Urban Contradictions

This picture was taken by Diane, a Gomburza colleague, after we attended the Earth Day Mass presided over by Cardinal Rosales of Manila. We had breakfast at Tapa King, right beside the Cultural Center of the Philippines. It was a beautiful day. I was struck however by this: imagine moving from the garbage dumpsite that was Smokey Mountain to Baywalk along Roxas Boulevard... The contradiction could not be greater, at least for me who also used to work at Payatas, another garbage dumpsite. And on certain Sundays, I preside at mass with the community of Kristong Hari of Montalban, where a new dumpsite has just been put. I seem to have a predilection for or connection to dumpsites... I hope to put up the photo that was taken of the Gomburza group at Smokey Mountain... Smokey Mountain is being repristinated as a habitat for urban poor. In any case, there are things to be experienced in dumpsites, and musings to be made over their existence...

Greetings

It is 9:37 a.m., 24 May 2006, and I have just created my own blogspot... I don't know what drove me to do this, but I guess it must be because oftentimes I feel the need to write my thoughts down, to give free reign to my musings and capture them in something like a page, to freeze them as it were, and to allow them to have a life of their own... Those ellipses, I just love them... (there they go again...) It is as if there is no waking moment that does not carry with it the promise of some thought, some insight, that could take flight and soar... and maybe even fall flat. But such is the risk of anyone who allows his reflections to run their course... In any case, if you do happen to wander into the sometimes rarefied corners of my mind (and my heart too), then be kind, and consider that I speak no definitive truth...

Logoi spermatikoi, seeds of the word spread abroad -- to steal something from Justin the Martyr, Christian apologist of the 2nd century -- seems an appropriate way to describe these musings. For words do have a life of their own, and life would not be meaningful without words... Logos refers to reason as well; the hope is there that my words partake of the dignity of reason. Still, words rise from deep wells of silence. I must say therefore that, from silence to silence, words are iconographic of reality... Without being unreasonble, my words hope to transgress reason and cross over boundaries and extend horizons...

Comments, i.e., your own musings, are most welcome...