promise to take care of it you can keep it, because there is no other way to love except with a flaming sword, so that now when you say you love her you promise that you will be steadfast in steel, and by her side you will stay even as the flesh withers and the beauty of youth yields, fifty years to forever. And even in the darkest moments of life, even when it feels there is no longer love yet your sword will keep its glow, just waiting to burst in flames, never dying. Ah, but most importantly my friend, I give you my job, because it will do well to guard the entrance of your heart, which will be her heart, which will be the heart of a sacred place. And when you make sure that no serpent enters again, and if you are always vigilant, holding your blade in hand, ready to defend til your last breath, then you guard the gates of paradise.”

One of my first bands of three or four years ago decided to come together again for a short stint at the UP Fair. We rehearsed yesterday and today, trying to remember the chords, riffs, drum beats of old heavy metal compositions. I guess the experience brings back a lot of memories. I remember our auditions for the very first concert we played in. How we felt really excited and triumphant when we got accepted, and yes, how we felt (secretly, of course) that we were the next big thing. Haha. Oh, I remember too, how playing in that same concert as the opening act, our drummer screwed up at the very last chorus of our very last song, and the guitars were out of sync with the vocals which were out of sync with the drums which were out of sync with the bass, and it was just a complete, horrifying mess! It was a very traumatic experience for all of us, but it’s a funny thing though when you think that no one else in the whole wide world will ever remember about our performance that night, except of course ourselves. Hehe. We managed to redeem that mistake eventually, in our second—and last—gig, playing in an all male dormitory, I think around 2 am in the morning, with practically just us up on stage and a huge empty space, lit up by a bright, glaring spotlight, in front of us. Try as we might, there was no audience to be seen! (as it turns out however there were still a handful of people lurking in the shadows). Hehehe.

This time around though we’re all several years older, and several years more realistic about life. I’m the only one without a job yet, though hopefully soon, the rest are in call centers, one is a well-paid engineer, one is planning to get married this March. If anything else, the reunion is just a way to feel like heavy metal rockstars again despite our mundane lives. I also realize now how much of a release just playing loud and shouting even louder still is for me. How it feels so good to just do it inside an enclosed studio, volumes switched to the max, no audience, just a group of fraternity brothers who don’t care about each other’s opinions. Hehe. Still a catharsis. There is a difference of course between now and before. Playing our old songs also reminded me also of what kind of person I was then, full of angst and angst and hmmm... more angst. Some of my very own verses:

Pain comes one with the mantra, it moves deep within me
I feel jagged echoes, inside, tearing out my own life separated
From this earthly body, I fall back into place, and beg for
Absolution…

Terrified of being alone, so many things I can’t hold
And thing are out of control, I’m immaterial
Come fill me up inside, if you’ll leave me I’ll die
How long will you decide,
When will you save me?

This unmotion, this stasis, this cage
This condition, this burning, this rage
Absolutely beyond what you need
Take my hand and leave…

I believe in Chaos but the Chaos won’t believe in me
I believe in Love, the victim of my jealousy
I believe in Shame, hiding behind the veil
I believe in God, who tried to set me free…

And somehow it’s funny because I didn’t know it then, and neither was I ever conscious of it except until now, but some of my lyrics also contained a faint glimmer of the future. In these same lines I was longing for someone, someone, to just save me, deliver me, from all my insecurities, from that sickening slime of pride and self-loathing that I could never expel on my own (oh my gosh, now that I think about it, even our very own band name may have a double meaning...). I was one of those guys who looked all healthy and well, even “cool” (if other people are to be trusted), on the outside, but I was terribly sick on the inside. I knew, somehow, what was right, what the only solution could be and where it can only come from, but everything in me said let’s postpone it as long as we can, let’s just turn our head away, and heck, while we’re at it, let’s spit on it like all rebellious souls are expected to do. It was like sticking a rusty blade right into my stomach, and twisting it, twisting it…

It’s a long process that I will never care to repeat, but eventually God did save me, from the world, from myself, and—like I always describe it—He did it by breaking me down into nothing, and then, only when I had nothing left, He gave me Everything. I think the Gospel is also simple: that Christ Himself should die, be buried, and be raised back to life. He sets the pattern for all things. He helped me to die to my sins, to the world, to myself, so I can live the life I’ve always wanted in Him—I just never knew it back then. Today I'm thankful for being reminded of a piece of my past and who I was, and how different things are now. And I’m also thankful that He still lets me play my loud music, even if just one more time.

