Friendship!

If you’ve read the first Harry Potter book (okay, it should be in the movie too), you might remember that scene at the end in which Dumbledore grants Ron and Hermione 50 house points each and Harry 60 house points for doing their heroic deeds. Then after that, he gives 10 points to someone who had nothing to do with the night’s adventures: Neville.

Neville had no hand in the Quirrell quest, but Dumbledore knew he had enough punch in him to merit those 10 points: “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends.”

While it’s true that being a true friend means standing up for one’s pal no matter what, there will come occasions in which the person is meant to stand up against his friend—because if he really loved his buddy, he’d only want the best for him!

And this is what I liked the most in the movie There Be Dragons, directed by Roland Joffe. A story about friendship, the movie follows the lives of Josemaría Escriva (played by Charlie Cox) and his friend Manolo (Wes Bentley), as they separated ways during the Spanish civil war. While Manolo is fictional, Josemaría is not, and everything the character does in the movie is based on the latter’s idea of finding holiness in the ordinary things.

The movie is meaty in many aspects, but I’ll talk about just one scene: Josemaría visits Manolo at his house after Manolo’s father dies. They have a bit of an argument, but before Josemaría takes his leave, he hands his friend a rosary. You learn later on that Manolo can talk to his son about the priest’s life because Josemaría never ceased to write him, even after their last meeting.

(I’m gonna stop right here because if I don’t, I will end up spoiling it for those who haven’t watched.)

And this is what friendship is about. You see, sometimes, being a true friend means disagreeing with one’s friends, and when things go bad, it also means never giving up on them. It’s all right to be disappointed with a friend’s choices, but a true friend separates the choice from the person: while he knows the choice is wrong and speaks up against it, he understands that his friend is someone who needs more love than ever! Thus the persistence; and thus, the harsh words (when necessary!)—but always powered by love.

If you have a friend whom you know is making not-so-wise choices, treat him or her with love. Meet up for coffee, have a chat, always be available. And in a very natural way, remind him of the good options he can make. And never cease to pray for him!

PLUG: Watch There Be Dragons starting November 9 in local cinemas: SM Megamall, SM North, SM Southmall, Trimoma, Glorietta 4, Festival Mall. :-)

Patience

Long lines can get the better of even the most well-dressed ladies sometimes. Here's something I saw on TV as I waited in line this morning at the US Embassy. I already saw it before, but it's nice to be reminded!

I just love how the man holds it in and says "Hi" back. :-)

Doldrums

dol-drums. n. a state of inactivity or stagnation.

Right now, I am reading The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster which I borrowed from my book club friend Judie. Such a funny book... I can't believe I've never come across it before. Ah, the indignation hehe.

Here's an interesting conversation in it that I want to talk about:

"Well, if you can't laugh or think, what can you do?" asked Milo.

"Anything as long as it's nothing, and everything as long as it isn't anything," explained another [doldrum]. "There's lots to do; we have a very busy schedule--"

"At 8 o'clock we get up and we spend

"From 8 to 9 daydreaming.

"From 9 to 9:30 we take our early midmorning nap.

"From 9:30 to 10:30 we dawdle and delay.

"From 10:30 to 11:30 we take our late early morning nap.

"From 11:30 to 12:00 we bide our time and then eat lunch.

"From 1:00 to 2:00 we linger and loiter.

"From 2:00 to 2:30 we take our early afternoon nap.

"From 2:30 to 3:30 we put off for tomorrow what we could have done today.

"From 3:30 to 4:00 we take our early late afternoon nap.

"From 4:00 to 5:00 we loaf and lounge until dinner.

"From 6:00 to 7:00 we dillydally.

"From 7:00 to 8:00 we take our early evening nap, and then for an hour before we go to bed at 9:00 we waste time.

"As you can see, that leaves almost no time for brooding, lagging, plodding, or procrastinating, and if we stop to think or laugh, we'd never get nothing done."

Those are the Doldrums talking to Milo, the book's protagonist. It got me thinking about how it's so easy to waste time and still think you're so busy. (Of course, the doldrums here really aimed to get nothing done, but that's beside the point.) It happens when a person tries to go about the day without any particular plan in mind; instead of accomplishing things, one ends up with a list of half-done tasks (half-baked ideas?).

