Christmas 2017

Two things for me are worth sharing with my readers this Christmas 2017. I did not go shopping. 

Those who did venture out talked about the horrendous traffic especially in Makati. In central areas in cities in other countries which is clogged by traffic cars are barred entry – they either walk or take shuttles to specific areas. They park their cars at designated areas around the periphery.

The other is for a more personal reason, I have developed an allergy to luxurious food like ham, steaks, cakes and pastries piled on top of dining tables. 

The excessive quantities, pardon my comment, is enough to make me puke. During the last two days I bought “tuyo” cut up and soaked in vinegar not just because I like to but because I was developing a nausea for food and the baskets and baskets of food I received as gifts. I gave some of them away to the carpenters working in renovating the house.

This Christmas our family reunion will not be complete this year. A daughter will be in London and her children in Sydney so we are arranging for a skype reunion. Another daughter and family will come from Hong Kong but they leave on Tuesday. Not very much of a reunion. When children grow up and have their own families with their concerns, don’t expect them to be at your beck and call. I suffer from the leaving their nest departures.

On a more serious side, I realized Filipinos in general do not question the beliefs and traditions they have been born into. It is a general passivity that has held them back from exploring ideas and changes that could have helped create a more aware and kind society. Part of that problem is the narrow perspective of the Roman Catholic religion that came with Spanish conquistadores. Religion may have been good for creating public order during the period of conquest, promoting as it did obedience and docility with the threat of the fires of hell for those who had other things in mind. But times change. Today we are a nation forging our own identity under an audacious leader in a complex and difficult world.

That, too is what I wish for all Filipinos. If anything, that is what Duterte since he assumed the leadership is helping us to achieve coupled with a strictness so lacking in the previous administration. That attitude has spread to other functions in life. We sorely need how to think for ourselves. Filipinos must learn to think for themselves  including to question when in doubt and cultivate the habit of curiosity and wonder instead of sticking only to traditions which make us develop an unhealthy obsequiousness.

An area we should look at for change in attitude is our attitude toward other religions. We should break traditions other than what we have been used to both in our personal and public lives.

In the Catholic religion we follow the teaching of the Bible about the Birth of Jesus. This is from Luke 2.

“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone went to his own town to register.

“So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified. But the angel said to them. Do no be afraid, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you, he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Suddenly, a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

There are other interpretations among the most sensational being the Dead Sea Scrolls.

“The scrolls, which have provided archaeological and religious scholars new ways of looking at the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish world of Jesus have been produced in 37 volumes by the Oxford University Press.”

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947 in the Qumran caves near the Dead Sea by two Bedouin tribe shepherds. The scrolls are believed to have been written by a monastic group of religious people known as the Essenes who lived during the time of Jesus.

Before this great religious archaeological find the only existing records on the life of Jesus Christ were written by four Christian evangelists namely Luke, Mark, Matthew and John. The earliest of these so-called Gospels was written at least 50 years after the death of Jesus. Not one of them wrote the gospels during Jesus’ lifetime.”

From Karen Armstrong in her book on Islam: “Even though they all claimed to be devout, committed Muslims, the esoterics had all changed the religion of the Prophet. Muhammad would have been startled by the doctrines of the Faylasufs, and Ali would almost certainly declare themselves to be his partisans. But, despite the convictions of many of the faithful in any tradition, who are convinced that their religion never changes and that their beliefs and practices are identical with those of the founders of their faith, religion must change in order to survive. Muslim reformers would find the esoteric forms of Islam inauthentic and would try to get back to the purity of the first ummah, before it was corrupted by these later accretions.