Bless Me God For I Have Loved

Dear God,


A lover is just a selfish animal out to satisfy its own instinctive needs, I once thought. A man blissfully relishing a woman’s embrace is no different from a heartless lion feasting on a gazelle’s entrails. Both creatures derive pleasure from their respective acts. Both acts were committed as a result of biological impulses that are beyond the creatures’ control. A lemming who throws itself over a cliff just because its instinct tells it to do so is a fool. A man who deprives himself of sleep and pleasure just to make a girl happy because his infatuated heart compels him to do so is a fool. An eagle that flies across an unfamiliar ocean to look for prey without knowing how far its flight would take it is doomed to run out of breath and plunge to the sea one day. A man who pledges to dedicate all his life to a woman without knowing how much that woman would ask him to give or how little he would get in return, without asking how long he would have to keep spreading his vast wings in a long flight called passion, is a mindless daredevil bound to lose his wings and plunge into the deep ocean of loneliness one day.

As I lay in bed one lonely night, staring through the windows’ translucent curtains, watching the full moon gradually descend from the zenith to the horizon, while the crickets hummed in a melancholic chorus—as if attempting to soothe a restless, long-suffering creature--, while the nocturnal birds agonizingly chirped and flapped their wings in the dark, while the disturbed felines affectionately exchanged long, mild purrs, while the romantic wind strummed the countless leaves to create a powerful, musical rustle, I finally found myself confronting the truth. I was the animal. I was irrational. I was the daredevil and the fool. I was crossing an unknown ocean in the dark, running out of breath but still flapping my wounded wings. For despite the suffering and the pain, the follies and irrationalities, the love in me was still strong enough to sustain this crazy flight. Because I was in love. Because I was willing to go through more pain for that love.


Why do things have to be that way, God? Didn’t you teach us to love because you wanted us, your beloved children, to be happy in this world? Yet for love, for the one thing that is the ultimate source of all happiness, we have to suffer so much.

How does happiness begin? Through contentment, of course. How does contentment begin? Through love. And how, my God, does love begin? It always starts with a belief.

If you hand a colorful handkerchief to a wounded, dying soldier without saying anything to him, do you think he’d even care to reach for that piece of cloth? Would he spend the last few seconds of his life forcing himself to move his limb despite the pain he’s have to bear in doing so? Absolutely not. But tell him that the handkerchief you’re giving him is the ultimate tribute of his countrymen to his heroism, make him believe that that handkerchief is the most important thing that can be had by a fallen warrior, and I assure you, that soldier would be more than happy to accept your gift. And he would die a blissful death. Love happens in a similar way. It happened to me that way.

Before a man can fall in love, he must start convincing himself that one woman is better than any other. He needs to believe that she is the best gift that God can give any man, that she is more important than anything in this world. He must build a wall that separates her from all the other women, a wall that separates the perfect girl from the others, the paragon from the ordinary diamonds. Because without these beliefs, there wouldn’t be any love. Without them, there wouldn’t be any special pleasure in being embraced by her; there would be no bliss in being kissed by her, no extraordinary happiness in knowing that she cares. Without these beliefs her embrace, her kiss and her care would mean no more than those of a stranger. And there lies the man’s tragedy.

No man is perfect. No man is omniscient like you, my God. That’s why it impossible for me to always know correctly whether a woman is your gift to me…or your gift to someone else. All I can do is to make a guess--to gamble. Yes, unbelievably, the search for love starts with one dangerous gamble. And when that guess proves to be wrong, when the gamble fails to pay off, I would have to pay dearly. Because I would have to destroy all the beliefs I have held on to about her. I would have to destroy the wall that separates her from the rest of the women, the wall that I myself built.


A lot of people say that no man should cry over one woman because there are millions more out there who can replace her. Right. But for a passionate lover, those millions of women are almost impossible to see. Why? Because by the time a man’s heart bleeds for a woman, he has already built that impervious wall which separates her beloved girl from the rest of humanity, the same wall that kept him from believing that there’s someone better out there, the wall that guarantees his perpetual fidelity to her.