Distractions are a fact of life, and in the workplace, you can have more than a fair share. But the trick to accomplishing much is not to get rid of the distractions (because that's impossible), but to learn to prioritize. It's probably common sense, but here it goes: understand first which tasks are urgent, which are important, and which are both, and schedule your day accordingly. Master a good work ethic, and you'll bump into the doldrums less and less--or not at all!

Have a fruitful week, everyone!

Getting revved up for 'the daily grind'

It's Monday! First day of the week--shouldn't we all be up and about first thing in the morning? With energy! gumption! pizzaz! POWER!

Not all Mondays are so powered up. Actually, most Mondays are sluggish--people call the condition "Monday blues," which I presume gives rise to concepts like "weekend hangover" and cartoon characters like the Sourpuss in Patrick McDonnell's Mutts Comics.

But just because Mondays get bad rap from other people doesn't mean you should treat your Mondays the same way! Start the week right; get up on time and put on a smile--and this small thing determines the success of the week ahead. Here are things I find helpful in getting good work done during those first hours of the work week:

1. Make a routine and stick to it. You know how some cars won't start and run well without a warm up? It's the same with people. So make a routine that acts as a warm up for you. Here's what I do: a) Do something to look fresh and awake--put on makeup! b) Clean the office desk by clearing away the things you don't need and wiping dust off computer. c) Make a to-do list and promise to accomplish everything in it that very day.
2. No to "Just 5 minutes"! Sometimes, we feel we need a break. Maybe just a few games of Angry Birds, or 5 minutes on Facebook. Just posting one little thing on Twitter. But those five minutes can easily turn to 20 or 30! Next time you get the urge for a 5-minute break, do something that ends naturally like getting a drink of water, eating a banana, or picking out some easy thing to do from your to-do list (like calling somebody to set a meeting?) and accomplishing it first just to break the monotony. If you do this, you can be sure the "just 5 minutes" will really be just 5 minutes--and you can finish more things.
3. Watch the clock. Counting the minutes may be a bad habit, especially if you're just waiting till the go-home bell rings and you're off the hook trying to look busy. But if you really make yourself busy, if you really set yourself to finish the tasks for the day, you'll need to watch the clock differently! Try to accomplish your list before 5pm or 5:30pm (or whatever time you're supposed to be finished) so that the few minutes you have left before the bell rings can be used to plan ahead.
4. Don't forget to pray! Without this, your work will just be that: work. But if you pray and offer all the work you do for the people you love, then the work becomes something special. Plus, if you keep this in mind, you then won't be able to bear leaving that work poorly accomplished--after all, you don't give gifts that are second-rate! :-)

Happy Monday!

Bag hag

My weekends lately have been filled with painting, painting and more painting! My mom and her friends put up a small business selling bags made from newspapers. Their name is CCLTJ Recycled Crafts (which means Cora, Cora, Ledy, Tessie, Julie). They are friends from way back in their school days. One day, two of them enrolled in a bag-making class. Then someone had a bright idea. They got the other friends on board and took a day to teach other women to weave. Now, our house is full of newspapers scattered everywhere. hehe!!

Here are some of their products:

Different weaving patterns, bag shapes, and painted designs! That brown one is my mom's "famous" Cat-Owl.

The black one on the left and the half colored one on the right are painted by my mom (one of the Coras), while the red one with the tiny hearts is painted by my artist ate, Tasha.

I made that chick one and the funny one with the "B" looking thing. That's a puncher, if you're wondering. The dog was painted by someone else. These are the cuter ones.

If you have any interesting ideas for a bag design, you can let me know! But be sure to ORDER something, too! :p I made one with a life-affirming slogan before but I don't have the picture with me right now. So, maybe in another post... Ciao!

Can I just say I love Pope Benedict XVI???

I was not there, but the World Youth Day in Madrid this year has strengthened my hope in the world. Two million young people, went off to Spain to... listen to an octogenarian? Believe it.

