The Tethering Darkness

The Tethering Darkness

Lately, darkness has filled me. The grappling reality of death overturns my little amount of positive and sunny disposition. With the death of Monsignor Antonio Ferreron left my mind contemplating on the existence of death. The macabre account of the cyclone that hit Myanmar early this month and the devastating 7.8-Richter-scale earthquake that leveled the Chinese province of Sichuan have all borne their mark in my mind.

There could be no question that the pending and hovering reality of death always awaits us anytime and anyplace. It is being said often that the moment we are born, we are also dying. In the last analysis then, what becomes stable in what we called "life" is death - the nothingness. However, should it be that we are engulfed in this total absence of being one after one ceases? Is it then the case that the transitory reality of human being means that we would truly pass only in this existence and no more? But in this scheme of things, one could not limited to the asking of our existential reality per se, as if the reality of existing is all that there is. Is it not valid also to ask that behind this existing is an existence of a greater kind? Is it not that the existence we have experienced is an existence to an existence before any existing exists? By this I mean that the meaninglessness of existing because it just comes about to be that way seems to me a grave concern lying flat before our eyes. It is saying in one sense that what we have in reality is only governed by the forces controlling the universe and no more. The sole fact that there is this existence is something that somehow we are not singularly bound to the laws of nature; but that, as you and me in this world are, we participate in the reality of an existence before the universe is. I could find no better answer before the Big Bang theory happened than the theoretical and philosophical basis of a reality before time and space began.

In this regard, the darkness of the night that is always leaving me patches of void and emptiness, which I think did not exempt anyone in this matter, since Mother Teresa, too, experienced a dark night of her soul that was even seen as more protracted than usual, does not lay me in the space of hopelessness but ushers me into the hope that, as Christians are, is tended to a goal - a goal that we all want to achieve in the end. What could be a better end than in the totality of what we have always longed for. Even the oriental idea of one with the being is a concept akin to our search of something that could pacify our restless hearts.

The encyclical of Benedict XVI is indeed a food for thought if one seeks the penultimate questions of life confronting our coming ends. This ugliness of death haunts everyone from the great to the least. Even our redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, suffered greatly in the garden of Gethsemane, as if to say that in that moment, he was not God, he greatly embraced His nature of being a man. Needless to say, His words of supplication to the Father, as if to ward the cup from Him, is saying to us today that we, too, avoid the cup of death - that is to say, we want to stay in this world that is always alien to us. We want to enjoy the transient happiness that this life could bring. It is funny to think that man does not cease to complain of his suffering of being in this world but seeks always to remain! What could be a worse place than being besieged with fear of imminent death, with diseases of all sorts, with catastrophes of every kind, with deluge and havoc of nature, with shame and failures, with responsibilies and deadlines, with increasing prices and uncertain future, with the waning of US primacy in the world stage and economy, with the rise of Islam and the east, and with all things that could ever happen in this world. And we still cling to our hopes in this world?

Do we then flee and seek refuge to the future because we are confronted with a barely habitable world? Or, have we found an "opium" to which we could idenfy our sighs, as Karl Marx would say about religion? Is our present living just barely living in itself because each one of us is escaping reality in our own little worlds? Is our attitude of indifference of what would be, like we could not care less if the world tomorrow ends? Some have escaped into an eschatological existence, be it in politics and religion: we put our trust into the future, which has been idealized, and rework ourselves backward by making changes in the present. This eschatological escapism is evident though subtle. This is not entirely negative in itself; since in the pattern of things, it is a given fact that reality has orientation in itself toward consequential ends. Cause and effect is a realism one could not avoid. However, this has been dramatically advanced and given priority in the way we follow and believe things. For example, we enroll in insurance policies by viewing things in practical terms on the moment of death. This may not sound bad; however, when this becomes our first priority over any spontaneous goodness that the present life could bring, then we hamper the good that is in itself possible in this present moment over and against that hoped-for goodness to come in the future. It is as if to align every thing to conform to that goal that lies beyond. It takes the slack off from therein to point it toward an orientation in the future.

Death, then, is no exeption. The overbearing reality of death orients our goals of making most of life: "let us eat and be merry for tomorrow we will die". This is a kind of passive eschatologial escape. We do not actively draft life to suit the future. We acknowledge the future existence of death, but taking it from our consciousness by saturating ourselves in the better things of the now and here, enrapturing ourselves in the pleasure of this precise moment.