“Should I destroy that wall?” I asked myself. Of course I should! And I certainly could. But how easy would it be for anyone to destroy something he had worked so hard for to build? Would it be easy for you, my God, to destroy this universe that you created for us? Would it be easy for Leonardo Da Vinci to burn his Mona Lisa? Would it be easy for Shah Jahan to demolish the Taj Mahal? Damn! That wall was my masterpiece. That was a monument to the greatest bliss that I could possibly have in this life. And you expect to just destroy it? But unfortunately, I just had to.

I know it’s possible to have a romantic relationship with a woman without having those beliefs and without having to build that wall. But that relationship would be devoid of love. And because of that, it would be devoid of happiness as well. What message are you trying to give me, God? Are you trying to tell me that your children ought not to search for the kind of happiness that I had searched for? That we are better off choosing no to love just to avoid getting hurt? Or are you telling me to moderate my love so I could also moderate my pain at the cost of moderating my happiness?

If you want all of us to love less and suffer less, why the hell do you make love so tempting? And why do you keep telling us to love one another? To all my questions, your answer is nothing but silence. I assume it’s because you want me to find the answers from deep within myself. Well, I don’t know if this is the right one but this is the only answer that my heart can give—you want me to realize that love is the source of the ultimate happiness but the ultimate happiness can only be had if one is willing to take the risk of having to bear the ultimate pain. Loving a woman makes it possible for a man to feel bliss in her embrace. But it also guarantees that the man shall shed tears when she leaves him. Loving a child makes it possible for a parent to be happy even when doing the most backbreaking tasks. But it also guarantees that the parent shall grieve painfully when the child dies. It is simply impossible to be totally happy without love. And it is impossible to love without having the courage to bear the worst pain.

Is that really how you always wanted things to be? Is that how love is supposed to work? Because if that’s how you intended things to be, I just can’t help but think of you as a psychopath! Yes, my God, a psychopath. When you tell us to love and be brave enough to suffer for the loss of that love, you are a psychopath who aims a gun at a child, tells the child to build a sandcastle and, if the sand castle crumbles or if it turns out to be not beautiful enough for him, shoots the child in the head. That’s exactly what you do. You tell us to build our sandcastles of love, and if we fail to build the perfect sandcastle, when we fail to find the right love, you shoot us in the head with your bullets of pain. But if we succeed in building the sandcastle that can impress you, we become extremely happy. We celebrate and shed tears of joy. Because we know that you won’t shoot us. The love you gave us creates the ultimate happiness. But that happiness is just a happiness in knowing that we shall not bleed. And if we know that we can’t bleed for someone, if we know that we can’t shed tears for someone, we know that we are not in love. Bliss simply can’t exist without the threat of sorrow.

And I can’t truly love without you poking the cold gun of loneliness against my head.

Having heard everything I said, you must be wondering why I’m still talking to you, why I still believe in you. You wanna know why? Because it feels good to know that someone up there can be hurt by my blasphemous words! Because it feels good to believe that at least there’s one person out there who bleeds for me. And if you bleed for me, it means….It means that I don’t have to bleed so much after all.

Damn it! I’m fooling myself. But isn’t happiness just an art of fooling oneself? Two soldiers go to war. One believes the war will be won. The other believes otherwise. They both die before the war ends. Who do you think will have lived a happier wartime life by the time their lives end? A man and a woman get married and stay together for fifty years. The man loves the woman and believes that she loves him, too. The woman doesn’t love the man, period. By the time they die, who do you think will have had a happier life between the man and the woman?

I want to be rational. But what’s the point in being rational anyway? Why do people choose to be rational in the first place? When a person decides which career to pursue, why should he carefully weigh his options? When a woman decides whether or not she should accept a marriage proposal, why does she have to think about it thoroughly? Why does she have to listen to reason? When the prehistoric men were deciding how to hunt down a beast, why did they have to be rational about their plans? No matter how you look at it, the ultimate aim of rationality is survival. But what’s so good about survival? Do animals strive to survive just to feed? Or do they also relish the pleasure of being able to feed? Do people struggle to survive just to spend another day struggling to survive? Or do they do so because they want to love…and be happy because of that love? When there’s no love there to be felt, when survival does not promise happiness and survival is all that rationality can offer, what the hell is so rational about being rational?