“My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast;
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises!
Awake, my glory!
Awake, harp and lyre!
I will awaken the dawn.” (Psalm 57:7-8)

The Lord God is sparkling numinous. Like the sheen of golden clouds, or like a warm dew-moist dove flying into the Sun. Like light glistening on the face of the sea, in the shine and shingle of noonday. Like the million ranks of a noble army marching from the East, with their bronze shields and blinding spears. Like a Crown radiating, emanating, trumpeting with glory, set on the head of the King.

(When Moses glimpsed the back of the Lord, his own face shone and shone and shone!)

As I sang, my song gently flowed and rose, and it joined with the songs of others who were beside me, and the songs became souls, and we flowed and rose, until we became the flower and a rose, spreading our petals upward to the clouds, and I longed to flow into the rose, and be one with its sweet soul, singing praises to our God who eternal-reigns inside my heart and heaven.

(Before the Ark, David could not help but dance lustily, intoxicated, whirling, before the Eternal…)

As I prayed, I said Lord, “What can I say?” For language will crack under the weight of Your Glory. When Paul came down from the third heaven he shivered and said there are words that are inexpressible and forbidden for men. And the Spirit Himself intercedes with groans and sighs too deep for utterance. And there is a secret song that only the 144,000 can sing and not even the angels can learn. And tongues of fire descended on the heads of the early Church and they spoke what they could not understand! And so when we worship we are tempted to stutter, and blabber and scream! With words coalescing into melody and image and emotion, language solidifying into gems and then evaporating as fragrance, into elements and stars melting and smelting into the wave-like invisible, into quantum ghost transpositions and mirage, into the sacred Unspoken.

(As Elijah watched the Lord pass by, the wind rent the mountains and rocks asunder, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind a great earthquake that tore the flesh of the earth, but the Lord was not in the earthquake, and after the earthquake an insane, hungry fire that scorched and scarred, but the Lord was not in the fire… then came a still small v*oi*ce*hwerasfxcwerk…)

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Language = Physical Reality. When in Genesis you read that God said “Let there be light”, and there was light, what it really means is that God simply spoke light into existence. And he spoke everything too, in the Logos, in the Word, the divine Utterance of the Universe. Such that His words are object are words are objects. And when He names a thing it comes to be. And He never speaks except that it comes into being, in the extreme literal, in words that live. The Divine Language is very reality as you know it. And one day (though He already spoke it outside history, in the very birth of time), He actually spoke His own name, which was not aerial speech but manifested as flesh and blood: Jesus Christ. And Christ is when God spoke Himself, and He said His name, and it was a revelation of what could not have been known had He not said it. Which is why it is the name above every name, to the glory of God. This is the whole essence of Language.

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One of the most favorite things I ever wrote in my thesis:

Finally, the professed motivation behind the Incarnation is also a source of offense because of its similar incomprehensibility. They say, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” According to Scripture it was love that moved God to become a man, and he did this to give men a chance for eternal happiness. But strictly speaking he did not need to give anyone a chance, because he is God and nothing can be required of him, and certainly not at the cost of becoming human. The motivation cannot have been brought about by any need or necessity. But, as Kierkegaard says, “If he moves himself, and is not moved by need, what else can move him but love? For love finds its satisfaction within and without.” Now there is a valid reason why philosophers hardly ever tackle the subject of love and leave it to the poets. This is because love is itself non-rational, it is unpredictable, it is not based on cause and effect. Whether it is human erotic love, or the more profound divine, unconditional love, it has and will always have the tendency to defy rational explanation. In Christianity it is to such a degree that love is considered the primary, essential attribute of God. Kierkegaard subscribes to this Scriptural premise when he says: “God has truth’s and infallibility’s infinite conception of love; God is love.” So when Jesus Christ came into the world, we actually witnessed love become flesh, the personification of love itself. Therefore in him the concept of love was fully defined, not simply through a statement, but through his very life and existence, and he became the only standard. This is why Kierkegaard in his Works of Love goes at great lengths to differentiate erotic love and Christian love, and to show how Christian love is far superior because it patterns itself on the revelation of God. God performed this feat “over against which all human love and compassion are to be accounted nothing.” In any case there is another thoughtful way of looking at the Absolute Paradox: the Absolute Paradox is explained by love, and love is explained by the Absolute Paradox, and they form a circle that defies all rational understanding.

