Monday, April 21, 2003
Wednesday, April 09, 2003
Angelic Experience
April 9, 2003
154 am
I just had an angelic experience.
Twenty minutes ago, my daughter Andrea fell from the bed while sleeping. She’s ten months old. I thought it’s already morning. At first I was worried when I asked my wife what happened. When she told me about the incident, I don’t know why but I wasn’t worried and all. Barely an hour ago, I was talking to God, saying my prayers and all – after what – months. I was saying to myself, nah, God wouldn’t allow things like these without a purpose. I was reminding myself of my students who almost died on a car accident in Tagaytay. Six times the car flipped over, just one shy of the bangin. Yet, they all survived. I told them afterwards that their angels caught them. I wouldn’t believe that Andrea fell because of an accident.
I would always tell Andrea especially at night time, when I would feed her in her sleep (that’s the reason why I sleep so late – I wait for her feeding time – at around twelve. Of course, between nine and twelve, I play computer games. It’s also an alibi. But don’t tell my wife about it) how much I love her, and how lucky and blessed I felt since she came to our life. During those feedings, I would be reminded of how God, my own Father feed me also day after day, providing for all I need even though I am unmindful and ungrateful of it. He would not take a grudge against us, because He is certainly better than me. I do not hold it against Andrea that she doesn’t tell me “thank you” for waiting for her feeding time before I sleep. There are times that I am really sleepy and all and I could not barely keep my eyes awake. And I would take turns between Gangsters 2 and HBO; between Capitalism and Cinemax; Hearts of Iron and Star Movies, and Star Craft just to keep me awake. Because I do not want her to start crying in order for her to get fed. And because of that, I feel blessed. That God does the same for me, being my Father in heaven. That He knows what I need even before I tell Him.
My wife even got her baby book and started reading about I don’t know, falling babies I suppose. I just held myself from telling her that it’s okay. I fell a hundred times when I was a baby. I would have told her that falling increases the IQ of babies, but she might get really mad at me, telling of those things at that particular time. I don’t know, I just felt that everything is okay. I merely said, “Shall I put the lights off already?” It’s because of the baby. She’s still sleepy and the light disturbs her. And the sight of her daddy makes her wanna get up again and play. She always does whenever she sees me. That’s why when she really wants to sleep, she goes looking for her mommy Ressu.
Then it hit me. The reason why I feel the way I feel, is because I believe that God is in control. That’s the difference between an optimist and a pessimist. Now, I can answer my bright student Nino. The reason why the pessimist thinks negatively about everything ( and squirms at the optimist who says everything is for the best) is because he does not believe in God. Perhaps he is forced to believe that He exists but he does not believe God cares for him, the way a father cares for his child. That God, is willing to sacrifice three hours of sleep for some boring computer games and much more boring cable movies, just so his baby gets fed even before she cries.
The optimist believes that there is purpose in the universe. He appreciates the half-torn (and ugly) leaf lying on the ground just because that helped to bring forth a pretty flower. The optimist believes, nay, he knows, that even the seeming evil things happen because of a purpose. That all the infinitesimal things of his life bears a meaning in the grand scenario of the Lord’s Will (which to the pessimist is merely the Will described in Schopenhauer’s book – aye, when he was still a pessimist). The optimist believes, in the final analysis, that God, the author of space and time and the great provider of the whole of cosmos, hundreds of billions of light years in expanse, cares for one infinitesimal soul as he is.
And in that sense, the optimist is a realist. Because all his assumptions start from the reality that nothing is accidental in the world. Everything flows from certain causes and eventually, these lead to consequences. In fact, the reason why there is science at all, is because of the acceptance of the universe’s regularity and order. If there is no order in the universe, then there is no science to talk about. Pythagoras, and his school understood this perfectly and he said that mathematics is the tool whereby the phenomena of the universe can be quantified, and hence, explained. Newton, for his part, said that God is a mathematician, and He made the universe through numbers and ratio and proportion. I think the Bible bears something of that too. In fact, for the optimist such as St.Thomas Aquinas, he used this order and regularity in his Summa Theologiae, I, 2 to prove that there is God. In fact, even his “proofs” through motion and causality, flow from this realization, that there is order in the universe. For if not, how are you able to say that “every mover is either self-moved or moved by another”. All the universal principles, axioms and postulates start from this proposition, that there is order in the universe. In fact, even in the things of the great unknown, the mathematician looks for the constant. Just look at the theory of relativity of Einstein. How did he equate mass and energy? By a constant c squared, or the square of the speed of light in a vacuum. Do not ask me how he found it. He explained these things in twenty blackboards in Harvard, in front of the greatest minds of his time. Besides, he was regarded by many as the man of the century. Yes, ahead of the Popes, the presidents, and Elvis Presley. In math, even those things that seemed without correlation, indeed has some of it. In fact, I never heard any zero correlation at all. Either it is negative or positive. But zero, never.
