Sunday Christians

It's a sad fact that many Christians can only be holy during Sundays. Is holiness affected by the day of the week? Or is it just that Christians want to appear righteous before others in church?

True, it is expected for Christians to always be on their toes, to serve as salt and light to a world that knows not of Christ and His gift of salvation to man. But we are all human. We commit mistakes, whether we like it or not. Whether we are aware or not. While we want to preserve how other people look at us, we deny this fact. Actually, we are denying the truth that were it not for Jesus, we would not have been saved.

Does that mean that we should go on living in sin? That is not my point. We have to do the best that we can and live the way we should live--in Christ--but we should not be punished by fellow Christians should we fall. And we should practice becoming Christians in everywhere we go so we can truly be the salt and light God has commissioned us to be.

Is God Your Genie?

We frequently ask God for the things we need--health, success, money, a bright future, fortune. While Jesus himself said in Matthew 7:7,

7 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."

God is not a Being Who grants all our hearts' desires. Neither does he give us things we do not need. He is wise, and all of his decisions are for the benefit of His children. He knows what is good for us; He sees what we do not; we are inscribed on the palm of His hands.

If God were merely a genie, then all of the things we ask would be granted, and there would be so much chaos, disorder, crime, corruption, evil. Even if we see all these everyday, it would be a welcoming thought to think of how much rampant all these would be if all the desires of evil men will be granted. In Psalm 37:4,

4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

If we keep in tune with God, He will help us know what to desire. We won't need to ask for anything because we will know God's love will see us through.

Mang Meliton and His Unselfish Act of Kindness

In the University of the Philippines, different forms of financial help are available to students. One such form of financial help is through student loans. A guarantor is required for a loan borrowed from the University. At the end of the semester, if the student is unable to pay up, the guarantor has to pay for the loan. Any UP employee could serve as a guarantor, but it is usually college teachers and professors who students are able to convince.

Recently, a poignant story is finding its way through blogs. It's a story of a graduating student who was guaranteed by a janitor named Mang Meliton. Here's how the story goes: she needed to enroll her last three subjects to be eligible for graduation, but her parents didn't have the money to support her last semester. Hoping for help from her college professors, she opted for a student loan. But her professors either refused or were not yet eligible. After two weeks of searching for a guarantor, she only had 24 hours left to pay for her matriculation. She felt devastated. Alone, she cried her heart out in the lobby of the College of Arts and Sciences building named Palma Hall (AS, for students of the University). Mop in hand, Mang Meliton approached her and asked why she was crying. The student told him her problem. He simply replied, "Puwede ako pumirma, empleyado ako ng UP." He took the forms and signed them. Mang Meliton was her savior. At the end of the semester, she fulfilled her end of the deal and paid for the loan.

The story does not end there, however. Mang Meliton recently retired only to find that he was only paid for 171 days out of those 45 years of serving the University faithfully. And the reason for that, was because there were students who were unable to pay up for their loans, hence, because he served as a guarantor, he paid for their debts.

For more of this, please visit:

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/144542/The-unlikely-heroism-of-Mang-Meliton

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?ArticleId=432091&publicationSubCategoryId=64

I am writing about this today in my blog as an appeal to fellow alumni and help one of the most noble retirees of our beloved University.

Ex Deo Scientia is PageRank 2

Readers will be glad to know that my new blog now has PageRank. Ex Deo Scientia, after only one month, has been granted PageRank 2! The same goes for my eleven-month old blog, 4ever7 Heaven. Thanks everybody!

Busy

I have to break the news. I was promoted. While people say I should be happy, the truth is I am scared. I have so many things to do, so many things to prove. It's tough when people expect so much from you and you know you can't deliver.

My life has been through a lot, I should say, during the last month. And that was the reason why I have not been posting much, to this blog and my other.

Videoke Mania

Filipinos have this really irritating habit of turning up the volume of music for most of the audio-video equipment we have--TV sets, DVD players, components, and yes, the most notorious is the videoke machine or magic sing. I have no idea why we do that.

Last Christmas, one of my neighbors held a party that lasted all day and all night, ending at almost 5:00 AM. They were drinking, and smoking and singing their hearts out to some fancy music from a videoke machine. Being a singer myself, I should have appreciated the event. Unfortunately, I did not. They were singing off-key--a couple even trying their luck in reaching the really high-registered notes, and most of the time failing to strike them perfect. The worst part of it was that they were singing and creating noises, with everyone in the block hearing, thanks to the loud volume of their microphones.

But the story does not end there. Just a few days later, other neighbors started doing the same. In the spirit of merrymaking, they seemed to have forgotten about the other people in the village.

Isn't it enough to just let the music stay within the confines and the four walls of your own house? What could we possibly accomplish by letting other people hear our lousy singing?