You've Always Been Right

The day the aliens landed, I took it back and told you, you were right.
After they had taken the best of us and most of the water, you said we would overcome.
After they had herded us and kept us apart, the last thing you said was you'd see me again.
After they had taken my eyes and broken me to take away the memory of you, 
I thought you but a dream or a scrap of a painting seen once as a small child.
The only thing left was the color of your hair and the feel of a whispered hope.
The only thing left was a submission, but not to them.


The day you broke through and held me while I cried, you told me I was right.
You repeated what I said, that my stories were what saw us through.
I doubted you then, as their ships left one by one, I doubted as I could only hear.
But you held me close, until the shaking and the screaming left me. 
You held me fast even after all the stories had left me.
You brought water to my lips even as my fingers could not even trace 
The shape of your face nor feel the fall of your hair.


After the last of them had left, the day I died you, you said I would see you again, 
And I doubted.  Even as the darkness was replaced by an unfolding of light
And the stories started coming back, I doubted, oh how I doubted.
But then the memories of you filled the gaps, your face filled the spaces.
The day I died, I did see you cry. I did see a part of your fear that maybe 
You would not see me after all. I have no mouth to speak nor hands to write,
I don't know if you can hear me, but I want you to know that all is well.


That you've always been right. That even after this world has ended 
And we've taken to the stars, that our stories will see us through. 
And that even now, as you lead the rest to chase them,
I want you to know you've always been right, and that what doubt you have 
Is but proof of a larger story.  That even as the earth dies we will still carry
The stories. That our children's children will have cause to hope.
That what has always set us apart from them is the rightness of our love.

I Beg To Disagree

I beg to disagree with you, it's not words that are cheap, it's talk that is. It's talk that is not backed up by the walk. Worth less than a smirk or a turn of the lip. There's a cliché right there: 'Talk the talk, walk the walk.'

For a long time I would preach, literally preach, against the using of clichés. I've learned now, from you, not to discount what is essential in them. I see now what you mean when you say these lessons are pulled from somewhere. May pinaghugutan. May pinanggagalingan. Hopefully I spelled that right.

These clichés are rooted in truths, you're right about that. These statements are built on words that are straightforward and have no artifice. These words carry weight. These words have value. They are a form of action when taken for their worth.

On the other hand, it's when used with worthless talk, that these statements become trite. That the words used become so much drivel.

That makes sense.

So be it. Saying, "I'm sorry" is rooted in truth. Saying it over and over is cheap--the talk of it, that is. The action, on the other hand, makes sense. That is true.

The butterflies have signaled veracity.

I will talk less and will walk with you more.

Essays On Forgiveness: Hope, Faith, and Love

I had to look this up.

1 Corinthians 13 (New International Version): Love

¹If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. ¹²Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I'm sort of ashamed that I first learned of this passage from a movie/book involving a dying woman straddling state lines. Then again the agonizing truth would be to admit crying when reading the novel--after purposely looking for the novel when it did come out in 2000. I have a perverse and morbid anger when it comes to clichés to be honest and the second section of this biblical passage is no exception. Well, up until now.

It has taken an estranged cousin reaching out from halfway across the world to make me examine my conscience by sharing his own stories. It seems wherever you are, love will find you and hurt you. That's why Cupid is drawn pulling on compound reflex bows and having a quiver of blood red arrows instead of tangoing about flinging rose petals and popcorn.

Fittingly enough, the last line of 1 Corinthians 13 sounds exactly like something I would write. In fact I have been jotting down complex bubble diagrams about these three things: faith, hope, and love. For many of us, these words have become cliché--once extremely meaningful, now just pandered about to fill spaces. For me the equation derived from these three words have become part of daily living.

Faith comes from the Latin fidem--Trust. A deep rooted trust in the solidity or reality of something or someone. To accept faith, I had to lose it first. When I was younger and had fallen in love for the first time, I had a rock solid belief that no matter how rough things got, my love would cast aside obstacles. I sought proof in the law and with authorities: judges, monsignors, even and finally, parents. I believed that prayers for a love born out of innocence were enough. That no matter how bleak it seemed it would work out and the relationship would grow. I knew then that He would not let me down. I knew for a fact that He would find a way. I trusted. He had other plans. I lost my faith then, and very nearly, my life.

Much later on I learned that to have real faith, one must first strive to understand the why and what of what they trust. With understanding, comes acceptance of real faith, as faith is an active living thing we must nurture.

Hope. You would think that hope would not be able to survive without faith, but it does. Life is biblical like that I guess. I wandered for a long time in a wilderness wherein I thought myself to be a mighty hunter. I created psalms for every season and ended up looking for grapes where there were none. I was alone and the only time I remembered to pray was before eating, sometimes not even then. One of my favorite cousins once told me after the umpteenth bad experience I had that if he was in my shoes he would have committed suicide after the first round. He also said that it was given to me because I could handle it. Made sense. Still does. In fact it materializes what hope is for me. The belief that things will turn out better no matter what. The patriarchs all seem to have gone through mandatory periods of un-faith if you do a survey of the old testament. For some of them: their flocks perished, their women become barren, and their kids left to work elsewhere. The others had it even worse: their flocks left for greener pastures, their tribes disbanded and sought out capitalism, and the women demanded monogamy. But, no matter how bad it got, it appears that they never lost hope as evidenced by their prayers.

I think I was born with hope built in as a standard. Which, point in fact, is part of the reason while I'm still alive to write this essay for you. I've never lost hope, so I hope that brings you comfort whenever things get really rough, so that you may have hope. Hope is a circular thing it appears.

At this point it may appear that hope and faith seem to be interchangeable things, if not directly linked. I reiterate though, that for faith, one must recognize and understand what they trust that they have faith in. You can't just look at the Flying Spaghetti Monster and stamp your foot and say you have faith in him. You have to find out what's in the meatballs first. Hope on the other hand, is something you can't quite get rid off. Try to imagine if you will, what 'Hope' had to do, to survive in Pandora's box. Hope apparently has mad ninja skills. Hope and faith are distinct and yet they are distinctly linked because without both one cannot have love.

The problem with Love is that it is both a verb and a noun. So given that, I leave it to you to figure out what it is for you. It's different for everyone. I'll tell you though, when its real, faith and hope are in attendance. When you do fall in love, you won't say, "I heart you." You'll probably be shaking at the knees and be so overwhelmed that it comes out as a croak at first. Then because you have faith in what you feel and because you hope that she will reply kindly--it becomes an actualizing statement.

If you look at 1 Corinthians 13 you'll notice that even Paul of Tarsus mostly describes rather than defines what love is directly. Closer reading shows that he was actually laying down the conditions for what Agape meant in relation to being a Christian and living a life of selfless love; worshipful love. See how confusing defining what love is can get? Plus Agape was probably pretty far down the list for those old patriarchs anyway, don't you think? They were probably too busy trading eyes and teeth. What strikes me about Agape in relation to love is that when you read about it you get a sense of prayerful action. I think that's the ticket actually. For me real love is like a living prayer. Hope and faith become bread and salt for the way of a pilgrim. That's what happens when you start dealing with these modern terms like Agape. You end up referencing obscure anonymous literary works that involve an equally anonymous guy muttering prayers all across Russia.

There must be a common ground between the old and new when understanding and accepting love. I posit that, that ground employs faith and hope as grass and soil. Love is what you make of that earth you've been given to nurture. And we are ennobled to nourish it with a simple equation through an active life of prayer. We pray in faith out of a hope for love.

The answer to that equation, becomes your life.