The nature of an assembly

What is in a name we might ask? Assembly is just another word that to the dictionary means ‘a group of persons gathered together for a common purpose,’ ‘a meeting,’ or ‘a congregation.’

However, early this week a member of a Christian brotherhood asked me to make an audio-visual presentation anchored on this very word… the assembly. To them, an assembly is a response to a divine need for a family. It is a grounding of self with a higher being; it is ministering to the individual and community needs; it is, as well, a gift of unburdening. They employ the elements of praise and songs, the biblical word, and a faith that goes through constant renewal and cleansing.

What then is the relevance of an assembly to the modern Filipino? Why is there a proliferation of religious communities in a day and age when religious affiliation is not necessarily a needed requisite in social acceptability? What is the economically valid benefit one gets with the extra time, effort and resources that needed to be put in, in the spirit of unquestioning generosity where a requirement of 80% has to be supplied with 101% resources, a smile and a pat on the back?

The answer, I surmise, is found deep within each of us where we are constantly feeding a heritage of tiredness in the soul. As we inherit the demand to actualize selves, keep together families, nurture democracies, maintain societies, preserve churches, discover… innovate… elevate… upgrade… prettify… we often forget the need to unload. But then, there is only so much a heart can take and what the heart cannot take, the mind may not justify, and therefore, the body may not be able to fend for itself too long. Is it then such a surprise when the age eased in with diseases that attack the immune system and the basic cell structure of the physical self? Along with techno-speak comes a kind of pharmacopoeia-speak wherein the average Juan is well versed in the normal clinical drama involving a vocabulary from antibiotics to chemotherapy to the AIDS anti-retroviral drug.

The contemporary baggage tends to be heavy and the instrument is biologically vulnerable. This is where the assembly finds its most potent attraction. Like the nature of transcendental meditation where you are taught a step-by-step process in finding the silence in your being where you can be allowed to rest and unburden yourself of emotional and spiritual baggage, so too is the function of an assembly, but with a communal support system to ensure, reassure, coax, acknowledge, affirm… The kind of spiritual drugs that still dare to work even after alcohol, nicotine, illegal drugs, and all such designer poisons have ceased to bring certain versions of heaven and exhausted the tolerance of practicality.

The assembly speaks of an age-old sign of the times. After treading as many roads as we can manage to journey, as many layers of existence as we can manage to explore, one can never measure how far he has gone unless he has a home to mark his beginning and to look forward to his homecoming. The assembly, therefore, is a harbor to all those who seek an inner refuge and an affirmation that man is indeed more than the sum of all his complex perceivable parts. It is an authentication of our spiritual nature, without which, all human aspirations will perish along with the flesh.

Yes indeed, as a sign of the times, the assembly is the call of our Father to allow Him to lead us home.