Why hadn’t I thought about that last question at an earlier point in my life? Why the hell did I have to be so rational in the first place? What were all those dreams for? What were all those sufferings for? What were all those sacrifices of mine for if I’m gonna pass up on every opportunity to…satisfy my primitive instinct—the one that compels me to want to care for someone and feel that someone cares for me?

One more time I shall try not to be too rational. One more time I shall fool myself. Because I now choose to believe that there is a divine reason for all this pain. I choose to believe, shamelessly, that there is something good that can come out of this emotional hell. That the universe still follows a divine, though not necessarily perfect, order. And you, my God, are the personification of that order. That’s why still believe in you. Even when you are silent. I have no proof that you exist. I have no proof that you don’t. But rather than be an agnostic, I’ll just take a gamble on you. I am making a guess, the same way I do when I begin to fall in love.

So now, my God, I beg you to forgive me for my blasphemies. For no matter how much I want to punish you, I still am willing to accept that you are far more powerful than me. I still am willing to believe that you can teach me to build the perfect sandcastle of love.

Bless me God for I am beginning to lose my faith. Bless me God for I am breaking down. Bless me, for I need badly need the strength to begin the quest for happiness anew. Bless me, God, for I have loved.


Your child,

Ernest

Light in the Abyss

Thank God for giving us life, so that we may feel how to live. Thank God for giving us love, so that in life there'd be so much to feel. Thank God for giving us the memories, so that when much of life has been gone and much of love has faded, there'd still be much to remember and cherish. But above all, thank God for Oblivion, so that we may forget them all. Because when all life has been drained out of us, when all the love has vanished and only the memories have been there for too long, the memories shall turn to longing, and the longing will turn to pain. And if eternity is certain to follow death, and memories are certain not to fade, then there must be nothing to feel throughout eternity other than longing... and pain.



My grandmother flashed a smile, and in return, I smiled back. But smiles do not always bear sheer happiness. And in this instance, our smiles were fraught with a little bitterness, and grudge.


It had been two years since I last stepped foot on the soils of my hometown- Puerto Princesa City, two years since I last saw my grandmother in the thick of her health. Back then, if she saw me, she'd not only smile. She'd walk up to me, kiss me and spend long hours talking to grandson she had badly missed. But now, things have changed, she's been bedridden almost half a year. And ever since she had the stroke last year, she had never walked by herself, nor spoke consciously to anyone. The few times hat she did speak, she did so as if she were dreaming. Sometimes, she'd see my mother's face and then she'd talk as if she were conversing with a little child. My mother would talk back, but her words would not be heard. Perhaps, in her weakened mind, she wasn't living in this time and age. Maybe, she thought she was back to the time when she was still a young mother, blissfully playing with the little daughter that was now my mother. And in my grandmother's trance, in her dreams, all she could feel must be bliss. But in the real world where we, the real loved ones exist and see her, there can only be pain. For each time we see the sheer happiness my grandmother gets from her own delusions, we also see glaringly the same real happiness we can never give her. Because the cruel laws of science has already built an impenetrable wall between her consciousness and ours.


Now, I was compelled to ask, when she smiled at me, was it because of me or someone she saw in her dreamworld? I thought it was because of someone else in her dreams. That's why I dropped the smile and moved away. But I was wrong. The moment I started to move away, the smile on her face turned to a frown. And her hand, the same hand that had virtually been unused for months, made one beautiful gesture. It reached out to me.


Why did she have to remember? Why did the laws of science shatter the walls of her dreamland? What good would it do her if she remembered who I was? She would have been better off being confined in her dreamland and not knowing that I had visited. Because inevitably, I would have to leave. My new work as an asst. manager in a laboratory required me to reside in a town more than 100 kilometers away from her home. And even if I did not have that job, I would still have to leave. Because I could not proceed with my life if I were t stay perpetually by her side. All I could do was to pray that someday, she will forget about me, that somehow, she'd forget the moment I walked away from her at a time when she could not walk after me. And when God wills the two of us to meet in either heaven or earth, we'd remember nothing of that painful day.


