In the next few weeks, I will be focusing my time on some personal study, important work-related projects, and relationship stuff.

Because of that, I have decided to keep my postings to AngPeregrino to a minimum. I will be writing intermittently, just until the schedule clears up.

In the meantime, you can continue reading AngPeregrino by doing the following:

1. You can start by checking out the HOMEPAGE, then scroll down to whatever interests you. You have several choices in the home page. There is one HEADLINE article and four (4) FEATURED articles for the week (this is changed every Saturday). There are five sections featured in the Home Page. You can browse them at anytime, and they will show you the latest articles from each section. Five of the most recent articles are there as well.

2. You can also check out The BEST ARTICLES in Ang Peregrino. These are the ones with the most page views and I’ve also listed down in that page my own personal favorites.

3. On the sidebar at the right, you have several choices as well. Check out the Daily Popular list of articles. These are the Top 10 list of most clicked/viewed articles for the day.

4. At the end of every article, there is a darkened section containing a quote for the day and a list of posts you might want to read that is connected to the topic. You can check those articles out as well.

5. You can also search for any topic at the upper right hand corner of the blog.

6. Check out the ARCHIVES section.

There are a lot of great articles you might have missed. Seeya when I get back!

And then, he taught me to whistle.

Whistling was magic for me at that age. It was magic because it brought the winds. On hot Saturday afternoons, my dad would whistle and I would wait with bated breath for the inevitable cold winds to come and carry the kite into the vast skies.

The most important lesson was the whistle. I had a hard time learning it. I didn’t know how to pucker my lips and produce sound with it. Or if I produced sound at all, it was usually hoarse and not loud enough to bring in the winds.

After a few weeks of practicing, I finally learned to whistle. I also learned to wait with bated breath. And to wait for the winds to come. And to wait for the kite to be carried into the skies.

We need hope today more than any other time. William Lynch once said that people in depression and hopeless situations suffer an “impoverishment of imagination”. People are hopeless because they simply cannot imagine a world better than the one they are in now.

Hugh Kenner, in his book The Pound Era, wrote: “Whoever can give his people better stories than the ones they live by is like the priest in whose hands common bread and wine become capable of feeding the very soul.”

We tell stories of hope for our people not because we are blind to the events around us, and we are in denial. We tell stories of hope because we know things will be better. We tell stories of hope because we look at our God and see and feel and understand and realize that this God we are hoping with and hoping for is a God with a better record than we ever care to admit. We tell stories of hope because we know that words, even if it is lame for the one giving them, is hope for the hopeless. And words of comfort–with constant presence–are oftentimes enough. And because bread and wine still has the power to feed the very hunger of the soul.

Bonum futurum arduum posibile. A good future that is difficult but possible. That is what we hope for. We work for it. We give it our best shot. We try our darndest. And when we have done all that, we sit back. And wait with bated breath.

Because you can make a kite all you want, but if there is no wind, it doesn’t fly.

And so we whistle.

Simon Peter, Thomas (called Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
As the dawn was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.

He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?“
“No,” they answered.

He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. [John 21: 2–7]

This is probably my most favorite story in the bible (I also love the beautiful story of Esau forgiving his brother Jacob, but that is a topic of another post). I love this story because it is a very human story that rivals the classics: disciples going back to what they know best (fishing) and not catching any, of depressing routine made even more depressing because of failure, the darkness of night mirroring the mood of the disciples who had lost hope, and Hope walking on the shore just as dawn is breaking.

Beautiful.

But imagine how depressing that whole activity was for them! They were proud fishermen who were given the chance to be fishers of men, and just when they were becoming good at it, Jesus dies. And just when they thought they could go back to fishing, they catch nothing, zilch, nada. It is like the world staring them right in the face and telling them, “You will not be able to go back to normal programming. You cannot be fishermen anymore. You have lost the touch. You have lost the feel of the water. You have been gone too long.”

