IT’S not that by practice I like to read gossip columns. It’s just that every time I open the papers or the Internet, gossip items just pop up, and even if you don’t read the whole story, you get to read the titles and the subtitles.
Of course, the lurid pictures are there to grab our attention too. No matter how well-intentioned and focused we are, we end up actually being at the mercy of the many tricks and gimmicks of the media.
That’s how I got to learn, for example, that now the so-called “golden couple,” Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, are filing for a divorce, with the purring Angelina declaring that this business of fidelity is overrated. Whoa!
Let’s get this straight. If I remember right, when they started to live together, they vowed never to get married unless gay couples were also allowed to marry. So, if they were not married, what’s there to divorce? Maybe, divorce here means division of their assets. Maybe…
Anyway, I found that view rather strange. Are they gay themselves, I asked myself, and what connection is there between their marriage or non-marriage with gay marriage in general? Clearly, I’m missing something.
But similar views are also expressed by similar characters. George Clooney, for example, pictured with a gorgeous chick curled around him, also said he will never get married. I didn’t bother to know the reason why.
Sometime ago, another actress, Halle Berry, was just contented getting pregnant by some male model and again declaring she’ll never get married. She offered some reason, but it didn’t stick in my mind. I only remember that the logic was as slippery as an eel.
What’s happening? And why are some of our local papers patronizing this kind of stories? Is this supposed to show our openness of mind, our tolerance in a pluralistic world, our flowing with the times, our keeping up with the Joneses?
Are we now writing off the Ten Commandments, religion and morality? What is now the basis of our sense of right and wrong? Are we having a new normal, typified by things like vanity and egoism, lust and eroticism, promiscuity and infidelity, etc.?
Are these supposed to be the expressions of freedom? We seem to be getting confused and lost. Worse, we are losing our sense of shame, modesty and outrage. Our moral sense seems to be dead or in coma.
What’s supposed to be hidden and hushed up is now flaunted and proclaimed to the four winds. Some people, usually stars and celebrities, glory in what supposed to be their own shame. They couple and decouple at the turn of the weather vane.
Self-assertion now completely replaces self-denial. The cross is simply a decoration, a fashion statement, or even a symbol of youthful dissent, completely devoid of its religious content.
It appears that in this field, any mention of Christian or religious or moral guideline is considered taboo or out of place. The world of entertainment is supposed to be a free-floating open city where anything goes as long as one avoids creating a public mess. Only primitive instincts are allowed.
It’s clear that we are missing the boy who dared to say the king was naked when everyone else just played along with the fiction that the king was in golden robes.
Many of our media indiscriminately download celebrity items and other gossips purely to cater to and exploit the lower tastes and desires of the people. And thus, they contribute to the moral desensitization of the people. And from there we can only expect worse things.
Of course, to correct this anomaly would require a higher sense of morals, and nothing less than genuine spiritual life, from all of us and especially those directly involved in the media.
But this idea might be considered preposterous as of now. There’s literary or artistic freedom, rather its hydra-like false versions, to contend with, in the first place. And there’s the practical considerations of profitability, pressures at work, etc. to consider.
I still think there’s hope. We just have to kneel down and pray, and beg God that something be done, and we, in whatever capacity and possibility we have, can write to the media people pointing out the faults, or suggesting ideas, or even getting into the business itself.
This problem will require a massive and active participation of the people. Even if we have found the missing boy, all of us also need to act.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Rumblings and shiftings
CONSIDER the following recent facts—
- In a survey conducted lately by the Knights of Columbus in the US, 56% said that abortion is “morally wrong.” Only 19% said it is “morally acceptable,” while 25% said it is not “morally relevant.”
This is a major shift from the sentiments of the previous years when the majority of the Americans considered killing babies as morally acceptable. In the first place, by a devious twist of the so-called scientific logic, many did not consider the fetus as a human baby. It was merely a blob of flesh.
- Last January 22, as many as 300,000 gathered in Washington D.C. to participate in the prolife-organized March for Life as a sign of protest to the legalization of abortion in the US 37 years ago. Half that number were 25-year-olds and under, a heartwarming fact.
Together with this march, 75,000 participated in the Virtual March for Life online, each one choosing an avatar—a digital character—placed on a map fronting the congressional buildings, thereby expressing their view of defending life.