That’s the reason why for the mathematician, accidents do not occur. We cannot speak of accidents in the universe. We speak only of probability. To prove my point. Let’s say, that a person wins the lotto jackpot. If the lotto is 6/42, his chances of winning it is 1 in 3.778 billion. What if he wins two times in a row? Or three? Statistics will show that the answer will be one in so many billions. It is so low that some are tempted to say it is impossible. But, nothing is impossible. There is still a probability. Hence, you should not say improbable. The most you could say is it is very unlikely to happen. What is impossible is that you did not buy your lotto ticket, and you did not hold of any ticket at all, and yet you won. Because these two events are mutually exclusive and hence, contradictory.
Kant, in his effort to answer the allegations of David Hume wrote an eight hundred paged obscurity (from the immortal words of Durant). In fact, even his own editor sent back the copy because he was fearing insanity just trying to read it. David Hume’s propositions and his attack to human enquiry, are still valid today. But for us, it is settled. How are we sure that the causes we assigned to the effects will give out the same effects, say three thousand years from now? We are not absolutely certain. But the probability is so great we round off the opposition and convert it to law. For example, a certain drug was tested to six thousand human beings with a certain disease. All except three were cured. Will you not say that the drug can cure the disease because of the three? It’s a pity Hume did not know statistical correlation and analysis.
Hence, I believe that all things happen for a purpose. And all these have meaning because I believe that there is a God, and that he looks up to us, insignificant as we are. In fact, because I am a Christian, I even believe that this same God willed to sacrifice divinity for our sake. The divine was made man, in order to make man divine. More so, because I am a Catholic, I even believe that day after day after, he was willing to be seen as a mere lifeless bread in the Holy Communion, just so we may eat his flesh and drink his blood in an escathological Passover at Mass.
My teachers will hate me for this, but there are only four teachers I recall in college. Mr. Pedroza who taught Logic and made me love Philosophy, Ms. Beltran, my Theory of Interest teacher, who was so nice and beautiful and very kind I almost fell in love with her, and Mr See, who was my idol in math. They were my teachers in UST. Ages ago. The fourth one, taught me my love for literature. Mrs. Noel. I do not recall her name anymore, it starts with an F, Fideliza or Flordeliza. She wears eyeglasses and everytime she will say something very important, she will remove them slowly, and her eyes will start to become like David Bowie’s China eyes. Anyway, one day, she was talking about a poem of Milton or Keats I guess. Then, she takes off the eyeglass again, slowly, and with China eyes, she tells us. “God is in our heaven, and everything is right with the world”. I think Mrs. Noel was an angel also. A lot of teachers are.
304am
154 am
I just had an angelic experience.
Twenty minutes ago, my daughter Andrea fell from the bed while sleeping. She’s ten months old. I thought it’s already morning. At first I was worried when I asked my wife what happened. When she told me about the incident, I don’t know why but I wasn’t worried and all. Barely an hour ago, I was talking to God, saying my prayers and all – after what – months. I was saying to myself, nah, God wouldn’t allow things like these without a purpose. I was reminding myself of my students who almost died on a car accident in Tagaytay. Six times the car flipped over, just one shy of the bangin. Yet, they all survived. I told them afterwards that their angels caught them. I wouldn’t believe that Andrea fell because of an accident.
I would always tell Andrea especially at night time, when I would feed her in her sleep (that’s the reason why I sleep so late – I wait for her feeding time – at around twelve. Of course, between nine and twelve, I play computer games. It’s also an alibi. But don’t tell my wife about it) how much I love her, and how lucky and blessed I felt since she came to our life. During those feedings, I would be reminded of how God, my own Father feed me also day after day, providing for all I need even though I am unmindful and ungrateful of it. He would not take a grudge against us, because He is certainly better than me. I do not hold it against Andrea that she doesn’t tell me “thank you” for waiting for her feeding time before I sleep. There are times that I am really sleepy and all and I could not barely keep my eyes awake. And I would take turns between Gangsters 2 and HBO; between Capitalism and Cinemax; Hearts of Iron and Star Movies, and Star Craft just to keep me awake. Because I do not want her to start crying in order for her to get fed. And because of that, I feel blessed. That God does the same for me, being my Father in heaven. That He knows what I need even before I tell Him.
My wife even got her baby book and started reading about I don’t know, falling babies I suppose. I just held myself from telling her that it’s okay. I fell a hundred times when I was a baby. I would have told her that falling increases the IQ of babies, but she might get really mad at me, telling of those things at that particular time. I don’t know, I just felt that everything is okay. I merely said, “Shall I put the lights off already?” It’s because of the baby. She’s still sleepy and the light disturbs her. And the sight of her daddy makes her wanna get up again and play. She always does whenever she sees me. That’s why when she really wants to sleep, she goes looking for her mommy Ressu.
