Heathen's Heaven

In this godless path I chose, I struggle to find meaning.

I search within. In my ability to learn to love and be content with whatever I have. In my ability to learn from others and absorb their skills. In my inner clarity. In my innate cruelty and insensitivity. In my laziness and escapism.

I search my soul of music. In my albums. In the simple melodies. In my ever changing taste. In expression. In forcibly crossing the borders of your world with my relentless spirit.

I search in the people who have occupied spaces in my heart. In my mother. In my lost brother, long buried in the deepest crevices of memory. In my estrangement with my father. In Esme's bracelet. Joy's laughter. Rhay's ring. Lui's silence. Ian's dreams. In my husband, Darwin's love. All my friends. How easily I can let go. At least on the surface.

I search in the upturned faces of my students. In how I open up their minds but destroying their innocence in return. In passing the flame. In pulling them close so tightly to my heart I crush them and move on. In sembreaks and the never ending cycle of letting go. In the eventual certainty of forgetting their names with the influx of new faces.

I search in nature. In the beauty of the sky, the night, and the mountains. In the force of the wind. In my cigarette smoke as it swirls up in patterns. In the peaceful face of Jupiter as he lies sleeping on my lap.

I look at my life from the outside. And I see myself going through the motions. Finding real happiness and real pain. Taking notes and learning, highlighting. Leaving fingerprints on everyone I get to interact with. Because I know I'm never going to heaven. And this is the only heaven I'll get to know.

Earth is my heaven. My life is my heaven. Music is my heaven. My teaching is my heaven. In his arms, lies the only heaven I will know.

After this life, there is nothing left for me. I rely on my strength and my courage in accepting the nonexistence of an after life.

When you understand too much...

When you think and feel too much...

When you question and resist too much...

When you demand for proof...

That is when you should stop.

Because at the end, you will only see the futility of living.

Stand up and open your arms. Close your eyes and ask, "What is the meaning of my life?" as the camera swiftly zooms away from you to the planet to the whole universe, where your voice will not even echo.

A Reason for Religion

It was a beautiful day at the Manila Memorial Park in Dasma. The sky was of a very clear blue, and the clouds, seeming so near in that relatively high area, were moving in a dreamlike quality, obscuring the noon sun once in a while as huge shadows passed over us now and then. It was a beautiful day for mourning. A beautiful day for one last remembrance. A perfect setting for moving on.

Rotating sprinklers fountained the green uneven land where the dead lay with a fine sheet of water. The sun was intense on my head and on the back of my neck, but a strong wind was blowing so I didn't mind much being out of the shade. I was looking away from the people, and with the park empty, I had an unhindered view of the countryside - country, if only compared to Manila where I stayed my whole life. For that view, any amount of sun is worth it.

In my previous entry, I thought that I wasn't a family person. But I realized that I really am, more than my other relatives in fact. Someone's life has ended. Someone who helped me go through college. Someone who helped my family survive during our periods of hunger. I thought of my dead grandfather as I looked at the sky and the clouds.

It is appalling how my other relatives thought more on the food after the funeral than on the funeral itself. The food wasn't even that great - sandwiches and cupcakes - but they were wolfing it down with zest. They were even having fun, sitting down on the grass like it was a picnic. The immediate relatives of my dead grandfather were of course, subdued while they ate. Talking quietly and looking at the now buried rectangular hole in the ground often.

I wondered about how they felt hearing the happy voices around them, the normal murmur of talk. How they felt about seeing their relatives continue their normal lives as if the occasion wasn't for mourning. Perhaps, my other relatives didn't feel keenly the loss of a distant grandfather. Perhaps. But for my distant aunts and uncles, they have lost a father. My distant grandmother has lost a husband. Yet my other relatives ate the sandwiches and drank the juice merrily. Appalling.

I looked away from all of them to the sky and to the good view, standing under the glare of the sun on a spot a few feet away from the makeshift tent. I had my sandwich in my hand, eating mechanically even if I did not feel like eating lest my other relatives scold me for being aloof again. I ate the sandwich, just so they wouldn't notice how removed I was from them.

I thought on death as the strong wind blew in short strong gusts I had to adjust my footing to avoid stumbling from it. How soon before it was my turn to sit on the chair near the freshly-turned earth? How soon before it was my turn to grieve?

I tried to think on my grandfather during the wake and while the coffin was being lowered. My eyes watered but I shed no tear. He was a loss, from the good things that I hear from my Mom he has done, but I really didn't know him very well. We've only met about three times, and had only talked to him at length once.

