Let’s go unli

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

WE cannot deny that our earthly life is marked by many limitations. We grow gradually from childhood to maturity, learning little by little what real love means. Our capacity to love develops through time, experience, and God's grace.

Our sins also leave their mark on us. They can distort our understanding of love and make us think first of ourselves. Because of them, loving generously does not come easily.

Yet God never leaves us alone. His grace is always available to lift us beyond our natural weaknesses and sinful tendencies. If we cooperate with that grace, we can love far more than we imagine.

That is why we should never be afraid to give ourselves generously. As long as we refuse to say, "Enough," God supplies what we cannot provide ourselves. His strength fills the gaps left by our weakness.

This is the lesson behind the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. (Cf. Mt 15:29-37) When the disciples saw only scarcity, Christ saw an opportunity to bless. The little they offered became more than enough in his hands.

The same can happen in our own life. We may feel that we have reached the end of our strength, patience, or resources. But when we bring everything to Christ, he always knows how to provide.

This truth is especially important today. The challenges we face are not only numerous but also increasingly complex. Many problems seem beyond our ability to solve.

Instead of becoming discouraged, we should deepen our faith. Nothing is impossible for God, and he continues to work through those who trust him. His power can accomplish what our efforts alone never could.

True love, therefore, never settles for the minimum. It does not keep count of sacrifices or calculate the cost of giving. It continues to serve because it has first received God's love.

To many people, this may seem unreasonable. The world encourages us to protect ourselves and avoid giving too much. Christ teaches the opposite: love grows by giving itself away.

Real charity is not measured by convenience. It is measured by generosity, perseverance, and fidelity. It remains faithful even when there is no appreciation or reward.

In fact, authentic love continues even when it is rejected. It does not depend on being accepted, praised, or repaid. It reflects the unconditional love that God has shown us.

We see this most clearly in Christ himself. He loved those who welcomed him and those who rejected him. Even on the Cross, he continued to forgive and to love.

By ourselves, we cannot reach this level of self-giving. Our human strength is limited, and sooner or later it becomes exhausted. Only God's grace can sustain such generous love.

The more closely we are united with Christ, the more capable we become of loving.

His grace strengthens our mind, our heart, and our will. It enables us to go beyond what seems naturally possible.

We will still experience weakness and fatigue. Our bodies, emotions, and minds all have their limits. Yet our spirit can continue to give because Christ lives within us.

This is the great exchange of the Christian life. We offer God our limitations, and he shares with us his strength. We entrust him with our poverty, and he fills us with his grace.

That is how we can go "unli" in love. Not because we have unlimited strength, but because God's love has no limits. United with Christ, we can keep giving ourselves without ever saying, "Enough."

PAPER AND POWER

 

by Klaus Döring

Paper still matters, as I could learn from fellow Inquirer staff writer Phyllis Korkki. Yes, paper still matters. The frequent whirring of printers in offices - despite the Internet, Microsoft Word, social media (I love Facebook and Twitter), scanners, smart phones applications and many much more - attest to that.

Paper is a quiet yet profound invention that transformed human history. It allowed ideas to spread past elite circles, preserved scientific and cultural knowledge, and fueled global revolutions from the printing press to modern democracy. Even today, physical paper offers unique cognitive and practical benefits that screens cannot replace.

I am very old fashioned in many things. I was still typing on an old manual typewriter, when my colleagues in different publishing houses already used electric units. I loved my antique typewriter. I love it till today. Yes, it's still here in my office in Davao City. I can't use it anymore, because no more ribbons are available in the Philippines. It's okay. My electric typewriter is also here. Just beside the manual unit. Those were the days, my love... .

It has been sometimes at the end of the 1990s. I worked in an international publishing house in Berlin with branches in Amsterdam and New York. I still used one of those wonderful electric typewriters - and tried to avoid a personal computer. Already during that time I needed to hold paper in my hands. Paper, says the productivity expert David Allen, is "in your face". I strongly agree with David. He said, "Its physical presence can be a goal to completing tasks, whereas computer files can easily be hidden and thus forgotten. I am also returning to paper planners for this very reason. Please, don't laugh at me, my dear readers!

The power of paper lies in its unique ability to preserve human thought, foster deep cognitive focus, and act as a tangible, sustainable medium for communication and art that transcends the digital world.

David Allen, the author of "Getting Things Done", does much of his writing on a computer. So I do meanwhile. But, there are still times when writing with a fountain pen on a notepad. It allows "us" to get "our" heads in the right place. When I tried to learn more from David Allen, I really got surprised, that we have many things in common. Old fashioned or not? I don't care. Here are some facts:

Paper print outs serve an important function. For long texts, a print out can allow a reader to better understand relationships between sections and writings. Paper handouts are still a presence at meetings partly because they are useful for taking notes. Reading a long document on paper rather than on a computer screen helps people "better understand the geography of the argument contained within, "said Richard H.R. Harper, a principal researcher for Microsoft in Cambridge/England and co-author with Abigail J. Sellen of "The Myth of the Paperless Office," published already in 2001.