Then it hit me. The reason why I feel the way I feel, is because I believe that God is in control. That’s the difference between an optimist and a pessimist. Now, I can answer my bright student Nino. The reason why the pessimist thinks negatively about everything ( and squirms at the optimist who says everything is for the best) is because he does not believe in God. Perhaps he is forced to believe that He exists but he does not believe God cares for him, the way a father cares for his child. That God, is willing to sacrifice three hours of sleep for some boring computer games and much more boring cable movies, just so his baby gets fed even before she cries.
The optimist believes that there is purpose in the universe. He appreciates the half-torn (and ugly) leaf lying on the ground just because that helped to bring forth a pretty flower. The optimist believes, nay, he knows, that even the seeming evil things happen because of a purpose. That all the infinitesimal things of his life bears a meaning in the grand scenario of the Lord’s Will (which to the pessimist is merely the Will described in Schopenhauer’s book – aye, when he was still a pessimist). The optimist believes, in the final analysis, that God, the author of space and time and the great provider of the whole of cosmos, hundreds of billions of light years in expanse, cares for one infinitesimal soul as he is.
And in that sense, the optimist is a realist. Because all his assumptions start from the reality that nothing is accidental in the world. Everything flows from certain causes and eventually, these lead to consequences. In fact, the reason why there is science at all, is because of the acceptance of the universe’s regularity and order. If there is no order in the universe, then there is no science to talk about. Pythagoras, and his school understood this perfectly and he said that mathematics is the tool whereby the phenomena of the universe can be quantified, and hence, explained. Newton, for his part, said that God is a mathematician, and He made the universe through numbers and ratio and proportion. I think the Bible bears something of that too. In fact, for the optimist such as St.Thomas Aquinas, he used this order and regularity in his Summa Theologiae, I, 2 to prove that there is God. In fact, even his “proofs” through motion and causality, flow from this realization, that there is order in the universe. For if not, how are you able to say that “every mover is either self-moved or moved by another”. All the universal principles, axioms and postulates start from this proposition, that there is order in the universe. In fact, even in the things of the great unknown, the mathematician looks for the constant. Just look at the theory of relativity of Einstein. How did he equate mass and energy? By a constant c squared, or the square of the speed of light in a vacuum. Do not ask me how he found it. He explained these things in twenty blackboards in Harvard, in front of the greatest minds of his time. Besides, he was regarded by many as the man of the century. Yes, ahead of the Popes, the presidents, and Elvis Presley. In math, even those things that seemed without correlation, indeed has some of it. In fact, I never heard any zero correlation at all. Either it is negative or positive. But zero, never.
That’s the reason why for the mathematician, accidents do not occur. We cannot speak of accidents in the universe. We speak only of probability. To prove my point. Let’s say, that a person wins the lotto jackpot. If the lotto is 6/42, his chances of winning it is 1 in 3.778 billion. What if he wins two times in a row? Or three? Statistics will show that the answer will be one in so many billions. It is so low that some are tempted to say it is impossible. But, nothing is impossible. There is still a probability. Hence, you should not say improbable. The most you could say is it is very unlikely to happen. What is impossible is that you did not buy your lotto ticket, and you did not hold of any ticket at all, and yet you won. Because these two events are mutually exclusive and hence, contradictory.
Kant, in his effort to answer the allegations of David Hume wrote an eight hundred paged obscurity (from the immortal words of Durant). In fact, even his own editor sent back the copy because he was fearing insanity just trying to read it. David Hume’s propositions and his attack to human enquiry, are still valid today. But for us, it is settled. How are we sure that the causes we assigned to the effects will give out the same effects, say three thousand years from now? We are not absolutely certain. But the probability is so great we round off the opposition and convert it to law. For example, a certain drug was tested to six thousand human beings with a certain disease. All except three were cured. Will you not say that the drug can cure the disease because of the three? It’s a pity Hume did not know statistical correlation and analysis.
Hence, I believe that all things happen for a purpose. And all these have meaning because I believe that there is a God, and that he looks up to us, insignificant as we are. In fact, because I am a Christian, I even believe that this same God willed to sacrifice divinity for our sake. The divine was made man, in order to make man divine. More so, because I am a Catholic, I even believe that day after day after, he was willing to be seen as a mere lifeless bread in the Holy Communion, just so we may eat his flesh and drink his blood in an escathological Passover at Mass.
My teachers will hate me for this, but there are only four teachers I recall in college. Mr. Pedroza who taught Logic and made me love Philosophy, Ms. Beltran, my Theory of Interest teacher, who was so nice and beautiful and very kind I almost fell in love with her, and Mr See, who was my idol in math. They were my teachers in UST. Ages ago. The fourth one, taught me my love for literature. Mrs. Noel. I do not recall her name anymore, it starts with an F, Fideliza or Flordeliza. She wears eyeglasses and everytime she will say something very important, she will remove them slowly, and her eyes will start to become like David Bowie’s China eyes. Anyway, one day, she was talking about a poem of Milton or Keats I guess. Then, she takes off the eyeglass again, slowly, and with China eyes, she tells us. “God is in our heaven, and everything is right with the world”. I think Mrs. Noel was an angel also. A lot of teachers are.
304am
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