- Last January 19, in a stunning upset in the election for the Senate seat vacated by the now deceased Sen. Ted Kennedy, an underdog Republican Scott Brown defeated the initially favorite Martha Coakley, who was for the pro-Obama health care plan that included abortion.
Political pundits, often running out of superlatives, are still relishing the amazing feat pulled by the very clever Brown against the powerful attorney general Coakley. Everyone agrees a strong rebuke from the people has just been delivered to the very liberal agenda of the Obama leadership.
There are still many other emerging facts of interest, like the Manhattan Declaration last November, put up by a broad coalition of 150 American Catholic, Orthodox and evangelical leaders who expressed their willingness to go against any pressure for them to accept abortion, same-sex marriage, etc.
But these are enough for now. The point is there are significant rumblings and shiftings at present in the socio-political American landscape, generated and driven by moral considerations. It seems more and more American people are waking up from their freefall to liberal immoralities.
What is the relevance of these data to us? A lot! Especially now that we are in an election year, we have to make sure that we choose leaders who uphold and defend clear moral positions.
We should not enter where the Americans are now exiting. Since we are now very globally interconnected, what happens in the States or in Europe can easily affect us. When they go wildly liberal or socialist, for example, we most likely follow them in some ways.
Since the present American government is openly promoting contraception, abortion, immoral reproductive health with very questionable sex education programs, etc., we cannot be naïve and take these things for granted.
We have in our midst politicians and candidates who are clearly kowtowing to these foreign powers. And thus we already have in our Congress such things as the Reproductive Health Bill and Anti-Discrimination Bill that include immoral or at least potentially dangerous features.
The Magna Carta for Women, already passed, actually contains dangerous features whose effects are not yet patent since the other auxiliary laws are not yet in place. But it can be a wedge to open the door to more dangerous laws.
Some politicians and candidates are already talking about putting an expiry date on marriage, allowing the so-called same-sex marriage, etc. They already floated the idea of divorce and abortion before.
In choosing our president, senators and congressmen down to mayors and councilors, we need to know what their stand is regarding these issues. These are the more important issues.
I suppose all the candidates are for good governance, against corruption, for economic development, etc. Fine, let’s make our assessments on these criteria calmly and respect each other’s choices. But these considerations take secondary roles to the more important moral issues.
It’s when a candidate is for Reproductive Health as defined now, or for divorce, same-sex marriage, or when he is not certain about these issues or even is clearly playing footsie with questionable ideologues, that we have to put our foot down and roundly reject them.
Let’s spare ourselves the complicated times gone through many of the developed countries now into some deep moral fix because they gave undue concessions to sinful laws purportedly to respect people’s freedom of choice.
Let’s remember that politics can be good or bad, depending on the moral direction we take as a state and as a people. Politics is never morally indifferent.
- In a survey conducted lately by the Knights of Columbus in the US, 56% said that abortion is “morally wrong.” Only 19% said it is “morally acceptable,” while 25% said it is not “morally relevant.”
This is a major shift from the sentiments of the previous years when the majority of the Americans considered killing babies as morally acceptable. In the first place, by a devious twist of the so-called scientific logic, many did not consider the fetus as a human baby. It was merely a blob of flesh.
- Last January 22, as many as 300,000 gathered in Washington D.C. to participate in the prolife-organized March for Life as a sign of protest to the legalization of abortion in the US 37 years ago. Half that number were 25-year-olds and under, a heartwarming fact.
Together with this march, 75,000 participated in the Virtual March for Life online, each one choosing an avatar—a digital character—placed on a map fronting the congressional buildings, thereby expressing their view of defending life.
- Last January 19, in a stunning upset in the election for the Senate seat vacated by the now deceased Sen. Ted Kennedy, an underdog Republican Scott Brown defeated the initially favorite Martha Coakley, who was for the pro-Obama health care plan that included abortion.
Political pundits, often running out of superlatives, are still relishing the amazing feat pulled by the very clever Brown against the powerful attorney general Coakley. Everyone agrees a strong rebuke from the people has just been delivered to the very liberal agenda of the Obama leadership.
There are still many other emerging facts of interest, like the Manhattan Declaration last November, put up by a broad coalition of 150 American Catholic, Orthodox and evangelical leaders who expressed their willingness to go against any pressure for them to accept abortion, same-sex marriage, etc.
But these are enough for now. The point is there are significant rumblings and shiftings at present in the socio-political American landscape, generated and driven by moral considerations. It seems more and more American people are waking up from their freefall to liberal immoralities.
