SPECKS of WISDOM to PONDER

God's promises are like the stars; the darker the night the brighter they shine. ~David Nicholas

Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He's going to be up all night anyway. ~Mary C. Crowley

Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees. ~Victor Hugo


God understands our prayers even when we can't find the words to say them. ~Author Unknown


What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God. ~Eleanor Powell

----------------------------------------------------------------me and my daughter Rose Therese, circa August 2009

You can tell the size of your God by looking at the size of your worry list. The longer your list, the smaller your God. ~Author Unknown


The soul can split the sky in two and let the face of God shine through. ~Edna St. Vincent Millay


I wear a coat of angels' breath and warm myself with His love. ~Emme Woodhull-Bäche


Prayer is when you talk to God; meditation is when you listen to God. ~Diana Robinson


Weave in faith and God will find the thread. ~Author Unknown


When we can't piece together the puzzle of our own lives, remember the best view of a puzzle is from above. Let Him help put you together. ~Amethyst Snow-Rivers


Some stand on tiptoe trying to reach God to talk to him - you try too hard, friend - drop to your knees and listen to him, he'll hear you better that way. ~Ever Garrison

Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God. ~Leo Buscaglia

God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand. If you understand you have failed. ~Saint Augustine

God is not the name of God, but an opinion about Him. ~Pope Xystus I,

MY FATHER'S LOVE LETTER

One day, I happen to find this letter while I was browsing and trying to salvage a number of the old rotten family pictures in our old, disintegrating, ancient mother house in Bayabas. This is a letter of my father, Priscillano “Percing” M. Lozada addressed to my mother, Lucia V. Lozada. I was 3 years and 7 month-old when my father wrote this letter. I am the youngest among the eight children that our parents had raised. My father was born in 1921, so he was 54 years old when this letter was written.

Bayabas, Surigao del Sur

Oct. 12, 1974

Mrs. Lucia V. Lozada

Bayabas, Surigao del Sur

Dearest Mama,

Since our marriage, I had found nothing different as the years go by. Marriage to me with you is full of meaning in this world and without you as my love/wife I can’t live completely. Little misunderstanding sometime occurs which I consider a bit of marriage life, which may happen in all couples.

Hardships in life can always be solved thru mutual understanding. I found nothing from you for so much so I always go deeper to love you. Twenty five years of our marriage is still fresh and sweet.

Lastly but not the least I hope there will be more twenty-five years to come to vine our eternal love thru Jesus Christ our Lord. Sweet kisses from –

Loving husband,

Papa

LESSONS LEARNED FROM ONDOY

Ondoy is considered the worst storm that hit Metro Manila in 40 years and that it was equivalent of one month’s worth of rain falling within 6 hours. The result, landslides and raging flood reminiscent to the great biblical flood during the time of Noah. During which, not a few died, lost loved ones, their own homes and valuable properties.

The factors to consider and blame are:
An extraordinary weather incident
Climate change via global warming
Lack of civil defense planning and vigilance; inadequate weather bulletins and alerts from PAG-ASA
Poor waste management. If the creeks and rivers had not been clogged, they would have allowed for released waters from the dams and floodwaters to have somehow drain faster.
Environment degradation
Wild and unregulated property development

Metro Manila settlers themselves contributed to the disaster. That is, from the plastic bags they throw into the sewers to the trash in the streets everyday. The sewers and drain systems are like veins in our body. If you feed it with junk, it will give you a heart attack.

The garbage was the doing of the common people. These were thrown into the waterways because that was the easiest and quickest way to get rid of them. The result, because the trash clogged waterways, the latter is made shallow and narrow. Eventually with the storm “Ondoy”, nature took revenge. Waterways overflowed the banks and entered the homes, yards and streets and to the very people where the garbage came from. As the trite adage says, “the trash you throw into the streams will come back to haunt you”.

While the flood was heavily accompanied by mud washed down by rain, landslide continue to occur even after the storm Ondoy. This is because there are no more roots of trees to hold the soil together. Those people responsible in cutting down the forest must have been the first to be buried alive by landslide but they are accordingly merely watching high and dry from their mansions and condos. These people who got rich by illegal logging assuage their feelings of guilt by donating some of their ill-gotten wealth to the relief organizations helping flood victims.

“We benefit more from our failures than from our successes; that crises teach us more important lessons than we can possibly learn from books and classrooms. As someone puts it, one of the things that hits you most forcibly and offers ideas of value is failure and suffering. Success and happiness give out great feelings but it is affliction that enlightens and prepare us best for the future.” -- Ramon J. Farolan, Phil. Daily Inquirer Columnist

THE CROCODILE RIVER STORY

A story is told of Abegail who was very much in love with Henry who lived across the river highly infested with crocodile.