And so all they could do at the moment was stare at NOTHING. At their empty nets and empty hearts full of empty promises. Three wasted years. They put their lives on hold following what they saw with their eyes and felt in their hearts as the ONE. The ONE wove beautiful stories, and talked about an equally beautiful God. The ONE was very charismatic–he brought people together, and made the Torah so alive; he performed miracles. He fed five thousand, made the crippled walk, cured lepers, and the blind he gave sight. So they cannot be blamed for trusting the Man. He was HOPE personified.

The bad thing about hope is that when you lose it, it becomes doubly hard to trust again. This is true for any person. Once you have had your heart hurt, it is so hard to have faith and believe again. The challenge is to love again like you never got heartbroken, like you’re falling in love for the first time all the time.

That is the challenge of the disciples in that boat staring at those empty nets.

We look at the empty nets of our country and our people. We’ve gone deeper and deeper into a quicksand of graft and corruption. We do not know where to begin to solve our country’s problems. Several months ago, there was a heavy feeling of despair when we heard about the almost-medieval execution of whole families, when our President has lost all trust from the people who voted her to power (well even that fact–that they voted her to power–is debatable). We’ve been duped by people who are supposed to serve us but ended up lining their own pockets. Corruption has become systematic, institutionalized, a way of life.

We look at the empty nets of our own lives. We have gone through deep shit. We have lost and lost again and lost our way. What was once very clear to us and what we held with deep conviction and certainty no longer gives hope and consolation. We feel empty–becoming shells of our former selves. We stop LIVING. We just survive, day to day, hour by hour. We go through life without direction, without a goal, and without meaning. We have had our hearts broken and it is the most terrible feeling in the world. And because of that we zombie out–sleepwalking through life–alive but really dead and without spirit. How could we go so low? How could we ever break our promises? How could we ever forget how to live life to its fullest?

And I love this next scene. Just as dawn is breaking, with the earth groaning under the strain of night giving way reluctantly to day, the sun bursts forth in hues of reds, yellows, and vermilion.

But that is NOT what makes the scene beautiful.

Because you have to look beyond the beauty of dawn. And you have to look beyond your empty nets and broken heart. And you have to look to that familiar shadow on the shore.

It is the Man.

Keeping his promise. Reminding us to REMEMBER who we are when we were with him. Filling empty nets full to the brim, almost to breaking. Making us hope again. Love again. Like it was our first and only time.

Just when we think that normal programming is no longer possible. Just when we find it hard to believe and love and hope again. Just when we think there is no future. Just when we think nets will always be empty and night will always be endless. All we have to do is look beyond the empty nets and our broken hearts. And to that familiar shadow on the shore.

Because emptiness?

It is not forever.

I remember writing this for Father Roque Ferriols, my Philosophy professor who is known as the Father of Filipino Philosophy. I gave this to him during our oral exams. And we talked about this poem instead of talking about the thesis statements.

I had written it in a fit of inspiration while watching a moth fly near candles I had lighted to bring some scent and ambience to my room. I remembered Socrates. I remembered Fr. Ferriols. And I remembered myself.

Metamorphosis
eric santillan

Hinintay kita.
Nasa harap natin ang
Nakakahalinang ilaw,
Nagbabagang liwanag
Nag-iimbita.

Alam naman natin
Ang mangyayari–
Marami nang nakapagsabing
Huwag lumapit
Sa bango-init-liwanag.

Ngunit nandito pa rin tayo.

Palapit nang palapit.

Ewan ko ba
Kung udyok ito ng loob o imbita ng apoy.

Walang pasubaling
Lumipad ka sa huling pagkakataon.
Tungo sa liwanag
Kamatayan
Buhay.

Hindi ka man lang lumingon
At nagpaalam.

For Padre Roque Ferriols

Hmmm. This made me think.

How do you know you’re meant to be with someone anyway? Is there such a thing as “meant to be”? For the cynics out there– and I know so many of them– this would probably be a little hard to swallow; that there is such a thing as meant to be.