I also strongly agree with Sellen, saying that using more than one computer screen can be helpful for all this cognitive juggling. But when workers are going back and forth between points in a longer document, it can be more efficient to read on paper.

How about "e-reading a book"? A novel, a drama, whatever? What do you prefer, my dear reader? You wanna know my opinion? I am sure, you can imagine. Yes guys, I still need a book in my hands for my leisure reading. I need to feel the book as well as I need to smell a fresh-printed newspaper. Environment savers might start yelling at me now, though I am one of them. So, where is the edge and borderline?

Paper can be indeed a luscious and beautiful thing - the way we savor fine food and wine, as Steve Leveen, co-founder and CEO of Levenger, said. People complain that writing by hand is slow (yes I am really!), BUT that can be good for thinking and creating! Here we are again!

Yes, it matters still: in defence of the power of paper! What do you think, my dear readers, while holding this newspaper right now in your hands?

+++

Email: doringklaus@gmail.com or follow me in Facebook, Linkedin or X - Twitter or visit  www.germanexpatinthephilippines.blogspot.com or www.klausdoringsclassicalmusic.blogspot.com .

The Daily Guardian is a renascent Iloilo-based publishing firm and media outfit with bureaus across Western Visayas and beyond. Led by Iloilo's most respected journalists, we pledge to tell the Ilonggo story as seen through the various lenses of society so that every side may be told.

BUREAUS:KaliboBoracayRoxasBacolodAntiqueGuimarasManila

Politicizing entertainment

 

 By: Paulo Fajardo 

No matter how hard you prepare for it ahead of time, college finals season is like no other.

There are no rules. You can eat all you want, or you can also opt not to. As much as I want to protect my sleep schedule to be from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m., I found myself having to sleep from 4 a.m. to 7 a.m.—which is actually the longest hours of sleep I ever had in two weeks of the finals season.

In one subject, you have a group presentation tomorrow and you will only start preparing today. In another, you have a long test you need a miraculous grade in. As much as possible, you need to fit 30 hours’ worth of work in 24 hours.

The only real break I have is whenever I eat dinner while watching YouTube. As someone who grew up in a typical Filipino household watching “It’s Showtime,” even after moving into Metro Manila to pursue education, I brought this habit of watching Vice Ganda, Vhong Navarro, and Anne Curtis on our television back home to my phone now in my condo.

My favorite noontime show has ceased being a room for entertainment full of sunshine and rainbows. Through its hosts, it has actively participated in political discourse, one joke or side comment at a time.

Scrolling through comments online, some have aired their concerns about the show being too political. Some even asserted that the hosts simply wanted the revival of their network by driving their political discussions on air.

But that is not what I see.

I see Filipino citizens, regardless of whether they are the highest taxpayers or not, actively using their platform to raise awareness given their wide reach. I see celebrities who are privileged and financially stable, but actively step out of their bubble to experience life beyond themselves.

Even if the survival of a network—which was shut down during the pandemic, an era wherein the dissemination of information was highly needed—remains in their interests, it does not diminish the value of their political activeness. Calling out political discrepancies, after all, is a right of all Filipino people.

We also see this pattern of being politically vocal despite being in an industry shaped by societal expectations, even in other cases. Beauty queens like Catriona Gray, Joy Barcoma, and Bea Millan-Windorski have come down from their pedestal and pure glamor to go with the masses and rally for transparency and accountability.

Given the political nature of their humor, many have expressed their concern for the safety of the “Showtime” hosts. However, the very cost of them taking a stance makes it more meaningful and revolutionary, which they do for the people with significantly less security. In a society that molded them to be all fun and jokes, they refused to submit to the illusion of peace equating to silence and laughter; they use their platform for those who do not have the privilege of being heard.

What one hears in their jokes is frustration, not just theirs, but of ordinary Filipinos who share the same realities as them. They carry the voices not just of other vocal personalities, but also of those who are afraid of being one, for it might cost them their job, or social dynamics with their family members.

Growing up, “Showtime” has been in every phase of my life—from being a child who watched out of boredom, to being a young adult taking a break from studies.

If anything, “Showtime” does not just give me time to rest and laugh. During finals season, or in life in general, it is easy to fall into the temptation of focusing too much on what we are doing in the present—practicing every day for the next test or pulling an all-nighter for the next presentation. We can lose sight of what we are doing all of these for, or for whom we are fighting for.

However, little moments like this remind me, and hopefully, other Filipinos, to look at the bigger picture. Beyond academic struggles is a world that needs saving, and admittedly, as we are busy grinding, we may be in need of reminding. And the hosts and comedians we grew up with, given how visible they are on social media, are here to do that.

In a country facing intense political turmoil, comedians using politics in their skits are gifts. They do not ask us to escape. They encourage us to be vocal like them or represent us if we could not. They redefine Filipino resiliency not just as endurance, but facing problems with a smile, yet with conviction—or to fully encapsulate it, to face it with “paninindigan.”

Contrary to other comments that defend them as “Filipinos first, comedians next,” they actually embed their Filipino identity and values in everything they do, instead of treating them as different identities.