One day, Abegail wanted to go to Henry because she missed him so much. Her problem is how to cross the river. She approached her friend Tito who was busy repairing his boat. Abegail pleaded to row her across the river when the boat is repaired but Tito sent her away and yelled at her saying not to bother him with her feelings.

She walked further and found another friend Mark who was eager to bring her across with his boat on one condition that she sleep with him that night. Abegail consented and she was eventually brought across the river.

Abegail was very happy to see Henry and embraced him at once.

In their intimate moments, Abegail told Henry the ordeal she had undergone just to be able to see him including giving herself to Mark. Upon learning this, Henry was very angry and rejected Abegail.

In her depression, she was looking for a shoulder to cry on. She found Luis and told him of her misfortune. Luis right away went to Henry and beat him severely while Abegail was at his back making faces to Henry then the story ends.

Questions:

Who is the most hateful character in the story? Why?

Who is the least hateful character in the story? Why?

What made him/her hateful for you?

What sort of norm are you protecting?

A Few Lines of Inspirational Message During the Recognition of Honors (1st grading; 3rd Year Level)

To all the honor students, congratulations! May you double you efforts for the second grading period if not maintain the fervor in all your intellectual endeavors. May I advice, anyway that as you become popular in the campus still you should remain humble. Refrain looking down on your less intelligent classmates or schoolmates, thinking you are more important than them. In the educational arena, as students you are still on training. This isn’t real victory yet. Real victory in education is when you already finish a course and land on a decent job.

According to the DepEd survey most successful individuals merely have an average I.Q. Average people, accordingly, tend to be more successful in life than those individuals who were performing very well during their studies. Why is it so? Because these popular students did not only earned swelled grades but swelled heads as well. Yumayabang. They focus more on the importance of the honors that they may get out of their studies. They forget that the real essence of studying is to learn. Getting high grades is important but it is more significant to absorb, to live the lessons learned in each of your subjects particularly in your Values Education. Do not merely memorize but inculcate into your hearts the lessons learned from each of your subjects.

I’m not here to discourage you for getting exceptional scholastic performance. Congratulations indeed because you serve as an inspiration to others. However, may I remind you as well that success likewise require that throughout your life you need to maintain not only the intellectual fervor but the equilibrium of humility that in the face of all humanity we are all equal. God may have endowed on you greater intellectual prowess compared to others but it has a purpose not to make yourselves selfish but to be of service to others. Let us be reminded always by one of the nuggets of wisdom we can get from the movie Spiderman. It goes, “with great power comes great responsibility”.

To the rest of the students who are merely serving as audience in this gathering, students without honors, congratulations to you as well. Congratulations for your perseverance. Congratulations because many have already dropped out and you are still here.

Accordingly, “The illiterate of the 21st century are not those who cannot read and write, but those who doesn’t want to learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

What does it mean?

Comparing your generation to the previous generations, education nowadays is more accessible than before. Even the handicapped people, they can nowadays attain higher education. This is because of the availability of new educational programs and technology.

The definition of illiterate nowadays does not refer anymore to those who cannot read or write but it can be, as well, referred to those students who may be physically present in school but mentally absent. These are the students who doesn’t want to learn, unlearn and relearn. This is because they are already comfortable with their ignorance.

For the honor students, again, congratulations!

And for the rest of the students, do not give up we hope to see you all promoted for 4^th year at the end of the school year…

Thank you for listening…

Self-Confidence is POWER

A business executive was deep in debt and could see no way out. Creditors were closing in on him. Suppliers were demanding payment. He sat on the park bench , head in hands, wondering if anything could save his company from bankruptcy.

Suddenly an old man appeared before him. “I can see that something is troubling you,” he said. After listening to the executive’s woes, the old man said, “I believe I can help you.” He asked the man his name, wrote out a check, and pushed it into his hand saying, “Take this money. Meet me here exactly one year from today, and you can pay me back at that time.” Then he turned and disappeared as quickly as he had come.

The business executive saw in his hand a check for $500,000, signed by John D. Rockefeller, then one of the richest men in the world! “I can erase my money worries in an instant!” he realized. But instead, the executive decided to put the un-cashed check in his safe. Just knowing it was there might give him the strength to work out a way to save his business, he thought.

