The language of a loving heart

Today I will write about love. I guess love is all around me these past days and its inevitable, I can not brush it off. As I was roaming around the library the yesterday looking for books I can read, I chanced upon this book entitled The Greatest Letters of all Times. It was an old book, hardbound and by the looks of it is old. I was not able to find out when the book was published but I was able to browse through its content. It was a compilation of letters written by the great people of history from Napoleon Bonaparte to Victor Hugo, Dostoyevsky and other great men. The topics ranged from pleading for mercy, to waging war and of course love letters. Of course I immediately went to the section on love letters and I was touched by the love story of two greatest poets as illustrated in the love letters they sent to each other: Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett.

Robert Browning first heard of Elizabeth Barrett through her poems. Elizabeth then who only had admiration to Browning because of his works was immediately impressed when he sent her a letter telling her of how he was touched by her poems. From this initial exchange of letters, Elizabeth Barrett became Elizabeth Browning even against his father's liking. She was never forgiven by her father and yet the love story that she shared with Browning is considered as one of the most celebrated romance of all time. With this feeling Elizabeth got the inspiration to write her most popular work ever, 43 of Sonnets from the Portuegese and it read:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints!---I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!---and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

The language of the heart does transcend time and it pierces through the soul of anyone who has known love. I personally feel that the poem is what it is now because it is clearly the language of a loving heart, a heart that was freed and dared to give everything for love.

Amusing Blogs: Gael's Letters

This blog is a creation of a Bratmate's wife. By bratmate I mean that our fathers are classmates (by classmates it just means that they graduated in the same PMA Class) in the Academy. I drew the sword in their wedding and although we are not exactly close, the fact that we have something in common kind of makes me relate to the things that she goes through. What is special about this blog is that it is addressed to a young child who just turned one year old recently. The blog basically tells the different things that happen to her, as a military wife, a mother, a working mom and simply being herself. What amazes me is the amount of love that is shown in each of the entries. The way she tries to make do out of her cicumstances and yet be optimistic of the things that are to come. Her frustrations are so natural and yet her reaction is something that not many people can actually apply in their own lives. Here is a woman who simply wanted to enjoy life and is doing it despite of the realities that she is faced with. Perhaps what makes this blog very close to my heart is that to some extent it mirrors the same feelings that my mother had raising me and my other siblings. The blog clearly exposes the human spirit at its best conquering the daily difficulties that each of us face.

Punyeta!!!

Punyeta....

Kanina nagsusulat na ako ng bigla akong nabored kasi trying hard na naman ako to be sane when in fact my mind is running wild. Narealize ko na napapadalas ang gamit ko ng word na yan kahit na hindi ko naman talaga alam ang literal meaning nung word feeling ko lang mas okay na lang yan kaysa mag mura ako ng magmura. But going back to the word, sabi ko nga madalas as in madalas lalo na when it is referring to the plebes take this examples;

1. Ilang beses bang uulitin sa'yo na yung punyetang daliri na yan ay dapat laging magkadikit
2. Mahirap ba intindihin na may mga bagay na pwede namang ganito pero dahil nasa PMA kayo dapat gawin nyo kung paano ang tinuro. Mga punyeta kayo kung ayaw nyong makinig mag resign na kayo
3. Ano ka ba, nag iisip ka ba, punyetang luha yan hindi ka naman papatayin ng mga tao dito iyak ka ng iyak bakit awang awa ka na ba talaga sa sarili mo, pride lang kasi yan, punyetang pride yan.
4. Mga punyeta kayo, pag sinabi kong magplantsa ng uniporme magplantsa, hindi naman ako ang magususuot ng plantsadong pantalon at mas lalong wala akong mapapala kung makikita ng mga tao na kadeteng kadete ang mga suot nyong uniporme.

Forgive the language but that is how it is. But then hindi naman talaga yan ang nagtrigger kung bakit naisip ko yung word na yan ngayon ngayon lang. Ang totoo nagbabasa ako when I chanced upon reading a blog of a friend in friendster at sabi ko Punyeta to refer to something she is saying na parang weird. Actually hindi weird kundi, nakakainis lang for me... hay nako basta ganun as I said my mind is running wild and it will take sometime for me to be on a stage like yesterday when I wrote the two entries in quick succession. Well ito na muna... magandang gabi at huwag kayong mag alala hindi ko kayo sinasabihan ng punyeta :)

Lessons I learned

Sabi ko na eh hindi ko matitiis sarili ko, so I am writing another entry immediately after I wrote the one before this. Promise I will make sense.