In the realm of religion, there is no clearer fact than the mushrooming of the "feel-good" denominations. To render Jesus our Lord and Savior today and to verbalize it as accepting Him as a sole redeemer and savior does not render it invalid and valueless. However, the theological undercurrent of this kind of faith is troubling: setting out our faith through acknowledging Him in our lives is a one-time event, which has ramification of our salvation. It reads "once saved always be saved". The consequence of a voice acceding of Him as your personal Lord and Savior renders you saved and in now way unsaveable. The viewpoint here: the future salvation of a human being is re-orienting life today by structuring it through a precise-moment formula to make it saveable. There is no problem here anway, but what is untenable is the fact that from here and on it is a journey of constant and unwavering faith! The Will that you used in accepting Christ on that certain moment is the same Will that you will use in the coming days and months before death. What lies therein, in the view of Born-Again Christianity, does not matter because damnation has been salvaged by that one-time event in the past. This is an active eschatological escapism. The security of salvation is given more prominence than the virtual reality of life of persevering and enduring in faith and practice.

In all this, the effect is confusion in a world that knows no anchorage to clear truth. The looming fact of death is now given different shades of acceptance. We have come to accept it in different ways in which we situate ourselves by the belief that we hold. Then, a question then seeks to be answered bears out: what, then, to hold? what, then, to believe? and what, then, to follow?

When Pope Benedict XVI went to the United States in April, he met with some representatives of other religious faiths and other Christian denominations in New York. He was clear as he was referring to the reason why the apostles were successful in convincing the world to the yoke of Christ: "The ultimate effectiveness of their preaching did not depend on "lofty words" or "human wisdom" (1 Cor 2:13), but rather on the work of the Spirit (Eph 3:5) who confirmed the authoritative witness of the Apostles (cf. 1 Cor 15:1-11)." And in the later years of the growth of the nascent Chruch: "this proclamation had to be guaranteed by the purity of normative doctrine expressed in creedal formulae — symbola — which articulated the essence of the Christian faith and constituted the foundation for the unity of the baptized (cf. 1 Cor 15:3-5; Gal 1:6-9; Unitatis Redintegratio, 2)".

Then the Pope focused the problem of the world of today: "My dear friends, the power of the kerygma has lost none of its internal dynamism. Yet we must ask ourselves whether its full force has not been attenuated by a relativistic approach to Christian doctrine similar to that found in secular ideologies, which, in alleging that science alone is "objective", relegate religion entirely to the subjective sphere of individual feeling. Scientific discoveries, and their application through human ingenuity, undoubtedly offer new possibilities for the betterment of humankind. This does not mean, however, that the "knowable" is limited to the empirically verifiable, nor religion restricted to the shifting realm of "personal experience. For Christians to accept this faulty line of reasoning would lead to the notion that there is little need to emphasize objective truth in the presentation of the Christian faith, for one need but follow his or her own conscience and choose a community that best suits his or her individual tastes. The result is seen in the continual proliferation of communities which often eschew institutional structures and minimize the importance of doctrinal content for Christian living."

To which way we view the greater reality in our own little realities, and insomuch as we hold dear the Christian tenets that we have come to believe, then we do not have any other recourse than to believe in the historical unfolding of truth subsisting in the Church in which the ancient faith endures and to which Christ has given the power to teach. We could not cast aside the historicity of our faith without throwing away the Christian belief altogether. If only in the difficulty of our believing in an institutional Church we have come to terms of the gravity of not believing in Christ, then it follows then that so prized a treasure has been had in the long run. Accepting death as natural and inescapable is difficult, which is as difficult as accepting the truth in a Church marred by weakness and controversies. Death and Church run parallel to each other and each has a great relationship to follow through. Death does not become nihilistic in a person informed of his faith that the Church guards carefully. Only in the certainty of the truth taught laboriously by the Church could guarantee an eternal salvation beyond the grave.

Posted on on May 15th, 2008 in Current Affairs | Edit | No Comments »

Another Quagmire: A Response

← One of Days in Quagmire

Charity A Nonconditional Issue →

Another Quagmire: A Response

As I was reaching for comments with regards to what I have written in my "One of Days in Quagmire", I have found that most did not understand what I have written. At most, a colleague of mine says that it was complicated as a reading. Another had commented that I should be more to the point.