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“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9)

“How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” (Romans 11:33)

“And to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge…” (Ephesians 3:19)

“The peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension…” (Philippians 4:7)

“an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison…” (2 Corinthians 4:17)

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5)

Let me try to explain the very basic principle of the universe. In the physical sciences we call it gravity. In the metaphysical/emotional we call it love. But basically they are one and the same thing. The only difference is that particles are much more obedient to this law than human beings are. But just as gravity draws two bodies together, both that which is already near together or light years apart, so does the loving person “love his neighbor just as himself”, regardless of who this neighbor is, friend or enemy, bright star or black hole, he draws ever closer. And though you may not see him always draw close physically, his soul keeps on drawing close in his thoughts, in his concern, in his prayers, in his “reaching out”. For we know that this world is indeed full of strangers milling and jostling about, but real intimacy is how much you keep a person in your heart. A real loving person has gravity in his soul.

It is true indeed when John Donne says that “no man is an island”. It is inherent in every human being to love, and if we only had the pure, unconditional love that always seeks the welfare of the other, then there would perhaps be the Utopia and the Kingdom of God on earth, with souls coalescing into one unified Body, into one great Family. Many people still possess this intuition, embarrassing as it sounds in the midst of bloody violence, but in the back of their minds there is still an insistence on Peace and Paradise. Some religious mystics treasure this notion, but so do political philosophers and politicians, and optimistic poets, and of course, beauty queens wishing for world peace. Further on in the same poem John Donne says, “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”

But particles do not have something that we do: the knowledge of good and evil. Which in the great deception sounds like a wonderful advantage, but the only thing it really does is force us and abuse us into disobeying love. And so Paul cries, “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good… Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” Because in the same way people would like to love but all their efforts are corrupted into lust and selfish desire. Such that, though gravity still enacts, yet a person unwittingly would like to become the center of all gravity, and he does violence to every other object in existence. For in him there is no longer any harmony but an incessant trespassing of the law of love: that it is about me just as much as it is for the other. And in this world as we know it the love that we claim to be love becomes an aberration: “The universe revolves around you” or more subtly, “You are independent and not a part of the whole.”

This is why the whole of creation groans, waiting to be cleansed of false lovers. They say that in the end, because atoms and molecules are very faithful, that the universe will stop expanding and slowly, slowly, turn back into itself, and stars will join together, and they will all compress into one beautiful and intimate point where there are no longer any secrets, where there is no longer any distance, but an endless embrace. That is the consummation of eternity. And all that is beautiful and good will be there, all the memories of the mind of humankind that were true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, excellent, noble, and praiseworthy. For evil can never join in the final intersection of it all, for its gravity is wayward, and it drifts off into the blackest space where there is nothing but itself, and therefore there is really nothing.

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This is why sex is sacred. Because in human life there is no other more intimate blending of the physical and metaphysical than this, becoming one flesh, and becoming one heart. And if only your love was pure than you would know what marriage must mean. These things are the sacred, holy symbols of nature. Because in gravity when two stars crash into each other both of them disappears and loses itself, forming a new one that is brighter and more resplendent, and the process can never be undone: this is the miracle of childbirth. And it is a commitment that says: “I have already drawn this close to you, I have even become you, and here I shall stay. And our love will be inscribed into the next generations.”

But the casual lover is like a wandering comet, and he drifts around the spheres looking for something to crash into, and when he finally finds a planet full of life he enters her atmosphere, and yes indeed it is passionate and fiery like all cataclysms, and he ravages her womb—but he does not stay. Rather in the impact he glazes off, and leaves her with a scarred face, having finished his violence. And he insists: “I love you. I love you.” But at the same time he is on his own trajectory once more, searching for another.. The weight of his love always small and insignificant..