With renewed optimism, he negotiated better deals and extended terms of payment. He closed several big sales. Within a few months, he was out of debt and making money once again. Exactly one year later, he returned to the park with the un- cashed check. At the agreed-upon time, the old man appeared. But just as the executive was about to hand back the check and share his success story, a nurse came running up and grabbed the old man.

“I’m so glad I caught him!” she cried. “I hope he hasn’t been bothering you. He’s always escaping from the rest home and telling people he’s John D. Rockefeller. ” And she led the old man away by the arm. The astonished executive just stood there, stunned.

All year long he’d been wheeling and dealing, buying and selling, convinced he had half a million dollars behind him. Suddenly, he realized that it wasn’t the money, real or imagined, that had turned his life around. It was his newfound self-confidence that gave him the power to achieve anything he went after.

Last Recorded Phone Call of Ninoy Aquino

Remembering Ninoy...

Remembering Ninoy in his 26th Assasination Anniversary l

Ninoy and Cory By ZOILO DEJARESCO III August 12, 2009

No single Filipino couple positively influenced the course of Philippine history better than the Aquinos – Ninoy and Cory. With Cory's dramatic interment last week, an era had ended.

Cory Aquino, 76, was one of Asia's first woman leaders and the 11th and first woman president of the republic. She led People Power in 1986 that blew away an entrenched dictator and restored democracy. Cory owned the franchise over "People Power," copied world-wide for bloodless liberation movements.

In 1983, Ninoy came home from exile in Boston – at a time when his life was in most danger – to provide a democratic alternative to the ailing Marcos. He was murdered at the tarmac that enraged the nation.

Ninoy promised to bring back democracy to the nation; Cory delivered it. Ninoy was the bow, Cory the arrow.

It is told that a seer once warned the Marcoses that once Ninoy's body (then in exile) touched Philippine soil, that would signal the beginning of the end of the despotic regime. Loyalists wanted to defy the prophecy by having the Tarlac senator assassinated.

However, Ninoy's body did touch Philippine soil – dead as it was – and history saw the prophecy fulfilled in 1986.

Then, doubtless, it was only a matter of time before Ninoy would have become president of the Philippines.

Bravery, honesty and awesome faith were Cory's trademarks as civil society supported her moves to resuscitate a fragile democracy and fend off many bloody coups.

In 1986, Cory became president as a person who wanted it the least and relinquished power to a Protestant successor – a power she did not covet one minute longer after restoring to the

broken ramparts of democracy.Cory Aquino, Time Magazine's 1986 "Woman of the Year" and Nobel Peace Prize nominee – was then back to pro-poor NGO work and when democracy was threatened by Charter change, corruption and backsliding to the ways of the dictator, Cory snaked out of retirement to once again lighten the darkening shadows of the land.

Cory Aquino, clutching a rosary given by Sister Lucia of Fatima, died on August 1, a first Saturday (normally) devoted to Our Lady and a month dedicated to Her as well. She died on the first day of the month of August, the same month Ninoy was murdered on August 21, 1983 – which later gave birth to the ATOM (August Twenty One Movement)

On the other hand, Numerologists are quick to point out that Cory's date and exact time of death (August 1, 2009) is really 08-01-2009-3:18 (a.m.) Removing all the 0's and putting the numbers together would be: 8129318.

Rearranging those numbers would be 8-21-1983 or August 21, 1983, Ninoy's assassination date.

POEM COMPOSED BY NINOY FOR CORY

I Have Fallen In Love

I have fallen in love
With the same woman three times
In a day spanning nineteen years
Of tearful joys and joyful tears.
I loved her first when she was young
Enchanting and vibrant, eternally new
She was brilliant, fragrant and cool
As the morning dew.
I fell in love with her the second time
When first she bore her child and mine
Always by my side, the source of my strength
Helping to turn the tide.
But there were candles to burn
The world was my concern
While our home was her domain
And the people were mine
While the children were hers to maintain.
So it was in those eighteen years and a day
Till I was detained
Forced in prison to stay.
Suddenly she’s our sole support
Source of comfort
Our wellspring of hope
On her shoulders fell the burden of life.
I fell in love again
With the same woman the third time
Looming from the battle
Her courage will never fade.
Amidst the hardships she has remained
Undaunted and unafraid
She is calm, composed
She is God’s lovely maid.

NINOY'S LAST LOVE LETTER TO CORY (Written hours before he was assassinated on August 21, 1983)

My Dearest Cory,

In a few hours I shall be embarking on an uncertain fate, which may well be the end of a long struggle. I slept well last night for the first time since I left Boston — maybe because I’m just plain tired or I’m really at peace with myself. I want to tell you many things but time is running out and I do not have any machine. After a few more paragraphs, my penmanship will be illegible.