Ever since I was always a child I always wondered why God had to put our brains in our bodies and not in our souls. I thought, if the memories are in our brains, and the brains are in our bodies, then our memories are sure to rot with our corpses when we die. And when the souls ascend to heaven, they'd have no memory of anything that happened on earth. Cruel, it seemed. Maybe that's why most people comfortably assumed that souls are omniscient beings that can remember everything and know everything. When we find ourselves in peril, we comfort ourselves with the thought that a fallen loved one is watching us. But are the departed really better off remembering us and knowing everything about us, feeling fear each time we're in peril, feeling sorrow each time we shed tears? No. The more I think about it, the more I believe that a kind God shall never burden his creations with a perpetual memory.


While I'm still here on earth, though, living, remembering, I have no choice but to confront my memories. Now that I am back here in my hometown after completing college in Manila I am reminded of the dreams I used to dream, the biggest ones, the ones that time, fate and maturity compelled to abandon, albeit painfully.


Here, in this province, I had become a godfather to a younger cousin at age 8, because I had to attend the baptismal ceremonies in lieu of my father, the real Godfather . But since I was an overeager little child, I took it upon myself to be the truly responsible ninong (godfather) to my little cousin. Each Christmas, following Filipino tradition, I would be the one to hand her the Christmas Gifts that any loving Godfather ought to give a good goddaughter. I never bought those gifts, though. Because I never had the means to do so. In the first two Christmases after I finished college and started working, I failed to give her any gifts because, I ran out of money. Secretly, however, I dreamed of buying a laptop for her, because she was such a brilliant young writer. One day, I thought, when I already have the means, I'd give that laptop computer to her o he condition that she'd join a literary contest or write a novel. Nothing would have felt sweeter than seeing a brilliant young mind churn out a masterpiece because of my own god-fatherly encouragement. But such an ethereal moment was never meant to come. In June of 2007, she passed away. My return to this province should have been the most special because I had a good job and therefore, the means to buy my own gift for her. But all I could offer was a visit to her tomb. The photograph of her tomb remains stored in my cellphone, but up there in heaven, she should have no memory of me. Because that's how things should be. Let me, the living, live the way life should be lived. And let immortal angels like her spend eternity the way it should be spent-blissfully, and devoid of pain.


Maybe one day, my grandmother, who is also my goddaughter's grandmother, would see her up there in heaven. And when they meet, they'd talk and learn to love each other anew. Neither of them would talk about me. Neither of them would talk about my failures. My grandmother would not remember me walking away from her as she lay crippled and mute in her bed. My goddaughter would never remember the Christmases that passed by without a gift from me. And when my turn to go up there comes, they would not know me. But they'd learn to love me anew, just as I'd learn to love them anew without being bothered by the memories of my past failures.


Here, in this island province, my family lived in unfinished houses. Together we dreamed of building a beautiful house for ourselves. And together, we saw that dreams repeatedly shattered before us. I don't know if that dream could ever be realized in this lifetime. But if we do fail in the present, I hope in the next life, or afterlife, we'd dare to dream together again without being bothered by our past failures.


In this town, I had learned to love and fail in the arena of love. Here, I had naively built my silly dream of finishing college in Manila, getting a good job and coming home to blissfully start my own family. That dream never completely materialized, partly because in my quest to fulfill my little dreams, I had found bigger ones and opted to abandon the former. Now, I'm beginning to fear that I'm running out of dreams, both the little and the big. Coming home to the embrace of a beautiful wife and the sight of a wonderful home now seem far more unreal and impossible than it did 10 years ago. Somehow, though, there is hope that someday, when this lifetime had totally faded into oblivion, I'd be stronger and better at realizing my dreams, and expressing my love.