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Jesus Christ said, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to Myself.” And in his love that is exactly what He does and continues to do, and He is strongest gravity in the whole scope of space and time, even unto eternity. He is Love itself, and he is the Law and the Logos, and every soul that has tasted the pure, translucent, and clearest agape falls into Him, until one is able to say, “my life is now hidden with Christ…” And to crash into Him is the sweetest Paradise ever known to man, for all things were created through Him and for Him, and so will the sky and the seas and the trees dissolve into Him, and so will the birds and the fish and the deer, and the Sun and the Moon and the stars…

And do you think heaven will be boring like puffy clouds and being forced to play an out-of-tune harp? No indeed! Rather in heaven everything that was sublime and beautiful that you have ever encountered in your life will be stretched and magnified into an exponent greater than all the stars! And skies and seas will be lovely-immense, and all the worlds and landscapes and flowers and breezes that you could never have imagined will be there, precious to behold. And our music will have notes and chords and harmonies bubbling and bursting through emotions, and there will be colors far beyond all rainbows, and there will be fragrances beyond all desire. In heaven we can travel and race through all the stars and secret planets the Lord ever hath created, and he would create still more that would overfill your soul with awe and wonder, but that is only assuming you will ever even bother, because you may never be able to take your eyes off the mind-screaming-screeching-bending-blinding beauty of the greatest Lover Himself.

And they say Hell is a lake of fire, and somehow it is true and somehow it is also quite different… For when Eternity finally comes around, and everything that genuinely loves is once more drawn into God, what of those who say, “I will not?” They are like the particles that resist the pull of gravity and keep on resisting, even after the story ends. And so now in the void and nothingness of infinite loneliness the lone particle drifts, and drifts, until there is no longer anything in sight, and even when it looks at itself it sees nothing, for there is no longer such a thing as light.. And yet this particle was built to last as long as eternity, and this particle was built to have its desires, to have that longing for love, but now without any object those desires burn and scorch him from within, while his screams no one ever hears. Perhaps this is why Jesus said Hell is where the worm does not die and the fire is never quenched…

The world of ideas is the new frontier. Sometimes we think that there is no more room for exploration, and sadly and wistfully too, because unlike the travelers of old we’ve lost the sense of mystery and fright about what lies beyond the ocean, or whether one might inadvertently fall off the edge of the world. There are no more ships setting sail, bringing back stories of ancient lands and faraway kingdoms or strange creatures. In the modern world, after the very first world map was completed, the age of exploration was shut. And though we may still experience the thrill of seeing and being in a new place, in the general scheme of things we already know where we are on the map, and we can almost never get lost. When we see pictures of the earth taken from outer space, in the midst of its breathtaking beauty it also evokes a certain disappointment, as though we’ve already mastered the globe and yet deep in our hearts we long for more journeys and expeditions. This is one of the main appeals of science fiction, and the wish to travel to new stars and planets, because we long to keep finding something new.

But as I said, the world of ideas is the new frontier. Because though the earth may never grow in size, the world of ideas keeps on expanding and expanding each day. And whereas before it had no physical manifestation except for a few bookshelves, now it has taken on an almost concrete form in the cyberworld, where there are formed new continents, oceans, cities, towns each day. And it has come to the point that you can journey in this world all your life and never even exhaust a small region. Everyday a hundred or so new novels, philosophy books, technological advances, lecture and opinions, movies, television shows are produced, just like new land rising up from the ocean, and it has become more and more difficult to choose a sure and straight direction. There is a difference between the real world and the world of ideas however: the real world was God’s creation, and everything in it was good, but the world of ideas is the expansion of man’s kingdom, and man is skewed. In the world of ideas, though there are places of genius and creative beauty, there are also wicked traps and tar pits, and quite honestly, there are a lot of dung heaps. Imagine a new continent that keeps on growing, but there are only few places on the map where the sun shines, and the roses bloom, and where the soil remains fertile. If you do not have the right map or guide, if you take the wrong route, you will come across dangerous wastelands filled with noxious fumes and gruesome creatures.