So I just sympathized with my distant relatives as they cried while white flowers were being thrown over the lowered coffin. How painful is it to see your parent inside that coffin not to hear him talk again? Not to see him laugh or smile again? Not to feel his presence again? How about my grandmother? How will she be able to bear losing the person she has spent most of her years with? A fleeting vision of Yummy in that coffin appeared in my mind and I almost cried right then. We've only been two months together and it already hurts that much. What more for years, decades of companionship? How will I be able to bear that?

My Mom was crying quietly in a corner. She knew my dead grandfather well. I remembered what she told me during the wake as we stood over the coffin, looking at his face one last time before the funeral. "Nagkita na sila ng lola mo (her mom)..."

A weak smile was my only reply, given my personal beliefs in heaven and religion, but I realized something big about humanity. I may be wrong, but right then I thought that people need to believe in a religion. People need to believe in heaven, in something that will ensure that all the bonds broken in death will be remade in another place. A better place where they will be together forever.

People pray because when they die, they want to be with their loved ones again. People try to live according to a religion's rules to ensure that they will go to that promised place. People don't want their existence to end.

But what if they were wrong? As a man of science, a part of me believes that there really is no God. That humanity is simply making out something to make their lives more meaningful. To make each of them feel important and special. Something above animals and other living things whose deaths are final. A dead plant is dead. A dead animal is dead. There is no heaven for bacteria. Why should there be one for humans?

At this point perhaps some of you will object or be indignant. You will say that of course, we are different from animals. It is that feeling of superiority I'm talking about. Nobody will liken themselves to animals, much less bacteria.

It is our very nature which demands a religion. Because of our natural feelings with other human beings, religions need to exist. Science has to be kept quiet whenever discoveries disprove what was written in the Bible (do not forget Copernicus) for religion's sake. We make excuses whenever our religious dogmas prove untrue, saying that there are different interpretations to its meaning. Everybody defends their religion because if religion fails, everybody will go crazy. With the absence of rules, people will harm each other and will fall on the brink of extinction.

As I've said, I might be wrong. I'm very sure I'm not the first one to think of these ideas. Profound thoughts are not made in Friendster blogs anyway. I might just have made an enemy out of you, or I might have confused you of your beliefs.

I believe in the need for religion. I believe that the good things it can bring out of us (e.g. Christmas) outweighs the fact that all of it might be untrue or make-believe. But I wonder how I can make myself believe in God again with these thoughts in my head. An empty faith will probably be the best that I could have.

Back to the funeral, maybe my other relatives were allowing themselves to have fun because they believe that the dead is in heaven at last so why feel sad and mourn? Or maybe it's simply their human nature which prevailed right then - to eat, and to survive.

Hell's Glare

God, I do not know how I feel towards you now. We've been close, I know. Back then, when we hardly have anything to eat, you helped me, us, make it through. We were close, and that despite my natural skepticism, I felt that there was a difference with you present in my life. A positive difference.

But now, God, what are you putting me through? I started turning away from you. Because, as I was getting older, I change. I learn things about myself. I began to understand what a cursed life you are putting me into. I began to blame you for things, so perhaps it was better that you were absent from my life. That way, I cannot lay the blame on anything. But if you're back around, well, you've got powers. You're controlling my life. You're giving me all this shit! You are cruel.

Sometimes, God, it's beginning to hurt me loads. If I could have been normal God, I would have been so happy! I wouldnt have messed the lives of those who got involved with me! I would've focused on other things. I would've saved a lot of tears from unnecessary pain, which, of course, you delegated to me! I would've advanced! But NO, God! You've put me through this!

What reader? You're siding up with God again. Well? Calling me a demon, satanic, whatever I don't care what you call me! You think I was to blame? You think I had a hand in being like this? You think I would deliberately choose bisexuality over heterosexuality? D'you think I chose this??

But God, I'm not really too angry, if I think of both sides. Well, at least you gave me Chiyo here. She helps me cope and understand myself better. There are my students, too. I've had such a wonderful time being with them. You gave me the chance to be a teacher, and through that, I have touched many lives. My soul was filled. Of course, there are my friends, who still care a lot for me (just look at the comments here in my blog). And of course, there's mom, Baby, dad, and my crazy bro. And there's music. There's always music to lean to.

God, thank you for giving me all these. Without them, I might not have made it on my own. You are cruel, God, true, but you try to help, too, in ways we do not directly see.

Is that why you named me Bryan Christian - a strong believer in Christ? That despite all the shit I've been getting, all these problems, in the end, I'll be able to come out of hell's glare? If that is so God, thank you. I like how all these is helping me know more about life, about myself and other people. I will do my best and pass this test. Romantic relationships are not the only sources of happiness in this world. I will make it through all these in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.