Death is one dark abyss. When you get there, no matter how far you look up into the sky where you plunged from, there'd be nothing to see. And when you walk to search for a new life, a new love and new dreams, there'd be no light to guide you. Yes, in the abyss, here shall be no light. But how can you fear the dark when you have no memory of light?

Once Upon A Time, We Were All Pagans (A Filipino Christian's Views on the Afterlife)

If I ever get to heaven someday, I’ll ask God to take me to hell. Because there, in that endless pit of perpetually burning fire, I would find the souls of my pagan Filipino ancestors. There, I’d see the loving pagan mothers who prayed to demons and false idols when their husbands went missing and when their children fell ill, the women who loved their husbands and children so much that they repeatedly worshipped the wrong gods and unknowingly broke God’s first commandment again and again, until their sins doomed their souls. There, standing alongside charred tyrants and rapists would be the innocent young boys who sacrificed living creatures to the spirits who threatened to spoil their farms and kill their livestock. These are the young men who cared for their fathers, mothers and siblings so much that they repeatedly tried to appease the malevolent spirits but succeeded only in irking the one true God again and again, until their souls were doomed to burn. And there, alongside assassins and thieves,would be the ancient priestesses who spent their lives teaching the wrong faith to their flock and suffered twice as much as the rest of hell’s dwellers. Because they are burned not only by the flames of hell also by the guilt in knowing that they sent generations of pagan Filipinos away from heaven and straight to hell.

As I stand there among the prisoners of hell, the one true God standing right beside me, some of my fallen, burning ancestors would hesitantly flash bittersweet smiles. Yes, despite the never-ending pain, they’d find a reason to smile, even if the mere act of smiling brings more pain to their charred faces. And that would probably be the most blissful moment they could have for the rest of eternity. Because they’d just be happy to know that somehow, one of their own found the right path, that somehow, one of their own would relish the joys of a heaven they never knew. Because they’d be happy to know that God did not curse the grandchildren of their grandchildren because of their unforgivable sins. And most of all, they’d be happy because one of their more fortunate descendants even bothered to see where all their doomed souls have gone.

“When will the others come?” a burning Filipino soul would cry from afar, referring to the other Filipino Christians who ascended to heaven.

I wish I could say that the “others” would be waiting for their turn. But no, I could not lie, especially not with God standing right beside me. In all the years that I have been alive here on earth, I have never heard any adult Filipino ask about the fate of our pagan ancestors’ souls. And the only child I knew who asked about them was myself, though I did it quietly. In the few instances that my pagan ancestors are remembered, they are only referred to as barbaric, half – naked men who wore G-strings. My pagan past –our pagan past—has been conveniently concealed by a thick, deceivingly beautiful curtain of religiosity. In our desire to please God and reach heaven, we have gladly turned our backs to the ancient heroes who made it possible for any of us to even live to know the right God. For most Filipino Christians, the pagan Filipinos who lived in our islands before Magellan’s arrival in the 16^th century are viewed as ghosts –-the more you think of them, the more they haunt you. We refuse to think about our ancestors’ fate because we never want to even consider the possibility of being wrong about our faith. We never want to think of not going to heaven.

“I hope God would let you see all of them one day,” I’d finally say. Instantly, the burning Filipino faces would be filled with total happiness. Charred and crooked because of the perpetual fire, they’d be the most beautiful faces I would ever see. Because they’d be beautiful in the deepest sense of the word. They’d be the most beautiful because true beauty can never be seen. It can only be experienced. Still, I wouldn’t dare to even glance at God. If he would be looking at me with furious eyes, I’d rather not know.

As the quiet wave of happiness spreads across that small portion of hell, an exotic music would suddenly fill the air. The souls nearest to me would glance over their shoulders to see where the distinctly Filipino music comes from. And then, the crowd of burning Filipino souls would make way for the approach of a band of Filipino “beauties” playing stringed instruments I never knew existed. These are the same beautiful women who played soothing, marvelous music as Ferdinand Magellan (the Portuguese-born voyager who “discovered” the Philippines for Spain and proved that the earth was round), Antonio Pigafetta (the chronicler of Magellan’s voyage) and their crew of Spaniards were entertained by a respectable chieftain. And now, more than 400 years after dazzling the European conquerors who Christianized most of the country, they’d passionately play their ethereal music to someone who belongs to a generation that totally forgot them. And in that magical moment, hell would be soothed by their music’s mystical serenity.