SUGBU

I was off to Sugbu with four men and a lady. At the strike of midnight, Lee piled us all into his Crosswind and ten minutes on the road into a nearby city, the jutes came out and the chatter of anticipation heightened.
There was a number of quirks and little nuggets of what-of-its I came to know about. The gang of course are Lee, visual artist, fully developed person and gracefully managing a sickness. Redd, visual artist, ending a term of office and keeping a tight grip to his beliefs. Iwi, production person, young and almost exotic, forever on the verge of something. Mary, community worker, homemaker, with much too many sentences to complete. And Bobok, performing artist, director and losing completeness.
My little tale unfolds its canvas of impressions in four strokes...
The first stroke is on a length of road, about 8 hours worth of. Funny how the prospect of travel frees the mind. The anticipation of what might happen that is not a normal occurrence is high. This feeds a healthy dose of excitement on an otherwise fairly regular trip. Lee for one has taken to full speed on an open window filling up his lungs with white smoke mixed with the more invigorating cutting wind of a very young day. Iwi, flexi time, life and all, gulps in the same poison with a straight face, masking the high with a measure of normalcy. Redd, surprisingly uncomfortable with speed on a dark highway keeps sleep at bay through his customary outrageous pronouncements in high octave. Mary, deep in the homeopathic road was goaded to a full lecture, filling up the gaps of restful silence. Bobok, of course, has commandeered the back seat and has stretched his slight frame for an uninterrupted drunken stupor.
Stroke number two is during the conference, the high purpose of our little expedition. Due to lack of planning from one late area, we had the morning and the assembly to ourselves to do as we please. Lee claimed the microphone and worked his way from top-of-the-mind to an approximation of the planned discussion. Redd, the actor in him acting up, checked with me for an appropriate character to use and awoke the attendees into neutral attention, you cannot dare take sides in front of Redd unless you are brave and ready, as is a hefty middle aged lady who dared challenge a deadline. She survived, our deadline didn't. With Lee's urging Mary and I had to join the company in the middle to complete the presentation which came midway up down next to center and back until everyone was sufficiently satisfied, Iwi committing on video what he could and Bobok on a reconnaissance mood, never in one place long enough to merit another dagger glare.
The third stroke is in the mall. Lee operates with the efficiency that would shame any Ms. Mall Rat. He strides off taking in all areas of interest, descends on several shops, each with a sure wave to hasten service, chose his wares with mafia gusto and wham, bam, thank you ma'am, he's done. Coffee next? Oops, the gang has broken up behind him and has taken to serious loitering. While Redd looks for his flaming wallet and settles for a giant zippo, Iwi has renewed alliances with a female artist, given an artist talk to her class and fall out all within the span of a longish, tiredish, slowmotioned twenty-four hours. Mary and Bobok barely left footmarks in a locale which cannot quite agree with them.
The fourth stroke is none other than over bottles of wine. Inviting an attractive lady in a little black dress did the trick to lift everyone's own version of spirits, never mind that the lady is steeped in ninth moon serenity. Tsik, after all, only looks decidedly pregnant in front view. Redd takes to wine and mistakes it for beer, thereby facilitating a rapid loss of balance and clarity but allowing in return a corresponding amount of jovial machismo. Iwi, on the other hand, stretches a barely touched glass of wine as he stretches each thought, sentence, look and movement to maximum slowmo mode. Playing the perfect politician, Lee drums up the conversation, plays bartender and subtly removes himself for a hit and the sack. How Mary did her alcohol justice, squaring her shoulders stiffer with every glass. Bobok, of course, like a duck to drunken water, drowns the world and everything in it.
I was off to Sugbu with four men and a lady. One I can talk to, one I like, one I like mothering over, one a favorite relative's mate and the last one, the one who stalks the periphery, I cannot quite figure out how I ever dared pledge to honor.

ANTSY ENCOUNTERS

Here comes Mr. Antsy, all wrapped up in Christmas reds and eyes aglow with the prospect of sweets, sweets, sweets! What’s with the Christmas season and ants, anyway?

For one, December is a food season. Kids revel on every treat and gets away with all the crumbs everywhere. Another explanation is that December falls on a rainy season. During rain, the ants surface to avoid their flooded palaces. They make neat little roads on our walls straight up the dining table into any loosely covered, slightly open food containers. Sometimes, they move so smoothly that they are already aboard our spoon on a free ride to our mouth before we even notice them, if we notice them at all. We may not mind it if it happen to us but… Eeek! What if this relentless little army is aboard a little spoon on the way to our baby’s mouth?

Disaster strikes, or so we think. But even this little disasters come in several colors.

The danger of red fire ants comes when they bite the insides of the baby’s mouth before the darling innocent can chew on them. Minimal ant bites are seldom fatal unless there is an allergy towards it. However, such bites can cost your baby up to 12 hours of irritated crying.

On the other hand, if the baby munches on a number of black ants, the worst that can happen is that the dear sweetie would spew out the mouthful because of the ants’ strong sour taste. Of course, it can easily trigger a bout of puking.

Filipinos especially have an admirable tolerance for neighborly ants. We seldom shriek and call a pest control agent upon finding a bowl full of ants. Of course, it doesn’t help that most Filipino neighborhoods do not have pest control agents.

I am rather inclined to tap on the bowl in order to disturb the ants and prod them to move their asses (pardon the language) away from MY food. If I have time, I am likely to heat the dish before serving. Of course, if haste would require it, I might just as soon dine directly, just picking out the slowpokes and crunching them in between my fingers (serves ‘em right!).