What is the relevance of these data to us? A lot! Especially now that we are in an election year, we have to make sure that we choose leaders who uphold and defend clear moral positions.
We should not enter where the Americans are now exiting. Since we are now very globally interconnected, what happens in the States or in Europe can easily affect us. When they go wildly liberal or socialist, for example, we most likely follow them in some ways.
Since the present American government is openly promoting contraception, abortion, immoral reproductive health with very questionable sex education programs, etc., we cannot be naïve and take these things for granted.
We have in our midst politicians and candidates who are clearly kowtowing to these foreign powers. And thus we already have in our Congress such things as the Reproductive Health Bill and Anti-Discrimination Bill that include immoral or at least potentially dangerous features.
The Magna Carta for Women, already passed, actually contains dangerous features whose effects are not yet patent since the other auxiliary laws are not yet in place. But it can be a wedge to open the door to more dangerous laws.
Some politicians and candidates are already talking about putting an expiry date on marriage, allowing the so-called same-sex marriage, etc. They already floated the idea of divorce and abortion before.
In choosing our president, senators and congressmen down to mayors and councilors, we need to know what their stand is regarding these issues. These are the more important issues.
I suppose all the candidates are for good governance, against corruption, for economic development, etc. Fine, let’s make our assessments on these criteria calmly and respect each other’s choices. But these considerations take secondary roles to the more important moral issues.
It’s when a candidate is for Reproductive Health as defined now, or for divorce, same-sex marriage, or when he is not certain about these issues or even is clearly playing footsie with questionable ideologues, that we have to put our foot down and roundly reject them.
Let’s spare ourselves the complicated times gone through many of the developed countries now into some deep moral fix because they gave undue concessions to sinful laws purportedly to respect people’s freedom of choice.
Let’s remember that politics can be good or bad, depending on the moral direction we take as a state and as a people. Politics is never morally indifferent.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Haiti summons us to the cross
I’M sure we have been devastated by the latest disaster in Haiti. Imagine the magnitude—200,000 dead, 1.5 million homeless, spreading starvation and disease, buildings collapsing, including the presidential palace, the cathedral, the UN office, etc. And the crisis is still growing, in number and in intensity.
We really have to pray hard. That’s what we should always do, especially when we find ourselves helpless and cornered before an unfolding deadly adversity.
We have to mobilize whatever we have and can do to help. This is the immediate response. And it’s deeply gratifying to see the whole world practically scrambling to lend a hand to this nation in serious and unspeakable difficulty.
Images that have so far come to us through the media and the Internet are definitely breath-stopping. We run out of words to describe what we see and feel. And yet it’s heartwarming to note that in the midst of this sea of troubles, there are beautiful stories of heroism and deep, unshakeable faith.
An elderly woman, extricated from the rubble after one long and agonizing week, could only say she did nothing other than pray and talk to God. That’s all she could say. It all came from her heart. She had no other explanation.
Another, who lost husband and relatives, said her faith kept her strong and hopeful in what seemed like an eternity of darkness and uncertainty. Her faith was her last resort. It was what made her calm and sane.
I’m sure that through all this we have been asking ourselves, even if we do not want to say it aloud, why this disaster had to happen, what’s its meaning and purpose, if any…?
I’m sure many thoughts have come to our mind to try to answer and clarify. This is an unavoidable human reaction. We may not like to admit it now when the urgent humanitarian efforts are still going on. But that’s what is on our mind.
Of course, everything depends on our cast of mind and level of knowledge, on whether we just keep to reason and the sciences or we also take in faith and beliefs…
That’s why there had been many voices trying to explain things. The American evangelist Pat Robertson insensitively said Haiti is a cursed nation because of some pact with the devil in the past. Of course, he was immediately rebuked.
The Hollywood star Danny Glover said the disaster came because the rich countries failed to make an agreement on global warming/global cooling/climate change, whatever it is now, in the recent Copenhagen summit. Obviously, no one took him seriously.
The naturalists and science-dominated people just clinically gave an emotionless geological analysis of the situation. In this level, many of the atheists and skeptics gather and tend to agree. They don’t want to go beyond. For them, nature and science mark the boundary of speculation.
But the human heart wants more. It would take a wickedly deliberate and gigantic effort to muffle this spontaneous and earnest cry of our heart.