Here are excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI's WYD 2011 Message:

'In every period of history, including our own, many young people experience a deep desire for personal relationships marked by truth and solidarity. Many of them yearn to build authentic friendships, to know true love, to start a family that will remain united, to achieve personal fulfillment and real security, all of which are the guarantee of a serene and happy future. In thinking of my own youth, I realize that stability and security are not the questions that most occupy the minds of young people. True enough, it is important to have a job and thus to have firm ground beneath our feet, yet the years of our youth are also a time when we are seeking to get the most out of life. When I think back on that time, I remember above all that we were not willing to settle for a conventional middle-class life. We wanted something great, something new. We wanted to discover life itself, in all its grandeur and beauty. Naturally, part of that was due to the times we lived in. During the Nazi dictatorship and the war, we were, so to speak, "hemmed in" by the dominant power structure. So we wanted to break out into the open, to experience the whole range of human possibilities. I think that, to some extent, this urge to break out of the ordinary is present in every generation. Part of being young is desiring something beyond everyday life and a secure job, a yearning for something really truly greater. Is this simply an empty dream that fades away as we become older? No! Men and women were created for something great, for infinity. Nothing else will ever be enough. Saint Augustine was right when he said "our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you". The desire for a more meaningful life is a sign that God created us and that we bear his "imprint". God is life, and that is why every creature reaches out towards life. Because human beings are made in the image of God, we do this in a unique and special way. We reach out for love, joy and peace. So we can see how absurd it is to think that we can truly live by removing God from the picture! God is the source of life. To set God aside is to separate ourselves from that source and, inevitably, to deprive ourselves of fulfilment and joy: "without the Creator, the creature fades into nothingness" (Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, 36). In some parts of the world, particularly in the West, today's culture tends to exclude God, and to consider faith a purely private issue with no relevance for the life of society. Even though the set of values underpinning society comes from the Gospel - values like the sense of the dignity of the person, of solidarity, of work and of the family -, we see a certain "eclipse of God" taking place, a kind of amnesia which, albeit not an outright rejection of Christianity, is nonetheless a denial of the treasure of our faith, a denial that could lead to the loss of our deepest identity.

'For this reason, dear friends, I encourage you to strengthen your faith in God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You are the future of society and of the Church! As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians of Colossae, it is vital to have roots, a solid foundation! This is particularly true today. Many people have no stable points of reference on which to build their lives, and so they end up deeply insecure. There is a growing mentality of relativism, which holds that everything is equally valid, that truth and absolute points of reference do not exist. But this way of thinking does not lead to true freedom, but rather to instability, confusion and blind conformity to the fads of the moment. As young people, you are entitled to receive from previous generations solid points of reference to help you to make choices and on which to build your lives: like a young plant which needs solid support until it can sink deep roots and become a sturdy tree capable of bearing fruit...'

(Emphasis is mine. Read the whole thing here.)

Today, I notice so much anti-Catholicism. Media reporters quite easily quote a bishop on some issue and voila--you have an instant the-Church-is-ever-so-strict-and-unfair impression. There are people who proudly announce that they "think for themselves," as if having guidance from our teachers and our elders is something wrong and shameful; as if they need no guidance at all. A culture of accepting just any kind of opposition as "the smart thing to do" has worked into us Filipinos so deeply that the only political parties we have now are "Administration" and "Opposition."

Aren't people getting tired of all this aimless opposing and and all that feeling intellectually superior? They glorify the "freedom to do anything I want," but what is freedom without truth, respect, guidance and love?

The World Youth Day has strengthened my resolve to be a witness to a better way of living--the way that is firmly planted in Christ. Just a while ago, a friend told me she was called a "Christian writer" by one of her interviewees who read a piece she wrote--and she said she was "kilig to the bones"! I thought, what a compliment! Perhaps it's the best compliment a person striving to live the life of Christ could ever receive. :-)

Lastly, here's another thought I want to share which I read from Mercatornet, "7 Reasons for good cheer after Madrid" written by Michael Cook:

'The biggest stories are the hidden stories. Benedict XVI knows this. As he told journalists, “God's sowing is always silent; it does not appear in the statistics, and the seed that the Lord sows with World Youth Day is like the seed of which the Gospel speaks: part falls on the road and is lost; part falls on stone and is lost; part falls on thorns and is lost; but a part falls on good earth and gives much fruit.”

'Unnoticed by the media, 2 million young people have embarked upon a journey which will lead many of them to infuse their home countries with their deeply held Christian beliefs. Slowly the world is going to change. Thirty years from now, the media is going to have one hell of a surprise.'

---

Don't you see? We're the youth that will change this world!

Hello, Tintin

I will watch this movie.

It being Tintin trumps it looking like The Polar Express. I hope it's good.

I promise to make a meatier post next time. Meantime, here's Rupert Grint showing what 'love your enemy' means.