No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

- John Donne Meditation XVII

My maternal grandfather passed away recently.  It’s weird… the way I felt nothing remotely approaching pain upon learning this new year of the death of someone whose existence made possible mine.

I asked myself why am I not crying?  Why am I not consumed with grief…

I feel sadness but only that.  I remember when my other grandfather died, I was but a child then but I have cried my eyes out when I overheard my parents talking about it.  It such a huge contrast that I felt somethings wrong with me.  I grew up not close to my maternal grandparents as they lived on another island.    But from the little stories I’ve heard along the years, I knew my grandfather was a good man, a very loving father and my mother loved him dearly.  Well maybe the “closeness factor” accounts for my feelings or rather the lack of it.

Or so I thought.

Just last week, as I lie in bed waiting for dawn to come… a sudden thought drifted to my mind and I felt curious.  I thought what if what happened to my lolo(grandpa) Macki, the way he died, happens to my own father? I started crying then.  It was as if  what’s keeping my heart closed from feeling the loss suddenly gave way from the onslaught of wrenching emotions, and I could no longer hold my tears .   In that moment his death became real to me.  I knew what my mother felt because I was feeling it.

How I wish I could have known him better, talked to him more…

I comfort myself with the thought that someday I will see him again.

I went home during the holidays.  For those not in the know, Christmas season in my country commenced from the 16th of December and onwards up to the 6th of January when Roman Catholics observed the Feast of Three Kings.  I was so excited.  I haven’t seen my siblings for more than five months and I’ve really missed them.  I have four, two of each sex:  Wilona, JR, Ryan, and Alexandra.

Let me tell you a little something about each of them.

My sister Wilona is more than a year younger than me.  She’s very mataray but she easily dissolved into tears when challenged.  She’s very fond of watching shows with more than the usual content of violence, and has an almost-obssession of viewing horror films notwithstanding that she’s easily frightened and scared of the dark.  How’s that for contradiction, eh?

Now Jr, who was named after our father, has the same taste in shows and films as I.   He’s one of the very few people in whom I could talk to about anything and indulge with in an enjoyable and highly intelligent conversation.  The topics range from the silly to the serious, such as spirituality.  How I wish I could meet a guy with half his wit and intelligence.

My brother Ryan, who’s only a year younger than Jr, is the health buff in the family.  Would you believe he measures my mother’s water intake by drawing lines on a water bottle?   He’s very meticulous.  He would start cleaning the house early in the morning and still wouldn’t be finished by nightfall.   

Alexandra, whom we all call Alexa, Have been a topic of some of my posts here.  She’s the youngest but I wish I have her height! (she’s only 14 but she’s already taller than me and Wilona).  She’s a girl with a heart of gold.   When most of her age is anxious what gifts they would receive for Christmas, she worries over what presents (little they may be) she could give to the security guards in her school.

When I started writing this post, it wasn’t my intention to ramble about my siblings but was trying to write how I spent my Christmas.  I spent it with my family of course, with the usual fare of rich food prepared for Christmas Eve celebration arrayed on the table.  What was different though was how we past the time waiting for the clock to strike the hour of 12 midnight.   

We spent it playing (and me learning the rudiments of) chess.  LOL.

The chess set was newly bought and made of glass.  Supposedly there’s only two players, but in our case the rest of the family served as unofficial coaches giving unsolicited advice (in loud voices mind you) on what move each of the player should make.  It was hilarious.  It’s the noisiest chess game I’ve ever watched with much laughter as chess pieces advanced and retreated as moves were hurriedly changed. 

In previous Christmases we usually spend the night watching T.V. , and most often than not, my father wasn’t with us because he’s aboard a tanker vessel on the other side of the world.  This one was decidedly unique.  Who would have thought that playing chess could be so funny?

It was late in the afternoon, a couple of days ago, a very busy time in our office–which wasn’t unusual!–when one of my officemates suddenly asked me, “Lori, christian ka rin ba?” (Lori, are you a christian too?)

I thought that was an odd question to ask considering we lived in a predominantly christian nation, with Roman Catholics comprising the greater portion of the populace.  But what my officemate really meant was if I belong to the born again christian denomination.

The word ‘christian’ means one who believes and accepts Christ as Lord and savior, but it has become synonymous here with believers who are not of the Catholic faith.  Just as the word ‘church’ which means the body of Christ have come to mean to many people as a place, a building where one goes to worship God.