If this sounds familiar, it just goes to show that this antsy circumstance is not exclusive to the holiday spirit of December. Ants abound the whole year round. The question then is how much damage have our friendly neighborhood ants shared with us as they partake of our food? Ah well, experts do claim that ants ingested create less damage than ant bites.

My husband takes this to heart. It’s queer one time the way these crawlies followed us everywhere. We brought the kids to the beach, relieved that the breeze eliminated the problem of flies and mosquitoes. Guess what I found when it was time to eat? A soupful of black ants swimming indulgently in their own warm swimming pool, which happened to be my bowl. I freaked out, my daughter yelped and the baby laughed. I would have thrown the whole thing out for the dogs to eat but good ole hubby took the bowl out of my hands and spooned out the black mass of ants. The fish cardillo was served and everybody seemed to have survived.

All’s well that ends well, or so they say, until the next encounter comes around. I was rudely awakened one afternoon by some loud banging. Imagine my surprise at a very funny sight of my two-year old at war with her milk bottle. She is alternately banging the bottle on the floor and holding it up to light peeking at something in it, shouting for it to “Go ‘way! Go ‘way!” When asked who it is she is sending away, she replies, “”tupid antsy...” It took me all of thirty minutes to wrestle the bottle from her. She has taken the war personally, that’s for sure. Well, there goes 8 ounces of milk down the drain plus a very disapproving toddler following the bottle to the sink, glaring her discontent.

I know these encounters are not likely to end, I just hope to God the experts are right, for then, I can forgive the ants for being on the food, just for as long as they lay off on the bites. Not inclined to tempt fate too much, I say such a deal is fair enough.

MAMBUKAL, of mystic falls, sulfur sprays & wedding memoirs

Going down the stone steps of the Pagoda to Lola Tinay’s kitchen, chattering excitedly, a little berry fruit almost knocked me down. Involuntarily, I looked up and sensed a silence that refused to be disturbed. I looked inquiringly at Lola Tinay, sitting serenely by her door, but she only smiled and placed a finger to her lips in a gesture of silence. Lola Tinay & Lolo Ponso in their famous Mambukal Pagoda are among my first memories of Mambukal, a place that never failed to awaken me from drowsy jeepney rides with its gentle coolness and a feeling of watchful silence upon approach.
This feeling persisted on one grave visit when I sought the spirit of the place to bless or deny my need for a union. I stepped down after the bridge, where the grotto was and walked, hand in hand with my partner, to sit quietly at the foot of the image of the Virgin Mary. “The trees are talking among themselves,” we whispered with a smile. The faint smell of sulfur under the rumbling clear water transported us, as it always did, to the mythical domain of the Kanlaon centaur, proudly protecting his turf, intolerant of excesses and wastes.
The Virgin smiled kindly that day and all our plans came into being. I ascended the rising plains of Mambukal the day before my mountain wedding, full of hope, buoyed by the sweet mountain air, enlivened by the pleasurable task of finding places for novel things which bespeaks of new beginnings.
Trusting the constant music of the Mambukal waterfalls, I arose with the dawn, cradling my coffee cup and awaited the coming of old family, old friends and new family, new friends. I was amused at the stirrings created by one unexpected wedding picnic, dear ones dealing with the silence imposed on a supposedly lively event.
I walked the walk of one betrothed to a man who stands in his own home. To one who has made Mambukal his home for many a year, cultivating a community of artists among the local lads. A distant picture of early morning sulfur baths, lessons on the shaping of the naturally colored clay, ethnic music filling the orange sunsets and dreams under the moonlit, star spread sky.
I walked to him, amidst the pulsing music of the bamboo flute, hair unadorned, dressed in a long native garb, a flower in my hand. With the Virgin in attendance, I sealed a pact to honor all that was natural and beautiful and limitless. Like the untiring waters and the whispering trees of the mountain that lent its own kiss of approval through the sulfur scented spring which ran freely beneath us.
I have returned, year after year, to that place in the mountains of Kanlaon, first with one daughter, then with another, and one more. Three daughters now, all with memories of their own. Of Mambukal…