In the world of ideas you need to plan your journey very carefully, you must seek expert counsel and advice. You must tell yourself in advance where it is you really want to go, and not be easily swayed by map-peddlers who do not care anything for your safety or your soul but seek only their own profit. I imagine there were many so-called guides for the silk road who made their living out of leading caravans to the middle of the desert, and then watching them die. As far as I know there is only one genuine map for the beautiful and holy lands, proven accurate and authentic through the centuries, but it is the map that today everybody knows and yet almost no one reads. And it is a pity. Because now people are content to wander aimlessly through the world of ideas, even without a map, and they trudge from one pretty sight to the next, not knowing that they are actually being lured by hungry forces greater than they, to places where they can be taken prisoner for the rest of their lives in imaginary needs and wants, into various addictions and illusions of happiness. It is a true saying that not everything that is beautiful is good, while everything that is truly good is also extremely beautiful. The same goes for places in this invisible realm.

I am so thankful because as of right now I feel like someone just handed me an exclusive travel brochure, by a travel agency I can trust, and it promises to bring me to places I never imagined, landmarks serene and breathtaking, while at the same time sparing me from every bandit-ridden cliff or precipice. And though there are no longer any hideous dangers, there are still many adventures in store. On this main road I am sure to encounter unexplored smaller roads and secrets by the wayside. Many of these secrets only I can enter, created specifically for me, just as other secrets and treasures only other faithful pilgrims will find. I will still do my share of lion-killing and shivering in rains and storms, but no one will ever stab me behind my back or while I sleep. For all of us who travel this road we will have different adventures in life, but all pilgrims will end in the same place. There is a bright, shining palace at our life’s end, where the morning always rises, and there is no more night.

A while ago participated in a silly sumo-wrestling competition, complete with the big fat suits. Hahaha. Managed to win the first match, but lost the second, beaten by sheer force. Because of this humiliating defeat I have officially decided to quit my studies, to eat soy beans every hour by the pound, to get a plane ticket to Japan and live there permanently, devoting my entire life to eating and stamping the soil of a sumo dojo, to gain more than five hundred pounds, to master the wobbly art and surprise the whole of Japan by winning the grand title of revered Sumo wrestling champion, and then to come back here to the Philippines and have my revenge. Wahahaha. But then again, considering that many girls are even heavier than me, I think I’d rather stick to the things that are better suited to my stick figure, which is, oh what a coincidence! stick fighting.

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God moves in so many lives, I am blown away, I am overwhelmed, I cannot keep track. In my own life alone my love melts, like a while ago, just riding on a jeep back home, staring at the cloudy night sky with a bright, shining moon, I whispered, “oh, how I love You”, more than three times did I whisper, “oh, how I love You”, and my eyes moistened and glistened amidst the noise and the city lights. And pray do tell me, what does God hear and see when He looks at me and then past me? Because just today more of my brothers and sisters confided and showed how they do the same as I, only different, and more sweetly, deeply and free! And how humbling! And how indescribably humbling! When the people I know shine so bright as stars in their pain, and hurts, and trust, and perseverance, and love, and healing, and glory--it is blinding! Trust me, I am blown away, I am overwhelmed, I cannot keep track.

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The past few days I have been so excited because I just revived my interest in the Philosophy of Language. And the very books which I thought I would never have use for again (regretting that I had ever acquired them), all of a sudden became what I never thought they could be, treasure troves and sacred manuscripts! Hahaha. Isn’t language just so wonderful and bewildering? And it keeps on leaving people stumped. The linguists and analytic philosophers have tried to codify and mechanize it to no avail. The poets have tried to put their thumb on it, to master it, but it keeps on mastering them and sweeping them off their feet. And over and over new theories, but it’s almost like forcing a grid on something that is organic, elusive, almost spiritual. And I feel that the key to very rational human existence, to reason itself, is in language. In fact I can almost agree with Hamann or Muller, reason is language, and language is reason. And in the center of my interest and my intuition I feel like the answer (or whatever comes closest to an answer) lies in that often neglected figure of speech called metaphor, the darling of poets and the bane of analytic philosophers. It is here that the worlds of the literal and the figurative/imaginitive collide. It is here that you see there is more to the world than what you see: that there is an entirely different world beyond the empirical, temporal: where your love can dawn, and the world can sing, and your heart becomes the sun shining: or tell me, isn’t this just what people also call faith?