Since I was baptised a Catholic when I was born, I said in reply, “Hindi.  Pero born again ako in spirit.”  (No.  But I am born again in spirit.)  

In John 3:3, Jesus said to Nicodemus,

“I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless a man is born again.”

Obviously, Jesus wasn’t telling him about physical rebirth.  He told Nicodemus in John 3:5–

“I tell you the truth, unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

The best explanation I have read so far about this verse is by Ann Graham Lotz.  In her book, Just Give Me Jesus, she said, “… in order to experience spiritual rebirth, you must be physically born.  You must be a living person.  You must be ‘born of water’.  It is not possible to pray for someone who has died without Christ and change that person’s eternal destiny….  But those who go to heaven must also be born of the Spirit.  Just as the virgin Mary conceived the physical life of the Son of God, you and I conceive the spiritual life of the Son of God when we are ‘born again’.”

So being born again in spirit is the crucial thing.

I could go to church and worship regularly.  I could go to relief missions, help the poor, and give to charities.  I could claim to be a devout Catholic or a Born Again Christian, but If I have not been reborn spiritually, all these things will mean nothing. 

Being born again is not merely a label.  It is not only a Baptist or a protestant or a Billy Graham thing.  It is a change–a change so radical, so powerful the result of which is a new person, a new creation. 

There were times in the past when I have questioned if God really exists.  I felt my life was going nowhere.  On the surface I seemed to have everything.  But inside I was broken and deeply hurt and I couldn’t tell anyone about it.  For most of my life I have kept a secret, a secret I revealed to no one, for fear of causing others pain.  The burden of keeping it hidden was slowy killing me.  I felt like I was losing my soul.  One night, out of a deep sense of hopelessness and desperation, I prayed a prayer that has changed my life.  It was unlike any prayer I have prayed before and at the time I wasn’t even sure I was praying.  I was crying the whole time.  I said, God I surrender.  If you really exists, please help me ’cause on my own, I can’t do it.  Please  heal me… save   me….

The change came.  But it was so gradual that at first I wasn’t even aware of it.  I looked the same but I wasn’t the person I was before (my family was the first to notice the change).  And not until I have experienced being ‘born again’ that I understood what it means.  In giving  Jesus control over my life, I have gain freedom, I have gain peace.

The 4th installment Mr. Perry Marshall’s Where did the Universe come from?

