Reviewing my journals from 1994 onwards, I found interesting gems. The following is supposed to be a nonsexist “Our Father” which a group of us tried to choreograph into movement.
“O Birther! Father, Mother of the Cosmos
Focus your light within us—make it useful,
Create your reign of unity now
Your one desire then acts with ours
As in all light so in all forms.
Grant what we need each day in bread and insight
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us
As we release the strands we hold of others’ guilt
Don’t let surface things delude us
But free us from what holds us back.
From you is born all ruling will
The power and the life to do.
The song that beautifies us all
From age to age is renewed
Power to these statements.
May they be the ground from which all my actions grow. Amen.”
—The Lord’s Prayer (one possible translation from Aramaic)
Miriam’s prayer
Then I found a clipping of a prayer from Miriam Defensor Santiago in a 1994 column of Adrian Cristobal.
“Release me from craving to straighten out everybody’s affairs. Make me thoughtful, but not moody; helpful, but not bossy.
“With my vast store of wisdom, it seems a pity not to use it all. But thou knowest, Lord, that I want a few friends at the end.
“Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details, give me wings to get to the point.
“Seal my lips on my aches and pains. They are increasing and love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter as the years go by.
“I dare not ask for grace enough to enjoy the tales of others’ pains, but help me to endure them with patience.
“Nor do I dare to ask for improved memory, but for a growing humility and a lessening cock-sureness when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be mistaken.
“Keep me reasonably sweet; I do not want to be a saint. Some of them are so hard to live with—but a sour old person is one of the crowning works of the devil.
“Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected people. And give me, O Lord, the grace to tell them so.”
My friend Ann Wizer has a 4-year-old daughter who goes to nursery school. She doesn’t have any playmates except one little boy. Every time she embraces him she asks him to marry her. And her worst day is when the boy is mad and says he will never marry her.
Ann is shocked about this very advanced-for-their age behavior. She figures out it must be the Disney cartoons with all those Snow Whites and Cinderellas and Beauty and the Beast(s) that make them think that a man, a prince, is all you need to be happy in life.
I, too, was rather taken aback about Lanelle’s story about my two grandchildren Mahalya and Chin-Chin lying side by side with their baby bottles.
Chin-Chin said, “When I grow up I will marry daddy.” And Mahal said, “No, you can’t marry your parents.” “Then I will marry Tito Mol,” Chin-Chin said. “You can’t marry Tito Mol,” Mahalya said, “because he’s marrying Lilli-Ann. You’ll marry a bad man.”
Franco got 99 in Language and 95 in Math. When he was 7, Franco’s teacher said he had a reading comprehension of Grade V. But his teachers also complained that he was easily distracted.
As a very young child, Franco was invited by his other lola, Lola Inay, to her birthday. They offered him lechon, relyeno, lengua, caldereta, adobo—all of which he rejected. So what do you want to eat, his exasperated lola asked. He pointed to the apple in the pig’s mouth.
‘Baon’
When he grew up, Franco’s baon that kept his Peta summer workshoppers astounded was: First day, carrot and singkamas sticks; next day, sushi with mango; next; granola bar; next, tomato sandwich and one whole dill pickle to munch.
Io (the second child) says, good night papa, good night mama, good night Franco. Then he pulls Wendy’s ear and says, “good night, tenga.”
A friend sent this to Ayi Malay when she was sick:
“Cancer is so limited,
It cannot cripple love
It cannot erode faith,
It cannot eat away peace.
It cannot destroy confidence
It cannot destroy friendship
It cannot shut out memories
It cannot invade the soul
It cannot reduce eternal life
It cannot quench the spirit
It cannot lessen the power of resurrection.”
—Dan Richardson
Worry is like a rocking chair. It brings you to and fro, but takes you nowhere.
The days of stray cats lazing in the sun on our stone benches or fighting on the roof are over. The birds are back. Dad liked to feed them with birdseed he brought, which he scattered on top of the roofed twin bench swing. He just left the grain and went into the house. He never watched the birds eat, which was what I liked best to do.
There were many kinds then—fantails and swifts and an occasional oriole or was that a kingfisher? Dad just liked to feed them and he considered his job done.
It was very much like our life. He would feed me, shelter me and provide me with all my necessities and even some luxuries. But after that he did not care about (nor enjoy) the results I was able to accomplish from the staples he provided me. Like the books, the plays, the art works—they were not really important to him. I guess we took each other for granted and were therefore free, and that is love, too.