Because my world is like a clean and bright glow, bulging and breaking through the tough hide of perversity. It’s like the leatherskin that cracks. It’s the fabric that’s about to tear, about to rip like a holy, temple curtain. And in the rips of life a strand of light streams, shoots out like a glittering spear. And baby it’s only a matter of time before the whole thing blows…

But in the meanwhile, what now? What now: with the here and now? In one sense we strive and contend, waiting patiently like a prisoner languishing in the dungeon, awaiting the final rescue, whistling in the darkness. Here in the belly of the city where life is the acidic, the putrid, where:

Beauty is no beauty. But clean and white faces, (eyes and noses and cheeks and chins) so flawless, seductive poses, looking down on you from above the highway, the magnified skin, tarpaulined. The new idols: celebrities half-naked posing on thin plastic sheets, the cult of the face, the cult of the body. Where there is no soul but only surface: behind the posters only empty air, behind the screen only profit-making schemes. No soul but surface. Like a layer of lotion on skin, like the newest cosmetic surgery.

Where love is no love. But sexuality leaking like a faucet, like a constant drip, dripping. And where the sewage rises when it rains, and people have to wade in the muck, in the rodents, in the dirty, floating things of the heart: and then call it love. People drinking from each other’s cisterns, not caring who loses or who gets hurt, the seeping of lubrication, the seeping of tears. The vampirism of lovers in the night, sucking and sucking on each other until they become nothing but dry husks: a love that uses and discards.

Where happiness is no happiness. But Monoliths clogging the arteries of the city, where all the blood converges: here in the mall they have everything: every glittering, brand new, latest, advanced, tasty, sumptuous, exhilarating, refreshing, imported thing thing thing! Paradise in miniscule, eat from every fruit! But as the traffic congests on the road, and as the people squeeze through the entrance, so does your life squeeze in your heart, and you feel the squeeze of the crowd, the squeeze of strangers and stranger shoulders, of the noise, of the glare, going round and round, and up and down, escalators, and elevators and floors, window shopping, and panic buying, until your whole life is just one big spending, and you can never get yourself out.

And I so, so hate this world. I really do. And if it were up to me I would have left this city long ago, and taken my soul somewhere far, far from here, beyond the ocean, to another shore where the trees are green, and the wind is clean, and there is no more sin masquerading as goodness. But the pattern of life, says the Redeemer, is not so: it must be endured like the cold, piercing night before the dawn of morning, like the tearing pain of childbirth before the coming of joy, like the nails of crucifixion before the resurrection, like the noxious fumes of death before life. And so I am happy in expectation but also disgusted-revolted-vomiting by this situation. And is why I also keep saying: “Come soon! Come soon! How long can I bear this ugliness? Come soon!” And if not for the gracious Spirit we would have committed suicide in the inside, but thank You at least that I can see through the cracks, and help me widen it with all my strength. And I look forward to the day when the world will be baptized with fire, and all that makes me sick will smolder in their ashes.

I think we shan't bother with Heidegger. Because even with the perfectly valid question: "Why are there beings instead of nothing?" It never really goes anywhere, but circles round and round, plunging into obscure language, shooting out into moments of artificial enlightenment, such that you'd rather leave the whole question of being alone, being a being without time. And by the time he places his feet on the right track and begins to deal with language, he has brought too much baggage on his shoulders...

I think we'd rather turn our backs on Nietzsche, because this radicalism, this animal, syphilitic heat pretending to be overman, thinks up is up when it's really down, thinks it steps beyond the holy place into the holier, when it in fact recedes into the primitive, the Homeric, where gods are not gods but men, and quite sensual, mischievous, and treacherous at that...

I think we'd rather stick to Kierkegaard. Because something just dawned on me, how the spheres of existence, the journey toward inwardness, parallels also a personal discovery in language. That in the aesthetic sphere, with your preoccupation with the external, you also encounter the distinction between the literal and the figurative, the objective and the subjective--you work with these concepts, you posit them, because you want to distance yourself from yourself, to be far, unreminded..