And it sooner or later realizes that it has to grapple with a mystery, a truth that can only be fully revealed not here and now, but in some distant state of life. The heart knows that much.
Reason and the sciences just cannot have the last word. They can give some light, all right, but they cannot explain all. They cannot give closure to the whole issue.
If we just rely on them, we will surely get stuck somewhere. And often we will just be left with depression, anxiety, fear, as meaninglessness sets in. This Haiti disaster, like all other disasters, is an invitation for us to go beyond reason. We need to disentangle ourselves from the exaggerated grip of reason on us.
We have to go into faith and into the misty ways of mysteries. The challenge of the mysteries is not meant to grind us to a halt in our pursuit of knowledge. Rather it is stimulate us to go further, with humility and simplicity, the prerequisites of faith.
Obviously, for Christian believers, the mystery involved in events like this Haiti disaster is the mystery of the cross, of why God to recover us had to send his son, and the son had to die on the cross.
It’s a mystery that will continually give us fresh glimpses of the eternal wisdom that can explain everything. It may keep us in suspense, but it reassures us that we are in the right orbit. We just have to remain humble, and pray.
We really have to pray hard. That’s what we should always do, especially when we find ourselves helpless and cornered before an unfolding deadly adversity.
We have to mobilize whatever we have and can do to help. This is the immediate response. And it’s deeply gratifying to see the whole world practically scrambling to lend a hand to this nation in serious and unspeakable difficulty.
Images that have so far come to us through the media and the Internet are definitely breath-stopping. We run out of words to describe what we see and feel. And yet it’s heartwarming to note that in the midst of this sea of troubles, there are beautiful stories of heroism and deep, unshakeable faith.
An elderly woman, extricated from the rubble after one long and agonizing week, could only say she did nothing other than pray and talk to God. That’s all she could say. It all came from her heart. She had no other explanation.
Another, who lost husband and relatives, said her faith kept her strong and hopeful in what seemed like an eternity of darkness and uncertainty. Her faith was her last resort. It was what made her calm and sane.
I’m sure that through all this we have been asking ourselves, even if we do not want to say it aloud, why this disaster had to happen, what’s its meaning and purpose, if any…?
I’m sure many thoughts have come to our mind to try to answer and clarify. This is an unavoidable human reaction. We may not like to admit it now when the urgent humanitarian efforts are still going on. But that’s what is on our mind.
Of course, everything depends on our cast of mind and level of knowledge, on whether we just keep to reason and the sciences or we also take in faith and beliefs…
That’s why there had been many voices trying to explain things. The American evangelist Pat Robertson insensitively said Haiti is a cursed nation because of some pact with the devil in the past. Of course, he was immediately rebuked.
The Hollywood star Danny Glover said the disaster came because the rich countries failed to make an agreement on global warming/global cooling/climate change, whatever it is now, in the recent Copenhagen summit. Obviously, no one took him seriously.
The naturalists and science-dominated people just clinically gave an emotionless geological analysis of the situation. In this level, many of the atheists and skeptics gather and tend to agree. They don’t want to go beyond. For them, nature and science mark the boundary of speculation.
But the human heart wants more. It would take a wickedly deliberate and gigantic effort to muffle this spontaneous and earnest cry of our heart.
And it sooner or later realizes that it has to grapple with a mystery, a truth that can only be fully revealed not here and now, but in some distant state of life. The heart knows that much.
Reason and the sciences just cannot have the last word. They can give some light, all right, but they cannot explain all. They cannot give closure to the whole issue.
If we just rely on them, we will surely get stuck somewhere. And often we will just be left with depression, anxiety, fear, as meaninglessness sets in. This Haiti disaster, like all other disasters, is an invitation for us to go beyond reason. We need to disentangle ourselves from the exaggerated grip of reason on us.
We have to go into faith and into the misty ways of mysteries. The challenge of the mysteries is not meant to grind us to a halt in our pursuit of knowledge. Rather it is stimulate us to go further, with humility and simplicity, the prerequisites of faith.
Obviously, for Christian believers, the mystery involved in events like this Haiti disaster is the mystery of the cross, of why God to recover us had to send his son, and the son had to die on the cross.
It’s a mystery that will continually give us fresh glimpses of the eternal wisdom that can explain everything. It may keep us in suspense, but it reassures us that we are in the right orbit. We just have to remain humble, and pray.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)