been reading

been reading. in the middle/beginning of something like 5 books. hmm, perhaps this contributes to my feeling scattered?

from my friend cez nunez-uhing's article, “seeds" from the philippine positive news newsletter...

"from mere thought the true human being is capable of realizing and creating. perhaps this is now how we are able to claim our divine nature when we humans choose our higher selves.

when we choose to slip past our identities in our life-roles, i think our journeys become both an interesting and painful one. we work with a thought, a fleeting feeling. and it becomes a secret for awhile that requires an understanding of time. we become gardeners of impulses. we allow a fruit to ripen, waiting, until it falls off a tree.

the challenge is to observe, to listen, and give space so that the unspoken questions behind a dream may unravel into answers. visions are in a way similar to children. they must be allowed to live out their own courses and our job is to nurture, to tend, and maybe at times, to prune."

from karen armstrong’s introduction to The Great Transformation: the beginning of our religious traditions:

"perhaps every generation believes that it has reached a turning point of history, but our problems seem particularly intractable and our future increasingly uncertain. many of our difficulties mask a deeper spiritual crisis. during the twentieth century, we saw the eruption of violence on an unprecedented scale. sadly, our ability to harm and mutilate one another has kept pace with our extraordinary economic and scientific progress. we seem to lack the wisdom to hold our aggression in check and keep it within safe and appropriate bounds. the explosion of he first atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki laid bare the nihilistic self-destruction at the heart of the brilliant achievements of our modern culture. we risk environmental catastrophe because we no longer see the earth as holy but regard it simply as a 'resource.' unless there is some kind of spiritual revolution that can keep abreast of our technological genius, it is unlikely that we will save our planet. a purely rational education will not suffice…"

randolf david wrote in the introduction to Kapwa: the self in the other by katrin de guia:

"successive crises in the Filipino nation’s life have led many thoughtful analysts to suspect that the country’s main problem could be the dysfunctionality of the entire institutional system. this system, largely borrowed and imposed from without, has failed to spring roots in the soul of the people. instead of drawing strength from the local milieu, it arrogantly asserts its superiority by a system of sanctions and ideological rationalizations.

in the name of modern nationhood, it has suppressed native sensibility it continues to denigrate traditional folkways and wisdom in the name of global cosmopolitanism. what it could not colonize, however, has survived in the margins as a fugitive sensibility.

this “subaltern” Filipino worldview has taken refuge in the mystical practices of millenarian cults and faith healers, and in the ironic imagination of a few exemplary culture-bearing local artists. But, it remains elusive as a shadow.

it is the subject of katrin de guia’s book. the history of its successive escapes is written in the footnotes of many attempts to capture it by the normalizing methods of positivist social analysis. typical of the later are the various studies on values that stand on the tacit assumption that existing Filipino culture is an obstacle to economic and social progress and therefore needs to be modified if not altogether erased.

de Guia’s book proceeds the contrary view that far from being pernicious, the indigenous worldview of the Filipino is life-enhancing. it connects people to one another; it is their first and last line of defense against meaninglessness and disintegration. it is the fount of their self-esteem and moral certainty."