I once struggled at trying to understand things about life. I believe all of us has gone through this stage but not many have really made up their minds of the answer to their questions about life. I can just reminisce how I use to soul search with Yas and wonder why things just turn bad despite of our sincere intent and honest labor for things to go as it should. But then it does not, we get frustrated over the outcome and sometimes, the hardest to stomach is that it was done by people that we thought would stay on our side. That was true for my father. My father's infidelity was not the hardest thing about having a broken family it was actually the fact that it was my father's doing, a person that I truly adored as a young boy back then. It is never easy to get in terms with the reality of people failing us by not doing their end of the bargain and just totally disregarding you despite of the effect their decisions will have on you. But then once we are able to understand the situation there are things that stand out, I guess these are my lessons and I'm sharing it now.

1. We will never be able to control things. What has happened has happened and there is no amount of tears, vengeance, frustrations, self-pity, blaming and all others that can change the situation. It is nice to really feel the sadness of the situation to be able to understand why it has to happen but dwelling on it is a dead end. We do not gain or change anything.
2. The only thing we can control in this world is ourselves. I remembered how people wonder why I can still smile when my mother died. I cried in secret but I smiled in front of people. I reasoned that it was up to me to decide how to react to any situation. If I allow it to control me then be it but our choice spells out the difference.
3. Our own happiness is our own doing, what we do with our lives will be our life. The people around us can just feel bad when we mess up but they will never suffer the outcome of the choices we make. As desiderate would put it "Strive to be happy."
4. Life is not to be understood, it is to be enjoyed and learned from. We will never be able to understand why things turn bad but the truth remains is that the situation has turned bad. Trying to crack our heads in understanding why bad things happen will just cause us more frustrations and more tears but it will never change the fact that the situations has turned bad. Although sad, we just have to accept reality and get on with our lives, it is never the end of the world and more people have more problems than we are encountering.
5. Finally, it always helps to pray. However we concieve God, life is always easier to deal with when we know that there is someone who controls everything that is happening in this world.

The rain and being quiet and hopeful

How do you explain waking up with a headache after being tired from all the preparations for inspection and then waking up 3 hours after? I felt something was wrong with me, something bad just happens when we overdo things even sleeping. And so even I chose to go to the computer to pass the time just to avoid sleeping again.

The day was normal except for the weather just did not start right. I thought the whole day would be sunshine since the morning was very nice with the sun coming out for the first time after several weeks of rain. But then as afternoon came, rain started to pour again as if the sky hated the fact that it allowed some sunshine during the morning. I hate the timing since if the rain was in the morning then the parade would have cancelled and I would be spared of standing for too long in the Borromeo Field with all the mud because of the never ending rain. But the good thing about the rain in the afternoon was that sleeping became so good to the point that I overslept and woke up with a headache. To some extent the rain can be good only if it stops once in a while.

And so I begin with the bulk of today's entry. Last night I was reading my daily devotional. It was about some writer in history that described the early Christians as a quiet and hopeful people. Quiet and hopeful may not be something that is admirable this days but that description struck me. Today's culture somehow has this inclination into admiring a group that is rich, fashionable or in a broader sense IN (whatever that means to people). That part in the devotional was about fruits of the spirit namely: love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, long-suffering, faithfulness, kindness, and self control. It said that it was because of this fruits that the early Christians came to be known as a quiet and hopeful people. I guess that still doesn't make sense. Let me put things in perspective. First let us all remember that the early Christians were persecuted for what they believed in, yet they managed to be quiet and hopeful, ironic isn't it? If we try to think of the tremendous odds they were faced at that time, their group was large enough to at least protect themselves, show that they are something, yet they chose to be Quiet and Hopeful. I just realized that although we do not think highly of people who are quiet and hopeful, these two characteristics might just spell the difference between problematic people and people who are very much contented and above all happy. My realization last night was something that people might not look up to when faced with odds that seem to be insurmountable, yet by choosing to be quiet and hopeful spells out a very big difference. Just think about it.

Well, I'm ending this entry now I still have a lot of things in my mind but I'll just reserve it for next time. Thank you very much to all the people who sent in their messages.