glory

Something I heard today was really interesting. In today's homily, I heard about glory in Christ's context: Glory is not in riches, nor in popularity. Glory is in trying to love. A man works double jobs because he loves his family and he loves his students = that is glory. A team supporting its rival because what matters is to inspire - that is glory. A losing captain accepting defeat and still playing to provide for her family - that is glory. 

A very interesting way to define glory in Christ's terms.

And as an assignment, we were asked to cite an example of glory. That leads me to the heartbreaking Mr. Sunshine that I just finished watching.

There is glory in fighting for one's country because you love it, even in the face of defeat.

There is glory in supporting someone you love, even if it means giving up your life.

And there is glory in fighting on, for the people and country that you love, even when they are already gone.

And there is glory in moving on to honor those who have long been gone because you respect and loved them.

There is always glory in trying to love.

from the ledge

i love going to our neighbor's house when i was a kid. my sister does, too. and that house, has a ledge you can reach from a bench. one day, my sister and i were at our neighbor's and i was on the ledge. my sister wanted to go on up and insisted for me to hmmm... maybe leave, or give her space? i don't remember. but what i remember is falling down on the concrete floor and when i opened my eyes, the world was revolving so fast i can't fix my sight to one thing. i screamed and all i heard was my sister crying for me not to die. "please, please, don't die." we were not even in grade school then. i realized that time when she started crying that blood was pooling behind my head and our neighbor had to rush me to the clinic. my brother, who was in the house, was informed of where we were going and when i returned home, i was bald behind my back with a couple of stitches on it.

that was pretty scary, but i don't remember being pampered when i arrived home. my mother, who just arrived from an errand, was so worried though...

chili and gameboy

when i was a kid, i did not like spicy food. that was why my brother, after putting chili in my soy sauce, got spanked by our dad when i started crying over the spicy food in my mouth. little did they know that in my brother's back pocket was the gameboy that he borrowed from his friend. it got damaged when our dad spanked him so they had to buy a new one to replace it. my poor brother! he got spanked and instead of getting a gameboy, had to give it to his friend to replace that was damaged...

act of love

after visiting the strawberry farms at benguet, my mother came back to the hotel with muddy sandals. later, i saw my father in the restroom, holding one of the pairs of my mother's sandals, cleaning it - wiping the mud off the sandals carefully, saying "so that your mama wouldn't have to walk with dirty sandals."

such act of love makes my heart full. and makes me wish that one day, i will have someone who loves me as much as my father loves my mother.