I used to believe this with all my heart myself. But after leaving the Jesuits after seven years of “meant to be”, after being in a relationship that turned sour, I’m thinking maybe there is no such thing. Maybe its not so much about fate as it is about choice. We are the choices we make. And meant to be are all those little choices we make everyday. The decision to stay together. The yes-es we make despite each other’s idiosyncrasies. The assumption here is that the yes is a yes, because it makes us TRULY happy. It is not a forced YES. It is not a YES that goes against our very nature.

Of course, it will not always be happy, but when all is said and done, you’re able to live with yourself because you know who you are and what you’ve chosen makes you the best person you can possibly be. That’s when things are not seen as sacrifice but as surrender.

For some people, it is easy and clear: “If you’ve met the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” (When Harry Met Sally)

But for others it is not as clear. It takes a long time to make a choice. So our meant to be becomes vague. We don’t know what that is, or who that is. And oh, the agony! The waiting and the patience needed for life to become a little clearer and for life to have direction once again. But we take our time. And even if we can’t say yes yet, we make ourselves live our lives as if we have said yes already. For that is the only way to know whether we can do it. Whether we can hack it. And we live our way gradually to the answers to our questions.

And we stay patient with ourselves and with the people around us who cannot understand us fully.

And yeah. We tell ourselves, when you’re meant to be, it doesn’t mean you’re meant to be NOW. And so we wait.

fucked up in muck
stuck deep into
luckless
quagmires.
blackhole of the past
pulling in a
tug-of-war of desires.

about to drown in neck-deep
mud.
the more i struggle, the more
i seem to sink.

hope is the first to give way
as i stopped shouting for help
because no one is there to listen to pitiful cries
anyway.

faith unraveled as a single strand
unravels cloth gradually.

love is the last to go
like a flickering candle in the dark.

strangely, just when the candle was blown by the wind
that’s when i felt your hand pull me out.

(draft 3)

Wrote this some years back, but I’ve refurbished and edited it. It is good to go back and rewrite “old” poems. On the one hand, they are written at a certain time in your life; a time long forgotten maybe, a time long gone. They are cross sections, encapsulations and distillations of feelings, thoughts, emotions that take a life of its own, is written to paper, and becomes poetry.

On the other hand, the present makes better sense of the past. It respectfully understands it, and gives it more light and puts it in its proper context. Hindsight is 20/20.

Ode to Sleeping Alone on a Sunday Night
eric santillan

while the rains fall,
i roll over
to hug nobody in the dark.

the sheets are cold
as i embrace my own longing
to put me to sleep.

i fight over covers
with no one at all–
the bed is crowded with emptiness.

i thought i hear breathing in the dark,
so i opened my eyes thinking it was you
and realized it is only me

breathing my life away.

[draft #3]

from iamyuva.wordpress.com

Several weeks ago, I got a call from two of my former students. Their dad died suddenly catching everyone by surprise. They flew in from Cebu early morning. I met them at the hospital and was there during the whole ordeal.

This was what I wrote while all this was happening. I’ve always had some difficulty in front of pain and suffering. This was my way of expressing the frustration as well as the respect that I feel every time I face death.

Speechless
by Eric Santillan

Words pale
Hearts cry
Spirits wane
Questions try
To shield from pain
To make sense
To find, to hold,
Footholds
Handholds
To be the one
To understand

To let it slide
To let it go
To let you go

To accept
To go to hell and back again
To be release
To find surcease

To be the one
To understand

But you can’t. Just can’t.

Questions try
Spirits wane
Hearts cry
Words pale.

For Alvin and Kris

The first time I read this book by Parker Palmer, it was just before I went on the retreat that changed my life.

Life is good. The universe is conspiring to give me my deep desires.

But to reach this point, decisions had to be made. And those were difficult choices that hurt and maim, and leave deep wounds that will remain for years to come. I now fully understand why TO DECIDE gives us the image of killing and death in the same way that fratriCIDE, suiCIDE, and homiCIDE does. To decide is to kill. When you decide on something you literally kill all the other choices you have–all the what ifs, that other fork in the road, that proverbial other side of the fence.