Firstly, as a writer of a topic one has to establish a "helipad" so to speak to make a point. A sentence topic if anyone is keen enough is the statement I made that there is in existence a uniqueness of every individual, and this is being implied by my statement, "You cannot suppress other people’s uniqueness, nor can you forego their similarities." This uniqueness can create tension because of the uniqueness itself. And, I have stated later in the same stanza that conflicts are not preventable and are bound to happen because of, well, uniqueness. And I suppose that everyone should have taken notice of the words thesis and anti-thesis, which are themselves philosophically meaningfull since we are beings that have differences, let alone similarities.

In the second stanza, I have underlined the inherent problem with everyone of us. What then is the problem? It is that anyone may tend to forget that what we hear, see, and feel can have objective reality (that such a thing exists outside yourself and in my example, gossiping) and subjective reality (our own interpretation of the thing that exits and in my example again, gossiping). Taking these NOT into account (the subjective and objective), one can have the tendency to oversimplify things: like making conclusions quickly that so and so has insulted me and judge the situation against your favor. Or, again to oversimplify things by interpreting other people’s minds (like so and so is guilty of insulting me because he is a friend of this). One becomes guilty because of association.

Now in the third stanza, I tried to explain that this is in no way simple since making sure everything is perfect in any interaction is an ideal thing. You cannot expect everyone to interpret a certain thing the same at all times, and our reactions vary from one to another based on our psychology or other factors at that point in time. However, consciously acknowledging this problem (tension in every interaction) may be of great help to construct for us a balanced view of life — that is why I said integrate.

I also point an important factor, which can be a helping hand for everyone who has the same problem: the religious beliefs. At times, our religious beliefs would help us to explain things and overcome by some sort of explanation. One such thing is that my religious belief teaches me to love my neighbor. This is a Christian commandment that is emphasized by Christ. By so doing, I am challenged to give my foe or otherwise a chance to explain herself or himself. But if things will turn out sour, I may likely say that this is some sort of test for my faith on how God will manifest His grace on me by stretching my patience in such unhappy encounter.

This and all is what I would have entailed everyone to understand. I can understand that I might be misreading my readers by thinking that they know the background knowledge that I have. I hope they will put some extra-time to read again and again. I do believe that words carry something that it represents. I do not want to delve this thing in this write-up, or else I will again be accused of being a complicated writer and incoherent at worse. No offense intended to anyone. I am open to suggestions and critiques from critics anyway.

October 18th, 2006 in Friendship | Edit |

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One of Days in Quagmire

Years Have Been

Another Quagmire: A Response →

One of Days in Quagmire

You cannot suppress other people’s uniqueness, nor can you forego their similarities. The tension that exists in the dynamics between the two is one of the learning experiences one can use to ratiocinate developing relationships. For almost two years, I have had quite a lot of these things before my eyes. Though the currents of emotion can carry you down the deluge of conflicts, I can hope for no better way than to exist seeing these things to happen as they should. I believe that there are things unpreventable to happen. Everyday people engage in intrapersonal and interpersonal communication, and it is inevitable that clashes would erupt anytime. The inherent uniqueness of every individual sets in itself a pylon of difference that is in principle a mark of peculiarity. So it raises questions of antithesis if thesis is there in the beginning. What could be an antithesis, but those whose existence itself is marked of his own peculiarity as an individual.

The danger of some individuals these days is to submerge this fact, which is in itself objective, into the domain of their own subjectivity without taking into account the subjectivity of other subjects surrounding them. Like for example, if I am presented with a problem of let us say gossiping, it is quite seldom for some to critically analyze and appraise the problem in question. We tend to subordinate the problem itself under our own subjective interpretation without assessing what could be other factors, which are variables of the problem in itself. The gossiping could after all be another opinion of someone else. Or, the gossiping could just be another emotional let up of someone, whose channeling of a burden inside is one’s way of ego protection.

However, this sort of practical example is an ideal in itself which hopes to be integrated by every individual. We do not make heroes in just twenty four hours. If need be, even a lifetime does.

Another thing that is far important for me is one’s religious beliefs. Somehow, when one is grounded with the positive tenets of one’s religion, it can mitigate potential disastrous effects of temper. More often, it palliates the ill consequence of a bad experience since the ego is open to a supernatural subsidy, which is in itself acquired by faith working through charity with hope.

Nobody ever says it is easy in any way, but how can one see this if this is not made in time and space.