487 years ago, while Antonio Pigafetta was enjoying these women’s music and marveling at their faces’ beauty, could he have imagined such beautiful beings burning in hell? Did he at any point in his life wonder what fate awaited these beautiful pagans’ souls? I don’t know if Pigafetta ever went to heaven but if he did, he probably would have searched for these Filipino beauties in heaven. And if God told him they weren’t there because they never knew Him, what would Pigafetta do? If I were him, I’d lose my faith.

But is God really that cruel? Could God’s wisdom be no different from that of a tyrannical king who beheads the people who fails to greet him because they never knew he was the king?

Maybe I wouldn’t have to ask God to take me to hell. Maybe he’s kind enough to bring the pagans to a heaven they never knew. Maybe they’re all up there, staying in a heaven they never even dreamed of. And when I die, I would see them all. If I get there.

Maybe, on my first day in heaven, I’d be greeted by the “eastern beauties” who once played wonderful music before Magellan and Pigafetta. And after soothing me with their music, they’d take me to the babaylan, the priestess who thought everyone around her to worship the wrong gods and practice the wrong faith.

“I’m glad you are here,” the babaylan would say as she embraces me. Then, she’d step back and lay her hands on my face, as if examining a precious gem she has just found. And I’d see a tear flowing out of her eye.

“Why do you weep?” I’d ask her.

“Son,” she’d reply, “I’m just happy to know that you’ve made it. Ever since I died, I have been standing here near the gates of heaven, waiting for each man and woman of our tribe to enter. I had taught them the wrong faith and led them away from heaven. And I’d never be at peace until I see them all walk through those gates.”

“But all of them had already died a long time ago. If they’re blessed to enter heaven, they should have come a long time ago. Why do you have to keep waiting?”

The gates of heaven would clank. They are being opened as another fortunate soul enters heaven.

“You know,” the babaylan would continue, staring at the newcomer, “almost everyone who walked through those gates was happy to be here. But I’m not. Look at me, I’m already in heaven but I can’t find peace, let alone happiness. But whenever I see someone like you, a descendant of my follower, walking through those enormous gates, a very little piece of happiness sinks into my heart. And for a moment, I could say I’m happy. Somehow, I’m hoping that these little pieces of happiness would accumulate to give me enough peace. But for now, they’re not enough. That’s why I’ll watch you go while I wait for the others, including the ones who should have come a long time ago.”

I would want to stop her from punishing herself. But I’d soon figure that no argument could keep her from waiting. I’m sure many of those who came before me persuaded her to start relishing the joys of heaven and stop being a prisoner of her mortal past. And if they all failed, so would I. All this time, she’d been enduring the deafening screams of her guilt-tortured heart. And no amount of reason could ever drown out those screams.

As I journey further into heaven, I’d see a group of saints gathered at a rectangular table, which looked exactly like the one seen on Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper. I wouldn’t be speaking with any of them, though. Instead, I’d approach the solitary brown man who quietly watches them from a distance.

“Why are you alone, sir?”, I’d ask the man as I near him.

“I don’t know. I’ve been asking myself that same question all this time.”

His words would leave me dumbfounded.

“Look at them,” he’d point at the gathered saints by pouting his lips towards them, a common practice among Filipinos. “If they’re not talking to each other, they’re listening to the prayers of the people from below. They must have heard a lot of prayers from brown persons like us.”

“You envy them?”

“I don’t need to hear prayers to me”, he’d say, shaking his head. “I just need to hear prayers for me.” Yes, that would be envy.

