Notes on Insanity

"When I find my peace of mind,
I"m gonna give you some of my good time"
- Red Hot Chilli Peppers, "Soul to Squeeze"

The infamous insanity journal, sheltering dark, furious thoughts, reflecting a frail fettle. Before I burn it or use as a tissue-substitute.

Writing some of those thoughts seemed fairly innocuous, most of the time. At times, you felt unsafe but at the end of the day, it was more perilous not writing them. Like the case of someone hitting the roof and wanting to punch walls. It's not helping your case or doing you any good but it was more harmful not to vent it out.

Writing is a form of prayer. I think Kafka beat me to this proclamation but I am no Kafka. No one is. No one will ever be. I used to maintain a notebook of personal prayers. Obviously, the presumption is that God is literate and does not only read in Arabic.

That notebook of prayers is just hiding somewhere in my mother's house. I am not too keen on revisiting, with the apprehension that I may no longer recognize the "I".

My struggle is not so much a question of faith as it is a debate with the Catholic Church and its pronunciamentos. The Ignatian Spirituality practiced by Jesuits is pretty clear on critical awareness, not blind faith. I take comfort from it.

Organized prayer is a struggle. As I shared in an earlier blog, my prayer life is characterized by departures and returns and with an adorable dog as a prayer-partner, we owe it to the good Lord to demonstrate variety somehow - a hymn today, a poem the next day, a clap exercise the day after next, till we run out of ideas. It's like giving a birthday card to a dear friend - shall I give a personalized one or should I just trust Hallmark to get my message across?

So I talk to my personal Jesus - You may not be pleased with what I am doing, substituting organized prayer with reading or writing or affectionate talks with Georgelablab or whatever it is I'm appropriating as expressions of workship. This is me reaching out with the purest intentions because yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory.

A Whale of Love

L is in a gunk of a conundrum. An old flame is reigniting the embers of a love frowned upon by the old folks. "A date is under wraps," her text read. "What shall I do?" Certainly, I cannot unwrap it, can I?

"Keep your nose on the grindstone," I advised. "Focus on your studies, get enough rest," I added, sounding granny as usual.

Can love be put in deferment for other priorities? The rational self shouts yes! But what could be a bigger priority than love? What's eating my bravado, my bold pronunciamento that there are degrees for burn but not for gugma? The phoniness reeks but sometimes, phoniness is the best policy, that much I can convey.

Haay, "how long, how must I sing this song?" - don't come to me for love advice, not until whales start swinging from tree to tree and chimpanzees frolic in the ocean. Have this scientific fact tattooed: Dyndyn, a denizen of Santan Street, is a love-idiot.

Speaking of whales, let me post this poem, my Sunday prayer which I find uplifting, a vessel of hope, transcending all the indignities this world sometimes brings forth.

Things to do in the Belly of a Whale

Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days. Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals. Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices. Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review each of your life's ten million choices. Endure moments of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you. Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart. Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope, where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all the things you did and could have done. Remember treading water in the center of the still night sea, your toes pointing again and again down, down into the black depths.

("Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale" by Dan Albergotti from The Boatloads.© BOA Editions, Ltd., 2008).

Wood Hath Hope

Stooping down as if to say everything amounts to nothing – my towering height, my dependable force, wisdom brought by years of interacting with the elements: earth, water, wind, and fire.

Arms reaching to the heavens as if to say “we are nothing” amidst the barbarism of humans who do not respect the fact that we were here first.

Lovers carve their names on our bodies - they desecrate us with the emptiness of their promises. Capitalists break our arms for profit.

Protect us, God of Creation, whose wisdom for giving us life cannot be questioned. Bless us, God of History who always sides with the oppressed and exploited.

The Prayer of Rilke

My prayer life has always been characterized by departures and returns. Each abandonment different from the others, each homecoming sweeter than the last. This constant battle of staying and leaving eventually strengthens the bond with my personal Jesus. Finding ways to make Him smile, I stumbled into this Rainer Maria Rilke poem which is my current favorite prayer:

Oh, tell us, poet, what you do? I praise.

But those dark, deadly, devastating ways, how do you bear them, suffer them? I praise.

And then the Nameless, beyond guess or gaze, how can you call it, conjure it? I praise.

And whence your right, in every kind of maze, in every mask, to remain true? I praise.

And that the mildest and the wildest ways know you like star and storm? Because I praise.