October 14th, 2006 in Current Affairs | Edit |

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1. # 1 Lorvie Says:
   October 16th, 2006 at 5:42 am e

   what is in the sentence up above the moon? can we see any capital letters there? in short, what’s the blah blah all about… coherence and more to the point please. a good writer gives life to the reader and language is not substance nor substance is language.

   in short, what is in the “story”? all that was said can be written in just one short paragraph.

   page 2 please…

Years Have Been

One of the things I liked most during my childhood years were my vacation days in Bohol. It looked for me like an expectation, a joyous expectation of meeting. I cannot reiterate it more than my solid identification of my place of origin. I do not particularly set off this tenth largest island of Philippines, but it seems to me that Bohol has given me something more to differentiate me. How do I say differentiation? It is in the sense that I have an origin that is rooted realistically which can be greatly constitutive of my becoming. Not on something borne out of imagination by someone who knows not their place of "coming from". It is for me of great importance that one has to look at the past, through the present, and project for the future and see how you as an individual has become as part of a larger "seeing". It is as if like the City of God of St. Augustine who sees history: past and present, and constructs the future. A future that is what you want to become, but only in Augustine’s case, a spiritual journey to the future where man meets God. This is where my wanderings in Bohol have been a great solace of memories for me. I have seen the people who themselves were characters of constant stories of my grandmother. She sees with her eyes the way the world unfolds before her. The poignant narratives of people’s idiosyncrasies, practices, habits, religious fervor, folkloric accounts, and many others seem like mythical of those accounts as they were run by incising recollection. She recounts them with levity in most and seriousness at some at times. The way I had absorbed them have kept them in my memories. So much so that the places that they were recounted hold as much vivid recollections as I would actually see them.

The peculiarities of those personages who, and most of them, have gone to their rests have remained in my consciousness, but only so few have taken them by recounts already. If I were to recall them in my memory, they become so magical, as if I am not here but in another place and time. My mind would recreate a world in which I participated in the events that were once part of those characters’ lives. As if reliving them is a reminder of once glorious days devoid of modern guttering.

The world that we have now has reached limitless possibilities, new currents of thought, new ways of doing things, and innovations that were previously hindered by time and space. Yet, adjunct with these revolutionary ideas and technologicaly advantage, the mere man on a corner has been continuously isolated from those pasts where communion with nature and people were a common theme governing life and living. Living in these memories of mine, I could walk hours and hours over hills and valleys; I could sweep across small glades and meadows while walking toward someone else’s abodes for chores and doing the usual errands. While my grandmother could not leave the house just easily as she would want to, we would just wait for someone to walk by peddling for some fishes or what-not’s. Salt and some "kakanin" would just come by anytime of the day. In one of these cyclic occurrences, we could engage in talks idly for a minute or two befor these peddlers depart for some other houses. Most of these talks would dwindle to certain common friends, or in a happenstance, it would turn out providential of meeting two relations whom each has not come to know until then. These sellers of sorts were from the lowlands usually, and it is common that they would usually retrace those familiar households they have been into in the past. It was as if life in the upland was not constructed to suit the demands of a structured society. It was as if man has to live by the power of his own demands, however, within the scope of limitations as specified implicity in the values of the community of which he is a great participant. No wonder, life in the hinterlands develops a more spontaneous activity. But on the other hand, one could sense, indeed, that events and life of the urban society would tend to trickle in these tranquil, rural lands. The encroachment of these influences upset these usual things.

But by the time I had come of age, things grew worse for me. Realities were coming on as if by piecemeal but largely. I had only a few times of these yearly sojourns to this beloved mountain-areas. Much more so when I had to study in college. The grave reality now came right just before my eyes, greedily invoking for challenge.

Times have tempered me. But not my memories of these things would I have bargained just as easily for the world that we are constantly encountering. The de-mystifying effects of this postmodern world render man in deficiency of sorts. A deficiency that falls back on nothing because it has been built on sand and dunes. A child growing on this age knows only a few of the world outside of his own. The computer age has turned man into himself, enclosing one to his own. Man now becomes prisoner of a tube where it has been synthetically constructed and structured for only an appeal for comfort but lifeless in itself. Indeed, I can say that I am fortunate that I have seen some of the best things that life that is more than the human innovations can ever offer.

Life keeps on going on and on, but as a Christian existentialist, I would say that one must appreciate the beautiful things that happened in your life. An appreciation of the memories of once that glorious past of yours can help you move forward in this world full of emptiness and meaninglessness save from the point of faith.