“One day, before my death,” the man would begin his story, “our chieftain announced that he’d be converting to the faith of the white men. And in our village, I was the only one brave enough to question that decision of his. Not even the priestesses dared disagree with the chief. But my fears were already conquered by my faith. I said that if we started following the faith of the foreigners, we’d be betraying our ancestors. I couldn’t imagine myself worshipping the same God who created these invaders. The next day, I was executed in my sleep. How they actually did it, I never wanted to know. Whether they stabbed me or beheaded me, it didn’t really matter. It will never matter. What should matter is that I was killed because of my faith. I was a martyr. Just like many of the men seated at that table. But unlike me, they died for the right faith. Unlike them, I never heard anyone pray to me or pray for me. Not even my own wife or daughter.

“I figured they converted to the white men’s faith upon the orders of the chieftain. They must have uttered dozens of prayers before they died. None of them for me. I guess the white men taught them not to pray for me, lest God be infuriated and send them all to burn in hell.”

“Did he?” I’d ask.

“What?”

“Send them to burn in hell?”

A long silence.

“I don’t know,” he’d finally say. “I hope not. I never really asked Him about them. Never would. If they’re in hell, I’d rather not know.”

“What if they’re here?”

“If they’re here and they still cared for me, why am I still alone?”

“Maybe because you haven’t searched for them.”

“True. And if I search for them and find out that they’re not here, what good will it do me?” That would be the end of our conversation.

Before her death, the babaylan (priestess) was certain that she was practicing the right faith. And when the solitary brown man spoke up for his faith, he firmly believed that he was fighting for the right God. They were as sure about their faith as I am about mine. They knew they were right about their faith as much as I, a Catholic, know that I am right, and just the same way that Buddhists, Muslims and Protestants know they are right. But no matter how you look at it, it’s simply impossible for all of us to be right.

What if I’ve been practicing the wrong faith all along? What if my God is not the really the one true God? What if the right faith is one that was already practiced by my pagan ancestors?

These questions remind me of my college days in the University of the Philippines – Diliman. Whenever I passed by the University Chapel, I’d take time to marvel at the small, distinctly pagan figure standing right in the middle of the churchyard – a replica of the Manunggul Jar. The Manunggul Jar is an ancient burial jar discovered by Robert Fox in a cave in Palawan, the Philippines’ westernmost province. Carved on top of the burial jar are the figures of two men riding a canoe, the passenger (the departed) in front and the oarsman at the back. These figures supposedly symbolize the departed’s journey to the land of the dead, or probably, “sa pusod ng dagat” (into the depths of the sea), which must have been believed to be the final resting place of all souls. I wonder how I’d feel when my turn to ride that mystical canoe comes.

In the sculpture atop the cover of the Manunggul Jar, both the passenger and the oarsman are facing forward. But when my turn comes, I’d ride the canoe facing the oarsman.

“Why do you prefer to ride the canoe backwards?” the mystical oarsman, the one tasked to ferry the dead to their final resting place, would ask.

“Why not? There isn’t much for me to look forward to, is there? The heaven I always wanted to reach is nowhere near where we’re headed.”

“Mortal, your heaven is nowhere. It does not exist.”

“Right. But my life did. It was there, far behind you, where we came from. I can’t see it from here. But I can imagine it. I can reminisce. I can’t do that if I’m facing the same direction that this canoe moves in. it’s difficult when the inescapable emptiness that lay ahead is all that you can see.”

“So you prefer to see the emptiness behind me?”

“It is not empty.”

The oarsman would let out a dismissive snort.

“You are very much like him,” he’d say.

“Like whom?”

“The man who died after being nailed to a cross. He was the first passenger who opted to face me throughout the journey. Most of the passengers were quiet and traumatized. They were often too shocked to speak to me or contradict my orders. If I told them to face forward, they’d simply follow. But you’re not like them. You are like him. I think his name was Yeshua. Or Yeshu. I’m not really sure.”

“Yeshua?”

“Have you heard of him?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not surprised. Many of you did.

“Like you, he preferred to ride the canoe backwards because he was concerned about the world he’s leaving behind. He said he could not take the final journey without knowing what happened to his mother and that other woman who stood by her as she watched him die. In his life, he had made many people put their faith in him. He made them all believe that he was their savior. But as he sat helplessly in the canoe, he slowly and painfully realized that he could never save them all. He could never save any of them.”