All the things I want to tell you may be capsulized in one line - - I love you! You’ve stood by me in my most trying moments and there were times I was very hard on you. But if anyone will ever understand me, it is you, and I know you will always find it in your heart to forgive — and unfair and ironic as it is — it is because of this thought and belief that I often took you for granted.

Early on I knew I was not meant to make money — so I won’t be able to leave anything to the children. I did what I thought I could do best, which is public service, and I hope our people in time will appreciate my sacrifices. This would be my legacy to the children. I may not bequeath them material wealth but I leave them a tradition which can be priceless.

I realize I’ve been very stingy with praise and appreciation for all your efforts — but though unsaid — you know that as far I’m concerned, you are the best. That’s why we’ve lasted this long. There will only be one thing in the world I will never accept — that you love me more than I love you — because my love for you though unarticulated will never be equaled.

If all goes well I should be back in my cell before sundown. Should I be detained do not rush to get home. Take your time and enjoy a side trip to Europe with the girls.

I’ll try to call you tonight if the authorities will allow me. Otherwise just remember me in your dreams.

Love,
Ninoy

P.S. I offered a special rosary for Papa and I asked for his intercession. You know he never failed me. (Ninoy here is referring to Cory’s father, Jose Cojuangco, who died on August 21, 1976)

Paalam at maraming salamat po President Cory C. Aquino!

"People used to compare me to the ideal president, but he doesn't exist and never existed. He has never lived," she said in the 2007 Philippine Star interview.

"When I am just with a few close friends, I tell them, 'OK, you don't like me? Look at the alternatives,' and that shuts them up," she told America's NBC television in a 1987 interview.

While the Filipino People wept, Cory and Ninoy are now rejoicing in heaven as they met and are together again at last, forever...

OUR FAMILY PRAYER

Once again Lord God, we come before You. We acknowledge our insignificance, unworthiness and sinfulness compared to Your greatness, kindness, power and majesty. We admit Lord God that without You we can do nothing but with You nothing is impossible.

We thank You Lord, for all the blessings You have given us. For making us feel your presence in the midst of our daily tasks, thank You so much.

Send us O lord Your Holy Spirit to fill our weaknesses with His strength.

We entrust to You Lord our Children: Benedict, Therese and Baby Clare. Prepare for them Lord God in advance a promising and good future waiting for them. Make them O Lord, responsible, respectful and respectable individuals in the society someday. May they live a long and happy life.

Bless me and my wife Lord God, that we may be together for a long and happy union until old age.

Bless O Lord our friends and the people who are kind to us. Protect and save us from evil, undesirable occurences and from the people who may be plotting evil against us.

We entrust to You Lord God all our worries, fears and future plans for indeed Lord we cannot but admit that without You we can do nothing but with You nothing is impossible. Amen

BEDTIME PRAYER OF OUR KIDS

Jesus, have mercy on us.

Jesus, bless Papa, Mama, Benedict, Rose Therese and Baby Clare.

Mama Mary, pray for us.

St. Benedict, pray for us.

St. Therese, pray for us.

St. Clare, pray for us.

St. Francis, pray for us.

Jesus, Thank You very much.

Jesus, good night.

Jesus, luv you...

Amen.

NEVER QUIT!

One day I decided to quit, i.e., my job, my relationship, my Spirituality and even life itself. I was hopeless.

I went to the woods to have one last talk with God. “God” I said, “Can you give me one good reason not to quit?” His answer surprised me. God said, “Do you see the fern and the bamboo?” “Yes”, I replied.

“When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them. I gave them light. I gave them water. The fern quickly grew from the earth. Its brilliant green covered the floor. Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo. In the second year the Fern grew more vibrant and plentiful. And again, nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo.” God continued, “In the third year there was still nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit. In year four, again, there was nothing from the bamboo seed. I would not quit. God said, and then in the fifth year a tiny sprout emerged from the earth. Compared to the fern it was seemingly small and insignificant...But just 6 months later the bamboo rose to over 100 feet tall. It had spent the five years growing roots beneath.

Those roots made the bamboo very strong and gave it what it needed to survive. I would not give any of my creations a challenge it could not handle.”

God said to me, “did you know that all this time you have been struggling, you have actually been growing roots. I would not quit on the bamboo. I will never quit on you. Don't compare yourself to others. The bamboo had a different purpose than the fern. Yet they both make the forest beautiful. Your time will come, You will rise high.”

I left the forest and bring back this story. I hope this lesson I have learned would be of help to you also.

God will never give up on you!