September 30th, 2006 in Current Affairs | Edit |

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The recent ire that the Muslim world has exhibited in these past few days since the address of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, to the academics at the University of Regensburg only exhibited a grave response of a deep problem inherent within the divide between our brother Muslims’ faith and the Christians view of his religion. I think what is the most fundamental relevance and difference between these two monotheistic religions is in its own concept of God. For our Muslim brothers, God is completely transcendent. A being absolutely incompatible with our own categories. What do I mean by this? God for an Islam believer cannot be in any way characterized by any of man’s conception of God. He cannot explain God’s being by his own terms and language. God is so separated from His creation that even His own prescriptions, he is not bound to follow. Contrast this one with the concept of God among Christians in which a Christian believer believes of the Logus, who has perfectly personified Himself in Jesus Christ through Incarnation. Through HIs birth and presence temporally, perfect revelation of the unseen God becomes manifested. That is why in Christian theology, Christianity has employed the agency of reason, which is in itself a gift of God too, to explain through the best of man’s finite ability this God who has become Man. Why? This is because the Logus is reason in Himself. Jesus Christ gaps the wide breach between Creator and creature that only a God-incarnate can undo, thereby revealing not only God-made-man but reason Himself. Seemingly, this difference indeed becomes more evident in the speech of the Holy Father who underscored the relevance and compatibility of faith and reason and how faith devoid of reason can be a justification for violence.

Just to make an appropriate fixed point to begin his discussion of the natural cohabitation of faith and reason and how illumination of reason with faith creates a profound culture that is inherently Western, the Pope posits an example of a dialogue between Michael Paleologus, a 15th century Byzantine emperor and a Persian scholar. Though the conversation was long as transcribed by a scholar, Prof. Khoury, the pope picked up the central theme of the interlocution that has become the source of incendiary reaction of the Muslim world: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman”. Though the Pope puts these words inside his speech, it does not mean that, one, this is his opinion, and two, that this should be interpreted outside from the text of the speech. Clearly, he set examples of why reason without faith is disastrous as exemplified by Europe and the West, and on the other hand, an equally nefarious effect of faith without reason can lead to blind profession of religion and confusion of interpretation.

But the majority of the media agencies have failed to note that the greater part of the speech is mostly directed to the schism of faith and reason in the contemporarry Western civilization of which the Chuch itself is suffering from within and without. That the separation of faith and reason has bred severally antagonistic approaches — a kind of nihilism against anything pertainig to faith. It should be noted that this has indeed weakened current European and Western societies where relativism is palpable from all phases of life, and where a shared common values that has been manifested, inculcated, and inculturated among Western and western-oriented nations like the Philippines has come close to extinction.

What sort of relevance does it make with us Filipinos?

The answer to that is on what influences the Filipinos have most. The grip of American and Western culture among us comes as no surprise considering our history. Sooner or later the redefinition of our values which have been cherished to some degree by our age and the generations before us may come as no later in a generation or two, taking always into account the prevalent effects of cyberspace into our homes and communities.

Thus, the address of the Holy Father shows a timely wisdom at this precise moment of this age and a diagnosis of insidious symptoms that have been formenting for years. What he is concretely talking about is his own insistence of returning to our roots and discover the richness of our heritage that formed us as a nation and as a Church. This is truly indispensable in a world where currents of thought comes coupling with the zeal of change. We cannot dialogue with the world if we fail to instill that which has formed and breathed our being. We cannot bridge authentic relationships of things foreign to our own if we do not know ourselves. Though the Pope has spoken in the name of his faith to redirect Europe in particular, we too as Filipinos may transpose the idea of the pope to ourselves to help us form our identity and consciousness, which we badly are in need of.