“Save them from what?” I’d think I already know the answer but still ask anyway.

“I don’t know. The man talked about a lot of fantasies. He said that he was the Son of God, that his death would bring salvation to mankind. He said this journey to the afterlife could not be real because the prophecies never said anything about this. I told the fool he wasn’t the first one to die because of false prophecies. But the man was in a state of total denial. He told me about all the miracles he performed, including the resurrection of a dead man. But if he did see a man rise from his grave, he certainly wasn’t the first person to mistake his dream for reality. And even if that resurrection was real, it happened not because of him but because of the intervention of a divine being far more powerful than him or his imaginary father-God.”

“Did he find out what happened to his mother and the other woman? To his followers?”

“I don’t know.” A cruel smirk would form on the face of the oarsman. “But he kept asking me, kept looking past me to see if someone miraculously followed us to rescue him. And when he got tired of asking and looking…he prayed. Can you imagine that? He prayed to his father-God. And when we reached his resting place, he wept, shed more tears than any passenger of mine ever did. His prayers were never answered. And all his followers’ prayers, whether to him or to his father-God, will never be answered. Yet many mortals like you kept on praying. All of you kept on praying.

“If you prefer to face me while you ride this canoe, you are free to do so. If you strongly desire to reminisce, I will not stop you. But the more you keep yourself attached to your past, the longer you shall weep when this journey ends.”

“Do you think I can find him there? In the resting place?”

“Why do you all keep asking that question? I don’t know. But if you find him, what good will it do you? He’s not the Son of God he promised himself to be. He was never your savior. He couldn’t even save himself.”

“He was the source of my strength.”

“The imaginary source of your strength,” the oarsman would correct me. “You’re not the only person who thought of him as a source of strength, though. I once ferried a girl who lived in a town called Zara. She was glad to know that Yeshua wasn’t really the true Son of God. She was one of the many children raped and massacred by the soldiers who were on their way to conquer Yeshua’s country of birth for the glory of his father-God. If you want to credit him for your strength, shouldn’t you also credit him for the atrocities his followers committed?”

“Oarsman, what’s the point in being rational when you’re already dead? Whether I’m right or wrong, I’d still want to see him. Because that’s how I feel. And no matter how irrational that feeling is, I can’t make it go away.

“Before I died, I had already empathized with Yeshua, Yeshu or Jesus, as we called him, because it was difficult for a son of God to endure what he had to endure. And now that I know that he was a mere mortal like me, that he was just as vulnerable as I have been all this time, shouldn’t I empathize with him more? Doesn’t that make his sufferings far more painful than we Christians thought they were? Again, I don’t care what the answers are. I feel that I need to comfort him, tell him that his sacrifices did not go to naught. At this point in my existence, my feelings are all that I have to follow.”

That would be enough to silence the oarsman. But the smirk on his face would remain, Because he knew, as much as I did, that at the end of the journey, I would weep.

I wonder how many generations of ancient Filipinos believed in that mystical oarsman. And when they thought of riding that canoe, did they ever think that their version of the afterlife would be unknown to most of their descendants and that the few who’d remember it would only view it as an eccentricity of our dark past?

What about us? 1,000 years from now, what will our descendants believe? Will they think of the cross as an eccentricity of their dark past –our bright present? And if their faith shall no longer be the same as ours, will they still pray for us? Or shall we be forgotten the same way we’ve forgotten our pagan forefathers?

Will I ever get to heaven? Will heaven turn out to be the kingdom of the God I know or will I be greeted by gods and goddesses I never heard about when I get there? Is faith the one thing that could bring salvation to my soul? I don’t have all the answers. What I do know, however is that once upon a time, all inhabitants of this earth were pagans. And if getting to heaven is just a matter of practicing the right faith and believing in the right God, then all of us have a pagan ancestor burning somewhere in hell. And if anyone of us ascends to heaven, he/she will certainly have a reason to visit hell, whatever forms heaven and hell may take.