Life will never be the same again because you have decided.

“Ask Me Whether What I Have Done Is My Life
Parker Palmer

…[these words] remind me of moments when it is clear–if I have eyes to see–that the life I am living is not the same as the life that wants to live in me. What am I meant to do? Who am I meant to be?

“Let Your Life Speak.” I found those words encouraging and I thought I understood what they meant: “Let the highest truths and values guide you. Live up to those demanding standards in everything you do.” And I could see my heroes–Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Mahatma Gandhi–doing exactly just that, living lives of higher purpose.

So I lined up the loftiest ideals I could find and set out to achieve them. And the results were always unreal, a distortion of my true self–as must be the case when one lives from the outside in and not the inside out. I had simply found a “noble” way to live a life that was not my own, a life spent imitating heroes instead of listening to my heart.

Today, some thirty years later, “Let your life speak” means something else to me, a meaning faithful to the complexity of my own experience: “Before you tell our life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.”

My youthful understanding led me to conjure up the highest values I could imagine and then to try to conform my life to them whether they were mine or not. There is a simplistic brand of moralism among us that wants to reduce the ethical life to making a list, checking it twice, and then trying very hard to be not naughty but nice.

Trying to live somebody else’s life, or to live by an abstract norm, will invaraibly fail–and may even do great damage.

Vocation, the way I was seeking it, becomes an act of will, a grim determination whether it wants to or not. If the self seeks wholeness then the willful pursuit of vocation is an act of violence towards ourselves. True self, when violated, will always resist us.

Vocation does not come from willfullness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen to the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live–but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about–quite apart from what I would like it to be about–or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions.

The Birth of Israel

This was written in Sacred Heart Novitiate the day Fr. John Moran died– December 26, 1999. He was our “lolo” (grandfather) in the Novitiate, helping out the formation team in his own strong presence. A character, I was actually afraid of him because he always seemed to be always angry. And yet in unguarded moments, he was surprisingly gentle. I remember him being very patient with me and the giddy-ness of my youth. And he allowed me to joke with him over lunch. Sometimes, he would even allow himself to laugh with me.

He had wonderfully angry homilies. He would talk about an angry Jesus, or question happy priests, and even insult “plastic” students. He had something to say and he wasn’t afraid to say it. And he saw things from off center, always giving a different perspective, and provoking deeper reflection than what is apparent.

His sickness affected his legs so that he had a painful time walking. Together with Fr. Vic Baltazar and Aldwin Mahusay, we visited him in the hospital on Christmas day 1999 where he struggled to say mass for us in his hospital bed, saying the words of the mass while in so much pain. The next day, he died.

His last public act, a mass. His last public words, the words of consecration.

A priest ’til the end.

“Then Someone wrestled with him until the break of dawn… striking Jacob at his hip socket that it was wrenched as they wrestled. Then the Man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but as Israel, because you have contended with the Divine and have prevalied…” Gen. 32: 25–29.

Ode to Fr. Moe: To Him Who Wrestled With God
Eric Santillan

You.
Wrestler wrestling
With God.

Struggling. Yet Celebrating.
Finding Meaning.

Challenger of the challenged.
Dared us to say yes and mean it.
Die for it. Live by it.

You. Who made a promise.
And kept it.
Lived by it. Died for it.

Radical thinker.
Designer of thoughts
Of angry Jesus’
And happy Jesuits
And ‘plastic’ students.

You cry the most beautiful cry
Of reality and truth
And pain and love
And gratefulness.

Until the end still
Wrestler wrestling
Struggling. Yet Celebrating.
Finding meaning
Amidst the pain.

One Christmas day
You were who you always were–
Wrestler wrestling–
Struggling… to make the sign of the cross
– a stole draped upon
your shoulders–
Celebrating Him who
wrestled you.

And in the end,
Wrestler wrestling
With God.
You let yourself lose
He struck at your legs.

And you won.