September 26, 2006

An Existentialist Community

We cannot often times demand that we have our views being acceded to. However, sometimes things have to be said to infuse it in the consciousness of everyone. I think we do not even have to shout it loud for others to hear. I believe that every Filipino has in him what I think is a grave reality. Probably, the most devastating that we are experiencing in this postmodern age is the apparent indifference that runs across the country. What compounds the problem is the seeming dilution of those values that have been cherished and that have become themselves symbols of our identity. Have you experienced even in our simple day to day activities that we have become reluctant to be forceful to what we usually believe as essentials of our singularity as people. We don’t seem to stop by and open up a little to some unexpected conversations that might come our way every now and then. People have become grumpy themselves when stopped to be asked how they are. It seems that talking with someone we know is a grave violation to some social conventions. Though, this is not a sufficient reason enough to justify that erosion of our values, but they signify something more serious. I can only wish there are Filipinos who can be nationally conscious. Because of some of the unholy things we usually get from televisions these days, Filipinos tend to refocus their minds to something else — entertainment. It is not that this is entirely wrong, but it might be something that we call symptoms and signs that we deny the reality by deviating into that which can occupy our minds and numb our consciousness to stop it from absorbing. Blaise Pascal call it deviation: to flee from something inherently unacceptable because it is absurd. By seeing this, we would hinder from approaching something that we do not like, thereby rendering us anxious of our embracing that thing. So we move away from it by shelling oneself to cover that absurdity. I think we as one nation at one time have experienced existentialist crisis. Filipinos have seen that something that absence of essence in our living. The alienation that Filipinos feel in this existence is what keeps us from doing the things that we do most. We have become busy nationally, but we end up aimlessly. We have not embraced that thing that divides us from accepting a fact and to move on with that fact under our consciousness. The death-consciousness does not mean that our finitude blocks our existence and to accept that hard fact. Though no fault of our own, people begin to see this death-consciousness around them by repeatedly seeing this around: the utter chaotic web of national events, scandals, shameful eventualities, horrendous cataclysmic situations, murders in large scale, and others. The perplexity of these circumstances have rendered us mortal to acknowledge the fact that we know no way out.

September 16, 2006

The Return of a Friend

………Have you had been feeling great anxieties in life? It truly is like being to wait for someone like a medical technologist to take some blood samples from you. You don’t seem to know where the butterflies come from; but you indeed feel it flying around your insides, flapping to escape if chance there is. The days were numbered but saved me from counting it. That day approached as if from nowhere when serendipity only lies some moments away, never nearer but always closer. What an amazing thing it happened; while you were on your own thoughts, a friend but not so a friend until then came with a game card to fill some numbers, and on goes the saying "all’s well that ends well". Heaven knows not of losing someone whom one is a given friend to one. Take it amazingly — who would have thought it possible for humans anyway; such is possible only when it is made possible by Someone who indeed can do that to particular beings like Wilson and Chito………..

September 13, 2006.

The Reason of Which Mine

Oft we seem to undergo some conversational crises. What one speaks has not but all many shades of differing perception on one who hears them. If need be, one has to spend time to delicately weave each stories as to cast them properly. It’d be too unfortunate to fall into a mire of misunderstandings, whence time and effort are to be grabbed because it is necessity itself which forces them be employed. That is in itself harder than one thinks if missed interpretations have set in. So what one does has to be what he thinks can be proper at any time given situation. If silence is a must, then it must be a given and that somehow it is best to suit it as long as it can. One must then try to accept that keeping yourself to yourself is more than what one can imagine — nevertheless it has in itself some benefit. As I often think: "Silence is of benefit," must have some goodwill over matters more rough around the edges.

August 15, 2006

Sundays at Work

When I started to work in a call center, Sundays have become ordinary to me. This means that the ordinary is defined by what we consider as usual and casual. Usual and casual further mean that there are days which we do not consider as common. The commonality here is when what we usually does and think is repeated for a number of days, and a stop is imposed to "breathe" and respite is given. The ordinary is featured by things we regularly do and think and that society is featured sometimes to give condition to this reality. There might be different shades of the way we consider things as usual and casual, but as we approach the generality of things, we find that there are common elements we are under with. One such thing is the number of days in the calendar and regularity of seasons and holidays. It seems to me that the invention of the calendar is an importance that regulated man, and in so doing, in a certain sense, has dictated man. In the ancient civilizations, like Egypt, the patterns of life is governed by the rise and fall of bodies of water, i.e. the Nile River, and in China, the celestial arrangement of stars, planets, comets, and phenomena. The Magis were foremost biblical examples of star-gazers, who took the appearances of stars as signs.

The number of days in a week is divided by what we have usually called the work days and weekends. What comes to mind in the former is a grueling day of toil, and the latter, a cessation and relaxation - a period in a long sentence. There is a stop, which upsets as the continuation begun. This stoppage is a necessary condition toward the word health. The progression in the realm of reality, in the area of the noumena, is a recapitulation of the condition of man's being. The reality of man is a reality of the universe. The universe seeks a balance in its various unstable processes, while man seeks to pacify his burdened heart, in his unceasing quest toward what we call equilibrium. In the vast reality of the universe, what upsets a stable noumenon demands neither gain nor loss (a condition of self-sufficiency). In man, this constant seeking is manifested in the exertion of effort in the days he gives himself to, while in the two days that follows the five, it gives man time to breathe, to cancel out the energy.

But, the feeling of working on a Sunday has left me feeling peaceful.