Previous:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

~~~

Lori,

   See this email I just sent you, that you’re reading right now?  This email is proof of the existence of God.

   Yeah, I know, that sounds crazy.  But I’m not asking you to believe anything just yet, until you see the evidence for yourself.  All I ask is that you refrain from disbelieving while I show you my proof.  It only takes a minute to convey, but it speaks to one of the most important questions of all time.

   So how is this email proof of the existence of God?:

   This email you’re reading contains letters, words and sentences.  It contains a message that means something.  As long as you can read English, you can understand what I’m saying.

    You can do all kinds of things with this email.  You can read it on your computer screen.  You can print it out on your printer.  You can read it out loud to a friend who’s in the same room as you are.  You can call your friend and read it to her over the telephone.  You can save it as a Microsoft WORD document.  You can forward it to someone via email, or you can post it on a website.

    Regardless of how you copy it or where you send it, the information remains the same.  My email contains a message.  It contains information in the form of language.  The message is independent of the medium it is sent in.

    Messages are not matter, even though they can be carried by matter (like printing this email on a piece of paper).

    Messages are not energy even though they can be carried by energy (like the sound of my voice.)

    Messages are immaterial.  Information is itself a unique kind of entity.  It can be stored and transmitted and copied in many forms, but the meaning still stays the same.

   Messages can be in English, French or Chinese. Or Morse Code.  Or mating calls of birds.  Or the Internet.  Or radio or television.  Or computer programs or architect blueprints or stone carvings.  Every cell in your body contains a message encoded in DNA, representing a complete plan for you.

   OK, so what does this have to do with God?

   It’s very simple.  Messages, languages, and coded information ONLY come from a mind.  A mind that agrees on an alphabet and a meaning of words and sentences.  A mind that expresses both desire and intent.

   Whether I use the simplest possible explanation, such as the one I’m giving you here, or if we analyze language with advanced mathematics and engineering communication theory, we can say this with total confidence:

   ”Messages, languages and coded information never, ever come from anything else besides a mind.  No one has ever produced a single example of a message  that did not come from a mind.”

   Nature can create fascinating patterns – snowflakes, sand dunes, crystals, stalagmites and stalactites.  Tornados and turbulence and cloud formations.

   But non-living things cannot create language. They *cannot* create codes.  Rocks cannot think and they cannot talk.  And they cannot create information.

  It is believed by some that life on planet earth arose accidentally from the “primordial soup,” the early ocean which produced enzymes and eventually RNA, DNA, and primitive cells.

   But there is still a problem with this theory: It fails to answer the question, ‘Where did the information come from?’

   DNA is not merely a molecule.  Nor is it simply a “pattern.” Yes, it contains chemicals and proteins, but those chemicals are arranged to form an intricate language, in the exact same way that English and Chinese and HTML are languages.

   DNA has a four-letter alphabet, and structures very similar to words, sentences and paragraphs.  With very precise instructions and systems that check for errors and correct them.

   To the person who says that life arose naturally, you need only ask: “Where did the information come from?  Show me just ONE example of a language that didn’t come from a mind.”

   As simple as this question is, I’ve personally presented it in public presentations and Internet discussion forums for more than two years.  I’ve addressed more than fifty thousand people, including hostile, skeptical audiences who insist that life arose without the assistance of God. 

   But to a person, none of them have ever been able to explain where the information came from.  This riddle is “So simple any child can understand; so complex, no atheist can solve.”

   You can hear or read my full presentation on this topic at
http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/ifyoucanreadthis.htm

   Watch it on video:
http://www.perrymarshallspeaks.com/

   For a high-school level, layman’s version, go here:
http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/information.htm

   Matter and energy have to come from somewhere.  Everyone can agree on that.  But information has to come from somewhere, too!  Information is separate entity, fully on par with matter and energy.  And information can only come from a mind.  If books and poems and TV shows come from human intelligence, then all living things inevitably came from a superintelligence.

   Every word you hear, every sentence you speak, every dog that barks, every song you sing, every email you read, every packet of information that zings across the Internet, is proof of the existence of God.  Because information and language always originate in a mind.

   In the beginning were words and language.

   In the Beginning was Information.

   When we consider the mystery of life – where it came from and how this miracle is possible – do we not at the same time ask the question where it is going, and what its purpose is?

Respectfully Submitted,

Perry Marshall

Mr. Curious well I need some inspiration

It’s my birthday

And I cannot find no cause for celebration…

 

This bit of lyrics is totally unsuitable  

Now this is more like it…

because I’m neither uninspired nor lacking of things to celebrate!

 

Thank you Father for giving me another year,

for a loving family

for old and new friends….

I thank you for waking my heart

from a lethal slumber,

taking the blinds off my eyes,

revealing your truth.

I thank you Father for not letting go,

thus saving me…

saving me from my stubborn self.

 

  

I’ve missed doing this…

and I sorely miss my home and my family

The 3rd installment Mr. Perry Marshall’s Where did the Universe come from?

Previous:  Part 1, Part 2

Next:  Part 4

~~~

Lori,

   In your kitchen cabinet, you’ve probably got a spray bottle with an adjustable nozzle.  If you twist the nozzle one way, it sprays a fine mist into the air.  You twist the nozzle the other way, it squirts a jet of water in a straight line.  You turn that nozzle to the exact position you want so you can wash a mirror, clean up a spill, or whatever.

   If the universe had expanded a little faster, the matter would have sprayed out into space like fine mist from a water bottle – so fast that a gazillion particles of dust would speed into infinity and never even form a single star.

   If the universe had expanded just a little slower, the material would have dribbled out like big drops of water, then collapsed back where it came from by the force of gravity.

   A little too fast, and you get a meaningless spray of fine dust.  A little too slow, and the whole universe collapses back into one big black hole.

   The surprising thing is just how narrow the difference is.  To strike the perfect balance between too fast and too slow, the force, something that physicists call “the Dark Energy Term” had to be accurate to one part in ten with 120 zeros. 

   If you wrote this as a decimal, the number would look like this:

0.000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000001

   In their paper “Disturbing Implications of a Cosmological Constant” two atheist scientists from Stanford University stated that the existence of this dark energy term would have required a miracle… “An unknown agent” intervened in cosmic history “for reasons of its own.”