But it is through the concern for your self and your eternal destiny, that you look inward, inward, and discover that inwardness is all there is, in as much as it funnels the whole world into itself, drawing the whole of existence into it like a whirlpool--and simultaneously too, you lose all these devices of distance: literal and metaphoric, subject and object, and find that the truth is subjectivity, or rather, truth cannot be anything but this: how Christ is the figure, the metaphor, of God--and you too, in Genesis, are called an image of God... and soon figures meld with symbols and images with words, and you dip your toes into what is truly the Logos...

I think there is much promise in Maurice Merleau-Ponty, of the importance and the inescapability of the body (also in Gabriel Marcel), how it is object and yet it is also "myself", it is me--when you kiss my cheek, or my lips (object), nevertheless it is me you kiss (subject). Merge the empirical world with the inner world. To see, like Barfield, that the interior is anterior, in fact, it is all there is, in fact, it is cowardice to make distinctions... and this reality is mirrored in language in so far as the literal is not separated from the metaphorical/figurative, but they are one and the same...

P. S. To think about the Tagalog words for definition and meaning, which are in fact more germane and revealing: ibig sabihin / kahulugan... Ibig as related to intent, even to desire... kahulugan as fitting into its right and proper place...

For the longest time I've been avoiding this rather alienated subset of philosophy called phenomenology.. for the longest time I've taken that existentialism, with its emotional raptures, its anguish and depressions, is much superior to this unwanted partner (The Philo 114 course description goes: Phenomenology and Existentialism) which smacks of cold psychologizing and trying-hard to be a science.. and whenever we did try to look into the founder Husserl, we found him aloof and inaccessible, reminding us much of Hegel.

But I suppose this is all changed with my discovery of Maurice Merleau-Ponty.. Someone whom I've never even heard of as an undergrad. Of the children of Husserl, people would rather read Heidegger or Sartre, who are no longer phenomenologists. In the library Merleau-Ponty's masterpiece, Phenomenology of Perception, is loose and torn, with packing tape all along the binding, and pages full of vandalisms covered over by liquid paper. It's hidden in the social science stacks, at the lowest level of one of the shelves, almost at the same level with my shoes.

But by gosh, I think he's got something very, very right. If I understand it correctly, phenomenology is the simple act of intaking the world as it is--without preconceived categorization, rationalization, systematization, abstraction, generalization--it's going back before the tyranny of reason sets in, and you begin to interpret the world into things, before you draw the lines between yourself and this and that, before you let the language you've learned tell you how to think: being, things, I, you... But it all begins with the phenomenon, the perception, the simple awe and wonder of a whole: a whole that does not divide you and the world, but rather makes you the world, the world as you, a healthier kind of solipsism in that it offers itself as the green carpet, the fabric, on which you can build your house of reason, but just don't betray your pure beginnings...

And I have had this intuition, and it's taken me so long to find someone to just put his finger on it, that in this life all you have is you, right there, where you are, what you're doing, intaking the world that is your very own, personal--but not personal, because there is no comparison, because the only world that there is is yours. And I do not know how it is, I do not know why I am here but simply that I am here, and I do not merely sense the world but I am the world: the world is in me, I am in the world, this is the miracle of the given.

And all philosophy is a stepping past this prematurely, and falling into quicksand, or getting lost in mazes, getting lost in language-games, because you could not have the patience to simply stand in this fertile beginning: the wonder of just being... why, being everything! The you, here, now = world = no subject, no object, but the given-ness of life. And you have the whole tradition of empiricists and rationalists, and people who want to divide, divide, and draw lines between the real and the unreal, the true and the false, well, it's no wonder then the philosophy never gets anything resolved! But it's all endless debate and bickering about terms and trivialities and things that will forever be unconfirmed, speculation after hollow speculation...

But instead of beginning with reason, why not begin with faith, the faith that precedes reason, the faith that begets reason, that things are simply because they are, and I also am in their arms. The wonder of all senses before you even parse them as senses, but you feel the wordless, you feel the language which is not your own, the very breath of... the pneumatic.. the language of the Spirit.