   Just for comparison, the best human engineering example is the Gravity Wave Telescope, which was built with a precision of 23 zeros.  The Designer, the ‘external agent’ that caused our universe must possess an intellect, knowledge, creativity and power trillions and trillions of times greater than we humans have.

    Absolutely amazing.

    Now a person who doesn’t believe in God has to find some way to explain this.  One of the more common explanations seems to be “There was an infinite number of universes, so it was inevitable that things would have turned out right in at least one of them.”

    The “infinite universes” theory is truly an amazing theory.  Just think about it, if there is an infinite number of universes, then absolutely everything is not only possible… It’s actually happened! 

    It means that somewhere, in some dimension, there is a universe where the Chicago Cubs won the World Series last year.  There’s a universe where Jimmy Hoffa doesn’t get cement shoes; instead he marries Joan Rivers and becomes President of the United States.  There’s even a universe where Elvis kicks his drug habit and still resides at Graceland and sings at concerts.  Imagine the possibilities! 

    I might sound like I’m joking, but actually I’m dead serious.  To believe an infinite number of universes made life possible by random chance is to believe everything else I just said, too. 

    Some people believe in God with a capital G.

    And some folks believe in Chance with a Capital C.

    Respectfully Submitted,

    Perry Marshall

The 2nd installment of Mr. Perry Marshall’s Where did the Universe come from?

Previous:  Part 1

Next:  Part 3

~~~

Lori,

   The Big Bang theory was totally rejected at first.  But those who supported it had predicted that the ignition of the Big Bang would have left behind a sort of ‘hot flash’ of radiation.

   If a big black wood stove produces heat that you can feel, then in a similar manner, the Big Bang should produce its own kind of heat that would echo throughout the universe.

   In 1965, without looking for it, two physicists at Bell Labs in New Jersey found it.  At first, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were bothered because, while trying to refine the world’s most sensitive radio antenna, they couldn’t eliminate a bothersome source of noise.  They picked up this noise everywhere they pointed the antenna.

   At first they thought it was bird droppings.  The antenna was so sensitive it could pick up the heat of bird droppings (which certainly are warm when they’re brand new) but even after cleaning it off, they still picked up this noise.

   This noise had actually been predicted in detail by other astronomers, and after a year of checking and re-checking the data, they arrived at a conclusion: This crazy Big Bang theory really was correct.

   In an interview, Penzias was asked why there was so much resistance to the Big Bang theory.

   He said, “Most physicists would rather attempt to describe the universe in ways which require no explanation.  And since science can’t *explain* anything – it can only
*describe* things – that’s perfectly sensible.  If you have a universe which has always been there, you don’t explain it, right? 

   ”Somebody asks you, ‘How come all the secretaries in your company are women?’ You can say, ‘Well, it’s always been that way.’  That’s a way of not having to explain it.  So in the same way, theories which don’t require explanation tend to be the ones
accepted by science, which is perfectly acceptable and the best way to make science work.”

   But on the older theory that the universe was eternal, he explains: “It turned out to be so ugly that people dismissed it.  What we find – the simplest theory – is a creation out of nothing, the appearance out of nothing of the universe.”

   Penzias and his partner, Robert Wilson, won the Nobel Prize for their discovery of this radiation.  The Big Bang theory is now one of the most thoroughly validated theories in all of science.

   Robert Wilson was asked by journalist Fred Heeren if the Big Bang indicated a creator.

   Wilson said, “Certainly there was something that set it all off.  Certainly, if you are religious, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis.”

   
Sincerely,

Perry Marshall

 

Typhoon Undoy transforming the street into a raging river

SM not spared in the flood

At least the water here looked calm... and green!

Actress Cristine Reyes on the rooftop of her home in Provident Village

Aftermath of Typhoon Undoy

 

But none of these images adequately convey the tragic loss of lives and the suffering cause by Typhoon Ondoy.   It was so heartbreaking to listen to the radio, as I did, and hear people sending txt messages asking for help, worried about their loved ones.  Many people were trapped on the second floor or being rained on on the rooftop with no food and drinking water.  A man called, his voice breaking, as he asked that the children with him who were sick be rescued.

Some parts of Metro Manila remained flooded and with no electricity as of this writing.

I hope and pray that those affected will recover immediately.

 

 

Note:  The photos were taken from online references.